Chris Colby                            

Lionel:
>>Example: would you like to take a ride in an Airbus
>>whose computer program was modified randomly? Why
>>not? After all, the theory of evolution states that
>>this is how improvements are generated.

Tero:
>Lionel, you're an idiot.

(Those of you who don't enjoy flames may wish to skip this post.)
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Becoming a mere idiot would be an advancement. Sheer lack of mental
faculties cannot fully explain his behavior here on t.o. He has
been told numerous times that evolution is not due soley to chance
events. Chance events (e.g. mutations) are "sorted" by natural 
selection. Lionel, however, does not have the moral fiber to wage
a fair fight; he is a lying drone, chanting the litany of his
cartoon mythology. I don't think it is possible to tell if he is
purposely lying or if his religion(*) has such a stranglehold on his
(admittedly minimal) thought-processes that he can no longer tell
the difference. If the entities in Lionel's delusions were, say,
Elvis and Andy Kaufman and not God and the Devil, and he twisted
reality to meet their percieved demands first, I am fairly certain
his mail address would be tun@padded.cell. When it comes to discussing
the evidence regarding evolution, Lionel is simply incapable of telling
the truth. Idiots can't understand reality, Lionel _refuses_ to, there
is a difference.

(*) Before anyone leaps down my throat I'll point out that, in
my way of thinking, "Lionel's religion" does not translate to
"Christianity in general" (although it may apply to a some
fundamentalist sects). Recalling my days as a Lutheran(**), I don't
remember being taught that God had constructed a marvelous hoax
regarding the evidence of evolution, or that scientists were
scheming Satanists or even that shutting my brain to "off" and
swallowing dogma whether it made sense or not was a good thing.
There seems to be significant differences between Lionel's worldview
and the worldviews of other Christians on this board. Don't confuse
my comments here with an attack on Christianity.

[(**)Bob help us all, it's another tangent -- In college, when I
became an atheist, several of my friends (Lutherans) asked me if 
I felt different than when I was a Lutheran. To this I replied, 
"Well, the degree of religious fervor is roughly equal." They were 
not amused 8-)]