HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: joe@csource.oz.au (Joe Slater)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 23:44:00

Wednesday January 20 1993, ata@hfsi.UUCP writes to (crosspost 1) All:

aU> I would be most greatful if you could point out to me the passages in
aU> Scripture that support "treating gays badly".

Um, you mean apart from killing them?

jds

 * Origin: What horrors wait for me in this, the Phantom's Opera? (3:632/351)
From: L629159@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse" in the media
Date: 26 Jan 93 17:01:17 GMT
Organization: Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.

From: dmcanzi@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (David Canzi)wrote in part,
in response to a posting of mine:


Nothing, as far as I know, prevents Satanists from infiltrating
pro-life organizations, placing themselves in key positions, and using
those positions to advance the cause of Satan.  They can even
infiltrate your congregation and do a fine simulation of Christian
fervor.  *Nothing* will prevent them from pretending to praise God
without meaning it.  God won't stop them:  not all who say "Lord, Lord"
are bound for the Kingdom of Heaven.  And the Father of Lies can be
counted on to view their duplicity with approval.  It must be assumed
that all large pro-life organizations and Christian congregations and
many of the smaller ones have Satanist infiltrators.  But it will be
very difficult, or perhaps impossible, to tell the Satanists from the
true Christians.
--
David Canzi

  Their doing so is evidently evil.  So why won't god stop them?
Is he not all powerful and all knowing?  Maybe he doesn't care? In
which case, what makes you think that sacrifice is, in fact, evil?
For thousands of years, my ancestors, and probably yours as well,
practiced human sacrifice.  Actually, until quite recently, historically.
Usually of adults, not children, however.  They believed this to be
a good and ethical practice, sanctioned by the gods they respected.
Perhaps you don't respect your own ancestors?  Perhaps this entire
discussion should be relegated to some other forum.

Al Moore
From: wsadjw@rw8.urc.tue.nl (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: tv & science education
Date: 23 Jan 93 14:50:58 GMT
Reply-To: wsadjw@urc.tue.nl
Distribution: sci
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

In article <1993Jan21.023618.13092@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth "the Lesser") writes:
[many useful remarks deleted]
>
>How can you possibly complain about "unprovoked attacks" when you tell someone
>that you are a member of Mensa? Would you still find it odd if you replaced
>that declaration with the equivalent statement "I'm smarter than you, and I
>can prove it!"? That, sir, is arrogance, and I am proud not to be associated
>with it.

Seth has a point there.  But on the other hand, why is it that such a
statement is felt to be more arrogant than: 
I'm taller [heavier, stronger, paler, blacker, fatter, thinner, mory hairy,
richer, a better painter, quicker, from an older family etc. ] than you and 
I can prove it?

JWN
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: L629159@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM
Subject: Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse" in the media
Organization: Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 06:53:17 PST

From: falcao@felix.metaphor.com (Ronnie Falcao)

In article <9JAN199319341364@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizon
>How many women of child-bearing age are members of these cults?  How many
>of them are pregnant at any one time?  How many children do each of them
>have?  Answer these questions, and see if you still think that "2.74/day
>doesn't seem like an overly high number to me."
>
>Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU

I have no idea whether or not the stated number is accurate,
but if I were trying to get my hands on babies, no questions
asked, I know how I'd do it.  I'd set up a Crisis Pregnancy
Center in an area with a lot of teen pregnancies.  I just
looked in my phone book, and there are two clinics listed.
Do they each get one client a day who wants to offer their
baby for adoption?  How accurately are records kept for
adoptions across state lines?  What are the opportunities
for babies to "disappear"?

  The controls on adoption in the US are so stringent that attempting
to adopt a child is an extremely frustrating experience for most.
very large numbers of would-be adopters are ultimatley driven to
go outside the US to find children.


Brokering babies for ritual abuse would explain why some
anti-choice activists seem so much more interested in
a baby's being born than in the baby's growing up
happy and healthy.

