snoeman
Posts: 109
Joined: April 2006
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Last night, several of the Seattle-based regulars of AtBC met at the 74th Street Ale House to discuss the topics of the day and get to know one another.
In attendance: clamboy, argystokes, Steviepinhead, JohnW and snoeman
Not in attendance: Tards.
Some personal trivia:
-> The group was fairly diverse in ages, ranging from (I estimate) those in their 20s to those in their 50s
-> Several professions were represented, including: A grad student in the biological sciences, an R&D analyst, a biostatistician, a trial lawyer and a sign-language interpreter
-> We come from many different places: a native Seattleite, the UK, Georgia, Massachusetts and one other place that escapes me at the moment...
-> One of us is a "Motorhead" fan
-> One of us had a baseball cap, whose brim had been curled into a nearly perfect cylinder
-> At least two of us were atheists, at least one of us is agnostic and the remaining two are undetermined. (The atheists tried to hide the horns coming out the tops of their heads, but it was no use.)* 
The topics ranged over history, some politics, religion, science and - oh yeah - antievolution. Each of us got involved in the topic at different points in time: a couple of us during KvD and others stumbling over it a few years ago in the course of researching other things. One of us has been a veteran reader of Talk.origins since at least 1996.
Some conclusions we reached:
-> All of us are thankful for the people that consistently read UD and post the best of the Tard; none of us could stomach it on our own
-> The AFDave thread was valuable to expose a lot of lurkers to a free education in scientific areas of which they may not have been aware, and in contrast, show an example of the utter dishonesty with which creationists such as AFDave conduct themselves
-> None of us would go up in a plane piloted by AFDave
-> We agreed that characterizing the DI as a society of "professional liars" was most apt
-> We almost felt sorry for Dembski and how far he's fallen.
One thing that I don't believe we resolved was on the nature of the intellectual dishonesty of creationists. Is it possible for someone who believes in the literal truth of the bible to accept the fact that there is an unresolvable disconnect between that belief and the evidence we observe in the world? That they can accept that they may not find out why there is a disconnect until they meet their god? Or, are their beliefs so strong (or are they so fearful) that they must resort to dishonesty and fabrication to discredit that science-based knowledge which they believe threatens them?
If I've forgotten anything, please feel free to add on or make corrections. In any case, I know I enjoyed meeting everyone, and would enjoy doing it again.
* Some fundie will take that seriously and go, "Horns?? I knew it!"
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