147 thoughts on “Hi everyone!

  1. phoodoo: Haha, even Lizzie can’t stand it here,

    Hey, phoodoo!

    Any chance you’re going to apologize for your repeated wicked mis-characterizations, now that Lizzie has shown up?

  2. Has Lizzie explained why she stopped posting here, but continued to post on my other similar topic sites?

    I never said she wouldn’t ever post here again, but she clearly prefers other places to here.

  3. Hey Lizzie, do you like the environment here you created?

    How do you feel about the quality of the posters? The depth of their arguments? The way that the posters here represent the atheist viewpoint? Are you proud of them?

    I personally think this place is a great resource for all to see how atheists really base their arguments? The quality is there for all to see. When the materialists are forced to speak, it becomes clear they really have no substance behind their beliefs. They don’t know why we should have laws for morality, or how to determine if something is designed. But they are sure they are right nonetheless. Their strongest argument seems to be…”flameout flameout…IDiots, flameout, I hate baby jesus..”

    So for this I thank you.

  4. phoodoo:
    Has Lizzie explained why she stopped posting here, but continued to post on my other similar topic sites?

    I never said she wouldn’t ever post here again, but she clearly prefers other places to here.

    No, but I will now. It’s not that I prefer other places to here, but that I’ve been idiotically busy at work, while simultaneously finding myself as admin on another site. I’m now retired fromt that post, and have been meaning to get back here for a while. Sadly, events intervened recently, when my father became ill, and in fact died a couple of weeks ago. So there is stuff to do (grieving him not least), as well as a backlog of stuff that got back-burnered during that time.

    So I’m still going to be short of time, but it’s good to see the old place is still humming! Also good to see that UD has relaxed its policy on who can post there, so I hope that we might see a return to healthy traffic between those two sites!

    Not that there isn’t lots of other interesting stuff to talk about.

    And I just want to reiterate yet again my huge thanks to the admins here who have been keeping the feathers flying!

  5. phoodoo:
    When the materialists are forced to speak, it becomes clear they really have no substance behind their beliefs. They don’t know why we should have laws for morality, or how to determine if something is designed.But they are sure they are right nonetheless.Their strongest argument seems to be…”flameout flameout…IDiots, flameout, I hate baby jesus..”

    That would surprise me, phoodoo, as there are far better arguments than those to make, and I don’t doubt the capacity of “materialists” to make them 🙂

  6. Sorry to here about your dad Lizzie. (Hugs). I bet you were a great daughter.

  7. Elizabeth,

    “Also good to see that UD has relaxed its policy on who can post there…”

    UD hasn’t done any such thing. The so-called ‘amnesty’ was very short lived.

  8. I’m very happy to see that you’re back, Elizabeth. My condolences to you and your family on your father’s passing.

    KN

  9. Hi, Lizzie, welcome back. Disappointed to miss the end of the penguin season in Chile recently (my son even more so), so notional penguins will have to do for now.

    Guess what? We’re arguing about morality with WJM! So it might take a while to get used to the massive changes that have taken place in your absence.

  10. I have already expressed welcomes and condolences back-channel.

    At UD Lizzie has been her usual self — clear, endlessly polite, and cogent. (However, if KF is to be credited, this is all a cover for sinister stuff).

  11. Penguyn! Penguyn! looming bright
    In the long Antarctic night,
    What Intelligence divine
    Dare frame thy curious Design?

    Under what selective drive
    Ceased thy flight, began thy dive?
    What mutations unforeseen
    Enabled thee to turn marine,

    Gave thee flippers, webbèd feet,
    Fat to keep thy body heat,
    Belly feathers smooth and stiff
    To toboggan down the cliff?

    Penguyn! Penguyn! looming bright
    In the long Antarctic night!
    What Intelligence divine
    Dare frame thy curious Design?

  12. Piotr Gasiorowski,

    Assuming English was not your first language, that is so impressive.

    *Takes hat off and bows with impressive sweeping gesture, while quietly suppressing jealous envy at linguistic ability*

  13. Elizabeth: No, but I will now.It’s not that I prefer other places to here, but that I’ve been idiotically busy at work, while simultaneously finding myself as admin on another site.I’m now retired fromt that post, and have been meaning to get back here for a while.Sadly, events intervened recently, when my father became ill, and in fact died a couple of weeks ago.So there is stuff to do (grieving him not least), as well as a backlog of stuff that got back-burnered during that time.

