#########################################################

Subj:   More Web Sites you can use
Date:   98-04-08 22:24:17 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

I'm sorry, Bill.  If I had known that you were going to list creationist
web-sites in your newsletter, then I would have gotten this to you earlier so
that you could include some more addresses for your readers.  Perhaps you can
include them next time. 

You remember Glenn R. Morton?  He is the creationist geologist, who had
related the woeful tale of the ICR-trained geology students he had hired, all
of whom suffered severe crises of faith when confronted daily by hard
geological evidence that the ICR had taught them did not exist and could not
exist if Scripture were to have any meaning.  I recently found his website
and it turns out that after that report he suffered a similar crisis of faith
for the same reasons.  His dust-cover autobiography reads (HTML tags editted
out for readability):

### BEGIN http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/auth.html ###

About the Author

I have had 25 years experience looking for oil and gas around the world, from
England, to Algeria, to the East Coast of the United States, South Texas,
West Texas, the Rocky Mountain region, Alaska and China. I have found 7 oil
fields and drilled his share of dry holes and have held the positions of
Manager of Geophysical Training for a major oil Co., Chief Geophysicist for a
small independent oil company, Geophysical Manager - Gulf of Mexico, and
Chief Geophysicist for China , and currently is Manager Geophysics, US
Offshore with a large independent oil company.

After receiving a B. S. in Physics I spent one year in graduate school
studying the philosophy of science. I entered the oil industry as a seismic
processer where I began to learn geology on the job. Before this education in
geology was complete, I published 27 articles and notes in the Creation
Research Society Quarterly, presented a paper at the first International
Conference on Creationism, and ghost wrote the evolution section in Josh
McDowell's book  Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity. During this
period I switched sub-disciplines within geophysics and began to interpret
seismic data. There was a major problem; the data I was seeing at work, was
not agreeing with what I had been taught as a Christian. Doubts about what I
was writing and teaching began to grow.  Unfortunately, my fellow young earth
creationists were not willing to listen to the problems.

By 1986, the growing doubts about the ability of the widely accepted
creationist viewpoints to explain the geologic data led to a nearly 10 year
withdrawal from publication.  Eventually my doubts about the reliability grew
so large that I was driven to the edge of becoming an atheist.  In this
crisis of faith, the views presented in this book were formed.  It is the my
hope that the views presented in the book will help others avoid the type of
intellectual and spiritual crisis that I went through.

### END ###

His long-time friend, Steve Robertson, was very well-schooled in ICR's
teachings, having graduated from Christian Heritage College ("the former
educational arm of the Institute for Creation Research") and post-graduate
work at the ICR (his master's thesis became an ICR Technical Monograph
entitled, "The Age of the Solar System: A Study of the Poynting-Robertson
Effect and Extinction of Interplanetary Dust").  But then he went to work as
a geophysicist in the oil industry where he, like Morton, became intimately
familiar with the geologic data that contradicted the young earth position.
Like Morton, he anguished about the discrepancy between what he was taught
and what he saw in real life for years.  Morton says, "This is because the
ICR/young-earth approach makes a person feel that rejecting a young earth is
equivalent to rejecting the efficacy of the blood of Jesus."

In part, Steve Robertson wrote:

### BEGIN  ###
### Steve Robertson Story: a Case History of What Happens to a Young-earth
Advocate who works in Geology ###
### http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/ ###

"It is sad to say that I am one of those CHC/ICR graduates wh has had a
severe crisis of faith as a result of their ministry."

"Of course, I should not fail to mention that you are correct in pointing out
that we were not given all the data in our coursework at CHC.  But they
didn't do that maliciously; they simply were ignoring the data they didn't
believe in themselves, and so would have no reason to think we needed to know
these things. As I'm typing this I realize that this is not entirely true.
They did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in when they were able
to hold it up as an example of the intellectual bankrupcy or moral corruption
of uniformitarian geology. The further I have gone I my experience from CHC,
the more I have seen of their propensity to ignore the facts that don't fit
their pet models. That is not acceptable to me. Raising problems for the
evolutionists will never convince honest scientists unless accompanied by
vigorous efforts to explain the full spectrum of geologic data, with a
replacement for the present 4 billion year model.  Even though I don't know
what to think about resorting to different laws of nature in the past, I feel
much better about that than to simply ignore pesky geologic problems!"

"My greatest beef with ICR is their polarization of the creation/evolution
issue. If you are not entirely in their camp, by their own declarations you
are entirely out of the camp of those who accept the Bible as a completely
true and literal account of God's interaction with time, space and matter.
There is no leeway for any other interpretation of the Biblical text since
Henry Morris studied it and figured out what it really means. Now that he as
found out exactly what God meant, all observations must fit within his
(Morris') explanation of Genesis because God would not lie. It is not at all
illogical to throw out interpretations/explanations of observed natural
phenomena (biological, geological, astronmical, or what have you) even though
there is no suffucient or reasonable alternative offered from their group.
Petrified sand dunes in Utah CANNOT be subaerial, even though they show a
complete set of characteristics that match present day subaerial dunes and
the evaporite deposits in the lows between them demand a subaerial
environment of formation, because they HAD to have been deposited in the
flood and God doesn't lie. Varves CANNOT be annual features because they HAD
to have been deposited in one year and God doesn't lie. Your example of the
meander through carbonate rock CANNOT have been produced by eroding solid
carbonate because it HAD to happen subaqueously and within minutes, hours or
a day at most since the Bible clearly says that all geological formations
except the basement rock and a thin upper veneer were laid down during the
year of the flood. God doesn't lie! In ICR's logic, to ignore or deny
problematic natural observations is not to be decietful. (A perfect example
of this is John Morris' statement that he has never seen a geological fact
that did not fit equally as well or better in the flood model than any other
model.) At worst, in thier view, it would be glossing over what remains to be
explained properly, and WOULD be expained properly if more scientists did
creationist research. The problem, from ICR's viewpoint, is the vast, hidden
conspiracy to interpret the world around us in a way to discredit the Bible,
not that any of the data from the world around us is contrary to their
explanation of what the Bible means in Genesis.  This inflexible, dogmatic,
self-blinding position is my bone of contention regarding ICR. Until a person
begins to understand where they [the scientists--GRM] are coming from, and
the rules of their game, he is incapable of realizing that he could question
their dogma and still be a Bible believing Christian."


"I do not consider myself to have undergone a 'severe crisis of faith' in the
sense of struggling with whether to be a Christian or not. The struggle for
me was to come to the point where I could accept that a Christian could
disagree with Morris' interpretation and still believe in the literal truth
of Genesis. For me, that crisis never wandered from within a Christian
worldview. If it was a crisis, and I guess it would be fair to call it one, I
look back now and believe it was a false one created by my naive acceptance
of ICR's dogmatic presentation of their view as the only allowable Christian
view. The result of this crisis was that I stopped actively participating in
this debate and still consider myself to be mainly a passive bystander."

### END ###


You should tell your group to have a look at Morton's creationist site at
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm.  It also includes a page containing
Morton's own attempt at harmonizing Genesis with the known scientific
evidence, as well as the results of an informal survey he did to demonstrate
the importance of that harmonizing.



I also found a few pages by a creationist named Steven Schimmrich, whose
"What is a Creationist?" page is at
http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/essays/creationism.html and "Geology &
Christianity" pages start at
http://www.npcts.edu/acad/physics/bts3910/schimmrich/npcts.html.  

### BEGIN http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/essays/creationism.html ###
### intervening paragraphs not included; paragraphs cited in their entirety
###

I am an evangelical Christian and a creationist. I am also a Ph.D. candidate
in geology, believe that the earth is approximately 4,600,000,000 years old,
and have taught evolution in historical geology courses. Does this sound
contradictory to you? Well, read on...


As a Christian, I believe that God is the creator and sustainer of all
things. This has been the historic, orthodox position of the church down
through the ages. That's why I call myself a creationist.


I've read many of the materials written by young-earth creationists such as
Steve Austin, Thomas Barnes, Carl Baugh, Duane Gish, Ken Ham, Henry Morris,
John Morris, Gary Parker, and Harold Slusher among others. I'm also very
familiar with the material put out by Answers in Genesis, the Institute for
Creation Research and the Creation Research Society. In addition, I've even
attended lectures and seminars by several well-known young-earth
creationists.

In general, I've been dismayed by the lack of scholarship, research, and
ethics displayed by these men who claim to be devout Christians. They totally
misrepresent mainstream science and scientists, ignore evidence contrary to
their claims, and display an amazing ignorance of even the most basic
fundamentals of science and scientific inquiry. Their materials are aimed
toward laypeople who are in no position to evaluate their claims. I don't
mean to sound arrogant, but who is better qualified to judge the accuracy of
K-Ar dating, an evangelist who reads creationist literature and has never
taken a physics or geology course in his life or a Ph.D. in isotope
geochemistry (who may also be a devout Christian) who has spent 25 years
studying K-Ar dating in granites?


My criticisms of creationism are not incompatible with my being an
evangelical Christian. Donald Bloesch, in his comprehensive two volume
Essentials of Evangelical Theology (1978), states that: 

If we take the genealogies in the Old Testament as literal chronologies, we
will have to opt for a recent date for the creation of the world and man
(5000-4000 B.C.?), and we will then have to resort to spurious science to
support our allegations. This is not to say that current science supplies the
norm for settling these issues, for this would make scientific rationality
the criterion for truth. It does mean that if we use science, we must do so
honestly, and much of contemporary evangelical apologetics in this area is
dishonest [v. 2, p. 266].


I do believe that there are some real problems in evolutionary biology --
primarily in the areas of abiogenesis and human evolution. I also believe
that there is evidence for "intelligent design" in the world that is ignored
by many scientists because of the axiom of methodological naturalism in
scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, it's difficult to discuss such issues with
most scientists because the waters have been muddied so much by the
poor-quality work done by the young-earth creationists. I also believe that
the issue of creationism has prevented many people in science from seriously
investigating Christianity because of their mistaken belief that you have to
"check your brain at the door" before becoming a Christian.


Keeping all of the above in mind, I think it's time for Christians to reclaim
the word creationists from the Biblical literalists. To be a creationist
means to believe that God created the heavens and the earth and all life
therein. This is the historic, orthodox Christian position and implies
nothing about the age of the earth or the mechanisms (or lack thereof) of
biological evolution. Let's speak of Biblical creation or young-earth
creation when distinguishing the beliefs of those who accept a literal
reading of Genesis.

In regard to the Biblical-creation/evolution controversy, I think it's
probably best for Christians not to become dogmatic one way or another, to
accept that devout Christians can hold differing viewpoints on the issue, to
be willing to examine the evidence with an open mind, and to remain humble in
the knowledge that only God knows the whole Truth. I think we'll all be
surprised when we one day stand face-to-face with our Creator!

### END ###


"... to be willing to examine the evidence with an open mind, ..."  Now where
did I see something like that before?  Oh yes, in AOLCREAT.DOC:  "and I hope
that the path you take is one of testing and examining with an open mind."
Words are meaningless until we put them into practice, eh?


Linked to Schimmrich's "Geology & Christianity" page is a page of
"Conclusions?", part of which reads:

### BEGIN
http://www.npcts.edu/acad/physics/bts3910/schimmrich/conclusions.html ###
### Quoted in its entirety ###

Conclusions?



------------------------------------------------------------------------


What conclusions are we to draw from the apparent discrepencies between the
Bible and modern science? That of Duane Gish (1978) in Evolution, The Fossils
Say No! where he claims:



The reason most scientists accept the theory of evolution is that most
scientists are unbelievers, and unbelieving, materialistic men are forced to
accept a materialistic, naturalistic explanation for the origin of all living
things.



Or perhaps we should consider Stephen Jay Gould's (1994) opinion in the
Scientific American article on "The Evolution of Life on Earth" where he
states:



Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of
linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent
history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.



My own personal opinion is that neither of these men are correct. The
scientific evidence clearly states that the earth is vastly older than the
traditional Biblically-based ages assigned to it by many Christians, that
there is no trace in the geologic record of Noah's flood, and that fossils
provide very convincing evidence for evolution. However, as a Christian, I
also believe in God and in the Bible as God's revelation to us. I am a
creationist in that I believe that God is the creator and sustainer of all
things. I don't pretend to know all of the answers and some may remain
unanswered.



Christians & Science

How should Christians think about science and creationism? I personally would
suggest the following guidelines:

•Retain an open mind and be willing to consider evidence contrary to your
beliefs. Truth doesn't care how you feel about it. 

•Don't criticize something unless you're sure you understand what you're
criticizing and your arguments against it. 

•Be aware of the unstated philosophical assumptions being made by many
scientists as you read their work. They're people too. 

•Examine the claims made by creationists to see if they're legitimate. Some
are and some are not.

•Remain humble in the knowledge that only God knows the truth.


### END ###

Following the link in "Examine the claims made by creationists to see if
they're legitimate.", we find the page, "How to Evaluate Creationist
Literature", offering some basic rules to follow:

### BEGIN http://www.npcts.edu/acad/physics/bts3910/schimmrich/evaluate.html
###
### Examples deleted ###

How to Evaluate Creationist Literature

Creationist material, while sometimes masquerading as science, often fails to
meet even the most basic requirements of scientific literature. The following
are some questions to keep in mind when evaluating books or articles by
creationists...

•Who wrote it and what are their credentials?

•Where are you reading it?

•Are statements backed up by references?

•How old are the references?

•Are references given to the primary literature?

•Would it be worthwhile to check the references?


Summary

In science, skepticism is a virtue. If the claims of young-earth creationists
are true, virtually all of modern science is grossly in error. If you want to
overturn all of science, you had better have extremely compelling evidence. I
have found, in my own personal experience, that when their claims are
critically examined they completely fall apart.

### END ###



And, of course, no list of web sites pertaining to creationism would ever be
complete without the Talk.Origins Archive at http://www.talkorigins.org/.  I
believe that you are personally familiar with the talk.origins newsgroup,
which, judging from the past messages I read about your spamming of
AOLCREATE.DOC, you had posted on before and now avoid religiously.  

Their archive contains a great wealth of material and information that is
must-read for everybody involved in the creation/evolution issue.  For
example, do you remember the polystrate claim about a fossil whale found
buried vertically in a quarry near Lompoc?  The cited reference, which I have
in my files, was a few paragraphs in a "recent news" type of column and so
was very sketchy.  Somebody did some follow-up research and investigation and
published the results at
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/whale.html.


You might also want to check out an article by Robert Schadewald, "Scientific
Creationism and Error ", at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cre-error.html.
In it, he reviews various creationist claims that were disproven conclusively
to the leading creationist who proposed it (eg, Duane Gish, Henry Morris,
John Morris) and how that creationist handled it.  The claims include:

1. Gish's claims on national TV that "if you look at other certain proteins,
you'll find that man is more closely related to a bullfrog than he is a
chimpanzee. If you focus your attention on other proteins, you'll find that
man is more closely related to a chicken than he is to a chimpanzee." and his
subsequent broken promises of documentation supporting that claim (read my
web page, "The Bullfrog Affair", at
http://members.aol.com/dwise1/bullfrog.html). 

2. Gish's claims about the bombadier beetle (especially that the two
chemicals it uses explode spontaneously when mixed together), which he
admitted publicly were false at a public demonstration (Early in 1978, Bill
Thwaites and Frank Awbrey of San Diego State University mixed hydrogen
peroxide and hydroquinone in front of their "two model" class with a
nonexplosive result.), and his subsequent continuing to use false arguments
about the bombadier beetle in debates (My creation/evolution discussions with
Charles Lange started with the question of the use of "lying for the Lord" as
practiced by Gish in re the bombadier beetle; when we both went to a debate
featuring both Gish and Morris, Charles was very distressed by the sight of
stacks of "Bomby" books, some of them published by the ICR, being hawked
containing the same false claims that Gish personally reputiated several
years before -- Charles had called Gish his "idol", but now is thoroughly
disgusted with the ICR and with creation science).

3. The alleged Paluxy River "manprints" which have turned out to be dinosaur
prints that had subsequently filled in (the outlines of the original
tridactyl prints are showing up as the minerals oxidize).  Despite promises
of retractions from various major creationists and creationist organizations,
their followers and readership have not been informed of the truth.


In conclusion, Schadewald writes:

### BEGIN ###

For now, at least, it is whitewash as usual from the Bible-Science
Association [concerning the Paluxy River "manprints"]. If the past is
prologue, the Bible-Science Newsletter will eventually acknowledge the action
by Films for Christ [to pull their "Footprints in Stone" film out of
distribution], and they might quietly quit distributing the Caldwell Print
(if they haven't already). But they will never blow the whistle on Reverend
Carl Baugh's misrepresented discoveries, mythical degrees, and general
scientific incompetence. 

With these examples in mind, it is hardly surprising that ICR continues to
promote errors refuted more than a decade ago. Those who take the time to
reply to creationist attacks on science find themselves slaying the slain a
thousand times over. And no matter how dead a creationist error might appear
to be, it always has the hope of resurrection in the Bible-Science
Newsletter. 

Creationism is not monolithic. Nevertheless, creationism as a movement is and
ever will be judged by the most visible organizations and individuals. On
that basis, the public can only conclude that the typical creationist
response to error is silence, whitewash, or outright denial. If some
creationists are offended by this interpretation (and several have told me
privately that they are), I refuse to be their spokesman. If they cannot
denounce these actions on their own, their silence makes them participants. 

### END ###


You should personally be interested in the Archive page entitled "Punctuated
Equilibria" [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html].  As you recall,
in your "From the Mind of Bill Morgan" notes attached to "Weird Science", you
had claimed sufficient expertise in PE to be able to teach it to the reader
("I don't mind teaching you about your theory, I'm quite used to it thank
you."), whereas instead you demonstrated abysmal ignorance of the subject.
Then despite my efforts to teach you something of PE, you again displayed
your ignorance at your 1997 March 21 lecture at San Diego State University
with your "Can you imagine being a lizard with rugged, macho scales, then all
of a sudden your offspring are starting to have fluffy little feathers?"
Really, now, Bill.  You should know better than that by now.  You really need
to learn something about what you are opposing (remember "know your enemy and
know yourself"?).  Going to this page would be the first step.  

[NOTE:  I am also concerned that you repeatedly misrepresent yourself to the
public as a "former atheist", when you know that is not true since, by your
own admission, you had continued to believe in your god.  An atheist is one
who is not a theist; ie, he does not believe in supernatural beings.  By your
own admission, you had continued to believe in at least one supernatural
being, JHWH.  You were only "choos[ing] not to honor acknowldge or give
thanks to God" in order to justify to yourself your hedonistic excesses and
depravities.  Your claim of being a "former atheist" is therefore dishonest
and should not be used, especially if you would wish to claim to be arguing
from a morally superior position.  It raises the same old question of what
role, if any, truth and honesty play in Christianity.]

Here's a section from that Archive page on PuncEq:

### BEGIN http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html ###

6. Common errors in discussion of PE 

Many errors can be found in discussion of the concept of PE. G&E 1977 point
out several of these. 

PE is not mutually exclusive of phyletic gradualism. Gould and Eldredge take
pains to explicitly point out that PE is an expansive theory, not an
exclusive one (1977). 

PE sometimes is claimed to be a theory resting upon the lack of evidence
rather than upon evidence. This is a curious, but false claim, since Eldredge
and Gould spent a significant portion of their original work examining two
separate lines of evidence (one involving pulmonate gastropods, the other one
involving Phacopsid trilobites) demonstrating the issues behind PE (1972).
Similarly, discussion of actual paleontological evidence consumes a
significant proportion of pages in Gould and Eldredge 1977. This also answers
those who claimed that E&G said that PE was unverifiable. 

PE is essentially and exclusively directed to questions at the level of
speciation and processes affecting species. The basis of PE is the
neontological theory of peripatric speciation. The criteria by which
"punctuations" are recognized by Gould and Eldredge involve temporal issues
and geographic issues. PE is not expected to be as useful at lower or higher
levels of change. 

PE is by no means either synonymous with "saltationism", nor did Gould's
essay on Richard Goldschmidt "link" PE with Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster"
conjecture. Gould wrote an article that has caused much confusion. "Return of
the hopeful monsters" sought to point out that a hatchet job had been done on
some of the concepts that Richard Goldschmidt had formulated. The discussion
of systemic mutations as mutations which affect rate or timing of development
has caused many people to assume that Gould was somehow linking PE to this
concept. A close reading of the article shows this to not be the case. 

Gould and Eldredge did not specify any particular genetic mechanism for PE.
PE does not require large scale mutations. 

PE is not a saltational theory of evolution. The emphasis upon applying
consequences of peripatric speciation to paleontology shows this critique to
be unfounded. PE is no more saltational than peripatric speciation is in
study of modern organisms. 

### END ###


I also found a page which should be rather interesting:  Homologous Structure
Alignment Database [http://merlin.bioc.cam.ac.uk/data/align].  I haven't had
time to play with it yet, but it provides aligned 3-D structures for
homologous proteins.  Release 5b (May 1997) currently has 130 protein
families.  Maybe this will provide some of that raw protein data I had asked
you for.

And don't forget Revd. Dr. Ernest Lucas' page,
http://www.totalweb.co.uk/csis/onlinepapers/papers/paper1.html, which I
mentioned to you before and discussed with [using that term "with" rather
broadly here] you.

I would also offer for you to share my own creation/evolution pages, but they
had been thrown together quickly and I have been in the process of
reorganizing and rewriting some of them and writing new ones for several
months now.  That process will include some of the material from our emails
(not the emails themselves, but rather the concerns I have expressed).  I
will offer them to you when they are more ready, maybe in the summer.

So when are you planning to put your own page up?  You know that AOL
automatically allocates space (2 MB per screen name?) for your web files at
no extra cost to you.  If you want to wimp out, AOL offers authoring
software, but you really do not need any special software to develop a web
page (I do all of mine in a straight ASCII text editor, like I write my
Windows help files; I have been very dissatisfied with the HTML and RTF
source files generated by authoring tools).  


#########################################################


Subj:   Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-13 23:51:42 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

"What do you want?" (Mr. Morden, with his Rod Serling-like delivery),   

In other words, why are you involved with creation science?  What are your
goals?  What do you think you'll accomplish?

From AOLCREAT.DOC, I read your goals as being:

1. to convert non-Christians to Christianity

2. to convert non-literalist Christians to your particular brand of
Christianity (ie, to make them "true Christians")

3. to improve the proselytizing efforts of other "true Christians" 

To achieve these goals, you have chosen to use creation science.  I maintain
that you have chosen poorly, that creation science is counter-productive to
your goals and very dangerous for one's mental and spiritual health (and
physical, if they go Christian-atheist; ie, turn into a pseudo-atheist like
you were).


I'm sure that you would agree that creation science is a part of
fundamentalist Christian apologetics.  Christian apologetics serves two basic
purposes:  "The first is defense.  The second is to communicate Christianity
in a way that any given generation can understand." (Francis A. Schaeffer)
Thus, apologetics must soothe any doubts plaguing the faithful and remove the
road blocks in the path of unbelievers who might otherwise come to faith.
Apologetics tries to do both of these things by attempting to show:

1. that Christianity is reasonable, makes sense, 

2. that the "apparent contradictions", both internal (eg, biblical passages
contradicting each other) and external (eg, history and the Bible or science
and the Bible not agreeing and other extra-biblical "troublesome data"), are
only apparent, and 

3. that Christianity is in complete harmony with "real world" facts, so that
one need not kiss one's mind goodbye in order to convert.


This last point is important to proselytizers, because the main role of
creation science in the proselytizing process is to "pre-evangelize", to
prepare the target to be receptive to the actual attempt at conversion.  I'm
sure that your practical experience will support me on this.  You have to
prepare your mark first.  You cannot simply walk up to a person and convert
them right then and there, cold on the spot, unless something else has
already "pre-evangelized" them.  Professional salesmen know this well; one
told me that if you can get a customer to agree with you on three things,
even if those three things have nothing to do with the product, then they
will buy your product.

Whatever tool you use to pre-evangelize must soften the target, make him more
receptive to the final assault, not increase his resistence and resolve
against your message.  If the chosen tool can convince the target that there
is no conflict between your message and real-world facts, then that tool
would be doing its job.  But if that tool demonstrates that your message is
at odds with real-world facts, then it can only serve to strengthen his
resolve against conversion, plus, it can convince those who had already
converted that the message is false (again, those ICR-trained geologists had
suffered crises of FAITH, not of GEOLOGY -- when push comes to shove, reality
will win over fantasy, unless somebody has some really powerful psychological
defense mechanisms).

I had used the word, "harmony", on purpose, because that is the term used in
apologetics, that of "harmonizing apparent contradictions" between various
biblical texts or between biblical texts and outside data.  Both purposes of
apologetics need to employ harmonization.  Harmonizing attempts to make faith
plausible by reconciling aspects of modern knowledge which at least seem to
conflict with the faith.  To achieve such harmonizations of extra-biblical
"troublesome data", the apologist needs to work with new interpretations of
that data (or of the faith) in order to bring them in line with each other,
even though some of the new interpretations may end up being more forced or
strained than others.

This is obviously the role that creation science is expected to play.  The
question -- indeed, the central issue here -- is whether creation science is
successful or counter-productive in that role.  I have maintained all along
that it is counter-productive.  You have avoided that question altogether.
                           
                           
Is this harmonization important?  For me personally, and for other real
atheists who have no stake in the matter, not really.  No more than
harmonization between Hinduism and physics would be (eg, the "Shiva
Principle" as it applies to the laws of conservation of matter and energy).
However, Christians do have a stake in the matter and for them it can be very
important, even vitally important for their faith.

When he encountered the attitude on a listserve that this issue was not very
important, Glenn R. Morton decided to conduct an informal survey on
talk.origins, "the usenet group that regularly beats up on Christians" (I
think you have had some personal experience with this).  On one of his pages,
"The Effect of Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm], he posted the questions and
the answers he received.  His questions were:

### BEGIN (HTML tags removed) ###

The following was an e-mail I posted on a listserve on which I spend some
time. The data clearly shows the effects of not having a scientifically
successful harmonization between Scripture and science. The results as
anecdotally shown below are sad and devastating:


This apparently didn't make it out of here this morning. so I will try again.
On another listserve, the issue came up as to who cares about Genesis being
history. I mentioned that there are lots of former Christians, who are now
atheists who did care that Genesis didn't seem to concord with science and
history and because of this left the faith. What I would like to do is test
that assertion. If you are an atheist, who was a Christian in the past, I
would like the answer to a couple of questions. 

1. How important were the problems between Genesis and Science to your
decision to leave Christianity?

2. If it wasn't this issue what issue was the most important?

3. Can I post your reply to another listserv which is generally inhabited by
Christians?

### END ###

He listed 15 responses, plus two other apt emails apparently not directly in
answer to the questions.  To save space, rather than list them all, I've
tried to cook down the answers (in my own incompetent way -- obviously, most
of the responses offered multiple reasons), then I will include some exerpts.
I tried to convert the responses into a list of reasons given accompanied on
the left by my count of the number of respondants who gave that reason.


Reason(s) for Leaving Christianity:

(5) Conflicts between Genesis and Science

(6) Evil/contradictory nature of the Old Testament god

(4) Living [bad] examples of other Christians

(1) Lack of evidence for existence of God

(1) Learning the truth after having been raised on false teachings (ie,
Christian fundamentalism)

(3) Had been betrayed and lied to by Christianity

(2) Christians' lack of knowledge of science, philosophy, and history

(2) Christians' anti-science attitudes

(2) Decided that the Bible and religion are the work of Man

(1) Believed in creation science, then got shot down in flames

(1) Learned that God is not necessary to explain the universe

(1) Found that the Jewish interpretations of Scripture are often more
reasonable that the Christian interpretations

(2) Found out what weird things Christians believe

(2) Creation science would keep me from becoming a Christian


Morton's assessment of the responses was:  

"Anyway, here are some people who cared when they were Christians about
whether Genesis harmonized with Science or not. They decided that it didn't.
This is the best case I can put before anyone as to why a harmonization is
important. We are losing people to the faith."


Here are a few of the things that the respondants had to say:

"Coming from a fundamentalist background, these problems proved to me in a
way that no other Biblical "problem" ever has that the Bible is not literally
true. With this understanding came the gradual realization that all of the
fundamentalist doctrines I'd been taught and believed were founded on false
premises. This engendered a sense of betrayal, feelings of anger and
confusion, and over time a perhaps somewhat irrational need to distance
myself from Christian beliefs as much as possible, although I intellectually
acknowledge the far more reasonable beliefs and approaches of the liberal
forms of Christianity."


"That, the atrocities in the Old Testament, the atrocities of more recent
Christians, and the realization that there are more ways of being moral than
being religious. What really turned me into a non-Christian was going to a
christian discussion group at university and finding out what weird things
they believed and how they couldn't agree on any way of coming to a shared
understanding. What's turned me into an anti-christian and indeed
anti-religionist (I don't like any fundamentalists, christian, islamic,
jewish, or Nichiren) is the fundamentalists on talk.origins - the combination
of ignorance, aggression, and lies are really too much to take. I don't want
any association with any organization that has space for behaviour like
that."
           

"It is onerous to require that a single issue can overturn a deeply held and
complex view of life. If there had not been an antiscience attitude amongst
evangelicals, then there may have been a more pro-intellectual attitude (rule
out science and you rule out a lot of intellectual life), and so I may have
been able to find a place in that movement.

"Once the issue was thrown up for reconsideration, for reasons that are still
quite personal, I was unable to re-enter that hermeneutic circle, and with
the attitudes within it, I had no reason to want to.

"A final point. If I were on the verge of acceptance, the antiscience
attitude of evangelicalism (and most forms of catholic Christianity,
excluding perhaps Orthodoxy) would definitely deter me. Any faith that cannot
live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to be considered by a
rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."


"I was not so bothered with the conflict between Genesis and science as by
the description of a Supernatural entity who would send human beings to
eternal torture in Hell just for having the wrong metaphysical beliefs.

"However, since that was what I was told a God was, I was very motivated to
look at the evidence carefully and hectupally check everything because I was
worried that if Genesis was wrong, it would be Christians who would jibber
and shriek in Hell. The evidence suggests that Genesis is wrong.  Therefore I
would not be within my epistemological rights to be a Christian."

[DWise1:  FWIW, in one line of Dan Barker's blues song, "You Just Can't Win
with Original Sin", he states that any god that would damn me would just as
easily damn you]
        
        
And:

"About a year and a half ago, I was a firm special creationist. I am now a
believer in evolution; not even sure if God is required. In 1995, Glenn
Morton wrote to Stephen Jones about Stephen's provisional acceptance of
common descent (as quoted by SJ Sunday, January 11, 1998 5:16 PM), "I know
exactly how difficult a paradigm shift like that is." Well, let me tell you,
the shift is absolutely devastating. I'm still struggling with all this. I
still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community
did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a
gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed."


That last one should look familiar to you, Bill, since I had included it in a
recent email.

And, again, since Morton's responses offer real-life examples:

"Creationism by and large attracts few to the gospel, but it turns many
away."
(Gregg Wilkerson, co-founder of Students for Origins Research and former
young-earth creationist, at the 1990 International Conference on Creationism
[ICC, a convention of creationists, so this was a creationist talking to
creationists])


OK, Bill.  This helps to establish that successfully harmonizing Scripture
and science is a very important issue for a number of people, even though it
is not for others.  I believe that you would agree with me on this point,
otherwise, why are you involved with creationism at all?
                                               
However, there are still questions open on: 

1. how scientifically successful this harmonization between Scripture and
science needs to be (very important to Morton, the importance recognized and
acknowledged by myself, but completely avoided by you), and

2. whether creation science is successful in performing this harmonization or
is failing miserably and having the exact opposite of the intended effect
(the central issue in my view, addressed by Morton elsewhere, and even more
completely avoided by you).


While Morton's survey didn't really deal directly with these two questions,
though some of the responses did touch on them, he does deal with them
elsewhere.  Obviously, from his own personal experience and those of Steve
Robertson and the other ICR-trained geologists he told us about, for those
who need to work in those scientific fields it is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that the
harmonization between Scripture and science be scientifically successful.  

If the only way used to harmonize Scripture and science is to lie about the
scientific facts, then when the real scientific facts are learned, that
harmonization is destroyed and, if an individual's faith relied on that
harmonization, then that individual's faith is likely to suffer severe
collateral damage.  If you add theological requirements, whether implied or
explicit, that certain facts, which do exist, cannot exist, such that the
discovery of those facts requires loss of faith, then lethal damage to that
individual's faith is virtually assured (eg, "If the earth is more than
10,000 years old, then Scripture has no meaning.", John Morris of the ICR).

This is what creation science does.  But instead of harmonizing scientific
"troublesome data" with Scripture, creation science seeks to remove the
"apparent contradictions" by removing the "troublesome data" itself by trying
to discount it, to discredit it, to deny its very existence, and/or to
fabricate contradictory data.  Harmonizing requires the apologist to deal
with "troublesome data", whereas creation science's approach never actually
deals with its "troublesome data" and leaves the apologist in denial of it.
This leaves the apologist/"creation scientist" in a vulnerable position,
because his entire "harmonization" could be destroyed simply by the
appearance of that "troublesome data" that he claims does not exist and
cannot exist for Scripture to have any meaning.

Though actually, the followers of that "creation scientist" are in an even
more vulnerable postion.  The "creation scientist" knows, or should know,
that that troublesome data exists, but has been able to rationalize it away.
But his followers are not in that position.  He has dealt with that
troublesome data by denying it, but they haven't had to deal with it yet.
They believed him when he said that that data does not exist or says
something quite different.  When they are suddenly confronted with the truth,
they will not be prepared for it nor will they have the tools to deal with
it.  It is THEIR faith that will be shattered.

                     
It seems that the only thing that is preventing creation science from causing
an epidemic of atheism is the fact that most people can live out their lives,
fat, dumb, and happy, without ever having to learn about, let alone deal
with, those troublesome scientific facts.  They could believe that the earth
is flat, that men have one less rib than women, that men and dinosaurs lived
contemporaneously (hey, they've seen it on TV!), or that the moon is made out
of green cheese, and never hear otherwise and, lacking curiosity (part and
parcel of the fd&h syndrome), they will never try to learn any different.
Barring something like a major scandal exposing creation science, they should
remain safe enough for their entire lives.

The ones in danger are the smart ones with curiosity.  The ones who would
actually think about what they have been told.  At even greater risk are the
ones who will have to learn and work with the "troublesome data" that they
had been taught does not exist and cannot exist if Scripture is to have any
meaning.  

Glenn R. Morton, his friend Steve Robertson, and those ICR-trained geology
students are prime examples of this high-risk group.  When they went to work
as geologists, they could not avoid working with those troublesome data that
they had been taught did not exist and could not exist.  It was right there
in front of them, day after day.  The harmonization fell to pieces at their
feet.  They were left with that other lesson that they had been taught over
and over again:  if that troublesome data were true, then Scripture has no
meaning (Liber8r:  in case you do not know it, to a fundamentalist that can
be paramount to saying that there is no God; in short, their entire theology
has lost its basis and starts to unravel).  Since they still believed that
the troublesome data and their faith were mutually exclusive and they could
plainly see that the troublesome data was true, that led them to the logical
conclusion that their religion was wrong (ironically, that realization
probably actually saved their faith, but more on that thought at a later
date).  Morton ended up on the verge of becoming an atheist.  BECAUSE of
creation science.  Robertson didn't quite go that far and I don't know about
the others, except that none of them had suffered a crisis of GEOLOGY.

Bill, you're an ME.  Now, I know from experience that fundamentalists tend to
have a hard time with Gedankenexperimenten and hypothetical situations, but
please bear with me.  Try to imagine what it would be like to have been
taught that, say, there was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and,
furthermore, if it did exist then Scripture would have no meaning.  You go
through school having been taught this and you believe it.  But then you go
out to work as an ME.  What do you have to deal with several times over in
virtually each and every piece of machinery?  Moments of Inertia!  They're
all over the place!  Given the premises of this Gedankenexperiment, what
effect would this have on you and on your faith?  What conclusions would you
reach?  
                                       
                                       
Think about it!  It's very important!  Especially that last question.
Because that question is not rhetorical.  Because there is a right answer to
it.  An answer that provides the key to solving the entire problem.  An
answer that will lead a harmonization that can withstand any number of
"troublesome data" and keep faith intact.  An answer that is in full accord
with your Calvinistic world-view.  You've seen the answer many times before,
but you have denied that answer because of your paradigm paralysis.

That reference to Calvinism is a hint.  Use it.  We'll talk about that answer
later.


But before I close, we need to consider another group that is at high risk
due to creation science.  This is the group that is being targeted directly
by the ICR.  It is the children in the public schools.  Not in college.  Not
even in high school.  But in elementary and junior high.  

Now, most adults can believe in all kinds of pseudo-scientific bolderdash and
never be the wiser.  AFter all, how many young-earth creationists are going
to work as geologists and so be confronted by hard inescapable evidence that
creation science is wrong?  Not many.  How many are going to work in the
other sciences that creation science misrepresents?  Not many.  And how many
are going to study the sciences intensely and thoroughly?  Not many.

But how many school children are going to study science?  Most, if not all of
them.  The school children are very likely to encounter those "troublesome
data" and will be even less able to deal with them than their adult
counterparts.  Think of a child who has been taught that transitional fossils
do not exist who then learns of several examples and their characteristics
(many creationists rationalize transitional fossils away by ignoring their
transitional characteristics).  Think of a child who has been taught that
there literally was a single year-long global flood that created all the
geological formations and all the fossils, who then starts learning what
geology really shows.  Think of the faith destroyed in this manner.

What is the solution?  Creationist activists seek to solve this problem by
restricting or corrupting the teaching of science (eg, to remove those
"troublesome data" from the curriculum or by having creation science taught),
in short to promote ignorance.  But in order to protect those children, they
would have to shield them from the truth for the rest of their lives.  I
loved what the Governor of Mississippi said a few years ago in support of his
education reforms:  "We've already tried ignorance and we found that it
doesn't work!"

You cannot shield them from the truth forever.  Again:

"Any faith that cannot live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to
be considered by a rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."

So, Bill, what is the solution?  Yes, this brings us back to that question
from the hypothetical case.  For the moment, I'll leave this as an exercise
for the student.


#########################################################

Subj:   DIVAD
Date:   98-04-13 23:51:51 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1

Bill, it just occured to me to ask you this.

Were you working at Ford Aerospace, DIVAD Division, circa 1983-1985?

There was a creationist there who had a bunch of stuff posted up around his
cubicle (next to the north stairwell, second floor, as I recall).  I never
actually met the guy, to my knowledge.  That was during my initial research
period, before I had started getting involved in discussions, so I didn't
feel ready to talk with him (at that time, I was already a veteran at being
the target of innumerable proselytizings, though at that time there had been
a lull in the attacks on me for several years, so I was reluctant to don a
bulls-eye, especially since it was at the workplace).

Was that you?


#########################################################

#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Let's Get on with it, already.
Date:   98-04-12 01:31:21 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

lets have a public debate.  me versus you at Cal State LA.


#########################################################

Subj: Re: More Web
Sites you can use
Date:   98-04-12 02:16:24 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1
CC: liber8r@mcs.com

So give me the strongest reason why you think bacteria are teh ancestors to
blue whales.


#########################################################

Subj:   Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-13 23:51:42 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

"What do you want?" (Mr. Morden, with his Rod Serling-like delivery),   

In other words, why are you involved with creation science?  What are your
goals?  What do you think you'll accomplish?

From AOLCREAT.DOC, I read your goals as being:

1. to convert non-Christians to Christianity

2. to convert non-literalist Christians to your particular brand of
Christianity (ie, to make them "true Christians")

3. to improve the proselytizing efforts of other "true Christians" 

To achieve these goals, you have chosen to use creation science.  I maintain
that you have chosen poorly, that creation science is counter-productive to
your goals and very dangerous for one's mental and spiritual health (and
physical, if they go Christian-atheist; ie, turn into a pseudo-atheist like
you were).


I'm sure that you would agree that creation science is a part of
fundamentalist Christian apologetics.  Christian apologetics serves two basic
purposes:  "The first is defense.  The second is to communicate Christianity
in a way that any given generation can understand." (Francis A. Schaeffer)
Thus, apologetics must soothe any doubts plaguing the faithful and remove the
road blocks in the path of unbelievers who might otherwise come to faith.
Apologetics tries to do both of these things by attempting to show:

1. that Christianity is reasonable, makes sense, 

2. that the "apparent contradictions", both internal (eg, biblical passages
contradicting each other) and external (eg, history and the Bible or science
and the Bible not agreeing and other extra-biblical "troublesome data"), are
only apparent, and 

3. that Christianity is in complete harmony with "real world" facts, so that
one need not kiss one's mind goodbye in order to convert.


This last point is important to proselytizers, because the main role of
creation science in the proselytizing process is to "pre-evangelize", to
prepare the target to be receptive to the actual attempt at conversion.  I'm
sure that your practical experience will support me on this.  You have to
prepare your mark first.  You cannot simply walk up to a person and convert
them right then and there, cold on the spot, unless something else has
already "pre-evangelized" them.  Professional salesmen know this well; one
told me that if you can get a customer to agree with you on three things,
even if those three things have nothing to do with the product, then they
will buy your product.

Whatever tool you use to pre-evangelize must soften the target, make him more
receptive to the final assault, not increase his resistence and resolve
against your message.  If the chosen tool can convince the target that there
is no conflict between your message and real-world facts, then that tool
would be doing its job.  But if that tool demonstrates that your message is
at odds with real-world facts, then it can only serve to strengthen his
resolve against conversion, plus, it can convince those who had already
converted that the message is false (again, those ICR-trained geologists had
suffered crises of FAITH, not of GEOLOGY -- when push comes to shove, reality
will win over fantasy, unless somebody has some really powerful psychological
defense mechanisms).

I had used the word, "harmony", on purpose, because that is the term used in
apologetics, that of "harmonizing apparent contradictions" between various
biblical texts or between biblical texts and outside data.  Both purposes of
apologetics need to employ harmonization.  Harmonizing attempts to make faith
plausible by reconciling aspects of modern knowledge which at least seem to
conflict with the faith.  To achieve such harmonizations of extra-biblical
"troublesome data", the apologist needs to work with new interpretations of
that data (or of the faith) in order to bring them in line with each other,
even though some of the new interpretations may end up being more forced or
strained than others.

This is obviously the role that creation science is expected to play.  The
question -- indeed, the central issue here -- is whether creation science is
successful or counter-productive in that role.  I have maintained all along
that it is counter-productive.  You have avoided that question altogether.
                           
                           
Is this harmonization important?  For me personally, and for other real
atheists who have no stake in the matter, not really.  No more than
harmonization between Hinduism and physics would be (eg, the "Shiva
Principle" as it applies to the laws of conservation of matter and energy).
However, Christians do have a stake in the matter and for them it can be very
important, even vitally important for their faith.

When he encountered the attitude on a listserve that this issue was not very
important, Glenn R. Morton decided to conduct an informal survey on
talk.origins, "the usenet group that regularly beats up on Christians" (I
think you have had some personal experience with this).  On one of his pages,
"The Effect of Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm], he posted the questions and
the answers he received.  His questions were:

### BEGIN (HTML tags removed) ###

The following was an e-mail I posted on a listserve on which I spend some
time. The data clearly shows the effects of not having a scientifically
successful harmonization between Scripture and science. The results as
anecdotally shown below are sad and devastating:


This apparently didn't make it out of here this morning. so I will try again.
On another listserve, the issue came up as to who cares about Genesis being
history. I mentioned that there are lots of former Christians, who are now
atheists who did care that Genesis didn't seem to concord with science and
history and because of this left the faith. What I would like to do is test
that assertion. If you are an atheist, who was a Christian in the past, I
would like the answer to a couple of questions. 

1. How important were the problems between Genesis and Science to your
decision to leave Christianity?

2. If it wasn't this issue what issue was the most important?

3. Can I post your reply to another listserv which is generally inhabited by
Christians?

### END ###

He listed 15 responses, plus two other apt emails apparently not directly in
answer to the questions.  To save space, rather than list them all, I've
tried to cook down the answers (in my own incompetent way -- obviously, most
of the responses offered multiple reasons), then I will include some exerpts.
I tried to convert the responses into a list of reasons given accompanied on
the left by my count of the number of respondants who gave that reason.


Reason(s) for Leaving Christianity:

(5) Conflicts between Genesis and Science

(6) Evil/contradictory nature of the Old Testament god

(4) Living [bad] examples of other Christians

(1) Lack of evidence for existence of God

(1) Learning the truth after having been raised on false teachings (ie,
Christian fundamentalism)

(3) Had been betrayed and lied to by Christianity

(2) Christians' lack of knowledge of science, philosophy, and history

(2) Christians' anti-science attitudes

(2) Decided that the Bible and religion are the work of Man

(1) Believed in creation science, then got shot down in flames

(1) Learned that God is not necessary to explain the universe

(1) Found that the Jewish interpretations of Scripture are often more
reasonable that the Christian interpretations

(2) Found out what weird things Christians believe

(2) Creation science would keep me from becoming a Christian


Morton's assessment of the responses was:  

"Anyway, here are some people who cared when they were Christians about
whether Genesis harmonized with Science or not. They decided that it didn't.
This is the best case I can put before anyone as to why a harmonization is
important. We are losing people to the faith."


