Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Debate:Is Scientology a false religion?

2008-06-05T18:29:25Z

NRupert:

{{debate}}

[[Scientology]] has recently become a hot spot of debate at this site, its one of the more [http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics popular] articles and has been getting a lot of attention on the talk page and subject to revert wars. So I was curious what the community actually thinks. Is scientology a false religion? Is it a threat to Christianity?

==No==
Not false as its own religion. False as a Christian religion. It's not a threat to Christians. Christians already have their Bible of Old and New Testaments. Maybe this is why some consider themselves Christians and yet aren't following anything taught by Christ's original Disciples. But I wouldn't count that as a threat.--[[User:Roopilots6|Roopilots6]] 18:08, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

:"Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
::—Matthew 7:16-20
Apart from a litigious attitude toward public criticism of Scientology, I'm not personally aware of Scientologists as having done anything terrible. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:58, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

:Really? Operation Snow White? Lisa McPherson? There are many others. Scientology kills. [[User:Tmtoulouse|Tmtoulouse]] 19:21, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

::Huh? I've never heard of these ... could you explain what these are? [[User:Jrssr5|Jrssr5]] 14:42, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

:::Operation Freakout: Paullet Cooper wrote a critical book on Scientology, the church attempts to plant false evidence to get her convicted of federal crimes. Operation Snowhite: Scientologist infiltrate the IRS to destroy documents about the church and find information on critics, Hubbards wife and 17 others are convicted and sent to jail. Hubbard himself has been convicted of fraud at a Federal level. The Lisa McPherson story is complicated and told elsewhere if you google it, essentially the church was at the VERY least complicit in her death, if not the out and out cause of it. There are MANY more examples. [[User:Tmtoulouse|Tmtoulouse]] 14:49, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

::::Check out their [http://www.xenu.net/fairgame-e.html fair game] policy. [[User:Tmtoulouse|Tmtoulouse]] 14:51, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

It's no more preposterous than any other religion. [stubbstarbuck]] 18:59, 28 June 2007 (EDT)

:::Whaddya mean, ''religion''? Try, "is Scientology a thriving cult of greed and power that gives all religious movements a bad name, and I'll say yes. The premises of the question are false. [[User:Cthx]]

Scientology is no more of a threat to Christianity than Christianity is to Scientology. I'm sure the Scientologists view Christians as blasphemous and ridiculously ignorant, just as you do them. You can't just assume that you're right and everyone else is wrong. [User:Tegan]

No religion is false. It is not possible to prove the existance of a higher power, nor is it possible to disprove. Just because a religion is not of Christian beliefs doesn't mean its false. If this were the case, that would make Judaism a false religion, because it doesn't believe Jesus was the son of God. I believe in God, and am a Christian. I say that to avoid being called an aethist, which I am not. Anyway, people are aloud to believe what they want (if it is within the legal boundaries of the nations law, i.e. human sacrifice religions are illegal) even if it is really crazy in others opinions. And how are they a threat to Christianity? Could someone explain that? --[[User:Unforgiven|Unforgiven]] 19:58, 17 February 2008 (EST)

:"No religion is false. It is not possible to prove the existance of a higher power." -- But Scientologists don't belive in any higher power. There is no god or supernatural entity in the mythology; there is no figure of moral authority or any entity responsible for creation. Xenu, the most prominent figure of evil, is a physically-existing non-supernatural being, an alien emperor. Thetans are not supernatural either, as Scientologists themselves claim their e-meters physically detect them. So "it can't be proven" doesn't apply here. [[User:MrGrieves|MrGrieves]] 15:12, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

==Yes, but..==
I certainly believe their beliefs to be false, but what is important is that others see the facts and decide for themselves. As the Scientologists say, we should chose to believe or not. Why do they feel a need to obscure their beliefs with law suits?--[[User:JoyousOne|JoyousOne]] 19:05, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes, but all religions are false in that they attempt to have you believe in something that does not exist. Scientology does have a sinister element that other religions lack. Other faiths have their elements (TV preachers for example) that seek to bilk the faithful out of their money. Scientology does this, and they do target their enemies--[[User:1048247|1048247]] 14:58, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

The misdeeds of a few should not condemn the faith of the many. In Scientology, it seems the whole idea is corrupt, unlike Christianity.--[[User:JoyousOne|JoyousOne]] 15:15, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

:Christianity teaches that all animals that weren't in a big boat died when it rained a lot. People take this literally. Can you really say this indicates a lack of corruption? --[[User:JeffersonDarcy|JeffersonDarcy]] 15:17, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

The fact that some Christians take the story of the flood literally does not indicate that they are corrupt. It does indicate an appaling lack of intellect.--[[User:1048247|1048247]] 15:23, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

Just because you can't see doesn't mean there is no God. Atheists are fools with their own holiday, fools day. Do you believe that we live in a world that has wind? Where is it, I can't see it, must not be there, it is false. Nothing brings itself from non-being into being. --[[User:Jpatt|jp]] 18:00, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

:Yes, scientology is a false religion because it was just a religion created by a sci-fi writer to make money. I think that scientology is harmful to Christianity because it can confuse would be Christians into believing the teachings of scientology. [[User:AdrianP|AdrianP]] 00:55, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

How can one religion ever be a threat to another religion short of physically forcing conversion? If the teachings of your religion are sound, and they bring hope and peace to the followers another religion won't tempt them. Its like a man thinking that every other man out there constitutes a threat to his marriage because he might lure his wife away. If the marriage is strong, she won't leave. -gasmonkey

Yes, no buts.. Scientology is a bunch of rubbish unless you believe in outerspace aliens, that live in our bodies and control our minds. The tyranny of the galactic God Xenu and his evil body thetans.--[[User:Jpatt|jp]] 17:41, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

:How is that no buts? You just said that if you believe in that stuff then it's not rubbish. Just because you find it silly, doesn't mean that your neighbor does too. [[User:Jrssr5|Jrssr5]] 10:48, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

:Yes, Scientology is a false religion, no buts about it. Unless of course, your neighbor believes in it, then it is an actual religion, praise Xenu. Just playing with words, do you not find it cute?--[[User:Jpatt|jp]] 15:39, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

Any religion appears weird if you weren't raised with it. - [[User:MiddleMan|MiddleMan]]
: Uh... then how do you explain conversions (Muslim to Christian, for example)? - [[User:JCasto]]
::Or the other way round for that matter, I think that more Christians convert to Muslims than vice versa. No data, just the impression from certain high profile conversions like Muhammed Ali or Yusuf Islam. The problem is that religion is not based on logic but on emotion. If someone is brought up in a certain faith and they are not getting what they need from it then they will look for something else. Sometimes it is a wholesale conversion, othertimes it is supplementing with other beliefs; such as Nancy Reagan with astrology. Being a psychological thing it is very difficult to explain any of it. How does one explain the Mormon church or Islam? They only exist through the word an individual (no offence intended). Sufficiently charismatic people can persuade others to do things, or believe things that they might not otherwise do. Some of it can be explained but charlatans prefer that it is not so they can dupe the gullible. Anyone want to buy a bridge in London? [[User:Ian St John|Ian St John]] 19:26, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

That's different, Islam and Christianity have the same roots and share a number of basic beliefs, furthermore their followers are aware of each other's existence from a very young age, while many people only hear about scientology in their teens.

[[User:MiddleMan|MiddleMan]]

There is a verified quote by Hubbard who said "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

As the story goes, Heinlein and Hubbard were sitting in a bar one night with a bunch of other SF authors. The bet theory goes that RAH and LRH made a bet as to who could start a religion. According to this theory [[Stranger in a Strange Land]] was Heinlein's entry to the bet, and Dianetics was Hubbard's. One of those authors was [[Harlan Ellison]] - a transcript of his interview in the '70s adds some background to the bet theory [http://www.islets.net/faq.html#Anchor-Was-47857 Harlan Ellison website (warning, contains foul language)]. This may well be [[urban legend]], but I'm inclined to believe it to have more truth than fiction.

That said, the idea behind Scientology is one that closely mirrors Gnostic beliefs - Hubbard drew from history for his material. An interesting book to read on the subject is ''The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew''[http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Christianities-Battles-Scripture-Faiths/dp/0195141830] which goes into some of the gnostic beliefs of some sects of early Christianity. The parallels between Scientology and early gnostic Christianity are very strong.

Within Scientology, you have the full range of people who practice - as you do in any religion. You have those who are trying to find meaning in their life. You have those trying to make money. You have those who are trying to convert/save others.

While the origins of Scientology are debateably monetarily inclined, there are people for whom it gives a direction in life. To that extent, Scientology is an institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices and it is an honest religion for some people. I don't believe it was conceived as such originally. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 19:31, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

:: What ever you say Mtur, I love your parallels connection, says much about you. Maybe you can start some Conservapedia entries then. You know what else is an honest religion? Waking up at the same time everyday. Taking a whiz and a shower. Getting dressed for the day ahead. I believe it will start this way. I adjust my attitude and put into practice. Scientology, A religion? Cult --[[User:Jpatt|jp]] 21:55, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

:::Let see... claims to be a religion. Demands money from its followers. Viciously attacks all who speak negatively of it, including some high-profile journalists. Absolutly rediculous core doctrine (Xenu the galactic ruler?). Shadey origins. Clearly for-profit. Secretive internal workings. Frequent accusations of illegal activities, some of which have resulted in convictions. Sounds like a cult to me. And a quite dangerous one, by some accounts - remember, Scientologists are required to reject the use of conventional medications. There was even one case where an epileptic joined the church and was told he didn't really need his anti-seisure medication. He died not long after, as a direct result of his refusal to take said medication. - BornAgainBrit

BornAgainBrit all your accusations against scientologist also are mirrored in christianity especially in the south. Clearly for profit-pick a TV preacher
Secretive Internal workings-come on do i really even have to address this matter? Frequent accusations of illegal activities- priests. Many christian sects are required to reject modern medicine. If scientology is a cult that so is every religion on the face of the earth.

When a religous profite is a fiction writer that never intended to create a religion, thats a sign of a fake religion.

Yes, clearly scientology is a false religion. #1 it is not a religion, it is more of a cult. What god do scientologists believe in? To my knowledge they do not believe in a god but more in a supernatural power, but not specifically a "god". Without a god it cannot be a religon.

Isn't god nothing more than a supernatural power beyond our full understanding? You don't need the traditional view of God for it to be a religion, just a shared set of spiritual and moral values. Anything negative that can be said about the basic belief structure of Scientology can really be applied to almost any religion today.

