Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Big Blog Updates
posted by Marc on May 9, 2007 @ 11:29PM

I finally got around to putting in some of the much needed features, and this is being typed in one of them. Here's a run down of the features implemented:

Rich Text Editor for posts - You can now change alignment, styling, bullets, links, etc. (Ignore the picture stuff for now though)
YouTube integration - As part of the Rich Text Editor, you'll see a YouTube link. Click on it and put in the URL to the YouTube video and it will automagically put in player.
Editing/deleting Comments - Pretty standard, but we need to talk about this

You'll notice now on your comments there's a trash icon near the bolded section. Clicking on that will "delete" your comment. At this point, it simply means that your comment will now say "Comment deleted..." Do we want to keep it this way or do we want it to disappear completely? If we do want it to say Comment deleted, do we want to be able to edit that comment down the road. Currently you can, but all of this is easy to change.

Editing a comment is very different. You'll notice there's no pencil icon or anything to indicate you can edit the comment. Naturally, I've implemented a much cooler way of doing it. Simply mouse over your comment and you'll notice it highlights in yellow. Now click. Whammy, you've got an editor to change the comment in place and then save your changes without ever leaving the page. Suck on that Blogger.

Feel free to post answers to my questions in the comments and expect the next big feature to show up be the Recent Activity, which will change your blogging experience forever.

14 comments | Tags: updates

The Great Debate
posted by GJ on May 9, 2007 @ 1:30PM

The grand debate between the Way of the Master folks (Ray Comfort and Kurt Cameron) vs the Rational Responders (Kelly and Sapient) took place on May 5, and will air tonight on Nightline.

I've seen a few clips so far. Ray and Kurt's idea of scientific proof used the word "scientific". That's about as close to science as they got. As for not using the Bible, well, that lasted about five minutes. Then we got the standard Ray spiel, probably trying to convert the 50 atheists in the audience.

Kelly and Sapient weren't very polished--and didn't drive home the points that would have won this debate handily. Instead of refuting the silly arguments that Ray and Kurt were using, they instead went the route of "religion bad, atheism good." Duh. That of course plays well to the atheism crowd, and not at all to the other half. In effect, they were doing almost exactly what Ray and Kurt were doing. Egads.

I'll be watching it tonight--perhaps the small clips I saw weren't all that indicative. Feel free to post long winded comments if you end up watching it too.

6 comments | Tags: religion, science

GJ said about 18 hours later

Sure, I'll watch it at 11:30pm. Haha. Right. I fell asleep on the couch at 10:30. I'm turning into an old man rather quickly. Guess I'll catch it at the NightLine site today. Anyone else catch it?
GJ said about 18 hours later

Comment deleted on 5/10/2007 at 7:48AM
Geoff said about 21 hours later

I saw it...it blew. They spent more time giving backgrounds of both sides than the actual debate. Not surprisingly, they made the Atheists look like jerks and Kirk and Ray look like Angels. They clipped pieces of footage (which I saw in full prior to watching Nightline's version) which clearly favored the Atheist point of view, and turned it against them.

And then, at the end they had nerve to say, well, who won the debate? Not sure....not sure?!? Give me a break, here is Rays scientific proof, a painting has a painter, therefor creation has a creator, and God is that creator. The Atheist response, well who created God then? Oh, God has always existed, ok, well if God can always exist, why cant the universe...NO RESPONSE from Kirk or Ray...they refused to respond. That right there sums up who won. After that, it leaped out of the scientific realm and jumped back into the Bible and left rationality at the door.

So, yes, Atheist's won, no contest. Did they say some stupid things, sure did, but against those two idiots, can you blame them? Kirk Cameron tried to disprove the Theory of Evolution by holding up pictures of fake animals drawn by a graphic artist, like the "crockaduck" (part crock, part duck), and a bull frog (frog with bull horns). I still would like to see the whole debate in full, but clearly, Ray and Kirk did not scientifically prove anything, other than their lack of rational intelligence.
GJ said about 23 hours later

Yeah, unfortunately, I have seen a lot of comments backing up the hack job Nightline did on this debate. It was clear that they were simply thrilled with having to talk about Kirk Cameron (they largely ignored Ray Comfort), and portrayed a very slanted view of the exercise.