Here are a few of the things that the respondants had to say:

"Coming from a fundamentalist background, these problems proved to me in a
way that no other Biblical "problem" ever has that the Bible is not literally
true. With this understanding came the gradual realization that all of the
fundamentalist doctrines I'd been taught and believed were founded on false
premises. This engendered a sense of betrayal, feelings of anger and
confusion, and over time a perhaps somewhat irrational need to distance
myself from Christian beliefs as much as possible, although I intellectually
acknowledge the far more reasonable beliefs and approaches of the liberal
forms of Christianity."


"That, the atrocities in the Old Testament, the atrocities of more recent
Christians, and the realization that there are more ways of being moral than
being religious. What really turned me into a non-Christian was going to a
christian discussion group at university and finding out what weird things
they believed and how they couldn't agree on any way of coming to a shared
understanding. What's turned me into an anti-christian and indeed
anti-religionist (I don't like any fundamentalists, christian, islamic,
jewish, or Nichiren) is the fundamentalists on talk.origins - the combination
of ignorance, aggression, and lies are really too much to take. I don't want
any association with any organization that has space for behaviour like
that."
           

"It is onerous to require that a single issue can overturn a deeply held and
complex view of life. If there had not been an antiscience attitude amongst
evangelicals, then there may have been a more pro-intellectual attitude (rule
out science and you rule out a lot of intellectual life), and so I may have
been able to find a place in that movement.

"Once the issue was thrown up for reconsideration, for reasons that are still
quite personal, I was unable to re-enter that hermeneutic circle, and with
the attitudes within it, I had no reason to want to.

"A final point. If I were on the verge of acceptance, the antiscience
attitude of evangelicalism (and most forms of catholic Christianity,
excluding perhaps Orthodoxy) would definitely deter me. Any faith that cannot
live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to be considered by a
rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."


"I was not so bothered with the conflict between Genesis and science as by
the description of a Supernatural entity who would send human beings to
eternal torture in Hell just for having the wrong metaphysical beliefs.

"However, since that was what I was told a God was, I was very motivated to
look at the evidence carefully and hectupally check everything because I was
worried that if Genesis was wrong, it would be Christians who would jibber
and shriek in Hell. The evidence suggests that Genesis is wrong.  Therefore I
would not be within my epistemological rights to be a Christian."

[DWise1:  FWIW, in one line of Dan Barker's blues song, "You Just Can't Win
with Original Sin", he states that any god that would damn me would just as
easily damn you]
        
        
And:

"About a year and a half ago, I was a firm special creationist. I am now a
believer in evolution; not even sure if God is required. In 1995, Glenn
Morton wrote to Stephen Jones about Stephen's provisional acceptance of
common descent (as quoted by SJ Sunday, January 11, 1998 5:16 PM), "I know
exactly how difficult a paradigm shift like that is." Well, let me tell you,
the shift is absolutely devastating. I'm still struggling with all this. I
still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community
did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a
gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed."


That last one should look familiar to you, Bill, since I had included it in a
recent email.

And, again, since Morton's responses offer real-life examples:

"Creationism by and large attracts few to the gospel, but it turns many
away."
(Gregg Wilkerson, co-founder of Students for Origins Research and former
young-earth creationist, at the 1990 International Conference on Creationism
[ICC, a convention of creationists, so this was a creationist talking to
creationists])


OK, Bill.  This helps to establish that successfully harmonizing Scripture
and science is a very important issue for a number of people, even though it
is not for others.  I believe that you would agree with me on this point,
otherwise, why are you involved with creationism at all?
                                               
However, there are still questions open on: 

1. how scientifically successful this harmonization between Scripture and
science needs to be (very important to Morton, the importance recognized and
acknowledged by myself, but completely avoided by you), and

2. whether creation science is successful in performing this harmonization or
is failing miserably and having the exact opposite of the intended effect
(the central issue in my view, addressed by Morton elsewhere, and even more
completely avoided by you).


While Morton's survey didn't really deal directly with these two questions,
though some of the responses did touch on them, he does deal with them
elsewhere.  Obviously, from his own personal experience and those of Steve
Robertson and the other ICR-trained geologists he told us about, for those
who need to work in those scientific fields it is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that the
harmonization between Scripture and science be scientifically successful.  

If the only way used to harmonize Scripture and science is to lie about the
scientific facts, then when the real scientific facts are learned, that
harmonization is destroyed and, if an individual's faith relied on that
harmonization, then that individual's faith is likely to suffer severe
collateral damage.  If you add theological requirements, whether implied or
explicit, that certain facts, which do exist, cannot exist, such that the
discovery of those facts requires loss of faith, then lethal damage to that
individual's faith is virtually assured (eg, "If the earth is more than
10,000 years old, then Scripture has no meaning.", John Morris of the ICR).

This is what creation science does.  But instead of harmonizing scientific
"troublesome data" with Scripture, creation science seeks to remove the
"apparent contradictions" by removing the "troublesome data" itself by trying
to discount it, to discredit it, to deny its very existence, and/or to
fabricate contradictory data.  Harmonizing requires the apologist to deal
with "troublesome data", whereas creation science's approach never actually
deals with its "troublesome data" and leaves the apologist in denial of it.
This leaves the apologist/"creation scientist" in a vulnerable position,
because his entire "harmonization" could be destroyed simply by the
appearance of that "troublesome data" that he claims does not exist and
cannot exist for Scripture to have any meaning.

Though actually, the followers of that "creation scientist" are in an even
more vulnerable postion.  The "creation scientist" knows, or should know,
that that troublesome data exists, but has been able to rationalize it away.
But his followers are not in that position.  He has dealt with that
troublesome data by denying it, but they haven't had to deal with it yet.
They believed him when he said that that data does not exist or says
something quite different.  When they are suddenly confronted with the truth,
they will not be prepared for it nor will they have the tools to deal with
it.  It is THEIR faith that will be shattered.

                     
It seems that the only thing that is preventing creation science from causing
an epidemic of atheism is the fact that most people can live out their lives,
fat, dumb, and happy, without ever having to learn about, let alone deal
with, those troublesome scientific facts.  They could believe that the earth
is flat, that men have one less rib than women, that men and dinosaurs lived
contemporaneously (hey, they've seen it on TV!), or that the moon is made out
of green cheese, and never hear otherwise and, lacking curiosity (part and
parcel of the fd&h syndrome), they will never try to learn any different.
Barring something like a major scandal exposing creation science, they should
remain safe enough for their entire lives.

The ones in danger are the smart ones with curiosity.  The ones who would
actually think about what they have been told.  At even greater risk are the
ones who will have to learn and work with the "troublesome data" that they
had been taught does not exist and cannot exist if Scripture is to have any
meaning.  

Glenn R. Morton, his friend Steve Robertson, and those ICR-trained geology
students are prime examples of this high-risk group.  When they went to work
as geologists, they could not avoid working with those troublesome data that
they had been taught did not exist and could not exist.  It was right there
in front of them, day after day.  The harmonization fell to pieces at their
feet.  They were left with that other lesson that they had been taught over
and over again:  if that troublesome data were true, then Scripture has no
meaning (Liber8r:  in case you do not know it, to a fundamentalist that can
be paramount to saying that there is no God; in short, their entire theology
has lost its basis and starts to unravel).  Since they still believed that
the troublesome data and their faith were mutually exclusive and they could
plainly see that the troublesome data was true, that led them to the logical
conclusion that their religion was wrong (ironically, that realization
probably actually saved their faith, but more on that thought at a later
date).  Morton ended up on the verge of becoming an atheist.  BECAUSE of
creation science.  Robertson didn't quite go that far and I don't know about
the others, except that none of them had suffered a crisis of GEOLOGY.

Bill, you're an ME.  Now, I know from experience that fundamentalists tend to
have a hard time with Gedankenexperimenten and hypothetical situations, but
please bear with me.  Try to imagine what it would be like to have been
taught that, say, there was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and,
furthermore, if it did exist then Scripture would have no meaning.  You go
through school having been taught this and you believe it.  But then you go
out to work as an ME.  What do you have to deal with several times over in
virtually each and every piece of machinery?  Moments of Inertia!  They're
all over the place!  Given the premises of this Gedankenexperiment, what
effect would this have on you and on your faith?  What conclusions would you
reach?  
                                       
                                       
Think about it!  It's very important!  Especially that last question.
Because that question is not rhetorical.  Because there is a right answer to
it.  An answer that provides the key to solving the entire problem.  An
answer that will lead a harmonization that can withstand any number of
"troublesome data" and keep faith intact.  An answer that is in full accord
with your Calvinistic world-view.  You've seen the answer many times before,
but you have denied that answer because of your paradigm paralysis.

That reference to Calvinism is a hint.  Use it.  We'll talk about that answer
later.


But before I close, we need to consider another group that is at high risk
due to creation science.  This is the group that is being targeted directly
by the ICR.  It is the children in the public schools.  Not in college.  Not
even in high school.  But in elementary and junior high.  

Now, most adults can believe in all kinds of pseudo-scientific bolderdash and
never be the wiser.  AFter all, how many young-earth creationists are going
to work as geologists and so be confronted by hard inescapable evidence that
creation science is wrong?  Not many.  How many are going to work in the
other sciences that creation science misrepresents?  Not many.  And how many
are going to study the sciences intensely and thoroughly?  Not many.

But how many school children are going to study science?  Most, if not all of
them.  The school children are very likely to encounter those "troublesome
data" and will be even less able to deal with them than their adult
counterparts.  Think of a child who has been taught that transitional fossils
do not exist who then learns of several examples and their characteristics
(many creationists rationalize transitional fossils away by ignoring their
transitional characteristics).  Think of a child who has been taught that
there literally was a single year-long global flood that created all the
geological formations and all the fossils, who then starts learning what
geology really shows.  Think of the faith destroyed in this manner.

What is the solution?  Creationist activists seek to solve this problem by
restricting or corrupting the teaching of science (eg, to remove those
"troublesome data" from the curriculum or by having creation science taught),
in short to promote ignorance.  But in order to protect those children, they
would have to shield them from the truth for the rest of their lives.  I
loved what the Governor of Mississippi said a few years ago in support of his
education reforms:  "We've already tried ignorance and we found that it
doesn't work!"

You cannot shield them from the truth forever.  Again:

"Any faith that cannot live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to
be considered by a rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."

So, Bill, what is the solution?  Yes, this brings us back to that question
from the hypothetical case.  For the moment, I'll leave this as an exercise
for the student.


#########################################################

Subj:   DIVAD
Date:   98-04-13 23:51:51 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1

Bill, it just occured to me to ask you this.

Were you working at Ford Aerospace, DIVAD Division, circa 1983-1985?

There was a creationist there who had a bunch of stuff posted up around his
cubicle (next to the north stairwell, second floor, as I recall).  I never
actually met the guy, to my knowledge.  That was during my initial research
period, before I had started getting involved in discussions, so I didn't
feel ready to talk with him (at that time, I was already a veteran at being
the target of innumerable proselytizings, though at that time there had been
a lull in the attacks on me for several years, so I was reluctant to don a
bulls-eye, especially since it was at the workplace).

Was that you?

#########################################################

Subj:    Re: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-14 22:50:16 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com (DWise1), BillyJack6@aol.com
CC: DWise1@aol.com

What a letter!

It was very well done.

Question: Why is it that Billy doesn't respond with anything other than one
line replies?

Might it be that he doesn't have a reasonable explanation?

I hate to assume but ....

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/

----------
From: DWise1 <DWise1@aol.com>
To: BillyJack6@aol.com
Cc: liber8r@mcs.com; DWise1@aol.com
Subject: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date: Monday, April 13, 1998 10:51 PM

"What do you want?" (Mr. Morden, with his Rod Serling-like delivery),   

In other words, why are you involved with creation science?  What are your
goals?  What do you think you'll accomplish?

>From AOLCREAT.DOC, I read your goals as being:

1. to convert non-Christians to Christianity

2. to convert non-literalist Christians to your particular brand of
Christianity (ie, to make them "true Christians")

3. to improve the proselytizing efforts of other "true Christians" 

To achieve these goals, you have chosen to use creation science.  I
maintain
that you have chosen poorly, that creation science is counter-productive to
your goals and very dangerous for one's mental and spiritual health (and
physical, if they go Christian-atheist; ie, turn into a pseudo-atheist like
you were).


I'm sure that you would agree that creation science is a part of
fundamentalist Christian apologetics.  Christian apologetics serves two
basic
purposes:  "The first is defense.  The second is to communicate
Christianity
in a way that any given generation can understand." (Francis A. Schaeffer)
Thus, apologetics must soothe any doubts plaguing the faithful and remove
the
road blocks in the path of unbelievers who might otherwise come to faith.
Apologetics tries to do both of these things by attempting to show:

1. that Christianity is reasonable, makes sense, 

2. that the "apparent contradictions", both internal (eg, biblical passages
contradicting each other) and external (eg, history and the Bible or
science
and the Bible not agreeing and other extra-biblical "troublesome data"),
are
only apparent, and 

3. that Christianity is in complete harmony with "real world" facts, so
that
one need not kiss one's mind goodbye in order to convert.


This last point is important to proselytizers, because the main role of
creation science in the proselytizing process is to "pre-evangelize", to
prepare the target to be receptive to the actual attempt at conversion. 
I'm
sure that your practical experience will support me on this.  You have to
prepare your mark first.  You cannot simply walk up to a person and convert
them right then and there, cold on the spot, unless something else has
already
"pre-evangelized" them.  Professional salesmen know this well; one told me
that if you can get a customer to agree with you on three things, even if
those three things have nothing to do with the product, then they will buy
your product.

Whatever tool you use to pre-evangelize must soften the target, make him
more
receptive to the final assault, not increase his resistence and resolve
against your message.  If the chosen tool can convince the target that
there
is no conflict between your message and real-world facts, then that tool
would
be doing its job.  But if that tool demonstrates that your message is at
odds
with real-world facts, then it can only serve to strengthen his resolve
against conversion, plus, it can convince those who had already converted
that
the message is false (again, those ICR-trained geologists had suffered
crises
of FAITH, not of GEOLOGY -- when push comes to shove, reality will win over
fantasy, unless somebody has some really powerful psychological defense
mechanisms).

I had used the word, "harmony", on purpose, because that is the term used
in
apologetics, that of "harmonizing apparent contradictions" between various
biblical texts or between biblical texts and outside data.  Both purposes
of
apologetics need to employ harmonization.  Harmonizing attempts to make
faith
plausible by reconciling aspects of modern knowledge which at least seem to
conflict with the faith.  To achieve such harmonizations of extra-biblical
"troublesome data", the apologist needs to work with new interpretations of
that data (or of the faith) in order to bring them in line with each other,
even though some of the new interpretations may end up being more forced or
strained than others.

This is obviously the role that creation science is expected to play.  The
question -- indeed, the central issue here -- is whether creation science
is
successful or counter-productive in that role.  I have maintained all along
that it is counter-productive.  You have avoided that question altogether.
                           
                           
Is this harmonization important?  For me personally, and for other real
atheists who have no stake in the matter, not really.  No more than
harmonization between Hinduism and physics would be (eg, the "Shiva
Principle"
as it applies to the laws of conservation of matter and energy).  However,
Christians do have a stake in the matter and for them it can be very
important, even vitally important for their faith.

When he encountered the attitude on a listserve that this issue was not
very
important, Glenn R. Morton decided to conduct an informal survey on
talk.origins, "the usenet group that regularly beats up on Christians" (I
think you have had some personal experience with this).  On one of his
pages,
"The Effect of Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm], he posted the questions
and
the answers he received.  His questions were:

### BEGIN (HTML tags removed) ###

The following was an e-mail I posted on a listserve on which I spend some
time. The data clearly shows the effects of not having a scientifically
successful harmonization between Scripture and science. The results as
anecdotally shown below are sad and devastating:


This apparently didn't make it out of here this morning. so I will try
again.
On another listserve, the issue came up as to who cares about Genesis being
history. I mentioned that there are lots of former Christians, who are now
atheists who did care that Genesis didn't seem to concord with science and
history and because of this left the faith. What I would like to do is test
that assertion. If you are an atheist, who was a Christian in the past, I
would like the answer to a couple of questions. 

1. How important were the problems between Genesis and Science to your
decision to leave Christianity?

2. If it wasn't this issue what issue was the most important?

3. Can I post your reply to another listserv which is generally inhabited
by
Christians?

### END ###

He listed 15 responses, plus two other apt emails apparently not directly
in
answer to the questions.  To save space, rather than list them all, I've
tried
to cook down the answers (in my own incompetent way -- obviously, most of
the
responses offered multiple reasons), then I will include some exerpts.  I
tried to convert the responses into a list of reasons given accompanied on
the
left by my count of the number of respondants who gave that reason.


Reason(s) for Leaving Christianity:

(5) Conflicts between Genesis and Science

(6) Evil/contradictory nature of the Old Testament god

(4) Living [bad] examples of other Christians

(1) Lack of evidence for existence of God

(1) Learning the truth after having been raised on false teachings (ie,
Christian fundamentalism)

(3) Had been betrayed and lied to by Christianity

(2) Christians' lack of knowledge of science, philosophy, and history

(2) Christians' anti-science attitudes

(2) Decided that the Bible and religion are the work of Man

(1) Believed in creation science, then got shot down in flames

(1) Learned that God is not necessary to explain the universe

(1) Found that the Jewish interpretations of Scripture are often more
reasonable that the Christian interpretations

(2) Found out what weird things Christians believe

(2) Creation science would keep me from becoming a Christian


Morton's assessment of the responses was:  

"Anyway, here are some people who cared when they were Christians about
whether Genesis harmonized with Science or not. They decided that it
didn't.
This is the best case I can put before anyone as to why a harmonization is
important. We are losing people to the faith."


Here are a few of the things that the respondants had to say:

"Coming from a fundamentalist background, these problems proved to me in a
way
that no other Biblical "problem" ever has that the Bible is not literally
true. With this understanding came the gradual realization that all of the
fundamentalist doctrines I'd been taught and believed were founded on false
premises. This engendered a sense of betrayal, feelings of anger and
confusion, and over time a perhaps somewhat irrational need to distance
myself
from Christian beliefs as much as possible, although I intellectually
acknowledge the far more reasonable beliefs and approaches of the liberal
forms of Christianity."


"That, the atrocities in the Old Testament, the atrocities of more recent
Christians, and the realization that there are more ways of being moral
than
being religious. What really turned me into a non-Christian was going to a
christian discussion group at university and finding out what weird things
they believed and how they couldn't agree on any way of coming to a shared
understanding. What's turned me into an anti-christian and indeed anti-
religionist (I don't like any fundamentalists, christian, islamic, jewish,
or
Nichiren) is the fundamentalists on talk.origins - the combination of
ignorance, aggression, and lies are really too much to take. I don't want
any
association with any organization that has space for behaviour like that."
           

"It is onerous to require that a single issue can overturn a deeply held
and
complex view of life. If there had not been an antiscience attitude amongst
evangelicals, then there may have been a more pro-intellectual attitude
(rule
out science and you rule out a lot of intellectual life), and so I may have
been able to find a place in that movement.

"Once the issue was thrown up for reconsideration, for reasons that are
still
quite personal, I was unable to re-enter that hermeneutic circle, and with
the
attitudes within it, I had no reason to want to.

"A final point. If I were on the verge of acceptance, the antiscience
attitude
of evangelicalism (and most forms of catholic Christianity, excluding
perhaps
Orthodoxy) would definitely deter me. Any faith that cannot live in the
world
as it is, is defective, and not to be considered by a rational thinker, on
pain of self-contradiction."


"I was not so bothered with the conflict between Genesis and science as by
the
description of a Supernatural entity who would send human beings to eternal
torture in Hell just for having the wrong metaphysical beliefs.

"However, since that was what I was told a God was, I was very motivated to
look at the evidence carefully and hectupally check everything because I
was
worried that if Genesis was wrong, it would be Christians who would jibber
and
shriek in Hell. The evidence suggests that Genesis is wrong.  Therefore I
would not be within my epistemological rights to be a Christian."

[DWise1:  FWIW, in one line of Dan Barker's blues song, "You Just Can't Win
with Original Sin", he states that any god that would damn me would just as
easily damn you]
        
        
And:

"About a year and a half ago, I was a firm special creationist. I am now a
believer in evolution; not even sure if God is required. In 1995, Glenn
Morton
wrote to Stephen Jones about Stephen's provisional acceptance of common
descent (as quoted by SJ Sunday, January 11, 1998 5:16 PM), "I know exactly
how difficult a paradigm shift like that is." Well, let me tell you, the
shift
is absolutely devastating. I'm still struggling with all this. I still hold
some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community did not
properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun
loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed."


That last one should look familiar to you, Bill, since I had included it in
a
recent email.

And, again, since Morton's responses offer real-life examples:

"Creationism by and large attracts few to the gospel, but it turns many
away."
(Gregg Wilkerson, co-founder of Students for Origins Research and former
young-earth creationist, at the 1990 International Conference on
Creationism
[ICC, a convention of creationists, so this was a creationist talking to
creationists])


OK, Bill.  This helps to establish that successfully harmonizing Scripture
and
science is a very important issue for a number of people, even though it is
not for others.  I believe that you would agree with me on this point,
otherwise, why are you involved with creationism at all?
                                               
However, there are still questions open on: 

1. how scientifically successful this harmonization between Scripture and
science needs to be (very important to Morton, the importance recognized
and
acknowledged by myself, but completely avoided by you), and

2. whether creation science is successful in performing this harmonization
or
is failing miserably and having the exact opposite of the intended effect
(the
central issue in my view, addressed by Morton elsewhere, and even more
completely avoided by you).


While Morton's survey didn't really deal directly with these two questions,
though some of the responses did touch on them, he does deal with them
elsewhere.  Obviously, from his own personal experience and those of Steve
Robertson and the other ICR-trained geologists he told us about, for those
who
need to work in those scientific fields it is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that the
harmonization between Scripture and science be scientifically successful.  

If the only way used to harmonize Scripture and science is to lie about the
scientific facts, then when the real scientific facts are learned, that
harmonization is destroyed and, if an individual's faith relied on that
harmonization, then that individual's faith is likely to suffer severe
collateral damage.  If you add theological requirements, whether implied or
explicit, that certain facts, which do exist, cannot exist, such that the
discovery of those facts requires loss of faith, then lethal damage to that
individual's faith is virtually assured (eg, "If the earth is more than
10,000
years old, then Scripture has no meaning.", John Morris of the ICR).

This is what creation science does.  But instead of harmonizing scientific
"troublesome data" with Scripture, creation science seeks to remove the
"apparent contradictions" by removing the "troublesome data" itself by
trying
to discount it, to discredit it, to deny its very existence, and/or to
fabricate contradictory data.  Harmonizing requires the apologist to deal
with
"troublesome data", whereas creation science's approach never actually
deals
with its "troublesome data" and leaves the apologist in denial of it.  This
leaves the apologist/"creation scientist" in a vulnerable position, because
his entire "harmonization" could be destroyed simply by the appearance of
that
"troublesome data" that he claims does not exist and cannot exist for
Scripture to have any meaning.

Though actually, the followers of that "creation scientist" are in an even
more vulnerable postion.  The "creation scientist" knows, or should know,
that
that troublesome data exists, but has been able to rationalize it away. 
But
his followers are not in that position.  He has dealt with that troublesome
data by denying it, but they haven't had to deal with it yet.  They
believed
him when he said that that data does not exist or says something quite
different.  When they are suddenly confronted with the truth, they will not
be
prepared for it nor will they have the tools to deal with it.  It is THEIR
faith that will be shattered.

                     
It seems that the only thing that is preventing creation science from
causing
an epidemic of atheism is the fact that most people can live out their
lives,
fat, dumb, and happy, without ever having to learn about, let alone deal
with,
those troublesome scientific facts.  They could believe that the earth is
flat, that men have one less rib than women, that men and dinosaurs lived
contemporaneously (hey, they've seen it on TV!), or that the moon is made
out
of green cheese, and never hear otherwise and, lacking curiosity (part and
parcel of the fd&h syndrome), they will never try to learn any different.
Barring something like a major scandal exposing creation science, they
should
remain safe enough for their entire lives.

The ones in danger are the smart ones with curiosity.  The ones who would
actually think about what they have been told.  At even greater risk are
the
ones who will have to learn and work with the "troublesome data" that they
had
been taught does not exist and cannot exist if Scripture is to have any
meaning.  

Glenn R. Morton, his friend Steve Robertson, and those ICR-trained geology
students are prime examples of this high-risk group.  When they went to
work
as geologists, they could not avoid working with those troublesome data
that
they had been taught did not exist and could not exist.  It was right there
in
front of them, day after day.  The harmonization fell to pieces at their
feet.
They were left with that other lesson that they had been taught over and
over
again:  if that troublesome data were true, then Scripture has no meaning
(Liber8r:  in case you do not know it, to a fundamentalist that can be
paramount to saying that there is no God; in short, their entire theology
has
lost its basis and starts to unravel).  Since they still believed that the
troublesome data and their faith were mutually exclusive and they could
plainly see that the troublesome data was true, that led them to the
logical
conclusion that their religion was wrong (ironically, that realization
probably actually saved their faith, but more on that thought at a later
date).  Morton ended up on the verge of becoming an atheist.  BECAUSE of
creation science.  Robertson didn't quite go that far and I don't know
about
the others, except that none of them had suffered a crisis of GEOLOGY.

Bill, you're an ME.  Now, I know from experience that fundamentalists tend
to
have a hard time with Gedankenexperimenten and hypothetical situations, but
please bear with me.  Try to imagine what it would be like to have been
taught
that, say, there was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and,
furthermore,
if it did exist then Scripture would have no meaning.  You go through
school
having been taught this and you believe it.  But then you go out to work as
an
ME.  What do you have to deal with several times over in virtually each and
every piece of machinery?  Moments of Inertia!  They're all over the place!
Given the premises of this Gedankenexperiment, what effect would this have
on
you and on your faith?  What conclusions would you reach?  
                                       
                                       
Think about it!  It's very important!  Especially that last question. 
Because
that question is not rhetorical.  Because there is a right answer to it. 
An
answer that provides the key to solving the entire problem.  An answer that
will lead a harmonization that can withstand any number of "troublesome
data"
and keep faith intact.  An answer that is in full accord with your
Calvinistic
world-view.  You've seen the answer many times before, but you have denied
that answer because of your paradigm paralysis.

That reference to Calvinism is a hint.  Use it.  We'll talk about that
answer
later.


But before I close, we need to consider another group that is at high risk
due
to creation science.  This is the group that is being targeted directly by
the
ICR.  It is the children in the public schools.  Not in college.  Not even
in
high school.  But in elementary and junior high.  

Now, most adults can believe in all kinds of pseudo-scientific bolderdash
and
never be the wiser.  AFter all, how many young-earth creationists are going
to
work as geologists and so be confronted by hard inescapable evidence that
creation science is wrong?  Not many.  How many are going to work in the
other
sciences that creation science misrepresents?  Not many.  And how many are
going to study the sciences intensely and thoroughly?  Not many.

But how many school children are going to study science?  Most, if not all
of
them.  The school children are very likely to encounter those "troublesome
data" and will be even less able to deal with them than their adult
counterparts.  Think of a child who has been taught that transitional
fossils
do not exist who then learns of several examples and their characteristics
(many creationists rationalize transitional fossils away by ignoring their
transitional characteristics).  Think of a child who has been taught that
there literally was a single year-long global flood that created all the
geological formations and all the fossils, who then starts learning what
geology really shows.  Think of the faith destroyed in this manner.

What is the solution?  Creationist activists seek to solve this problem by
restricting or corrupting the teaching of science (eg, to remove those
"troublesome data" from the curriculum or by having creation science
taught),
in short to promote ignorance.  But in order to protect those children,
they
would have to shield them from the truth for the rest of their lives.  I
loved
what the Governor of Mississippi said a few years ago in support of his
education reforms:  "We've already tried ignorance and we found that it
doesn't work!"

You cannot shield them from the truth forever.  Again:

"Any faith that cannot live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to
be
considered by a rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."

So, Bill, what is the solution?  Yes, this brings us back to that question
from the hypothetical case.  For the moment, I'll leave this as an exercise
for the student.


<FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F" BACK="#FFFFFE">

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From: "\"The Liberator\"" <liber8r@mcs.com>
To: "DWise1" <DWise1@aol.com>, <BillyJack6@aol.com>
Cc: <DWise1@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 21:42:48 -0500
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#########################################################

Subj:   Re:  Re: Let's Get on with it, already.
Date:   98-04-16 22:23:02 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

Your message, repeated for Liberator's [liber8r@mcs.com] sake (yes, I saw
that you CC'd the other message.  Thank you.):

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: Let's Get on with it, already.
Date:   98-04-12 01:31:21 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

lets have a public debate.  me versus you at Cal State LA.

### END ###

Hello!  Bill!  Wake up!

Think for a moment.  If I cannot sneak in a phone call from home (indeed,
while I was on-line posting my last email to you, my kid bumped me off the
line -- it's a jungle out there, I tell ya), just how am I supposed to
disappear for the entire evening?  Especially to LA?  Hello?  Weren't you
paying any attention?  I have the "Spanish Inquisition" to watch out for, you
know.  Email is the only practical medium for yet another good reason:  it
minimizes my window of vulnerablility at home, since I only need enough time
to post the email -- and it's hard enough to get even that little time in.


Besides, you know my opinion of those "debates."  It's a circus weighted in
favor of the creationist.  "Winning" one has nothing to do with the merits of
one's position, but rather with putting on a good show which appeals to the
audience's pre-conceived notions; trying to get the audience to think is a
sure way to lose (though giving them the illusion that you have gotten them
to think, without actually requiring them to, gains you points).  For one
thing, I am a very shy person, so my presentation style tends to be rather
dry and factual.  Besides, it's a terrible forum for analyzing claims or for
presenting and discussing scientific claims and evidence.  Instead, it's near
ideal for you to be able to baffle the audience with your BS.  You will
undoubtedly trot out your Gish Gallop, hitting me with a dozen non-trivial
questions that even a doctoral candidate would find challenging (even though
they may sound deceptively simple -- eg, in his oral exams, a famous
astronomy PhD, Cliff Stoll, was hit by the question of why the sky is blue,
which took him hours to answer fully) which I would have no hope of answering
within the framework of a debate.  Let's see, 12 questions requiring 15 to 30
minutes each to answer -- I would need three to six hours in order to respond
to each question that you had spat out in about a minute's time, when all
that the debate format would allow me might be 10 to 15 minutes.  Besides
which I do not possess that level of expertise.  But, of course, your plan is
not for me to answer your questions, but rather to make it appear that
science has no answers to those questions.  I know your game and no way am I
going to play it.
                                                       
                                                       
Instead, I have a much better idea.  You want a public debate?  OK, but why
restrict it to a mere college campus (ie, to a very limited audience)?  Why
not do it in front of the whole world?

In other words, let's have an on-line debate.  We could post it on my web
page or I could set it up under another screen-name (we each can have up to 4
screen names, each of which has a fixed amount of disk space available -- we
cannot combine all four allocations together under one screen name, but
rather must use other names -- however, we should be able to set up different
pages in different screen-name spaces and link to them from our main page ...
hmmm ...).  We could follow an agreed-upon format or keep it a free-form
exchange.  We would have sufficient time to research and respond in depth to
every one of each other's questions, PLUS include links and references for
our readers to do their own follow-through research.  Thus, instead of
baffling them with BS, we could dazzle them with our brillance, which is
always the better way.  And, better yet, information would be presented and
exchanged, not just empty rhetorics.  It wouldn't be an empty show, but
rather learning.

If you want, I could even post our exchanges so far as the first part of the
debate.  How does that sound?  Or would you rather start again from scratch?


And I volunteer to handle all the HTML encoding.  

What do you say, Bill?  


#########################################################
Subj:    Re: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-19 11:41:18 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: liber8r@mcs.com
CC: DWise1, BillyJack6

Subj:    Re: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-14 22:50:16 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com (DWise1), BillyJack6@aol.com
CC: DWise1@aol.com

What a letter!

It was very well done.

>Question: Why is it that Billy doesn't respond with anything other than one
line replies?

Might it be that he doesn't have a reasonable explanation?<
                                                           
                                                           
Well, I really cannot say whether he has a reasonable explanation or not.
You see, I have yet to see him offer one.

#########################################################
    
Subj:   Re: Re: More Web Sites you can use
Date:   98-04-16 22:23:13 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com


> So give me the strongest reason why you think bacteria are teh ancestors to
blue whales.

  
I never said that I thought that, nor does evolutionary theory make that
claim.  Really, Bill, you need to learn what evolution is about, before you
can begin to criticize it.  Even though he is talking about geology, what
Glenn Morton has to say in his "The Entire Geologic Column in North Dakota:
The Geologic Column and Its Implications to the Flood"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/geo.htm] is very a propos:

"Geology, like any science, is not immune from criticism.  but Christians who
criticize geology should do so only after a thorough understanding of the
data, not as is usually the case before such an understanding is gained."

[NOTE:  Morton is speaking from bitter personal experience on that one.]

           
Similarly, you need to gain a more thorough understanding of evolution before
you can criticize it effectively; Sun Tsu was right.  You have demonstrated
before that you do not understand Punctuated Equilibria and now you've
demonstrated that you do not understand basic Darwinian evolution, since you
are confusing it with Lamarckian evolution's "Ladder of Life", the same
mistake that Michael Denton made.  You'll be amazed how many of your problems
with evolution will be resolved once you start to learn about it.

The claim would not be that bacteria are the ancestors of blue whales, but
rather that they share a common ancestor or ancestors.  The former implies a
system in which the lower life forms have stopped evolving and in which the
lower forms evolve into the higher forms and continue to do so, the "Ladder
of Life."  However, the latter says that both the ancestral line of whales
AND the ancestral line of modern bacteria would have continued to evolve
after the two lines diverged, hence, no "Ladder of Life," but rather a
branching out over time as each line branches out into more lines.  The
"lower" life forms do not evolve into the "higher" ones, but rather all
extant life forms have evolved from ancestral forms, some of which are
ancestral to other extant life forms as well.  Modern bacteria are different
from the ancient bacteria from which they had evolved.  The reasons for
thinking that whales and bacteria share a common ancestor include the
similarities in their biochemistry and in their proteins, hence my earlier
answer of "DNA and biochemistry for starters."  In this case, they are too
different to point to most other similarities, with the most basic difference
between them being that bacteria are procaryote whereas whale cells are
eucaryote.

[A comic strip I saw once:  the difference between procaryotes and eucaryotes
was illustrated by what happens on moving day, where the pro-carry-its use
Bekins while the U-carry-its use U-Hauls.]

Now, you could have just as well have asked for the evidence of common
ancestry between birds and some dinosaurs, or between cats, dogs, and bears,
or between apes and man.  But they would not have served your purpose because
there is a lot of homological, fossil, and genetic evidence for those
lineages.  Instead, you chose a worst-case example, the longest link you
could think of for which there is no fossil evidence, plus the greatest
disparity in physical size.  Your tactic obviously involved presenting an
"ancestor"-descendent pairing that most people would view as ridiculous.  You
might even have been hinting at a request for a detailed description of the
lineage.  Implicit in your approach is the need to draw attention away from
the ancestral lines for which there is a lot of credible evidence, since your
entire premise requires that absolutely none of that evidence exists -- or
else Scripture ... well, you know the rest.

It looks like I'd better explain to you about how creation science's
two-model approach (TMA) works and what its problems are.  Then you should be
able to understand why poking tiny holes in your "evolution model," which
hardly has anything to do with evolution, does nothing to disprove evolution.
While I'm thinking of it, I should also include an explanation of bundled
hypotheses, which would show why poking tiny holes in real evolutionary
theory also would not disprove evolution (indeed, such poking is done by
scientists all the time and is very much a part of testing and refining a
theory).  The TMA explanation will take some time, since I'm currently
preparing a web page on it, "in my copious spare time" (engineer
phraseology).


Well, now that you have asked me a question -- for the second time -- which I
have answered -- also for the second time -- you can finally answer some of
my questions:

1. Do you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old?  Why?  Based on what
positive evidence?

2. Do you agree with John Morris that if the earth is more than 10,000 years
old then Scripture has no meaning?

3. What would happen if you found irrefutable proof that the earth is far
older than 10,000 years?  What effect would that have on you?  How would it
affect your faith?  Should it?  Why? 

4.  What was meant by your outburst, "Its not!" (Subj: Re: Where'd ya go?;
Date: 97-10-10 01:07:56 EDT)?  What's "not"?  Please, provide some context.
What were you talking about?                                      
                                                                 
5. How, then, can you honestly ever expect to use creation science to convert
me or anybody else possessing knowledge of creation science?  The only way
would be for us to abandon our higher moral and ethical standards of truth
and honesty.  Why would I ever want to lower my standards so drastically?


#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-20 21:31:43 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>Here is a reasonable reply!

You consider yourself "wise," yet believe in spontaneous generation.  If you
do not beleive in spontaneous generation please provide me witht eh best
explanation you have for the origin of life.

Can you?

Will you?

Billy Jack</PRE></HTML>


#########################################################

Subj:   Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-26 12:58:36 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>######################################
Subj:   Re: Creation Science as Apologetics
Date:   98-04-20 21:31:43 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

Here is a reasonable reply!

You consider yourself "wise," yet believe in spontaneous generation.  If you
do not beleive in spontaneous generation please provide me witht eh best
explanation you have for the origin of life.

Can you?

Will you?

Billy Jack
#####################################

>Here is a reasonable reply!<

That statement is questionable on two major points:

1. It is not a reply, but rather a non sequitur.  You are neither answering
nor responding to anything here.  It does not follow from the previous
discussion, which did include questions for which a resply was expected AND
IS STILL EXPECTED.  Instead, you are introducing an entirely new topic,
effectively avoiding the current topic.

For that matter, there is a large and growing number of questions posed to
you for which replies were expected and have been requested, repeatedly.  You
have proven yourself most industrious in avoiding replying to any of them.

2. It is not reasonable.  Yet again, you have jumped to unwarranted
conclusions based on false premises.  You have again demonstrated your
misunderstanding of the subject.

Bill, you have developed quite a reputation for not replying and for posting
very few replies like:

################################
Subj: Re: Where'd ya go?
Date: 97-10-10 01:07:56 EDT
From: BillyJack6
To:   DWise1

Its not!

BillyJack6
Re: Where'd ya go?
################################

I have repeatedly asked you what you meant by that, but you have never
replied.  That is the kind of behavior I was refering to.

Right now, I am awaiting your reply to the hypothetical situation I had posed
for you and for which I had explicitly requested a reply.  We are still
waiting.

Here is that problem again:

### BEGIN ###

Glenn R. Morton, his friend Steve Robertson, and those ICR-trained geology
students are prime examples of this high-risk group.  When they went to work
as geologists, they could not avoid working with those troublesome data that
they had been taught did not exist and could not exist.  It was right there
in front of them, day after day.  The harmonization fell to pieces at their
feet.  They were left with that other lesson that they had been taught over
and over again:  if that troublesome data were true, then Scripture has no
meaning (Liber8r:  in case you do not know it, to a fundamentalist that can
be paramount to saying that there is no God; in short, their entire theology
has lost its basis and starts to unravel).  Since they still believed that
the troublesome data and their faith were mutually exclusive and they could
plainly see that the troublesome data was true, that led them to the logical
conclusion that their religion was wrong (ironically, that realization
probably actually saved their faith, but more on that thought at a later
date).  Morton ended up on the verge of becoming an atheist.  BECAUSE of
creation science.  Robertson didn't quite go that far and I don't know about
the others, except that none of them had suffered a crisis of GEOLOGY.

Bill, you're an ME.  Now, I know from experience that fundamentalists tend to
have a hard time with Gedankenexperimenten and hypothetical situations, but
please bear with me.  Try to imagine what it would be like to have been
taught that, say, there was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and,
furthermore, if it did exist then Scripture would have no meaning.  You go
through school having been taught this and you believe it.  But then you go
out to work as an ME.  What do you have to deal with several times over in
virtually each and every piece of machinery?  Moments of Inertia!  They're
all over the place!  Given the premises of this Gedankenexperiment, what
effect would this have on you and on your faith?  What conclusions would you
reach?  
                                       
                                       
Think about it!  It's very important!  Especially that last question.
Because that question is not rhetorical.  Because there is a right answer to
it.  An answer that provides the key to solving the entire problem.  An
answer that will lead a harmonization that can withstand any number of
"troublesome data" and keep faith intact.  An answer that is in full accord
with your Calvinistic world-view.  You've seen the answer many times before,
but you have denied that answer because of your paradigm paralysis.

That reference to Calvinism is a hint.  Use it.  We'll talk about that answer
later.

### END ###

Oh, and what is your reply regarding an on-line debate?


Now, since I do reply to questions, and quite reasonably, I might add:

>You consider yourself "wise," yet believe in spontaneous generation.<

It is demonstrably false to say that I "believe in spontaneous generation" or
to claim the same of evolutionary biologists.  

The idea of spontaneous generation dates from before this century.  It was
the idea that that entire living organisms could arise fully formed, complete
with complex organs and systems, from previously living matter.  That idea
was shown to be false through the experiments of Louis Pasteur.  Hardly
anybody believes in spontaneous generation anymore.

Tell me, Bill.  Who among us here, entre nous trois, comes the closest to
believing in the abrupt appearance of fully formed, complex living organisms
who lack any progenitors (ie, parents)?  In all honesty, who among us three
comes the closest to believing in spontaneous generation?  

I'll give you a hint:  it is neither me nor liber8r.



>If you do not beleive in spontaneous generation please provide me witht eh
best explanation you have for the origin of life.

Abiogenesis.  Duh?

Abiogenesis is very different from spontaneous generation.  Abiogenesis is
the study of the origin of living systems from non-living matter through
prebiotic synthesis; it is a slow,  stepwise set of natural processes.
Spontaneous generation is the assembly of fully formed complex organisms out
of inanimate material in short periods of time; it is an abrupt, all-at-once
process.  Abiogenesis and spontaneous generation are not comparable.

All that you are trying to accomplish by equating abiogenesis with the
long-discredited idea of spontaneous generation is to discredit evolution
through association, even though evolution does not depend on abiogenesis
(which you already know, or should know).  It is just another creationist
strawman for you to put on yet another public show of defeating utterly,
while you stay well away from your avowed enemy, evolution.  It was just yet
another cheap, dishonest creationist trick. 

                 
Bill, we've been through all this before.  Don't you remember?  You made the
exact same false claim in your "Weird Science", to which I replied in my
critique:

### BEGIN EXERPT ######################################
"Stu :  What about life starting from non-life.  It's called spontaneous
generation."


"Life starting from non-life" is called Abiogenesis, as opposed to the
general observation of life coming from life, or Biogenesis.  It seems that
no creationist presentation ever goes by without throwing this challenge out.
The obvious intent is to tie evolution with abiogenesis and to make it appear
to the audience that evolution depends upon abiogenesis, so that any failure
to explain abiogenesis can be declared a failure of evolution.

As it turns out, Darwinian evolution does not deal with the origin of life
from non-life, but rather with descent with modification from a common
ancestor, which presupposes life and so conforms to Biogenesis.  Abiogenesis
extends the ideas of evolution and so depends on evolution, whereas evolution
does not depend on abiogenesis.

Think about it.  Darwinian evolution is "descent with modification from a
common ancestor," i.e. that all species are the modified descendants of
earlier species.  This means the Darwinian view is that a species existed
which produced offspring that were very similar to, yet slightly different
from, the parent generation (a very common every-day occurrence).  If the
environment changes (through climatic change or migration), then the
differences between the original ancestral species and its descendants would
increase through differential reproduction (AKA natural selection) until they
become two different species.  Furthermore, if different groups of the
original ancestral species' descendants had moved into different environments
and so were subjected to different selective pressures, then they would
become different from each other and also become two different species.

Notice that in each generation, Darwinian evolution has LIFE (an ancestral
species) giving rise to LIFE (a descendant species).   This is in complete
agreement with Biogenesis.  DARWINIAN evolution presupposes life; it
describes the origin of species from ancestral species.  Darwinian evolution
depends on the ability of a population to make near-perfect copies of itself
(but not too perfect); this is a property of life.  Darwinian evolution does
not claim that life started from non-life," it does not depend on that claim,
and it does not, in and of itself, even raise that question.  Darwinian
evolution deals with proximate origins, not ultimate origins.

Rather, "life starting from non-life" is a part of Abiogenesis, which does
directly raise and try to answer the question of the origin of life from
non-living matter.  This area of study has adopted some evolutionary ideas,
both Darwinian and non-Darwinian, adapted them to new and different kinds of
problems, and extended them beyond their original scope. It's an entirely
different and very difficult game of which we've barely begun just to learn
the rules.

Abiogenesis is admittedly a rather weak science, mainly because it has so
little direct evidence to work from.  Almost all the evidence from the origin
of life has been eradicated, most likely through the action of life.  Any
attempt to repeat the process in nature will be halted either by the wrong
conditions (e.g. atmospheric content) or by the action of existing life (e.g.
proteinoids immediately being eaten by existing bacteria).