Ok, so Scientologies a cult based on these things apparently: They demand money from followers, they viciously attack people who speak negagtivley about their religion, are not allowed to take conventional meds, and are accused of illegal activties with accasionall convictions. How many evangelical pastors ''Italic text''don't demand money from people, and just from looking at this website its obvious that Christians attack anyone who is critical of theyre religion. And how many times have I heard about "the healing power of faith" on tv. And lets not forget the boy touching priests. Here's the definition of a cult: A minority group of people who share a set of beliefs.--[[User:Unforgiven|Unforgiven]] 20:14, 17 February 2008 (EST)

==Definite YES.==

Basically, all their babbling about Xenu and similar, utter nonsense makes my head hurt. The founder had a great idea about how to make money: he realized this idea, made a huge load of money, and died a rich man. Is there a lot more to say? Oh, yes, he DID leave a huge mess of a cult behind to trouble our already-more-than-troubled world some more. Gee, thanks.
So, I´ll just say YES, with no "But" attached.

It's not true creation because dinosaurs are myths, our earth is flat, and heaven is the clouds.--[[User:Edtropolis|Edtropolis]] 16:21, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

:Exactly. Our story is right because the Bible says it's right, and their story is wrong because they don't have the Bible. Why would you ever want to look deeper than that? [[User:Kristkrispies|Kristkrispies]] 12:17, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Yes. It is just as false and liberal as such devious religions as Satanism, Atheism, Arabism, and pro-choicism. Is it simply a coincedence that "''[[science]]''" (which is known to be false, because it opposes [[The Bible]]) appears in the word "'''''Scien'''tology''"? All Scientologists must be converted to Christianity NOW. --[[User:Cranky Joe|Cranky Joe]] 14:36, 23 July 2007 (EDT)

Seriously, man we could use some more bigotry to get the point across. [[The Bible]] could never be wrong, especially with all of our non-malevolent, non-manipulative human translators and monarchs who have had the good book warped into an evil artifact from a corrupt regime. I dare say Bush might be releasing a similar copy under the title, "'''Bush Universal Translation: '''With new words 'n evrytheeng!'''".[[User:Walkebb|Walkebb]]

It is all summed up in this one quote. "The best way to make money is to create your own religion" - L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. Look, there is a difference between a religion ([[Christianity]], [[Islam]], [[Buddhism]], [[Unitarian Universalism]], etc.), and a MONEYMAKING SCAM. [[User:PSMax8956|PSMax8956]] 13:20, 3 August 2007 (EDT)

I agree totally with the above. It is a cult and not a true religion. They are basically taking people away from the Gospel.

(PLEASE SIGN YOUR COMMENTS) LOL, how is it not a true religion? and i think that its worse that they are scamming people then that they are taking them away from your religion.-[[User:Greenmeanie|Greenmeanie]] 22:00, 26 May 2008 (EDT)

==I generally define a cult as==

1. They lie about their religious beliefs because they directors themselves know how nutty their beliefs are and that they will dissuade prospective converts. Hence, cults like Scientology lie about their beliefs. Only after a convert joins are they inducted into the real cult.

2. Salvation at a price. If I didn’t put money in that plate on Sunday the priest would still serve me communion. Yet cults like Scientology charge a heavy price for their “therapy” treatments.

Religions proudly profess their message over the hilltops and want to help people because virtue is its own reward not money.

Scientology is generally considered a cult simply because there are so few members. However by my standards a few “mainstream” religions are cults.

Can any religion or cult really be debunked?

To the believer no. To a Scientologist it all makes perfect sense. There would be no evidence proving or disproving their religious/cult beliefs.

To the non-believer yes. Scientology knows just how nutty it is and so it lies about its beliefs. The best course of action is to let the public know what Scientology is really about and let them decide.

:(PLEASE SIGN YOUR COMMENTS) and although christianity is free, you are highly pressured to donate money.
:Can any religion or cult really be debunked?
:To the believer no. To a Christan it all makes perfect sense. There would be no evidence proving or disproving their religious/cult beliefs.
:and although virtue is "its own reward" there are alot of people who are religious who are extremely rich (from religion)-[[User:Greenmeanie|Greenmeanie]] 22:00, 26 May 2008 (EDT)

== But Xenu is comming to Kill Us All!! ==



Beware All! Xenu, in his DC-10 spaceships shall come to end all Human Life, by taking us up in his spaceship, and dumping us in volcanoes. BEWARE!! --[[User:Capercorn]] [[User Talk:Capercorn|Talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Capercorn|contribs]] 09:36, 11 November 2007 (EST)

It is only as false as Christianity. --[[User:MrSmiley|MrSmiley]] 15:01, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

Didn't Hubbard himself admit he started it over a bar bet? [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 14:29, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Debate:If the universe is young and it takes light millions of years to reach us from far off stars, how can we see them?

2008-06-05T18:17:09Z

NRupert: /* Signs of C changing */

{{debate}}

==Theory 1==

Well, I would venture to say that we have not seen the far off ones yet. We can only see the light that has reached the Earth so far. This means that the currently-visible stars are "only" several thousand lightyears away. --[[User:David R|<<-David R->>]] 17:16, 10 March 2007 (EST)

: Empircally false. Basic parallax data gets us that there are stars at least 7000 years away and more sophisticated techniques force other stars to be even farther away. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 18:59, 10 March 2007 (EST)

: What's more of that were true then why have ancient civilisations recorded lots of the stars that were now see? shouldn't there be masses of new ones that the light of which has reached us in the proceeding years? [[User:Ampasand|Ampasand]] 11:23 29 march 2007 (GMT+12)

:The speed of light, Einstein called it "c" is a universal constant. In order for us to see something, light must travel from that object to our eyes. This is how our eyes work. But, the Universe is far older than earth. For all we know, the earth could be infinitely old. Light which left stars that were 7000-8000 light years away is reaching our eyes now, even if the stars are no longer there. Further more, the creation and destruction of stars in a universe as vast as ours can sometimes go un-noticed if not specifically documented. Today, we find new stars occasionally because we have extensive equipment with which to survey the skies. Ancient civiliations didn't. ~Patriot101.

: The stars that are 7000-8000 light years away, speaking relatively, are our close neighbors in the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter and contains about 100,000,000 stars. There are hundreds of BILLIONS of galaxies (100,000,000,000+). The most distant light our telescopes have detected comes from recently discovered stars 13-14 billion light years away. That means that light has been traveling at 185,000 MILES PER SECOND for 14,000,000,000 years to reach us from those stars. --[[User:CastleVania|CastleVania]] 22:12, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Perhaps, the Universe really is billions of years old. Perhaps the Genisis account is merely refering to the creation etc. from the perspective of the Earth. Perhaps God is, say, eternal. Couldn't matter and the elements be eternal too? {{Unsigned|Brigham's Homeboy}}

:That's very close to the white-hole cosmology of Russell Humphreys (see below). According to it, the ''fringes'' of the universe are billions of years old, but the ''near-center'' of the universe--where we are--is much younger. In short, time did not flow uniformly throughout the universe--and until relatively recently, in our region, time did not flow at all.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 22:54, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

==Theory 2==
When God created the universe, he also created a complete ray of light extending between the star and the Earth. The light that we see ''now'' was created only a few thousand years ago. It looks as if it came from the star, but it really didn't; it was created in mid-air, or mid-space as it were, a few thousand light-years away. The light that started travelling from the star itself at its instant of creation will not reach us for millions of years (or perhaps never if the Earth does not last that long).

<
* = star
- = ray of light
O = Earth
> = where the light we see today was when the Universe was created

BEFORE CREATION:
[Void]
AFTER CREATION of star, Earth, ''and'' complete ray of light all at the same instant
*------------------------------------------------->----O

A few thousand years after Creation (today)
*----------------------------------------------------->O

As opposed to:
AFTER CREATION:
* O

Millions of years later (still can't see star)
*--------------------- O

Millions and millions of years later (still can't see star)
*--------------------------------------------- O

Millions and millions and millions of years later (finally can see star)
*------------------------------------------------------O

The language of the Bible, "Let there be light," even can be read as supporting this.

This theory is absolutely ridiculous. The stars we see in the sky are millions of light years away, and we can see them because the earth has existed for far longer than a few thousand years. Astronomers can tell roughly how old a star is, and they know that the ones you see at night are older than a few thousand years.

No, I do not believe this. (But I can't prove it's not true.) [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:27, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Dpbsmith: This is the essence of why this is religion not science, it can't be proven/disproven... [[User:Jesput|Jespur]]

: Jesput, the same is true for science. Science cannot prove anything at all. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 13:15, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

: This is a variant of omphalism and essentially asserts that God has deliberately deceived humans. I don't think most people would want to believe in a deceptive deity and in any event, it would contradict the verse in Isaiah that says that God is truth. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 19:01, 10 March 2007 (EST)

: Couldn't God have added the verse in Isaiah to make us believe that He is saying the truth? [[User:Ribbix|Ribbix]] 04:00, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

If God is trying to fake us out, He certainly did His best to make it a CONVINCING fake. Just check out those scientists who've been fooled into thinking an entire galaxy was ripped in two several billion years ago. <ref> [http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070302_galaxy_rip.html Galaxy Ripped to Shreds]</ref>{{Unsigned|Fullmetajacket}}

: I'm sorry, this is a nice theory, but JoshuaZ is right, it's a type of omphalism, and assumes that God deliberately tricked us. At some point, [[Occam's Razor]] has to kick in here. But wow, this light argument sure does rip YEC to shreds.-[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 20:29, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

::The theory does not insinuate that God is deceptive. In Genesis, he talks to Abraham about his descendants and how they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. What if God made the stars like that, not to deceive humans in any way, but to use them for His own purpose, such as using them as a metaphor? (By the way, how is making rays of light any form of deception? How are we being "tricked" by this creation?) --[[User:David R|<<-David R->>]] 20:36, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Rays of light carry information; they're records of past events. If light was really created in transit, then we've witnessed the death of stars which never actually existed in the first place. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:22, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

:Descartes approached a similar problem in his meditations. The way out of it was to say that since God is good, God would not do something to intentionally deceive our senses and thus we can trust them. I believe that it is valid to continue that to say that it is reasonable to trust our extended senses that this planet is a several billion years old. Otherwise (as Descartes would say), God is a deceiver and then would not be the most perfect being that can be imagined. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 20:33, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

:: Fraid that's the logical conclusion. Then again, [[theory of evolution|a lot of things on this site]] are quite disconnected from logic.-[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 10:08, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

: I respect everyone's beliefs here, but I find that the most beautiful resolution for myself is to see God as operating above our level of existence. Why would He speak of a day as the same mundane day you and I experience? The saying that 1,000 years to us is but a blink of an eye to Him comes to mind. I believe that the days in Genesis simply weren't literally days in terms of the Earth spinning around once, but they were days as God experiences them in his higher existence. I find it unfathomable that God would deceive us with empirical evidence like red-shifted light from stars and dinosaur fossils and so on. God is not that petty.. God is love, and God is honest, as he asks us to be. --[[User:CastleVania|CastleVania]] 22:17, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

: Is this website a satire? A spoof? "If the universe is young..." What an insane question. How about "If the moon is made of cheese..." WE KNOW the universe is billions of year sold. All scientists agree on this. Can anyone expalin why some of the best scientists in the world are American but the American public (the Right and Conservative, mainly) seem so scientifically illiterate? I just do not understand it. What next? Will Americans start asking themselves "if the world is flat why don't we fall of when we get to the edges?" --[[User:thevoiceofsanity|thevoiceofsanity]] 24 july 2007 (EDT)

:I tend to avoid the edges - there is no reason to beleive the heliocentrist theory. It is liberal propaganda!!!--[[User:Xifuwu|Xifuwu]]

== Theory 3 ==

C is not actually constant. All measurements on Earth indicate that it is, but beyond our Solar System it could easily be faster, slower, moving through wormholes to appear faster, etc. Hubble's Law says that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it moves away due to universal expansion, so why couldn't light be similarly expanded with distance? So many of our assumptions about the universe rely on our belief that things happen the same way everywhere - a huge leap of faith for a scientist. --[[User:Daniel B. Douglas|Daniel B. Douglas]] 13:05, 17 March 2007 (EDT)
:I don't know whether you knew, but the official definition of the [[meter]] now assumes that C is constant. The meter is defined in terms of C! Someone needs to set up some periodic re-measurements of the orange-red line from the spectrum of [[krypton]]-86 that provided the most recent definition of the meter: 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of this radiation. If that number starts to rise, then we know that C is slowing, as [[Barry Setterfield]] has stated.

