That's right. I hardly see why because one guy predicts the end of the world, it's Slashdot worthy. And as is pointed out below, Christians for the last 1900 years have understood the "this generation will not pass away" as referring to the judgement at Jerusalem in the destruction of the temple (a sort of coming of Christ). And keep in mind that some of the best logicians in history have been Christians. There are some in modern times that send their brains on a vacation but Scripture has been well-defended over the years as completely consistent with itself. Every single supposed contradiction has been dealt with if you're willing to give an honest look and not quote out of context.

You definitely have a favorite adjective...

This type of language doesn't convince anyone of your point, and most of you are preaching to the choir in any event. Though you rail on Christians and their stupidity (or at the very least, religious "nuts"), there are a decent number of agnostic or atheist who find evidence for the evolutionary theory lacking.

Let's get one thing straight: I don't know of anyone who questions micro-evolution so arguments with those examples are straw men. Everyone recognizes changes in successive generations of dogs. However, many, including scientists, are skeptical of macro-evolution, or that a dog will become anything but a dog. Bacteria has been cited. At the end of 10,000 generations it is a different bacteria, yet it is still bacteria.

The problem is a philosophical one, not a scientific one. Evolution is a uniform theory that explains the world in a naturalistic way. If you assume it is a purely naturalistic world, it's the only option you've got. Otherwise the only alternative appears to be belief in some higher intelligence or God.

I've searched for evidence. Unbiased evidence. Pored over Wikipedia articles, websites, I read "Origin of the Species", and frankly, the rosy evidence that is presented is shown through rose-colored lenses. The problem is, everything looks like evolution if you assume it, and evolutionists make a priori assumptions just like everyone else. Don't pretend it's purely unbiased science, recognize your assumptions, study your epistemology. Many clever people can make up reasons behind why things happened the way they think it did. Darwin and Dawkins both talk about the eye and explain how it could have evolved step by step. That doesn't prove that it did though, or even prove that it is possible. Darwin's book gives many "stories" of how one thing could have led to another. It's a good explanation of how things got from point A to point B, but it doesn't prove that it actually did. It only looks that way if you assume that's how it happened.

And as a Christian myself, I have absolutely no problem studying the world. I am fascinated by every part of science, by exploration, by discovery. Yet I do so with the base assumption that God made it for our enjoyment. I can think and reason for myself too, but my basic assumptions are different. Are my discoveries then invalid or diminished? What about those of Newton, Henry, Faraday, or Maxwell (all Christians by the way)?

Mod me down for a rant AND for being off topic but....

I love how every time a story like this comes out somebody immediately, unprovoked, starts bashing Creationists. Is it because of insecurity or do you think it's cool? Well it isn't. It's puerile.

Oh, and while I'm here, posting something and appending "you insensitive clod" is way too overused. Just like the "3. ?????? 4. Profit!!" used to be.

I appreciate the informative posts that break out of the mold and actually give reasons, rather than an aping conformity to what is posted over and over again.

I agree, if you're going for a nice, clean, but snazzy sort of easy-to-get used to Windows feel, try Mint. It updates as regularly as Ubuntu does.

Wait, didn't a genetically programmed kill switch fail to work in Stargate Atlantis?! Does Rodney know about this?

That's a very good concern to have. The great thing about homeschooling in the US today (as opposed to even 25 years ago) is that there is a vast wealth of material to draw from. There are so many companies now competing for offering homeschooling material that there is no reason that a parent couldn't do it. Some of it is quite good in fact. From my own experience, the lessons were well-explained by the material, so much so that I could teach myself (which was excellent preparation for university). For those parents who aren't comfortable with that route or have less self-motivated children, there are video lessons that go through subjects like chemistry, calculus, etc.

My mother never knew beyond high-school math, I was doing basic calculus in jr. high. Many cities have good support groups with classes taught by those knowledgeable in those fields. The best thing is, a parent can give personal attention to a specific need that a public school teacher, with 40+ kids, cannot.