  Are you suggesting that the fundamentalists who want to make
abortion illegal are themselves the "satanic ritual abusers"?



I don't know if it happens, but I think it's possible.

	- Ronnie

falcao@metaphor.com

  I've heard it said that anything is possible.  But I don't
think it likely.

Al Moore
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Subject: Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse" in the media
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:59:50 GMT

In article <1733@tecsun1.tec.army.mil> riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes:
>In article <BHsZXB3w164w@cellar.org> revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano) writes:
>
>>	Mr. canzi also seems to be responding to others pointing out the
>>lack of evidence for Satan-worshippers killing babies, by claiming that
>>because there's no evidence, that just goes to show how extensive and
>>powerful these Satanists are. By the same logic, we might easily assume that
>>Mr. Canzi is a Satan-worshipper, covering up his own involvement in child
>>murder by adopting a more strident, anti-'Satanist' tone.
>>
>>	I don't suppose it'd make much different to state that members of
>>the Church of Satan do not murder children.
>>
>
>	And how do YOU know this, Brian ? Is the assertion that 
>"members of the Church of Satan do not murder children" one of those
>extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence - or not ?

Let me get this straight, you consider a claim that some group
does "not murder children" extraordinary???  Perhaps you would be so
good as to tell us what the word extraordinary means to you.
 
>	Or are you simply making this assertion with the knowledge
>that, under the law, one is innocent until proven guilty ?
>
>	Clearly, this whole exchange started because someone out
>there had an ideological agenda, not because there was some massive
>misconception in the American public having to do with Satanic
>cults. After all, if there ARE any real Satan worshipers out there
>killing babies - well, all you "enlightened folks" surely realize
>that it was all due the fact that those poor, sick, misguided 
>people were all child abuse victims themselves, not any such 
>old-fashioned notion like "sin" or malevance on the subjects'
>part. 
>
>
>
>Bill R.
>

Rich

payner@netcom.com
From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: does this sound right?
Date: 25 Jan 93 17:53:50 GMT
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Distribution: sci
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science

In article <1993Jan23.4286.31987@dosgate>, "dan mckinnon" <dan.mckinnon@canrem.com> writes in part:
|>    The "gone forever" part gives me more trouble, unless every acre is
|> on a mountainside and quickly devastated by erosion, or unless third
|> world countries are erecting shopping malls at an alarming rate.

Got it on the second try (at least in the Amazon basin).  The soil
of the forest pretty much turns to useless muck in about two years
after the trees are cleared.  The forests do not grow back.  Nothing
much grows at all, especially if cattle are grazed on it.

And in the case of ANY primary growth forest, clearing it out
is permanent. Even if a secondary growth forest develops (after
decades) it is NOT the same kind of forest, and much of the life
that lives there is gone forever.  Lots of trees is not the same
thing as a climax forest ecology.  Compare, for instance, the
unlogged forests of Oregon with the secondary growth in, say,
Michigan, which was logged out about 1910.

"Gone forever" is a pretty fair statement.  The issue really is
how big of a problem this really is, and what should be done about
it (assuming you think it is a problem at all, which I gather you
might not).

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Glub Glub... Any Floods in Human History?
Date: 22 Jan 93 01:38:09 GMT
Organization: LLNL


	And the worst part of these catastrophic floods:

	They occurred in the wrong place and time for them to be
recorded. The northern part of the North American continent was only
described by those with written records in the last couple hundred
years. Though this area had been inhabited since the end of the last
Ice Age at least (when the floods occurred), these people had had only
oral traditions, which can become thoroughly mangled.