:I have another variation on this theory, however: what if C were originally much faster, is now the speed at which we now find it, and is not going to change anymore? Except that I have an [[Occam's razor]] problem with that.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]] 14:31, 17 March 2007 (EDT)
:I don't dispute at all that the meter is based upon C, but it hardly matters whether it is or not. Either C is constant or it isn't, no matter what units you use. Rather than C slowing since time began, I was thinking more the velocity of C being a function of its distance away from us. Also, your theory satisfies Occam's razor equally well or better than the Big Bang does, so I see no problem with it logically. --[[User:Daniel B. Douglas|Daniel B. Douglas]] 03:28, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

:Einsteins Theory of Relativity explained how light appears to move at different speeds when the distance is great and the relative speeds are great as it often is in planetary physics. However, this in no way means that c is not a universal constant. Nothing exsists in nature with a real velocity that is relative to the distance it is being viewed.

This hypothosis sounds awkwardly non-falsifyable. It is proposed that light used to travel faster than it does today, but conveniently stoped slowing down before measurement became possible. How can it be determined either way? Also, this would not be a slight slowdown... its going to require light travel a lot faster. The most distant objects known are ten billion light-years away<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1432321.stm</ref>. So, even assuming light slowed from its super-speed to todays speed in a single instant as soon as civilisation emerged, thats going to require it used to travel about 1.67 million times as fast as today to achieve the 6000-year target figure. Im not a physicist, but I dont think thats even remotely possible. A little variation, perhaps, but a factor that huge... it would require adjusting too many other figures to keep the formulae valid. Permiativity of free space, planks constant, a lot of very fundamental things. -- Suricou

::Actually, the [[Hubble Ultra Deep Field]] picture includes galaxies from around 13 billion years ago. [[User:ColinR|ColinR]][[User_talk:ColinR|talk]] 04:19, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

:The basic problem with any variable-c model is that the entire observational record is exactly consistent with constant c. So we're left with two types of model; the one Terry mentions, where c changed in an unobservable way in the distant past, and the one Daniel mentions, where c is different in other parts of the Universe, but these differences manage to leave every observation we make exactly as we would expect if no such change had happened. That essentially leaves us with two different ways of saying "sure, the Universe ''looks'' old, but because of an unobservable, untestable effect, it really isn't." Which may be ''true'', but it'll never be good science. May as well propose that we all live in the Matrix and be done with it. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:30, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:Oh, theory is out - of course, should have realised earlier. If C is altered, the knock-on effect ould include a shift in emmission spectrum. That would be very easily observed in distant stars. As it isn't observed, that means C must be constantish. Perhaps just a little variation, but not a 1.67-million-times factor. I think that just about kills the 'C is faster elsewhere' idea. - Suricou

=== Signs of C changing ===
If the speed of light had changed in the past, would we not see some evidence of it today? I'm no physicist, but I do know one thing about light: when light particles collide with matter they impart energy to that matter, making it warmer. Now, from what I do know of physics it seems to me that the warming effect of light on matter should have something to do with the speed at which said light is travelling. My point is this: if light once travelled much faster than it does today, would that light not also have had a much greater warming effect on matter that it collided with? Would you not, then, expect that modern science would have at least some ability to observe the evidence of light's changing speed. I could only imagine that examples of such evidence might include planets that are completely scorched, or have been scorched in the past, without any current explanation as to why such scorching could have occurred. If light was travelling at faster speeds while there was life present on earth, I can only imagine that some of those creatures would've been getting one heck of a sunburn! [[User:Simple|Simple]] (14:31 GMT-5) 2 July 2007

:Good shot at it--but the energy of light does not depend on its speed. Light imparts its energy to any object it strikes, in discrete packets tentatively called [[photon]]s, the energy of which depends solely on the [[frequency]] of the light. The function is a linear one and depends on [[Planck's constant]].
:Indeed, part of the problem with light is that its speed ''does not even relate to any frame of reference''. The speed of light in any medium depends solely on the [[electrical permittivity]] and [[magnetic permeability]] of that medium. (In fact, the speed of light is the [[reciprocal]] of the [[geometric mean]] of these two quantities.)
:Thus for c to change, the permittivity and permeability of vacuum must also have changed. And the only way to determine that is to examine previous records--and even ''that'' will fail if those records are not sufficiently precise.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 14:41, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

:I just thought I'd point out that changing C would have no effect on the observed amount of time it takes for light to reach us as long as the planck constant remains the same :) [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 14:17, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

== White-hole Cosmology ==
The universe began as a white hole. Initially, as matter expanded into it, time did not flow--because the very space-time continuum had four dimensions of space and none of time. Eventually, time began to flow at the outer fringes of the expanding ball of matter, and this region of timeliness worked its way back to the center. So the earth really is six thousand or so years old--by clocks on the earth, which are the only clocks that need to matter to us. By any clock on the outer fringes, the cosmos might well be twenty billion years old. The light impinges on us now because it was always impinging on the border of the region of timelessness until that region shrank away to nothing.<ref>[http://creationwiki.org/White_hole_cosmology White hole cosmology] by [[CreationWiki]]</ref>--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]] 19:15, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Not bad, what about the four-day simultaneous harmonic Time Cube?<ref>[http://timecube.com/ Time Cube] by Doctor Gene Ray</ref> {{Unsigned|Fullmetajacket}}

:Cute. Very cute. And incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]] 21:36, 10 March 2007 (EST)

:Falsified by the distinct absence of massive blueshifting of distant light sources. I highly doubt anybody's even attempted to formalize this as a solution to Einstein's field equations, either, which would be a prerequisite for it to be considered a coherent proposition at all. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 14:25, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::I dug out a few of Humphrey's papers defending this model and reached two basic conclusions. One, as I suspected, there ''is'' no model, merely handwaving. Two, he doesn't actually understand GR. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:39, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:::That's obvious, given the idiocy of the theory. [[User:NousEpirrhytos|NousEpirrhytos]] 09:23, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

::::For those who are interested, I get into some of the problems with Humphreys' model(s) [[User_talk:Tsumetai/TJ|here]]. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 04:14, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

== Silliness ==
Physics has had for many years more-than-adequate explanations. All of these verbal acrobatics into non-falsifiable theories to try to get around physical fact are humorus. Wouldn't it be easier for those who deny physics to just say "I accept physics, and God is mysterious and powerful enough to make it happen."?
[[User:Palmd001|Palmd001]] 16:17, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:Proverbs 25:2

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 22:58, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

:Wise words [[User:Cracker|Cracker]], wise words indeed. --[[User:Rob Pommer| Rob Pommer]][[User_talk:Rob_Pommer|TALK]] 19:33, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

== This About Kills YEC ==
The Starlight Problem is scientifically unsolvable assuming a young universe. You either have to make up pseudoscience, or concede that YEC is based on faith alone, but science disproves it. Agreed?-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 16:07, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

It seems to me that you are basically correct. I cannot think of any kind of reasonable way out of this. Why has no-one thought of this argument earlier? I knew, for example that relativity and creation were in direct conflict; basically if you create something out of nothing, then this creates huge issues with gravitational fields etc., but this question is so simple, especially the fact that stars were supposedly created, but you have to either accept that they are al lot nearer (say a couple of light-days), or that Adam and Eve would not be able to see starlight for years. This effectively kills off Young Earth Creation. Wonderful. That';s that obne sorted, now to set about Intelligent Design.--[[User:Felix|Felix]] 06:21, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

== Theory 4? ==
While it is perhaps not a direct answer to the question, a very plausible explanation is that the universe is ''not'' young, and that light from distant stars has therefore had ample time to reach Earth.--[[User:Άθεος|Άθεος]] 22:22, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

== Why 6000 years? ==

Why 6000 years? I mean the Bible doesn't mention when the universe was created anywhere, the date of 4000 BC was actually thought up by scholars in the 17th century [http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_date1.htm], so I don't really see why people try to defend that date as if it were God's word.

[[User:Middle Man|Middle Man]]

:Because when you start at 562 BC (the death of [[Nebuchadnezzar II]], and then subtract lengths of reign of the last eight kings of the [[Southern Kingdom]] of ancient [[Israel]], and then go back through the synchronized starts-of-reign of the kings of the Divided Kingdoms [[Northern Kingdom|Northern]] and Southern, and then take the time between the Exodus and the groundbreaking of the [[Temple of Jerusalem]], add a time for the Sojourn in Egypt, and then backtrack the birthdates of the patriarchs and go clear back to Adam, you arrive at 4004 BC if you assume a "late-in-life siring" of [[Abraham]] by his father, and a "short sojourn" in Egypt. What we defend is the proposition that the earth is no older than are these generations of the patriarchs, the length of the sojourn in Egypt, and so forth up to the present day. The Bible does not allow for an unnamed and large number of years between the birth of the [[earth]] and the creation of [[Adam]].--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 12:26, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Then what about that flood and the civilization of Atlantis, did that civilization just sprung up out of no where? And if Noah really did repopulate the Earth (I'm thinking there would be some serious inbreed issues there) wouldn't that have taken a while as well?

[[User:Middle Man|Middle Man]]

:I can't comment on Atlantis, because I have seen no documentation that I would consider reliable. If you can document that a city named Atlantis actually existed, then by all means put a message on my Talk page or send me an e-mail. Or better yet, write an article of your own titled "Atlantis" and fill it in with everything you know.