Just about all that scientists can do at this point is to take their current
understanding of the processes that were probably involved, try to
reconstruct how it might have happened, and see how much sense it makes.  It
can be frustrating work, but it does show some promise.

It's like working a jig-saw puzzle without a pattern picture and with most of
the pieces missing.  But even though most of the key pieces have not been
found yet, what we have found is very promising.  Sidney Fox's work with
thermal proteins show that amino acids will form together quite readily when
heated and that the proteinoid microspheres that form when water is added can
persist for indefinite periods of time over a wide range of conditions and
that some of them exhibit enzyme-like and other activities, albeit weak.
Orgel's experiments show enzymes producing RNA. ###

For a long time, we have been vitalists, i.e. we have believed that there was
something insubstantial and magical about life, something that we could never
find nor duplicate.  Yet we have found that the stuff and processes of life
are very much physical and mechanistic.  The stuff of life are molecules and
they operate very regularly through biochemistry; there is nothing mystical
about it.

Abiogenesis depends upon the ideas of Darwinian evolution to the extent that
they apply to this problem, but it is doubtful how far they can apply.
Darwinian evolution depends very heavily on the property of replication (so
that it can bring the power of natural selection to bear), so until that
property can be established Darwinian evolution can contribute very little if
anything.  Scientists even apply a different term, chemical evolution, which
relies on deterministic chemical reactions, rather than the principles of
Darwinian evolution.

It is not evolution that depends on abiogenesis, but rather the materialistic
view of the universe, a view which I happen to share.

### END EXERPT ######################################


As I had said, research in abiogenesis doesn't really have much in way of
historical evidence to go on.  Like much of what's produced in the kitchen,
most of the evidence has been eaten (literally).  We do not have anything
approaching a complete comprehensive model, but we have found several
intriguing clues.

The natural production of amino acids was demonstrated by the famous
Urey-Miller experiment.  Even though creationists tried to discredit it, it
did still show that amino acids could be produced by natural processes.  Then
Sidney Fox's experiments with thermal proteins showed that amino acids, when
heated, form readily into short protein-like chains (what is the probability
of proteins forming?  100%, a sure thing.), some of which  are chemically
active.  Earlier proteinoids did not last long, but it was found that that
was due to their being eaten by micro-organisms; a sterile batch of
proteinoid microspheres remained stable for several years, until they were
destroyed at the end of the experiment.  RNA has been shown to be capable of
self-replication.   And so on.

Of course, we don't have the full story yet, nor do we know how these pieces
fit into the puzzle.  But we are confident that we are on the right track.


FWIW, the first transition from non-life to life could have been a
supernatural event.  We really don't have any way of knowing at the present.
However, keep in mind that even if this were true, that does not
automatically mean that it would have been YOUR version of that supernatural
event (after all, yours is just one of countless other supernaturalistic
creation myths).  And, even if non-life to life had been a supernatural
event, the resultant descent with modification that changed that first life
to life as we know it at present would still be Darwinian evolution, so a
supernaturalistic explanation would not support your "creation model."  

And if you try to raise the idea of panspermia, the results would still be
the same.  First, panspermia only displaces the question of how life arose to
extraterrestrial sites and causes and, second, Darwinian evolution would
still have taken that first, transplanted life and produced life as we know
it at present.


A final thought on this matter, which was provided by Wakefield in his report
on Robert Gentry's polonium-halo claim (basically, Gentry claimed to have
found polonium halos in the lowest and most ancient granite, when in reality,
the rocks that Gentry claimed to have found the halos in were METAMORPHIC
rock; at first, Gentry had agreed to cooperate with Wakefield, but he quickly
backed out) [paraphrasing from memory]:

There those for whom a mystery equals God; such that if scientists cannot
explain it, then that must mean that God did  it and hence it is proof of the
existence of God.  So when these people see a mystery, they want it to remain
a mystery.  But when a scientist sees a mystery, he wants to solve it.  The
"mystery equals God" approach seeks to preserve ignorance whereas the
scientific way seeks to learn more.  That is the most basic difference
between scientists and creationists.  




There now, Bill.  That was yet another reply from me.  Now it is your turn to
provide some replies -- actually, it's been your turn for quite some time
now.  Shall I list a few of the old questions yet again?:


1. Do you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old?  Why?

2. Do you agree with John Morris that if the earth is more than 10,000 years
old then Scripture has no meaning?

3. What would happen if you found irrefutable proof that the earth is far
older than 10,000 years?  What effect would that have on you?  How would it
affect your faith?  Should it?  Why? 

4. [to your "Have you ever heard my lesson?"]  Do you have a lesson to
present?  Then please, go right ahead and present it.  Nothing is stopping
you, nor has anything ever been stopping you.
                                                                 
5.  What was meant by your outburst, "Its not!" (Subj: Re: Where'd ya go?;
Date: 97-10-10 01:07:56 EDT)?  What's "not"?  Please, provide some context.
What are you talking about?                                      
                                                                 
6. How, then, can you honestly ever expect to use creation science to convert
me or anybody else possessing knowledge of creation science?  The only way
would be for us to abandon our higher moral and ethical standards of truth
and honesty.  Why would I ever want to lower my standards so drastically?

7. Which Patterson quotes did your speaker use and how did he use and
interpret those quotes for the audience.

8. What is your definition [in your assessment of the moon-dust claims as "a
uniformitarian argument and ridiculous."] of "uniformitarian"?  Do you have
other definitions of this term that you use? (eg, are there differences in
how you used the term here and in how science uses the term) Who would use
uniformitarian arguments? (obviously, from this example, we know that
creationists do) What are the alternatives to uniformitarian arguments?

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-27 00:02:18 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Hey!  I am helping to organize an Origin of Life Debate at UCI on
May 28th 1998.

Will you be able to make it?

Bill</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-29 23:35:28 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
###################
Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-27 00:02:18 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Hey!  I am helping to organize an Origin of Life Debate at UCI on May 28th
1998.

Will you be able to make it?

Bill

################

How?  You forget the Spanish Inquisition.  I wouldn't be able to sneak
sneaking out past her.  Besides, it looks like my older son's choir has a
concert that night, so you can guess what the plan is.

Who are the debators?  What will the format be?  Will you report on the
debate?  


You still have not replied to my counter-offer of an on-line debate. 

We are also still awaiting your reply to the hypothetical situation I had
posed.  It really is important that you answer the questions.  More important
for you than for me.  Here it is yet again:

### BEGIN ###

Glenn R. Morton, his friend Steve Robertson, and those ICR-trained geology
students are prime examples of this high-risk group.  When they went to work
as geologists, they could not avoid working with those troublesome data that
they had been taught did not exist and could not exist.  It was right there
in front of them, day after day.  The harmonization fell to pieces at their
feet.  They were left with that other lesson that they had been taught over
and over again:  if that troublesome data were true, then Scripture has no
meaning (Liber8r:  in case you do not know it, to a fundamentalist that can
be paramount to saying that there is no God; in short, their entire theology
has lost its basis and starts to unravel).  Since they still believed that
the troublesome data and their faith were mutually exclusive and they could
plainly see that the troublesome data was true, that led them to the logical
conclusion that their religion was wrong (ironically, that realization
probably actually saved their faith, but more on that thought at a later
date).  Morton ended up on the verge of becoming an atheist.  BECAUSE of
creation science.  Robertson didn't quite go that far and I don't know about
the others, except that none of them had suffered a crisis of GEOLOGY.

Bill, you're an ME.  Now, I know from experience that fundamentalists tend to
have a hard time with Gedankenexperimenten and hypothetical situations, but
please bear with me.  Try to imagine what it would be like to have been
taught that, say, there was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and,
furthermore, if it did exist then Scripture would have no meaning.  You go
through school having been taught this and you believe it.  But then you go
out to work as an ME.  What do you have to deal with several times over in
virtually each and every piece of machinery?  Moments of Inertia!  They're
all over the place!  Given the premises of this Gedankenexperiment, what
effect would this have on you and on your faith?  What conclusions would you
reach?  
                                       
                                       
Think about it!  It's very important!  Especially that last question.
Because that question is not rhetorical.  Because there is a right answer to
it.  An answer that provides the key to solving the entire problem.  An
answer that will lead a harmonization that can withstand any number of
"troublesome data" and keep faith intact.  An answer that is in full accord
with your Calvinistic world-view.  You've seen the answer many times before,
but you have denied that answer because of your paradigm paralysis.

That reference to Calvinism is a hint.  Use it.  We'll talk about that answer
later.

### END ###
</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-04-29 23:35:40 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
Bill, a few things in your latest newsletter did not make much sense to me.

Your topic was "bad science" ("conclusions based on bad data") and the
example was the blaming of the depletion of the ozone layer on clorine atoms
originating from the refrigerant R-12 (Freon 12).  Your point of contention
was that R-12 is very dense and so could not rise up to the ozone layer five
miles up through an atmosphere consisting of lighter molecules.

You took that question and "put it to the test" by attending air conditioning
trade shows (as part of your current job) and posing the question to the
sales and marketing people there, whose expertise was air conditioning and
refrigerator systems.  Since none of them could answer a physics/chemistry
question from outside their own field of expertise, you concluded that that
question was unanswerable and that it was an example of "bad science."  It
would be similar to me going to UNIX trade shows asking everybody to explain
the details of  TSR programming (the terminate-and-stay programming that
produced the memory-resident pop-up utilities that were a real hot item in
DOS before Windows completely took over), except that some of the UNIX types
might have crossed over from DOS and so would know the answer.

Bill, have you asked any scientists that question?  Have you researched any
of the literature discussing the effects of R-12 on the atmosphere?  Have you
read any scientific explanations for the localizing of the ozone "hole" over
Antarctica?  You blame Antarctic volcanic activity, but why wouldn't that
happen over more equitorial regions of volcanic activity? (hint:  think about
the rotation of the earth and the associated wind and weather patterns)  You
are assuming that the entire R-12 molecule (that's right, I am not familiar
with the chemistry of R-12, so I'm not sure whether it is a molecule or a
mixture) has to make the journey up to the ozone layer, but why not consider
the byproducts of R-12 reactions at the ground level that may be able to rise
to the occasion?  Again, what does the literature say?  

Another minor point I would question:  "And keep in mind that refrigerants
operate in a closed system (systems that are designed not to leak; however if
they do leak, they are immediately repaired or replaced)."  Excuse me.  If
you had to replace a unit because the refrigerant had leaked out, then the
refrigerant had leaked out.  And how does an end-user realize that he has a
leak until it has all leaked out or almost all leaked out?  How leak-proof
are those systems, then I seem to remember something about having to
periodically recharge them (ie, put in
more refrigerant, which would mean that is missing, as in "leaked out").  And
what about the discarded units?  Certainly there are reclamation efforts,
much more so now than before, but I doubt very much that every single
discarded refrigeration unit gets all its refrigerant reclaimed.  In short,
leaks do happen and have happened.  The only question would be, how much.

You had started to think about this question, but you stopped way short of
completely thinking it through.  You certainly did not put it to any real
test.  Have you read any of the primary source literature?  Or even
secondary?  There are a lot of articles posted on the Web on many subjects,
so I'd be surprised if there weren't any on R12 and the ozone layer.  For
that matter, since the Web offers us the means of finding the email addresses
of individuals and organizations (I recently tracked down the author of a
shareware program who had been in Columbia but is now in Pakistan, all
through the Web), have you tried to email some of the scientists responsible
so that you can ask THEM your question?  Or are you afraid that your little
conspiracy theory will fall apart when they provide you with the answer to
your question?  Remember, seeking the truth is different from just trying to
show somebody up; you were doing the latter when you needed to be doing the
former.

You were using this question as an example of "bad science", so that you
could further discredit science, one of the necessary intermediate goals of
creation science (yeah, I have also heard the fundamentalist definition of
"true science" as that science which agrees fully with the Bible, although
that approach completely bypasses the scientific method).  It is certainly
true that people with an agenda will latch on to a single finding or just
plain bad data or even create their own bad data and try to build an entire
movement out of it.  A prime example of that is creation science.


The next question would be -- besides the question of whether you would be
willing to actually test your question -- , when you discover that you were
wrong, will the readers of your newsletter or the members of the Creation
Science Association of Orange County (CSAOC) ever hear about it?  I am sure
that they have never heard about the mistake you had made about protein
comparisons.  And I suspect that you have continued to propagate your
mistake, even though you know better.  

But hey, it's the creation science way!  I've been seeing that kind of stuff
happen for almost two decades now.

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Bad Science:  R-12 -- The Sequel
Date:   98-04-29 23:35:54 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
Bill, the day after I wrote the email concerning your questions concerning
R-12, I decided to look for the answers.  Through Yahoo (heute schon
Yahoot?), I found them within 15 minutes.  You could have done the same.

To keep myself honest, I left the previously authored email unchanged.  As it
is, my suggestion that byproducts of R-12 reactions at ground level might be
what's getting to the ozone layer was wrong, because one of the primary
properties of CFCs is that they are extremely stable and do not react to
anything in the lower atmosphere, but only break down when bombarded by
high-energy UV radiation.  Still, it was a possibility that needed to be
tested.  Has something to do with the scientific method.  You might have
heard something about that.

                   
I found and saved copies of the FAQs which answer your questions.  Those
questions are:

1. How Can Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're
Heavier than Air?
2. Why is the Ozone Hole Observed over Antarctica When CFCs Are Released
Mainly in the Northern Hemisphere?
3. Does Most of the Chlorine in the Stratosphere Come from Human or Natural
Sources?




Basically, despite the fact that CFC molecules are several times heavier than
air, direct measurement shows that they are present in the stratosphere in
sufficient quantity to do damage.  They mix in with the lower atmosphere and
are transported by the winds, similar to how moving water can keep much
heavier particles in suspension.  CFC is very stable and unreactive in the
lower atmosphere (which is one reason they had become so widely used in
industry) and so can persist for the years that it takes for them to reach
the stratosphere.  Other sources of clorine (eg, swimming pools and volcanic
eruptions) do not contribute much, if any, to ozone depletion, because that
clorine is water-soluble and gets scrubbed out of the lower atmosphere long
before it could reach the stratosphere.  CFC gets thoroughly mixed in the
lower atmosphere long before it works its way to the stratosphere, so the
locality of its production has no bearing on where the zones of greatest
depletion occur.  Global atmospheric convection patterns, especially the
up-welling at the tropics which feed the down-welling at the poles, carry the
CFCs to the polar regions.  Antarctic meteorology produces conditions which
promote the depletion reactions.


Object lesson:  when you have a question about something, go ask somebody how
knows the answer, rather than to ask those who don't and then conclude that
the question is unanswerable.  Don't jump to conclusions prematurely.  Look
for the FAQs. (pun fully intended)

                          
Below are copies of the FAQs which answer your questions.  The .GIF files
that accompanied the FAQs have been attached to this email in aself-unZIPping
file, OZONE.EXE, just in case you do not have PKUNZIP or do not know how to
use it (No offense intended here, Bill.  I honestly do not know what your
level of computer expertise is and I have learned the hard way never to
assume).   Just run it and it will unzip itself.  Then you can view the files
with your GIF viewer.  Or just go to the URLs given below.
        
[Liber8r:  if AOL's attachment protocol, which I believe to be MIME, is
incompatible with your email system, let me know so that we can work it out.
Or you could just go to the pages they are posted on.  I had included them
because I doubt whether Bill would go to those pages himself.]       

[DOH!!  I'm sorry, but I forgot to bring that file home with me.  I'll have
to owe you.]

####

http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/pubdocs/Assessment94/common-questions-q1.html
Common Questions about Ozone

How Can Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're Heavier
than Air?

Although the CFC molecules are indeed several times heavier than air,
thousands of measurements have been made from balloons, aircraft, and
satellites demonstrating that the CFCs are actually present in the
stratosphere. The atmosphere is not stagnant. Winds mix the atmosphere to
altitudes far above the top of the stratosphere much faster than molecules
can settle according to their weight.  Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble
in water and relatively unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below about 10
km) are quickly mixed and therefore reach the stratosphere regardless of
their weight. 

Much can be learned about the atmospheric fate of compounds from the measured
changes in concentration versus altitude. For example, the two gases carbon
tetrafluoride (CF4, produced mainly as a by-product of the manufacture of
aluminum) and CFC-11 (CCl3F, used in a variety of human activities) are both
much heavier than air. Carbon tetrafluoride is completely unreactive in the
lower 99.9% of the atmosphere, and measurements show it to be nearly
uniformly distributed throughout the atmosphere as shown in the figure. There
have also been measurements over the past two decades of several other
completely unreactive gases, one lighter than air (neon) and some heavier
than air (argon, krypton), which show that they also mix upward uniformly
through the stratosphere regardless of their weight, just as observed with
carbon tetrafluoride. CFC-11 is unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below
about 15 km) and is similarly uniformly mixed there, as shown. The abundance
of CFC-11 decreases as the gas reaches higher altitudes, where it is broken
down by high energy solar ultraviolet radiation. Chlorine released from this
breakdown of CFC-11 and other CFCs remains in the stratosphere for several
years, where it destroys many thousands of molecules of ozone. 

####

http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/pubdocs/Assessment94/common-questions-q6.html
Common Questions about Ozone

Why is the Ozone Hole Observed over Antarctica When CFCs Are Released Mainly
in the Northern Hemisphere?

Human emissions of CFCs do occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, with
about 90% released in the latitudes corresponding to Europe, Russia, Japan,
and North America. Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble in water and
relatively unreactive are mixed within a year or two throughout the lower
atmosphere (below about 10 km). The CFCs in this well-mixed air rise from the
lower atmosphere into the stratosphere mainly in tropical latitudes. Winds
then move this air poleward - both north and south - from the tropics, so
that air throughout the stratosphere contains nearly the same amount of
chlorine. However, the meteorologies of the two polar regions are very
different from each other because of major differences at the Earth's
surface. The South Pole is part of a very large land mass (Antarctica) that
is completely surrounded by ocean. These conditions produce very low
stratospheric temperatures which in turn lead to formation of clouds (polar
stratospheric clouds). The clouds that form at low temperatures lead to
chemical changes that promote rapid ozone loss during September and October
of each year, resulting in the ozone hole. 

In contrast, the Earth's surface in the northern polar region lacks the
land/ocean symmetry characteristic of the southern polar area. As a
consequence, Arctic stratospheric air is generally much warmer than in the
Antarctic, and fewer clouds form there. Therefore, the ozone depletion in the
Arctic is much less than in the Antarctic. 


####

http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/pubdocs/Assessment94/common-questions-q3.html
Common Questions about Ozone

Does Most of the Chlorine in the Stratosphere Come from Human or Natural
Sources?

Most of the chlorine in the stratosphere is there as a result of human
activities. 

Many compounds containing chlorine are released at the ground, but those that
dissolve in water cannot reach stratospheric altitudes. Large quantities of
chlorine are released from evaporated ocean spray as sea salt (sodium
chloride) aerosol. However, because sea salt dissolves in water, this
chlorine quickly is taken up in clouds or in ice, snow, or rain droplets and
does not reach the stratosphere. Another ground-level source of chlorine is
its use in swimming pools and as household bleach. When released, this
chlorine is rapidly converted to forms that dissolve in water and therefore
are removed from the lower atmosphere, never reaching the stratosphere in
significant amounts. Volcanoes can emit large quantities of hydrogen
chloride, but this gas is rapidly converted to hydrochloric acid in rain
water, ice, and snow and does not reach the stratosphere. Even in explosive
volcanic plumes that rise high in the atmosphere, nearly all of the hydrogen
chloride is scrubbed out in precipitation before reaching stratospheric
altitudes. 

In contrast, human-made halocarbons - such as CFCs, carbon tetrachloride
(CCl4) and methyl chloroform (CH3CCl3) - are not soluble in water, do not
react with snow or other natural surfaces, and are not broken down chemically
in the lower atmosphere. While the exhaust from the Space Shuttle and from
some rockets does inject some chlorine directly into the stratosphere, this
input is very small (less than one percent of the annual input from
halocarbons in the present stratosphere, assuming nine Space Shuttle and six
Titan IV rocket launches per year). 

Several pieces of evidence combine to establish human-made halocarbons as the
primary source of stratospheric chlorine. First, measurements (see the figure
below) have shown that the chlorinated species that rise to the stratosphere
are primarily manufactured compounds (mainly CFCs, carbon tetrachloride,
methyl chloroform, and the HCFC substitutes for CFCs), together with small
amounts of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and methyl chloride (CH3Cl) which are
partly natural in origin. The natural contribution now is much smaller than
that from human activities, as shown in the figure below. Second, in 1985 and
1992 researchers measured nearly all known gases containing chlorine in the
stratosphere. They found that human emissions of halocarbons plus the much
smaller contribution from natural sources could account for all of the
stratospheric chlorine compounds. Third, the increase in total stratospheric
chlorine measured between 1985 and 1992 corresponds with the known increases
in concentrations of human-made halocarbons during that time. 

####

OK, Bill, now that you know the rest of the story, what will you do about it?
Will your readers ever hear about this from you?  Will you continue to tell
your story of how nobody could answer your questions?

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash" 
Date:   98-04-30 23:03:48 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1, BillyJack6


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:    Carbon Dating "Crash" 
Date:   98-04-07 16:09:19 EDT
From:   BSPARKS@ifeirve.beav.com (Sparks, Brad)
To: drager@cadware.com (David Rager), emc3@ix.netcom.com (Earle Craig),
tkhollis@uci.edu (T. Keith HOLLIS), billyjack6@aol.com, DBarkleys@aol.com,
ealpurcell@juno.com, earthman@uci.edu, IBA@nccn.net,
john_bloom@peter.biola.edu (John Bloom), MoonNerd@aol.com,
mtsbookie@juno.com, phils@value.net, saustin@flash.net, smoore@uci.edu
(Stephanie MOORE), stevie_d@globalpac.com


THIS COMES FROM A SCI.ARCHAEOLOGY NEWSGROUP.  IF YOU PATIENTLY WADE THROUGH 
THIS YOU'LL SEE THERE IS A SERIOUS ATTACK ON CARBON-DATING THAT HAS BEEN 
PUBLISHED:

I underwrite the following conclusions by Christian Bloess &  Hans-Ulrich
Niemitz from 1996, now published as _C14-Crash_ (1997) 460pp ISBN
3-928852-15-9


The Self-Deception of the C14 Method and Dendrochronology: How
Dendrochronology Has Been Lulled into a False Sense of Security by an
Urgently needed Auxiliary Science


    What was announced as a "C14-article" at the annual chronology-meeting
in Hamburg has developed into a second "dendro-article". The previous one
also appeared in this magazine last year [Niemitz 1995, see also Illig
1991]. The insider knows that the C14 method would have been long lost had
it not been for the intervention of dendrochronology: a C14 measurement
has to be calibrated, and it is only dendrochronology which supplies the
required source of comprehensive calibration (see figure  4 ). Without
this assistance, the C14 method would have lost its reputation as the most
reliable method of determining the absolute age of historical artefacts
for the most recent 50.000 years.

    In contrast, it is hardly known that without C14 dendrochronology
would never have been able to bring about a complete tree-ring sequence
for the Post Glacial Age.

1. How Dendrochronologists Have Humbled Themselves to the Traditional
Chronology of Europe

    The dendrochronologists' predicament, that there are floating
tree-ring sequences which could not be predated, was and is great. The
floating chronologies were supposed to have been worked into a tree-ring
sequence covering the entire Post Glacial Age which was to be complete in
the end. If an unknown sample of wood were investigated for its usefulness
in extending the "master" (the standard sequence) and there was no
indication of which area of chronology it belonged to, the "a-priori
probability of finding the correct date [that is, the correct synchronous
layers] was so small that there was little chance of actually finding it"
[Hollstein 1970, 147]. For Hollstein, it was not reliable to work out a
tree-ring sequence without it being predated by historical sciences since
without outside support an approach such as this held the danger of
improper dating if the wrong "synchronisation" were accepted from among
the many thousands of possibilities.

    Most of Hollstein's colleagues relied upon the C14 method when
predating, with whose help dendrochronologists, lacking any wood artefacts
which could be dated absolutely, planned to push ahead into the early Post
Glacial Period. H. Schwabedissen [1983, 284] remarked that investigations
by C14 physicists and dendrochronologists alone can not lead us to our
goal. Rather "consistently competent archaeologists" would have to be
called in.

    We agree with Hollstein's opinion about the fundamental difficulties
of accepting the synchronous layers for a tree-ring sequence without
seeking premises: it is simply not possible to be successful at
synchronising without predating. On the other hand, we reject the
traditional chronologies being accepted unreserved by dendrochronologists
such as Hollstein who thoughtlessly submit their synchronous layers to the
regime of a Christian calendar which came about based on dubious criteria.
If one wishes to rely upon the help of other methods, one has to be sure
that they are suitable.

    Dendrochronology believes itself to be on absolutely safe ground when
it relies upon historical data which are integrated into the context of
European history. Comparisons are made until an adequate synchronous layer
is found. This is what dendrochronologists like to call "successful"
synchronisation [see for instance Becker/Schmidt 1982, 104]. However, even
"convincing synchronisation" [Schwabedissen 1983, 282 on the Master from
"Kirnsulzbach"] proves to be false dating in the final analysis [a
summary, for example, with Leuschner/Delorme 1984, 234]. H.-U. Niemitz has
described the alarming frequency of oddities in the period of the
so-called "mass migration gap" [1995; also Illig 1991] which are also
unacceptable according to the internal criteria of dendrochronology and
for which it will probably only be possible to be solved after other
synchronous layers can be freed from the principle of "traditional
chronology" (see figure  2 ) .

    When dendrochronologists are asked about their dependency upon
predating, they usually state it is not important that an auxiliary
science which is consulted for predating tree-ring sequences has to be
valid in the end since the methodologically highly reliable standard of
dendrochronology will be applied exclusively in the end. In contrast to
this are not only the errors and contradictions in the individual
tree-ring sequences which have been negotiated openly and corrected
afterwards, but also those that can be only recognised indirectly in the
tree-ring chronologies. It is just as proper to ask the question of what
this auxiliary science is used for if it doesn't have any effect in the
end. The assertion that C14, by presetting an event, does not produce any
predisposition towards a decision on the later synchronous layer, is
simply wrong. It is urgently advised to look at the suitability of the C14
method as an auxiliary science for dendrochronology.

2. Under What Conditions C14 Functions ...

    The idea for developing the C14 method arose as W.F. Libby recognised
in 1939 that 1) the steady and uniform production of radioactive C14 in
the atmosphere (as a result of normal atmospheric nitrogen N14 being
bombarded by slow neutrons from cosmic rays) as well as 2) its unusually
slow radioactive decay would have to produce there a proportion of C14 and
normal carbon C12 which is globally and locally almost stable and uniform.

    R.D. Long remarked correctly that we would only be entitled to make
this assumption if nature were organised in a fundamentally uniform
fashion [Long 1973, 125]. This would mean that in all living organisms the
same ratio of C14/C12 would be present, exactly as this ratio has to
appear constant over time in atmospheric CO2.

    If an organism ceases exchanging materials with the outside world
ultimately when it dies, it particularly stops to exchange any carbon
atoms with the surrounding. Although the C14/C12 ratio should remain
dynamically stable in the outer world, it now decreased exponentially
within the organism. The longer ago it was that an organism ceased
exchanging materials, the lower the share of C14 atoms would be in
relation to the C12 atoms present in it. It was possible to calculate the
time that has past since its death from the measure of that lower ratio
between C14 and C12. This means that it should in principle be possible to
determine the point in time when a sample ceased exchanging materials from
the measurement of the remaining radioactivity.

    The evidence of the C14 method was originally made dependent on the
following 5 prerequisites:
    1. Measurability: The C14 radiation to be measured must differentiate
itself distinctly from the background radiation in order to measure
exactly and to receive a definite determination of age. (Problems of C14
laboratories with their results on replicated measurements)
    2. Cutting Off: During its storage period between the time when it
died and the corresponding investigation today, the sample under
investigation may not have had any exchange of carbon (Problem of
contamination)
    3. Spatial Invariance by Instantaneous Distribution: There must have
been the same C14/C12 ratio in all organisms which lived simultaneously at
different places (Problems arising from comparing different hemispheres,
reservoir effects).
    4. Organic Invariance: There must have been the same C14/C12 ratio in
all different organisms which lived simultaneously at the same place
(Problem of "isotopic fractionation").
    5. The Fundamental Assumption: The C14/C12 ratio must have always been
the same in the past. From this follows the statement: "The appropriate
age can be directly calculated from a C14 value." (Problem of the "Suess
Effect", C14 fluctuations around the theoretical value in long tree-ring
sequences).

    There are some other assumptions which are, of course, less decisive,
which we will not deal with here. We refer to our book on this topic which
will appear shortly. As long as these prerequisites could be looked upon
as fulfilled, the formula of "one measurement is one date" applied. The
immense fascination which drew laypersons and scientists working on
questions of dating rested upon this efficient nature of the method
expressed here in the form of a formula: without looking at the 'before'
and 'after', the 'above' and 'below', without weighing the 'more' or
'less' in samples against one another, it was possible to discover the
absolute age of a sample in a direct fashion by means of one single
measurement!

    Aitken's often rendered statement that "one date is no date" [1990,
95] makes it clear that people have dissociated themselves from the
rigorous validity of the prerequisites named here. With the exception of
the third prerequisite of "spatial invariance by instantaneous
distribution", none of them is "officially" valid anymore. In addition to
that this third prerequisite is the most important prerequisite for
applying the C14 method because simultanous tree-ring sequences have grown
always more or less spatially separated from one another. At least
sequences growing thousands of kilometres apart were compared for their
C14 dates under the prerequisite 3! If this possibility of meshing were no
longer to exist, the alliance between C14 and dendrochronology would have
to break apart.

3. .... and How C14 Fulfilled These Prerequisites and Fulfils Them Today

    The history of the C14 method is simultaneously a history of the
criticism of the practising laboratories. The question "error in
measurement or not?" can apparently never be dealt with unemotionally.
This becomes clear when we for example read J.G. Ogden III's remarks about
how the results of measurements from his laboratory were accepted: "It may
come as a shock to you, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates
from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America
have been adopted as 'acceptable' by investigators" [Ogden 1977, 173]. We
also quote R.M. Clark as another example of the standard of the measuring
laboratories' errors: "Thus there can be no doubt that on average the
variability between replicate observations is far in excess of the
variability expected in view of the quoted standard errors" [Clark 1975,
252; same statement Clark 1979, 52; emphasis added].

    Clark's estimations come from a time when the completion of the
European oak chronologies using the C14 method had come into our immediate
grasp. Ten years later, after it had seemingly already been completed, the
decision was finally made to carry out a more precise investigation of
systematic deviations between the measuring laboratories. Some of the
measuring laboratories evidenced deviations in their measured values that
were so alarming that they had to acknowledge that their image had been
damaged. "It may be yet a few years before the C14 community can repolish
its somewhat tarnished image. The important thing is that we have begun a
process of self-healing" [Long 1990, iii]. At this point we naturally ask
about the self-healing process for the tree-ring sequences drawn up using
C14.

    Prerequisite No. 2 (Cutting Off) touches upon the large area of
"contamination". Although here the most drastic errors have actually
become obvious, we are of the opinion that this is only a minor important
scenary to distract people from the actual problem. Nevertheless in our
context it becomes controversial when we ask the question if the annual
rings can absorb C14 from earlier rings or, as the case may be, if the
annual rings can give their C14 to earlier rings. In a systematic
investigation using a sample of the Californian bristlecone pine which is
so very important for dendrochronology, it was shown that carbon was
diffused in over 100 annual rings from the sapwood to heartwood areas
[Long et al. 1979, 536].

    We will skip over prerequisite No. 3 (spatial invariance, etc.) and
dedicate ourselves to No. 4 for a moment, which originally also made a
demand on invariance: Regardless of the type of metabolising organism, the
relation between C14/C12 occurring in the atmosphere or in water was to
appear again in the same manner in all living things - leaving spatial
differences completely aside. But even Libby had to differentiate between
simultaneously living shells and wood because the wood shows - luckily in
a systematic fashion - less radioactivity than the shells. Of course, the
recently felled wood seemed to have had a corresponding difference in age
of 600 years by which they were too old from a radiometric point of view.
The phenomenon that various organisms have a different preference for each
of the various carbon isotopes is designated "isotopic fractionation". In
practice it should be corrected before each statement on age is made.

    The "Fundamental Assumption" which is listed as the prerequisite No. 5
had to be watered down only a few years after the method was introduced in
its general version. It was recognised that both the increased burning of
natural fossil resources since the start of the Industrial Revolution as
well as the latest atomic bomb tests have led to a sometimes dramatic
shift in the relationship of C14/C12. Originally this relationship was
looked upon as a temporal constant. In the course of the sixties, it was
recognised that it was necessary to water down the Fundamental Assumption
still further as fluctuations were seen even for the time before the
Industrial Revolution.

    Finally, C14 measurements on trees recently felled and especially old
which therefore had ring sequences reaching far into the past and which of
course could be measured with regard to C14 made it necessary to make the
transition from the Fundamental Assumption to the so-called "Simultaneity
Principle" which was weaker [as an example Willis et al. 1960]. But see
figure  3  which demonstrates the fundamental problems with that
principle.

    The Simultaneity Principle, which succeeded the Fundamental
Assumption, only made the statement "that radiocarbon dates are the same
at any given epoch over the entire earth so a calibration at any one
locality is equivalent to a world wide calibration" [Libby 1970, 9]. We
shall interpret this Simultaneity Principle directly with regard to
dendrochronology: while the validity of the Fundamental Assumption means
that two different tree rings of random origin which have the same C14/C12
ratio must be of the same age, the Simultaneity Principle only allows the
following statement: Two distinct tree rings of different origin and of
the same age have the same C14/C12 ratio. The reverse conclusion - having
the same values for the C14/C12 ratio automatically means the same age -
is now no longer permissible (for the procedure of calibration see figure
4 ).

    This meant that not only the method's elegance but also its
independence was gone. In 1960 there was no one calibration scale which
reached into pre-Christian times. It would take just under 10 years until
the first tree-ring chronology was drawn up for this purpose in the USA.
In Europe it took longer. A comprehensive independent tree-ring chronology
was available only after about 25 years. The C14 scientists had a decisive
share in its construction. Why were dendrochronologist so urgently
dependent upon the assistance of C14?

4. Why Dendrochronology Needs C14 ...

    Trees which form yearly tree rings grow rings of varying thicknesses
year for year depending upon the specific climate. This produces tree-ring
sequences which are typical not only for each type of tree, but also for
each region and epoch (microclimates). We will be primarily looking at the
conditions in Europe. Therefore, tree-ring sequences which have grown at
the same time and in neighbouring areas can be combined to what is called
"local masters" (see figure  5 ). Although some Irish oaks may be
correlated up to a distance of 70 kilometres from the place where they
were found [Smith 1972, A92], the distance for comparing the master
locations of the Danube and the Upper Main has increased by more than two
times [Becker/Frenzel 1977, 16]. "Local masters" which have been verified
well and for a long time can be synchronised over a distance of up to 300
kilometres [Hollstein 1977, 16]. However, non-local comparisons, such as
those between the southern and northern German regions, have shown that
various oakwood chronologies are not applicable [Eckstein 1984, 40].

    The individual characteristics of single tree-ring sequences have been
filtered out of local masters such as these and are therefore typical
tree-ring sequences which generally only include a limited period of time
(typically some hundreds of years). They are the building blocks of the
only absolute tree-ring chronologies which are to be drawn up.
Nonetheless, they must remain local. It is not without reason that they
are designated "southern German", "western German", "northern German",
etc.. As long as the local masters were not synchronised in relation to
one another, they remained as "floating chronologies" without an absolute
date. On the local level, when a local master is drawn up, experience
shows that one moves ahead quickly and reliably. The ring sequences are
generally long and synchronisms can be recognised in a statistically
significant fashion. Experience has shown that it is fundamentally more
difficult to combine these local masters to a regional chronology among
one another. Although we can derive the temporal combination from
stratigraphic evidence locally, there are no such aids on the regional
level. What can you do if these aids are missing? This is
dendrochronology's crunch question: should all of the layers be checked
for synchrony or should we rely upon the aid of predating?

    If that means that a particular time is poor in discoveries and that
it is therefore difficult to bridge the gap between the bordering masters
which are already present, then this question has already been decided.
Predating was done (this is how the "mass migration gap" [Hollstein 1970]
came about, for example) and avoided doing all that expensive and
time-intensive 'detailed work' of going through all of the sychronisms one
could imagine. The Irish dendrochronologists, for example, had a curious
problem when they used C14 predating for their local floating tree-ring
chronologies: the longer they worked and the more wood samples they
gathered, the more difficult it was to classify the new wood samples. If
they worked properly, there should have been the opposite effect, namely:
the more wood samples they gathered, the easier it should have been to
classify the new wood samples. However, the Irish alarm bells haven't rung
yet.

    We would like to present another example to the reader to make
dendrochronology's dependency upon C14 clearer: the position of the
floating sequence "C" of the southern German oak chronology - it included
some 2.350 years at that time [Becker 1980, 219] - was temporally anchored
on the basis of the Fundamental Assumption (principally with only one C14
value) with the approximate date of "900 before Christ" for the most
recent ring. After synchronizing a number of connected C14 values with
corresponding values of a ring sequence on the other side of the Atlantic
(what is only legitimate if the Simultaneity Principle is entirely
correct!), this date but not that of the neighboured sequence B shifted by
just under 1.000 years into the past (see figure  6 ). After later
dendrochronological interlinking, the accuracy of this immense shift was
verified by means of an inconspicuous correction of less than 10 years
[Linick et al. 1985, 21]. If dendrochronological interlinks were above all
suspicion, in retrospect the Simultaneity Principle would then have been
brilliantly confirmed along the whole line. However, if this principle
proved to be wrong, that would mean that dendrochronology would have to
put up with some critical question, for instance if it really is of the
opinion that a wrong - or perhaps better: corrupted - C14 result was so
accurately fitted by pure coincidence?

5. ... and How Dendrochronology has Made Itself Dependant Upon C14

    In 1966, a team consisting of two dendrochronologists and a person
versed in the practical use of C14 demonstrated in a key article on
methods what the auxiliary science C14 will bring for dendrochronology in
future [Ferguson et al. 1966]. An undated, therefore "floating" master
chronology from Thayngen in Switzerland as well as Burg=84schi-South was
historically predated as Neolithic and was synchronised using a set of C14
data by means of an American annual ring chronology (see figure  7 ). At
the time, this chronology was looked upon as finished. This means that
this master chronology received an absolute date which was confirmed to
the year almost exactly by means of the later approaching European
chronology [Becker 1992, 38]. This floating tree-ring chronology formed a
first building block in a central European oak chronology which was almost
completely prestructured via America. Only a little bit less than 20 years
later, as filler sequences were found in time for all of the gaps, it was
finally secured for dendrochronology.

    In 1966, German dendrochronologists discovered that the Tree-Ring
Laboratory in Arizona had worked out the longest continual tree-ring
chronology up to that time for Pinus aristata (bristlecone pine). H.E.
Suess, a C14 scientist - co-author of the key article on methods from
1966 - carried out C14 calibration using this tree-ring chronology. In
doing so, he arrived at the conclusion that the assumption of a constant
C14/C12 ratio in the past was only acceptable in very limited cases. This
meant that dendrochronology moved into first place in the "fraternal
competition between the two methods of dating", as B. Huber, the German
forest botanist and dendrochronologist, indirectly hinted [Huber 1966, 1].

    Long before 1966 H.E. Suess had pleaded for dropping the Fundamental
Assumption. Beyond that, he was the first person who consistently demanded
that calibration curves be worked out (see figure  11 ). Since at least
1963 Suess has regularly carried out measurements for the Tree Ring
Laboratory in Arizona. In 1965 he published the first and the most recent
calibration curve which extends over 2.000 years. This curve made one
thing clear: The author would accept certain fluctuations, however the
concept of a basic imbalance between the production and disintegration of
C14 appeared unthinkable to him. His calibration curve meandered
"faithfully and truly" along the bisector of the angle which represents
perfect balance between disintegration and production which remains
static.




<FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F" BACK="#FFFFFE">

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#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:37:01 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Choir?  Is your son a follower of Jesus?

the debaters are Mark Eastman M.D for Creation vs Joe
Tyndall.</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be
devastated.</PRE></HTML>


#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-06 01:11:01 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>
>Choir?  Is your son a follower of Jesus?<

Hardly.  He's definitely "zero point" on that count, as is our entire family.
In fact, of the lot, I'm the most sympathetic towards Christianity.   And you
should pretty much know by now what my opinion is about that religion.

It was his public high school choir I was talking about.  He's very musical,
has been in school band for years, has taught himself piano (fair) and guitar
(good, and is teaching his younger brother), hogs my home computer composing
and editing MIDI files, has performed in a local musical theater group (too
busy now), and joined one of the school choirs, The Madrigals, this year
after having discovered a rich bass voice (his audition piece is "Old Man
River").  He has a good natural voice, but it needs training; I could hear
that he was pushing his limits when he sang the "Close All Doors"solo in our
youth service.  He really isn't ready for Macaroni Grill yet.

Except for special occasions, our church choir, which he also joined this
year (much to the joy and relief of the only other male in the choir <gr>),
only sings on Sunday.

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-06 01:11:17 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>
### YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:  Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.

### END ### 

>I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!<

Certainly, there are many Calvinist ideas that you reject, such as, I
believe, the ideas of predestination.  I expected no less.  I was not calling
you a Calvinist, but rather refering to some Calvinist ideas that I am sure
are in your world-view, judging from what I had learned in my own
fundamentalist Christian training, care of Chuck Smith's church.

Never mind most of Calvinist theology.  There is one Calvinist idea in
particular to which I was refering (I have also seen references to Martin
Luther having taught the same thing).  It ties in with belief in the inherent
corruption and evil of human nature, the idea that nothing that humans do on
their own can be good.  That is the key to finding the answer to the problem.


>If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.< 

"MOI"?  At first, I thought that was an emphasized form of the French first
person singular emphatic pronoun, "moi" (think of what Miss Piggy always
says).  Then I finally realized that it must be an acronym for "moment of
inertia".  OK, now we're on the same page.

You're not making it clear why you would be devastated.  I believe that you
are saying that you would see this situation as proof that the Bible is
wrong, which would destroy your faith.  Utterly, judging by your word choice.
That would be pretty much the same effect as was suffered by Morton and the
other creationist geologists when they encountered the geological evidence
that they had been taught did not exist and could not exist for Scripture to
have any meaning.

However, I must ask you to go back and review the wording of the problem:

"Try to imagine what it would be like to have been taught that, say, there
was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and, furthermore, if it did exist
then Scripture would have no meaning."

  
You and I are not talking about the same thing there.  You are talking about
what the Bible itself says, whereas I am talking about what somebody had
taught you that it says, somebody's interpretation of what the Bible says.
That is a key difference.

Follow that lead.  Which was it that said that MOIs did not and could not
exist?  When MOIs were found to exist nonetheless, which was that showing to
be wrong?  Which had you been taught would be wrong?  When you believed that
MOIs did not and could not exist, which had you actually believed in, the
Bible or somebody's interpretation of the Bible?

Get back to me with your answers.  You're almost there.


>What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?<
                      
Honestly, Bill!  After all this time, you still have not read my geology
page?  Even after you made such a big fuss, demanding that I present you with
my evidence that the earth is ancient.  I had hoped for so much more.  I
guess it really would be so much better for me to be pessimistic instead;
that way, most of the time I could be self-satisfied for being right all the
time and occassionally I would be pleasantly surprised.  Much of the
geological data you ask for is described on that page.  Read it this time
[http://members.aol.com/dwise1/geology.html].

NOTE:  I hope to be able to reorganize my page this weekend.  Try the URL
above first, but if it cannot be found, then try
[http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/geology.html]

That geologist's name is Glenn R. Morton.  His email address is
grmorton@psyberlink.net.  The URL for his web pages is
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm.  He can tell you exactly what that
evidence is and why it was significant, plus answer other questions you may
have.  Do not try to proselytize him; he used to be a young-earth creationist
and knows a lot more about it than you do, more than you would want to know,
but should.