    So I’m still going to be short of time, but it’s good to see the old place is still humming!Also good to see that UD has relaxed its policy on who can post there, so I hope that we might see a return to healthy traffic between those two sites!

    Not that there isn’t lots of other interesting stuff to talk about.

    And I just want to reiterate yet again my huge thanks to the admins here who have been keeping the feathers flying!

    Damn, I’m sorry to hear about your Dad, Lizzie. I know the feeling. It’s sure good to hear from you, though. I was beginning to think that you, like the noble English knights of yore, and the dragons they fought, were all mythical.

  14. Piotr Gasiorowski:
    Penguyn! Penguyn! looming bright
    In the long Antarctic night,
    What Intelligence divine
    Dare frame thy curious Design?

    Under what selective drive
    Ceased thy flight, began thy dive?
    What mutations unforeseen
    Enabled thee to turn marine,

    Gave thee flippers, webbèd feet,
    Fat to keep thy body heat,
    Belly feathers smooth and stiff
    To toboggan down the cliff?

    Penguyn! Penguyn! looming bright
    In the long Antarctic night!
    What Intelligence divine
    Dare frame thy curious Design?

    Really wish there was a “like” button.

  15. Hi,

    I’m sorry to hear about your father. I have not gone through that yet, and I really can’t imagine it.

    I’m pro ID, and I want to say welcome back to UD. To me and probably quite a few other pro ID folks, your posts carry quite a bit of weight. You’re one of the few people on either side of the debate who has never (as far as I can tell) gotten into name calling or silly arguments.

    I have not been a regular UD reader for a while. I drop in occasionally to see if there is anything interesting, but I don’t spend a lot of time there. I was very happy today when I saw that you are posting again. To me the biggest mistake made by UD was banning you, and I’m glad to see that mistake has been rectified. I look forward to your posts.

    Welcome back!

  16. It’s always good to see ID people show up, but regarding Elizabeth and UD, she is making the same argument about emergence that got me manned.

    She does a better job than I did, but philosophically, it is the same argument. It should be, because I got it from her, right here.

    So it is interesting that the argument when I made it was a bannable offence and was silly.

  17. Onetime, if you’d like to contribute any pro-ID posts here, I’m sure you’d be welcome to.

  18. Petrushka, I have not paid attention recently, but I know that in the past UD had a pretty strict (maybe unreasonable?) banning policy. I don’t go to the site regularly anymore, so I don’t know if that has been relaxed. I just remember EL getting banned and I thought that was ridiculous. Regarding your argument, many of the arguments on both sides of the debate require some technical expertise that I don’t have. If I have time to dig in to it, I will, but a lot of the time I don’t, so I don’t want to comment on them.

    Richarthughes, thank you for the suggestion. I may post occasionally, but I get more out of these discussions a lurker than as a contributor. I learn the most when I hear (read) discussions that are not debates. It might just be my perception, but I think a lot of these debates are more focused on trying to prove the other guy wrong than trying to prove one side is right. That leads to accusations of deception, and then what could have been a rational discussion between people with different viewpoints turns into an irrational argument. I see it on both sides. I’ve done it myself, and it led to a lot of stress and no winners (although I saw myself as the winner of course!).

    Anyway, I might post occasionally, but most of the time I will just be listening.

    Thanks!

  19. onetime,

    I, for one, would be interested in hearing why you are an ID proponent. One aspect of this site I particularly like is Lizzie’s goal of identifying the root causes of our disagreements, in an atmosphere of mutually assumed good faith. If you don’t want to debate your reasons, that’s fine. I am simply curious about how you came to your conclusions.

    Welcome!

  20. Patrick,

    I appreciate the interest. There is a relatively small number of people on either side of the debate who are more interested in the truth than the argument and I think Lizzie is one of them. That’s why I’ll be lurking (and maybe posting) here. I’m also very interested in the root causes of the differences of opinion.

    In any case, I may post but I don’t want to make any promises. Obviously I think I have compelling reasons to go with the ID side. To be frank (I know this is vague, and I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything with this comment), the anti-ID arguments have made me much more confident in ID. I was brought up in a pro-ID family, and based on what I was raised with, I thought ID was pretty much self-evident. About 20 years ago I got divorced and decided to re-evaluate everything. I asked some athiest friends what I should look into, and they recommended some books. After reading the books, I was more convinced of ID. Since then I have read other anti-ID (or pro-whatever) books and they have all convinced me more that ID is the more reasonable explanation. Of course I have my biases and I probably don’t take those fully into account, but I do the best I can.