:Concerning Noah, of course that took awhile. But the generations from Noah to Abraham were about ten, give or take. Why not go to {{Bible ref|book=Genesis|chap=11|verses=10-26|version=KJV}} and count them? Notice also that the lifespans of the generations from Shem to Abraham dropped about ninety percent, and in a hurry.

:Concerning inbreeding: The tremendous lifespans of pre-Flood man suggest strongly that the damaging ionizing radiation that creates so much genetic damage today, simply wasn't an issue. Again, the lifespan of man dropped, and dropped hard, after the Flood. Thus, inbreeding wasn't such a hazard then as it is today.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 15:12, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Atlantis is just what I call the civilization Noah was born in, but 10 generations, that would give, starting with 4 breeding couples and assuming every couple of every generation has 6 healthy children: 8*(3^10) = 470.000 people by 2000 BC, while archealogists assume a world population of 30 million around that time, of course archaelogists also found a lot of things older than 6000 years, including human settlements.

As for the inbreeding, don't make up pseudoscience as you go along, degeneration is caused by the way genetics works, radiation would only make it worse, but is not the main factor.

And no, humans cannot live for 900 years, not without very advanced technology anyway.

[[User:Middle Man|Middle Man]]

==Um, No==

The problem discussed here is irrelevant if you think that, just maybe, the universe might be ''really'' old. As many sages far more sagacious than I have said, why would "God lie to us"? He apparently made a ''very'' old universe, from our perspective. Why are we to argue with the evidence? He ''expects'' us to figure this stuff out, and dwells in His joy when we do. With every advance, we get closer to knowing the Mind of God - the true goal of philosophy. [[User:Human|Human]] 23:24, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

It's also irrelevant if you believe that God either created the Universe as an operating mechanism - it hit the ground running, if you like - rather than kicking off the Big Bang, or that the creation referred to in the Bible refers only to the Earth (or the Solar System).

The former would also include the creation of fossils and so forth, and would mean that the Universe was created by God to ''appear'' (to us) to be so many billion years old, but its true age is unknown and unknowable. The Starlight Problem, Carbon-14 levels, etc., are all part of the bluebrint.

The latter idea, that the Universe existed previously and Genesis refers to the the creation of the Earth, is easier (in some ways), and nothing in the scripture goes against it. In fact, references to "the void" could refer to this region of space in its unpopulated state. Further down, "Let there be light" could be the creation of Sol, and night and day the fixing of the Earth's rotational speed.
[[User:G7mzh|G7mzh]] 05:55, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

===Telling God what tools he has to use?===
Young Earth just doesn't work for me on several levels:
*We live on a planet composed of heavy elements that can only be created inside of star's and heavy stars at that.
*You have to rewrite physics change the nature of C and make light of a fossil record that just won't be explained away

However at the heart of it, we as men try to interpert an omnipotent God and tell him what tools the creator must use to conform to our limited understanding of an infinate being. I just don't get it and I have to assume that I never will. Who are we to tell God how he was to create the Universe? We assume we understand his (not sure that we do) and we assume we can understand that he wanted us to read Genesis as defo literal and I am not sure that was intended either. An astromoner friend of mine was in a bit of a funk and in frustration told me "We really understand NOTHING! Dark matter probably exists and there is proof but we have not a clue, not one stinking clue what it is! We know that the universe is expanding not only expanding but accellerating and we don't know why! We call it dark energy and we might as well call it black magic. Everything we thought we knew is being turned upside down."

I'll give you this, I can't buy young earth, and I think God is something we may not ever get our puny minds around. God will not be defined by man, not his tools nor his methods. The creator defines us and all the voices demanding he be to their way of thinking are but shouts to the wind. [[User:Tirronan|Tirronan]] 15:26, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

== References ==
<references/>

Debate:Can the science of evolution be separated from the philosophy of it?

2008-06-05T18:07:57Z

NRupert: /* YES */

{{debate}}

Some people say that the science of [[Evolution]] can be researched and studied without getting into any philosophical, metaphysical or religious issues. Others say that both research and study are too closely connected with other issues to be dealt with separately. Which is right, and why?

==YES==

yeah, it's a theory that says that we share a common ancestor and you can make scientific predictions from this, such as that we should share a great deal of DNA with closely related species. It makes no philosophical predictions.

==NO==
== Philosophy underpins your theory of everything ==
The [[Theory of Evolution]]—and more particularly the paradigm of methodological naturalism of which it is a key pillar—is part and parcel of a philosophical movement. Therefore, one cannot separate the two.

[[Science]] has never truly been value-free. One's values, and one's worldview, inform one's interpretation of the data. Only the most obviously inexplicable findings (like, for example, the [[Venus#Phases of Venus|phases of Venus]]) can ever topple a widely-held worldview, and usually that toppling produces social upheavals that are almost [[earthquake|seismic]].

If, therefore, you want to believe that [[Human|man]] is a close cousin to the great apes and has no higher purpose to serve than his own temporary existence, then the [[Theory of Evolution]] is for you.

If, on the other hand, you accept the idea that [[God]] [[Creation|created]] man in His own image and likeness, and gave man a definite purpose, then [[creationism]] is for you.

Now as it happens, the paradigm of methodological naturalism, that includes [[uniformitarianism]], [[abiogenesis]], and "common descent" (which is what the Theory of Evolution is all about), is already racking up a lot of "Phases of Venus" moments. I have documented several in my [[Solar System]] edits over the last few months. This while the creation paradigm is now producing models with definite predictive value.

But in order to understand creationism fully, you have to come to philosophical terms with it. [[Edwin Hubble]] refused to come to terms with the thought that our [[galaxy]] is at the center of the [[universe]], and for that reason created a [[cosmology]] that says that the universe has no center. He had absolutely no warrant in his observations or in the laws of [[physics]] for that action. And he knew it, too, as [[John Hartnett]] clearly documents in his latest work, ''Starlight, Time and the New Physics''. He defended his anti-centrism purely on philosophical grounds. Now if a man like Edwin Hubble couldn't get away from philosophy, what makes you think you can?--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 08:56, 24 May 2008 (EDT)

Debate:Why are God's works always questioned?

2008-06-05T18:04:22Z

NRupert:

{{debate}}

Why not? [[User:Underscoreb|Underscoreb]] 21:30, 10 December 2007 (EST)

God's works are always questioned because He gave us a free will to do with what we wish and to question and believe, to love and to hate, to agree and disagree. We question because we are human and we are human because we questioned.--[[User:CRD|CRD]] 22:04, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

[[Category:Essays]]

I think that God's works are questioned because our perception of God is so limited. The majority of people view God as a benevolent, loving, but stearn creator/magician/father figure. If that is what God is all about then we constantly have to wonder why God's creation contains pain, suffering and death. We also have to stuff our beliefs about how the world works into a creator/created way of thinking. Other cultures have had complex mythologies that essentially show God as having many faces; some good, some bad, some loving, some destroying, etc. The Old Testament God was more like that type of being. Maybe if our God were bigger, we might realize that the important questions aren't concerning God's works at all but our own. Like the Buddha we would simply set it aside and concentrate our efforts on living the right life in the here and now. [[User:Wismike|Wismike]]

== How is this a scientific debate? ==

Science has not shown any proofs for existence of god. Also science questions every thing. From perspective of science, there is no god. Man made god in man's image (at least one group)--[[User:JBuscombe|JBuscombe]] 14:31, 18 November 2007 (EST)

:Within or without? Half full or half empty? There is no such thing as science having a perspective. Only individuals are in a position to gain a perspective. The proof of the existence of God is the created universe. There are those that would prefer that God never existed so that their own works won't be questioned. Of course they may be wrong. Whether you believe you evolved from a pool of slime or are an intelligently created being will be your own choice. The real question is whether you will ever recognize it when the answer to this question has been given to you?--[[User:Roopilots6|Roopilots6]] 12:22, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

== Not everyone believes in God, in the same way as you ==

and whether you agree with them or not, it's a pretty good reason [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 14:04, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Professor values

2008-06-05T17:59:12Z

NRupert:

I think that it is inappropriate to have "crimes by professors" and "immoral, unethical, and bizarre behavior" in this entry. Either have a separate entry, or remove it entirely. Professors have good values too, they are not all completely immoral people who are self-centered and ignorant. -- Aaronp

Why do my edits keep getting reverted? I made factual edits, removing the absolutes that simply aren't true from the article. I have no problem not editing the rest, because obviously removing "Crimes committed by professors" and "Immoral and Unethical Behavior" from an article on professor values is just wrong, but the edits I made about tenure are factually correct. I have helped multiple tenure boards, and I know for a fact that not every single academic institution in the United states, let alone the world, completely dismisses a candidate based on their views on feminism, abortion, and homosexuality. Mind you, tenure confers essentially complete protection from being prosecuted for any sort of indiscretion, so keeping people with strong biases out of tenure is a good thing. I once saw a review board reject a man for tenure because he accidentally blurted out that "all those kids protesting the war should be forced into service" because they "aren't contributing to society". This was an obvious bias he had, and because it was an extreme one he was rejected for tenure. At the same time, however, I've seen a woman who was criticizing feminist values receive tenure, because she presented her thoughts in a clear, precise, and very educated way. Anyone who criticizes a set of values or an action in a biased or bigoted manner obviously isn't going to receive tenure.

Also, the reason that people who criticize evolution often don't receive tenure is because evolution has almost reached dogma-like acceptance in the scientific community. I don't want to get into a debate about evolution, but because it is so accepted, anyone seen criticizing it without scientific proof is generally regarded as not following scientific method. History may vindicate those people who do criticize evolution now, but until then, people will continue to not receive tenure based on their criticisms.