One thing that is clear is that it is not a single datum point nor a small
collection of data that was the problem.  Almost everywhere you look, the
geological data contradicts a young earth (literalist Christians' main
problem with geology from the very start) and Flood Geology, the ICR teaching
(and an integral part of creation science) that most of the geological
formations were formed within a single year by massive hydraulic effects, id
est, a powerful world-wide flood.  If you had read my GEOLOGY.HTML page, you
would have read the following, drawn from Robert Schadewald's report from the
1986 International Conference on Creationism (ICC), where Morton had
delivered a paper, which mentions someof that data:

### BEGIN EXERPT ###
    Since his report was on the ICC itself, Robert Schadewald did not go into
great depth on this single subject.  However, he did have conversations (and
breakfast) with Glenn R. Morton, a practicing petroleum geologist (area
geophysicist for Arco Exploration Co.) and a staunch creationist who "want[s]
an earth as young as [he] can get it," but who realizes that it is much older
than mere thousands of years.  Morton has published numerous articles
critical of Flood Geology in the _Creation Research Society Quarterly_.  His
paper, "Geological Challenges to a Young Earth," is a devastating rebuttal to
Flood Geology.  On the day before Morton's presentation, Schadewald was
trying to explain some of the geological evidence against Flood Geology to a
creationist physicist (who, like most conference attendees, had no
understanding of the scientific ideas that he has rejecting) when he asked
Morton to help out.  Morton obliged with a capsule version of his
presentation -- this "capsule" took an hour.  Schadewald writes:

"As conventional geologists know, the evidence against Flood Geology comes
from everywhere.  Morton cited the Green River shale, which has bird tracks
in many of its millions of layers.  There are too many fossils; microscopic
fossils of diatoms are found in beds up to three kilometers thick.  Many
limestones look just like shallow-water deposits being laid down today,
burrows and all.  Seismic data shows ranges of mesas like we see in the west
today -- buried in sedimentary rock.  Using oil well drilling logs,
geologists can map ancient rivers -- channeled deltas, sand crescents, and so
forth -- now deeply buried in sedimentary rock.  Pollen grains found in salt
deposits prove they are evaporites, in clear contradiction to Henry Morris'
claims.  And so on, for an hour.  Morton's job gives him access to a
tremendous library of seismic profiles and well logs, and he used these and
other graphics to illustrate his points."

### END EXERPT ###

Morton's friend, Steve Robertson, went through much the same things as Morton
did, though he did not come as close to losing his faith.  Steve obtained his
bachelor's degree from Christian Heritage College, the former educational arm
of the Institute for Creation Research and wrote a master's thesis which
became an ICR Technical Monograph entitled, "The Age of the Solar System: A
Study of  the Poynting-Robertson Effect and Extinction of Interplanetary
Dust". 

Steve's letters on the subject, which I have quoted from in the past and am
about to quote from again, can be found linked to Morton's home page given
above.  Quoted incompletely to save space:

### BEGIN QUOTES ###
"[The teachers at CHC] did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in
when they were able to hold it up as an example of the intellectual
bankrupcy or moral corruption of uniformitarian geology. The further I have
gone I my experience from CHC, the more I have seen of their propensity to
ignore the facts that don't fit their pet models. That is not acceptable to
me. Raising problems for the evolutionists will never convince honest
scientists unless accompanied by vigorous efforts to explain the full
spectrum of geologic data, with a replacement for the present 4 billion year
model."
 
 
Wrote Morton:  "In preparing this page, Steve wants it clearly known that at
no time did he come as close to leaving the faith as I did, but the
intellectual problems presented by what he learned in school and what he saw
with his own eyes at work, caused trememdous stress. He writes in an e-mail
dated 2/14/98"
 
 
"My greatest beef with ICR is their polarization of the creation/evolution
issue. If you are not entirely in their camp, by their own declarations
you are entirely out of the camp of those who accept the Bible as a
completely true and literal account of God's interaction with time, space and
matter.  There is no leeway for any other interpretation of the Biblical text
since Henry Morris studied it and figured out what it really means. Now that
he as found out exactly what God meant, all observations must fit within his
(Morris') explanation of Genesis because God would not lie. It is not at all
illogical to throw out interpretations/explanations of observed natural
phenomena (biological, geological, astronmical, or what have you) even though
there is no suffucient or reasonable alternative offered from their group.
Petrified sand dunes in Utah CANNOT be subaerial, even though they show a
complete set of characteristics that match present day subaerial dunes and
the evaporite deposits in the lows between them demand a subaerial
environment of formation, because they HAD to have been deposited in the
flood and God doesn't lie. Varves CANNOT be annual features because they HAD
to have been deposited in one year and God doesn't lie. Your example of the
meander through carbonate rock CANNOT have been produced by eroding solid
carbonate because it HAD to happen subaqueously and within minutes, hours or
a day at most since the Bible clearly says that all geological formations
except the basement rock and a thin upper veneer were laid down during the
year of the flood. God doesn't lie!"

[DWISE1:  Creation science is Henry Morris' and the ICR's INTERPRETATION of
Genesis.  Last we checked, wasn't Morris and the staff and members of the ICR
mere humans?]

"In ICR's logic, to ignore or deny problematic natural observations is not to
be decietful. (A perfect example of this is John Morris' statement that he
has never seen a geological fact that did not fit equally as well or better
in the flood model than any other model.) At worst, in thier view, it would
be glossing over what remains to be explained properly, and WOULD be expained
properly if more scientists did creationist research. The problem, from ICR's
viewpoint, is the vast, hidden conspiracy to interpret the world around us in
a way to discredit the Bible, not that any of the data from the world around
us is contrary to their explanation of what the Bible means in Genesis."

"This inflexible, dogmatic, self-blinding position is my bone of contention
regarding ICR. Until a person begins to understand where they [the
scientists--GRM] are coming from, and the rules of their game, he is
incapable of realizing that he could question their dogma and still be a
Bible believing Christian."
 

"I do not consider myself to have undergone a "severe crisis of faith" in the
sense of struggling with whether to be a Christian or not. The struggle for
me was to come to the point where I could accept that a Christian could
disagree with Morris' interpretation and still believe in the literal truth
of Genesis."

"For me, that crisis never wandered from within a Christian worldview. If it
was a crisis, and I guess it would be fair to call it one, I look back now
and believe it was a false one created by my naive acceptance of ICR's
dogmatic presentation of their view as the only allowable Christian view."

### END QUOTES ###

When you write to Glenn Morton, please CC me and share his reply with me.
</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################
Subj:    Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-06 18:23:58 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com (DWise1)
CC: BillyJack6@aol.com

Wise1:

Your last letter was fascinating.  As usual, you have responded eloquently
to Billy's blurbs.  I believe that it is obvious that Billy is less
interested in discussion than he is in converting.

Billy should realize that his short one-liners are not going to 'cut the
mustard.'

Also, you shouldn't be debating with someone who isn't truly interested in
what you have to write.  As proof of my assertion, Billy will once again
provide short blurbs to your accurate and detailed messages.  [Here's a
case where I would love to be wrong.]

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/

------The actual letter follows --------

>I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!<

Certainly, there are many Calvinist ideas that you reject, such as, I
believe,
the ideas of predestination.  I expected no less.  I was not calling you a
Calvinist, but rather refering to some Calvinist ideas that I am sure are
in
your world-view, judging from what I had learned in my own fundamentalist
Christian training, care of Chuck Smith's church.

Never mind most of Calvinist theology.  There is one Calvinist idea in
particular to which I was refering (I have also seen references to Martin
Luther having taught the same thing).  It ties in with belief in the
inherent
corruption and evil of human nature, the idea that nothing that humans do
on
their own can be good.  That is the key to finding the answer to the
problem.


>If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.< 

"MOI"?  At first, I thought that was an emphasized form of the French first
person singular emphatic pronoun, "moi" (think of what Miss Piggy always
says).  Then I finally realized that it must be an acronym for "moment of
inertia".  OK, now we're on the same page.

You're not making it clear why you would be devastated.  I believe that you
are saying that you would see this situation as proof that the Bible is
wrong,
which would destroy your faith.  Utterly, judging by your word choice. 
That
would be pretty much the same effect as was suffered by Morton and the
other
creationist geologists when they encountered the geological evidence that
they
had been taught did not exist and could not exist for Scripture to have any
meaning.

However, I must ask you to go back and review the wording of the problem:

"Try to imagine what it would be like to have been taught that, say, there
was
no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and, furthermore, if it did exist
then
Scripture would have no meaning."

  
You and I are not talking about the same thing there.  You are talking
about
what the Bible itself says, whereas I am talking about what somebody had
taught you that it says, somebody's interpretation of what the Bible says.
That is a key difference.

Follow that lead.  Which was it that said that MOIs did not and could not
exist?  When MOIs were found to exist nonetheless, which was that showing
to
be wrong?  Which had you been taught would be wrong?  When you believed
that
MOIs did not and could not exist, which had you actually believed in, the
Bible or somebody's interpretation of the Bible?

Get back to me with your answers.  You're almost there.


>What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?<
                      
Honestly, Bill!  After all this time, you still have not read my geology
page?
Even after you made such a big fuss, demanding that I present you with my
evidence that the earth is ancient.  I had hoped for so much more.  I guess
it
really would be so much better for me to be pessimistic instead; that way,
most of the time I could be self-satisfied for being right all the time and
occassionally I would be pleasantly surprised.  Much of the geological data
you ask for is described on that page.  Read it this time
[http://members.aol.com/dwise1/geology.html].

NOTE:  I hope to be able to reorganize my page this weekend.  Try the URL
above first, but if it cannot be found, then try
[http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/geology.html]

That geologist's name is Glenn R. Morton.  His email address is
grmorton@psyberlink.net.  The URL for his web pages is
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm.  He can tell you exactly what
that
evidence is and why it was significant, plus answer other questions you may
have.  Do not try to proselytize him; he used to be a young-earth
creationist
and knows a lot more about it than you do, more than you would want to
know,
but should.

One thing that is clear is that it is not a single datum point nor a small
collection of data that was the problem.  Almost everywhere you look, the
geological data contradicts a young earth (literalist Christians' main
problem
with geology from the very start) and Flood Geology, the ICR teaching (and
an
integral part of creation science) that most of the geological formations
were
formed within a single year by massive hydraulic effects, id est, a
powerful
world-wide flood.  If you had read my GEOLOGY.HTML page, you would have
read
the following, drawn from Robert Schadewald's report from the 1986
International Conference on Creationism (ICC), where Morton had delivered a
paper, which mentions someof that data:

### BEGIN EXERPT ###
    Since his report was on the ICC itself, Robert Schadewald did not go
into
great depth on this single subject.  However, he did have conversations
(and
breakfast) with Glenn R. Morton, a practicing petroleum geologist (area
geophysicist for Arco Exploration Co.) and a staunch creationist who
"want[s]
an earth as young as [he] can get it," but who realizes that it is much
older
than mere thousands of years.  Morton has published numerous articles
critical
of Flood Geology in the _Creation Research Society Quarterly_.  His paper,
"Geological Challenges to a Young Earth," is a devastating rebuttal to
Flood
Geology.  On the day before Morton's presentation, Schadewald was trying to
explain some of the geological evidence against Flood Geology to a
creationist
physicist (who, like most conference attendees, had no understanding of the
scientific ideas that he has rejecting) when he asked Morton to help out.
Morton obliged with a capsule version of his presentation -- this "capsule"
took an hour.  Schadewald writes:

"As conventional geologists know, the evidence against Flood Geology comes
from everywhere.  Morton cited the Green River shale, which has bird tracks
in
many of its millions of layers.  There are too many fossils; microscopic
fossils of diatoms are found in beds up to three kilometers thick.  Many
limestones look just like shallow-water deposits being laid down today,
burrows and all.  Seismic data shows ranges of mesas like we see in the
west
today -- buried in sedimentary rock.  Using oil well drilling logs,
geologists
can map ancient rivers -- channeled deltas, sand crescents, and so forth --
now deeply buried in sedimentary rock.  Pollen grains found in salt
deposits
prove they are evaporites, in clear contradiction to Henry Morris' claims.
And so on, for an hour.  Morton's job gives him access to a tremendous
library
of seismic profiles and well logs, and he used these and other graphics to
illustrate his points."

### END EXERPT ###

Morton's friend, Steve Robertson, went through much the same things as
Morton
did, though he did not come as close to losing his faith.  Steve obtained
his
bachelor's degree from Christian Heritage College, the former educational
arm
of the Institute for Creation Research and wrote a master's thesis which
became an ICR Technical Monograph entitled, "The Age of the Solar System: A
Study of  the Poynting-Robertson Effect and Extinction of Interplanetary
Dust". 

Steve's letters on the subject, which I have quoted from in the past and am
about to quote from again, can be found linked to Morton's home page given
above.  Quoted incompletely to save space:

### BEGIN QUOTES ###
"[The teachers at CHC] did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in
when they were able to hold it up as an example of the intellectual
bankrupcy or moral corruption of uniformitarian geology. The further I have
gone I my experience from CHC, the more I have seen of their propensity to
ignore the facts that don't fit their pet models. That is not acceptable to
me. Raising problems for the evolutionists will never convince honest
scientists unless accompanied by vigorous efforts to explain the full
spectrum
of geologic data, with a replacement for the present 4 billion year model."
 
 
Wrote Morton:  "In preparing this page, Steve wants it clearly known that
at
no time did he come as close to leaving the faith as I did, but the
intellectual problems presented by what he learned in school and what he
saw
with his own eyes at work, caused trememdous stress. He writes in an e-mail
dated 2/14/98"
 
 
"My greatest beef with ICR is their polarization of the creation/evolution
issue. If you are not entirely in their camp, by their own declarations
you are entirely out of the camp of those who accept the Bible as a
completely
true and literal account of God's interaction with time, space and matter.
There is no leeway for any other interpretation of the Biblical text since
Henry Morris studied it and figured out what it really means. Now that he
as
found out exactly what God meant, all observations must fit within his
(Morris') explanation of Genesis because God would not lie. It is not at
all
illogical to throw out interpretations/explanations of observed natural
phenomena (biological, geological, astronmical, or what have you) even
though
there is no suffucient or reasonable alternative offered from their group.
Petrified sand dunes in Utah CANNOT be subaerial, even though they show a
complete set of characteristics that match present day subaerial dunes and
the
evaporite deposits in the lows between them demand a subaerial environment
of
formation, because they HAD to have been deposited in the flood and God
doesn't lie. Varves CANNOT be annual features because they HAD to have been
deposited in one year and God doesn't lie. Your example of the meander
through
carbonate rock CANNOT have been produced by eroding solid carbonate because
it
HAD to happen subaqueously and within minutes, hours or a day at most since
the Bible clearly says that all geological formations except the basement
rock
and a thin upper veneer were laid down during the year of the flood. God
doesn't lie!"

[DWISE1:  Creation science is Henry Morris' and the ICR's INTERPRETATION of
Genesis.  Last we checked, wasn't Morris and the staff and members of the
ICR
mere humans?]

"In ICR's logic, to ignore or deny problematic natural observations is not
to
be decietful. (A perfect example of this is John Morris' statement that he
has
never seen a geological fact that did not fit equally as well or better in
the
flood model than any other model.) At worst, in thier view, it would be
glossing over what remains to be explained properly, and WOULD be expained
properly if more scientists did creationist research. The problem, from
ICR's
viewpoint, is the vast, hidden conspiracy to interpret the world around us
in
a way to discredit the Bible, not that any of the data from the world
around
us is contrary to their explanation of what the Bible means in Genesis."

"This inflexible, dogmatic, self-blinding position is my bone of contention
regarding ICR. Until a person begins to understand where they [the
scientists--GRM] are coming from, and the rules of their game, he is
incapable
of realizing that he could question their dogma and still be a Bible
believing
Christian."
 

"I do not consider myself to have undergone a "severe crisis of faith" in
the
sense of struggling with whether to be a Christian or not. The struggle for
me
was to come to the point where I could accept that a Christian could
disagree
with Morris' interpretation and still believe in the literal truth of
Genesis."

"For me, that crisis never wandered from within a Christian worldview. If
it
was a crisis, and I guess it would be fair to call it one, I look back now
and
believe it was a false one created by my naive acceptance of ICR's dogmatic
presentation of their view as the only allowable Christian view."

### END QUOTES ###

When you write to Glenn Morton, please CC me and share his reply with me.
<FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F" BACK="#FFFFFE">

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Subject: Re: Spontaneous Generation??
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########################################################


Subj:   Fwd: Creation vs Evolution
Date:   98-05-18 01:01:30 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

File:  10CRE97.DOC (55808 bytes)
DL Time (14400 bps): < 1 minute


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:   Creation vs Evolution
Date:   98-05-18 00:58:23 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: BillyJack6
<HTML><PRE>
Attached is a paper I made on the subject of Creation vs. Evolution.  It is
geared to be very friendly to people who may be evolutionists or athiests.

My goal is to present the reasons why I beleive the Creation Model is a much
better explanation for what we observe than the Evolution Model.

If anyone who receives this desires more free information can either call me
or e mail me at 714 898-8331.</PRE></HTML>

########################################################

Subj:   Re: Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-05-19 18:16:57 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>On Thursday, May 28th at 7 PM there will be a debate on
 “How Did Life Originate?” at UC Irvine.
Mark Eastman M.D. will present the argument that 
a Supernatural entity with intelligence is the best explanation.

Joe Tyndall will present the argument that the best explanation 
is a natural one, one without a Supernatural entity.  

The debate will be in the Social Science Lecture Hall at UCI.

To get there:  from the 5 or the 405 exit at Jamboree and head 
south until you reach Campus Drive and turn left;
Cross Bridge Road and park in the structure on your right;
to the south of the structure is Pereira Dr., follow that toward the
east until you walk past parking lot 2, then turn south and you
will soon see a new beige building, attached to the Plaza, that 
is the Social Science Lecture Hall, Building 212.
Call Bill Morgan at (714) 898-8331 for more information.
</PRE></HTML>


########################################################


Subj:  Re: Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-05-19 18:21:53 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Hi!

You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere.  You wore out you keyboard assuming I have never read up on
this topic (I have and it is clear you really have not).

Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth.  The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get there.

Thanks</PRE></HTML>

########################################################


Subj:    Book
Date:   98-05-21 07:07:18 EDT
From:   dadamo@voicenet.com (Art D'Adamo)
To: dcw@odetics.com, dwise1@aol.com

David,

>I just passed a copy on to a friend at work and we got to wondering whether
>you had ever finished writing that book.

Yes, I did. It's at
    www.voicenet.com/~dadamo/swb.html

Art D'Adamo

P.S. I check email addressed to dadamo@voicenet.com more often than
email addressed to my CompuServe account.

Art D'Adamo         dadamo@voicenet.com
    http://www.voicenet.com/~dadamo
"Science Without Bounds: 
 A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Mysticism" 
a downloadable book available at
    http://www.voicenet.com/~dadamo/swb.html

<FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F" BACK="#FFFFFE">

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Subject: Book
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########################################################

Subj:   Re: Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-05-19 18:21:53 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Hi!

You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere.  You wore out you keyboard assuming I have never read up on
this topic (I have and it is clear you really have not).

Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth.  The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get there.

Thanks</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:    Re: Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-05-19 18:16:57 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>On Thursday, May 28th at 7 PM there will be a debate on
 “How Did Life Originate?” at UC Irvine.
Mark Eastman M.D. will present the argument that 
a Supernatural entity with intelligence is the best explanation.

Joe Tyndall will present the argument that the best explanation 
is a natural one, one without a Supernatural entity.  

The debate will be in the Social Science Lecture Hall at UCI.

To get there:  from the 5 or the 405 exit at Jamboree and head 
south until you reach Campus Drive and turn left;
Cross Bridge Road and park in the structure on your right;
to the south of the structure is Pereira Dr., follow that toward the
east until you walk past parking lot 2, then turn south and you
will soon see a new beige building, attached to the Plaza, that 
is the Social Science Lecture Hall, Building 212.
Call Bill Morgan at (714) 898-8331 for more information.
</PRE></HTML>



#########################################################

Subj:    Genesis 
Date:   98-06-02 21:56:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Enjoy my friend!</PRE></HTML>
-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:    FW: Genesis 
Date:   98-05-08 15:54:38 EDT
From:   BSPARKS@ifeirve.beav.com (Sparks, Brad)
Sender: BSPARKS@ifeirve.beav.com
To: drager@cadware.com (David Rager) (David Rager), tkhollis@uci.edu (T.
Keith HOLLIS), billyjack6@aol.com, bilsubek@juno.com, DBarkleys@aol.com,
ealpurcell@juno.com, earthman@uci.edu, IBA@nccn.net,
john_bloom@peter.biola.edu (John Bloom), MoonNerd@aol.com,
mtsbookie@juno.com, phils@value.net, saustin@flash.net, smoore@uci.edu
(Stephanie MOORE) (Stephanie MOORE), stevie_d@globalpac.com






>In the beginning there was the computer.  And God said
>>       >> c:\Let there be light.
>>       > >
>>       > > ENTER USER ID.
>>       > > God
>>       > >
>>       > > ENTER PASSWORD.
>>       > > Omniscient
>>       > >
>>       > > PASSWORD INCORRECT.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > > Omnipotent
>>       > >
>>       > > PASSWORD INCORRECT.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > > Technocrat
>>       > >
>>       > > User "God" logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.
>>       > > c:\
>>       > > c:\
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Let there be light.
>>       > > UNRECOGNIZABLE COMMAND.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create light.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run heaven and earth.
>>       > > And God created the heavens and the earth.  And God saw
>>           there were 0  errors.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Monday, March 2.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Let there be firmament in the midst of water and light.
>>       > > UNRECOGNIZABLE COMMAND.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create firmament.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run firmament.
>>       > > And God divided the waters.  And God saw there were 0 errors.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Monday, March 2.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Let the waters under Heaven be gathered together unto one
>>           place and let the dry land appear.
>
>>       > > TOO MANY CHARACTERS IN SPECIFICATION STRING.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create dry_land.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run dry_land.
>>       > > And God divided the waters.  And God saw that there were 0
errors.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create lights in the firmament to divide the day from the
>>           night.
>
>>       > > UNSPECIFIED TYPE.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create sun_moon_stars.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\ Run sun_moon_stars.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God created the night and the day.  And God saw there
>>           were 0 errors.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4..
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create fish.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create fowl.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create cattle.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create creepy_things.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run fish fowl cattle creepy_things.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God created the great sea monsters and every living
>>           creature that creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed
>            after its kind and every
>>       > > winged fowl after its kind.
>
>>       > > And God saw there were 0 errors.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Friday, March 6.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Now let me make man in my image.
>
>>       > > UNSPECIFIED TYPE.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > C:\set database=god
>>       > > c:\Open database.
>>       > > DATABASE OPENED.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Load databasetable <<human_nature.
>>       > > TABLE LOADED.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create "man" from "databasetable"
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and
>>           subdue it and
>>       > > have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of
>>           the air and
>>       > > over every thing that creepeth upon the earth.
>>       > > TOO MANY COMMAND OPERANDS.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run multiplication.
>>       > > EXECUTION TERMINATED.  6 ERRORS.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Insert breath.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run multiplication.
>>       > > EXECUTION TERMINATED.  5 ERRORS.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Move man to Garden of Eden.
>>       > > FILE GARDEN OF EDEN DOES NOT EXIST.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create Garden.edn
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run multiplication.
>>       > > EXECUTION TERMINATED.  4 ERRORS.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Copy woman from man.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run multiplication.
>>       > > EXECUTION TERMINATED.  2 ERRORS.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create desire.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run multiplication.
>>       > > WARNING:  NO TIME LIMIT ON THIS RUN.  0 ERRORS, 1 WARNINGS
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create freewill.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Run freewill.
>>       > > And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in
>>       > > Garden.edn.
>>       > >
>>       > > WARNING:  NO TIME LIMIT ON THIS RUN.  0 ERRORS, 1 WARNINGS
>>       > > !! SYSTEM WARNING !! -- CPU USAGE NEAR 100%
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Undo desire.
>>       > > DESIRE CANNOT BE UNDONE ONCE FREEWILL IS CREATED.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Destroy freewill.
>>       > > FREEWILL IS AN INACCESSIBLE FILE OWNED BY A CURRENTLY
>>       > > EXECUTING PROCESS AND CANNOT BE DESTROYED.  ENTER
>>       > > REPLACEMENT, CANCEL, OR ASK FOR HELP.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Help.
>>       > > DESIRE CANNOT BE UNDONE ONCE FREEWILL IS CREATED.  FREEWILL
>>       > > IS AN INACCESSIBLE FILE AND CANNOT BE DESTROYED.  ENTER
>>       > > REPLACEMENT, CANCEL, OR ASK FOR HELP.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create tree_of_knowledge.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in
>>       > > Garden.edn.
>>       > >
>>       > > WARNING:  NO TIME LIMIT ON THIS RUN.  0 ERRORS, 1 WARNINGS
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create good_evil.
>>       > > DONE.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Activate evil.
>>       > > And God saw He had created shame.
>>       > > WARNING: SYSTEM ERROR IN SECTOR E95.  MAN_WOMAN NOT FOUND
>>       > > IN GARDEN.EDN.
>>       > >
>>       > > 1 ERRORS.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Scan Garden.edn for man_woman.
>>       > > MAN_WOMAN NOT FOUND.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Delete shame.
>>       > > SHAME CANNOT BE DELETED ONCE EVIL HAS BEEN ACTIVATED.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Destroy freewill.
>>       > > FREEWILL IS AN INACCESSIBLE FILE AND CANNOT BE DESTROYED.
>>       > > ENTER REPLACEMENT, CANCEL, OR ASK FOR HELP.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Stop.
>>       > > UNRECOGNIZABLE COMMAND.  TRY AGAIN.
>>       > >
>>       > > CTRL-C
>>       > > ** BREAK **
>>       > > CTRL-C
>>       > > ** BREAK **
>>       > > CTRL-C
>>       > > ** BREAK **
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\edit system.msg
>>               > > :insert
>>       > > *** ATTENTION ALL USERS:  COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR REGULAR
>>       > > DAY OF MAINTENANCE AND REST IN FIVE MINUTES.  PLEASE LOG
>>           OFF.
>>       > >
>>               > > :save
>>       > > File "system.msg" saved!
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\send "ALL" -f system.msg
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Create new.world
>>       > >
>>       > > YOU HAVE EXCEEDED YOUR ALLOCATED FILE SPACE.
>>       > > YOU MUST DESTROY OLD FILES BEFORE NEW ONES CAN BE
>>       > > CREATED.
>>       > >
>>       > > c:\Destroy earth.
>>       > > ABOUT TO DESTROY EARTH...PLEASE CONFIRM <y, n> ??
>>       > > --> Y
>>       > >
>>       > > Please wait while file "earth" is destroyed...
>
>
>
>



<FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F" BACK="#FFFFFE">

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To: drager@cadware.com (David Rager) (David Rager),
        tkhollis@uci.edu (T. Keith HOLLIS), billyjack6@aol.com,
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Subject: FW: Genesis 
Date: Fri, 08 May 98 14:05 
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Subj:   Fwd: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-02 21:58:19 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1, BillyJack6

<HTML><PRE>You missed a good butt whipping at UCI!

Want to get the video?

Want to debae Dr Mark Eastman in public?????

</PRE></HTML>
-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:    "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-05-08 16:02:20 EDT
From:   BSPARKS@ifeirve.beav.com (Sparks, Brad)
Sender: BSPARKS@ifeirve.beav.com
To: drager@cadware.com (David Rager) (David Rager), tkhollis@uci.edu (T.
Keith HOLLIS), billyjack6@aol.com, bilsubek@juno.com, DBarkleys@aol.com,
ealpurcell@juno.com, earthman@uci.edu, IBA@nccn.net,
john_bloom@peter.biola.edu (John Bloom), MoonNerd@aol.com,
mtsbookie@juno.com, phils@value.net, saustin@flash.net, smoore@uci.edu
(Stephanie MOORE) (Stephanie MOORE), stevie_d@globalpac.com



>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date:         Wed, 6 May 1998 10:49:17 -0700
>Reply-To: CRSnet <CRSNET@luther.cuw.edu>
>Sender: CRSnet <CRSNET@luther.cuw.edu>
>From: David Buckna <dabuckna@WKPOWERLINK.COM>
>Subject:      Cosmologists Ponder 'Missing Energy' of the Universe
>To: Multiple recipients of list CRSNET <CRSNET@luther.cuw.edu>
>
>The New York Times, May 5, 1998, Tuesday, Section F; Page 1; Science Desk
>
>Cosmologists Ponder 'Missing Energy' of the Universe
>By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
>
>DATELINE: BATTAVIA, Ill.
>
>   CHALLENGED by recent unexpected, but compelling, evidence that the
>universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, the theorists of cosmology
>are reacting as creative scientists should. They are stretching their minds
>in search of explanations, even to the point of risking comparison with the
>Queen in "Alice Through the LookingGlass," who practiced believing "as many
>as six impossible things before breakfast."
>   The immediate goal of their quest is an understanding of what appears to
>be an unknown form of energy associated with the vacuum of space.
>Cosmologists are calling it the "missing energy" of the universe. If both
>current theory and new observations are correct, this energy must be acting
>as a repulsive force to counteract gravity's restraining influence and thus
>speed up cosmic expansion.
>    Call the ideas of vacuum energy inventions of desperation or
>inspiration  as scientists have  but measurements of exploding stars, or
>supernovas, seem to leave cosmologists no alternative. Two rival teams of
>astronomers recently reported increasing evidence, based on distant
>supernova explosions, suggesting that the universe is not decelerating, as
>they had expected, but flying apart faster than ever before. The missing
>energy, scientists propose, exerts a negative pressure, which by the rules
>of Einstein's theory of general relativity would exert a negative
>gravitational force on the universe.
>   At a threeday workshop here at Fermi National Laboratory, a show of
>hands indicated that most scientists now agree, by a vote of two to one,
>that the supernova astronomers have made a strong case for an accelerating
>universe and thus for something like the missing energy.
>   Dr. William Press, a theorist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for
>Astrophysics, who called for the straw vote, said the supernova astronomers
>have provided the first observationally consistent evidence that there is
>some form of vacuum energy. He said that cosmologists were impressed that
>both teams had "moved from the hey-look-what-we've-seen stage to the right
>sort
>of self-criticism."
>
>   Scientists look to this energy to balance the books on cosmic mass,
>preserve their preferred model of the Big Bang theory of how the universe
>began, and predict how it all will end. In one scenario, if the missing
>energy is one of its significant, constant components, the universe will
>never slow to a halt, but continue accelerating forever. In another, if all
>its mass was in the form of matter, the universe would slow its expansion
>to a halt, given infinite time. Recent observations of low matter densities
>all but rule out the eventual collapse of the universe as a third possible
>fate.
>
>   The trouble is, no one knows the identity and nature of the missing
>energy. Scientists, with a shrug of shoulders, speak of "something strange"
>or "funny energy."
>   "We have an exciting puzzle to explain what the funny energy is," said
>Dr. Michael S. Turner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago. "But
>if you give theorists enough time, they can predict anything."
>   At the workshop, astronomers and cosmologists considered two emerging
>ideas for the missing energy: the cosmological constant and a class of
>models called quintessence, after Aristotle's fifth element of matter.
>   The cosmological constant, first invoked by Albert Einstein to correct
>what he took to be a flaw in his theory of gravity, would be relic energy
>from the creation of the universe, a product of highenergy physics. The
>amount of this "vacuum energy" in a given volume would remain constant
>through all time. Thus as the universe expands, the total vacuum energy,
>and the repulsive force associated with it, would grow larger with time.
>But theorists resist the idea of the cosmological constant because of its
>history as a "fudge factor" and the fact that particle physicists are
>unable to explain the phenomenon. They point out that it is easier to
>explain a cosmological constant with an extremely large value or one that
>is zero than to understand how it could be close to zero, as in the models
>for the missing energy.
>   Dr. Turner said the cosmological constant was the simplest example of
>what the missing energy could be, and a good starting point in the search
>for a sound theory. "What was good enough for Einstein ought to be good
>enough for us," he said.
>   But Dr. Robert R. Caldwell of the University of Pennsylvania, calling
>the cosmological constant a "default solution," sought to make a case for
>quintessence, a newer idea that he advocates with Dr. Paul J. Steinhardt,
>another astrophysicist at Pennsylvania. The attraction of quintessence is
>that its energy densities vary with time. Early in the universe, when
>matter appears to have been dominant, quintessence energy might have been
>weak, but now it might be catching up or surpassing matter, which becomes
>more and more dilute as the universe expands. This could account for the
>negative pressure causing the accelerating universe.
>   Also, as Dr. Turner said, "We want the missing energy to be there today
>and gone yesterday, in order to avoid interference with the growth of
>structure early in the universe."
>   Physicists at Fermilab tend to look with more favor on quintessence
>models because they seem to be more easily linked with realistic physical
>theories. Dr. Joshua A. Frieman, head of Fermilab's theoretical
>astrophysics group, and his colleagues have developed a quintessence model
>that describes how the vacuum energy might be small today but would
>eventually evolve to a value of zero. The advantage of the model is that it
>involves light particles, called pions, that actually exist, but are
>invoked here in a different context.
>
>   Dr. Christopher T. Hill, a Fermilab particle physicist, complained that
>so far the hypotheses for vacuum energy "are very ad hoc, not tied into the
>principles of particle physics." The challenge, he said, is to find an
>entirely new family of lowmass particles in space.
>   In an interview, Dr. Steinhardt called this "a monumental issue not just
>for cosmology, but also for fundamental physics, whatever form the energy
>takes."
>   Neither the cosmological constant nor quintessence appeared to be well
>enough defined to engender enthusiastic support at the workshop, only
>questions and suggestions for ways to search for more direct evidence of
>the vacuum energy. Participants heard proposals for investigating the
>problem with new Xray astronomy spacecraft and groundbased and spacecraft
>surveys in the next decade of the cosmic microwave background.
>   Slight temperature variations in this otherwise uniform radiation are
>the textures out of which galaxies grew. They may help distinguish between
>missingenergy models and provide clues that the universe should consist of
>what is known as a critical density. That means its mass should be
>sufficient to keep it from collapsing or expanding forever.
>   On one thing scientists are in almost complete agreement: all recent
>observations show that the cosmic mass in the form of matter is low  no
>more than 20 or 30 percent of critical density. That figure includes
>ordinary matter found in stars and planets and people, as well as exotic
>and so far undetectable particles known as cold dark matter. In that case,
>cosmologists are faced with figuring out how to explain missingenergy
>values of as much as 70 or 80 percent of critical density.
>   This may prove difficult. Scientists reported that the lensing effects
>of intervening intergalactic matter on light from extremely distant
>celestial objects appear to reflect the amount of energy in the universe.
>So there is missing cosmic energy, they said, but not on the order of 80
>percent of critical density.
>   Toward the end of the meeting, Dr. Steinhardt said: "There's remarkable
>agreement among very diverse measurements that negative pressure from
>energy makes all the measurements fit better. The case is getting stronger
>for a cosmological constant or a wide range of quintessence models."
>
>---
>





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To: drager@cadware.com (David Rager) (David Rager),
        tkhollis@uci.edu (T. Keith HOLLIS), billyjack6@aol.com,
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Subject: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date: Fri, 08 May 98 14:10 
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Subj:   "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
Date:   98-06-03 23:31:36 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>In Re:
Subj:  Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash" 
Date:   98-04-30 23:03:48 EDT

So what's your point?  You do realize, I trust, that C-14 radio-dating and
dendrochronology are not applicable to paleontology or geology (answer me
this:  what is the claimed oldest date obtainable via C-14?).  What is it
supposed to have to do with evolution?


First this "Carbon Dating 'Crash'" and then your fixation on R-12 getting
into the stratosphere (a fixation so much stronger than your fixation with
creation science, that you actually REPLIED to a message, indicating that
this is one really hot topic for you).  For somebody who claims "I love
science and learning about science", it looks suspiciously like you are
looking for any and every way to try to discredit science.  You know you have
no case, so you attack science.  

So what's your point?

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  UCI Debate
Date:   98-06-03 23:31:42 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
For Liber8r:

### YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:   Re: Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-05-19 18:16:57 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>On Thursday, May 28th at 7 PM there will be a debate on  “How Did
Life Originate?” at UC Irvine.  Mark Eastman M.D. will present the argument
that a Supernatural entity with intelligence is the best explanation.

Joe Tyndall will present the argument that the best explanation is a natural
one, one without a Supernatural entity.  

The debate will be in the Social Science Lecture Hall at UCI.

To get there:  from the 5 or the 405 exit at Jamboree and head south until
you reach Campus Drive and turn left; Cross Bridge Road and park in the
structure on your right; to the south of the structure is Pereira Dr., follow
that toward the east until you walk past parking lot 2, then turn south and
you will soon see a new beige building, attached to the Plaza, that is the
Social Science Lecture Hall, Building 212.  Call Bill Morgan at (714)
898-8331 for more information.
</PRE></HTML>
### END YOUR MESSAGE ###       

So, how did the debate go?  I already told you that I would not be able to
attend.  Besides the usual obstacle (the Spanish Inquisition), my older son's
choir had a concert that night.

Could you give us a synopsis of the arguments and counter-arguments used?
What was the apparent mix of the audience (ie, largely creationist, largely
pro-evolution*)?  How did the audience receive the proceedings?  What was the
format?

Do you have Joe Tyndall's email address?  I'd just like to see his views of
how the debate went.  You know, get a second opinion.


FOOTNOTES:
* To understand how a debate or presentation went, it is important to have
some idea of what the audience was like.  For example, micro-biologist
Vincent Savich [name?] telling a room full of Amish farmers that their
religion had lost its war with science would be different from Gish's
experience at UC Berkeley, where one campus Christian club handed out flyers
declaring that Gish was doing the work of the Devil and the audience hooted
with laughter when Ruse [as I recall] responded to Gish's claim that a
hominid was 100% ape with no human characteristics by bringing out three
skulls -- human, hominid, and ape -- and proceeded to point out the real
difference between human and ape skulls and how the hominid did indeed have
BOTH.

In another debate, about 90% of the audience went in either creationist or
predisposed in favor of creationism.  At the end of the debate, the
creationist organizer took a vote, which resulted in 2/3 of the audience
voting for the creationist.  Of course, the creationists declared a victory,
when in reality they had lost a lot of their audience.

</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################


Subj:  "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-03 23:31:51 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>Bill:

You never did respond to my counter-offer:

### YOU ###
Subj:   Re: Let's Get on with it, already.
Date:   98-04-12 01:31:21 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

lets have a public debate.  me versus you at Cal State LA.
###########

### ME ###
Subj:   Re:  Re: Let's Get on with it, already.
Date:   98-04-16 22:23:02 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

Your message, repeated for Liberator's [liber8r@mcs.com] sake (yes, I saw
that you CC'd the other message.  Thank you.):

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: Let's Get on with it, already.
Date:   98-04-12 01:31:21 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

lets have a public debate.  me versus you at Cal State LA.

### END ###

Hello!  Bill!  Wake up!

Think for a moment.  If I cannot sneak in a phone call from home (indeed,
while I was on-line posting my last email to you, my kid bumped me off the
line -- it's a jungle out there, I tell ya), just how am I supposed to
disappear for the entire evening?  Especially to LA?  Hello?  Weren't you
paying any attention?  I have the "Spanish Inquisition" to watch out for, you
know.  Email is the only practical medium for yet another good reason:  it
minimizes my window of vulnerablility at home, since I only need enough time
to post the email -- and it's hard enough to get even that little time in.


Besides, you know my opinion of those "debates."  It's a circus weighted in
favor of the creationist.  "Winning" one has nothing to do with the merits of
one's position, but rather with putting on a good show which appeals to the
audience's pre-conceived notions; trying to get the audience to think is a
sure way to lose (though giving them the illusion that you have gotten them
to think, without actually requiring them to, gains you points).  For one
thing, I am a very shy person, so my presentation style tends to be rather
dry and factual.  Besides, it's a terrible forum for analyzing claims or for
presenting and discussing scientific claims and evidence.  Instead, it's near
ideal for you to be able to baffle the audience with your BS.  You will
undoubtedly trot out your Gish Gallop, hitting me with a dozen non-trivial
questions that even a doctoral candidate would find challenging (even though
they may sound deceptively simple -- eg, in his oral exams, a famous
astronomy PhD, Cliff Stoll, was hit by the question of why the sky is blue,
which took him hours to answer fully) which I would have no hope of answering
within the framework of a debate.  Let's see, 12 questions requiring 15 to 30
minutes each to answer -- I would need three to six hours in order to respond
to each question that you had spat out in about a minute's time, when all
that the debate format would allow me might be 10 to 15 minutes.  Besides
which I do not possess that level of expertise.  But, of course, your plan is
not for me to answer your questions, but rather to make it appear that
science has no answers to those questions.  I know your game and no way am I
going to play it.
                                                       
                                                       
Instead, I have a much better idea.  You want a public debate?  OK, but why
restrict it to a mere college campus (ie, to a very limited audience)?  Why
not do it in front of the whole world?

In other words, let's have an on-line debate.  We could post it on my web
page or I could set it up under another screen-name (we each can have up to 4
screen names, each of which has a fixed amount of disk space available -- we
cannot combine all four allocations together under one screen name, but
rather must use other names -- however, we should be able to set up different
pages in different screen-name spaces and link to them from our main page ...
hmmm ...).  We could follow an agreed-upon format or keep it a free-form
exchange.  We would have sufficient time to research and respond in depth to
every one of each other's questions, PLUS include links and references for
our readers to do their own follow-through research.  Thus, instead of
baffling them with BS, we could dazzle them with our brillance, which is
always the better way.  And, better yet, information would be presented and
exchanged, not just empty rhetorics.  It wouldn't be an empty show, but
rather learning.

If you want, I could even post our exchanges so far as the first part of the
debate.  How does that sound?  Or would you rather start again from scratch?


And I volunteer to handle all the HTML encoding.  

What do you say, Bill?  

##########

### ME ###
Subj:   Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-26 12:58:36 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

[body of message snipped]

Oh, and what is your reply regarding an on-line debate?
##########

### ME ###
Subj:   Re: Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-29 23:35:28 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com


[body of message snipped]

You still have not replied to my counter-offer of an on-line debate. 

[remainder of message snipped]

##########


Bill, you are the one who proposed that we debate.  It was your idea.  Your
proposal was impossible for me and also of an unacceptable format, as I
explained.  So I made a counter-offer that we conduct the debate on-line.  I
even offered to do the HTML and handle the uploading -- you know, the geek
stuff that you have apparently not gotten the hang of yet.

Here's the chronology:

   98-04-12 01:31:21 EDT -- You propose a debate.
   98-04-16 22:23:02 EDT -- I counter-propose an on-line debate.
   98-04-26 12:58:36 EDT -- I repeat my request for a response to my counter.
   98-04-29 23:35:28 EDT -- I again repeat my request for a response to my
counter.
   98-06-02              -- Still no response to my counter-proposal.  


OK, Bill, YET AGAIN:  what do you say to my counter-proposal that we conduct
the debate on-line?  I also offer to provide the technical support.

                                  
Oh, BTW, I had assumed that you would want to start again from scratch,
rather than have me post our exchanges to date as the beginning of the
debate.  I fully realize, as I am sure you do too, that your abysmal
performance shows you and your position in an extremely poor light.  But if
that is all that you will give us to go with, ... .

If you need a transcript of what has transpired to date, I can provide you
with that, too.


PS:
You said, "lets have a PUBLIC debate" (emphasis mine).  What could you
possibly feel freer to say that you have steadfastly refused to say in our
email exchanges?  If anything, saying something out in public should make one
feel more restricted, rather than freer.

PPS:
DO you have something to say?  Why can you not say it here?  What you have
demonstrated to us here is that you really have nothing to say and no basis
to your claims (most of which we need to glean from elsewhere, since you
won't even answer the most basic question of how old you believe the earth to
be).  Nu?

</PRE></HTML>

                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-03 23:32:02 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
Follow-up time, Bill:

### YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:  Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.

### END ### 


### ME ###
Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-06 01:11:17 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

[snipped]

>What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?<

Honestly, Bill!  After all this time, you still have not read my geology
page?  Even after you made such a big fuss, demanding that I present you with
my evidence that the earth is ancient.  ... 

[snipped]

...  Much of the geological data you ask for is described on that page.  Read
it this time [http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/geology.html] [NOTE:  new
address!]

[snipped]

That geologist's name is Glenn R. Morton.  His email address is
grmorton@psyberlink.net.  The URL for his web pages is
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm.  He can tell you exactly what that
evidence is and why it was significant, plus answer other questions you may
have.  Do not try to proselytize him; he used to be a young-earth creationist
and knows a lot more about it than you do, more than you would want to know,
but should.

[snipped]

When you write to Glenn Morton, please CC me and share his reply with me.

### END ###

Well, Bill, I did not get CC'd, so I must assume that you never did follow
through in getting the answer to your question.  Did you finally read my
geology page?   Did you visit Glenn Morton's page?  Did you write to Glenn
Morton?  What did you ask him?  What was his response?

An entire month has transpired.  If you have not read my geology page, nor
visit Glenn Morton's page, nor write to Glenn Morton, then why not?  
</PRE></HTML>

                     
#########################################################
                     
Subj:   Bill's Game 
Date:   98-06-03 23:32:12 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: liber8r@mcs.com
CC: DWise1, BillyJack6

<HTML><PRE>>Your last letter was fascinating.  As usual, you have responded
eloquently to Billy's blurbs.  I believe that it is obvious that Billy is
less interested in discussion than he is in converting.<

I think that's part of the breed.  In the years that I was involved in
creation/evolution on CompuServe, I very rarely encountered a creationist who
was actually interested in discussing the claims or in backing up their
claims.  One in particular, Paul Ekdahl (he's the one who posted the "23
Points" that I responded to and posted on my web site
[http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/points23.html]), used to post monstrous
messages which were taken verbatim from creationist books.  He was so slavish
in copying his sources that he would even include footnote numbers!  He would
refuse to discuss any of it and would "answer" questions with yet another
verbatim copying.  Every single time that I would finally get him to respond
in his own words, he would immediately try to convert me.  He was a
Seventh-Day Adventist.  I think that the final straw for him was when he
described how his church's founder, Ellen G. White, would go into a trance
and perform some amazing physical feats, whereupon I replied that when I was
practiced in Aikido, I could do the exact same things and more, all without
having to go into any kind of trance.


