Kenneth Miller on Intelligent Design

Because they know its flawed.

Actually I prefer the term "nontheist", since it reflects my lack of belief as opposed to a belief in the non-existence of anything.

Dawkins called it a euphemism, and he prefers the more direct and confrontational "atheist", but that doesn't bother me. It still describes my thoughts more accurately.

It is not clear that the social mamals lack sentience, indeed there is some reason to believe that they posses it. My definition of sentience is roughly "I have a model of you of me and I make predictions about our respective actions and reactions and modify behavior if I don't like the expected result". That gives us a good dozen sentients (or more) on earth.

For the last bit, what we know today about ethology, the evolution of morality and so forth, there is every reason to believe that the other sentients out there (should we ever bump into them) will likely have the same basic natures. Think of it this way: out of all the myriad ways of making a living on earth, they vary wildly but have some common properties. I value myself and my offspring and close relatives in that order, social standing is important, cooperation is better than lack thereof, etc. Yes, yes, there are individuals who opt to act differently, but these basal universals are pretty hard to ignore. Oh yes, and parasites and pathogens, and countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures, etc. All these things are almost a necessary result of natural selection, even excluding earth, carbon, DNA, and what ever other commonalities we share on this planet. The details on the "one true tree of life on earth" are the mere means that selection operates upon here. Given 1) reproductive variance, 2) heritability, 3) correlation between (1) and (2) you will likely wind up with the same patterns regardless of the particular mechanism.

I now return you to your "is not, is too" sage debate.

Whatever floats your boat (as long as you aren't trying to define others beliefs like some people here)

Why do morals have to be christian. Most folks of any faith or of no faith pretty much agree what constitues right and wrong.

The ones to which I am referring have specifically a Christian influence. Censorship is traditionally considered wrong, but it's Christian organizations that lobby for more restrictions on entertainment content. Attempting to prohibit polygamy for the polyamorous, ban gay marriage, or actually try to trigger the biblical apocalypse all fit into traditionally Christian (or at the broadest, monotheist) political agendas.

If one group wants to prohibit something based on morality, but another group has a conflicting moral code that opposes that prohibition, then the prohibition shouldn't exist. THat's the nature of a truly egalitarian, free country. Otherwise you're imposing on one group by legislating that their morality is more important, by enforcing that morality in a manner that damages the actual lifestyle of the other group.

Edit: Before it is asked, no it is not imposing on one to do the other either way. When something is not illegal, it is by default legal. That default is the base value. I will consent that some things are "wrong" and those laws exist to protect (incest inherently harms children and degrades the gene pool, cocaine is addictive and can be lethal, etc), but legislation based on a religious moral, such as gay marriage bans, is trying to enforce that religion's morals on other people. In a free country, you don't "Prohibit or allow". Everything is allowed and you have no control over that allowance, that is the nature of the beast. You can only "Prohibit" and that should only be done when protecting the citizens of the country itself from a physical or psychological threat. Metaphysical threats do not qualify.

You are assuming God sends earthquakes and such (as many christians do) to punish the wicked. Maybe he just prevents these things from happening when enough righteous folks are in the area. Which in my mind pretty much says the US is doomed. And Yes, as a cherub I DO have inside info.

Sort of like the lightning strikes burning down occupied churches

Morals in an absolute sense can be attributed to evolution. People with genetic predisopostion to moral behavior produce societies that promote the successful rearing of offspring, while those with amoral predispositions are less likely to pass their genes to the next generation.

In this way a genetic predisposition to moral behavior is hard-wired in our brains.

Exactly. What I'm addressing are those that contradict the design of freedom consciously, such as certain morals involving language, attire, sex, and general personal choice. These topics in particular have restrictions taht the Christian Right would impose on others that are not part of the evolutionary hard-code.

It appears here you are suggesting it's OK to legislate morality (cocaine is wrong because it's harmful or fatal) but not legislate morality in the case of homosexual marriage. But homosexuality can be harmful or even fatal.

If one wants to remove all moral laws then it's imperative to remove them all. Drug use shouldn't be legislated, it's your body.

But then we get into other moral issues, such as is it morally right to rob a bank? Some say yes others say no. There is always going to be someone who thinks robbing banks is fine. We must have a way to choose whether it's acceptable or not.

This is why congress/legislature makes laws, the courts verify laws are constitutional and judge cases, and the Executive branch enforces the laws. We have a separation of powers to protect us from tyranny.

That's why we form governments and give them power over us.