	The first writing known is from the neighborhood of the
Eastern Mediterranean, which is rather far from any of the Pleistocene
continental glaciers. The Northern European glacier is a borderline
case at best, while the North American glacier is out of the question
as regards contacts. I've never heard of any evidence of big floods
caused by bursting ice dams in Europe, like those in North America and
the Altai Mountains, but I wouldn't complain about being wrong ;-)

	Furthermore, the writing occurs too late by 5 millennia (~3000
BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia) and the knowledge of geography and
history it shows is strictly local. There is some older writing-like
markings in the Balkan Neolithic, but that has not been deciphered (if
it is writing) [see Gimbutas, _The Civilization of the Goddess_, for
-- 
/Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
/lip@s1.gov
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: nkjrm@taxus.uib.no (Rolf Manne)
Subject: Matthew Manning's psychokinetic achievements
Organization: University of Bergen
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 14:03:36 GMT

Matthew Manning is a British healer, who was the center of "poltergeist" 
phenomena in his youth, and who supposedly not only bends spoons by
psychic force but who can also increase the death-rate of human cancer cells
by psychic means. According to my source he has been investigated
by scientists who regard his achievements as genuine.
All this has recently been retold in our local newspaper as support of
certain alternative cancer therapies.

Neither the book by Norwegian author and environmentalist Erik Dammann from 
which this was originally taken, nor the achievements themselves are highly 
credible. I am well aware of the weak - to say the least - scientific status 
of poltergeist phenomena and spoon-bending.

What I want to know, however, is if there exist investigations of scientific 
merit of the claimed achievements of Matthew Manning.

Two investigators of Manning's achievements are named in Dammann's 
book, a Canadian psychiatrist Joel Whitton and a British neurochemist 
Glen Rein. A library search shows Whitton as the author of a book on 
reincarnation and G. Rein as a bona fide scientist but apparently without 
scientific publications bordering upon the paranormal. Does anyone know 
what else these people have done?

Rolf Manne
Department of Chemistry, University of Bergen
e-mail: Rolf.Manne@uib.no

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: does this sound right?
Date: 27 Jan 93 22:39:02 GMT
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Distribution: sci
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science

In article <1993Jan26.225827.7081@newshost.lanl.gov>, jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (J. Giles) writes:
|> In article <C1Gwpr.2AK@cs.uiuc.edu>, mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath) writes:
|> |> [...]
|> |> And, of course, 1000 years is effectively forever in terms of human
|> |> lifetimes.  Somehow, the idea that, if we mow down a forest, a new
|> |> one might grow back just as good a few hundred years after I'm dead
|> |> (assuming nobody messes it up) is pretty much the same as being
|> |> gone forever.
|> 
|> To you, but not necessarily to the forest.  If we are limited to 
|> discussing the way *you* appreciate forests, then we are no longer
|> discussing ecology.  The ecological question should still be stated
|> in terms of the forest's time-scale, not yours.

We weren't discussing ecology.  We were discussing the use of the
phrase "gone forever", and whether it is reasonable.

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
From: revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Jeremy Rifkin's affiliations
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:17:35 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

clw@merit.edu (Chris Weider) writes:

> 
> Does anyone here know if Jeremy Rifkin, of anti-genetic-engineering fame,
> has a religious motivation for his opposition? Thanks!
> Chris Weider
> Merit Network

	I'm not a supporter of Rifkin, and what i've read of his material
doens't suggest a religious doctrine behind him, but I can't help but
wonder:

	What does this have to with Rifkin's claims?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano                                  revpk@cellar.org

"Do I BELIEVE in the Bible? Hell, man, I've even SEEN one!!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: bud@ms.uky.edu (William K Glunt)
Subject: Re: THE DIVINE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 05:44:16 GMT


HI!!!!111 I AM BUDD!!!!

 I REELY LIKED THE DEVINE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSR!!!!!

 ESPECIALLY HE-MAN AND SHE-RA!!!!

 KOWABUNGA D00DZ!!!!!!!


