The Ocean's Dreams

Monday, October 16, 2006

Biological Troubles and Easy Rebuttals

Well, I'm done with both my biology experiment report and my test. Yippie! I haven't gotten a grade back on the report yet, but I do know that I didn't do quite as well as I would have liked on the test... I missed two (one of which was extremely stupid *grr*) when I was aiming for 100%. *le sigh* Oh well, I guess I'll just have to cope. An A is still a good grade, I suppose. But I wanted a perfect A! :-\ Well, that just goes to show that I'm not perfect!

But despite the grade, I'm relieved to be done with it. I feel like I might actually retain some of this information, so I'm happy about that. I think I have the classification of kingdom Monera down! Let's see...

Kingdom Gracilicutes: Gram-negative bacteria
Class: Scotobacteria--Non photosynthetic bacteria
Class: Oxyphotobacteria--Photosynthetic bacteria which require oxygen
Class: Anoxyphotobacteria--Photosynthetic bacteria which do not require oxygen

Kingdom Firmicutes--Gram-positive bacteria
Class: Firmibacteria--Coccus and Bacillus bacteria
Class: Thallobacteria--All other forms of bacteria

Kingdom: Mendosicutes--Bacteria with exotic cell walls
Class: Archaebacteria--Same definition as kingdom

Kingdom: Tenericutes--Bacteria lacking a cell wall
Class: Mollicutes--Same definition as kingdom


Yay! ...Now that all of you have fallen asleep. *wink* Isn't it interesting, though? *hears everyone mumbling inaudiably*

Okay, okay, fine. I'll stop with the biology now...

I'm writing my rebuttal on a review of Harry Potter. I discovered the article on Saturday, and I'm just about done rebutting it--one more paragraph, that's it. ^_^ You know, it's quite amazing... the more and more reviews I read of those books, the more and more I'm struck with how ignorant those people are. I mean seriously. Did they read the books?? The lady who wrote this particular review claims to be an "occult expert" (O.o) and yet she is saying that the spells in Harry Potter are wiccan spells. o.O Weeeeird... lol.

But yeah, I'm having fun. It's so easy to blast the arguments apart! If I like the result, I'll post it here. ^_^

Now I think I'm going to go ask if we can watch Kate & Leopold in celebration of being down with Bio for the week. Yay! I love that movie... I need to write a review of it, methinks. :D

posted by The Ocean's Dreams at 5:59 PM

5 Comments:

  • Oh PLEASE write a rebuttal to the anti-Harry Potter people. I've written and had many debates with these people.

    Ultimately, it always seems to come back to the subjective personal experience of those involved. When they end up making no sense, they just fall back on, "I felt a check in my spirit in reading these." I don't doubt that, but it still makes no sense and that check in your spirit is born of ignorance rather than knowledge.

    Whatever. I can get worked up just thinking about it. :-D Please post your rebuttal!! :)

    By Blogger Chris, At 17/10/06 09:13  

  • I'm working on it as we speak. :) Just got to finish up the final paragraph, get rid of the be verbs, and then I'm done. w00t!

    Unfortunately, I'm limited to only writing five paragraphs. And when the original article is nine pages long, that makes a horribly lacking rebuttal. *sigh* I'll have to write a longer rebuttal outside of the class assignment. hehe.

    But I'll most certainly post it. And I know what you mean... it frustrates me when people start bashing the books, throwing out random "problems" that exist in them, and when you ask if they've read them they reply: "No, but I don't need to to know that they're bad."

    Gah! Ignorance! *rolls eyes dramatically*

    By Blogger The Ocean's Dreams, At 17/10/06 10:19  

  • That is definitely a problem with their whole point. They claim that these books are bad because X, Y, and Z. They believe that someone can be led away from the truth by simply reading these books. That position doesn't lend itself to proof very well. If they read it, they run the risk of become a witch or wizard, according to them!! So they don't read it...therefore, they need no empirical proof.

    Another problem I have with the anti-Harry Potter books is with them using anything other than Scripture to defend their position. "It's corrupting children!" Really? And where does it say that in Scripture? lol. Or better yet, ask them why Tolkien is ok where Gandalf is casting magic spells, but Rowling is of da devil? You'll often get the answer "well, Tolkien was a Christian!" Actually, he was a Catholic, which isn't always the same thing. He was profoundly disappointed when C.S. Lewis chose Anglicanism. But don't let logic interfere in this debate!! :)

    A great example of faulty, problematic logic came to me when I was living with a family who was notoriously anti-logic and extra-Biblical in their approach to Christianity. (They were devout followers of Neil Anderson and the Bondage Breaker / Deliverance crowd. They believe that Christians are possessed by demons, which is why they sin. To end the sin, just cast out the demons...don't focus on personal holiness, and ignore Christ's call for perfection...just cast out the demons. Anyway...I digress again.) This family is predictably VERY anti-Harry Potter. One day, I was playing a violent video game on my computer when the mother of the household tapped me on the shoulder to argue with me.

    "Chris, look at this article. It says that Harry Potter is causing kids to turn to Satanism. It also says that it's causing kids to hate Jesus."

    "Um...that picture looks kind of dorky." I pointed to the picture of 4 kids in a semicircle (so the camera can get their faces) in full pointy hat getup, making the horns sign with their hands presumably worshiping Satan using the Harry Potter book. "Where the heck did you get this article? Looks like a fake."

    "Oh no. I got it from another Christian, and they wouldn't have passed it on if it were fake."

    "Uhm...ok. Where did it ORIGINATE?"

    "I don't know. It doesn't matter. it proves that Harry Potter books are evil!"

    "Let me look at it a minute." I looked and found that it came from The Onion, a self-proclaimed online parody newspaper. I read her the disclaimer that all names of actual people are used for parody purposes except when they are created for the purposes of the story. "So you see, it's not a real article and has no fact in it whatsoever."

    ...she said nothing, folded up the printed e-mail, and put it in her Stomping Out the Darkness folder for later use.

    A more blatant example of perpetrating lies I have not seen. And this was a Christian, knowingly perpetrating lies to serve her purposes. That incident sort of jaded me against the anti-Harry Potter people whom I have found to be ignorant or generally intellectually dishonest.

    By Blogger Chris, At 17/10/06 11:09  

  • Exactly. It's extremely hard to have a logical debate with someone who is anti-potter because they haven't read the books! They're drawing all their sources from what someone else (who also hasn't read the books) said. Impossible for logical debate.

    Ah yes, I heard about that article from theonion! Honestly... that's probably how all of this started. Someone sent that article to one person (possibly as a joke), that person took it seriously and emailed it to fifteen other people, those fifteen other people emailed it to fifteen other people... and it goes on from there.

    Amazing.

    By Blogger The Ocean's Dreams, At 17/10/06 11:18  

  • Now...this logic you speak of....

    What is it again? lol (just kidding.)

    By Blogger Chris, At 17/10/06 11:21  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]



<< Home