Please elaborate, I'm afraid I've never heard of this.

"Approximately 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year in the United States, about 70 percent among men and 30 percent among women. Of these newly infected people, half are younger than 25 years of age.3,4

Of new infections among men in the United States, CDC estimates that approximately 60 percent of men were infected through homosexual sex, 25 percent through injection drug use, and 15 percent through heterosexual sex. Of newly infected men, approximately 50 percent are black, 30 percent are white, 20 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups..."

http://www.thebody.com/niaid/stats.html

60% of all new hiv cases in men in the USA are gay men. Only 1% of the population is gay, making it the most susceptible group by a huge margin. 99% of men are not in that 60% of all hiv cases. So it's clearly a huge risk to gay men.

Homosexuality dosen't cause AIDS. AIDS is spread by risky behavior.

From your source:
"As of June 30, 2001, 457,667 deaths among people with AIDS had been reported to the CDC.5 AIDS is now the fifth leading cause of death in the United States among people aged 25 to 44, and is the leading cause of death for black men in this age group. Among black women in this age group, HIV ranks third."

From http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/
"Heart failure and Malignant neoplasms cause over half of all deaths of people over 45. Accidents and adverse effects resulting from the accidents is the leading cause of death for people under 45 to 1 year of age. Of all the causes of death due to accidents, the leading cause is motor vehicle accidents. Motor vehicle accidents remain a high risk for all age groups."

Do you drive a car? Should we have a constitutional ammendment to ban motor vehicles?

The best prevention of AIDS among gay men may be to encourage long term monogamous relationships instead of promiscous behavior. Any way you can think of to do this? Maybe by sanctioning gay marriage?

Incidently, would you support homosexual marriage for women?

Sorry if you didn't know this Kevn, but marriage between straight folk can be harmful or deadly. Or have you never heard of battered womens shelters?






Btw, I like to deep fry my women after I batter them.

Do the math. 1% of men are gay, 99% are straight.

Total new HIV cases are about 44,000 a year in the USA, 70% of that number is men, 30% women. That comes to 30,800 men get HIV each year. Of that 30,800, 60% are gay, 15% are straight. That means 18,480 are gay. 4,620 are straight men who get HIV. The rest are needle users.

Let's say there are 150,000,000 men in the USA. That would be 148,500,000 straight men and 1,500,000 gay men.

Of the 148,500,000 straight men, only 4,620 get HIV. That means only .000031% of straight men get HIV. That's one out of 30,000

Of the 1,500,000 gay men, 18,480 get HIV each year. That means 1.232% of gay men contract HIV each year.


I would say being gay makes the odds men will get HIV much higher. 1 in 100 for gays, or 1 in 30,000 for straight men.

This has been a public service announcement, you will now be returned to the regularly scheduled programing.

So you think its okay for women to marry other women, just not for men to marry other men, right?

Damn dirty chimps and their damn dirty diseases...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060525-aids-chimps.html

I think both men and women should be free to do as they wish in their personal lives as long as there are no victims. But that's just me. Civil unions are a fair compromise for now. Don't you agree?

Your math is seriously skewed, Kevn. I've seen estimates of as many as 6 to 10% of Americans who are gay. Certainly even higher than that since many men still, even today, are ashamed to come out of the closet. And certainly even more than that if you count bi-sexuals. Face up to it -- sexuality doesn't necessarily follow your tidy little black & white formula. People are sexual, and sex doesn't always have to include the opposite sex.

So if 18,480 gay men get HIV out of some 15 million gays, you're talking about an insignificant fraction (though no less tragic) compared to Hodgkins', Parkinsons', Cancer, traffic deaths and Alzheimer's.

To jump from that to a claim that "homosexuality is lethal" is just stupid. I know of no better term for it than that - just stupid.

Speaking of lethal unions...

Charmed woman marries cobra in India
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060602/wl_sthasia_afp/afplifestyleindiasocietysnakemarriageoffbeat_060602114353

I bet the chances of fatality are MUCH higher than in human-human marriages

What do you mean by Civil union? Would they have exactly the same rights and responsibilities of marriage?
If they don't, why not?
If they do... then if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

Yep, and it's dangerous, considering that HIV infects millions of people each year, most of whom are heterosexual. It perpetuates the idea that if you're not gay, you're pretty much safe - which is not true.

I'm not surprised at all by his approach to this - it's been standard fare since the days of Reagan. We all remember him, right? The President who wouldn't even utter the words HIV/AIDS until over 15,000 Americans had died? Ya, him.