Intelligent Design (ID) Creationist(s) - (Michael Behe, the prime example)

Here we go again. Most people see a difference between a free exchange of ideas and imprisonment in a Soviet gulag. But not Rob. In the weird Parallel Universe of Rob, it's the apex of torture to have people actually disagree with you in a forum you voluntarily joined in search of a debate.To hear Rob tell it, criticism of any view he espouses--no matter how badly reasoned or stated the view may be even by his own admission--is injustice on a par with imprisonment in a Soviet gulag, stoning in a Middle Eastern courtyard, and dismemberment in the Circus Maximus.Somehow, I doubt the real victims of persecutions would see it this way. A real martyr would likely think Rob and other message board whiners have it pretty easy.Imagine sadistic Roman guards offering victims strapped to a stake as lions bear down on them a choice of sufferings. The guards tell their hapless victims that instead of this present predicament they may instead endure the unimaginable suffering of being disagreed with on an Internet forum. How long do you think these poor people would agonize over that nightmarish dilemma?My guess is that most would snap up the offer on the spot.Rob: if you want to know about real persecution, move to China or North Korea. I am not kidding. It is entirely possible to arrange this. People in those places are enduring real censorship and face serious consequences for themselves and their families for any kind of dissent. If you want to buck up the morale of a comrade, you can get yourself into prisons there (it's easy to do) where any cheer you can offer would be welcome to your unjustly abused cell mates. If you intend to congratulate yourself on your sufferings, those are excellent places to begin earning the right.Until you've done that, cut the whining. You operate in a free society where views may be openly expressed. You benefit from this freedom every day--then complain about the very plurality of views it allows as if it were repression. What a crock.You're no martyr. You're just spoiled.Grow up._Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

No doubt about it, Rob.Open debate is not a cover-up, though. Anything can emerge. That's the thing about it that bugs you.Of course, it's also the thing about it you want to exploit.It's no secret that pain sometimes results from open debate. That's why a certain decorum is called for to keep an open society functioning. Even so, most people in the world will gladly opt for the pains of freedom over the pains of oppression.Just be accurate, if you must discuss it, about the kind of pain you are enduring. It's a free-society pain. You are not in a gulag. You are not in the company of those who are daily arrested or executed for what you believe. I hope you never are; no one should have to endure that. Out of respect for those who do endure it, though, if nothing else, please quit equating message-board annoyances to that level of sacrifice.Sorry about my level of passion in the last post. As you can imagine, these are not abstract matters in my neighbourhood. If an idea is worthwhile I don't much care where it comes from. If an idea is dumb I don't much care where it comes from, either.It is nice to see a Rob thought coming from Rob himself, though, rather than being lobbed over a wall covered with literary scraps. You've made some noticeable changes lately in that department. The change in style couldn't have been easy but it makes a big difference.Back to Buz, as you say.For my part I don't see why Buz can't choose his own acronym. There's YEC, there's OEC, there's ID. There can well be more. For me it just testifies to the growing diversity (fragmentation?) of anti-evolution belief. Biblical literalists, under environmental stress as a species since the 1870s, are searching for the mutation that will ensure the survival of the fundamentalist genome.Still, Ringo and others have a point from the scientific perspective about the Y. Saying 'I'm a YCC not a YEC' is not the abracadabra to get Buz out of science problems. He's still denying vast body of science knowledge._