Poll

Is this a good idea?

Yes
10 (83.3%)
No
2 (16.7%)

Total Members Voted: 10

Voting closed: January 13, 2007, 12:57:19 PM

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My idea for AiG

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Ubuntu

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #30 on: January 14, 2007, 04:07:44 PM »
Here is a print-optimized 162 page PDF of the origin of species: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_species#External_links
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Erasmus

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #31 on: January 14, 2007, 07:59:50 PM »
Hey guys... sorry I haven't chimed in yet.  I get all excited whenever I hear ideas like this, however.  Unfortunately at the moment I'm looking at an extremely hectic semester and I don't know what sort of time commitment I could make.

I think a good place to start is http://www.talkorigins.org.  I've never been all the way through that site, but a lot of creationist claims and arguments are thoroughly debunked and rebutted.  I'm sure many of you are already familiar with it.

I have some suggestions for how to proceed:
1)  Fill in any gaps in the talk-origins archive (advancement).
2)  Lobby educational and governmental groups to raise their awareness about the threat of creationism (or supernaturalism in general) in education and policy (advocacy).
3)  Discover and summarize the problems caused by supernaturalism and the benefits of naturalism (motivation).
4)  Find other groups working towards the same goals (coordination).

Hmm... sorry, I spent all day at a team-building workshop and I think it may have rubbed off on me some :P

Anyway, like I said, I can't really make a commitment now, but I offer my scholastic services on an ad-hoc basis -- i.e. bring specific problems (e.g. salinity in ante-vs-postdiluvian oceans; literature search for rebuttals to Hovind; stuff like that) to me and I can look into them.
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Knight

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #32 on: January 14, 2007, 09:54:19 PM »
You offer only the best of advice, Erasmus.  I've been thinking about this matter seriously lately.  What I really wish we could do is initiate some sort of huge collaborative project in which scientists from across the spectrum (who are trying to be as non-biased as possible) investigate every single issue brought up on sites like AiG or by the ICR, deal with each issue in one chapter, and publish an enormous book that dissects basically every issue.  Actually, I wish people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and other philosophers, scientists, historians, theologians, etc. would just collaborate on one huge book to put the issue to rest.
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ooyakasha!
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beast

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #33 on: January 15, 2007, 12:13:27 AM »
So really are we talking about creating some kind of new organisation?  Something based around promoting science and rationality over superstition?  I really like the sound of that.
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Knight

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #34 on: January 15, 2007, 12:21:45 AM »
I, of course, like the sound of it too.  An organization dedicated to honest research and investigation, skeptical of scientific and religious claims (so as to exclude bias).  Starting from the ground up, we can build our case, whatever that may be.
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ooyakasha!
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Rick_James

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #35 on: January 15, 2007, 04:02:54 AM »
I'd really like to contribute to this, but I'm not sure how I can. If you can think of something let me know. I'm just not as schooled on the subject as the rest of the congregation.. :?
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FastEddy

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #36 on: January 15, 2007, 04:27:12 AM »
Well, before you start your AiG website, be aware people like this are going to shoot it down so quickly you'll wonder why you even bothered in the first place.
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Rick_James

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« Reply #37 on: January 15, 2007, 04:29:48 AM »
Wow, that site oozes credibility....

Quote
Everybody loves the Bible. It's shit-full of good advice you can apply to everyday life, from "turn the other cheek" to "God hates fags." What many people don't know, however, is that the Bible isn't just the basis for highly collectible Jesus plates—it's also an enormous goddamn thousands-years-old book.
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Astantia

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #38 on: January 15, 2007, 09:47:46 AM »
Quote from: "FastEddy"
Well, before you start your AiG website, be aware people like this are going to shoot it down so quickly you'll wonder why you even bothered in the first place.


I lol'd.
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BOGWarrior89

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #39 on: January 15, 2007, 10:03:29 AM »
Quote from: "FastEddy"
Well, before you start your AiG website, be aware people like this are going to shoot it down so quickly you'll wonder why you even bothered in the first place.


I was doing just fine until I read this:
Quote from: "That website FastEddy gave us"
've never spoken to the man personally — but he's gotten enough thumbs-up reviews from friends that, fictional or no, he's probably at least as smart as Oprah.


Then I died from laughing.
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EnragedPenguin

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #40 on: January 15, 2007, 10:18:47 AM »
I'm willing to help with the project. Just keep in mind that I know next to nothing about anything, and on a scale of one to ten, with ten being "really super fantastically eloquent", and one being "anti-eloquent", I'm .5
Maybe I can help with the research...
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Grimzfist

My idea for AiG
« Reply #41 on: January 20, 2007, 04:55:52 AM »
There I was, discussing philosophy on IRC, and in comes this guy. "Hey!" He says "explain to me why you hold reason over spirituality?"

My first thought was, "If that's what you want, I'll give it a try" so I tried and I tried, and then I tried some more. After having to repeat myself a couple of times my next thoughts were something like "would you give up already!?". Then something rather peculiar happened.

The guy (with the acronym Pancakes) told me who he really was. He calls himself Ubuntu on these boards and he asked me to read this thread and see if I could add something. I'm not sure if I can, but I can tell you guys a little about myself, and maybe you'll find a use for me.

First of all I'm Swedish, and I'm studying to become a high school teacher. I've already had one semester of English, and I think I'm going to pick religion as my second subject (already done one semester of religion). So in essence I'm an English major and religion minor (isn't that how it works in the U.S?)

