Area Republicans endorse candidates for Legislature races

hank L.
03/22/2010 4:46 PM

Hi, this is Woodbury Bulletin managing editor Hank Long. I had the latest post by someone claiming to be Martha S. removed because that person used an email address generated from mailinator.com to register with the Woodbury Bulletin online. Mailinator.com is a Web site that specifically caters to people who want to register for forums with one-time-use email addresses. Because the article commenter who used a mailinator email address made the claim they were the same Martha S. who originally posted on this forum did not have the same email address, the Bulletin was not able to verify they indeed were the same person. And because they used the mailinator.com email address to comment, which the Woodbury Bulletin considers a spam email address, it was deleted. The Woodbury Bulletin and Forum Communications reserve the right to remove comments from this thread (see policy below). I will maintain that I believe the article comment function can and does serve as a great forum for discussion and exchange of opinions. I am asking those who participate in this forum to honor those parameters.

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Jack M.
03/17/2010 2:59 PM

I can't tell you how happy I am that your post was total sarcasm, masked by the impression of total sincerity, Martha. I think anybody declaring their religious views and how they will govern based on those views should be instantly disqualified from service. Otherwise, they will let ignorant views like "homosexuality is a choice" (what??) influence how they want to force us to live in a manner in which they authorize. Down with christianity! Down with ALL ORGANIZED RELIGION! No good comes from it ever.

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Joyce D.
03/15/2010 12:25 AM

TT C, of course I post here for fun - it's one of the ways I unwind after a stressful shift. As for your suggestion that I read more about Intelligent Design, I've actually read quite a lot about ID. It is not science. It fulfills none of the requirements for a discipline to be considered science (it is not, for example, falsifiable). As one of the expert witnesses for the defense admitted, in Dover vs. Kitzmiller, there was as much validity to astrology is there was for ID. ID, in fact, is nothing more than creationism all gussied up and pretending to be science.

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Carol T.
03/14/2010 9:44 PM

TT C somehow thought I was addressing him when I wasn't. However, he initially did ask Joyce: "Now to the serious question. Why do you persist in posting on this site?" And regarding himself he said: "As to why I continue to post, it's mostly for entertainment purposes," but now he insists on arguing over Joyce's claim that she could also be debating politics for fun. Anything to argue with Joyce, I guess. I really could care less about debating any more with Mr. TT C, since I don't think anyone serious about listening to another person's opinions tells them to shut up and go away. (I know I've never done that.) ---------- We've come pretty far afield from the original posting that caused all the commotion - to discussing atheism with a capital "A" (or not), Darwin, whatever. But what I'd REALLY like to know is, what happened to Martha? She came and went like a comet. If she exists, I would like her to please explain her comment that she wants the three Republican candidates to bring the State closer to fulfilling the Lord's prophesy- or words to that effect (since TT C thinks that was not a remark of consequence).

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Carol T.
03/14/2010 7:41 PM

"I am not sure that I believe your 'entertainment' claim: you strike me as being a very dogmatic individual..." TT C shouldn't ask people questions if he has no intention of believing their answers.

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Jack M.
03/14/2010 12:35 PM

TT C, it seems you've been soundly drubbed in this informal debate.

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Joyce D.
03/14/2010 11:56 AM