>Billy should realize that his short one-liners are not going to 'cut the
mustard.'<

I don't think that matters to him.  As far as he is concerned, nobody else
would ever know about his intransigence.  Well, that is not going to happen.
I do plan on devoting a page to him, on which I plan to describe our dealings
with him.  I will not use any of Bill's actual email messages to me/us, since
that would be a betrayal of trust, but everything else is fair game.  I'll
even try to solicit material from him.  In the meantime, if he could become
more forthright in his responses, he might get portrayed differently on my
"Bill Morgan Page".


>Also, you shouldn't be debating with someone who isn't truly interested in
what you have to write.  As proof of my assertion, Billy will once again
provide short blurbs to your accurate and detailed messages.  [Here's a case
where I would love to be wrong.]<

They say that a pessimist should be the happiest person around.  99% of the
time he has the self-satisfaction of being right and 1% of the time he is
pleasantly surprised.  Like you, I am also waiting to be pleasantly surprised
by Bill.

Also, you know that Bill does not usually "provide short blurbs."  He usually
refuses to respond.  It's just in the rare occasions that he does respond
that he only "provide[s] short blurbs."

This hasn't been a debate; you need to have two sides present for there to be
a debate.  Basically, Bill's not really here, of his own volition and despite
our repeated efforts to get him involved.  Instead, I am trying to make him
aware of the serious problems with and dangers of his crusade to convert the
rest of us with contrary-to-fact claims.  In the course of my efforts, I have
had to think through the issues and describe the problems and their
consequences.  My creation/evolution page will change considerably, and for
the better, as a result of my efforts here, so the time has not been wasted.

At the same time, we have been learning more about Bill's activities and I
have come to suspect his integrity.  Consider:

1. Some years ago, when he corresponded with an acquaintence of mine who knew
virtually nothing about creation/evolution, Bill was not in the least bit shy
about writing page after page of bluster, taunts, and bogus creationist
claims.  When I started our email exchange, Bill came on strong and blustery,
but when he realized that I knew something about the subject, he almost
immediately backed and refused to deal in writing, claiming to have a
personal preference for the telephone.  This is despite his earlier zeal for
writing and his own admission that he handles a lot of email traffic.  This
indicates that Bill is NOT shy about writing, but only when the other person
doesn't understand what is going on;
otherwise, he tries to disengage immediately.

2. From newsgroups we find reported that Bill has spammed his AOLCREAT.DOC in
several newsgroups (spammed even further afield by others).  Furthermore, it
has been reported that he has done this on serveral occasions.  In
particular, the poster said that Bill had posted AOLCREAT.DOC in talk.origins
and alt.atheism repeatedly, even though the whole thing was refuted each
time.  All he did was ignore the responses and then post it again, hoping
that everybody had forgotten it from the last time.  This indicates that Bill
has received lots of feedback on AOLCREAT.DOC and has been informed, many
times over, of the errors contained in that file.

5. I informed Bill of a few of the gross errors I found in AOLCREAT.DOC,
particularly his erroneous protein-formation argument.  Again, he had not
comment, except to denounce my MONKEY program, which he had never seen and
had no idea what it did.

6. Now he has sent me yet another copy of AOLCREAT.DOC.  Except for a few
cosmetic changes, it is identical to what he had sent to me two years ago.
It has not been corrected at all.  He has ignored all the different critiques
he has received on it over the years and continues to distribute the same
error-filled tract as if it had never received any criticism at all.

7. From that first encounter (see #1), I received a copy of Bill's comic,
"Weird Science", the critique of which I wrote and gave to Bill.  Bill said
absolutely nothing about the multitude of errors that I found in his work.
In "Weird Science," Bill claimed blusterily that nobody had ever been able to
find a single error in it; I wonder if his current version continues to make
the same claim.

8. Despite having been made aware of the grave dangers creation science poses
for Christians' faith, he continues in his newsletter to taut young-earth
creationism as the only position that a "true Christian" could hold.  This is
despite his knowledge that geological evidence directly refutes a young-earth
position and that several creationists working as geologists have gone
through severe crises of faith, some reportedly even to the brink of atheism,
because the young-earth position is contrary to fact.


From these observations, we could conclude:
1. Bill is incredibly stupid,
2. Bill is so fanatical that he is blind to the truth, or
3. Bill knows full well that his position is based on lies, yet he believes
that the ends (ensnaring ever more souls for his god) justify the means
(using lies and deception).

We can immediately cross of the first one; Bill is no dummy.  The second one
probably has a lot of merit, but I see too much evidence of deliberate action
on Bill's part; he has to be aware of what he is doing.  I keep coming back
to the third choice, that Bill knows full well what he is doing.  

I know that it is very difficult to tell whether a creationist is
deliberately lying or has merely succeeded in deceiving himself as well, but
there are some cases where it can be nothing else.  Like Walter Brown's
deceptive rattlesnake-protein claim, which has to be worded so precisely that
he could not help but be aware of what he is doing.

Similarly, Bill has been acting too smart in our dealings, way too cagey.
When he thinks that the other person doesn't know what is going on, then he
doesn't hold back.  But as soon as he determines that the other person is
knowledgable, he backs off and insists against all reason on a purely verbal
format, if even that (I assume that he is either really glib or has the
patter down pat so that he could maintain a moving target).  

From what I have been seeing, he seems to know that he has no evidence to
support his claims.  If it were a case of self-deception, in which he
actually believed in the claims and their purported evidence, then he should
not exhibit any reservations about presenting his claims nor about presenting
his "evidence" for those claims.  That he does not do so indicates against
self-deception and for his knowledge of the falsehood of his claims and their
"evidence."  It does not completely rule out some degree of self-deception,
but it does indicate awareness of his own actions.

Because of that, we need to continue trying to discuss the issues with him.
Since his theology removes him from responsibility for the consequences of
his actions, so long as he believes that he is acting for the furtherance of
his religion, somebody has to trigger his conscience -- or be his conscience,
since he seems to lack one.


Of course, we wouldn't be so concerned with his driving more people to
atheism, if only he and his church didn't have such a distorted view of
atheism.

-----------------------

From "The Man with Two Brains":
German policeman:  You're playing God!
Steve Martin:      Well, somebody has to!

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  SOS
Date:   98-06-03 23:32:24 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
For Liber8r's sake:

### YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:   Fwd: Creation vs Evolution
Date:   98-05-18 01:01:30 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

File:  10CRE97.DOC (55808 bytes)
DL Time (14400 bps): < 1 minute


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:   Creation vs Evolution
Date:   98-05-18 00:58:23 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: BillyJack6
<HTML><PRE>
Attached is a paper I made on the subject of Creation vs. Evolution.  It is
geared to be very friendly to people who may be evolutionists or athiests.

My goal is to present the reasons why I beleive the Creation Model is a much
better explanation for what we observe than the Evolution Model.

If anyone who receives this desires more free information can either call me
or e mail me at 714 898-8331.
</PRE></HTML>
### END YOUR MESSAGE ###

>Attached is a paper I made on the subject of Creation vs. Evolution.  It is
geared to be very friendly to people who may be evolutionists or athiests.<

Uh, Bill, that's just your AOLCREAT.DOC file again.  Yeah, sure, you made
cosmetic changes to a few lines and you inserted a sentence or ten in a few
places (forgetting to correct the paragraph numbering scheme that you screwed
up in the process -- Word can handle that stuff for you, you know; let your
tools do the work, something I learned very quickly with a pneumatic jack
hammer), but it is still the SOS that you sent me two years ago and that you
and your buddies, god@boy.com and lady@love.com, spammed all over the
newsgroups, much to everybody's annoyance.

Also you still have not learned to distribute the file in a universally
readable format, like TXT, instead of as a Word6 document, which is something
of a binary file.  Remember that your penchant for spamming a binary file
raised some flames.  How badly did those guys in the professional football
newsgroups rough you up, BTW?


And you have made absolutely NO corrections to the errors you know to be in
it.

Your misunderstanding of proteins and of the models for the evolution of
proteins is still there, even though you know better now.  You even continue
to claim that the protein sequence has to be exactly right or else the
protein won't work.  You know that is false!  Remember when you made the same
mistake as Michael Denton had with interspecies protein comparisons?  THAT
claim depends on the SAME protein being DIFFERENT in different species.
Hello?  In one claim you say that the same protein has different amino acid
sequences in different species (OK, so most of the chimpanzee proteins are
identical to human proteins, which started to give rise to the rumor that all
of the differences between humans and chimpanzees were cultural -- relax,
that's a joke; they did finally find a protein that was different.  Just
don't you go and follow in Gish's footsteps by using this joke as a
"scientific source") and then in another claim you say that there is only one
single amino acid sequence for a given protein and if you change even one
single amino acid you have destroyed that protein's functionality.  Bill,
your two claims contradict each other!  If your "model" is supposed to be the
"better explanation", then it should not contradict itself.  Or do you just
make whatever wild claim you can to oppose science, with absolutely no regard
for consistency?

Besides, your protein formation argument still uses the wrong probability
model.  Rather than using an evolutionary model (which is what you were
trying to disprove/discredit), you used a creation ex nihilo model.  I
already told you about that.  You know better.   Why haven't you corrected it
yet?

And you are still trying to claim to have been an atheist, even though you
admitted to me that you had never stopped believing in the existence of your
god, that you constantly prayed to that god, and that you were only
pretending to yourself to be an atheist in order to give your hormones and
your depravity full and free rein.  Since you know that your claim to have
been an atheist is false, why do you continue to make that claim?  Just
because it sounds good?  I also know that when you speak before the public,
you advertise that false claim prominently.  Why not just tell the truth?  Is
telling the truth against your religion?

Does this mean that you haven't done anything to correct "Weird Science"
either?  You said that you have a new version of it, but from what I've seen
of your work, I'm sure that you have corrected nothing and have added more
misinformation.  OBTW, do you have an electronic version of it?


I already echoed back to you the newsgroups' reactions to your spamming of
AOLCREAT.DOC, keeping the complaints against the spamming itself to a
minimum.  I had tried to draw them primarily from Christian sources.  Most of
those berated your efforts as making Christians look like a bunch of idiots
or a pack of liars, like:

"Bill, I do not want to sound harsh but this stuff would get ripped to
shreads on 'talk.origins'. While I believe in creation as the only source of
my existance these arguments have been refuted many times. While I know that
you are trying, I hate seeing people branded as 'liars for Jesus'. "

Even a minister had nothing good to say about you and AOLCREAT.DOC; Rev David
Michael Rice 
[Shy.David@EdenBBS.COM], Mariner's Ministries, Dana Point, CA:

"In summary, ignorant fools like this are a bane to Christianity and the Body
of Christ, as idiots like this tend to give Christians a bad name. Documents
like "aolcreat.txt" show non-believers just how very ignorant, stupid,
uninformed, deceptive, uneducated, blatently IMBICILIC Christians can be."


The only positive messages I saw were from one Christian who had not been
exposed to creation science before and from the hawking of god@boy.com and
lady@love.com as they were busy spamming it all over the place, even farther
afield than you had, saying "hey, lookit this!"  One thing I noticed was that
they also posted it in talk.orgins, whereas you had made sure to avoid that
newsgroup.  It certainly could not have been through ignorance, because one
response noted that you had posted there before, that you had been told many
times exactly what was wrong with your claims, and that you would keep coming
back with the exact same false claims that they had refuted before.  From
chrislee@netcom.com (Christopher A. Lee):

"This crap has been refuted on alt.atheism and talk.origins each time Bill
Morgan posted the identical article. Yet he ignores the responses and repeats
the same drek hoping that people have forgotten it from last time."

That describes the strategy of a snake-oil salesman: come into town, make
your claims, then move on to the next town before they have a chance to hear
of what happened in the last towns.  That is the dishonest strategy of
somebody who knows that they are trying to pull a fast one.  It used to work
really well for the ICR, until their opponents started talking with each
other and sharing information, eventually forming the NCSE
[http://www.natcenscied.org/].

Bill, either you are incredibly stupid, or you know full well that your
claims are false.  I'm sure that the former is not true, which leaves us with
the latter.  I noticed right away that as long as you thought that I didn't
know anything about creation science, you were very verbose and ready to
talk, but as soon as my knowledge of and experience with the subject became
evident, you clammed up.  You have repeatedly dodged almost every question I
have asked you, even the obvious ones like "How old do you think the earth
is?".  You have almost without fail refused to defend any of your claims, as
if you realized yourself that there is no way that you could defend them.

I think that you know that you are "lying for the Lord"  That you are trying
to uphold the truth of the Bible with false claims.  That you are trying to
convert others to your religion by any means possible, no matter how
deceitful.  Bill, since when did the Truth need to be upheld by lies?  Since
when did your god say that he would reward you for tricking people into
converting?  If you believe that you are solely responsible to him, what do
you think your reward will be for casting your web of lies to snare souls?

Yeah, yeah, I know.  You are not responsible for your actions, so long as you
do it for your god.  You will just plead inherent human depravity (one of the
original "Five Fundamentals" defined in 1895 from the Niagara Conferences),
ask for forgiveness, and enter into your paradise, along with the Muslim
suicided martyrs (eg, the terrorist human bombs).


Annotated copies of AOLCREAT.DOC have also been posted on the Web, at:

   Creationist Crap [http://aix2.uottawa.ca/~s866370/creation.html]
   Creation vs. Evolution1 [http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/onfile/crevevo1.html]

I think you will recognize the second one as belonging to our friend,
Liber8r.


Yet another question.  Matt Singerman [yotaxes@pipeline.com] commented:

"By the way, there is no such thing as a "registered" engineer.  You get your
diploma, and that's it.  No registration process except if for private
industry, which is not registration, but certification."

I would have to agree with Matt, though I have heard of a form of licensing
for "Practical Engineers," which a technician with several years of
experience and no engineering degree can apply for.  

Why do you refer to yourself as a "registered mechanical engineer"?  Or is
this yet another simple, direct question that you will refuse to answer?


Also: "When I get a chance to teach at a college, ..."

What college(s) have you taught at.  What classes?  What are your
credentials?

</PRE></HTML>

                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Ozone
Date:   98-06-03 23:32:50 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

File:  CQ-1.GIF (19251 bytes)
DL Time (14400 bps): < 1 minute

<HTML><PRE>
For Liber8r:

### BEGIN YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:  Re: Bad Science:  R-12
Date:   98-05-19 18:21:53 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Hi!

You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere.  You wore out you keyboard assuming I have never read up on
this topic (I have and it is clear you really have not).

Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth.  The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get there.

Thanks

</PRE></HTML>
### END YOUR MESSAGE ###

>You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere.<                                 

Oh?  I thought that I had.  Please tell me why and in what way my response
did not answer your question.


>You wore out you keyboard ...< 

Not at all; my father taught me long ago to let the tool do the work.  I gave
you the straight skinny, exactly -- character for character -- as I had
gotten it from NOAA.  You should learn how to use the Clipboard; that's what
it is there for.


>... assuming I have never read up on this topic< 

Au contraire!  It was obvious that you had read at least something on the
topic, even if it had been nothing more than a single article (please note
the use of the subjunctive there).  You had questions.  They had to have come
from somewhere, whether directly from your reading (ie, the author had raised
them himself) or from your own mind as you had read (the vacuous "From the
Mind of Bill Morgan" stationary notwithstanding).  Furthermore, you were
asking a lot of the right questions, or at least the same questions that most
other people were asking, since they wound up on NOAA's frequently asked
questions (FAQ) list, so you were somewhat on the right track.  You couldn't
have done that without having read anything on the topic.

However, at the same time it was also obvious that you had not done any
research to answer those questions.  Or at least you weren't looking in the
right places.  It's like the short campfire skit (stolen -- I mean,
researched -- from vaudeville, I'm sure) where a Scout comes up to the
campfire and starts looking for his watch: 
"Where'd you lose it?"
"Way over there."
"But if it's way over there, why are you looking for it over here?"
"The light's better here."
Will that Scout ever find his watch by looking in all the wrong places?  No,
of course not.

Your questions involve areas of physics and meteorology that deal with global
wind patterns at ALL levels of the atmosphere, convection currents on a
global scale, fluid motion, and particle dynamics, including interactions on
a molecular level involving gasses of greatly different densities.  One very
good place to look for people with that kind of knowledge would be at NOAA;
that is what they do for a living.  Instead, (by your account) you chose to
restrict your search to sales representatives at air conditioning trade
shows, who, let's face it, are not known for their expertise in the required
fields, nor should they be expected to have that kind of expertise.  Since
you were looking in all the wrong places, naturally you could not find any
answers to your questions.
                                                                           

>(I have and it is clear you really have not).<

I already told you that I conducted my research for only fifteen minutes.
You never said how long you had conducted yours, but I would assume that it
was much longer than fifteen minutes.  However, at the end of your extended
research, you had found no answers, whereas at the end of my mere fifteen
minutes, I had found the answers to all of your questions.  That should tell
us something about the comparative effectiveness of our two separate research
efforts.  Which research should prove more fruitful, 15 minutes looking in
the right place or 100 years looking in the wrong place?

Perhaps you could describe your research to us.  Where did you look?  What
did you find?  Had you looked at NOAA's publications on the subject?  Since I
have given you the URL, have you looked at NOAA's site in the meantime?  If
you have further questions, will you direct them to NOAA, or will you
continue to harrass unsuspecting and unknowledgeable sales reps?

FWIW, here is the URL again (for your question of "How Can
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're Heavier than
Air?"):  
http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/pubdocs/Assessment94/common-questions-q1.html.
You should be able to find your way back to the rest of NOAA's site from
there.

>Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth.  The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get
there.<

Again, that has been answered already.  Here it is again; first my synopsis
and then the actual FAQ from NOAA:

### MY SYNOPSIS ###

Basically, despite the fact that CFC molecules are several times heavier than
air, direct measurement shows that they are present in the stratosphere in
sufficient quantity to do damage.  They mix in with the lower atmosphere and
are transported by the winds, similar to how moving water can keep much
heavier particles in suspension.  CFC is very stable and unreactive in the
lower atmosphere (which is one reason they had become so widely used in
industry) and so can persist for the years that it takes for them to reach
the stratosphere.  Other sources of clorine (eg, swimming pools and volcanic
eruptions) do not contribute much, if any, to ozone depletion, because that
clorine is water-soluble and gets scrubbed out of the lower atmosphere long
before it could reach the stratosphere.  CFC gets thoroughly mixed in the
lower atmosphere long before it works its way to the stratosphere, so the
locality of its production has no bearing on where the zones of greatest
depletion occur.  Global atmospheric convection patterns, especially the
up-welling at the tropics which feed the down-welling at the poles, carry the
CFCs to the polar regions.  Antarctic meteorology produces conditions which
promote the depletion reactions.

### END SYNOPSIS ###

For the following FAQ, figure cq-1.gif has been attached to this email.

### NOAA FAQ ###

http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/pubdocs/Assessment94/common-questions-q1.html
Common Questions about Ozone

How Can Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're Heavier
than Air?

Although the CFC molecules are indeed several times heavier than air,
thousands of measurements have been made from balloons, aircraft, and
satellites demonstrating that the CFCs are actually present in the
stratosphere. The atmosphere is not stagnant. Winds mix the atmosphere to
altitudes far above the top of the stratosphere much faster than molecules
can settle according to their weight.  Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble
in water and relatively unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below about 10
km) are quickly mixed and therefore reach the stratosphere regardless of
their weight. 

Much can be learned about the atmospheric fate of compounds from the measured
changes in concentration versus altitude. For example, the two gases carbon
tetrafluoride (CF4, produced mainly as a by-product of the manufacture of
aluminum) and CFC-11 (CCl3F, used in a variety of human activities) are both
much heavier than air. Carbon tetrafluoride is completely unreactive in the
lower 99.9% of the atmosphere, and measurements show it to be nearly
uniformly distributed throughout the atmosphere as shown in the figure. There
have also been measurements over the past two decades of several other
completely unreactive gases, one lighter than air (neon) and some heavier
than air (argon, krypton), which show that they also mix upward uniformly
through the stratosphere regardless of their weight, just as observed with
carbon tetrafluoride. CFC-11 is unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below
about 15 km) and is similarly uniformly mixed there, as shown. The abundance
of CFC-11 decreases as the gas reaches higher altitudes, where it is broken
down by high energy solar ultraviolet radiation. Chlorine released from this
breakdown of CFC-11 and other CFCs remains in the stratosphere for several
years, where it destroys many thousands of molecules of ozone. 

### END FAQ ###

"The atmosphere is not stagnant. Winds mix the atmosphere to altitudes far
above the top of the stratosphere much faster than molecules can settle
according to their weight.  Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble in water
and relatively unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below about 10 km) are
quickly mixed and therefore reach the stratosphere regardless of their
weight."

When I used to SCUBA dive, we were taught that there would be about 40 diving
fatalities each year in the US.  80% was due to beginners panicking and
killing themselves by doing something stupid (I have a classic case, if you
want to hear it).  Most of the remaining 20% were on the east coast, where
they would get lost in Florida's underwater caves or in New England's sunken
ships and eventually drown, again through stupidity.  In the ship-diving
fatalities, the diver would enter a space that looked perfectly clear, then
turn around to exit and be faced with a wall of zero visibility hiding the
exit.  Just the  slight turbulence generated by his fins would stir up the
silt that had settled out in the still water.  A moving fluid can carry
heavier particles and keep them from settling out.

OK, Bill, there you have it again.  Your question had been answered before
and now it has been answered again.

One of the conceptual errors you were making was to assume that the air was
stagnant, not moving.  That would indeed result in a settling out of the
gasses according to their relative weights.  However, the real world is never
so ideal.  The air in the atmosphere does indeed move and the wind does
indeed blow (a clearly observable meteorological phenomenon in the North
Dakota winter, where it gets too cold to snow, so the wind just keeps
redistributing the snow that is already there, which gets dirt mixed in with
it, creating "snirt" -- been there, shoveled that).  And gasses of different
densities do indeed mix.

Now, you may want to reject NOAA's explanation.  That would be your choice.
However, you will still be left with the problem of explaining how the CFCs
get into the stratosphere. Because "thousands of measurements have been made
from balloons, aircraft, and satellites demonstrating that the CFCs are
actually present in the stratosphere."  Rejecting an explanation of how it
got there does not explain away the fact that it is there.  According to
figure cq-1.gif, CFC-11 is present in concentrations of about 400 parts per
trillion in the lower atmosphere and up to about 15 km, where it starts to
drop slowly until it reaches 0.01 parts per trillion at about 32 km.  The
same figure shows the stratosphere starting at about 12 km altitude.


We know that it is SOP in creation science to decide beforehand what can and
cannot be and then ignore all evidence to the contrary.  But we are not going
to let you pull that one off, Bill.  You cannot simply wish it all away; the
real world does not work like that.

CFCs are in the stratosphere.  If you reject NOAA's explanation of how it
gets there, that still leaves us with the question of how it gets there.
Please offer your own explanation of how it gets there.  If you also cannot,
which is definitely within the realm of possibility (as is the possibility
that NOAA's explanation of how is incorrect), that does still leave us with
the directly observable fact, verified thousands of times, that CFCs are in
the stratosphere.

Nu?


The next question would be, why is this such a hot topic for you?  It has
moved you to do something you almost never do with creationist topics; you
actually responded!  Why does it motivate you so?  This has nothing to do
with evolution, so why did you write about it in your newsletter?  And why
did you have a speaker on the subject?  Did he offer any connection between
the ozone layer and evolution/creation?  Or was he trying to blame evolution
for ozone depletion, like Henry Morris and others have tried to blame
evolution for practically every existing evil in the world?

</PRE></HTML>http://www.aol.com


                     
#########################################################

Subj:    Re: Bill's Game 
Date:   98-06-04 01:17:55 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>Be fair.  I have told you many times lets phone chat or meet in
person.  I have very little time to type plus its not as much fun as meeting
or the phone.

I do not want to car pool tunnel syndrome.

I object to your assumption of "bluster."  I may be an idiot, but I am a
polite and nice idiot.

Love,
Bill</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: SOS
Date:   98-06-04 01:34:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I have taught at USC, UCLA, Cal State LA, San Diego State, UC
Santa Barbara and many community colleges.

A registered mechanical engineer is a PE a Professional Engineer which means
I passed a licensing test (most engineers are not PE's).

Thanks!

Bill</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: UCI Debate
Date:   98-06-04 01:39:34 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>the audience was very pro christian.

Would you like a cop of the video and audio tape of the debate for cost?

Joe Tyndall did as good a job as possible and I give him credit.

His e mail is jtisme@earthlink.net.  He is a very nice guy.

Would you like a shot at eastman?  Do you have the desire to debate
him?</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-04 01:43:08 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>No, I want a debate behind a podium with nice overheads.

Why are you scared to?  You should kill me I am just a religious fanatic and
you hold science so close, so dear to your heart...you are holding the gates
of science as we nonscience barbarians are tearing at the gate.....my oh my
what is holding you back?

I will organize teh room, the advertizing, all the details...i will even
provide with a cup of cold water.  I am very organized and productive and
will handle all teh details, you just bring your best arguments!

Bill</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-04 01:44:31 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Too busy!  But trying to catch up!  I spoke to 9 high schools
about Creation vs Evolution the past two weeks and it keeps me busy opening
their eyes to truth!

Bill</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: Bill's Game 
Date:   98-06-04 01:45:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Hey, This is great material. Would it be ok if i were to add it to
my web page?
I am trying to put together a comprehensive web site (on aol for now) that
covers all aspects of Christian life as well as witnessing material or
evidence for them to use.</PRE></HTML>



########################################################

Subj:   Re: "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
Date:   98-06-05 02:03:30 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Carbon dating only produces recent dates due to its short half
life.</PRE></HTML>BillyJack6Re: "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
98-06-05 02:03:30 EDT, you write:

<< <HTML><PRE>


########################################################

Subj: Re: "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
 Date:  98-06-05 02:03:30 EDT
 From:  BillyJack6
 To:    DWise1
 
 Carbon dating only produces recent dates due to its short half
life.</PRE></HTML> >>



########################################################

Subj:   Re: Fwd: "Desperate" Scientists
Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-05 22:33:39 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>For Liber8r:

### BEGIN MESSAGE ###
Subj:   Fwd: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-02 21:58:19 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1, BillyJack6

<HTML><PRE>You missed a good butt whipping at UCI!

Want to get the video?

Want to debae Dr Mark Eastman in public?????

</PRE></HTML> 
### END MESSAGE ###
       
>You missed a good butt whipping at UCI!<

Sorry to hear that Dr. Eastman had such a rough time of it.  How badly did he
screw up?
                                       
Do you have Joe Tyndall's email address?
                                       

>Want to debae Dr Mark Eastman in public?????<

Debase him?  No, I have no desire to debase anybody in public ... well, maybe
a few really deserving sleazy characters, but Scouting would doubtless suffer
for it.

Bill, debasing people in public is YOUR methodology, not mine.  Creation
science strategy and tactics call for swaying public opinion by destroying
public trust in science and scientists, then offer your theology as the only
alternative.  By the Two Model Approach (TMA), this is to be accomplished by:

1. first establishing the false dilemma that there are only 
    two mutually exclusive "models":
    a. the "creation model", which contains all ideas of 
        origins which are compatible with a literalist 
        interpretation of Genesis
    b. the "evolution model", which contains all ideas of 
        origins which are not contained in the "creation model", 
        including several disproven, discarded, and 
        contradictory ideas.
2. "disprove" the "evolution model" by various means, not the 
    least of which is to quote prominent scientists denouncing 
    various parts of the "evolution model", usually the disproven 
    and discarded ideas. 
3. conclude that, since the "evolution model" has been "disproven" 
    (through death by a thousand pin pricks), then the "creation 
    model", as the only alternative, is true.  Of vital importance 
    for creation science it that this conclusion is reached without 
    ever having to present the "creation model" nor any evidence 
    for it, and without ever having to discuss the "creation model."  
    Indeed, in one debate when his opponent tried to present Flood 
    Geology in order to discuss it, Henry Morris refused to discuss 
    it because that would be introducing religion into a scientific 
    debate.

Avoiding having to present the "creation model" is important because it is
very difficult to hide the fact that you are trying to play "Hide the Bible"
and avoiding having to present any evidence for the "creation model" is
important because the evidence does not support it and even counters it.
Hence creation science is left with no option but to simply attack evolution
and science, even if you can do no more than further erode the public's 
trust in science by feeding and increasing their misunderstanding of it.  I
have observed that you are quite familiar with these tactics.


In sharp contrast to creation science's approach, I want to look at the
evidence and to discuss the evidence.  Since I have studied creation science,
I am
disgusted with it and I do express my disgust.  At the same time, I am
willing to give credit where it is due.  Even since I started my studies in
creation/evolution, I have taken at face value creationists' claim of a
scientific creation model and of the existence of evidence FOR creation and I
have repeatedly asked for and sought that model and that evidence -- all in
vain.  If there is an actual scientific creation model, then I want to see it
presented.  And if there is evidence FOR creation, then I want to see that
presented as well.  To date, in nearly two decades, I have not seen that
done.
(hint:  a scientific model is formulated FROM the evidence, so if a model
truly exists, so must the evidence).

For these reasons, I view the creationist-produced debates as being little
more than a farce and a circus.  Their format is designed to debase the
opposition, making them look bad and foolish.  The creationist is free to
present a torrent of  misinformation (epitomised by the "Gish Gallop") while
his opponent is given woefully little time in which to respond (remember my
earlier explanation that responding to a one-minute "Gish Gallop" could
easily require three to six hours).  Only a very competent and experience
debator could fair well in such a format, though that would require him to
subvert the debate format (eg, by making a presentation instead of replying
directly to his opponent) and have knowledge beforehand of their opponent's
claims  These "debates'" only goals are to sway public opinion through
misinformation, proselytize, and lend an air of scientific respectability to
creation science.  In short, creationist-produced debates serve little useful
purpose.

A better debate format would be one in which both sides present their models
and the evidence FOR their models.  Both sides would need to support their
claims and expect to be called upon to explain their claims.  Purely
rhetorical devices would not be allowed; all claims would need to be
substantiated.

In short, that is what I've been trying to get going here.  Yes, I am aware
that that is the kind of format that creation science avoids like the plague,
but it
is nonetheless the only format that supports examination of the facts and of
the evidence.


In light of that, what about my counter-proposal to you that we do an on-line
debate?



I really need to do a proper write-up on the TMA.  All I have now are a few
CompuServe messages where I discussed it and the exerpt from my critique of
your "Weird Science."  At one time, I had done Boolean equations to explain
what the TMA is doing logically, but I cannot find that file.

I'll just have to work on that in my "copious spare time" <gr -- engineer
talk I learned at Hughes>.


PS
I just had a thought, so I'm trying a little experiment.  Since AOL's EMAIL
system seems to use HTML, or is embedded in HTML, I am repeating 
the ordered list using HTML tags.  Please tell me how it looks to you
(especially you, Liber8r, since you are using a non-AOL mail reader):
</PRE>
<OL TYPE=1>
<LI>first establishing the false dilemma that there are only two mutually
exclusive "models":                         
<OL TYPE=a>    
<LI>the "creation model", which contains all ideas of origins which are
compatible with a literalist interpretation of Genesis
<LI>the "evolution model", which contains all ideas of origins which are not
contained in the "creation model", including several disproven, discarded,
and 
contradictory ideas.
</OL>    
<LI>"disprove" the "evolution model" by various means, not the least of which
is to quote prominent scientists denouncing various parts of the "evolution
model", usually the disproven and discarded ideas. 
<LI>conclude that, since the "evolution model" has been "disproven" (through
death by a thousand pin pricks), then the "creation model", as the only
alternative, is true.  Of vital importance for creation science it that this
conclusion is reached without ever having to present the "creation model" nor
any evidence for it, and without ever having to discuss the "creation model."
Indeed, in one debate when his opponent tried to present Flood Geology in
order to discuss it, Henry Morris refused to discuss it because that would be
introducing religion into a scientific debate.
</OL>
<PRE>

</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: Fwd: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-05 22:33:45 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>>
>The New York Times, May 5, 1998, Tuesday, Section F; Page 1; Science Desk
>
>Cosmologists Ponder 'Missing Energy' of the Universe
>By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
>
>DATELINE: BATTAVIA, Ill.
>

[snipped]


Scientists faced with evidence that needs explanation, but which is so far
unexplained or insufficiently explained by current theory and hypotheses.  So
from the evidence and observations, along with current theories, they develop
hypotheses to try to explain the evidence.  That's called "doing science."
Scientists doing science.

OK.  So what's your point?  Do you have a problem with scientists doing
science?  Why?

</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Two Model Approach
Date:   98-06-05 22:33:57 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Bill:

On the subject of the "Two Model Approach" (TMA), I just came across a little
something I wrote some years ago (1991).  As part of my approach of taking
creation science claims at face value, I decided to use the TMA to generate
expectations from both evolution and the creation model  that then could be
tested against the real world.  When I did so, I found the "creation model"
to be in much sorrier shape than current evolutionary theory and modern
science.  BTW, note that I used current evolutionary theory and the
applicable scientific field instead of the TMA's "evolution model", since the
latter bears little more than a superficial resemblance to evolution.

Basically, this approach is what I considered to be ideal.  I even wrote to
PBS suggesting it as the format for an episode of Nova.

I thought that I had written more examples, but these three are all that I
have found for now.  Except for superficial reformatting and the insertion of
URLs, this is exactly what I had written in 1991:

Example 1.  FOSSILS

Expectations:
Evolution:  we should expect to find some evidence of at least some ancestral
forms which are intermediate between older and more recent forms, allowing
for the practical limitations of finding fossils.
        
Creation Model:  we should expect to find no ancestral intermediate forms at
all.

The Test:  
If we do find intermediate forms, then we lend support, but do not
necessarily prove, evolution -- the more we find the more support we lend.
However, if even one intermediate form is found, then we have disproven the
creation model on this point.

The Evidence:  
There are indeed intermediate forms.  For example, paleontologist Roger
Cuffey ("Paleontologic Evidence and Organic Evolution" by Roger Cuffey in
_Science and Creationism_ edited by Ashley Montagu, Oxford University Press,
1984) conducted a brief search, by no means exhaustive, of readily available
materials to compile a bibliography of about 160 references of transitional
fossils, including species of algae, corals, angiosperms, foraminiferans,
bryozoans, brachiopods, gastropods, pelecypods, ammonoids, trilobites,
crustaceans, echinoids, condonts, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, the
crossopterygian-amphibian transition, the amphibian-reptile transition, the
reptile-mammal transition, hominids, etc.  He listed the references according
to the following classifications of transitional fossils (going from more
complete to less complete knowledge):

1.  Sequences within a single higher taxon which grade continuously from one
species to another without break.
2.  Sequences which grade continuously from one species to another without
break and linking across from one higher taxon to another.
3.  Series of chronologically successive species within a single higher taxon
which grade from an early form to a later form.
4.  Series of chronologically successive species which grade from an early
form to a later form and cross boundaries separating different higher taxa.
5.  Continuous series of higher taxa grading from earlier to later forms,
sometimes crossing from one higher-rank taxon to another (not usually used to
construct transitional-fossil sequences).
6.  Isolated individuals (e.g. the most famous example, Archaeopteryx).

Since even one single intermediate form would disprove the creation model,
the creationist response is to eliminate these intermediates by either
ignoring them or defining them away with overly strict and unrealistic
definitions of "intermediate" or "transitional."


Example 2.   THE AGE OF THE EARTH

Expectations:
Geology:  The earth appears to be very old with a long and complex natural
history.

Creation Model:  "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old, then Scripture
has no meaning", John Morris (son of Henry Morris).

The Test:  
To support geology, the geological evidence should show that a long series of
events shaped the earth's surface, some of which take a considerable length
of time.  Independent physical evidence should support great age.

To support the creation model, the physical and geological evidence should
show no evidence of great age and long series of events.  However, the
Omphalos argument can be invoked to dismiss the mere appearance of great age
as having been created in place, which the ICR has been known to claim.
However, the Omphalos argument immediately fell into disfavor among the
faithful since it depicted God as perpetrating an elaborate hoax upon us.
Furthermore, trying to make the truth of Scripture dependant upon the truth
of creation science, as the ICR repeatedly does, is not only unscientific and
bad theology, but it is a very dangerous thing to do.

The Evidence:  
The geological evidence does indeed show a long and complex natural history
and several lines of independent physical evidence do indeed indicate great
age.

To counter this, the ICR and other creationists claim that the methods of
physical scientists are hopelessly flawed and that they have evidence that
the earth and universe are very young -- to the order of 10,000 years.
Indeed, most of the more "scientific" arguments from the ICR try to support
their "young earth" claims and more work has been done in checking and
verifying those ICR arguments.  Needless to say, these arguments have been
found to be based on false, misleading, refuted, unsubstantiated, or
downright fabricated sources.  Read my POINTS.23 file
[http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/points23.html] for some responses to
such claims.

Bear in mind here that a major schism exists among creationists over the
"young earth"/"old earth" question.  There was even an "Age of the Earth"
debate at the last International Creation Conference.  The ICR is most
definitely "young earth" and some of the more vitriolic attacks to come out
of the ICR have been directed at old-earthers.


Example 3.  THE FLOOD

Expectations:
Creation Model:  A single world-wide flood which lasted about a year created
most of the geological formations and buried most of the fossils, placing
them in the order that we find them in.

Geology:  The geological history of the earth is long and complex, with many
isolated and localized episodes of rapid depositation (flooding) along with
periods of slow depositation.

The Test:  
If any "Flood" formation can be shown to require much more than a year to
have formed, then the creation model would be disproven.  While evidence of
rapid depositation could lend support to either model.

The Evidence:  
Many formations require much more than a single year to have formed.  Read my
file, GEOLOG.Y, [http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/geology.html] for more
detail.

The 20 million varves of the Green River shale are typical of the seasonal
depositation of very fine sediments at the bottom of still lakes; any kind of
turbulence, as in a Flood, would keep them in suspension and disrupt the
layering.  This would have taken millions of years to form.

Fossil coral reefs display daily and annual varving, some of which would
require over 100,000 years to have formed.  In many places, fossil coral
reefs are found buried on top of each other or intertongued with sedimentary
rock, all of which would have taken much more than one year to have formed.
Also, coral must have clear water to grow, something not available in the
Flood.

In many locations, whole ecologies, such as mature forests, are buried
directly over each other.  This would also have taken much more than
a single year to occur.

BTW, we do have evidence of a single world-wide flood.  During the ice ages,
the sea level would subside due to the amount of water that would be trapped
in the ice caps rather than being in the oceans.  During the last great ice
age, the Wisconsinan, the sea level was about 200 feet lower than it is now.
This means that ocean bottom shallower than 200 feet was dry land and a
number of land bridges, such as the one across the Bering Strait were open.
Since the deepest the Persian Gulf gets is little more than 100 feet deep,
the Persian Gulf would have been dry land.

Then about 11,000 to 17,000 years ago, the Wisconsinan Ice Age ended, the ice
melted, and the sea level rose, flooding the lowlands.  Since human
populations tend to concentrate along the shorelines and in the lowlands,
this catastrophic flooding could not have gone unnoticed.  Indeed, it would
be very surprising NOT to encounter flood stories world-wide.
        
So not only do we have here an example of a single world-wide flood produced
entirely by natural causes, but it is still going on; the flood waters have
not subsided!  Indeed, if the world climate warms up as we fear it will, then
we would be faced with still worse flooding as the sea level rises another
150 feet (if the entire Antarctic ice cap were to melt).



Now you see why the ICR avoids discussing or even defending the "creation
model" in debate; it's very vulnerable!


Bill, by an interesting coincidence, you also avoid discussing or defending
the "creation model", or even creation science itself.  Did I say
"coincidence"?  I don't think it is.
</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Newsletter Notes
Date:   98-06-05 22:34:19 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Excuse me a moment, Bill.

Liber8r, since I am about to talk with Bill about what he had written in his
latest newsletter (Jun 98), I felt I should include that article, in its
entirety, in order to let you know what we are talking about and to preserve
context.

At the end of the newsletter, Bill offers to email the newsletter to anyone
who asks.  I'll take him up on that offer in order to lower his overhead. 

OK, Bill, first a little business.  Please switch to emailing the newsletter
to me here at dwise1@aol.com.  As little as it will save you in postage, at
least it's something and every little bit helps.


### BEGIN ARTICLE ###
### FROM Creation Science Association of Orange County newsletter, Jun 98 ###
### written by Bill Morgan (billyjack6@aol.com) ###
### HTML tags added for italics and underlining ###

<U>WARNING</U>!  CHRISTIAN COLLEGES MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR CHILD'S
SPIRITUAL HEALTH!!!!

Several years ago a co-worker was excited to inform me his son was accepted
to Wheaton College.  Shortly after this wonderful news, his son attended a
Ken Ham Creation seminar and he had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Ham.
He told Mr. Ham he was going to attend Wheaton and he was startled when Ham
told him: "Be careful, it might ruin your faith."

After the shock wore off he asked for an explanation and Ham told him that
Wheaton had many instructors who did not trust Genesis to be literal; that
some believed the Genesis days to be millions or billions of years long, and
some believed that God used evolution to create.  My co-worker's son thought
he was an extremist.

All I have to say is I knew this young man before he went to Wheaton and
after he graduated from Wheaton and his faith may  not be ruined, but it sure
is not where it used to be.  Maybe it was a result of some of his
instructors, maybe not, but there was a big change never the less.  He now
strongly argues that it is ridiculous to believe Genesis is literal.  No
longer do I hear any exciting spiritual news originating from his life.

<I>NOTE:  I am not saying all instructors at Wheaton are liberal, but enough
were to change this young man's opinion on the Bible.</I>

It would be a disaster for well meaning Christian parents to spend a large
amount of money to finance their child's education so that they may attend a
private Christian college, only to find out it killed their trust of the
Bible.

A few years ago there was a debate at UCI.  A professor from Fuller Seminary
was debating that Jesus did not rise from the dead, but that it was more
likely he had an <I>identical twin</I> who was crucified in his place.

I told a 9-year-old home schooled girl about this debate and her answer was
immediate and powerful.  She was puzzled for about two seconds and then
quickly replied that the Bible said Mary was with <I>child</I>, not with
children.  I would rather learn scripture from her than the Fuller prof.

Note:  Again, I am not accusing all Fuller Professors of being Bible twisters
instead of Bible trusters, but this gentleman sure was.

Ken Ham's July 1997 newsletter addressed Christian Colleges and their opinion
on Creation.  A reader wrote to 87 colleges and asked them if their science
department took a stand on whether God used evolution to create and how old
the earth was.  Some schools did not reply, some sent a form letter without
answering the questions, but many answered the question specifically.
Houghton College in New York said most of their faculty was old earth;
Erskine College in South Carolina said, "Christianity and evolution are not
mutually exclusive;"  These were typical responses.  Obtain the newsletter
for more details (call 606-727-2222 to receive it).

Of the schools in Southern California that replied, Ken Ham said only
Master's College and Christian Heritage College took a stand to trust Genesis
(I am sure Southern California College in Costa Mesa would pass this test
too).  Parents, be very careful and check out where you are sending your
precious children.

Want to get the newsletter via email?  Inform us at BILLYJACK6@aol.com.

### END ARTICLE ###


Frankly, Bill, I was shocked to read this month's newsletter. YOU KNOW
BETTER!

The headline, "<U>WARNING</U>!  CHRISTIAN COLLEGES MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR
CHILD'S SPIRITUAL HEALTH!!!!" is certainly true, but then you go on to
promote PRECISELY the ones that do the most damage, the ones that KNOWINGLY
teach their students a very false description of the world and then teach
them that their faith depends on that false description being true!  

You know what happens when those students subsequently discover that they had
been lied to!  That is what had happened to Glenn Morton.  That is what
happened to the Christian Heritage College (CHC) geology students who went to
work for him.  You remember them, the ones who suffered SEVERE  CRISES OF
FAITH when faced day after day with HARD GEOLOGIC FACTS that CHC had taught
them did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning.
YOU KNOW THAT!  How could you then recommend CHC as PRESERVING its students
faith, when you know for a fact that the EXACT OPPOSITE is true??

I said that CHC does this knowingly.  I base that on Steve Robertson's
testimony, particularly where he says:
"They did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in when they were able
to hold it up as an example of the intellectual bankrupcy or moral corruption
of uniformitarian geology. The further I have gone [in] my experience from
CHC, the more I have seen of their propensity to ignore the facts that don't
fit their pet models."