All I want for this page is to remove the absolutes. Not every institution will outright reject a person for their views on feminism, abortion, or homosexuality. It simply is not true. And because this is supposed to be an educational encyclopedia with conservative values, I believe that the information contained within should be accurate. -- [[User:Aaronp|Aaronp]]

..does [[Richard Dawkins|Dawkins]] fall into this category as well? For example, ''"Liberal politicians are routinely given high-ranking academic positions despite a lack of a doctorate."'' [[User:Feebasfactor|Feebasfactor]] 13:03, 8 March 2008 (EST)
:No, because he's not a politician, and he does have a doctorate (two, actually, I think). And since you bring it up...Gary Hart also has a doctorate. And, while Dukakis only has a Harvard law degree, his academic work has been in fields where he can most reasonably be considered an expert (public policy). The same can be said of Al Gore (and his have hardly been "high-ranking academic positions"--"visiting" professorships, and non-credit courses). And, finally, Kerrey is an administrator, not an academic.--[[User:RossC|RossC]] 20:35, 9 March 2008 (EDT)
::He's not a politician, but he is an [[atheistic]] (and [[liberal]]) figurehead. And I wouldn't be too certain about those doctorates; [[Richard_Dawkins#Position_at_Oxford|it's debatable whether Dawkins is even a real professor]]. [[User:Feebasfactor|Feebasfactor]] 00:10, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
:I removed Hart and Kerrey as examples of "liberal politicians (who) are routinely given high-ranking academic positions despite a lack of a doctorate", because (as noted above), Hart has a doctorate, and Kerrey is an administrator (not an academic).--[[User:RossC|RossC]] 22:18, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
::I don't know enough about those politicians in particular to confirm your edits, but your reasoning sounds legitimate. [[User:Feebasfactor|Feebasfactor]] 22:33, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
:::Alternately, I suppose, one could add Hart/Kerrey back to the list and change the wording of the defining phrase to something like, "...given university positions over better-qualified candidates."--[[User:RossC|RossC]] 22:46, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
::Actually, yes, I agree with that. These examples certainly shouldn't be removed on a technicality or a meaningless distinction when the point still stands; changing the wording of the phrase is a much better idea. [[User:Feebasfactor|Feebasfactor]] 20:56, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

== What is this about? ==

'''What?''' Another article based on an '''unheard-of phrase''' plucked out of the air? This certainly does not look like an encyclopedia article - cf. [[Hollywood values]], [[Liberal friendship]], [[Second generation atheist]], [[Liberal grading]], [[Embraced deceit]], etc. None of these belongs in an encyclopedia. Apart from anything else, who on earth is likely to look up a phrase like "professor values"? Shouldn't an encyclopedia consist of articles on topics that users are likely to look for, not on opinion pieces by its editor-in-chief? What point are you trying to make, exactly? Who is the target of this latest attack? This is the sort of thing I would expect from a blog or a hate-based website, not from a family-friendly and '''trustworthy''' encyclopedia. This sort of thing is making Conservapedia look ridiculous. Or would you like articles on [[Doctor values]], [[Taxi-driver values]] and [[Lawyer values]] as well? If so, I'd be happy to draft them for you! There must be lots to be said about the misdemeanors of all sorts of groups. [[User:Humblpi|Humblpi]] 17:15, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

: I agree that this kind of article could bring legitimate criticism against CP. The major premises are not documented. While some contributers to this article, including those who have made those assertions, say that it is a work in progress and welcome others to document the supposed many examples, there are a pitiful few, some old, some from other countries, and some for extremely prevalent crimes of marijuana possession. I took a long time to find the best possible supporting source for educational stats, and my guess is that the more than 1,200,000 professors currently working in colleges and universities are responsible for a disproportionately SMALL number of crimes. Until I find statistical support for that statement, I won't post it in the article.

: For a collaborative resource like this, I believe it is imperative that any contributor making an assertion, especially critical ones (as opposed to trivia, added dates, etc. -- which ideally should be supported, too), document them appropriately. If not, that sends a poor message to other contributors, editors, and sysops -- to say nothing of users, potential users, and CP critics. It is hardly the kind of example to provide for home-schooled kids learning about proper scholarship. I have looked and looked and find no reliable studies that support the argument that professors are more likely than anybody else to do bad things. Also, no evidence that liberal professors are worse than conservative ones. There are news and blog reports that repeat certain cases, but unless one does an exhaustive search, no conclusions can be drawn. If this article remains, then there should be additional coverage for politicians, clergy, other professions, etc. and they should include misdeeds by conservatives and liberals alike, according to the actual data. Leaving out crimes by conservatives does no one a service. I understand that this is a conservative encyclopedia, but some traits of it purportedly include truthfulness (I'd argue that it is dishonest to tell only partial truths), and to avoid misrepresentation and sensationalism. [[User:CPlantin|CPlantin]] 8:26, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

== Head's up - this isn't as simple as it may seem ==

As I was doing some admittedly "Google-esque" research, I did find that there are well over 4000 colleges and universities and probably many more than 1,250,000 current faculty. If we work backwards a generation or two, the number increases, of course, which makes it difficult to substantiate the claim that professors are disproportionately likely to commit crimes or other misdeeds, especially if all we cite are fewer than 20 examples of such misdeeds. Looking at campus statistics, many more campus crimes (by far) were committed by students, to say nothing about the many thousands of crimes committed by the general public. So I started doing some informal Google searches for crimes committed by different professions, using -- for lack of a more efficient search method -- "professor arrested," "faculty arrested," etc. along with other professional categories. Combining "faculty" or "professor" and "crime" didn't work well (too many useless hits).
The highest, in that combination alone, was "teacher" (over 190,000 hits), but "mayor" still had more hits (over 27,000) than "faculty" or "professor" (about 14,000). Unfortunately, hits for "pastor," "minister," and "priest," added up to an uncomfortably high number, over 100,000, but then again, if we don't know how many pastors, etc. are out there, we have no percentage to compare them with faculty or other groups. My methodology is rudimentary, but I didn't see any demographic or statistical reports that covered this topic. So, unless we can document this so-called high rate of crime among faculty, perhaps the article should remain mute on the number, relative to other professions. After seeing some statistics about the correlation between educational level and prison population, it also seems like the prison population is much more likely to have no or little education. There are very few PhDs in prisons. Likewise, after seeing these figures, I would guess that the more one is educated, the less likely one is to get felonies or misdemeanors.

So, my question is: do any other contributors to this article have any data at all on this? Is it only anecdotal? If facts can't be documented, then they don't belong in these articles. Especially if the article is questioning the integrity of professors, including their intellectual integrity (like the Korean scientist who established his reputation on cooked data - about which I can find documentation), this article's information should be sound. It is still full of undocumented assertions and sensationalism. [[User:CPlantin|CPlantin]] 8:01, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

== Tony Blair ==

Huh? How is this not relevant to the article? He has no doctorate, he has been appointed to teach at Yale and he is a liberal politician. --[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 10:19, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

: That appears simply to be a guest lecture appointment.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 10:42, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
:: You mean just like Al Gore?--[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 10:54, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
::: Since you don't seem to mind guest lecturers being added to this list, I will put Tony Blair back.
== Really? ==

I just did a google search, and the first few pages of the 735 results don't have any signinifigance to subject at hand. So, here's my question: Did you just make this term up Andy? [[User:DLerner|DLerner]] 12:07, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

: There's a great deal of bias out there, DLerner. That's a reason why we're here.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 12:10, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

:: Yes, Andy. But the problem is, there's a great deal of bias here too. Are there any articles critical of conservatives on this site? Believe me conservatives aren't perfect. You didn't answer my question, where is the term "Professor values" from? I know there are a lot of stupid people/policies on colleges (just watch the Penn & Teller episode on [[censorship]]) but that isn't the point. Where is the term from? [[User:DLerner|DLerner]] 12:16, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

:::Why are you critical of a neologism which points out a legitimate area of concern, DLerner? Examine the case studies, and perhaps you will appreciate why this article is a necessary one. [[User:Koba|Koba]] 12:34, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

::::Koba, the problem with making up a phrase like this is that it's really not meaningful, unless backed up by statistically valid evidence to justify it. Do Charlton Heston and John Wayne fit the profile of "Hollywood Values" as defined here? The examples mentioned in this article are as representative of professors as a category (i.e. a few out of thousands around the world), as they are of males. If this is the encyclopedic standard CP holds to, then I can create a page called "Right-handed values", describing the bad traits of right-handed people and backed by examples of the criminal behavior of some cherry-picked right-handed people, and it would pass muster based on examples like this page that ASchafly endorses.--[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 17:31, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

''The phrase Professor values refers to the lack of morals and values in the culture of college faculties, which is characterized by atheism, censorship, socialism, unjustified claims of expertise and knowledge, advocacy of liberal beliefs, liberal grading, liberal bias, anti-patriotism, plagiarism, false claims of credentials, lack of productivity, and promotion of sexual immorality.''

Has anyone else seen this "phrase" before? I looked for it. If it's a study, it belongs in an essay not in a article. Personally, I think Andy made it up. (It's a nice slogan though...)

If anyone can make up a term then write an article about it, how's this? "The phrase '''Criminal values''' refers to the lack of respect for the law..." [[User:DLerner|DLerner]] 12:59, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

:Indeed - see my comment under "What is this about?", above - which nobody has seen fit to reply to. The proliferation of these flimsy articles is making a mockery of Conservapedia. The latest such nonsense is [[Liberal drivel]], which I assume is a parody - but it's getting harder and harder to distinguish parody from real content. [[User:Humblpi|Humblpi]] 13:17, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

== Um... ==
This article serves no purpose... It should be an essay or opinion at the very most --[[User:Helps|Helps]] 11:14, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

What '''statistical''' evidence is there in this article of atheism, plagiarism, socialism
, censorship etc. This article makes unfounded claims. [[User:Angband|Angband]] 13:18, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

: Help find the support for those observations. It's not difficult to find. Thanks and Godspeed.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 13:47, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
:: That is the wrong way to answer a legitimate question, and does a disservice to the students you want using Conservapedia as a legitimate reference source. When a so-called encyclopedic article makes irrational assertions and offers no cited evidence to support them, people are going to question its validity. Your response, "The supporting evidence is out there, help us to find it.", is basically an endorsement of unacademic postings by biased individuals as long as the bias is conservative, and an insult to the moderates who want a Conservative Encyclopedia to be, well, encyclopedic. My suggestion is that if it's not that hard to find the supporting evidence, then the page should be removed until the author can find it him/herself and post it. I'm sure I'll be accused of "Liberal Denial" or "Liberal Apology", or some other "Liberal ---" behavior that's used in place of an academic response, but fair-minded people need to speak up about this.--[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 17:31, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

:I've never been to College in my long life but I must agree. This article is sensationalist tabloidism at its very best. [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 13:49, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

== First paragraph of article is not adequately supported ==

I do think the listing of the growing problem of professors misdeeds section in the latter part of the article was very informative.

However, I don't think the footnote in the first paragraph adequately supports the first paragraphs contentions. Is plagiarism truly a professor value? If it is, there is absolutely no support for the contention. I don't think that plagiarism is a common value of professor although there may be certainly instances of it. I have read the scientific fraud in the way of fudging experimental results is a significant problem but I have not heard the same regarding plagiarism. I do know that puffing up ones resume is a significant problem in the USA, however, the contention that professors often do it was not supported.

In short, I think the initial paragraph does not follow the conservapedia commandments in regards to proper citation and support. I don't think it is reasonable to ask the reader to do the research for that is getting the cart before the horse. It is the writers job to support the material.

