Comment #1688

Posted by Robert Zimmerman on April 29, 2004 05:54 PM (e) (s)

What can I say?  I am speechless. 

I like this passage about oranges on one of Jae-Rock’s web pages:

“Generally speaking, oranges are very juicy and sweet. And they are rich in glucose and taste good. But however many times anyone has heard oranges are juicy and sweet, he can’t feel or understand it wholly unless he eat them personally. He can surely know oranges are delicious only after he ate them. Hearing about oranges is one thing and eating them is another.”

Got that?  In other words, until you’ve tasted an orange, you can’t really appreciate what they taste like.  Oranges are like many foods which must be tasted before one can understand just how tasty and juicy they really are.  Only a person who has felt the juice of an orange on his tongue genuinely knows the sweet taste of an orange.

Jae-Rock also writes about peeling and tasting the wooden Cross of Providence which just doesn’t seem to be as fun as eating an orange, although the side-benefits of eternal life or attractive eyelids are tempting.

Comment #1697

Posted by Clare Leonard on April 29, 2004 07:44 PM (e) (s)

Can you please cite the source of Dembski’s comments?  Thanks.

Comment #1698

Posted by Robert Zimmerman on April 29, 2004 07:53 PM (e) (s)

Clare, click on the Manmin Centre link in PZ’s post.  Dembski’s endorsement is on the main page.

Comment #1699

Posted by Robert Zimmerman on April 29, 2004 07:54 PM (e) (s)

Clare, click on the Manmin Centre link in PZ’s post. A link to Dembski’s endorsement is found on the main page of Manmin’s website.

Comment #1700

Posted by Robert Zimmerman on April 29, 2004 07:57 PM (e) (s)

hmmm.  strange.  my apologies for the double post.

Comment #1701

Posted by PZ Myers on April 29, 2004 08:05 PM (e) (s)

Or, if you want it directly, try this link and scroll down a little bit.

Comment #1706

Posted by Leighton on April 29, 2004 09:22 PM (e) (s)

Out of curiosity, is there any outside corroboration to the Ministry’s claim that Dembski actually supports them? Sometimes groups like this will fraudulently claim that some “celebrity” or other endorses them.

I wonder why, if Dembski really likes this ministry so much, he wouldn’t link to them from his own website—when he’s gone to all the trouble of linking to a BBQ house.

Comment #1707

Posted by Leighton on April 29, 2004 09:30 PM (e) (s)

My mistake—as best I can tell, it is the BBQ house which has linked to Dembski’s site, not the other way around.

Comment #1708

Posted by Ben on April 29, 2004 10:02 PM (e) (s)

As a scientist, I tend to be skeptical about events that are supposed to be miracles. Yet as a Christian, I also know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that there is nothing to prevent the power of God from working miraculous events.

Wow. How skeptical of him.

Comment #1711

Posted by AAB on April 30, 2004 07:20 AM (e) (s)

Leighton asks:
“Out of curiosity, is there any outside corroboration to the Ministry’s claim that Dembski actually supports them? Sometimes groups like this will fraudulently claim that some “celebrity” or other endorses them.”

click on the “about us” of the web page and scroll down.  You will see Dembski’s photo from May 2000.  Michael Behe is also there on the April 2000 section.

http://www.manminresearch.org/html/home1.htm…

Comment #1712

Posted by Leighton on April 30, 2004 07:48 AM (e) (s)

Thanks for the link, AAB. That’s pretty scary…

Comment #1713

Posted by Andrea Bottaro on April 30, 2004 08:01 AM (e) (s)

AAB:
To be fair, those are just pictures taken at meetings - I am not sure they offer much corroboration of actual support.  It is also possible, frankly, that Dembski is not aware of the utterly lunatic nature of this group. Even his statement on their web site, which does sound quite damning, might perhaps have been taken out of context.  To me, it just seems fishy for Dembski, usually quite cautious about religious issues (eg, walking a very fine line with YEC), to get “officially” involved with this kind of outright quackery. 

Anyway, since we know some of Dembski’s close acquaintances read this blog, I gather we’ll soon know whether that was a genuine endorsement or not.

Comment #1717

Posted by PZ Myers on April 30, 2004 08:40 AM (e) (s)

From my perspective, Dembski hasn’t been cautious at all—see his Act of Creation, where he says,

The creation of the world by God is the most magnificent of all acts of creation. It, along with humanity’s redemption through Jesus Christ, are the two key instances of God’s self-revelation.

He’s openly Christian (nothing wrong with that, of course), but he often crosses the line and invokes his god in his pseudoscience. He’s not a scientist, after all, he’s a theologian, trained and certified.

Of course, I don’t know much about theology, but I suspect that he is as crappy a theologian as he is a scientist.

Comment #1719

Posted by ID Watch on April 30, 2004 11:04 AM (e) (s)

Leighton: My mistake—as best I can tell, it is the BBQ house which has linked to Dembski’s site, not the other way around.

T he author of the webpage is Dembski, check the HTML source. It even included FTE as the organization.

 
<o:Author>William A. Dembski</o:Author>
  <o:Template>Normal</o:Template>
  <o:LastAuthor>William A. Dembski</o:LastAuthor>
  <o:Revision>10</o:Revision>
  <o:TotalTime>829</o:TotalTime>
  <o:Created>2004-04-20T12:24:00Z</o:Created>
  <o:LastSaved>2004-04-28T14:53:00Z</o:LastSaved>
  <o:Pages>3</o:Pages>
  <o:Words>240</o:Words>
  <o:Characters>1372</o:Characters>
  <o:Company>FTE</o:Company>
 

Comment #1734

Posted by Jacob Stockton on May 1, 2004 02:22 AM (e) (s)

First restaurants and now religions…what’s next?

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