God!
I remember the tent that we shared that night long ago.
I remember the sparkle that was in Your eyes.
When will You return?
Much Love,
Martin
p.s. I found Your email address in an old box of Martin Luther King Jr. speeches.
Empty Zyklon B poison gas canisters at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
With feeds from Ronn Torossian, 5WPR and Aish Hatorah – The Design Argument readership is hitting dramatic new heights in readership size but it seems to be coming at a price.
David Hume consultants have been brought in to analyze the foremost teleological blog in the known and seemingly designed universe. David Hume determined that the quality of writing has decreased by a stunning 37%. The analysis is based on several factors including originality of content, readability level, cogency, and genre-appropriateness.
“In almost every conceivable area Design Argument is failing to deliver decent content,” said the 17th century Scottish philosopher David Hume. “The fact that readership levels are soaring within the same time cycles as the shameful drop in writing quality may be akin to the same social forces that led to Avatar becoming a box office smash. There is no content in that film at all or if there is I missed it while I was sleeping.”
Hume went on to give a blistering criticism of the argument for design. If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God’s mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world? Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn’t be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of teleology anticipated natural selection.
“I am chagrined by the low calibre of content in recent posts on the Design Argument Blog,” remarked Martin Goldstein who is also falling behind on his “720 apologies in 3 days” project. “I am in such a tizzy. I am so sorry.”
There are some Design Argument observers that are concerned that the site is repeating itself and is losing its relevancy.
“How many times do we have to hear about how vulgar and unethical Ronn Torossian and 5WPR is? How many times do we have to read about how Aish HaTorah plays fast and loose with the truth? I mean it is all true but so what? I liked the post with the monkey playing the piano and the three cute dogs and what not. That was a quality post. I just don’t need to hear anymore about how Aish deceives people with their phony bible codes,” said an anonymous Design Argument fan.
Another Design Argument fan said that the stress on the weirdness of Chabad outreach and Jews for Jesus “is beginning to bore me. But I did like all that Ed Sullivan stuff.”
Martin Goldstein, taking time out from his apology tour, stated that he was going to personally see to it that the quality and originality of the blog content will be improved “as of this very post. However I still want to get my keywords in,” he chuckled.
Many members of Aish HaTorah are not aware of the negative aspects built into an outreach organization. The Aish HaTorah use of the Design Argument is a marketing tool to be “fishers of men (Jews)”. Irreducible complexity is observed in the political wrangling between them and Chabad outreach.
Chabad outreach and Aish HaTorah outreach both think that they are the better than the other one. They are competitive by nature and outwardly display friendliness to their outer core of members. If you are on the middle to inner core you will hear plenty about the shortcomings of Aish if you are Chabad. If you are Aish then you will share your distaste for Chabad with people that you trust to listen to Loshon Harah (evil speech.)
The Chabad and Aish HaTorah outreach to the Bombardier Beetle will determine who is the superman on the block. David Hume, Thomas Aquinas and the theistic argument for design is more content generation. Generation after generation.
The bombardier beetle is used by both groups to defend against certain foreign ideas. Jews for Jesus is both open and relaxed about this.
Creationism believes that all life looks designed, and an often used example of this intelligent design is a creature known as the Bombardier Beetle. Defending this claim requires a careful examination of the bombardier beetle and of the definition of the word “design”. Under scrutiny, however, the bombardier beetle can be a proof of evolution and seriously challenges the design argument.
Bombardier beetles are so-called ground beetles in the four groups Brachinini, Paussini, Ozaenini, and Metriini and comprise over 500 species. The group Brachinus is the most common group.
Bombardier beetles are amazing creatures. They are so called due to their ferocious ability to defend themselves against predators by shooting a mixture of scalding hot and toxic chemicals from glands in their behinds.
This is how their defensive squirting action works. Secreting cells produce hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide which collect in a bladderlike vessel. This vessel is opened through a muscle-controlled sphincter onto a thick-walled reaction chamber. This chamber is lined with cells secreting catalases and peroxidases. As the contents of the bladder are forced into the reaction chamber, the catalases and peroxidases quickly break the hydrogen peroxide down and catalyze the oxidation of the hydroquinones into p-quinones. This releases free oxygen and generates sufficient heat to bring the mixture to the level of boiling which vaporizes a fifth of it. Under pressure of the released gasses, the sphincter is automatically shut which forces the chemicals through openings found in the abdomen.
Unfortunately, and making real debate and communication almost impossible, creationists offer an un faithful account of the process. The creationist Duane Gish made the claim that hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinones would explode spontaneously when mixed without a chemical inhibitor, and that the beetle starts with a mix of all three and adds an anti-inhibitor when he wants the explosion.
In reality, the two simply do not explode when mixed, as has been frequently demonstrated. Gish stubbornly still used the mistaken scenario after being corrected by Kofahl in 1978. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story? The same mistake is also repeated in books by Hitching in 1981, Huse in 1983 and 1993, and twice in a creationist magazine in 1990.
How strong is an argument of design if the people making it don’t know what the design looks like?
Although it’s rarely defined, the most important aspect of design as it relates to creationism appears to be complexity. Richard Lumsden says,
Systems that are of high complexity, that is functionally integrated multicomponent systems, systems that are of high specificity where only one or very few of many possible arrangements of these components works, and systems which are of low probability, at least spontaneous occurrence . . . these are the hallmarks of purposefully designed engineered systems. [Lumsden, 1995]
The problem for proponents of intelligent design and the design argument is that the theory of evolution already allows that complex, functionally integrated, low-probability systems can arise via gradual variation and selection. Darwin’sntheory explains how a few photosensitive cells might evolve gradually into human eyes. In order for complexity to be a problem for the concept of evolution, it must demonstrate some property that rules out gradual development. Michael Behe proposes such a property with the concept he calls “irreducible complexity,” which he defines as “a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.” Although Behe leaves open the questions of whether bombardier beetles are irreducibly complex, Gish expresses the concept with reference to them when he says, “How are you going to explain that step-by-step by evolution by natural selection? It cannot be done!”.
Gish is obviously not as right as he believes himself to be; a step-by-step evolution of the bombardier system is not hard to imagine.
In a future post I will show a potential step-by-step evolution of the bombardier beetle mechanism all the way from a primitive arthropod.
It appears that Martin Goldstein has offended or increased the suffering of at least 720 people over the past year and 2 months.
The world, thank God, continues to exist owing to the deeds of lovingkindness performed by perfected souls who have had to work harder than usual to offset the mess that Goldstein has made on an interpersonal level.
Goldstein’s apology will include the following statements:
- I have rushed to judgment
- I have been reckless in speech
- I have spoken ill of others
- I have been insensitive
- I have not listened to constructive criticism
- I have been arrogant
- I have shunned beggars
- I have not honoured others
- I have wasted other people’s time
- I have lashed out at people
- I have used the names of certain organizations (such as Aish HaTorah, Chabad, 5WPR – Ronn Torossian) primarily for content generating purposes and only secondarily for the brainless things that they do
- I have farted loudly and at great length while generating lively bird sounds on an experimental sound device in the middle of a speech at a wedding reception
For whatever one of these things I have done to you and for any way in which I have increased your suffering, please accept my sincere apologies and understand that I recognize it as a problem for which I take complete responsibility and am in the process of rectifying at this very time.
The 720 apologies will be given orally and in person and all within a 3 day period. All logistical issues will be handled by a mystery spokes-animal.
Weird boxing is a major cause of apology binging.
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