So far, the Way of the Master folks have supposedly put up the debate in its entirety on you tube. Not. The debate was 90 minutes long, but their videos are far shorter. Read: another hack job. Meanwhile, the RRS has a very small clip on their site, which also doesn't really give you a good glimpse of the debate, either. If this is all they plan to release--then they've done an equally dumb hack job of the debate.

Still waiting to find the full debate somewhere on the net. I heard it's a hoot.
GJ said about 24 hours later

Oh boy...it appears that Kirk used Pascal's Wager as his rebuttal to the atheist's arguments. For those of you not familiar with it, Pascal's Wager says this:

Let us consider the paraphrased translation of Pascal. "God either exists or He doesn't. Based on the testimony, both general revelation (nature) and special revelation (Scriptures/Bible), it is safe to assume that God does in fact exist. It is abundantly fair to conceive, that there is at least 50% chance that the Christian Creator God does in fact exist. Therefore, since we stand to gain eternity, and thus infinity, the wise and safe choice is to live as though God does exist. If we are right, we gain everything, and lose nothing. If we are wrong, we lose nothing and gain nothing. Therefore, based on simple mathematics, only the fool would choose to live a Godless life." Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have nothing to lose. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

Do you see the problem here? First--he assumes that the existence of the Christian God is 50%. He is basing that on what? Certainly not science.

Then, in order to win this wager, you must live according to God's laws. Wait--who made God's laws, if God doesn't exist? Man did. Maybe those laws aren't so good for us? Sure, some of them are...but, if you know of the Inquisition, you know that certainly some are not. So, there is a cost for belief in God--you are willing to follow what could well be a false god, a construct of Man, in the vain hope of living forever. Hmmm.

And if you lose the wager...egads, what will God do to someone who has worked to discourage belief in God? Well, if you talk with those who are betting conservatively on this wager, why, we'll burn in hellfire for eternity.

And that's the crux of this wager for me. If God is so petty and arbitrary, then I'll take hellfire hands down. But see, I'm betting that God only seems so because God is a creation of Man...and yes, Man is that petty.
Geoff said 1 day later

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3148940&page=1

Here is the whole thing, it is the video in the upper right. It is an interesting debate.

Cheeseburger Brown is back with another web-novel
posted by GJ on May 8, 2007 @ 2:36PM

First, he wrote Memoirs of a Monster. Next, Simon of Space. If you've never read either, you should. The first is based in the Star Wars universe, taking place between Episodes 5 and 6. The second is also science fiction, but you don't need to be a geek to enjoy either.

If you, like me, enjoyed them immensely, then have I got good news for you! CBB has started writing a new web-novel called Plight of the Transformer. I've just started reading it--looks good so far!

3 comments | Tags: literature

Afterworld
posted by Eric on May 8, 2007 @ 2:35PM

Has anyone caught Afterworld on YouTube? Pretty interesting so far.

5 comments | Tags: video

GJ's famous Stanley Cup Predictions
posted by GJ on May 8, 2007 @ 12:10PM

First, how did I do in the second round?

Buffalo vs New York: I'll take Buffalo in six. Bingo!

Ottawa vs New Jersey: I think Ottawa may win in seven. Ottawa in six

Detroit vs San Jose: Sharks in seven. Wings in six

Anaheim vs Vancouver: Ducks in five. Bingo!

OK, so I did a lot better in this past round. Here's how I see things for Round 3:

Buffalo vs Ottawa: Make no doubt about it, Ottawa hasn't seen a team as deep or talented as Buffalo. Ray Emery's GAA will be climbing for this series. At the same time, Buffalo forgot how to score at times against New York, and if they do it again Ottawa will decimate them. I'm rooting for Buffalo, but I think Ottawa wins in six.

Detroit vs Anaheim: Detroit's defensive corps is hurting. Anaheim is relatively unscathed and well rested. But...Anaheim should have beaten Edmonton last year in this round, and it wasn't even close. They picked up Pronger to try to make a difference this year. Will it work? Ducks in six.

2 comments | Tags: hockey, playoffs

Username:
Password:
Remember me