Even if you don't find a use for me, I applaud you for making this effort. A little thing I wanna add is, religion hits people when they are young (and claims them), AiG is in essence a good resource for parents who want to further their own faith in their offspring. Meet AiG head on, give them no rest, they provide knowledge for indoctrination and that's never acceptable, however much of a good deed they think their doing.

Cheers!
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beast

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #42 on: January 20, 2007, 05:09:05 AM »
Well said.  80% of people have the same religion as their parents.
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Knight

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #43 on: January 20, 2007, 10:46:12 AM »
Thank you Grimzfist, and thank you Ubuntu for furthering the cause.  Perhaps sometime today I'll find our first article on AiG and bring it back to a new thread so we can discuss it.
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ooyakasha!
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beast

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #44 on: January 20, 2007, 04:47:41 PM »
So what stage are we at now?

Is that what we're waiting for?  Time to write our articles?  Of course this means I'll have to visit the AiG site, and I'm afraid of the consequences of such an action.  

I visited the Brights site also and saw a post about this, and I think the response was a good one - what about www.talkorigins.org - how would what we'd be doing be any different?
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Ubuntu

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #45 on: January 20, 2007, 09:15:25 PM »
Okay, I was gonna post a whole bunch of stuff today but I got held up. On January 31 (that's when exams are over), I'll start collecting both naturalist and supernaturalist resources.

I'd like to see if we can lobby Tapestry to see if they'll put on an atheist... they had Sam Harris on once before.

Right now, it's midnight, and I'm tired. I've also forgotten most of what I going to post. :(

Hopefully I can devote more time to this project later, which I really want to see take off!

~Ubuntu
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Knight

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #46 on: January 20, 2007, 09:42:29 PM »
I'd like the project take off also but it turns out that I have a somewhat busy semester.  In a month I'll be done with Mock Trial, which I'll be happy to get out of the way.  But then I still have:

American Military History
Creative Writing-Fiction
Creative Writing-Nonfiction
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Sciences
Work at the Writing Center

Pretty much my weeks are going to be packed working, going to class, and reading for my classes.  Metaphysics and Phil. of Sci. are both extremely straining with the readings.

---------------
Anyway, the best bet might be for us to learn as much as we can before pwning AiG.  Also, TalkOrigins does have a lot of the same stuff, as well as TalkDesign (I think is what it's called).
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ooyakasha!
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Knight

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #47 on: January 21, 2007, 02:40:49 PM »
Browsing AiG, I now see that this project might be far too big for a small group like us.
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ooyakasha!
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midgard

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #48 on: January 23, 2007, 08:09:41 AM »
Doesn't mean you can't go and take an article and start the discussion...
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Ubuntu

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #49 on: January 24, 2007, 02:34:30 PM »
Quote from: "Knight"
Browsing AiG, I now see that this project might be far too big for a small group like us.


That depends what you want us to do Knight. Right now we have an idea and we could do any number of things. I really don't think we need a very large group at all.

We don't even have to go with the original AiG idea. Creationism is well covered anyways, and we could move to an area that hasn't gotten much attention. Debunking astrology perhaps?

"We should take astrology seriously. No, I don't mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humoring it as a piece of harmless fun." -Dawkins

Erasmus mentioned public lobbying. The first thing that came to my mind for a "test run" of that would be to convince CBC Radio's Tapestry, which is a show that involves the exploration of spirituality, voice to the other end of the spectrum. They had Sam Harris on once before, but every single other guest I've heard has lent the other way. Perhaps we could convince small media outlets to be more balanced?

If you want to go for the "debunk a website" approach, there are others like godandscience.org that may be more approachable.

However, I would like to comment on this article:

http://answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/god-natural-law

which is totally fraking stupid.

I just have to wait until I'm done these damn exams that will take up 100% of my life for the next 6 days.
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Erasmus

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #50 on: January 24, 2007, 03:28:03 PM »
Quote from: "Ubuntu"
We don't even have to go with the original AiG idea. Creationism is well covered anyways, and we could move to an area that hasn't gotten much attention.


I feel that creationism might be a genuine threat to rational public policy, and is therefore a more pressing foe to defend against.

Quote
If you want to go for the "debunk a website" approach, there are others like godandscience.org that may be more approachable.


Also, I just got an RSS feed from http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/infotheory.htm.  I haven't listened to the lectures yet (btw, don't put in your email address -- just click the links at the bottom) but it might be a less daunting task than AiG, an a lead up to attacking that archive later.
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Ubuntu

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #51 on: January 24, 2007, 04:08:53 PM »
Very good point Erasmus. But how do we get the word out? That is to say, how do we get people to pay attention?
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dysfunction

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« Reply #52 on: January 24, 2007, 05:45:22 PM »
Announce it on talk.origins, alt.atheism, and Atheist Network for starters.
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Erasmus

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #53 on: January 25, 2007, 02:42:47 PM »
Quote from: "Ubuntu"
Very good point Erasmus. But how do we get the word out? That is to say, how do we get people to pay attention?


I would find districts "on the fence" and work through their local media.
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Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?
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Ubuntu

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #54 on: January 28, 2007, 12:10:25 PM »
Check this out, definitely: http://www.brightsonline.net/

"All or most of those topics have been addressed in talkorigins. The problem is that creationists don't read!" -SF
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EvilToothpaste

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My idea for AiG
« Reply #55 on: January 30, 2007, 02:26:28 AM »
loving what I hear; hope I can help.  

I'll start reading down the list.  I look forward to the discussion.
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