I do recommend the following conservative website in order to help provide adequate support for the article: Accuracy in Academia at http://www.academia.org/

In the meantime, I suggest the article to be pulled from the popular articles at Conservapedia until adequate support is given and that the article have a citation template put on it. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 16:16, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

: This is a work-in-progress with 24 references already. There have been numerous instances of plagiarism by professors without any punishment, and those citations will be easy to fill in, and I welcome assistance. Godspeed.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:57, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

:::It does appear as if liberals are over represented in academia with 90% of professors describing themselves as being liberals or moderates. [http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=s1153nnhjkhr407r6ng6gjg8pvc8g2s8] Therefore, there does appear to be less conservatives in academia. So one would expect there to be more atheist in academia. At the same time , atheism is not a professor value as about 25% of philosophy professors are theist. [http://www.rzim.org/slice/slicetran.php?sliceid=880] In the business and engineering departments the percentage of professors being theist is probably higher given that they are more conservative. In regards to plagiarism being a professor value, many instances of professors committing this act does not necessarily constitute it being a professor value. There are a lot of professors in the USA and abroad so the real question what percentage of professors have engaged in plagiarism. In other words, you can can find many instances of men beating their wives in the United States but is wife beating a "male value"? I don't think it is. Again, it comes down to the percentage issue. So to sum up, I think the opening paragraph needs to be less expansive in its claims or provide additional support. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 17:47, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

:Even if 25% of philosophy professors were theists, wouldn't this still be lower than the rate of theism in the population as a whole? I do agree with your post in that it should be examined by specific departments. At least at my school, some departments, such as Economics and Geography, do not seem particularly liberal, while a number of others clearly are. [[User:DanH|DanH]] 18:03, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
:::DanH, thank you for your polite and kind reply. I do think that liberal ideology and liberals are over represented in academia. However, to call something a "professor value" or "male value" while a significant portion of the population in question does not share a particular value would be over reaching in my estimation. And I do think, for example, that 25% of a given population not sharing a value would be a significant amount of people and be justification for saying a given characteristic was not a value of the population as a whole. However, you can fairly say that a certain value is over represented in a population as a whole if in fact it is. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 18:14, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

:::: Good cites, Conservative. I've added them. This entry is ranked #1 on Google and is emerging as a significant insight. Professors share a common value system, not unanimously, but in higher percentages of agreement than even some churches. It's enlightening to described the [[professor value]]s and note the harm caused by them. Ideas obviously do have consequences.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:38, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
::::: I have a feeling that the majority of the professors at Liberty University might take exception to this article, since by definition these descriptors apply to them. Also, being ranked #1 in this case has more to do with the topic not being recognized as a commonly-used term. If I wrote an article titled "Liberal Klingon Values" it would rank #1 for that search in no time, without being any more relevant.--[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 12:29, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

What constitutes "a relatively high" number of instances of crimes or other misdeeds? Compared to other professions? If so, then we'd need to document those comparisons. If there are over 1,200,000 professors currently active in the US alone, then the total cited cases here is an extremely small 0.00125% of that population, about 1.25 evildoers per 100,000 faculty -- and some cited were from former generations or from other countries. Given stats from the National Center for Educational Statistics, the total population of professors would easily be in the multiple millions (depending how far back we'd want to go), making the percentage of the population amazingly miniscule. Some of the crimes or other behavior in the list refers to things that the general public is probably even more likely to do, including stalking family, drug possession, etc. -- in other words, not things that are unique to professors at all. I'd say the % of pastors and other religious leaders who have gotten themselves into hot water is embarrassingly high (sexual immorality, misuse of church funds, etc.) and perhaps higher than that of the professoriate. Maybe comparing the professors to the general population would show that professors are more or less likely than the general population to commit crimes. Also, to be fair and honest according to the Commandments, this article should report the academic/moral/financial misdeeds -- some very high profile -- of conservative academics, including events at several Christian colleges and universities, indluding former faculty and university presidents. Making unfounded statements in an encyclopedia article, especially if the statements are inflammatory, is antithetical to the whole idea of honest scholarship -- which is ironic, considering the topic of this article! [[User:CPlantin|CPlantin]] 09:25, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

== Title of the article should be "liberals and academia" and not "professor values" ==

I do believe upon sound research that people are not going to find this article based on a search of "professor values".

Here are the Google results of "professor values" and you will notice that all 715 results have nothing to do with the article we have: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Professor+Values%22&hl=en&start=10&sa=N

On the other hand if you do a search on "liberals in academia" you will get 8,450 results and all are related to our article: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22liberals+in+academia%22&btnG=Search

While I do think it is great to have a #1 Google entry in terms of getting exposure to Conservapedia I do think you have to begin with the end in mind and bring people to Conservapedia who are interested in a particular issue. I do realize that it is sometimes beneficial to pursue long tail marketing and dominate less competitive search queries over a long period of time, however, it does not appear as if anyone is typing in "professor values" to find the subject material of our article. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 22:33, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

I hesitate to point this out again (I mentioned it above), but what of crimes and other misdeeds committed by conservative academics? A number of leaders of Christian colleges and universities have, for example, abused authority, horribly misused funds for private -- and sometimes extravagant -- entertainment, travel, or shopping, or have had immoral sexual affairs. Not including information about these instances, or even acknowleding their existence, is a serious and dishonest error of omission. [[User:CPlantin|CPlantin]] 09:28, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

==Professor Values on Wikipedia==

Seems the article was put up on Wikipedia and is now up for deletion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Values

This thing really doesn't belong on an encyclopedia. [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 07:18, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

:Not on wikipedia, maybe (not least, because it was ''plagiarized'' from here!) - but it seems perfectly at home in this encyclopedia. [[User:Humblpi|Humblpi]] 12:21, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

:: I bet you think [[Hollywood values]] should be censored also!--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 14:12, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

::: Actually, yeah, that's a dumb article too. --[[User:DJBlair|DJBlair]] 14:20, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

:Yes, I think any article that is just 'made up' is neither trustworthy or encyclopedic. I wouldn't let my kids near this site (or Wikipedia for that matter, but thats a story for another day) [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 20:20, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

::In a strange bout of irony the WP ''Professor Values'' article now ranks higher than the CP version. [[User:TheGySom|TheGySom]] 08:24, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

::: It didn't take long for the [[liberals]] on Wikipedia to delete its entry! It's gone.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:03, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

==Catholic schools==

Should abuse by priests in catholic schools deserve its own article entitles, [[Priest Values]]? Of course not, because the abuse committed by some priests is not indicative of the entire group. [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 20:42, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
:You're making a big mistake, you think this "encyclopedia"  is governed by logic and reason, it isn't. -- '''[[user:DLerner|D L e r n e r]]''' [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:DLerner Articulate] 20:48, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

:: DLerner was blocked for his repeated derogatory comments, and "LeaningRight" you should be blocked for your 90/10 [[rule]] violation against talk, talk, talk.

:: This [[professor values]] lists the commonly held values and consequences of those values. Your suggestion does not fit that model, and your suggestion is ludicrous.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 13:17, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

:Whatever. By the way, check my contributions, specifically to the India article. I have not broken any rules that I know of. [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 13:31, 26 March 2008 (EDT)
:This is a link to my mainspace contributions: http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?offset=&limit=50&target=LeaningRight&title=Special%3AContributions&namespace=0 [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 13:33, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

:: LeaningRight, you wrote, "I have not broken any rules that I know of." That is known as [[deliberate ignorance]], and it's not an excuse. Your last ten contributions have been all talk, and that violates the 90/10 [[rule]].--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 14:32, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

:Please have a little respect and don't talk to me like a child. I'm a middle aged man with children and I find that highly disrespectful. Have a glance at my contributions. I wasn't even aware of this 90/10 rule until you brought it up so its ignorance, but not 'deliberate'. [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 15:26, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

:: You responded to my citation to our very simple set of [[rules]] with "Whatever" and "I have not broken any rules that I know of." Your response was ''after'' I directed you to the very simple set of rules.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:10, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

:Go and meet someone who doesn't agree with what you believe. I can guarantee you it will be quite refreshing. I'm taking a week off before I lose any faith I have ever had in the American people. [[User:LeaningRight|LeaningRight]] 16:15, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

::You really ought to watch how you talk to good editors, Andy. Your attitude isn't helping Conservapedia one bit. [[User:ShaggerNorris|ShaggerNorris]] 18:30, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

Andy, if you hope to gain the respect of the mainstream, and avoid being an object of ridicule at RW and everywhere else, provide a solid case instead of anecdotes [[User:Innsmouth1|Innsmouth1]] 19:09, 27 March 2008 (EDT)
: What's RW? [[User:Alberti|Alberti]] 10:19, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

== Removal of bias ==
The bias that was removed should have been kept in. It was a fair point and was correct.
[[User:AdenJ|AdenJ]] 17:55, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

:But it wasn't conservative. This isn't liberalpedia. Why is that so hard for you to understand? --[[User:FrankRingo|FrankRingo]] 17:59, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Are you kidding? A fact is a fact. A fair and correct point is not aligned with politcal leanings. Why is that so hard to understand?
[[User:AdenJ|AdenJ]] 18:01, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

: What specifically do you think was fair? The stuff I removed was unjustified liberal bias.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:02, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

"However, because the professoriate is so large and varied (more than 1,200,000 in the United States alone, in public and private institutions) it would not be valid to conclude that this group of professionals is disproportionately more likely than others groups or the general public to commit crimes or other misdeed"
Its not bias, it is fact. It is not valid that professors are more likely to commit crimes (at least the validity has not been proven here) and by removing this section it sounds more and more like opinion as opposed to an encyclopedia entry. I know you wont budge on this though and any attempt in me to argue or revert will be meet with an arbitary block so I'll turn my attention to less volitile entries.
[[User:AdenJ|AdenJ]] 18:09, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

:Aden, something is not a fact just because it is written down somewhere. Liberal journalists that quote liberal studies that are furnished by liberal organizations do not produce fact - they produce nonsense. Please keep your gibberish out of this site. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable talking about your "facts" over at [[Wikipedia]]. --[[User:FrankRingo|FrankRingo]] 18:12, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

AdenJ, people sharing common values do tend to act in similar ways. Ideas do matter. Surely you don't think all the problems in Hollywood are purely coincidental with [[Hollywood values]]!--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:26, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

My quibble was not whether ideas or shared values matter, it was that factual and relevant material was removed as bias.
[[User:AdenJ|AdenJ]] 18:45, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

:Aden, your "facts" were discussed already. We know you can read, so quit playing stupid. --[[User:FrankRingo|FrankRingo]] 18:50, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Thanks Frank.
[[User:AdenJ|AdenJ]] 18:52, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

: AdenJ, people who disrespect the law are more likely to commit crimes. That's logic, and does not require a citation. [[Professor values]] include a disrespect for rule of law, among other things.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:02, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Again, and for the last time before I slam my head on the table, I was querying why good stats were removed from this article which show that crime amoung professors is not disproportionate. Apparently its not factual, according to you and Frank. End of discussion.
[[User:AdenJ|AdenJ]] 20:08, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