Here is that testimony, from Glenn Morton's page, "Steve Robertson's Story: A
Graduate of  Christian Heritage College who works in Geology"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/robertso.htm] (normally, I should be able
to trust someone to go read the page in question, but I suspect that you
would not do so, having never seen any evidence that you have;  hence I must
repeat everything for you in the email):

### BEGIN EXERPT (HTML tags removed) ###

Steve Robertson Story: a Case History of What Happens
to a Young-earth Advocate who works in Geology

This page is published with the full permission of a friend of mine, Steve
Robertson who obtained his bachelor's degree from Christian Heritage College,
the former educational arm of the Institute for Creation Research.  Steve
Robertson wrote a master's thesis which became an ICR Technical Monograph
entitled, <B><I>The Age of the Solar System: A Study of the
Poynting-Robertson Effect and Extinction of Interplanetary Dust</I></B>. This
monograph was designed to show that the solar system was young because
interstellar dust still remained. After school, Steve went to work as a
geophysicist in the oil industry where he, like me, became intimately
familiar with the geologic data that contradicted the young earth position. I
have only seen Steve in person once in my life but we have communcated via
phone often over the past 12 years and have become friends. Like me, Steve
has anguished about the discrepancy between what he was taught and what he
saw for years.  This is because the ICR/young-earth approach makes a person
feel that rejecting a young earth is equivalent to rejecting the efficacy of
the blood of Jesus.  Steve has graciously allowed me to quote from an old
letter he sent me
nearly 11 years ago in 1987.

Steve Robertson wrote:

"It is sad to say that I am one of those CHC/ICR graduates wh has had a
severe crisis of faith as a result of their ministry." 
Letter, Steve Robertson to Glenn Morton Dated Feb 22, 1987.

Steve further explains in the same letter,

"Of course, I should not fail to mention that you are correct in pointing out
that we were not given all the data in our coursework at CHC.  But they
didn't do that maliciously; they simply were ignoring the data they didn't
believe in themselves, and so would have no reason to think we needed to know
these things. As I'm typing this I realize that this is not entirely true.
They did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in when they were able
to hold it up as an example of the intellectual bankrupcy or moral corruption
of uniformitarian geology. The further I have gone I my experience from CHC,
the more I have seen of their propensity to ignore the facts that don't fit
their pet models. That is not acceptable to me. Raising problems for the
evolutionists will never convince honest scientists unless accompanied by
vigorous efforts to explain the full spectrum of geologic data, with a
replacement for the present 4 billion year model.  Even though I don't know
what to think about resorting to different laws of nature in the past, I feel
much better about that than to simply ignore pesky geologic problems!"
Letter: Steve Robertson to Glenn Morton dated Feb 22, 1987.

I have kept this letter for over 10 years because Steve's statement and
others I will not publish was one of the saddest letters I ever received.  It
moved me greatly.

In preparing this page, Steve wants it clearly known that at no time did he
come as close to leaving the faith as I did, but the intellectual problems
presented by what he learned in school and what he saw with his own eyes at
work, caused trememdous stress. He writes in an e-mail dated 2/14/98

"My greatest beef with ICR is their polarization of the creation/evolution
issue. If you are not entirely in their camp, by their own declarations you
are entirely out of the camp of those who accept the Bible as a completely
true and literal account of God's interaction with time, space and matter.
There is no leeway for any other interpretation of the Biblical text since
Henry Morris studied it and figured out what it really means. Now that he as
found out exactly what God meant, all observations must fit within his
(Morris') explanation of Genesis because God would not lie. It is not at all
illogical to throw out interpretations/explanations of observed natural
phenomena (biological, geological, astronmical, or what have you) even though
there is no suffucient or reasonable alternative offered from their group.
Petrified sand dunes in Utah CANNOT be subaerial, even though they show a
complete set of characteristics that match present day subaerial dunes and
the evaporite deposits in the lows between them demand a subaerial
environment of formation, because they HAD to have been deposited in the
flood and God doesn't lie. Varves CANNOT be annual features because they HAD
to have been deposited in one year and God doesn't lie. Your example of the
meander through carbonate rock CANNOT have been produced by eroding solid
carbonate because it HAD to happen subaqueously and within minutes, hours or
a day at most since the Bible clearly says that all geological formations
except the basement rock and a thin upper veneer were laid down during the
year of the flood. God doesn't lie! In ICR's logic, to ignore or deny
problematic natural observations is not to be decietful. (A perfect example
of this is John Morris' statement that he has never seen a geological fact
that did not fit equally as well or better in the flood model than any other
model.) At worst, in thier view, it would be glossing over what remains to be
explained properly, and WOULD be expained properly if more scientists did
creationist research. The problem, from ICR's viewpoint, is the vast, hidden
conspiracy to interpret the world around us in a way to discredit the Bible,
not that any of the data from the world around us is contrary to their
explanation of what the Bible means in Genesis. This inflexible, dogmatic,
self-blinding position is my bone of contention regarding ICR. Until a person
begins to understand where they [the scientists--GRM] [I believe that Steve
meant the ICR -- dwise1] are coming from, and the rules of their game, he is
incapable of realizing that he could question their dogma and still be a
Bible believing Christian."

He further wants to add:

"I do not consider myself to have undergone a "severe crisis of faith" in the
sense of struggling with whether to be a Christian or not. The struggle for
me was to come to the point where I could accept that a Christian could
disagree with Morris' interpretation and still believe in the literal truth
of Genesis. For me, that crisis never wandered from within a Christian
worldview. If it was a crisis, and I guess it would be fair to call it one, I
look back now and believe it was a false one created by my naive acceptance
of ICR's dogmatic presentation of their view as the only allowable Christian
view. The result of this crisis was that I stopped actively participating in
this debate and still consider myself to be mainly a passive bystander."

### END EXERPT ###


Yes, I agree that certain Christian colleges may be hazardous to one's
spiritual health, but you have it all twisted around.  You claim that the
colleges protecting their students' faith are those  who dogmatically adhere
to young-earth creationism and teach their students lies about science and
about the physical world, when in reality those are the ones that endanger
their students' faith.  We have both seen that happen, so you know that is
true.

Of course, you have also seen cases of the other Christian colleges "ruining"
the faith of its young-earth students.  But rather that is the fault of the
theology that they had been taught  before going to college.  Because it
requires its followers to believe things about the physical world that are
contrary to fact, that theology, which you and Ken Ham promulgate, endangers
the faith of its followers.  After having been raised on lies, a person faced
with the truth must either learn to accept the truth or reject it, the latter
having to be implemented through self-deception.  Of course, their beliefs
will have changed, but that need not result in their faith having been
"ruined", though certain their faith in creation science would have been
ruined.

"Any faith that cannot live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to
be considered by a rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."
(John Wilkins, Head of Communication Services, Walter and Eliza Hall
Institute of Medical Research, quoted by Glenn Morton in "The Effect of
Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm])


But wait, you say.  Students come out of CHC with their faith visibly
strengthened while students come out of Wheaton visibly changed, even before
they graduate.  True, but you are only seeing  the immediate effects.  With
the colleges that  teach the truth, the young-earth students immediately see
the conflict between the facts and their prior, naive beliefs and realize
that they need to work things out.  Yet, having had to do that, they should
be able to weather future crises better; in reality their faith itself had
been strengthened.  However, in the colleges that perpetuate lies, the
young-earth students are lulled into a sense of false security; it is only
after they have graduated and are brought face-to-face with reality that they
suddenly must cope, with devastating results, as we have seen.  Some are able
to avoid reality for the rest of their lives, but not all are that lucky.
They are all left with a brittle and fragile faith and little or no
experience in dealing with spiritual crises.
                                       
One of the main problems with the truthful colleges, eg Wheaton, is that they
may not realize what is really happening with their young-earth students.
Since they already realize that the earth is ancient and that Christianity
and evolution really are not mutually exclusive, they may not realize the
radical departure those simple facts would be for a young-earther.  In
addition to learning the truth about the world, those young-earthers also
need to learn how to harmonize the truth with their belief systems.  They
need to replace their old, scientifically false harmonization with a new,
scientifically accurate one*.  To the extent that the truthful colleges do
not recognize and act to meet this need in the soon-to-be-former
young-earther segment of their student body, to that extent do they fail
their students.  Not only do they need to present the truth, but they also
need to help their students deal with the truth.


[FOOTNOTE: 
* Morton examines the need for a scientifically accurate harmonization of
Genesis in "The Effect of Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm] and offers one in his book,
"Foundation, Fall and Flood",the synopsis of which is at "Theory For
Creationists" [http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/synop.htm]).


>Several years ago a co-worker was excited to inform me his son was accepted
to Wheaton College.  ... All I have to say is I knew this young man before he
went to Wheaton and after he graduated from Wheaton and his faith may not be
ruined, but it sure is not where it used to be.  Maybe it was a result of
some of his instructors, maybe not, but there was a big change never the
less.  He now strongly argues that it is ridiculous to believe Genesis is
literal.  No longer do I hear any exciting spiritual news originating from
his life.<

Have you discussed this with him?  What reasons does he give for arguing that
"it is ridiculous to believe Genesis is literal"?  Have you listened to those
reasons and checked them out?  Have you asked him what experience(s) had led
him to his current position AND LISTENED to him?  What "exciting spiritual
news originating from his life" did you hear before college and what
"spiritual news originating from his life" have you heard after college?  Is
your current low opinion of his current spiritual life colored solely by it
not being based on young-earth creationism?  What was his major and what (is
he doing)/(has he done) with it?


>It would be a disaster for well meaning Christian parents to spend a large
amount of money to finance their child's education so that they may attend a
private Christian college, only to find out it killed their trust of the
Bible.<

But in reality, you are talking about the child's trust in a FALLIBLE human's
INTERPRETATION of what the Bible must mean.  Indeed, that interpretation is
what teaches the child that his trust in the Bible must be killed if he
should ever learn that that interpretation is not true.  Doesn't your
theology give lip service to the inherent depravity of man and of his
efforts?  How then can you worship as infallible a human's interpretation?




That phrase, "well meaning Christian parents", triggered an association in my
mind.  In the mid-1980's, as we watched the rise of the Radical Religious
Right, Orson Scott Card developed and presented his "Secular Humanist Revival
Meeting".  Although a Mormon, he presented it in archetypical Baptist
fire-and-brimstone fashion, which he undoubtedly has seen and heard practiced
in earnest most of his life in and around his hometown of Greensboro, North
Carolina.

After presenting creation science and a local creationist program for the
schools, "God's World", he continues [quoted here from memory]:

"They say that they are upholding the Truth of Genesis, but I say that the
Truth NEVER needs to be upheld by a lie!

[cries of "Amen" and "Hallelujah" from the audience]

"But my heart goes out to those well-meaning mamas and papas who send their
children to the "God's World" class.  Now the stupid children are safe
enough; they will just laugh at evolution and be happy fools for the rest of
their days.  But the parents of the smart children live in dread of the day
that they know will come, when their child comes home and says:  'Today I
learned what evolution really is and YOU LIED TO ME!  What else did you lie
to me about?  Did you lie about the Resurrection?  About Sin and Redemption?
About loving my neighbor?  Was it all just lies?  How could I ever believe
you again?'

"To those well-meaning mamas and papas, I say:  This book, this book is full
of lies.  And if you can only support what you believe with lies, then you
stop right there.  Your children will not follow you.  You are the last
generation."
...
...

Sorry, I got choked up there.  It's a moving presentation, thought-provoking
and full of humor and truth.  He's not merely doing a parody, but rather
carrying a message of freedoms endangered  that must be defended.  His
leitmotif of "Can you hear me?  Am I talking loud enough?" sounds like
nothing but filler, until it leads to the heart of his message.

I would be happy and proud to send you a copy of that tape.  The offer is
extended to you too, Liber8r.


>I told a 9-year-old home schooled girl about this debate and her answer was
immediate and powerful.  She was puzzled for about two seconds and then
quickly replied that the Bible said Mary was with <I>child</I>, not with
children.  I would rather learn scripture from her than the Fuller prof.<

Gee, Bill, this one almost comes in second after the "how did food evolve?"
bit from a few years ago (I don't know if that one was yours, too). 

The Bible, or any English-language publication adhering to standard English,
would not use the phrase "with children" to indicate "pregnant with multiple
embryos/feti".  Such a phrase is not part of standard English.  The phrase
"with child" indicates only that a woman is pregnant and says nothing of the
number of embryos/feti she is carrying; even the expectant mother of
septuplets would be "with child", but not "with children." 

If you believe that Scripture study should depend on twisting torturously
that which is written, even though you claim to believe that it is literally
true, then your theology is in a lot worse shape than I thought it was.
Besides which, twisting and distorting the ENGLISH phrasing should not reveal
any new truths, since the New Testament was NOT written in ENGLISH, but
rather in KOINE, a form of ancient GREEK, and was TRANSLATED into English,
sometimes via an intermediate translation into Latin.  All that analysis of
the English translation would reveal would be how the translater, a fallible
HUMAN, had INTERPRETED that passage in order to RETELL/REWORD it.  If, as
Thomas Paine had described it, an interpretation and retelling of Revelation
is to be considered hear-say, then interpreting that hear-say is piling
hear-say upon hear-say; it is NOT Revelation.  You should have gone back to
the original GREEK to see what IT said (assuming you can figure out which
variation of that passage is the "right" one).

FWIW, I have no idea where that Fuller prof got his "identical twin" idea
from.  What did he  present to support his claim?  Or was he just presenting
plausible explanations?


--------------------------------

"The Truth NEVER needs to be upheld by a lie!"  
("The Secular Humanist Revival Meeting", Brother Orson Scott Card speaking
specifically about creation science)

</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: Genesis
Date:   98-06-05 22:34:31 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>


########################################################

Subj:    Genesis 
Date:   98-06-02 21:56:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1


>In the beginning there was the computer.  And God said
>>       >> c:\Let there be light.
>>       > >
>>       > > ENTER USER ID.
>>       > > God
>>       > >

[snipped]


System file REALITY.SYS corrupted.
Reboot Universe? [Y/n]

</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
Date:   98-06-05 22:40:19 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>In a message dated 98-06-05 02:03:30 EDT, you write:

<< Subj:    Re: "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
 Date:  98-06-05 02:03:30 EDT
 From:  BillyJack6
 To:    DWise1
 
 Carbon dating only produces recent dates due to its short half life. >>


True.

So what was your point?
</PRE></HTML>

########################################################

Subj:   Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 11:59:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I do not hide the Bible.

I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account.

Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of
Meisosis reproduction?

Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis
animals?


If so why, if so explain how they "evolved into meisosis animals.

Thank you.</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:    Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 12:00:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I do not want an on line debate I want a debate at Cal State LA.

Or UCLA

Or USC.</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:   Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 12:01:47 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I have problems with scientists pushing their blingd faith and
calling it "science" to a gullible ignorant public.  

</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 12:02:06 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I guess you can call me a man who loves truth! 

:)</PRE></HTML>



########################################################

Subj:   Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-08 09:44:47 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>In a message dated 98-06-06 12:02:06 EDT, you write:

<< Subj:    Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
 Date:  98-06-06 12:02:06 EDT
 From:  BillyJack6
 To:    DWise1
 
 I guess you can call me a man who loves truth! 
 
 :) >>

Then why do you ignore the truth and propagate false claims?

Remember the effect that creation science's lies about geology and the age of
the earth had on practicing geologists.  If those claims had been true in any
way, then those practicing geologists would not have gone through their
crises of faith.

Have you talked with Glenn R. Morton yet?  Or visited his page?  Or read my
geology page?  If not, they why not?


</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:   Online Debate
Date:   98-06-14 23:17:18 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
### BEGIN ###
Subj:    Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 12:00:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I do not want an on line debate I want a debate at Cal State LA.

Or UCLA

Or USC.
### END ###

Well, you might get one, but not from me.  I have already explained to you
quite thoroughly why not.  More than once.  I could repeat my explanation yet
again, but if you would not read it the first time and the second time and
third time, etc, why should I expect you to read it this time?

Please tell me the reasons I gave you why I cannot and prefer not to do an
on-stage type of "debate" and why I consider an on-line debate to be very
much preferable.

Didn't expect a pop-quiz, did you?

While you're at it, please explain how you conduct a debate, what you intend
to accomplish in a debate (ie, your goals), and how the manner you conduct a
debate supports your goals.
</PRE></HTML>


########################################################

Subj:  Online Debate
Date:   98-06-14 23:17:52 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
### BEGIN ###
Subj:    Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 12:00:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I do not want an on line debate I want a debate at Cal State LA.

Or UCLA

Or USC.
### END ###

Well, you might get one, but not from me.  I have already explained to you
quite thoroughly why not.  More than once.  I could repeat my explanation yet
again, but if you would not read it the first time and the second time and
third time, etc, why should I expect you to read it this time?

Please tell me the reasons I gave you why I cannot and prefer not to do an
on-stage type of "debate" and why I consider an on-line debate to be very
much preferable.

Didn't expect a pop-quiz, did you?

While you're at it, please explain how you conduct a debate, what you intend
to accomplish in a debate (ie, your goals), and how the manner you conduct a
debate supports your goals.
</PRE></HTML>

########################################################

Subj:  Koine of Matt 1:18
Date:   98-06-14 23:19:04 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>Bill, on 98-06-05 in "Subj:  Newsletter Notes", I wrote to you, in
part:

### BEGIN ###
<Quoted from your June newsletter>I told a 9-year-old home schooled girl
about this debate and her answer was immediate and powerful.  She was puzzled
for about two seconds and then quickly replied that the Bible said Mary was
with <I>child</I>, not with children.  I would rather learn scripture from
her than the Fuller prof.<

Gee, Bill, this one almost comes in second after the "how did food evolve?"
bit from a few years ago (I don't know if that one was yours, too). 

The Bible, or any English-language publication adhering to standard English,
would not use the phrase "with children" to indicate "pregnant with multiple
embryos/feti".  Such a phrase is not part of standard English.  The phrase
"with child" indicates only that a woman is pregnant and says nothing of the
number of embryos/feti she is carrying; even the expectant mother of
septuplets would be "with child", but not "with children." 

If you believe that Scripture study should depend on twisting torturously
that which is written, even though you claim to believe that it is literally
true, then your theology is in a lot worse shape than I thought it was.
Besides which, twisting and distorting the ENGLISH phrasing should not reveal
any new truths, since the New Testament was NOT written in ENGLISH, but
rather in KOINE, a form of ancient GREEK, and was TRANSLATED into English,
sometimes via an intermediate translation into Latin.  All that analysis of
the English translation would reveal would be how the translater, a fallible
HUMAN, had INTERPRETED that passage in order to RETELL/REWORD it.  If, as
Thomas Paine had described it, an interpretation and retelling of Revelation
is to be considered hear-say, then interpreting that hear-say is piling
hear-say upon hear-say; it is NOT Revelation.  You should have gone back to
the original GREEK to see what IT said (assuming you can figure out which
variation of that passage is the "right" one).

FWIW, I have no idea where that Fuller prof got his "identical twin" idea
from.  What did he  present to support his claim?  Or was he just presenting
plausible explanations?

###  END  ###

First, seriously, what did that Fuller professor say he based his "identical
twin" idea on?  Of course, if you don't remember, then just say so.

Since I had to get ready for drill weekend, I didn't have time to research
the Greek for that message, but I have since then.  The Greek idiom used in
each version of the referenced verse, Matthew 1:18, is [in its lexical form;
in the text it is conjugated into a participial form, "ekhoysa"] "en gastri
ekho" [to see it in Greek, change the font of the following string to Symbol
>en gastri ecw<], meaning literally, "have in womb."  No direct mention
whatsoever of "child", let alone how many.  Therefore, your young "Bible
scholar's" response has nothing whatsoever to do with what Scripture actually
says.  This is in addition to twisting standard English (I'm quite sure that
she was sincere and that she did not do it out of malice -- rather, the fault
is yours for not properly evaluating her naive response).  What she
interpreted the verse as saying (ie, that the wording explicitly said "child"
and not "children") really had nothing to do with what the verse really said
in the original (ie, that Mary had something in her womb; we know that would
normally be one or more embryos/feti, but it was not explicitly said).

Interesting that, despite your avoided devotion to believing exactly what the
Bible says, you would want to learn Scripture from somebody who claims
Scripture to be saying things that it clearly does not.  Rather typical of
those who believe in creation science, eh?

Bill, I don't know whether you have benefited from studying foreign languages
or you are cursed with the archetypical American trait of being monolingual.
If you are monolingual, then you might not understand what translation
entails or what some of its inherent problems are, or even understand what
language is ("You cannot know your own language until you have learned a
foreign language." Lessing).
                                                                     
Language entails the expressing of ideas into a structured medium consisting
of symbols [eg, words] and usage [grammar] for the purpose of communicating
those ideas to someone else.  In order to communicate an idea to somebody
else through a given language, the speaker must interpret his idea and
express it as a statement in that language.  Then he must transmit that
statement to the listener through a medium or communications channel (eg,
spoken, written).  Then the listener must receive the statement and interpret
it back into the idea being conveyed.
              
Error and degradation can occur at any point in the communication process,
creating loss.  The speaker might fail to translate his idea accurately into
words.  The message might degrade when transmitted (eg, noise drowning out
part of the spoken word, words lost or made illegible on torn/ruined paper).
The listener might not receive the message accurately (eg, not paying
attention, mishear/misread, not understand the terminology or the context
being used).  The listener might misinterpret the message (eg, the symbols
used mean something different to him, his understanding of the context is
different than the speaker's [eg, the very different interpretations in Back
to the Future III when Dr. Brown of the 50's tells Marty McFly of the 80's
that the failed component was made in Japan]).

Translation is not word-for-word substitution.  If it were, then computers
would have taken over that task long ago.  Rather, translation is a process
of reading a statement in one language, determining the idea that the
statement expresses, and then expressing that same idea in a second language.
The manner in which that idea is expressed in the one language can be, and
most likely will be, very different than in the other language.  It can also
happen that there really is no way to express the very same idea in both
languages (eg, a recent entry in L.M.Boyd's trivia column that, since English
is more concise than most other languages, an accurate translation from the
English will normally be 25% larger in the target language).  In some cases,
the choice of words can convey extra meaning that becomes lost in
translation.

The main point is that a translation is based, not on the original author's
original ideas, but rather on the translator's interpretation of those ideas.
By further interpreting a translation, at best you would gain further
insight, NOT into the original author's original ideas, but rather into the
translator's interpretation.  At best.  Normally, you would just wander off
on a tangent that neither the translator nor the original had intended.  To
dig deeper into the original ideas, you need to go to the original.  And if
the original has been copied and re-copied several times over a long period
of time, then you also have to deal with the multiple versions of the same
writings.  And so on.


Bill, as I understand it, your theology calls for you to believe in the
literal truth of the Bible.  Could you please share with us how you are
taught to deal with the problems of translation and of different versions of
the same verses, etc?  What writings, precisely, are you to believe to be
literally true?
</PRE></HTML>

                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-14 23:19:19 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>To keep Liber8r in the loop:

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-04 01:44:31 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Too busy!  But trying to catch up!  I spoke to 9 high schools about Creation
vs Evolution the past two weeks and it keeps me busy opening their eyes to
truth!

Bill
### END ###

>Too busy!  But trying to catch up!<
 
Gee, what is this problem that creationists keep having with context?

I assume, since you give no indication, that this is in answer to my
question:

"An entire month has transpired.  If you have not read my geology page, nor
visit Glenn Morton's page, nor write to Glenn Morton, then why not?"

Am I correct?  I will have to assume that I am, since your past conduct
indicates that you will never answer that simple question either.  When you
answer in monosyllables, could you please repeat part of my question so that
we can tell what you are grunting "yes" or "no" to?  If you need to be told
what the Clipboard is and how to use it, PLEASE ASK!  It's so extremely
simple that even MacIntosh people can use it.


So, even though you know that there is a serious problem with creation
science claims being contrary to fact and that this problem is so great that
it has actually caused DEVOUT creationists, even ones far more devout than
you are, to have severe crises of faith, you have gone to NINE HIGH SCHOOLS
and presented these claims that you know to be false and that you know can
cause those kids to LOSE THEIR FAITH!?  

WHY!??  What is wrong with you?  Like Gish, are you doing the Devil's work?
What did the Devil promise you?  Is it worth what you are trying to do to
these kids?

In order to redeem yourself, did you at least point those students to my
geology web page or to Glenn Morton's site?  At least in that case they could
have a chance to see for themselves what the truth is.  As it is, if all you
told them was the standard contrary-to-fact creation science lies, then you
have done them no service.  You have definitely NOT "open[ed] their eyes to
truth", but rather you have damned them to the Darkness.




You are saying that in over a YEAR you have NOT read my geology page?  What
are you afraid of?  Why are you afraid of the truth?  Why does your faith
demand that you live in fear and darkness?  Why does your faith demand that
you drag everybody else down with you?


Learn the truth, Bill.  There are none so blind as refuse to see.
</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Your Web Page
Date:   98-06-14 23:19:32 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>Bill, keep Liber8r in the loop, please.
             
### BEGIN ###

Subj:  Re: Bill's Game 
Date:   98-06-04 01:45:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Hey, This is great material. Would it be ok if i were to add it to my web
page?  I am trying to put together a comprehensive web site (on aol for now)
that covers all aspects of Christian life as well as witnessing material or
evidence for them to use.
### END ###

>Hey, This is great material. Would it be ok if i were to add it to my web
page?<

For me to give you permission, I must request two things:

1. You show me what part you intend to post as you intend to post it, so that
I can check it for accurate quoting and retention of context.

2. You provide a link to my creation/evolution web page.


>I am trying to put together a comprehensive web site (on aol for now) that
covers all aspects of Christian life as well as witnessing material or
evidence for them to use.<

You mean I'm finally going to see you post some of that evidence you keep
claiming to have but have refused to present for over a year?  Wow!

So since you are going to have to type it in anyway, why don't you just go
ahead and answer my questions?  If you keep a copy, then you will have
material for your web page.



OK, let's talk shop.  Are you using straight HTML or a developer's kit?  I
would assume the latter, since the impression I get is that you are a
relative new-comer to the PC.  Are there parts of the process or about HTML
that I might be able to help you with?  For example, AOL is case-sensitive,
so you do need to be very careful about naming the files EXACTLY as you
reference them in the HTML <A> and <IMG> tags.  Also, if it helps you
organize your pages, you can use subdirectories; see my site for examples --
select "View Source".

When do you plan to upload your pages?  I assume that it is under your
BillyJack6 screen name.  I will offer links to your pages if you offer links
to mine.  You could even offer a link to Liber8r's comments on your
AOLCREAT.DOC; I can give you the URL.  Do you know what a URL is? (sorry, but
I cannot tell what I can assume with you and what I cannot)


What are you going to offer on your creationism page?  Just give them your
phone number and say "Call me"?  No, I doubt that very much, since visitors
to your page will not want to call some stranger -- parents will doubtless
report you to the authorities as a probable child molester.  You are going to
have to write something.  A lot.  You are going to have to present your case
and your arguments and (hopefully) your evidence.  Which is what I've been
trying to get you to do for over a year now.  Just think, if you had engaged
in discussion with me rather than dodge out all this time, you would have a
lot of material already written up that could have fitted into your web page
with only a little editting.  As it is, now you have to do all that from
scratch.  I did try to help you, you know.


Having both our pages up there makes it perfect for an on-line debate.  What
is your answer?
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: SOS
Date:   98-06-14 23:19:49 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>### BEGIN ###
Subj:  Re: SOS
Date:   98-06-04 01:34:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I have taught at USC, UCLA, Cal State LA, San Diego State, UC Santa Barbara
and many community colleges.

A registered mechanical engineer is a PE a Professional Engineer which means
I passed a licensing test (most engineers are not PE's).

Thanks!

Bill
### END ###

>A registered mechanical engineer is a PE a Professional Engineer which means
I passed a licensing test (most engineers are not PE's).<

Then for your credibility's sake, you should add some of this additional
explanation to your AOLCREAT.DOC, along with some explanation of the
significance of your licensing.

Oh, and distribute it in a more universally readable format, like text.  Or
convert it to HTML for the web.


>I have taught at USC, UCLA, Cal State LA, San Diego State, UC Santa Barbara
and many community colleges.<

OK.  But what courses?  In what departments?  With what credentials?  I know
that to teach at junior and community colleges, you need at least a master's
degree in the subject that you will be teaching.  What are your degrees and
what are they in?  How is your having taught at these colleges relevant to
the creation/evolution issue?
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-14 23:20:00 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>Bill, I noticed that you have dropped Liber8r out of the loop
again:

### BEGIN ###
Subj:  Re: "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-04 01:43:08 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

No, I want a debate behind a podium with nice overheads.

Why are you scared to?  You should kill me I am just a religious fanatic and
you hold science so close, so dear to your heart...you are holding the gates
of science as we nonscience barbarians are tearing at the gate.....my oh my
what is holding you back?

I will organize teh room, the advertizing, all the details...i will even
provide with a cup of cold water.  I am very organized and productive and
will handle all teh details, you just bring your best arguments!

Bill
### END ###

Quoted from memory:

"What's the matter, McFly?  You chicken?" (Biff, his descendent, and his
ancestor -- yes, I do remember that his ancestor, "Mad Dog", said "Eastwood")

From "The Omega Glory":
Spock: "Doesn't your culture teach that Good will triumph over Evil?"
McCoy: "Yes, it does, but only if Good is very careful."


I have already explained my reasons to you.  Please tell me what they are, so
that we can establish whether you were listening.

You can convert your "nice overheads" into HTML pages and link them to your
web page.  I have encountered a several series of linked overheads, though on
other topics.

An on-line debate would be much more beneficial to your web page, especially
since you will need to type all that in anyway.  So you'll kill two birds
with one stone.  Besides which, you could test your arguments on me and
improve them accordingly for your web pages.


Why are you scared to engage in an on-line debate?  Is it that you don't want
me to be able to answer all your questions?  That you don't want to allow our
audience to have a good look at your claims?  That you don't want our
audience to see my answers to your questions?

"If their beliefs are true, then they have nothing to fear from science."
(Brother Orson Scott Card)
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
Date:   98-06-14 23:20:24 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>
### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 11:59:36 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I do not hide the Bible.

I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account.

Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of
Meisosis reproduction?

Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis
animals?


If so why, if so explain how they "evolved into meisosis animals.

Thank you.
### END ###


>I do not hide the Bible.<

Granted, I cannot say whether you personally have played the game of "Hide
the Bible", since I do not know whether you have actively claimed that the
claims of creation science are not based on religious beliefs, but rather are
based solely on scientific evidence.  

As you will recall from the history of creation science, creation science was
devised in the late 60's as a tool to oppose the teaching of evolution.
Because court decisions of the time had just struck down the "monkey laws" by
declaring unconstitutional the inclusion or banning of public school
curricula on religious grounds, creation science was designed to circumvent
those court decisions by hiding the fact of its religious basis and claiming
that it was based solely on scientific evidence.

That is the game of "Hide the Bible."  Even though many of its claims had
already been formulated years before, the purveyors of "public school"
"creation science" materials simply esponged all direct biblical references
from their standard edition materials.  Hence, an unnamed world-wide flood
lasting only one year destroyed all land life except for those unnamed pairs
who boarded an unnamed Ark which had been built by an unnamed person, and so
on.  

The ruse was to sneak creation science past the courts.  In 1981, that ruse
failed.  In the Arkansas and Louisiana trials, the courts found that
creationism was indeed religious and so failed the court's tests.  At that
point, the game of "Hide the Bible" was expanded to "Hide the Creationism",
whereupon we suddenly started seeing everywhere a new set of buzzwords like
"intelligent design" and "abrupt appearance."  However, when you looked at it
directly and examined it, it was just the same old stuff (SOS).


>I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account.<

Does that mean that you believe that your god directly created the first of
all kinds of life:  plant and animal, marine and terrestrial?  On what basis
do you believe that?  The Bible?

No, seriously.  Do you believe that your god directly created the first of
all kinds of life and what do you base that belief on?  Yes or no?  I really
do expect an answer.


>Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of
Meisosis reproduction?

Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis
animals?

If so why, if so explain how they "evolved into meisosis animals.<

"Meisosis"?  What the hell is that?  Never heard of it and I cannot find any
mention of it anywhere.

And what is this business of "explain how they 'evolved into meisosis
animals."  What, so now I have to be a god myself, required to possess
omniscience that I can peer into the past and gather all the little details?
All while you repeatedly weasel out of even the simplest of questions, like
"Do you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old?  Why?" (a perfectly
reasonable question, since you had asked me whether and why I thought the
earth was billions of years old and I answered your question) and "What was
meant by your outburst, "Its not!" (Subj: Re: Where'd ya go?; Date: 97-10-10
01:07:56 EDT)?"?  

If you expect me to answer that kind of a question, then you need to be ready
and able to answer that question yourself, plus other questions of that level
of complexity.  You cannot expect to get away with a say-nothing
"explanation" like "God did it."  That won't wash.  If you expect me to
describe the details of how some trait evolved, then we must expect YOU to
described in the SAME LEVEL OF DETAIL how God had created that same trait!
Unless you are able and willing to produce that kind of an answer, you cannot
demand the same of anyone else.

Of course, we see that very same thing coming from the professional
creationists, only they are nowhere near as blatant as you are in dodging
direct questions.  I recall Henry Morris claiming that creation science
offers better answers than evolution because he says that evolution claims to
be able to answer EVERYTHING, which it cannot, whereas creation science does
not claim to be able to answer anything, which it succeeds at.

Like you, the professional creationists dodge direct questions.  Unlike you,
they are usually able to make it appear as if they they had answered the
question, provided you do not listen closely enough.  

The professional creationists also do as do you (I'm sure that you had
learned from them) in asking one "impossible" question after another, never
actually expecting an answer.  The only reason for asking those questions is
to put their opponent on the defensive and to make their opponent's position
appear weak and tenuous.  Remember, questions like "why is the sky blue" are
NOT simple (again, a famous astronomy PhD candidate, Cliff Stoll, was hit
with that question in his final oral exam and it took him hours to answer
it).  

Such questions as you keep asking are nothing more than rhetorical tricks.
If all you are going to do is play rhetorical games and rely in tricks, how
could you ever expect me to consider a face-to-face debate?

Please excuse me if I am less than impressed by your attitude and your
rhetorical games here.


Now, in following the Golden Rule (the Jesus version, not the older and
generally superior Hillel version), I will turn to the question of mitosis
and meiosis (which is what I assume you had meant; you could at least make an
attempt to get the spelling right).  Ironic, isn't it?  It's the atheists who
maintain higher moral standards and dedication to the search for truth,
whereas the Christians, who constantly claim to hold the moral high ground,
typically take the low road of resorting to deception, dirty tricks, and
lies.


Rather than deploying a rhetorical trick of demanding a detailed description
of the actual process by which a trait had evolved, a serious questioner
would ask how a trait could have evolved, ie, to ask what kind of an
explanation the theory could produce.  In the first case, the answer could
require information which is simply not available, whereas in the second
case, the answer would be an exercise in applying the theory under question
in order to see whether the theory COULD provide an answer.  Do you see the
difference?  There could be several plausible explanations that could explain
how something could have happened, but there can only be one account of how
it actually did happen.

Remember also that the question of how something happened is separate from
the question of whether it happened.  This means that the inability to answer
the question of how something works (ie, describing the mechanism of a
phenomenon) does not disprove the existence of that something (ie, whether
the phenomenon actually exists).  Refer in my critique of your "Weird
Science" to my discussion of Duane Gish's quoting of philosopher of science
Larry Laudan.

Therefore, the question should be something like:  "How could
mitosis-reproducing animals have evolved into meiosis animals?"  Thereupon,
the questionee could apply evolutionary theory to generate one or more
scenarios.  Then, we could examine those scenarios and determine what
evidence we might expect to find if a given scenario were true.  Then we
could devise a number of tests for that evidence and, depending on what we do
or do not find, support or eliminate various of the scenarios.  Through that
process, we could eventually find some of that missing information of your
original question.

Even more appropriate for our discussion would be an alternative question of:
"Why would you think that meiosis-reproducing animals evolved from
mitosis-reproducing animals?"  This question directly addresses the issue of
our holding two different and apparently opposing positions on the question
of the origin and inter-relatedness of species.

First, a quick review, concentrating on eukaryotes, since your reference was
specifically to animals (and since I am not certain how the process works in
prokaryotes).  

Mitosis is the process by which a single cell grows, duplicates its genetic
material, then pulls the two sets of chromosomes to either side and finally
splits in two, yielding two cells where there had been one.  Mitosis consists
of seven or nine (the actual number escapes me at present) distinct phases.
Mitosis is used by single-celled animals for reproduction.  To my knowledge,
single-celled animals and colonies of undifferentiated cells only use mitosis
to reproduce and multi-celled animals (ie, with bodies consisting of tissues
of differentiated cells) do not use mitosis to reproduce the entire animal.  

However, the individual cells of multi-celled animals continue to use mitosis
to reproduce themselves.  Also, some multi-celled animals capable of
regeneration can effective create duplicates of themselves if they are cut in
pieces; eg, flatworms and starfish.  Therefore, we find mitosis still present
and working in animals that reproduce via meiosis.

Meiosis is the process of producing gametes, AKA "germ cells", each of which
contain half of the chromosomes of the original cells.  Then two gametes from
two different individuals combine to form a cell with a complete set of
genetic material, which then uses mitosis to produce more cells, which
develop into the embryo, then into the fetus.

It turns out that meiosis is a variation of mitosis, in effect a crippled
form, since some steps appear to be missing.  First a definition:  a "polar
body" is a packet of genetic material without the normally-associated
cytoplasm.  Remembering back to biology class over 20 years ago, the
gametes-to-be use mitosis to produce some copies, but then they undergo
division before they duplicate any genetic material or cytoplasm.  What
results in the male are four polar bodies which become sperm and in the
female three polar bodies which are discarded and one cell with half its
chromosomes, an ovum.

So going from mitosis to meiosis does not appear to be that great of a step.
Please explain 
your problem with it.

</PRE></HTML>


#########################################################

Subj:   Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
Date:   98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved
in meiosis animals....thats typical!

Billy Jack</PRE></HTML>BillyJack6

Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT, you write:

<< <HTML><PRE>

Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
 Date:  98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT
 From:  BillyJack6
 To:    DWise1
 
 In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis
animals....thats typical!
 
 Billy Jack</PRE></HTML> >>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:   Re: "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-15 01:05:49 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Me no scared of on line debate.

Me not have time to have you avoid my questions.

Over and out

(Scene from the latest Billy Jack action flick!)</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Online
Debate
Date:   98-06-15 01:09:09 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I intend to show teh audience that Creation is a better
explanation than evolution using science as the tool of
evidence.</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj: Re: Koine of Matt 1:18
Date:   98-06-15 01:20:24 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>he said the twin was more likely than raising from the dead thus
it seemed he had the twin.</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:    Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-15 01:21:43 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>I was blind.  I thought bacteria were the ancestors of Blue Whales
once too.</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj: Re: Your Web Page
Date:   98-06-15 01:22:15 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>yes</PRE></HTML>BillyJack6Re: Your Web Page
                     
#########################################################

Subj:    Re: Your Web Page
Date:   98-06-15 15:01:27 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com, BillyJack6@aol.com

Gentlemen:

"When do you plan to upload your pages?  I assume that it is under your
BillyJack6 screen name.  I will offer links to your pages if you offer
links
to mine.  You could even offer a link to Liber8r's comments on your
AOLCREAT.DOC; I can give you the URL.  Do you know what a URL is? (sorry,
but
I cannot tell what I can assume with you and what I cannot)"

I would be honored to participate in the pursuit of truth.  Allow me to be
of assistance if necessary.


"Having both our pages up there makes it perfect for an on-line debate. 
What
is your answer?"

I would like to know the answer too.

:-D

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/
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From: "\"The Liberator\"" <liber8r@mcs.com>
To: <DWise1@aol.com>, <BillyJack6@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Your Web Page
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 13:45:21 -0500
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Subj:    Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-15 15:10:05 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com, BillyJack6@aol.com

Gentlemen:

BillyJack6 wrote: "Too busy!  But trying to catch up!  I spoke to 9 high
schools about Creation
vs Evolution the past two weeks and it keeps me busy opening their eyes to
truth!"

DWise1 wrote: "So, even though you know that there is a serious problem
with creation science
claims being contrary to fact and that this problem is so great that it has
actually caused DEVOUT creationists, even ones far more devout than you
are,
to have severe crises of faith, you have gone to NINE HIGH SCHOOLS and
presented these claims that you know to be false and that you know can
cause
those kids to LOSE THEIR FAITH!?"

"...What is wrong with you?  Like Gish, are you doing the Devil's work?
What did the Devil promise you?  Is it worth what you are trying to do to
these kids?"

"In order to redeem yourself, did you at least point those students to my
geology web page or to Glenn Morton's site?  At least in that case they
could
have a chance to see for themselves what the truth is.  As it is, if all
you
told them was the standard contrary-to-fact creation science lies, then you
have done them no service.  You have definitely NOT "open[ed] their eyes to
truth", but rather you have damned them to the Darkness."
                                                                           
  
I must agree with DWise1 here.  I too teach high school students, but not
as a lecturer.  I am a classroom teacher.  It's very easy to get in the
routine of feeding people slanted information.  I am probably guilty of
doing it myself.  Instead, try to do something bigger--teach the flaws and
benefits of both worldviews and allow those students to make up their own
minds.

Much like the media, teachers and lecturers can get trapped into presenting
biased information.  Unfortunately that type of behavior does a disservice
to all parties.  We need people who know how to reason and ask intelligent
questions in order to have a truly educated citizenship if we want to solve
our growing local, national, and global problems.

Churches tend to churn out automatons and school systems can be accused of
the same error.  If let to their own devices without change, these
institutions will keep the status quo enforced.  All of us know what the
status quo is and we should be ashamed of it.

Keep doing; keep thinking; keep improving.

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/
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From: "\"The Liberator\"" <liber8r@mcs.com>
To: <DWise1@aol.com>, <BillyJack6@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Geology Follow-up
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#########################################################

Subj:   You can help
Date:   98-06-16 01:10:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Why don't you follow God (and truth) and help people like this
woman has been helped...here is a memo she sent to me!


<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3><B>I said I'd give you a daily report.... well
here it is:

I just wrote down on a piece of paper stuff to pray about.... forgiveness,
praises, requests, worship... and I prayed.  Like ACTUAL praying.  Usually
when I pray I say "Thank you God for this day, and thank you for my family
and friends.  Please watch over everyone and help everyone blah blah blah."
But THIS time... I prayed TOTALLY differently... I spent like 15 minutes
actually TALKING to God....like how I talk to my friends.  I let Him know how
I feel, what's going on in my life, how I need to change, etc etc... and it
was great!!!!  Now I'm getting ready to start reading John.... I'll keep you
posted on that too.  :o)

-Jenny

</B></PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E
Date:   98-06-16 09:42:11 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>If you already received this one, sorry about that.  I did not
receive my copy and so could only assume that I had somehow not sent it.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

You're leaving Liber8r out of the loop again, Bill.

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-06 12:01:47 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I have problems with scientists pushing their blingd faith and calling it
"science" to a gullible ignorant public.  

### END ###

"Pushing"?  Where did you see anything getting "push[ed]" in that article?  I
saw no reference to any kind of press conference being held.  Or any kind of
paper being published.  Or any conclusions being presented.  All I saw was a
newspaper reporter reporting on discussions going on at a conference.  For
that matter, that article seemed to be rather critical of the conference, so
how could the article have been "pushing" the hypotheses coming out of the
conference?

For some reason, a lot of people have this mistaken idea of science that it
consists only of final conclusions.  Like Phillip Johnson, they think of
science in terms of a courtroom, where conclusive evidence is presented to
prove a well-build case.  But that view completely ignores the extensive
investigative police work that must go into the collecting and analyzing of
evidence and the building of a case.  Most of science is analogous to a
police investigation, not to a courtroom trial.

The scientists at the conference were doing basically what police
investigators would do, view the existing evidence and then form hypotheses
to try to fill in the missing pieces; the testing and subsequent
rejection/refining of those hypotheses would take place later after they
returned to their labs.  Part of science IS to form and test hypotheses.
Hypothesis formation and testing is central to the scientific method.  The
main purpose of hypotheses is to help direct research, so that in testing a
hypothesis scientists can know where to look and what to look for.  The
majority of the time, hypotheses turn out to be wrong, yet in the meantime
they did serve to direct research which produced useful results.  Without
hypotheses, science would be blind and without direction.  Without
hypotheses, science could never discover anything new, leaving huge gaps in
our knowledge that could never be filled, allowing ignorance to reign
supreme.  In short, without hypotheses, there would be no science.

One kind of hypothesis considers the possibility of the existence of a factor
which has not yet been taken into account or even one which has not yet been
discovered.  For example, when Uranus was discovered, astronomers determined
its orbital elements from which they could predict the new planet's future
positions.  When Uranus turned up elsewhere, this suggested that there was
something very wrong with astronomers' understanding of orbital mechanics or
even of gravitation itself.  In attempting to solve this problem, one
hypothesis was that there was yet another unknown planet out there whose
gravitational force had perturbed Uranus in its orbit.  Armed with this
hypothesis, astronomers were able to determine what that unknown planet's
mass and location would have to be.  Knowing where to look and what to look
for, astronomers found Neptune. 