Though apparently by "ultra-fanatic" you mean any religious group, I couldn't agree more. It's precisely the reason why I intend to homeschool any children I have ;)

Right.... because state schools are completely unbiased.....

Leading the world in the number of papers published is not equivalent to leading to world in scientific research.

An old professor of mine has said that he has been shocked by the number of times he's been reading a paper by a Chinese researcher and found large sections of the paper copied verbatim from one of his own. In a country that is so competitive in publishing papers, I'm sure many succumb to the pressure and temptation. That's not to say that there are good, original advances being made, but I'm not quite as optimistic as the news title leads one to believe.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/274/5286/337.pdf

The whole point is moot anyway until life is discovered on other planets. Does the Vatican just think that we're close to that discovery? Why debate something that is still hypothetical when making a decision now will affect absolutely nothing.

I'm not quite so sure that every president ignored nuclear power. For example, I know Reagan pushed for it in California at the very least. I think it's safe to say that the people of the US as a whole were afraid of it and therefore ignored it as a viable option.

My experience is my evidence, but you have yet to cite anything except unjustified opinion and I'm tired of hearing people who are prejudiced right from the start. I even qualified my statement by saying that perhaps it is just that like-minded people hang around each other so maybe I didn't have a broad enough sampling.

It just seems as though you're making broad, all-encompassing statements as though you know exactly what is happening in every home-schooling family. You don't, and neither do I. My main point still stands: you cannot say that "most" parents just goof-off. It's analogous to me telling you that most parents who send their kids to public school don't care about their education. There is nothing to show that. The evidence is quite to the contrary, be it personal experience or statistical.

I'm still not trying to make the claim that home-schooled children will always be better equipped. However, they are not nearly as ill-equipped as some people make them out to be. Keep an open mind.

My own experience being home-schooled was quite the opposite. I had been accustomed to poring over books for hours without a break and to see students in class, checking their cell phones, working out crosswords, and showing a complete lack of respect..... well it was appalling quite frankly.

And there's another thing. Perhaps this was again just my experience but I found that I had the ability to actually teach myself things because I would read the textbooks. Most of my undergraduate classmates seemed to have missed out on this. So rather than being "woefully unprepared" for higher education, I found myself more prepared than 99% of my classmates.

I wonder how you can definitively say that "most home schooling parents do goof off." How many families have you observed?

I am currently a graduate student in Electrical Engineering and I know of two other homeschoolers beside myself in the college of engineering. I was the top graduate in electrical engineering, one of the others I knew was the top Junior (I reviewed GPAs for an honor society) and a third is a WW Allen Scholar and is a very bright, hard-working individual in Chemical Engineering. I'm sure there are others that I don't know about and I'm sure there are some who are not so hard-working or smart. But out of my sampling of three, "most" (none really) seemed to have parents who goofed off.

Being a home-schooler myself I have actually come into contact with a lot of families who home-school and of the 20 high-school-age children or so that I know personally in town, 4 of them were National Merit Scholars and the rest have been accepted with scholarships to various universities. Again, where is your proof of "most parents" goofing off?

I do not doubt that there are some. In my experience meeting with well over 50 home-school families and over 100 kids I never had that experience. Maybe because we were all like-minded, I don't know. I have only ever met one person that knew someone who did "goof off" as a home-schooling parent. So to provide an omniscient blanket statement that says "most home schooling parents goof off" seems quite a stretch to me.

Every parent I know who home schools, does it because they /want/ their children to have a better education, not because they want to be lazy. And with the amount and type of material out there, parents don't have to be geniuses themselves. My mother didn't know beyond basic Algebra but through the curriculum she bought I was able to learn Calculus at about 14. So please, don't make general accusations without any evidence. In fact, the evidence is quite the opposite than what presupposed notions would indicate.

The point of that statement was to say that not all (or even necessarily most) scientists are agreed. It drives me up a wall when people make that broad claim. If they mean climatologists then that should be specified.