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Uncle Davey's Fragmentia - 2^nd Dectave

The idea of Fragmentia is to make a digest of the best fragments of the posts I have made to Usenet, whether ideas, soundbites, jokes and witticisms, observations, coinages, or even some typical Usenet "flames". The inclusion criteria are that the extracts work without a lot of context and that either the use of language or the idea has some originality. All work is mine unless otherwise stated, and, with few exceptions, first written to Usenet in the month given below each fragment. Where of interest, I have also given the person addressed. To see the original content, use Google's Usenet archive searching on the most unusual phrase in the section and limiting it to the stated month. Some of these comments were answered - even on occasion very competently - and looking up the thread will show you what they said. Unlike other parts of my site, which have no paid advertising, if you want to advertise next to an item, let me know, the rates are here. Proceeds will used entirely towards site upkeep and expansion. As ever, with my productions, the right of reply exists on the bulletin board. The fragments are not sorted, so a certain amount of disjointedness is part of the fun, but as you sequentially peruse each "Dectave of Uncle Dave", you'll soon start to pick up the threads.

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"I have in my time employed, trained, promoted and also sacked dozens of people with doctorates. This may not appeal to the minds of some of you people, who seem obsessed with PhDs, real or imagined, but I'm afraid it's the reality. I've had PhD people that actually showed themselves within the first month to be virtually unemployable."

(December 2003)

"A good ichthyologist reads a lot. A good fishkeeper changes his water a lot. "

(December 2003, addressed to Aaron Clausen)

"If someone sometimes fails in the fight against sin, they should not be surprised; this will happen. We get back on the path again, and God responds always favourably to our repentance, which is what he promises to do. "

(December 2003, addressed to Charles Casey)

"If I wasn't stupid, arrogant and unloving, I wouldn't be a Christian, now would I? "

(December 2003, addressed to Lenny Flank)

"What I don't see is the point of believing in a God not capable of creating the world as he chose to and told us he had. "

(December 2003, addressed to Matt Silberstein)

"If I were you I wouldn't go to God on second hand opinions, either mine or Behe's. You have the chance to read the Bible for yourself and look at the world for yourself.

That's what I do."

(December 2003, addressed to Lenny Flank)

"I have my savage moments, that's for sure. I, for instance, have a great penchant for eating raw fish and raw meat."

(December 2003, addressed to Rain Lover)

Ross Langerak asked:

"Perhaps you could answer one of ours first? How do you explain the existence of shared pseudogenes? See
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/".

I answered:

"It all seems to hinge on the argument that certain features in the molecule are blips, or faults, and that therefore their being shared between humans and apes would tend to make us believe that they all came from a common ancestor which is more that a notional ancestor in the 'lite' version of omphalogy that I have been advocating, but would be a specific fault that a designer would not purposefully share with a human and an ape if they were created separately.

I have to say the following things as a first reaction, which is pretty much on the fly:

1. We do not know whether the blips or pseudogenes are definitely faults. They may have a function it is not easy for us to know. When we have cloned beings with and without these pseudogenes in controlled conditions, then we will be closer to knowing whether what we surmise about their redundancy is true or not.

2. If we have pseudogenes that are shared, how far back do these features go? Wouldn't evolution have filtered out these inperfections over time?

3. At the fall, some things affected the animal kingdom as well as man. Maybe these are reflected in the pseudogenes we are talking about here."

(December 2003,)

"I am attempting to posit that the world did not get created with fossils in it, but that such fossils and oil and a lot of other things came out of the catastrophe, and the post catastrophic residual drift and the salination of the seas.

Prior to the fall there was no death in the world, and so there could not have been fossils. I have to posit fossils as Flood phenomena for my version of Omphalism to be a real stand up Omphalism. I'm not gonna go down the route of suggesting there were fossils there. That's not a navel, that would be a contradiction. Gosse, if he did that, might have been able to blame the unfortunate reaction his views received on the point.

I have said clearly in these here posts of mine that I see fossils as a Flood phenomenon.

Hence I am arguing about fossils despite being an Omphalist.

If you can force me into doing a rethink, I'll do a rethink. "

(December 2003, to John Harshmann)

"Okay, but that is not necessarily the right spirit to come to God in. God requires faith. You require evidence. If I could scientifically prove God, it would actually be a disaster, because faith would be of none effect.

That is also why there is no attempt to push you into a taliban like theocracy. Obedience to God should be out of gratitude for a forgiveness and salvation already freely given to someone who repents and believes.

No real faith, which involves a choice often against the odds, no real repentance, no real salvation. Hence earthly theocracy is not in the model, at least not in the gospel era. Some fundamentalists have ideas about a millennium of theocracy, but as a Calvinist I don't take a view on exactly where we are with those scriptures.

Neither is faith about seeing proof in the shape of signs and wonders.

Signs and wonders have been done in the past, but they weren't usually good news, and often ended in tears. The way we are to come to God is by faith in His word.

Probably science on it's own, as defined by you, is incapable of answering the questions about origins and purposes.

Probably science can't prove, for example, the existence of love.

Or do you think you can do that, using the standards of evidence you want from the likes of me?"

(December 2003, to Trebor, who had just told me I didn't know what scientific enquiry is)