Cons off the rails

meltdown of a mentor..

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs is losing readership by droves.

It's too bad, too. Remember he's the one who uncovered Rathergate by proving the documents phony and for years set a moderate though firm tone against jihadism wherever it happened.

The thing started to come apart when he -rightly- called some European sites out for their coziness with neo-Nazis. That's fine but he got involved in persoanl feuds with them and anyone who asked him for a little dialogue moderation got banned.

Then he got off on a crusade against creationism and Intelligent Design. Once more, holding anyone even talking to the creationist nutjobs as worthy of derision scorn and shunning. Well, there went his former enthusiasm for Bobby Jindal.
And he's currently on a tear against the Texas Dept of Education anytime they so much as entertain anyone trying to interject the concept of Intelligent Desion in the same sentence as Science.

So then he went off on Glenn Beck, again easy enough to do because of Beck's apocalyptic somewhat 'End of the World' hyperventilation.
Again, understandable... but again if you dont share Charles' view on it then you must be a heretic and you're OUT.

And of course, he's not too hot on the Tea Parties either because some of the attendees have posters and views that 'aren't helpful' or at worst make Conservatives look like the bigots Dems like to say we are.
Adn of course he doesnt see the big deal about the DHS summary either because taken point by point every bit of it is true.
Never mind the method and timing of its release... which I didnt even think HAD to be pointed out.

I can see Dan Rather smiling through his drool. All this is fodder for the lefties at Kos and he's giving them all the copy they can want.

But it's Charles that's derailing and you need no more evidence of that than he used to post digital pix of his evening bike rides along the Pacific Coast. Almost every day.
Now those images of serenity are long gone. Instead he posts links to everyone who agrees with him on any topic OR the most outrageous disagreements with him.

And labels them "___ head explodes!" Really.

Bad part is he's correct in general on every freakin one of his pet issues.

But it's like being a footy fan and having a pal you go and sit with and then you notice he's starting to obsess and go 'Ultra' on ya. All he ever talks about and you cant even argue a Ref's call against one of your teams players with him.

Ah, well...

 

Denialism - the new pandemic of illogic

Charles of LGF managed to start a new international, internecine fight. With Melanie Philips, this time.

Philips crime was to attempt to understand and explain Intelligent Design, which -according to Charles- is nothing more than Creationism warmed over.
As usual, Charles is 80% correct. But his attack on Philips is another indicator that Charles wont take any views contrary to his own without elevating the disagreement to a quarrel... That's okay on a messageboard like this one.. but makes him less credible as I noted before.

What's interesting is that Philips holds literal creationism in the same disdain as Charles and makes no bones about it.
Where the insult to his logic comes out is that she says there's no connection between the two. She means that Young Earth Creationists hate Intelligent Design as much as atheists.

Since Charles insists that ID has no connection with science because it realy doesnt present scientific proof, he seems to be on strong ground. But he misses the point, perhaps intentionally. The core context of ID is in the science that cannot be proven.

The problem is in the discourse.
Because Philips mentions LGF along with the discordant emails she got from her first post on the subject .. Charles comes to the conclusion she is attacking him, personally. Of course, disagreeing with his views is an 'attack'.
{Even Don and I dont go that far!}
What she SAYS is that Charles is obsessed with the subject. Well, she's right. That's why I created this thread in the first place.

I was tempted to post the same validations of that in his comments.. buit it wouldnt be of any use. As I noted above he just deletes and bans the comment poster.

While I think that Philips somewhat misstated the connection between ID and creationism, Charles does worse in positing that if ID comes out of religion, it is the same as Creationism.

What he misses is the obvious. As Philips said in her rebuttal essay:

Charles attacks ID and offers that it definitely IS created out of religion. Cant deny that... without religion there definitely would BE no such thing.

Getting us to the nut of the dilemma: Since ID offers no proof, it is seen as bogus as Creationism is illogical. If you cannot believe in either of them, though, what is the point of any religious faith?

After all if God depends on proof.. again..what's the point. It's only secular humanism arranged around a virtual symbol. Indeed, the unspoken modern drift of many faiths is that man actually MIGHT have created God, thus we are really worshipping man. But that would be unseemly so we'll agree to pretend.

Except.... some of us are skeptics of contemporary science because there are still mysteries, like NewScientist: 13 things that do not make sense

Note #2, the problem I described elsewhere.. if we are seeing light artifacts from the time of the 'Big Bang' then why is it there, and we here?
Obviously if that light is from the 'beginning of the universe, that object was not there when it emitted that light, so how could it take so long?

And if those far edge objects were somehow exceeding the speed of light then why is the rate of expansion of the universe increasing, instead of slowing as science previously posited?

And... gasp.. there are NOW possibly 'multiple universes'.. which itself is a conundrum, isnt it. Are we to redefine the definition of 'Universe'.. or expand the idea to realms which existence cannot be proved?

Take those realms on faith, as it were.

 

The Final Nail for LGF

Even the NYT thinks he's sorta loony!

Yeah.. well.