    I work about 60 hours a week right now (same job as most of the pro-ID people I think) and I only have a limited amount of time to look into these things. I definitely don’t have time to respond in a timely manner.

    If EL (or whoever runs this site) will give you my email address, I’m happy to discuss my understanding in person. I just don’t want to get into a situation where I “lose the debate” if I don’t respond quickly.

    Thanks!

  21. Just a quick follow up to my last post.

    EL (or whoever is the site administrator), please feel free to give Patrick my email address.

    Thanks.

  22. Hi, onetime. Welcome to TSZ!

    I just don’t want to get into a situation where I “lose the debate” if I don’t respond quickly.

    Don’t worry about that. People come and go all the time, and we understand that everyone (hopefully) has a life outside of the blogosphere.

  23. onetime,

    Onetime,

    I think that is the one thing valuable about a site like this. Many people, especially those who just sort of scan the popular media, assume that the reason so many people believe in evolution or materialism is because there is this convincing argument and evidence, that if they just search places where the so called educated atheists converse, they would uncover all these convincing ideas for the atheist platform. I mean, surely there must be some darn good reason for their believes, since it is touted as being such a well documented and proven theory.

    But then they come here, see what these people actually have to say on the topic, see how poorly they can defend their ideas, and also learn how many actual biological scientists doubt the Darwin talking points, or just see how little these people even understand their own ideas, and suddenly they realize, gee I guess I wasn’t so wrong to doubt this dubious Darwin nonsense.

    Its like the Darwinists definitely own the media, but then you come to places like this or Pandas thumb and you think boy, why don’t more people know how weak their evidence and logic is. Is that all they have? A bunch of keiths and DNA Jocks? I think I will remain skeptical after-all.

  24. Elizabeth,

    But Elizabeth, how long did you abandon this site, whilst you continued to post plenty of content elsewhere? At least half a year, probably longer I am guessing. You had nothing to do with here at all, you didn’t even bother during all that time to explain why you stopped posting here, even when you were busy debating elsewhere. What site were you the admin of, that you felt was so much more worthwhile than here?

    So are we really to believe that you actually LIKE the way your site here runs, as opposed to Barry’s? Where its just full of nonsense name calling, and posters just blathering on with the same vacuous hand waving and kindergarten attempts at copying “I know you are but what am I….”

    You are going to honestly claim this way is better? Higher quality? A better search for truth?

    Forgive me for being “skeptical.”

  25. onetime:
    Just a quick follow up to my last post.

    EL (or whoever is the site administrator), please feel free to give Patrick my email address.

    Thanks.

    As well as Lizzie (the boss and site owner), Neil, Patrick and myself are admins, so Patrick will have access to the email you registered with. But you can use the message facility if you or anyone wants to communicate privately with any other member. Just click on “Messages” on the menu bar et voilà!

    Welcome to TSZ.

  26. phoodoo: I think I will remain skeptical after-all.

    And that, of course, is your right which I defend to the death. 🙂

  27. Where its just full of nonsense name calling, and posters just blathering on with the same vacuous hand waving and kindergarten attempts at copying “I know you are but what am I….”

    Do you want your comments to be banned?

    Glen Davidson

  28. phoodoo:
    Elizabeth,

    But Elizabeth, how long did you abandon this site, whilst you continued to post plenty of content elsewhere?At least half a year, probably longer I am guessing.You had nothing to do with here at all, you didn’t even bother during all that time to explain why you stopped posting here, even when you were busy debating elsewhere.What site were you the admin of, that you felt was so much more worthwhile than here?

    So are we really to believe that you actually LIKE the way your site here runs, as opposed to Barry’s?Where its just full of nonsense name calling, and posters just blathering on with the same vacuous hand waving and kindergarten attempts at copying “I know you are but what am I….”

    You are going to honestly claim this way is better?Higher quality?A better search for truth?

    Forgive me for being “skeptical.”

    Well, it certainly wasn’t because of the way it was run! If it had been, I’d have been back here to fix it! I’m just really grateful to Neil, Patrick and Alan for all they’ve done.

  29. onetime,

    To be frank (I know this is vague, and I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything with this comment), the anti-ID arguments have made me much more confident in ID.

    That’s interesting. When you have time, I’d love to hear which anti-ID arguments those were.