-- 
Dr. William K Glunt     | Are you ABNORMAL?
APSU Dept of Math and CS| Then you are probably better than most people!
Clarksville TN          | Are alien space monsters bringing a STARTLING NEW
home phone 615 645 8938 | WORLD?  from _The book of the SubGenius_
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: wiegand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand)
Subject: Re: Krishnas, Vedas, and all that (was: TM debunking needed)
Reply-To: motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:31:30 GMT

>>> 	There is no such thing as a planet separate from the Moon that
>>> causes eclipses.

Yes there is - It's called the Earth.
A lunar eclipse is caused by the Earth comming between the Sun and Moon.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Wiegand - Motorola Inc.
motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net            uunet!motcid!wiegand
Disclamer: I didn't do it - I was somewhere else at the time.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.atheism
From: eur@dutncp2.tn.tudelft.nl (Eur van Andel)
Subject: Re: Eve Mitochondia?
Organisation: TU Delft, The Netherlands
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 15:28:19 GMT

In <STIGH.93Jan21132230@harry.itk.unit.no> stigh@itk.unit.no (Stig Atle Haugdahl) writes:


>In article <eur.727528220@dutncp8> eur@dutncp2.tn.tudelft.nl (Eur van Andel) writes:
>> 
>> Not quite true. All of mankind DOES descend from one woman, and MORE than
>> one man. (this is a bit difficult to understand, but true nontheless )
>> 
>Very difficult to understand. Did she have more than one father?


No. But the point of mitochondrial DNA is that you inherit it from your
mother and you can only pass it on when you are female. So the sons and
daughters of "Eve" (it _is_ a misleading term, but only for bible-lovers)
mated with different persons, but only Eve's daughters passed on the Mito's.

They mated with different men, though. 


-- 
eur  eur@dutncp8.tn.tudelft.nl
--
eur  eur@dutncp8.tn.tudelft.nl
From: tjt@Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Tim Thompson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Global warming, ozone depletion NOT!
Date: 28 Jan 1993 01:08:46 GMT
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Distribution: world
Reply-To: tjt@Jpl.Nasa.Gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: scn1.jpl.nasa.gov

   Global warming is hard to pin down because the effect is small, and easily
masked by, or confused with, natural cycles. Since these natural cycles are
poorly defined, and not well understood, there is plenty of room for argument.
However, the argument is over the details of how a complicated climatic system
works, not the fundamental physics. CO2 is a great absorber of IR, and if you
pump enough CO2 into an atmosphere, it will warm up. How much is enough? How
effective is the warming? Open questions.
   This also depends on where the CO2 is. Pumping CO2 into the stratosphere might
actually cause global cooling, because at that altitude the effect of the line
emission from the CO2 is more important than it's IR absorption. If you want to
warm, you need to dump it into the troposphere (which we do).

   The Ozone hole is another matter. Despite Rush Limbaugh's insistance, it's easy
to demonstrate that there is an ozone hole, how deep it is, and that man made
chloroflourocarbons (CFC's) are to blame. First, direct measurements published in
JGR and Science, and other places, show that as much as 90% of the ozone over the
south pole is depleted during the hole season. I call that a hole. Second, the
chemical kinetics, requiring Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSC's), and UV flux to
break up the CFC'c are easily determined and modeled. Finally, note that there is no
appreciable natural source of Flourine in the Earth's atmosphere. All of the
measureable Flourine comes from CFC's. Just compare the Flourine abundance levels,
and their rate of change with those for Chlorine. If there is a lot of natural
(i.e. volcanic) Chlorine, then the Chlorine curves must be steeper than the Flourine
curves, and they are not. Therefore, one can confidently say that anthropogenic
(I love big words) Chlorine is to blame for observed ozone depletion.

---
Timothy J. Thompson, Earth and Space Sciences Division, JPL.
Assistant Administrator, Division Science Computing Network.
Secretary, Los Angeles Astronomical Society.
Member, BOD, Mount Wilson Observatory Association.