That's what I saw in that article, Bill.  The scientists at the conference
were developing hypotheses that they would then go off and test and further
develop.  The only way that the public ever caught wind of what was being
discussed at the conference was because a reporter was there and he wrote an
article about it.  Perhaps there are some people should add scientific
hypotheses to the list, along with laws and sausages, of things that they
should not watch being made.

I would agree that the public is largely ignorant about science.  However, I
disagree with the "solution" offered by several creationist groups that would
reduce the amount of science taught.  The real solution to the problem of
public ignorance about science requires that we teach MORE science, not less.


If you have a different idea about how science is supposed to work, then
please present and explain it.


I think you are projecting again, Bill.  There is indeed a group that is most
definitely "pushing their blingd faith and calling it 'science' to a gullible
ignorant public."  They call themselves "creation scientists."

And now you know the rest of the story.  
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
Date:   98-06-16 09:50:40 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

<HTML><PRE>In a message dated 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT, you write:

<< Subj:    Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
 Date:  98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT
 From:  BillyJack6
 To:    DWise1
 
 In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis
animals....thats typical!
 
 Billy Jack >>


Bill, I answered the question.  If you are not satisfied with the answer,
then please explain what exactly you were looking for, why you would expect
the kind of answer you were looking for, why you had asked that particular
question in that particular form (ie, what your goals were), whether you even
expected to receive an answer, and YOUR OWN ANSWER TO YOUR OBLIGATION TO
PRESENT THE *D*E*T*A*I*L*S* OF HOW YOUR GOD HAD CREATED MITOSIS AND MEIOSIS
(to the same level of detail that you would demand of me).

Bill, I respond to your questions and I do answer them, even though you try
to design them to be unanswerable.  You almost never respond to, let alone
try to answer, even the simplest of questions that I ask you.  Please note
that my questions to you are meant to be answerable.

You are projecting again, Bill.  How typical.

 </PRE></HTML>
                      
#########################################################

Subj: Re: Your Web Page
Date:   98-06-16 09:54:34 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: Your Web Page
Date:   98-06-15 01:22:15 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

yes
### END ###

You grunted "Yes" to which question?  Context, Bill context, or else we have
no idea what you are talking about.  Your answering a question is such a rare
event, why spoil it with lack of context.

I did not have to retype your message.  I used the Clipboard.  If you do not
know what the Clipboard is and/or how to use it, then just ask.  It will
truly make life easier.
</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################
Subj:   Who's Avoiding Questions?
Date:   98-06-25 01:20:57 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

File:  QUESTI~1.TXT (38645 bytes)
DL Time (14400 bps): < 1 minute

<HTML><PRE>Repeated for Liber8r (Bill, you might make him start to feel left
out):

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-15 01:05:49 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Me no scared of on line debate.

Me not have time to have you avoid my questions.

Over and out

(Scene from the latest Billy Jack action flick!)
### END ###                     

>Me not have time to have you avoid my questions.<

Excuse me, Bill, but you seem to be projecting again.  I have a very good
record of responding to and answering your questions.  On the other hand, you
have a very consistent record of avoiding my questions.

In addition, your questions are primarily stock rhetorical tricks which are
not meant to be answerable.  Their format incorporates misconceptions (eg,
equating abiogenesis with spontaneous generation and describing evolutionary
theory as Lamarckian) and demands detailed information which has either not
yet been discovered or may never be discovered (eg, the exact sequence of
events in which a blue whale had evolved from its common ancestor with
bacteria) or would require advanced and detailed knowledge comparable to or
exceeding a doctorate degree specializing in that field.  The answers to
those questions are usually not accessible to most of your opponents. Their
purpose in proselytizing is to throw your opponent off-guard, to confuse him,
and to break down his defenses against your attempts to convert him.  Their
purpose in creation/evolution is to discredit your opponent in the eyes of
your audience.  Their purpose is never to gain or exchange information.

In contrast, my questions to you, while more direct and to the point, are
meant to be answerable.  I fully expect you to be able to answer a question
like, "Do you believe that the earth is about 10,000 years old?"  After all,
in your newsletter you have made it clear that that is what you believe, so
why do you keep running and hiding from this question?  True, some of my
questions may not be comfortable for you to answer, but you should have no
problem in terms of knowledge and skill level in answering them.


This is not just my subjective impression, I went through all of our
exchanges, pulled out the questions, and grouped them according to who had
asked them and whether they had been answered.  They are listed at the end of
this message.  Then I tallied them up and calculated what percentage of each
other's questions we have answered.  In order to make those results more
accessible (ie, not buried at the end of a long email so that you could
easily ignore them), they are listed here:

SUMMARY:

Bill's Questions to Me:
    Answered:  23
    Unanswered:  2
    Percent Answered:  23/25 = 92%
    
My Questions to Bill:
    Answered:  12
    Unanswered:  65
    Asked Repeated and Not Answered:  18
    Percent Answered:  12/(12+65+18) = 12/95 = 12.6%

Sources of error:
1. That was a lot of material to go through in very little free time, so some
questions may have been missed.
2. Since you never provide any context when you do respond, I may have missed
a few of your replies.  However, most of the questions just received no
response whatsoever.
3. In the case of those questions I had to ask repeatedly and which you never
did answer, I only counted them once, thus inflating your percentage.  In
other words, due to this source of error, you are reported as having done
much better than you actually did.
4. When I had to answer the same question from you more than once (eg, how
CFCs could get to the stratosphere), I only counted that once, thus making my
reported percentage look worse than it actually is.
5. I tried to exclude rhetorical questions.  In determining whether a
question was rhetorical, with my questions to you I erred on the side of
excluding the question, whereas with your questions to me I erred on the side
of including the question.  Hence, any error generated here is skewed in your
favor.
6. Even though a number of your responses avoided answering the question, I
usually counted that question as answered.
        
        
So, we see that I answered 92% of your questions to me, whereas you only
answered 12.6% of my questions to you.

Who, then, is avoiding whose questions, Bill?  I think that the evidence
speaks rather eloquently.

                                                                     
                                                                     
The rest of this email consists of the lists of questions used to generate
the summary table above.  It was a bit too long, so I've had to attach it as
a separate file.

</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Forget Lamarck
Date:   98-06-25 01:21:06 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Bill, you are still forgetting to CC to Liber8r.

### BEGIN ###           
Subj:    Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-15 01:21:43 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I was blind.  I thought bacteria were the ancestors of Blue Whales
once too.

### END ###

Too?  Who else that we know of believes in Lamarckian evolution's "Ladder of
Life"?

Yeah, you sure were wrong on that one, but now you know better.  Isn't it
amazing, the extent to which Lamarckian evolution continues on in the
public's misconceptions about evolution?  Rather, the more correct, Darwinian
view is that bacteria and blue whales share a common ancestor, from which
both continued to evolve.  The bacteria we see now are not the same as what
existed way back when.

Aren't you glad I had answered that question for you back in April?

</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Koine of Matt 1:18
Date:   98-06-25 01:21:14 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>
### BEGIN ###           
Subj: Re: Koine of Matt 1:18
Date:   98-06-15 01:20:24 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

he said the twin was more likely than raising from the dead thus
it seemed he had the twin.
### END ###

As I had thought.

You know, it always amazes me what people will do to find ways to explain
away the Resurrection while at the same time assuming the biblical account of
the events to be true, or at least reasonably accurate.  They want to keep
the story intact, while at the same time discounting its supernatural
elements.

First, if these individuals are Christians, then why would they want to
discount the central mystery of their religion?  Christianity is not just an
ethical system (actually, it hardly qualifies as an ethical system,
especially when we consider the conduct of its more fervent adherents, like
creation scientists), but rather is based directly on belief in the divine
nature of the Christ and in the Resurrection and the Mysteries stemming
therefrom.  If they do not believe in that, then why call themselves
Christians?

Second, if one wishes to discount the Resurrection, then why not take the
more sensible approach either that the events of the story just never
happened or that the legendary aspects had been added to an actual execution?
Layers of legend can start to accumulate immediately, like layers of
onion-skin, and very rapidly form up an entire onion.  Followers and
potential followers, especially in dire times, will readily and without
critical thought follow almost anyone claiming to be some legendary figure;
witness the rise of several peasant armies led by one "false Dmitri" after
another in Russia's Time of Troubles.

The argument can be made that the Resurrection was adapted from any of the
numerous mystery religions in the area.  We know that a lot of local pagan
traditions and beliefs were assimilated into Christianity as it spread
through Europe and even as it spread through Latin America.  Even back in
Rome, some of the elements of Sun-god worship, of Sol Invictus, were
assimilated into the new state religion, including the forsaking of the
Sabbath in favor of the Sun's day (remind me some time to explain why
Christmas is celebrated on 25 December; ie, that it was due in large part to
Julius Caesar).

So then, why would a Christian want to discount the basis of his own
religion?  And why would a non-Christian trying to discount the basis of
Christianity at the same time want to preserve the rest of the biblical
account?  I'm not asking for a response here (though you are free to offer
one -- we won't keep score on this one), but rather am saying that neither
position makes much sense to me.

</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
Date:   98-06-25 01:21:20 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis
Date:   98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis
animals....thats typical!

Billy Jack

### END ###

I answered your question, as I had understood the question.  If you disagree,
then you need to explain why you disagree.  If I had misunderstood your
question, then please reword the question so that I can understand it
correctly.  

Regarding the answering of each other's questions, in order to determine what
typical behavior is on both our parts, please refer to my message of today
which tallies the questions and the answers and then compares both of our
records.  Here is the summary from that message:

SUMMARY:

Bill's Questions to Me:
    Answered:  23
    Unanswered:  2
    Percent Answered:  23/(23+2) = 23/25 = 92%
    
My Questions to Bill:
    Answered:  12
    Unanswered:  65
    Asked Repeated and Not Answered:  18
    Percent Answered:  12/(12+65+18) = 12/95 = 12.6%

So, what is typical is that I answer 92% of the questions that you pose,
whereas you only answer about 12.6% of my questions to you.


FWIW, I found a page which compares mitosis and meiosis:
[http://www.biology.demon.co.uk/Biology/mod2/mitosis/meiosis.htm].  A
graphical comparison linked to this page (and displayed on the page in
smaller format) is at
[http://www.biology.demon.co.uk/Biology/mod2/mitosis/mandm.htm].  It is
pretty much as I had remembered it, even though I had forgotten some of the
details over the past two decades.

Though somehow I get the impression that you don't actually want any
information.

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Online
Date:   98-06-25 01:21:27 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>### BEGIN ###
Subj:  Re: Online
Debate
Date:   98-06-15 01:09:09 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I intend to show teh audience that Creation is a better explanation than
evolution using science as the tool of evidence.

### END ###

And how do you intend to do that?  What is some of your scientific evidence
FOR creation?

You know, since 1968 I've been hearing the claim of scientific evidence for
creation, but I have yet to see anybody actually present any of that
evidence.  Both I and several others on CompuServe had requested several
times over the years to see that evidence presented, but it never happened;
some creationists even got very indignant that we would make such a request.
I have even asked you to present some of that evidence, but you have refused
to.

What "evidence" do you intend to show the audience?
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  "Me no scared"?
Date:   98-06-25 01:21:35 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>
### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: "lets have a public debate"
Date:   98-06-15 01:05:49 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Me no scared of on line debate.

Me not have time to have you avoid my questions.

Over and out

(Scene from the latest Billy Jack action flick!)

### END ###

>Me not have time to have you avoid my questions.<

We have already covered this false charge in another message posted today.


>Me no scared of on line debate.<

If you are truly not "scared of on line debate", then why do you keep running
away from the idea?  

You could say that you have no time to write -- which you have said --, but
that is no excuse, since you need to write it all down anyway.  You are going
to need to write it down if you are going to put up one or more web pages on
the subject.  Besides, you have yourself said that you handle a lot of email
traffic, so there should be a sizable log of messages already written that
you can draw from.
    
If you truly have evidence or valid arguments, then you should not have to
fear posting them in writing where they can be examined and responded to.  If
you do not have any evidence or valid arguments, then it would make a lot of
sense that you would avoid at all costs allowing them to be examined or
responded to where others can see.


Again, if you do not know what the Clipboard is or how to use it, then ASK.
Since your computer is a PC running Windows, I know that the Clipboard is
available for your use; it has been available since Windows v1.0.  The only
question remaining is whether you know that.

I am not being facetious here.  I am sincerely offering technical advice, if
it is needed.  I get the impression that your computer skills and knowledge
are still fairly rudimentary, so I have to guess at what you know and do not
know how to do.  I only ask here that you let me know whether that advice, or
other computer advice, is needed.  If it is needed, then I will give it
gladly.
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Thanks for Offer
Date:   98-06-25 01:21:51 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: liber8r@mcs.com
CC: BillyJack6, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>>Subj:    Re: Your Web Page
>Date:   98-06-15 15:01:27 EDT
>From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
>To: DWise1@aol.com, BillyJack6@aol.com

>I would be honored to participate in the pursuit of truth.  Allow me to be
of assistance if necessary.<

Thank you, Liber8r.  Off-hand, I would think that providing a link to our
debate pages would be the best first step.


>"Having both our pages up there makes it perfect for an on-line debate. What
is your answer?"

I would like to know the answer too.<

I believe that Bill will do everything he can to avoid any kind of endeavor
that would allow for both sides to present their arguments and responses and
allow the audience to examine both sides' arguments and responses closely.
And he will especially want to avoid creating a permanent record that a large
number of people can refer back to freely.  

His choice of venue is the standard creationist-run debate, whose
characteristics we have gone over before.  Its format is very poor for the
thoughtful presentation and examination of the facts and evidence.  These
debates are designed to weigh very heavily in favor of the creationist side
and to place the pro-evolution side at maximum disadvantage.  

SOP is to get some local individual, usually a teacher or scientist, to agree
to debate.  The less the opponent knows about creation science, the better.
In the experience of some such individuals, the creationists will at times
pull a "bait and switch", in which the local creationist suddenly gets
replaced by a high-powered professional, like Gish.  Or a specific topic
could have been used to bait the opponent, after which the topic gets changed
to a more general one which gives the creationist much more maneuvering room.
The entire debate show is being run by the creationists for their benefit, so
the pro-evolution opponent can find himself trapped into a very unfavorable
situation.  

The creationist's presentation usually consists of misrepresentations and
distortions of evolution and related sciences, followed by a barrage of
several non-trivial questions.  The purpose of these questions is not to
elicit answers.  Rather, these questions are intended to be unanswerable.
Their sole purpose is to discredit the oppontent's position.  The creationist
will often deploy these questions in rapid succession, known as the "Gish
Gallop", such that a dozen non-trivial questions can be fired at the opponent
in less than a minute.  Then   their opponent is left with the daunting task
of making his own presentation, correcting the creationist's misinformation,
and answering the questions fired at him in the "Gish Gallop".  So far,
Bill's questions to me have been typical of these distorted "unanswerable"
questions.  If the pro-evolution opponent is competent, it would still take
him several hours to respond properly, but he is only given 15 to 30 minutes,
making his task virtually impossible.  

IF he is competent.  Most pro-evolution opponents, even PhDs practicing in
their specialty fields, are not competent to debate creationists.  This was
certainly the case in the 1970's, the hey-day of creationist "debate"
victories, which created a long line of "defeated" scientists who turned to
studying creation science and to sharing their findings with each, leading to
the founding of the National Center for Science Education; in 1979 and 1980,
they finally started to turn the tables and to win some of the debates.  

A competent debator needs to be thoroughly familiar with his opponent's
arguments and presentation.  He needs to have researched his creationist
opponent's claims beforehand and have his responses ready.  Even then,
victory is not assured.


Bill's goal is not to examine the evidence, but rather to proselytize through
creation science.  In order to achieve his goal, he believes that he must
destroy evolution and the associated sciences, or at least destroy public
confidence in those sciences.  Since he has no actual evidence supporting his
position (indeed, much of his position is contrary-to-fact), allowing the
evidence to be examined would prove counter-productive to his goal.  His
strategy and tactics require that he be able to undermine his opponent's
position without having to present any of his own evidence.  He has to be
able to play fast and loose with the facts; we have just seen examples of
that in his accusing me of being evasive and avoiding his questions.  He is
placed at a definite disadvantage when the facts are laid bare for
examination, as when I tallied up the questions and how many the two of us
have answered and not answered (in summary, I answered 92% of his questions
to me, whereas he answered 12.6% of my questions to him).

Of course, part of my goal is to discredit creation science.  My approach to
that goal is to let the evidence itself show that creation science is false.
So the difference between Bill's position and mine is that while he must keep
the evidence from being presented and examined, my position would benefit
from examination of the evidence.  An on-line debate would allow us to cut
through the rhetorics and get to the evidence.  Hence an on-line debate would
work well for me, while Bill must do everything he can to avoid an on-line
debate.


PS
Of interest are the pages concerning debates posted on the Talk.Origins
Archive.  The main FAQ page is "Debates, Gatherings & Court Decisions"
[http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-debates.html], through which you can
find Dr. Eugenie Scott's article on debating, "Debates and the Globetrotters"
[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/debating-creationists.html].  This is an
excellent article which addresses most of the issues :

"Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, argues
that public debates with creationists do little to further the cause of
quality science education. Among her reasons are that (1) creationists
usually fill the audience with their supporters, who are unlikely to have the
educational grounding necessary to understand the arguments presented in
favor of evolution, (2) evolution is a complex set of ideas that are not
amenable to simple explanation in a short debate format, and (3) creationists
make many simplistic but convincing-sounding arguments against evolution that
take a significant amount of time to refute." 

In that article, she says a few things which relate directly to Bill's
steadfast refusal to engage in any on-line discussion:

"I have no objection, by the way, to appearing on radio and TV with
creationists, and have done so many times.  In this format, it is possible to
have some sort of point-counterpoint which is (though it seems odd to say it)
not possible in a formal debate format.  On the radio, I have been able to
stop Gish, et al, and say, "Wait a minute, if X is so, then wouldn't you
expect Y?" or something similar, and show that their "model" is faulty.  But
in a debate, the evolutionist has to shut up while the creationist gallups
along, spewing out nonsense with every paragraph.  

"Now, there are ways to have a formal debate that actually teaches the
audience something about science, or evolution, and that has the potential to
expose creation science for the junk it is.  This is to have a
narrowly-focused exchange in which the debators deal with a limited number of
topics.  Instead of the "Gish Gallup" format of most debates where the
creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth
torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the
format of a debate, the debaters have limited topics and limited time.  For
example, the creationist has 10 minutes to discuss a topic on which
creationists and evolutionists disagree (intermediate forms, the nature of
science [with or without the supernatural], the 2nd law of thermodynamics
disproves evolution, the inadequacy of mutation and selection to produce new
"kinds", etc.)  The evolutionist then has a 5 minute rebuttal, followed by a
2 minute reprise from the creationnist.  Next, the evolutionist takes 10
minutes to discuss an agreed-upon issue, with the creationist taking the next
five minutes, and the 2 minute followup.  

"With this format, the audience is given digestable bits of information and
is not overwhelmed by a barrage of impossible-to-answer nonsense.  The
evolutionist at least has a fighting chance to teach something about science
and evolution.  

"Of course, whenever the ICR has been presented this option, they have
refused to debate.  Which in itself suggests the utility of using this
approach!  I think they recognize that they have a lot to lose in any other
than the "Gish Gallup" format.  Tough luck.  I can't see any reason why
evolutionists should make it easier for them to rally their troops."


There is another article, "Public Debate with a Creationist: An Account",
which describes the experience of a debate participant:  

"An account given by one of the participants of a public debate with
creationist Ian Taylor of the Creation Science Association of Ontario. This
event was notable not only for what transpired at the debate itself, but for
the underhanded tactics used by the organizers before and after the debate." 


PPS
In the Talk.Origins Archive, I also stumbled across a speech given by Ed
Babinski at Dragon-Con in Atlanta, June 1996, "Cretinism or Evilution",
subtitled:  "There is no joy in Eden, for creationism has struck out."  I
rather liked much of his introduction (mostly after the first paragraph),
like his being born again, again, and his quotation of Voltaire:

"Hi!  I'm E. T. Babinski. Welcome to CRETINISM OR EVILUTION. I'd like to
begin with a warning. The following presentation will cover mature subject
matter, like God's invention of the penis. The name of "Darwin" will be
spoken aloud, and it will be assumed that the books of the Bible were written
by a pre-scientific people who believed their god reeeeeeeally loved to sniff
burnt goat flesh [Gen. 8:20 "and the Lord smelled the soothing aroma;" see
also, Num. 15:24 &amp; 29:28], a common divine addiction back then.

"First, a little about myself. During high school and college and a few years
afterwards I was a Bible banging, born again, Baptized as a believer,
dyed-in-the-bloody-wool-of-the-Lamb Christian. I was elected president of the
most evangelical group on my campus. And I lectured my fellow biology
students and professors on the errors of EVILution.

"After college I engaged in a mental tug-of-war with several former
believers, trying to win them back to the fold.  But instead of winning them
back, the struggle made me think about what <I>I</I> believed and why, and I
grew to question those beliefs and their basis in the Bible. As I took my
first steps toward leaving the fold the transition period was unsettling but
afterwards I felt alive and full of curiosity - just as I was before I
entered the fold. It was like being born again, again.

"I figured that people needed to hear the stories of those who had left
Protestant Christian fundamentalism and why. So I edited over three dozen
personal recollections and put them in a book, <I>Leaving the Fold:
Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists</I> (Prometheus Books, 1995). Billy
Graham's best friend is in there.  There's even a few quotations from science
fiction writers, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Heinlein, Philip Jose Farmer,
and Orson Scott Card.

"I also produced three newsletters. The most recent one is <I>Cretinism or
Evilution?</I> I didn't come up with the word "Cretinism," my spell checker
did. It lacks the word "creationism," so each time it encountered it, my
computer asked if I was trying to spell "cretinism," which my Webster's
dictionary told me referred to "a congenital deficiency resulting in idiocy."

"My Webster's also said that the word, "cretin," originated as a variant
pronunciation of a French word meaning "Christian." So, the meaning of
"cretin" changed over time from "Christian" to "congenital idiot."

"I'm only guessing, but such a radical alteration in meaning might have
occurred during the days when the French heretic Voltaire took to flinging
his wit at Christian heretic-hunters, telling them, "In my life, I have
prayed but one prayer: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted
it."

"As for the word, "EVILution," Bible believers have dubbed many theories
"evil" over the centuries.  The theory of Copernicus, that the earth moved
round the sun, was dubbed "evil," because the Buy-Bull says that God "hangs
the earth" solidly, but "moves, guides, and leads" the sun, armies of stars,
and constellations across the sky.  Some creationists still argue that the
Copernican theory is the
root of all modern evil, and they'd like to see teachers spend "equal time"
teaching about an earth-centered cosmos, along with Copernicus' "rival"
theory. I produced a whole issue on such folks, some of whom have Ph.D.s, but
who believe the Bible's literal words speak clearer than modern astronomy."


Well, better break off now before I find something else to include. <gr>

Oh, darn, too late!  The etymology on "cretin" is that it does indeed derive
from "Christian" and that it was used by crippled and handicapped beggars
(eg, congenital idiots) to point out that even with their afflictions, they
are viewed by God no differently than the healthy specimen they were trying
to get money from.

OBTW and FWIW, the French word for "Christian" is "chrιtien", though oddly
the "ch" here is pronounced as "c" -- inconsistent even for French.

</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  "God of Truth"?
Date:   98-06-25 01:22:09 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

<HTML><PRE>### BEGIN ###
Subj:   You can help
Date:   98-06-16 01:10:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Why don't you follow God (and truth) and help people like this
woman has been helped...here is a memo she sent to me!


<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3><B>I said I'd give you a daily report.... well
here it is:

I just wrote down on a piece of paper stuff to pray about.... forgiveness,
praises, requests, worship... and I prayed.  Like ACTUAL praying.  Usually
when I pray I say "Thank you God for this day, and thank you for my family
and friends.  Please watch over everyone and help everyone blah blah blah."
But THIS time... I prayed TOTALLY differently... I spent like 15 minutes
actually TALKING to God....like how I talk to my friends.  I let Him know how
I feel, what's going on in my life, how I need to change, etc etc... and it
was great!!!!  Now I'm getting ready to start reading John.... I'll keep you
posted on that too.  :o)

-Jenny

</B></PRE></HTML>
### END ###

>Why don't you follow God (and truth) ...<

But one cannot follow both your god AND the truth, since you and other
creationists have demonstrated repeatedly that your god has nothing to do
with the truth.  Instead of the truth, you follow creation science, which is
about as far from the truth as you can get.  Since you serve your god through
falsehood, how could that god possibly be the "God of Truth"?  Remember Rev.
Lucas' admonition.  The question still stands:  Since when did the Truth ever
need to be upheld by lies?  

At this point, we could start going back and forth over whether creation
science really is a pack of lies or not.  Well, we could, if you didn't
always avoid defending creation science (smart choice on your part).  There
could also be discussion over the issue of whether you and other creationists
realize that creation science is full of false statements; your extreme
reluctance to discuss creation science claims and to present any of your
"evidence" indicates that you are aware that your claims have some very
serious problems, hence you want to present them only to the unwary for the
purpose of converting them.  Such discussion could start to get messy.

Rather, let us concentrate on the question of whether creation science claims
are truthful or false.  We both know that creation science claims about
geology and geological timescales are false, because they are contrary to
fact.  We both know that they are contrary to fact because of what had
happened to Glenn Morton, Steve Robertson, and the other creationist
geologists who suffered severe crises of faith when they repeatedly
encountered direct conflicts between what they had been taught as
creationists and what they found in the real world.  Those conflicts were not
caused by "anti-creationism" geology professors teaching them the prevailing
scientific views in school, but rather by working directly with the actual,
hard, physical evidence.  They had been taught the CREATIONIST VIEW, BY
CREATIONISTS, many of them at CHRISTIAN HERITAGE COLLEGE (which you had
commended so highly for "strengthening" the faith of their students, when in
reality it had planted time bombs and booby traps to destroy that faith).
That creationist view conflicted directly with the real-world facts of
nature.  That creationist view was contrary-to-fact.  That creationist view
was false.  If that creationist view had not been false, then they would have
found no conflict; the real-world findings would have supported what they had
been taught by their creationist teachers.  That did not happen.  The exact
opposite happened.  That these creation-science-trained,
Bible-literalism-believing young geologists looked at the raw geological data
from a devoutly creationist perspective and repeatedly found the opposite of
what they were expecting to find, indicates most strongly that the creation
science views of geology are contrary-to-fact and hence false.

Bill, you have avoided looking at the geological facts, using the excuse that
you have been far too busy spreading the falsehoods of creation science to
impressionable young minds (though not in those exact words, but that is what
you were doing).  By analogy, let us say that someone is in the business of
going to all the youth groups to distribute a product.  Then research finds
conclusively that that product not only does not work as advertised, but use
of that product can result in disasterous effects several years down the
road.  This individual is informed of this research and urged strongly to
learn what was found.  Instead, this individual refuses to, saying that he is
too busy distributing the product in question.  Ethically, is that
businessman acting correctly? (yes, I know, ethical reasoning is foreign to
"true Christians", but give it a try, anyway)  Should that businessman be
held liable for the damage he wroughts by distributing dangerous materials
with the knowledge that those materials had been found to be dangerous?
Would you buy his trying to squirm out of accepting responsibility for his
actions by appealling to the Nόrnberg defense that his boss bears all the
responsibility? (ie, as you would cop the same defense by saying that you
were following God's orders, hence God bears all the responsibility)

Bill, you are distributing information which has been demonstrated to be
false and contrary-to-fact and which has been demonstrated to result in
severe damage to and even loss or near-loss of faith.  You have been notified
of those facts and you have even asked for further information about the
geological facts in question ("What data caused the geologist to almost
become an atheist?", 98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT), to which I have pointed you.
And yet you refuse to review the data that you had requested and continue to
spread these false and potentially very damaging claims to impressionable
young minds.  I remember how some of those minds work.  You get them fired up
with indignation at the "lies" that scientists are telling them and some of
them will study geology and become geologists in order to conclusively prove
to those godless scientists the error of their ways.  Well, guess what?  You
have inspired them to have their faith destroyed.  Some of them will learn in
college that their religious leaders had lied to them (you know the form of
atheism that revelation usually leads to), but others will have to wait until
they start working in the field before they start to learn the truth.  As we
have observed before, the stupid ones will be safe enough, content to accept
your false claims and think no further about it, but the smart ones will dig
deeper, learn the truth, and end up having their faith destroyed when they
discover that you had lied to them.  Remember, the leitmotiv found in the
majority of cases of Christians becoming atheists is the realization that
their religious leaders had lied to them.  Maybe the ICR can get you a
discount at the quarry when you go there to be fitted for your mill-stone.


Bill, what does your high school presentation consist of?  Tell us PRECISELY
what you tell those kids.  Then tell us PRECISELY why you refuse to review
the facts.  Or don't you think that you have any responsibility to those
kids?

I follow truth, Bill.  You have made it clear that your god has nothing to do
with truth.  So why should I follow your god?


> ... and help people like this woman has been helped...<

Help, yes.  Deceive, no.  Nor set them up for a big fall later on.

I don't know if you remember the TV show, "The Rogues", from the early to mid
60's.  It was about three branches of a family of confidence artists
represented by Gig Young in New York, David Niven [I think] in London, and
Charles Boyer in Paris, with Gladys Cooper and another British actor in
London.  In just about the only episode I remember anything about, the London
branch had a wealthy guest whom they robbed blind of his ill-gotten gains.
At the end they bid each other adieu and he, not knowing what they had done
to him, responds to their "Glad to have had you" with "Glad to have been
had."

The point is that, immediately upon having been victimized by deception, most
victims will thank their deceiver; it isn't until later, sometimes much
later, that the evil, whose seeds had been sowed, finally sprouts and takes
its toll (Liber8r, I hope you are not an English teacher being driven crazy
by my mixed metaphors).  They thank you now, but what will they say when
creation science has destroyed their faith?

Similarly, you are only seeing short-term, immediate effects, not the
long-term end-results of your actions.  A former member of Pat Robertson's
staff wrote about witnessing Robertson perform a healing.  The man was
wheelchair-bound with a deathly palor.  Robertson laid his hand upon the man
and prayed, and the color returned to the man's face and his spirits were
noticably much higher than when he had been brought in.  But then the staff
member did what nobody else had done; he followed up.  A few days later, he
called the man's family to see how he was doing.  The man had died the next
day.  Short-term results: very impressive.  Long-term results (and not very
long this time): dead.

[NOTE:  That book was "Salvation For Sale".  When I was looking for it, I
asked the clerk at a local Crown bookstore, "Do you have 'Salvation For
Sale'?", he answered, "No, but there is a church two blocks away in that
direction." <gr -- but a true story>]

You are going before students who may be starting to have doubts, or at least
difficulties reconciling a naive literalist view with the real world (meaning
that there are non-naive literalist views).  Your presentation reinforces
their naive literalist beliefs and misinforms them that the facts of the real
world that they think are conflicting with their beliefs do not really exist.
We both know (or at least you should know) that is not true.  Furthermore, if
you are following the pattern, you have also taught and/or reenforced the
naive literalist belief that creation science must be true if Scripture is to
be true and that if those "non-existent" conflicting facts were to actually
exist, then Scripture would have no meaning, hence your and their religion
would have no basis.  The immediate effect that you see, which reenforces
your own beliefs and zeal to proselytize through creation science, is their
relief at the false idea that the facts of the real world actually support
their naive literalist beliefs.  What you do not see is what happens a few
months, or years, or decades down the road when they discover that those
"non-existent" conflicting facts DO actually exist, that Scripture therefore
has no meaning and their religion has no basis.  Just as you and their
ministers had taught them.

As I told you before, we want to see people give up theism because they had
grown out of a need for theism.  NOT because they had been driven away by
stupidity.  That latter kind of atheist tends to cause everybody trouble,
especially because they continue to follow the stupid things their ministers
had taught them about atheism.


> ... and help people like this woman has been helped...<

There is nothing here to indicate what the connection is between this note
and your creation science presentations to the high school kids.  Nor your
creation science presentations to any other group, for that matter.  She
indicates that she has changed her approach to prayer for the better
(personally, I have a problem with people who just go through the motions and
put in their pew time) and that she was supposed to report back to you, but
there is nothing to tell us what your connection with her is.  

What's the story behind Jenny's "daily report"?  If her change was due to
religious counseling that you provided outside the context of creationism,
then why include it?  If her change was due to your creationist presentation,
why did it reach her when nothing else could?  If it was creation science
that did it, then what effect would it have on her should she learn that her
faith was now dependent on claims that are contrary-to-fact?  Remember saying
how devastated you would be should you believe that the Bible had told you
that moments of inertia did not exist?  Well, for those who accept your
creation science presentations, that is no mere hypothetical situation.  From
your newsletter articles, I have read that you believe that a Christian must
believe in the teachings of creation science.  That means that they must
believe things about the natural world that are contrary-to-fact.  When those
whom you have converted to creation science discover the truth about the
natural world, then the results can be devastating, as you should be starting
to be able to realize through the MOI exercise.


When I asked you last year what your success rate was and how many of those
you converted remained converted, I realized (and I believe I said as much)
that it can be very difficult to answer those kinds of follow-up questions
because you usually will never see that person again.  I am in that same
position regarding my efforts to help Christians free their faith of
dependence on creation science.  However, I do have at least one verified
case of my having helped someone.  Seven years after we had lost contact, I
bumped into Charles Lang at Santa Ana College (we were both taking some night
classes).  I told you about him in my "why" file, which I had originally
written for him ["How I got started and why I oppose 'creation science'" at
http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/warum.html].  When we had met at Ford
Aerospace, he was a die-hard creationist whose hero was Duane Gish (in an
earlier email, I had mistakenly written "idol"; I apologize for that).  He
was the first creationist with whom I had ever engaged in conversation over
creation/evolution.  I asked him many of the questions I had about creation
science and he became increasingly amazed at the errors and misinformation in
creation science.  When we went to the Gish&Morris vs Awbrey&Thwaites debate
in Long Beach (see my "why" file), he felt that his heroes would vindicate
creation science.  Instead, he could not understand why Morris and Gish would
not present any of the evidence that Charles was so sure they had.  When we
talked years later at Santa Ana College, he said that he was thoroughly
disgusted with the ICR and that he wanted nothing to do with them ever again.
He was still a fundamentalist Christian, but he was glad that he didn't have
to believe in the ICR's nonsense anymore.  I do not remember if he had
actually thanked me, but he at least acknowledged that I had helped him see
through the nonsense.

BTW, over the years friends and acquaintences have actively sought me out for
peer counseling on religious matters, even when they knew that I was an
atheist.  Each time, I helped them through their problem as well as I could
and as conscientiously as I could.  Each time, I tried as best as I could to
help them find the solution within their own religious tradition, even though
it may be very different from my own.  Could you say the same?  If a Jew, a
Catholic, or a Mormon came to you seeking religious advice, could you
withstand the temptation to try to convert them to your own religion?  Be
honest, now.
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Who's Avoiding Questions?
Date:   98-06-25 10:18:38 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com, BillyJack6@aol.com

Hi:

From the list of unanswered questions, BillyJack has a lot of explaining to
do.

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/
--------------------
<html><head></head><BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font size=2 color="#000000"
face="Times New Roman"><b>Hi:<br><br>From the list of unanswered questions,
BillyJack has a lot of explaining to do.<br><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
Liber8r<br><br>The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site
respectively:<br>liber8r@mcs.com<br>http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/</p>
</font></body></html></I><FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F"
BACK="#FFFFFE">

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From: "\"The Liberator\"" <liber8r@mcs.com>
To: <DWise1@aol.com>, <BillyJack6@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Who's Avoiding Questions?
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:04:05 -0500
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Subj:    Re: Online
Date:   98-06-25 10:53:36 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com, BillyJack6@aol.com
CC: liber8r@mcs.com

Gentlemen:

You two are gentlemen because you try to expose the truth over creation vs.
evolution.  It would be nice to get more feedback from Billy but I'm sure
he has his reasons.

A few weeks ago, a teacher friend of mine let me borrow her tape of a
Frontline (PBS) program: From Jesus to Christ.  It was fascinating to say
the least.  I learned that the Bible fundamentalists who claim that The
Bible is 100% truth really don't know their own text.  There is also
evidence to suggest that many of The Bible entries are persuasive papers. 
These people, like Mathew, Luke, John and Paul, knew there audience and
knew how to sway opinion.  History even suggests that Christianity has
changed from being a multi-facetted undertaking to the mainly monolithic
creature it is today.

I added to my spiritual service Interpreting The Bible to reflect this new
discovery--new for me.  Here's something that you might find interesting:

"What was most fascinating was the 1945 discovery of the manuscripts at
Naghammadi. In a hidden cave multiple scrolls were
found. On the scrolls were conversations with Jesus and multiple gospels.
The Gospels of Thomas focused on recognizing oneself
as a problem solver of sorts. The Gospels of Mary Magdelin expressed a
controversial view, even by today's standards: women
should be allowed to teach. The discovery proved that Christianity was once
diversely studied and certainly was not monolithic, as
we are sometimes led to believe today."

Why was I never informed of these hidden gospels?

On another note, history tells us how Paganism joined up with Christianity.
 When the Romans ruled, Paganism was mostly practiced.  It was a open
faith--open to other ideas and practices.  When Christianity came around,
it didn't operate so well with Paganism, to the satisfaction of the Roman
Empire.  It was inevitable that Christianity would adopt some of the
principles of Paganism just to survive.  It was either that or be
systematically destroyed by Roman leaders.  A mutation occurred.

Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?

"It turns out that the 25th of December was an already established day of
celebration closely tied to nature from Egyptian
mythology--the solar festival of the equinox--which Paganism accepted along
with all other religious ceremonies. One scholar
argued that as Christianity became part of the Paganistic Roman Empire,
Paganism found its way into Christianity. Was it a matter
of survival on behalf of Christian loyalists or was it simply the
unavoidable melding of religious faiths? Geopolitical religion might be a
term worthy of using here."

If you would like to read more about this program, go to--->
     http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/services/Interpret.html

I also have the names of the professors, historians, and educational
leaders who participated with the program.  I even include a link back to
the PBS URL that addresses this specific Frontline program.  Please have a
look and reflect your thoughts back to us via e-mail.  I'm curious how it
will be received.  I also want to know if I spelled "Magdelin" right. 

:)

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/      

----------
From: DWise1@aol.com
To: BillyJack6@aol.com
Cc: liber8r@mcs.com; DWise1@aol.com
Subject: Re: Online
Date: Thursday, June 25, 1998 12:21 AM

### BEGIN ###
Subj:  Re: Online
Debate
Date:   98-06-15 01:09:09 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I intend to show teh audience that Creation is a better explanation than
evolution using science as the tool of evidence.

### END ###

And how do you intend to do that?  What is some of your scientific evidence
FOR creation?

You know, since 1968 I've been hearing the claim of scientific evidence for
creation, but I have yet to see anybody actually present any of that
evidence.
Both I and several others on CompuServe had requested several times over
the
years to see that evidence presented, but it never happened; some
creationists
even got very indignant that we would make such a request.  I have even
asked
you to present some of that evidence, but you have refused to.

What "evidence" do you intend to show the audience?
--------------------
<html><head></head><BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font size=2 color="#000000"
face="Times New Roman"><b>Gentlemen:<br><br>You two are gentlemen because you
try to expose the truth over creation vs. evolution. &nbsp;It would be nice
to get more feedback from Billy but I'm sure he has his reasons.<br><br>A few
weeks ago, a teacher friend of mine let me borrow her tape of a Frontline
(PBS) program: From Jesus to Christ. &nbsp;It was fascinating to say the
least. &nbsp;I learned that the Bible fundamentalists who claim that The
Bible is 100% truth really don't know their own text. &nbsp;There is also
evidence to suggest that many of The Bible entries are persuasive papers.
&nbsp;These people, like Mathew, Luke, John and Paul, knew there audience and
knew how to sway opinion. &nbsp;History even suggests that Christianity has
changed from being a multi-facetted undertaking to the mainly monolithic
creature it is today.<br><br>I added to my spiritual service <font size=4
color="#FF0000"><u>Interpreting The Bible</u><font size=2 color="#000000"> to
reflect this new discovery--new for me. &nbsp;Here's something that you might
find interesting:<br><br>&quot;What was most fascinating was the 1945
discovery of the manuscripts at Naghammadi. In a hidden cave multiple scrolls
were<br>found. On the scrolls were conversations with Jesus and multiple
gospels. The Gospels of Thomas focused on recognizing oneself<br>as a problem
solver of sorts. The Gospels of Mary Magdelin expressed a controversial view,
even by today's standards: women<br>should be allowed to teach. The discovery
proved that Christianity was once diversely studied and certainly was not
monolithic, as<br>we are sometimes led to believe today.&quot;<br><br>Why was
I never informed of these hidden gospels?<br><br>On another note, history
tells us how Paganism joined up with Christianity. &nbsp;When the Romans
ruled, Paganism was mostly practiced. &nbsp;It was a open faith--open to
other ideas and practices. &nbsp;When Christianity came around, it didn't
operate so well with Paganism, to the satisfaction of the Roman Empire.
&nbsp;It was inevitable that Christianity would adopt some of the principles
of Paganism just to survive. &nbsp;It was either that or be systematically
destroyed by Roman leaders. &nbsp;A mutation occurred.<br><br>Why is
Christmas celebrated on December 25th?<br><br>&quot;It turns out that the
25th of December was an already established day of celebration closely tied
to nature from Egyptian<br>mythology--the solar festival of the
equinox--which Paganism accepted along with all other religious ceremonies.
One scholar<br>argued that as Christianity became part of the Paganistic
Roman Empire, Paganism found its way into Christianity. Was it a matter<br>of
survival on behalf of Christian loyalists or was it simply the unavoidable
melding of religious faiths? Geopolitical religion might be a<br>term worthy
of using here.&quot;<br><br>If you would like to read more about this
program, go to---&gt;<br> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font
size=4>http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/services/Interpret.html<font
size=2><br><br>I also have the names of the professors, historians, and
educational leaders who participated with the program. &nbsp;I even include a
link back to the PBS URL that addresses this specific Frontline program.
&nbsp;Please have a look and reflect your thoughts back to us via e-mail.
&nbsp;I'm curious how it will be received. &nbsp;I also want to know if I
spelled &quot;Magdelin&quot; right. <br><br>:)<br><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font
size=6 face="DomDiagonal Bd BT">The Liber8r<font size=2 face="Times New
Roman"><br><br>The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site
respectively:<br>liber8r@mcs.com<br>http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>----------<br>From: <font
color="#0000FF"><u>DWise1@aol.com</u><font color="#000000"><br>To: <font
color="#0000FF"><u>BillyJack6@aol.com</u><font color="#000000"><br>Cc: <font
color="#0000FF"><u>liber8r@mcs.com</u><font color="#000000">; <font
color="#0000FF"><u>DWise1@aol.com</u><font color="#000000"><br>Subject: Re:
Online<br>Date: Thursday, June 25, 1998 12:21 AM<br><br>### BEGIN
###<br>Subj: &nbsp;Re: Online<br>Debate<br>Date: &nbsp;&nbsp;98-06-15
01:09:09 EDT<br>From: &nbsp;&nbsp;BillyJack6<br>To: DWise1<br><br>I intend to
show teh audience that Creation is a better explanation than<br>evolution
using science as the tool of evidence.<br><br>### END ###<br><br>And how do
you intend to do that? &nbsp;What is some of your scientific evidence<br>FOR
creation?<br><br>You know, since 1968 I've been hearing the claim of
scientific evidence for<br>creation, but I have yet to see anybody actually
present any of that evidence.<br>Both I and several others on CompuServe had
requested several times over the<br>years to see that evidence presented, but
it never happened; some creationists<br>even got very indignant that we would
make such a request. &nbsp;I have even asked<br>you to present some of that
evidence, but you have refused to.<br><br>What &quot;evidence&quot; do you
intend to show the audience?</p>

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SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F" BACK="#FFFFFE">

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From: "\"The Liberator\"" <liber8r@mcs.com>
To: <DWise1@aol.com>, <BillyJack6@aol.com>
Cc: <liber8r@mcs.com>
Subject: Re: Online
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:46:42 -0500
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Subj:    Evolution Article
Date:   98-06-25 16:17:30 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com

David Wise:

I was viewing your website and I noticed that you have a lot of stuff
related to evolution.  Also from our discussions I have noticed how well
you can articulate your points--an ability that far exceeds my own.  Do you
have an article on evolution that I can post on my site?  If not, when you
develop one, could you send it to me?  I would like to post an article from
you so that I can also provide a link to your site; it hits two birds with
one "stone."