: What statistics are you describing? Merely an estimate of the total number of professors? That doesn't demonstrate anything about proportionate crime.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:14, 4 April 2008 (EDT)
:: The stats I cited, which were removed by you, were from a standard statistical source (see the original citation) and the very high number of professors that exist make the isolated examples provided in the article statistically insignificant. It would be interesting to compare relative crime rates for various professions -- then we'd be able to say that professors are more likely or less likely to commit crimes. I spent a lot of time tracking down those stats and was surprised that you removed them because of "liberal" bias. As my contributions to this Talk page show, I felt uncomfortable seeing ungrounded assertions about professors being disproportionately likely to commit crimes. The few examples are incidental and anecdotal -- they are not statistically significant and one cannot use them to justify the conclusion that professors are more likely to commit crimes than others. Plenty of crimes are committed by teachers, pastors, politicians, business people, and so on -- but no evidence has been supplied to show that they commit crimes less often than professors. I believe my statement was taken away not because it is inherently liberal -- it is attitude neutral -- but rather because the data seriously challenged the validity of the premise of the whole article. After a lot of reading on this in support of my since-removed contributions, I would imagine that, taken as a group, professors are much less likely to commit crimes than many other professions. To prove that, I'd have to do more research and document it well, which I don't have the time to do. The same should be done if one wanted to document that they are MORE likely to commit crimes, but for now those assertions in the article remain unsupported except by isolated examples. That is a very bad example to set for any students, home-schooled or not. My contributions attempted to raise the research standard of the article and I believe the data I supplied were inappropriately removed. [[User:CPlantin|Cplantin] 20:48, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

: I looked for, but could not find, the edit you're describing above. But note that the frequency of crime is not the only issue; the nature of the crimes also matters. Also, it's meaningless to compare wealthy, pampered, highly educated professors to the general population in terms of crime. Any comparison would have to factor in demographic, privilege, and background info.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 14:56, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

:: If it is, as you say, "meaningless to compare wealthy... professors to the general population in terms of crime," then we should remove the entire block of "Crimes by Professors." The number cited is incredibly small, compared with the total number of professors out there, and unless you are positing that they commit crimes with disproportionate frequency (which the article seems to be implying), then it really doesn't have a purpose. We might as well start sections with anecdotal evidence about crimes for several professions. Actually, crime would be the easiest of the categories mentioned in the article to prove. Bullying, etc. may well take place, and some professors are true jerks, but there is not official documentation about instances of promoting immorality, bias against conservatives in classrooms, etc. Anyway, the problem I see with this article is that readers may notice that there is no support of the major assertions except for a handful of examples, some from other countries, one more than 25 years old, and one about a professor being fined $50 for mooning a child. I would suggest that we find documentation to support this article's assertions, call the article an editorial, or delete it entirely. If we look at the nature of the crimes, as you suggest, there are some murders, but also marijuana possession, mooning, attempting to defraud a hospital trust, stalking, possession of child porn, and others -- but not even close to what happens in one major city in one day. Attempting to smear an entire profession based on these examples and no real data is not scholarship. Conservapedia can do better and it should, if it is to be taken seriously. [[User:CPlantin|Cplantin] 1:48, 22 April 2008 (CDT).

::: You didn't respond to my points. The nature of the crimes is as important as their volume, perhaps more so. And, no, we're not going to limit ourselves here to what is recognized by [[liberal]] newspapers and censored journals. Conservapedia reaches beyond what is already widely available, and we're not going to fall for the [[deliberate ignorance]] that plagues less useful resources.

::: Finally, your statement that "some professors are true jerks" obviously misses the point. The problem is not the "jerks", but the "values".--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 14:56, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

:::: I thought I'd addressed the main points you'd asked about, but I'll try again. Frequency of crime is indeed an issue if this article is trying to assert that professors commit crimes proportionally more than those in other specific professions, other professions in general, the general public -- you name it. To prove that they commit more crimes than other groups based on the tiny number of examples is ridiculous. Yes, frequency is not the only issue and the nature of the crimes also matters. But as my comment above shows, the crimes cited in the article, as bad as they are, are not all as bad as, say, murder. Besides murder, there is pot possession, the mooning of a child, stalking, possession of child porn, attempting to defraud a hospital trust. So, to the extent that all crime is bad, then all of those are bad things and I trust that the perps got their just desserts. But are those crimes any more heinous than those committed by any number of people of all kinds of professions, by the rich, by the poor, by politicians, etc. If we do factor in "demographic... and other background info," how would the picture look? Well, we don't really know, do we, because we know of no such studies, if there are any out there. So until we have some kind of actual data to go on, this article should remain silent on the issue (or not exist) or else it will look to readers more like an editorial rather than an encyclopedia article based on factual sources. You'd also asked about the source for my stats. I searched for a long time to find good, reliable numbers regarding professors and other employees in colleges and universities in the United States. Here is the quote you removed, along with the citation:
::::: "However, because the professoriate is so large and varied (more than 1,200,000 in the United States alone, in public and private institutions) it would not be valid to conclude that this group of professionals is disproportionately more likely than others groups or the general public to commit crimes or other misdeeds.<ref>National Center for Educational Statistics, "Table 178, Historical Summary of faculty, students, degrees, and finances in degree-granting institutions: Selected years, 1869-70 through 2005-06" [http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_178.asp?referrer=list]</ref>"
:::: Looking at it again, I should have been clearer by adding something to the effect that "because the professoriate is so large, it would not be valid to conclude that this group of professionals is disproportionately more likely than other groups or the general public to commit crimes or other misdeeds based on a small sample of reported crimes unless the group and its crime rates are compared with those of other professionals or the general public." I also should have place the stats citation right after I mentioned the number of professors. The source supports that information and not the rest of the sentence. While I could have been clearer, the statement should not have been removed because you were "cleaning out liberal bias." What is liberal about that statement? I was trying to make the article more substantial and accurate. There are clearly claims in the article that are unsupported and therefore in violation of the Conservapedia Commandments, and I was doing research to find accurate data about the population under discussion. It was only a start and I was enjoying the research, but having my contribution yanked was like getting an unwarranted suckerpunch. In a sense, you did what you accuse professors of doing: you bullied someone you thought had an opposing point of view. Trying to verify facts and add documentation is neither liberal nor conservative - it is research. [[User:CPlantin|Cplantin] 22:51:48, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

== [[Debate:Are Liberals fundamentally evil?|Liberal]] professor [[PZ Myers]] just linked to this article ==

[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/a_temporary_palliative.php Here]. Be on the watch for vandals. [[User:Jinxmchue|Jinxmchue]] 13:20, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

== this article is ridiculous ==

it's kind of funny actually [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 13:59, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Homosexual behavior

2008-06-02T04:19:05Z

NRupert:

'''Homosexual behavior''' is sexual contact between two people of the same sex, i.e., two males or between two females. If a male animal (such as a ruminant) mounts another male, it is not necessarily "homosexual"; that is just dominance behavior or possibly the result of poor vision, though gay animals have been observed.

The Roman Catholic Church makes a distinction between harboring homosexual inclination (or {{show2|sexual|orientation}}) and actually acting upon that inclination. Thus, it deems the former acceptable while joining most Christians and Jews in condemning the latter as sinful.

[[category:homosexuality]]
[[category:Catholicism]]

Talk:Illegal immigration

2008-06-02T02:35:09Z

NRupert: /* Liberty */

Some pretty sweeping statements there. Not all illegals are Mexicans, and many of them do speak some English. Also, many American citizens do not speak English. [[User:Czolgolz|Czolgolz]] 16:06, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

==Misc ideas I just had==
Seems to me the reason for so much illegal immigration is that it takes upwards of a decade to get citizenship. Maybe we should do something to streamline the process and make it easier to get citizenship? That gets rid of tax-dodging, insuranceless illegals working for less than minimum wage.

Also, I think that forcing schools to teach in two languages is crap, and what we need to do is to build special schools where immigrant children are given one year of intensified English language training, which will prepare them for learning in an English school curriculum. Just put them right where they left off in a normal school once they're done learning English.

Of course, we absolutely wouldn't have any of these problems if Mexico wasn't such a cesspool of subhuman living conditions around the border. Believe me, I've been there, and it's awful. People living in unfinished houses and whatnot.

I used to live in Mexico. They view their north the way we view our south...[[User:Czolgolz|Czolgolz]] 11:44, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

== WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? ==

Why does the entry for "Guatemalan" redirect to "Illegal Immigration?" I call RACISM! [[User:Jacobin|Jacobin]] 21:21, 15 April 2007 (EDT)
:It's been deleted, and the user has been warned. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 21:22, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

== Illegal Immigration in Mexico ==

I used to live in Mexico. They were not kind to the illegals who came there from Central America. [[User:Maestro|Maestro]] 18:53, 30 May 2007 (EDT)

It seems to me that some of the illegal immigration hysteria is based on prejudice. In New York City I hear the same things about Asians as about Hispanics. In northern New England I bet they're hysterical about French Canadians coming into the U.S. I have the impression that many people don't make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. As long as the immigrants don't come from Europe, they're all considered illegal.[[User:Oldoligarch|Oldoligarch]] 17:46, 12 June 2007 (EDT)

== Liberty ==

Like the Lady says:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I will build a fence to keep them out! [[User:PerpetualAngst|PerpetualAngst]] 20:53, 19 June 2007 (PDT)

Fences at the Mexican border, fences in Palestine...fences everywhere...this is progress? [[User:Maestro|Maestro]] 00:56, 20 June 2007 (EDT)
:No different than the fences in one's own yard. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 15:03, 20 June 2007 (EDT)
:Just a little higher than the average Joe can jump.--[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:15, 20 June 2007 (EDT)

The debate over illegal immigration is thinly disguised racism. It used to be Irish, Swedes, Poles, Jews, Italians, Blacks, et al. that were ruining the country. Now it's Mexicans. Who's next?[[User:Panini|Panini]] 13:46, 21 July 2007 (EDT)
:Does that same standard apply to opposition to Mexican laborers goods being sold in the United States? If Mexican's are kept out because of racist laws, wouldn't laws that restrict, prohibit, or tax the fruit of their labor being sold in the US also be racist? Isn't opposition to [[free trade]] and [[NAFTA]] racist then, granting the special privilege of higher income by virtue of birth to US citizens, over foreigners, who can starve to death, for all we care? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 14:58, 22 July 2007 (EDT)
:: I'm pretty sure none of what you just said makes any sense [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 22:35, 1 June 2008 (EDT)

== crimes committed by illegal immigrants ==
what is the relevance of this section? [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 22:34, 1 June 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Illegal immigration

2008-06-02T02:34:17Z

NRupert:

Some pretty sweeping statements there. Not all illegals are Mexicans, and many of them do speak some English. Also, many American citizens do not speak English. [[User:Czolgolz|Czolgolz]] 16:06, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

==Misc ideas I just had==
Seems to me the reason for so much illegal immigration is that it takes upwards of a decade to get citizenship. Maybe we should do something to streamline the process and make it easier to get citizenship? That gets rid of tax-dodging, insuranceless illegals working for less than minimum wage.