    I work about 60 hours a week right now (same job as most of the pro-ID people I think)….

    Lay clergy? 😉

    If EL (or whoever runs this site) will give you my email address, I’m happy to discuss my understanding in person. I just don’t want to get into a situation where I “lose the debate” if I don’t respond quickly.

    I don’t necessarily want a debate, particularly if you aren’t interested. I would simply like to understand what people find compelling about ID. You seem more articulate and interested in discussion than some ID supporters who visit here, hence my asking.

    If you’d rather exchange email, you can go to the page where I summarize my last experience at UD. There’s a link to my address in the last paragraph. I do hope you’ll be willing to chat here, though.

  30. Hi Elizabeth,
    Welcome back.

    By the way, I no longer consider this to be your site. It’s just a wordpress blog that you happened to start. It’s now everybody’s site IMHO, as everybody can post an OP should they wish and nobody is barred from expressing themselves.

    As such, it’s perplexing that certain people are harassing you for why you stopped posting here or holding you responsible for a site that you have not posted on nor claimed explicit ownership over for a long time.

    I suppose it’s easier than engaging with your actual arguments! 😛 So there is that.

    It is strange however that people who claim this site is run poorly then spend so much time here trying to engage people.

  31. Don’t worry Phoodoo. Having your hypothesis falsified is just science 😉

  32. Elizabeth,

    Well, it certainly wasn’t because of the way it was run! If it had been, I’d have been back here to fix it! I’m just really grateful to Neil, Patrick and Alan for all they’ve done.

    I’ve done nothing more than approve new comments and make the occasional requested edit. Alan and Neil bore the brunt of the work.

    Since you’re back, hopefully long term, I’d like to hear your views on how the rules have been enforced in your absence. My personal view is that the “hands off unless there is a complaint” approach has been successful, but this is your site and I want to respect your wishes. I have noticed that the “assume good faith” rule is broken quite regularly, but I’m not as nice as you so I haven’t done anything about it.

  33. Keths,

    Thanks for the welcome. If I remember correctly, you are one of the posters that I paid attention to on UD. I appreciate what you said.

    Phoodoo, thanks for the response. I think we agree that my assertion (just an assertion, not claiming its fact!) that the evidence supporting the idea that undirected processes resulted in what is observed today is not scientifically supported as much as it seems to be supported by the media.

    However, I really prefer to listen to people when they are talking with “true believers”. That goes for the pro and anti ID people equally. A long time ago I read “Bones of Contention”. If I remember correctly, it was essentially preaching to the choir. That book more than many others convinced me that the anti-ID perspective is based on philosophy more than facts. I got the same feeling from “Rare Earth”. The authors were committed to the “undirected processes” belief, but after describing delicate balances that led to life (in their opinion) they had to say “oh yeah, it was all an accident”. I started with the same perspective from the ID group, but my limited research led me to believe that ID is significantly more realistic.

    Alan Fox,

    Thank you for the welcome! If I remember correctly, you are a Professor at Cornell. Is that correct? I’ve always enjoyed your posts. You, EL, Mark Frank (sorry to the people I’ve missed) have always or for the most part made good comments.

    I’d like to give everybody here a little context about me. For the record, there are pro-ID posters on UD that embarrass me. Some of them cut/paste the same thing for every post. Some of them jump right into name calling. I know they are the low hanging fruit for the anti-id (please tell me what to call you and I will change it) people and I don’t blame you for going after them, but responses to those comments are a waste of time to people like me.

    The best person I have ever known is an athiest. I worked for him for about 10 years. He had more integrity and was a deeper thinker than anybody else I’ve known. He agreed with me that there are some compelling arguments in favor of ID. He never agreed with me (so far!) that ID was the most realistic idea, but he was not personally invested in the belief that ID is wrong. Based on my relationship with him, I think the people can discuss this very personal issue honestly. I may miss the mark, but I try to be honest with myself and others.

  34. Hi Patrick,

    I saw your last post after I made my last post. I’m a software developer (not clergy)!
    I’m am always interested in sincere discussions, so please feel free to email me.

    Thanks.

  35. onetime: If I remember correctly, you are a Professor at Cornell. Is that correct?

    No. My academic career was all in the UK and finished at undergraduate level many years ago. I’m just an amateur.

    I’ve always enjoyed your posts.

    Thank-you for the kind words.

  36. Good to hear fron you ahain Lizzy! I’m very sorry to hear about your father though; I wish you the best through the difficult time.

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