:-)

Mark                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/
--------------------
<html><head></head><BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font size=2 color="#000000"
face="Times New Roman"><b>David Wise:<br><br>I was viewing your website and I
noticed that you have a lot of stuff related to evolution. &nbsp;Also from
our discussions I have noticed how well you can articulate your points--an
ability that far exceeds my own. &nbsp;Do you have an article on evolution
that I can post on my site? &nbsp;If not, when you develop one, could you
send it to me? &nbsp;I would like to post an article from you so that I can
also provide a link to your site; it hits two birds with one
&quot;stone.&quot;<br><br>:-)<br><br>Mark
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font
size=5 color="#FF0000" face="DomDiagonal Bd BT">The Liber8r<font size=2
color="#000000" face="Times New Roman"><br><br>The Liber8r can be reached by
e-mail, and web site
respectively:<br>liber8r@mcs.com<br>http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/</p>
</font></font></font></body></html></I><FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10 COLOR="#0F0F0F"
BACK="#FFFFFE">

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Message-Id: <199806252017.PAA01955@Kitten.mcs.com>
From: "\"The Liberator\"" <liber8r@mcs.com>
To: <DWise1@aol.com>
Subject: Evolution Article
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 15:10:42 -0500
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Subj:   see what a giver I am?
Date:   98-06-26 21:39:21 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Never mind..I think I know it..I think the question is to factor
x3+2x2 + 3x + 6

first start with this"
(    )  (     )  your two brackets

then look at the ends for clues

the x3 is the first clue

there is no number in frnot so that makes it easy

thus we know it will look like this

(x2     )   (x    )

that gives us our x3

now look at the far right for a clue

we have a plus six.....the fact it is a positive number is a big clue

thus it will be either (x2  +     )   (x  +   )    or it will be (x2-    ) (x
-  )

since a positive times a positive makes  apositive..and a negative times a
negative makes a positiove it is one of the two...lets solve this mystery!

how do we solve it....look at the middle numbers...what are they, positive or
negative?  they are positive...the middle numbers come from addition...so the
ends must be positive  thus we have this

(x2  +     )   (x  +   )

now lets find the end number...again clue #1 is the far right number  it is a
6

the end numbers must result in six when multiplied by each other

what numbers when multiplied by each other are 6?

1  x  6
2  x 3
3  x 2
6  x 1

I highly recommend writing these "tables" out when you reach this point!

notice how i wrote every possibility  (I mean I wrote out 1 x 6    and 6  x
1)

one of those four possibilities will fill out our answer...our job is to find
which one!

so we have (x2  +     )   (x  +   )  its crucial you understand how to
multiply these factors.......if you do....you will know that the number we
are look for that goes next to (x +  ) will be multiplied by the x2......thus
that number must be the 2  (since our anser is x3  + 2x2  +3x  +6 )  

again the x2 prefix is 2...thus that puts the 2  next to the ( x +  )

so now we have (x2  +     )   (x  +  2 )

look at our table of numbers of what numbers produce 6.....since 2 is on the
right...3 must be on the left....so we have (x2  +  3   )   (x  +  2 )

Hope that helps!



</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Fwd: Words of Comfort - Words of Praise - Volume 1 - Issue 2
Date:   98-06-26 23:03:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: OzJim, DWise1


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:   Words of Comfort - Words of Praise - Volume 1 - Issue 2
Date:   98-06-05 12:05:11 EDT
From:   DUKEOFDISC
To: NetPrphet
<HTML><PRE><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffe8"></P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3><B>
      ____________________________________________ 
 
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>WORDS OF COMFORT </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>WORDS OF PRAISE
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>( An Open Forum For Believers to Share Their
Love )
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4> 
Volume 1 - Issue 2 - June 5, 1998 
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>
____________________________________________ 
 <FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»Remembering Jesus' Love For All
Men«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=4>»
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>      
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>1. Words From The Word:
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>"...That ye may
approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offense
till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God..." Philippians
1:10-11</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT>2. Remember This :
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></B> <B><I>To be a servant of God I must be moldable
and I must remain in the Master's Hand.  Apart from God, I can do nothing.
With God working through me, I can do ANYTHING God can do.  When I find out
where the Master is, then I know that is where I need to be.  I come to know
God by experience as I obey Him and He accomplishes His work through me.<FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4></I>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></B> <B>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>3. Are You Eating Right ? :</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
Subj:   Devotion (short one) - "The Right Diet"
Date:   98-05-21 23:16:21 EDT
From:   BibleFood
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=4><U>The Right Diet<FONT
COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3></U> 
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>by Pastor Carl Stevens 
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>
"...Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the
joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of
hosts..."Jeremiah 15:16 
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
<FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>More important than physical food is
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ae1120" SIZE=3>spiritual food</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>. "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and
to finish His work" (John 4:34). Paul says about Israel, "They all ate the
same </FONT><FONT COLOR="#ae1120" SIZE=3>spiritual food</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>" (I Corinthians 10:3, NIV). Those who overcome are
able to eat from the tree of life and of the hidden manna </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#831020" SIZE=3>(1); (2)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>. When we
eat of the right </FONT><FONT COLOR="#ae1120" SIZE=3>spiritual
food</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>, we will be strong and prepared for
what God wants us to do. "Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for
thee" (I Kings 19:7). "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word,
that ye may grow thereby" (I Peter 2:2). Ezekiel was told by the Lord to eat
the scroll, then to speak to the house of Israel </FONT><FONT COLOR="#831020"
SIZE=3>(3)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>; he was prepared because he
had eaten spiritual food. Jeremiah said, "Thy words were found, and I did eat
them" (Jeremiah 15:16a). 

   When we eat of the right </FONT><FONT COLOR="#ae1120" SIZE=3>spiritual
food</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>, we will be strong and prepared for
what God wants us to do. Therefore, we need to have a continual intake of
God's Word so that we will be equipped to face what lies ahead. "Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God" (Matthew 4:4). 
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>4. Follow the Light!</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>
Subj:   Directions to Heaven   :)
Date:   98-05-23 01:23:43 EDT
From:   Teamlfjf

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=4><U>Directions to
Heaven:<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></U></B>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2><B> 
1. First of all, WHOSOEVER will must make a U-turn on the "Road of
Repentance." 
       
2. Then make a Right onto "Believeth Blvd." 
  
3. Keep Straight and go through the Green Light which is Jesus Christ.
          
4. From there, you must turn onto the "Bridge of Faith," which is over
troubled water. 
   
5. When you get off the bridge, make a Right turn and Keep Straight.You are
on the "King's Highway"- Heaven-bound. 
  
6. Keep going for three miles: One for the Father, One for the Son, and One
for the Holy Ghost. 
  
7. Then exit off onto "Grace Blvd." From there, make a Right turn on "Gospel
Lane." 
   
8. Keep Straight and then make another RIGHT on "Prayer Blvd." 
     
9. As you go on your way, yield not to the traffic on "Temptation Ave." Also,
avoid SIN STREET because it is a DEAD END. Pass up "Envy Drive," and "Hate
Avenue." Also, pass "Hypocrisy Street," "Gossiping Lane." and "Backbiting
Blvd." 
  
10. But you have to go down "Longsuffering Lane," "Persecution Blvd,"and
"Trials and Tribulations Avenue." 
  
11. From there, make another Right onto "Peace Street." Keep Straight and you
will come to the parking lot of "Immortality."  It's alright to park there. 
  
12. Get out of the body and junk it. Go into the building not made by hands.
Sit down and talk to KING JESUS. Tell Him all about your troubles and dwell
in His House FOREVER! 
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>5. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Fighting the Curse With Verse </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>
Subj:   pOeM "PrAyErS cAn'T bE aNsWeReD uNlEsS tHeY'rE PrAyEd"
Date:   98-05-23 14:50:56 EDT
From:   LiLJaNe50
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#008040" SIZE=2>
 </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008080" SIZE=2>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008040"
SIZE=2>+</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000a0" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008040"
SIZE=2>+</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008080" SIZE=2>†
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=2><U>"PRAYERS CAN'T BE ANSWERED UNLESS
THEY'RE PRAYED"</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></U></B>
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2><B>"Prayer's Can't Be Answered Unless They are
Prayed" 
Life without purpose is barren indeed
There can't be a harvest unless you plant seed 
There can't be attainment unless there's a goal 
And man's but a robot unless there's a soul.
If we send no ships out, no ships will come in, 
And unless there's a contest, nobody can win.
For games can't be won unless they are played, 
And prayers can't be answered unless they are prayed. 
So whatever is wrong with your life today
You'll find a solution if you kneel down and pray.
Not just for pleasure, enjoyment and health, 
Not just for honors and prestige and wealth. 
But pray for a purpose to make life worth living 
And pray for the joy of unselfish giving.
For great is your gladness and rich your reward, 
When you make your life's purpose the choice of
the Lord. (Poem by: Anonymous)<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></B>
<FONT COLOR="#008080" SIZE=2><B>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008040"
SIZE=2>+</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000a0" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008040"
SIZE=2>+</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008080" SIZE=2>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3></B>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3><B>6. </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> We are never too old for a Good Story  </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
Subj:   The Sting!
Date:   98-06-01 21:40:55 EDT
From:   Makala7
</P><P
ALIGN=CENTER>»§«:*΄`³€³΄`*:»§«»§«:*΄`³€³΄`*:»§«»§«:*΄`³€³΄`*:»§«»§«:*΄`³€³΄`*:»§«</B>
<FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3><U><B>The Bee Sting
</U>
</P><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>A vacationing family drives along in their car, windows
rolled down, 
enjoying the warm summer breeze of the sunny day. All of a sudden a big
black bee darts in the window and starts buzzing around inside the car.  
A little girl, highly allergic to bee stings, cringes in the back seat.  If
she is stung, she could die within an hour.

"Oh, Daddy," she squeals in terror. "It's a bee! It's going to sting me!"
The father pulls the car over to a stop, and reaches back to try to catch the
bee. 
Buzzing around towards him, the bee bumps against the front windshield where
the father traps it in his fist.  Holding it in his closed hand, the father
waits for the inevitable sting.  The bee stings the father's hand and in
pain, the father let's go of the bee.  The bee is loose in the car again. The
little girl again panics,

"Daddy, it's going to sting me!" The father gently says, "No honey, he's not
going to sting you now. Look at my hand."  The bee's stinger is there in his
hand.

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER>**********
</P><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>Paul exulted in 1 Cor 15:55, "Where, O death, is your
victory? Where, O  death, is your sting?"   Jesus says to us, "Look at my
hands."  He has  Satan's sting,  the sting of death,  the sting of sin, the
sting of deceit, the sting of feeling worthless.  Jesus has all of those
stingers in His hands. 

When you see that nail-scarred hand, realize that, on your behalf, Jesus took
all the pain that Satan could throw at Him. He reduced Satan to  a big black
bee that's lost its stinger -- all Satan can do is buzz.  That's the victory
that Jesus won for you.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=2>(Heard from Frank
Peretti on Focus on the Family)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3><U>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>7. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></U>Subj:   Help, standing in the need of
prayer
Date:   98-06-02 11:18:18 EDT
From:   TFen7

Our son who is a coach made a decision for his team, based on emotions and
righteous thinking for the girls, and it was really going over the league's
approval.  It was a mistake for sure, he is a much loved coach and is so
"fair" but we know what he has done was not under authority.   

He is a believer.  The League had some very "communistic" ideas. . .that is,
the ability of the girls is not taken into consideration.   The girls are
gifted in pitching etc. and they don't want them to pitch.   They surely
think what they are doing is right, probably everyone thinks what he is doing
is right.   Our son, Tim,  took a stand after the final game and when going
into the playoffs, played everyone according to ability and it will cost him.
He has always had a championship team and he knew they would have to forfeit
if the league was upset.  The League WAS upset and they had to forfeit.  

Please pray that God will use this in his life and in the life of others.
He is one of our seven sons.  He is married, has a lovely wife, Shelly, who
has asked that I put him on prayer chains.   He has three darling girls.
His name is Tim.  Please pray for his heart to know the right thing for a
Godly man to do.  Does not seem terribly important, but he is very depressed.

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>8.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Words of Encouragement  </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>
Subj:   Lookie . . . just found this !
Date:   98-06-04 12:34:34 EDT
From:   MRCYTRTH

We were reading this verse this morning:
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>"...If anyone would come
after me, he must deny himself and take
up his cross daily and follow me...'   Luke 9:23
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Here's what we saw:
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>If anyone would come after me</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> . . . God is always at work around us
pursuing a continuing love relationship with us that is real and personal,
and inviting us to become involved with Him in HIS work, and speaking by the
Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances and the church to reveal
Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>
he must deny himself </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. . . God's
invitation for us to work with Him always leads us to a crisis of belief that
requires faith and action 

<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>And take up his cross daily </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. . . we must make major adjustments in our life to
join God in what He is doing.

<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>and follow me. - Luke 9:23 </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. . . we come to know God by experience as we obey Him
and HE accomplishes HIS work through us.

Surely this verse must have been in our course somewhere because It fits so
perfectly, but we don't know where to find it.  We just saw this while
reading this morning and got excited about it.  Hope it will bless your day.

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>9. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
Subj:   Prayer Request
Date:   98-05-25 02:28:54 EDT
From:   Teamlfjf

For about 8 mos. now, we have been praying for Josephine in MD.  Her
handicapped Christian daughter was killed in an auto accident, Josephine
escaped an abusive marriage & has often asked us to pray for guidance,
direction, finances and peace.  Her last request was 3 wks. ago, when she set
off in a U-Haul from MD to OR at the Lord's leading.  She's in her late 50's
and felt like the pioneer women crossing the country years ago.  Praise God,
she made it safely to OR.  No problems at all.  She has found a place to live
and a wonderful new church home.  She is so grateful for your prayers.  She
asks for prayers for a job, finances, and God's direction as she begins a new
chapter in her life.

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>10. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Fighting the Curse With Verse </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>
Subj:   Poem
Date:   98-06-05 10:52:49 EDT
From:   DUKEOFDISC
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=4><U>Morning Prayer<FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></U>
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2>by: Paula J. Colvin<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>

Your Grace, Oh Lord, is sufficient.
Sufficient to fill every need.
No longer will "want" haunt our footsteps
If only Your Word we believe.

Your Love and Your gentle forgiveness,
Lord, has blotted away all our sin.
Purchased by blood of the Savior
You help us start over again.

Oh Lord, as You died to redeem us,
Let us die every day to our pride.
Teach us Spirit, to walk as You lead us
Help us put all our ego aside.

Thank You Lord, for Your loving and caring;
For Your giving, and healing, and Grace,
In the Name of our Savior we pray, Lord,
Let Your Spirit shine out through our face.

May we learn to be bold in our witness;
To stand strong with Faith in Your Word;
May we lead other sinners to You Lord,
By telling them what we have heard.

Then when at last we are finished our battle
And our days on this earth are at end,
We will praise and exalt You, dear Father
Our Savior, our Teacher, our Friend. 
Amen.
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>11. </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> Praise The Lord  </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>
Subj:   Fwd: Update on Joshua!!  PRAISE REPORT!
Date:   98-06-04 17:50:57 EDT
From:   RAllen2777

Thank you so much for your prayers.  They are truly uplifting to us and a
great blessing.  Josh is doing great!! He went to the doctors about two weeks
ago and they were quite amazed at how well he was doing!!  Praise God he is
healed.  I want you all to know that I love you very much and thank you for
being here for us during the most trying times in our lives.  I try not to
write to much now since there is not much change.  I will write more when I
hear from the MRI that will be done on June 10th.  Josh will be tested also
for four yr old kindergarten and I will let you know how that turns out. Here
is a prayer to everyone ................... 
 
 Father in Heaven thank you so much for all those who have been here for
for us and have walked this valley through the most hardest times in our
lives.  Lord I thank you that each one stepped out of their own-selves and
their lives problems to say a prayer or send a card or to call to lift us up
and encourage us.  Lord Jesus thank you for allowing me to experience your
love through them and your arms wrapped around me.  Now Lord I ask that if
anyone who reads this prayer has something that they are facing in their
lives their hearts or just feeling down or depressed to be encouraged and to
know that somebody loves them and cares about them and that no matter what
the situation may be that God is the answer.  Man may not always be there or
have the answer Lord but you have sent your word so that we could and do and
will always have hope.  Lord I lift my family online up to you and ask for
you to touch, heal, and restore.  Give them a fresh and new anointing of your
spirit in Jesus name.  Wrap your loving arms around them as you have me.  May
your word be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path and may we fear
no evil through the valley of the shadow of death because greater is he who
is in us than he that is in this world and that the battle is not ours but it
belongs to the Lord and the victory is ours HALLELUJAH.  Thank you Jesus that
we have hope and that in our weakness you are strong.  Lord You say in your
word that where two or more are gathered in your name and agree than it shall
be done.  I agree with my brothers and sisters that you have heard this
prayer and that it is done in Jesus name and thank you for it and we love you
and praise you in Jesus name amen.
 
God bless each one of you and I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>12. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
Subj:    prayer need ..
Date:   98-06-05 07:06:36 EDT
From:   pamela@lnd.com (Pamela)

a blessed Friday to you.  My father became ill again this past tuesday.  we
took him to the doctor, but he refused to stay in the hospital.  the doctor
agreed to let him come to our home after treatment there first.  The bile
duct is blocked again evidenced by some liver count.  He has to have it
opened.   His first sign tuesday was shaking, cold, and loss of ability to
move.  it lessened after 2 hours - could that be answered prayer?  \o/

He became a second list emergency for the surgeon so got put on a list that
ended up with the procedure scheduled for today.  He has been very
uncomfortable but has not had the shaking or fever re appear, thank you
Jesus.  and he has stopped refusing the doctors and hospital help plus he
has had time with mom which was time they both needed.  

The pastor came to visit them and gave them communion last night.  they were
both so thrilled and joyous about that visit.  God is so good and merciful.
I ask your prayers for dad and mom.  the long term outlook is not good but
they should redo the biopsy today and hopefully get some kind of definite
diagnosis of the growth that is causing this blockage.

I also ask your prayers for my children, Sean and Rebecca.   Their other
grandfather had a stroke tuesday.  My ex called last night and said he will
not live past saturday.  I do not know how accurate that diagnosis is, but
we are supposed to leave for florida tomorrow.  My girls need a break.  it
has been a long spring and they have given much care and love to my parents.
Now on the brink of that vacation, all this plus my ex became furious with
Rebecca because she does not want to fly back from florida for the funeral.
Pray for God's grace and peace, please.  Rebecca has wondrous faith for a 16
yr old, but she is 16 and is being stretched to limits that only God will see
her through and I pray God's comfort and grace for all involved in this
situation also.

Thank you for your time and love.  May the peace of God fill your hearts and
wrap your lives in HIS love.

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>13. A Merry Heart Makes A Cheerful Countenance :
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   Stuff From Jason (6/3/98)
Date:   98-06-03 18:16:26 EDT
From:   StuffFromJ

A small boy stunned his parents when he began to empty his pockets of
nickels, dimes and quarters.  Finally his mother said, "Where did you get all
that money.?  "At Sunday school," the boy replied nonchalantly.  "They have
bowls of it."


                                         ,;;,
.                                       ;;  ;;
.                                        `;;'
.                                     ,;  ;;  ;,
.                                 (;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;)
.                                      `;  ;;  ;'
.                                          ;;
.                                          ;;
.                                ..        ;;        ..
.                                `;;.      ;;       .;;'
.                                  ``;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;''
                             -----------------------------------
                             |»»»»»»»»»|»»»»»»»»» |
.                          /)|           GOD'S            |(\
.                        / / |           WORD            | \ \
.                      ( (   |        is my Anchor      |  ) )
.                    (((\ \>|_/->______|______<-\_|</ /)))
.                    (\\\\ \_/ /                          \ \_/ ////)
.                     \      _/                            \_      /
.                     /     /                                  \     \

<FONT COLOR="#ff00ff" SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=3>*<FONT
COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ffff00"
SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffffe8" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ffffe8"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ffffe8" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff8080"
SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00ffff" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#00ffff"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#00ffff" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffffe8"
SIZE=6>**</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ff0000"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff00ff"
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SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffffe8" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ffffe8"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ffffe8" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00ffff"
SIZE=6>**</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff80c0" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ff80c0"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ff80c0" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffff00"
SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ff0000"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff00ff"
SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0080" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffff00"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00ff00"
SIZE=6>**</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ffff00"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00ffff"
SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff00ff" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ff00ff"
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SIZE=6>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00ff00" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#00ff00"
SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#00ff00" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ffffe8"
SIZE=6>**</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff80ff" SIZE=3>*<FONT COLOR="#ff80ff"
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SIZE=5>*<FONT COLOR="#ffff00" SIZE=3>*</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=6>†<FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=5><I>
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=5>GOD I§ EXAL†£D...
sATAN IS DEFEA†ED...
J£§U§ CHRI§† I§ LORD!!!</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2><U>(</U></I>Special thanks to Sharon for
this graphic!)<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3><U><I>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></U></B></I>
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
</PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Two Model Approach
Date:   98-06-26 23:04:42 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>So mitosis animals gave rise to meiosis animals
how?</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Genesis
Date:   98-06-26 23:05:04 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>you so funny!</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Re: "Fwd: Carbon Dating "Crash""
Date:   98-06-26 23:05:23 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>that was my point!</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj: Re: "Desperate" Scientists
Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-26 23:09:49 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>lets meet!  or phone chat</PRE></HTML>

#########################################################

Subj:  Fwd: Serious humor
Date:   98-06-26 23:13:01 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:   Serious humor
Date:   98-06-13 12:29:24 EDT
From:   GOT2PRAY
<HTML><FONT  SIZE=3 PTSIZE=10>

I was riding the bus downtown the other day and reading my bible when this
man sat down next to me and said " You don't really believa all that stuff do
you?"  I turned to look at him and said "Of course I do it is the word of
God."  He kind of laughed at me and said " Well how about the Old Testament
do you believe all that stuff too?"  And I nodded my head and answered "Why
yes I believe that also. Why do you ask?"  He kind of laughed again and said
" How about the story of Jonah?  You surely don't believe that do you?"  I
was getting annoyed but I replied " Sure I believe everything that is written
the Bible."  He snorted and said " Well tell me this then: What did he eat
when he was in the belly of the whale all that time?"  I paused and then said
" I don't know but when I get to heaven I will ask him."  He said " What if
he is not there?"  And I replied " Then you can ask him."</HTML>Subj:   Fwd:
Words of Comfort - Words of Praise - Volume 1 - Issue 1 - June 2, 1998
Date:   98-06-26 23:21:59 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:   Words of Comfort - Words of Praise - Volume 1 - Issue 1 - June 2, 1998
Date:   98-06-01 00:01:42 EDT
From:   DUKEOFDISC
To: NetPrphet
<HTML><PRE><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffe8"></P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3><B>
      ____________________________________________ 
 
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>WORDS OF COMFORT </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>WORDS OF PRAISE
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>( An Open Forum For Believers to Share Their
Love )
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4> 
Volume 1 - Issue 1 - June 2, 1998 
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>
____________________________________________ 
 <FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»Remembering Jesus' Love For All
Men«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=4>»
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>      
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>1. Words From The Word:
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>"...You will keep him
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You...."
Isaiah 26:3

"...Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in
Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer..." Psalm 19:14

</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>2. Remember This :
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3><I>As I follow Jesus one day at a time, He will keep
me in the center of God's will<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=4>.  <FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Jesus is my way.  I don't need any other road map!
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</B>
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=2><B></I>(Excerpt from: Experiencing God Workbook)

</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>3. Are You Learning ? :
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   What I've Learned
Date:   98-05-31 13:35:06 EDT
From:   Teamlfjf

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><U>What I've learned</U>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></B>
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3><B>a.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that just because I'm angry, I don't have the right to be cruel.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>b. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>I've
learned that money is a lousy way of keeping score.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>c.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that it's a lot easier to react than it is to think.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>d.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be
the last time you see them.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>e.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that you can keep going long after you think you can't.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>f. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>g.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that either you control your attitude or it controls you.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>h.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to
the best you can do.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>i.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that it's not what happens to people that's important.  It's what
they do about it.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>j. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>I've
learned that you can do something in an instant that will give you a
heartache for life.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>k.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>l.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>m.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that you cannot make someone love you.  All you can do is be someone
who can be loved.  The rest is up to them.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>n.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>o.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that it takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy
it.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>p.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> I've
learned that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your
life that counts.
<FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>q. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>I've
learned that you can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that  you'd
better know something.</B>

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3><B>4. What Do Others See In You? :</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></B>
<B>Subj:    When you thought I wasn't looking
Date:   98-05-20 16:38:10 EDT
From:   Bemarie
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><I>
When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you hang my first painting on the
refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you feed a stray cat, and I
thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make my favorite cake for me,
and I knew that little things are special things.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I believed
there is a God I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I felt you kiss me good night, and I
felt loved.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw tears come from your eyes, and I
learned that sometimes things hurt, and it's alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw that you cared and I wanted to be
everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I looked and wanted to say thanks for
all the things I saw when you thought I wasn't  looking.

Author Unknown
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></I>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>6. A Merry Heart Makes A Cheerful Countenance :
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   Stuff From Jason  =  )
Date:   98-05-19 12:22:11 EDT
From:   StuffFromJ

A little boy opened the big old family Bible and with fascination, he looked
at the old pages as he turned them.  Then something fell out of the Bible and
he picked it up and looked at it closely.  It was an old leaf from a tree
that had been pressed in between the pages.  

"Momma, look what I found," the boy called out.  

"What have you got there?" his mother asked.  

With astonishment in the young boy's voice he answered, "It's a piece of
Adam's suit!"</B>
<B>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>7. Combatting Vice With Verse :
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   Poems and Songs 5/21/98
Date:   98-05-20 22:00:17 EDT
From:   CMC532

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><I>HEART PRINTS
email source: MOMCATE
   
Whatever our hands touch---
We leave fingerprints!
On walls, on furniture, 
On doorknobs, dishes, books, 
As we touch we leave our identity.
      
Oh please, Lord, where ever I go today,
Help me leave heartprints!
Heartprints of compassion
Of understanding and love.
Heartprints of kindness
and genuine concern.
      
May my heart touch a lonely neighbor
Or a runaway daughter, 
Or an anxious mother, 
Or, perhaps, a dear friend!
      
I shall go out today
To leave heartprints,
And if somone should say
"I felt your touch,"
May that one sense be...YOUR LOVE
Touching through ME.
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></I>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>8. Effective Fervent Prayer Avails Much :
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:    PRAYse Report
Date:   98-05-20 10:37:43 EDT
From:   ktodd@vci.net (Keith Todd)

A letter follows from a grateful family for the multitude of prayers, cards,
and letters that was received by them on behalf of Erika and Joanna
Bailey last year.  Does the names Erika and Joanna Bailey ring a bell with
you?  Last year these two girls came as close to death as they could
possible come due to a terrible head-on collision on one of South Carolinas
dangerous two lane highways.

The mother, Heidi Bailey, gave me the following letter signed by the family
intended for "you" on internet that prayed for their recovery last year.  The
letter follows:
____________________________

Dear Friends in Christ,

    It has been one year ago today, May 19 since Erika and Joannaνs car
accident.  The girls are doing great!  We want you to know how grateful we
are to God for the miracles He has performed, and how grateful we are to
God for Christian friends like you.  We thank you so much for your prayers
and cards.

    We do ask for your continued prayers for Erika, as she will have "Elbow
Surgery," at Duke University Hospital, Durham NC.  The surgery will be on
July 13. 1998.

                    God Bless You All,
                Michael, Heidi, Katie, Erike, and Joanna Bailey
____________________________

If you were part of the multitude that prayed for the girls, or if you want
to encourage them in their faith and let them know you will be praying for
Erikaνs surgery in July, I will be honored to forward any email letters you
may wish to send them.  Send your letters to:  twaters@logicsouth.com

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>9. Are You Seeking God?:
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   Todays Devotion - "If God Seems Far
Away"
Date:   98-05-28 21:38:27 EDT
From:   BibleFood
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>
"If God Seems Far Away"</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
(an excerpt from "Our Daily Bread")
<FONT COLOR="#ae1120" SIZE=3>Read: Lamentations 3:1-26 </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT>
<FONT COLOR="#ae1120" SIZE=3>The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to
the soul who seeks Him. --Lamentations 3:25
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my five decades of ministry, I've talked to many people who were deeply
troubled because God seemed far away. They didn't feel that He cared about
their personal needs, so they had a difficult time praying. 

Occasionally the reason surfaced quickly--unconfessed sin, a vengeful spirit,
pride, addictions, and the like. But when no sin was evident and the person
submitted daily to Jesus as Lord, read the Bible, and prayed persistently,
the best advice I could offer was, "Talk to God about your problem and keep
doing what you are doing." 

The Bible tells us of people who faced the same sort of problem. The prophet
Jeremiah went through a time when God actually seemed like his enemy (Lam.
3:1-18). In striking imagery he described his anguish over a God who "shuts
out my prayer" (v.8). He felt as if God were hunting him down (vv.10-12). But
as he expressed his sorrow, Jeremiah saw a light that pierced the darkness
and restored his hope in the Lord (vv.21-26). 

If God seems far away from you, even though you are trusting Him and trying
to do His will, don't despair. Talk to Him about it. Keep doing what you know
is right. The light will break through. And when it does, you will be
immeasurably better for it. --HVL 

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#800040" SIZE=3>Lift up your eyes,
discouraged one,
The Lord your help will be;
New strength will come from Him who said,
"For rest come unto Me." --Anon.

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>10. A Final Word:</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=5></B>
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3><B>Dear Friends in the Lord,

  We hope that you have enjoyed this first edition of "Words of Comfort -
Words of Praise".  This is a new format and we are trying to find how God
would have us go with it.  We get much mail from so many Christian friends
that we felt we need to share it one with another.  I know your mailboxes are
already full of so much "stuff",but please take the time to read this and if
you would like to contribute an article or poem or request, please do that
also.  We are hopeful that with all the bad things that are on AOL and the
other servers, we may, as Online Christian Soldiers, find the time to
encourage, comfort, strengthen, and cheer one another with uplifting and
encouraging articles, poems, and notes.  We also believe that the fervent
prayer of a righteous man (or woman) avails much and encourage you to send
your prayer requests as well.

God bless you for reading this and may His hand direct you in all your ways.
We are praying for each of you daily and covet your prayers as well.

Love in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
Merle and Paula Colvin
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></B>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3><B>
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=5></B><B>If you're in a tunnel of discouragement,
keep walking toward the SON.
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>:
:                                               !!!!!!!!!!
:                                               ( 0  0 )
:                                +-----oOO----(_)-------------------+
:                                 | Know what Fear Really IS |
:                                 |         F = False                |
:                                 |         E = Evidence           |
:                                 |         A = Appearing         |
:                                 |         R = Real                 |
:                                 +------------------------oOO----+
:                                             |__|  |__|
:                                                ||     ||
:                                            ooO   Ooo
:</B></PRE></HTML>
                     
#########################################################

Subj: Please read this
Date:   98-06-26 23:33:51 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:   Words of Comfort - Words of Praise - Volume 1 - Issue 3
Date:   98-06-10 17:24:03 EDT
From:   DUKEOFDISC
To: NetPrphet
<HTML><PRE><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffe8"></P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3><B>
      ____________________________________________ 
 
<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>WORDS OF COMFORT </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>WORDS OF PRAISE
 
Volume 1 - Issue 3 - June 10, 1998 
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>
____________________________________________ 
 <FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»Remembering Jesus' Love For All
Men«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=4>»
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>
1. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>Words from the Word </FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>
"...Turn to me and be gracious unto me, for I am lonely and afflicted.  The 
troubles on my heart have multiplied, free me from my anguish.  Look 
upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.  See how 
my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!  Guard my life 
and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.  
May integrity and uprightness protect me because my hope is in you..."
Psalm 25:16-21</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>
2. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>.<FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3></B>
<B>Subj:    Prayer Request ~ This one touched me, big time!!!
Date:   98-06-05 13:13:39 EDT
From:   <FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>TATINEE

This time, I am asking for prayer for myself for 2 things:

1.  I need y'all to pray that I will become a better person in Jesus.  I am
so bitter and have such a bad attitude. I push the ones I love most away from
me.  I don't want to die leaving behind a legacy like that. 

2.  I want to be able to understand the Bible better.  I don't read as often
as I should because I don't understand.  One of the things I am the most
concerned about is when Jesus comes back.  I hear so many of you saying that
the end is near and this scares me.  I know there are certain signs, but I
would like to know what they are, what kind of order they come in and how
close we are.  Or even if you tell me where to find out that info on my own,
it would  be greatly appreciated. 

3.  One more prayer.  This is for my mother.  She is having such a hard time
paying her bills. She supports herself, me and my two daughters on 360
dollars every two weeks.  Our bills are way behind- many shut off notices
evey month.  Please pray that we can pay our bills and that I get a job soon
so I can help too.</B>
<B>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>3. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" SIZE=3>
Subj:   Re: Because of this I rejoice
Date:   98-06-05 03:59:28 EDT
From:   Sha3711

I know this is gonna seem weird to alot of you, but my mom passed away
tonight after alot of suffering..we had her in our home for last 6 yrs, and
tonight at 9pm she passed..I had a wonderful christian upbringing, but most
of all a Christian mom..I would like to ask all of you to please pray for me
and my family, tonight was the hardest thing any of us has had to face..I
will more than likely be not able to be at our first bible study. But please
say a prayer for me..

The death of my mom is very hard, and alot of you I know have proberbly went
through this, but I am rejoicing! well I know, no more pain, no more
suffering...she is in a much better place, and is looking down, awaiting our
arrival..well i just wanted to ask you all for you to pray for me and my
family.

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>4. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000"
SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3> Fighting satan's Curse With Verse </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=4>TEMPER<FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>
*΄`³€³΄`*:»§«»§«:*΄`³€³΄`*
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>When I have lost my temper I have lost my
reason, too.
I'm never proud of anything which angrily I do.
When I have Talked in anger 
and my cheeks were flaming red,
I have always uttered something 
which I wish I hadn't said.
»§«»§«:
In anger I have never done 
a kindly deed or wise,
But many things for which I felt
I should apologize.
»§«»§«:
In looking back across my life, 
and all I've lost or made, 
I can't recall a single time 
when fury ever paid.
»§«»§«:
So I struggle to be patient, 
for I've reach a wiser age;
I do not want to do a thing 
or speak a word in rage.
»§«»§«:
I have learned by sad experience 
that when my temper flies, 
 never do a worthy thing, 
a decent deed or wise.
                   *΄`³€³΄`*:»§«»§«:*΄`³€³΄`*                     

 Author Unknown

</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>5</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>. <FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like
a Medicine </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>

Last week I took my children to a restaurant.  My six-year-old son asked if
he could say grace.  As we bowed our heads, he said, "God is great.  God is
good. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if mom gets us
ice cream for dessert.  And Liberty and justice for all!  Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby I heard a woman
remark, "That's what's wrong with this country.  Kids today don't even know
how to pray.  Asking God for ice-cream!  Why, I never!"  Hearing this, my son
burst into tears and asked me, "Did I do it wrong?  Is God mad at me?" As I
held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was
certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.  He
winked at my son and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a
great prayer."  "Really?" my son asked.  "Cross my heart."  Then in
theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started
this whole thing), "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream.  A little ice
cream is good for the soul sometimes."

Naturally, I bought my son ice cream at the end of the meal.  He stared at it
for a moment, picked it up and, without a word, walked over and placed it in
front of the woman.  With a big smile, he told her, "Here, this is for you.
Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes, and my soul is good already."

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>6</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. <FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   prayer request
Date:   98-06-04 22:09:21 EDT
From:   EllenF3047

I am requesting your prayers for a man who is a friend to many of us where I
work.  About five years ago he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  He
went through chemotherapy and has been well since.  He retired and has had a
wonderful few years in North Carolina.  In April he visited with a number of
people at the office.  Just a few weeks ago he was admitted to the hospital,
he is now in intensive care.  He is believed to be suffering with stage 4
cancer and  the prognosis is poor.  His name is Chip, and he is a kind, good
man.  Please keep him and his wife in your prayers.

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>7</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. <FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   I need help please
Date:   98-06-08 21:27:32 EDT
From:   Peach213

My name is Alycia (Peach213.)  I am Lissa's (SkyAngel2) daughter.  Over the
last couple years you have prayed for me concerning various needs, usually
sent in by my mom.  As you already know, we are a Christian family and depend
on the Lord in all areas of our lives.  As you also know, it is very
difficult sometimes turning over that control, I suppose mostly because we're
human and we think we can handle everything.  But we can't.  I'm learning
this more and more as the years go by, mostly by what my mom is teaching me
but also because Our Father in Heaven has shown me things that make me
realize this is so.  
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>My mom speaks so highly of all of you and
considers you her family.  She is always sharing devotionals, prayer
requests, and Kleenex moment stories with our whole family and friends and,
somehow, I feel I have come to know many of you through her. 

As many of you know, my family has been struggling financially for quite some
time.  Recently the Lord has answered prayer by increasing the business my
mom has out of our home.  PRAISE GOD.  This will definately help my mom and
dad with the bills and various other needs.

I moved away last year to attend school full time.  This was an exciting time
for all of us, but also a stressful time because my parents wanted to be able
to do more for me financially then they were able.  Consequently, I took out
a student loan and worked two jobs while trying to carry a full schedule.
This was a challenge I accepted because my parents have always taught me that
any work we do in our lives IS God's work, and should be done joyfully,
giving Him thanks and praise for the ability and opportunity to do so.  

Although I have accepted this challenge, it has not been easy and mentioning
help with finances, repayment of student loans, book fees, and various other
expenses only makes my parents feel worse then they already do.

I got this list of names off one of my mom's emails.  I apologize ahead of
time if this offends anyone.  I just didn't know where else to turn.  I am
currently working a full time job over the summer and plan on saving as much
as I can for this next school year, but it won't be enough. 

So, I'm asking for your help, either by a monetary donation, some words of
encouragement, or your prayers.  As my mom always says, please pray about it
and do as you are led.  I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me
just knowing you are taking the time to read this and, because you are prayer
warriors, taking the time to consider my request.  

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>8</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. <FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> Daily Prayer Need </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>Subj:   Request
Date:   98-06-08 18:40:06 EDT
From:   RAXL<FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>My mom asked me to write you (ArgyroL).
Her good friend had breast cancer but now it has spread throughout her body
and she has 1-6 monthes to live. She has a 13 yr old daughter who has been
homeschooled all her life, and her husband is the mayor of Dollywood. So pray
for my mom's friend Becky and her family, and pray for my mom (ArgyroL)
Thanks!

<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3><I>9</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>. <FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3> Praise The Lord </FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†††</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=3>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=3>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=3>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=3>
                         <FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=5>HOW GREAT THOU
ART!</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
                                                      <FONT COLOR="#000000"
SIZE=7></I>†<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3><I>
</I>Subj:   PRAISE!!!!!
Date:   98-06-06 10:59:27 EDT
From:   LESLEY TWO

Well, Praise God because we got the house. The ladt renting first told me she
didnt really want to rent it to me because Dakota is handicapped. I still
went over to meet her and look at the house again.  As we talked you could
tell she was starting to like me. Then she said the best part.  She kept
saying if i dont hear from her by tuesday that means she rented to someone
else, then she said"Hon, this is the strangest thing but something keeps
telling me I am supposed to rent  it to you". I laughed and told her that i
had asked for prayer for this house and then she said "who am I to tell God
no" so she rented it to me on the spot. We talked abot God and church for a
little bit. She is saved and turned out to be a really nice person.  So i am
gonna start packing and get Dakota enrolled in her new school, THANK GOD!!!
Thank you all for your prayers.

Subj:   Re: Words of Comfort - Words of Praise - Volume 1 - Issue 2
Date:   98-06-06 01:45:14 EDT
From:   BluFunk195

Here's some good news for the next publication- the Lord has began to open up
some doors in my financial situation. I've taken over the music program at my
church (along with our Pastor's son), which puts us on salary. A.- it's
something I love doing (music and work for the Lord!), B.- The Lord is
providing for my needs. PRAISE HIM!!!<FONT COLOR="#0000d4" SIZE=3>

</P><P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT
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</P><P ALIGN=LEFT>
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#800040" SIZE=3>Lift up your eyes,
discouraged one,
The Lord your help will be;
New strength will come from Him who said,
"For rest come unto Me." --Anon.

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
</P><P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3>10. A Final Word:</FONT><FONT
COLOR="#000000" SIZE=5></B>
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3><B>Dear Friends in Christ,

It's hard to get people to stand up and follow Jesus Christ unless WE stand
up and follow Jesus Christ.  Our success and failure at winning souls to the
Lord rests upon the question Jesus asks in Matthew 16:15 "...He said to them,
but who do YOU say that I am?..."  What do you really know about Jesus
Christ?  Are you in agreement with Who He says He is?

We need to be humble before God and realise that He wants to use us and our
lives to bring the lost to Himself.  To do this, through His grace, we
receive annointing from the Holy Spirit to be able to complete whatever task
He wants us to do.  God does want to do something good in and with our lives.
The authority you have as a believer always follows the annointing.  

The annointing is for a purpose!  That purpose will be revealed to you by the
Lord.  No matter how you see yourself, you can overcome any obstacle when the
foundation is right in your life!  JESUS is the rock...the stabilizing force
in your life.  Praise Him!  Don't wait until you "feel" like praising!  No
matter how we feel, the time is right for praising and worshiping our God.
Decide that your prayer will go before God everyday!  

When you are at a low point in your life, get up and tell God you love Him!
Remember all the good things God has already done and is doing in your life!
Prepare yourself to let the King of glory come in!  You need to have worship
in your life if you are to grow in God.

God bless you!
Paula
</P><P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#800040" SIZE=3>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
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SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>
<FONT COLOR="#8000ff" SIZE=4>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3><U>PSALM 92
<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=2></U>{Praise to the Lord for His Love and
Faithfulness)

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" SIZE=3>"...It is good to give thanks to the
Lord, and to sing praises to Your Name, O Most High; to declare Your loving
kindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night, On an instrument
of ten strings, on the lute, and on the harp, with harmonious sound.  For
You, Lord, have made me glad through Your work; I will triumph in the works
of Your hands.  

O Lord, how great are Your words!  Your thoughts are very deep.  A senseless
man does not know, Nor does a fool understand this.  When the wicked spring
up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they
may be destroyed forever.

But You, Lord, are on high forevermore, For behold, Your enemies, O Lord, for
behold, Your enemies shall perish.  All the workers of iniquity shall be
scattered.  But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox; I have been anointed
with fresh oil.  My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies;  My ears hear
my desire on the wicked who rise up against me.

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree.  He shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon.  Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in
the courts of our God.  They shall still bear fruit in old age;  They shall
be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright;  HE IS MY
ROCK, AND THERE IS NO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS IN HIM!.."

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#800040" SIZE=3>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
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SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
SIZE=4>†</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>»</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff"
SIZE=4>§</FONT><FONT COLOR="#008000" SIZE=4>«</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8000ff"
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</P><P ALIGN=LEFT></B></PRE></HTML>
                     
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Subj:    Re: "Me no scared"?
Date:   98-06-26 23:42:34 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>In a message dated 98-06-25 01:21:35 EDT, you write:

<< facetious >>


How facetious.   

Me want public debate with you.

Me can keep you off rabbit trail in public debate.

Me want public debate!</PRE></HTML>

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Subj:    Re: Thanks for Offer
Date:   98-06-26 23:45:43 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>you can choose the format and the moderator and teh place...quit
galloping!</PRE></HTML>
                     
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Subj:    Re: Thanks for Offer
Date:   98-06-26 23:47:15 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>12.6 %  no way!  I answered 100% you just did not lke my
answers!</PRE></HTML>
                     
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Subj:  inspired!
Date:   98-06-26 23:53:51 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>I attended one of your seminars a
couple weeks ago at the Calvary Chapel of Anaheim. I just wanted to tell you
that I was very inspired by the message. You told me that you would send me a
book on evolution vs. creation if I e-mailed you. It would be greatly
appreciated if I may receive that book for I am very interested in the
particular topic. Any further news on upcoming seminars or events would also
be great. Thank you. 

ps - If possible, I would like to receive further information on the topic of
evolution vs. creation. It would be greatly
appreciated.</PRE></HTML>

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Subj:  Look at the happiness you could spread!
Date:   98-06-27 00:02:22 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

<HTML><PRE>Bill;

On behalf of Boeing, I want to thank you for an excellent presentation 
yesterday at our facility in Long Beach.  It was one of the best I've heard
and 
clearly should cause people to think.  But more than the material, I would
like 
to thank you for showing me how such a sensitive subject can be presented in
a 
loving and caring manner.  That indeed was the highlight of the lecture.

I've been discussing this issue with my family and many of my friends 
recently.  Being a new Christian, I find that the way a message is put
forward 
is as critical (most of the time) as the message itself.  You certainly have 
developed, with the Lords help, a manner that is pleasing yet it still shows 
the firmness of your conviction.

Since my salvation a year and a half ago, I've also been collecting 
Creation/evolution information to study and to use as I witness.  I've
attached 
my Word file (Word 6.0) on this subject for your information.  If you can use

it, God bless.  I'm sure, you have seen most of it before.  


If you have a similar file that you wouldn't mind releasing, I would
certainly 
like to have it and try to incorporate it in my witnessing.  I have seven 
people that I am talking and emailing with and certainly would put your 
information to good use.

God bless you in your witness.  I look forward to getting both the video and 
audio tapes.  If you need financial assistance in your effort, please let me 
know.  God has blessed me and my wife with good jobs and an overabundant
life.

All God's love.

</PRE></HTML>

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