INTERnet/BITnet:    tjt@scn1.jpl.nasa.gov
NSI/DECnet:         jplsc8::tim
SCREAMnet:          YO!! TIM!!
GPSnet:             118:10:00 W by 34:12:26 N

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,soc.culture.usa,talk.religion.misc
From: gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith)
Subject: Re: Allan Bloom, Micheal Medved and Jack Chick
Organization: IWR, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 11:48:37 GMT

In article <1993Jan23.193334.10043@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>Suggesting that an opinion is worthless or even harmful is not the same as
>suggesting that it be disallowed.

Suggesting that certain music is worthless or even harmful is not
the same as suggesting it be disallowed, either.

>And of course the problem with this particular opinion is not merely that
>someone dislikes rock and roll.  Reread the passage, paying attention to the
>phrase
>     It's not enough to just <dislike> something; one has to show that
>     it's as physically or psychologically <harmful> as dioxin or PCP.
>It's not that this man dares not like rock and roll, it's that he dares
>take the step from "I don't like rock and roll" to "rock and roll is a
>pernicious influence on our society".

If you don't think Bloom's opinions are pernicious, why do they worry
you?  And if you do think they are pernicious, aren't you skating
close to a contradiction?

It seems to me someone can reasonably conclude something is pernicious
without having to quote a study to prove the case; in fact, we do this
all the time.  If I listen to racist, sexist and violent lyrics, my
feelings are somewhat akin to listening to Buchanan proclaim a
cultural war--even if Buchanan wants to go to war against the lyrics.

Notable anti-Communists include Hitler, McCarthy, Nixon, and J. Edgar
Hoover, none of whom I particularly admire.  But I don't see this as a
good reason to become a Communist.  Judging the proposition that some
rock music is pernicious by who supports this idea is a similar
mistake, I think.

So is claiming something is not pernicious because someone wants to
ban it.  During the height of the Red Scare, one might have felt a
temptation to argue that Uncle Joe isn't that bad, really, he was our
ally in the war which proves he is really OK, blah blah.  But it
wasn't true and it wasn't the point.  If you support free speech for
the Klan, you put yourself under an intolerable burden if you feel you
must also prove that the Klan does no harm.  That is not true and not
the point.

And I don't feel I either need to obtain your permission nor be able
to quote a sociologist to conclude both that Buchanan and some
violently deranged lyrics (and I have heard these) are harmful in
order to think my conclusion is reasonable.

-- 
     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University 
               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
From: chorley@vms.ocom.okstate.edu
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Global warming, ozone depletion NOT!
Date: 27 Jan 93 21:16:49 GMT
Organization: OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine

I really believe that the chemistry and physics behind the theories of global
warming and ozone layer depletion are spurious, and are used by political
pressure groups to further their own ends. What do you say.

DNC
From: bouche2@server.uwindsor.ca (BOUCHER DAVID            )
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: tv & science education
Date: 26 Jan 1993 22:37:11 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada

SOMEBODY wrote:

>>How can you possibly complain about "unprovoked attacks" when you tell some
>>that you are a member of Mensa? Would you still find it odd if you replaced
>>that declaration with the equivalent statement "I'm smarter than you [...]

> [....]  why is it that such a
>statement is felt to be more arrogant than:
>I'm taller [heavier, stronger, paler, blacker, fatter, thinner, mory hairy,
>richer, a better painter, quicker, from an older family etc. ] than you [...]

I think it is because everyone likes to feel that they personally have
some unique kind of awareness.  The idea that someone else could be more
intelligent is a kind of threat; it implies that one's most cherished beliefs
and insights might be considered trite by the greater mind.  To say "I'm
smarter than you" even when it is obviously true is considered bad form
because it is tantamount to saying "I'm BETTER than you" or "your beliefs are
not worthy of respect by one such as I".  

People who are extremely intelligent either learn at an early age to 
disguise their intelligence to some extent in ordinary social situations
or else they become friendless outcasts.  Most of the Mensans I have met
seem to have gravitated more towards the latter option.

- d boucher, mensa dropout