TT C, you claim I went "off the track" in my post about Haeckel, but, you are the one who brought Haeckel into the discussion. Of course Haeckel was influenced by Darwin, but, that hardly matters, since Darwin was not influenced by Haeckel, and Haeckel's deception was discredited over a century ago. Moreover, Haeckel's drawings do not alter the FACT of evolution, nor does Hitler's misuse and distortion of Darwin's theory change the facts of the theory, any more than Mengele's misuse of his medical training discredits the field of medicine. Certainly, the eugenicists and the social darwinists distorted and misused the theory of evolution for their own ends, but that does not alter the fact that ALL of modern biology, including modern medicine, is based on Darwin's theory of evolution - should we jettison modern biology and modern medicine, of which you are the beneficiary, because some have misused Darwin's theory? _______As for Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy, of course he was not without his flaws; he did, after all, continue to own slaves even as he spoke out against slavery. However, it is a fact that Thomas Jefferson's writings influenced the American revolution, and to omit that from a discussion of American history is egregious: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?scp=1&sq=texas%20school%20board&st=cse/___________As to why I continue to post here, and write letters to the Bulletin, the answer is quite simple: I do it because I enjoy it. There are a number of things I do for enjoyment, when I'm not at work: I listen to operas, I read a lot, mostly nonfiction, I play with my two dogs, I raise orchids, I garden, I collect ethnic art, particularly Native American art, I try my hand at ethnic cooking, particularly Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine, I dance, I do the NYTimes crossword puzzle (an addiction), and I debate politics. Debating politics is fun. __________One more thing, since you were wondering, regarding Darwin's theory, "if the idea (or ideology) came first and the evidence was fitted to the ideology, rather than the other way 'round" - have you read anything Darwin wrote? I highly recommend the Voyage of the Beagle, the journal he wrote while he collected data, which gives a good deal of insight into Darwin's thinking on the subject. It also demonstrates the scope of Darwin's genius; his writings do not form the basis of modern biology alone, they also form the basis of modern geology. Think about it.

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Joyce D.
03/13/2010 1:23 PM

How curious, TT C, that you bring up Haeckel's Lie ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") which may still appear in some rather old text books, though not in my high school or college text books, nor in my children's textbooks. Haeckel's theory was of course invalid, but it is NOT Darwinism or neo-Darwinism, nor is it part of any modern evolutionary theory, nor does Darwin's theory stand or fall on Haeckel's validity. Bear in mind that Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, after decades of research. Haeckel's theory was first published in 1866, and Haeckel's diagrams were published in 1874. Haeckel did not have any significant input into the Origin, and, in fact, Haeckel's work was discredited in the 19th century, and has been considered false for over 100 years. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the similarities between vertebrate embryos are real, and, molecular biology, in particular, has been showing us that there is a greater degree of similarity between species than previously suspected. To compare Haeckel with the tendentious omission of Thomas Jefferson from discussions regarding the philosophical underpinnings of the American revolution because of his stand on the separation of church and state is ludicrous.

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Joyce D.
03/13/2010 11:22 AM

TT C wrote: "I, however, have seen atheist used rather indiscrimately[sic] with or w/o the alpha privative." Just FYI, the word "atheist" without the alpha privative would be "theist". __________As for your comment: "Don't [know] whether or not the question of putting God (note the capital "G") was debated by the C.convention." Yes, actually, it was debated, rather hotly. There was even a debate as to whether or not the Constitutional Convention should open with a prayer - it did not. As for Christians advocating/advancing their principles, they are certainly free to do that. They are also free to run on a platform of turning the United States into a theocracy if they so wish (to use an extreme hypothetical). They also need to realize that anything they want to enact into law can be challenged on Constitutional grounds. Be careful what you wish for - the Texas school board, currently the largest buyer of text books in the nation (which influences what textbook publishers put on the market), has decided, among other things, no longer to include Thomas Jefferson in a list of figures whose writings influenced the American revolution, precisely because of his stand on the separation of church and state.

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Joyce D.
03/13/2010 9:43 AM

TT C wrote: "I don't think that the Constitution can properly be called an atheistic document. Sure, it doesn't mention the Diety (a fact that, as I recall raised the ire of at least one Calvinistic cleric at the time the document was presented for ratification). But to say that it is an atheistic document is to imply that it was written by atheists for the purpose of promoting/defending atheism."__________ Wrong. You failed to notice that I used the upper case A when I called myself an Atheist, and I used the lower case a when I called the Constitution an atheist document. Certainly, you realize that the word atheist (the alpha privative, denoting "without", attached to the word theist) simply means without reference to a deity. It in no way implies that the Constitution was written by Atheists, nor that it was designed to promote Atheism, though it does defend the rights of Atheists. And, without question, the body of the Constitution has no mention of a deity, so, it is, by definition, an atheist document. That some objected to leaving out references to a deity at the time the Constitution was written speaks to the significance of that absence - clearly, the question of whether to refer to a deity in the Constitution was debated at length, and was purposefully rejected.

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