Also, I think that forcing schools to teach in two languages is crap, and what we need to do is to build special schools where immigrant children are given one year of intensified English language training, which will prepare them for learning in an English school curriculum. Just put them right where they left off in a normal school once they're done learning English.

Of course, we absolutely wouldn't have any of these problems if Mexico wasn't such a cesspool of subhuman living conditions around the border. Believe me, I've been there, and it's awful. People living in unfinished houses and whatnot.

I used to live in Mexico. They view their north the way we view our south...[[User:Czolgolz|Czolgolz]] 11:44, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

== WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? ==

Why does the entry for "Guatemalan" redirect to "Illegal Immigration?" I call RACISM! [[User:Jacobin|Jacobin]] 21:21, 15 April 2007 (EDT)
:It's been deleted, and the user has been warned. --[[User:Hojimachong|'''Hojimachong''']][[User_Talk:Hojimachong|talk]] 21:22, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

== Illegal Immigration in Mexico ==

I used to live in Mexico. They were not kind to the illegals who came there from Central America. [[User:Maestro|Maestro]] 18:53, 30 May 2007 (EDT)

It seems to me that some of the illegal immigration hysteria is based on prejudice. In New York City I hear the same things about Asians as about Hispanics. In northern New England I bet they're hysterical about French Canadians coming into the U.S. I have the impression that many people don't make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. As long as the immigrants don't come from Europe, they're all considered illegal.[[User:Oldoligarch|Oldoligarch]] 17:46, 12 June 2007 (EDT)

== Liberty ==

Like the Lady says:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I will build a fence to keep them out! [[User:PerpetualAngst|PerpetualAngst]] 20:53, 19 June 2007 (PDT)

Fences at the Mexican border, fences in Palestine...fences everywhere...this is progress? [[User:Maestro|Maestro]] 00:56, 20 June 2007 (EDT)
:No different than the fences in one's own yard. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 15:03, 20 June 2007 (EDT)
:Just a little higher than the average Joe can jump.--[[User:Will N.|Will N.]] 15:15, 20 June 2007 (EDT)

The debate over illegal immigration is thinly disguised racism. It used to be Irish, Swedes, Poles, Jews, Italians, Blacks, et al. that were ruining the country. Now it's Mexicans. Who's next?[[User:Panini|Panini]] 13:46, 21 July 2007 (EDT)
:Does that same standard apply to opposition to Mexican laborers goods being sold in the United States? If Mexican's are kept out because of racist laws, wouldn't laws that restrict, prohibit, or tax the fruit of their labor being sold in the US also be racist? Isn't opposition to [[free trade]] and [[NAFTA]] racist then, granting the special privilege of higher income by virtue of birth to US citizens, over foreigners, who can starve to death, for all we care? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 14:58, 22 July 2007 (EDT)

== crimes committed by illegal immigrants ==
what is the relevance of this section? [[User:NRupert|NRupert]] 22:34, 1 June 2008 (EDT)

Immigration

2008-06-02T02:32:52Z

NRupert:

'''Immigration''' is the ''lawful'' entry of a person of a certain nationality to another [[nation]]. Most immigrants use immigration to escape from conditions of poverty, persecution, or overpopulation in their home countries. Immigration laws differ from country to country, so it is best to educate yourself before you decide to immigrate.

==Immigration Reform==
Most Americans envisage and advocate for a coherent set of national interest principles for immigration policy and the enforcement our Constitutionally derived laws. Some ''open border advocates'' try to cloak themselves in the mantle of "immigration reform," but they fail to address the concerns of the American populace and detriments to foreign countries that lose people. Due to lack of enforcement, illegal immigration occurs widely in the U.S., especially along the Mexican border.

To some people the value of American citizenship has increased greatly since the founding of the Republic. There are 12 million illegal citizens living here in USA and it would be very costly to deport all these people. It becomes more complicated as they marry and have children which are then legal US citizens. There is a discussion of allowing these 12 million people to follow certain steps to become citizens that can pay taxes and become more contributing members of society. Some people view this as granting amnesty to criminals but do not offer an actual solution to the immigration problem.

==See Also==
* [[Illegal immigration]]
* [[Refugee]]

==External Links==
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/immigration/ What Liberals Say - Category: Immigration], [[Accuracy In Media]]

[[category:politics]]

Calculus of variations

2008-06-02T02:21:14Z

NRupert: New page: The calculus of variations is the optimization of functionals. An important related concept is the Euler-Lagrange equation.

The calculus of variations is the optimization of [[functionals]]. An important related concept is the [[Euler-Lagrange equation]].

Ron Paul

2008-06-02T02:18:24Z

NRupert:

[[Image:Ronpaul.jpg|right|250x250px|thumb|Ron Paul]]

'''Ronald Ernest “Ron” Paul''' (born 20 August, 1935) is a 10th-term Congressman, a former Air Force Flight Surgeon, a medical doctor (M.D.) and a 2008 presidential candidate from the U.S. state of [[Texas]]. As a [[Republican Party|Republican]], he has represented Texas's 14th congressional district in the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] since 1997, and had previously served as the representative from Texas's 22nd district in 1976 and from 1979 to 1985.

Paul, a [[pro-life]] states' rights [[libertarian]] who advocates the limited role of government, low taxes, free markets, strict construction of the [[U.S. Constitution]] and a return to monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He has earned the nickname "Dr. No" for voting against any bill he believes violates the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill. He has never voted to raise taxes or congressional pay. He has always voted against the [[USA PATRIOT Act]], the [[Military Commissions Act of 2006]], and the [[Iraq War]].

==Congressional record==

Ron Paul is noted for his authorship of the We the People Act, an act which removed the ability of the US Supreme Court to hear cases involving discrimination based on sexual orientation or religion. He is also noted for submitting several bills banning [[abortion]], and somewhat controversially was the only person to oppose the Darfur Divestment Act of 2007, a bill which disallowed the US government, corporations, and individuals from sending money to or doing business with the janjaweed rebel group of the Sudan.

== Early life and education ==

Dr. Ron Paul was born in [[Pittsburgh]], Pennsylvania to Howard Caspar Paul and Margaret Paul.<ref>http://dailypaul.com/node/53</ref><ref>http://www.wargs.com/political/paul.html</ref> He graduated from Dormont High School in Dormont, Pennsylvania, in 1953. Paul attended Gettysburg College, receiving his [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree in 1957, and the [[Duke University School of Medicine]], receiving [[Doctor of Medicine|M.D.]] in 1961. He did his [[internship]] and [[Residency (medicine)|residency]] at [[Henry Ford Hospital]] in [[Detroit]], Michigan, from 1961 to 1962, and was a [[flight surgeon]] in the [[United States Air Force]] from 1963 to 1968. He and his wife Carol moved to Texas in 1968, where he began his medical practice in Brazoria County. As a specialist in [[obstetrics]]/[[gynecology]], Dr. Paul has delivered more than 4,000 babies. He and Carol, who reside in Lake Jackson, Texas, are the proud parents of five children and have seventeen grandchildren.

===Political affiliations and support===
Although a Republican, Paul remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and addressed its national convention as recently as 2004.<ref>[http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-09-num-10.htm Liberator online archive] on Advocates for self-governing accessed at March 4, 2007</ref>

Paul served as the honorary chairman of and is a current member of the [[Republican Liberty Caucus]], a political action organization dedicated to promoting the ideals of individual rights, limited government and free enterprise within the Republican Party.<ref>[http://fl.rlc.org/ Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida] accessed at March 4, 2007</ref>

Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions (96.8% in 2005-2006), from individuals. <ref>http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.asp?CID=N00005906&cycle=2006/</ref>

===Political Views===

Paul wants to "reinstate the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]] and restore the [[Republic]]." He rejects a [[welfare state]] or [[nanny state]] role for the federal government, and advocates a strong [[non-interventionism|non-interventionist]] [[foreign policy]].

He voted against the [[Iraq War]] in 2002 and has offered alternatives such as granting the President authority to grant [[Letters of Marque and Reprisal]], and arming [[pilot]]s. He is the only Republican presidential candidate to have voted against the Iraq War.

Paul's desire to secure U.S. borders remains a key topic in his 2008 presidential campaign. He opposes the [[North American Union]] proposition and its proposed integration of Mexico, the United States of America, and Canada. Paul voted "yes" on the [[Secure Fence Act of 2006]], which authorizes the construction of an additional 700 miles of double-layered fencing between the U.S and Mexico. Paul opposes illegal immigration as well as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

In the May 3, 2007 GOP Debate, Ron Paul stated that as President, he would seek the immediate abolition of the [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] and the abolition of the income tax. As Congressman, he has long fought for the [[Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Section_9:_Limits_on_Congress|prohibition of direct taxes]] by repeal of the [[16th Amendment to the United States Constitution|16th Amendment]] which created the [[income tax]]. Ron Paul supports a return to the [[gold]] standard of currency particularly newer theorized pure strain gold.

On March 5, 2008, Ron Paul was the only member of the house to vote against a bill "Condemning the ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and for other purposes"<ref>http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll093.xml FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 93</ref><ref>http://pressmediawire.com/article.cfm?articleID=18214 Congressman Ron Paul's Statement on Gaza Bill</ref> ",
==2008 Presidential Campaign==

Paul formally declared his candidacy for the Presidential election in 2008 in 12 March, 2007 as a guest on [[Washington Journal]] on [[C-SPAN]].<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA031207.paul2008.EN.74141d9.html | title = Paul formally launches presidential bid | first = Gary | last = Martin | work = San Antonio Express-News | accessdate = 2007-03-13}}</ref> <ref>[http://chbn.com/Clip.aspx?key=1CD9E3A0397BCBEC Ron Paul announcing candidacy on C-SPAN]</ref>. In regards to his candidacy, he had a 30-minute interview with online political analyst [[James Kotecki]] regarding foreign policy, Congress and the Constitution, and personal liberties. <ref>[http://www.youtube.com/jameskotecki James Kotecki interviews Ron Paul]</ref>

Paul participated (along with nine other Republican presidential candidates) in the [[Ronald Reagan Presidential Library]]'s 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates Debate on May 3, 2007. Ron Paul finished first in the MSNBC poll following the GOP primary debate with 43 percent -- beating second place [[Mitt Romney]] by 5 percentage points.[http://www.ronpaul2008.typepad.com/]

Paul seemed to have dropped slightly in the polls that followed the second Republican debate in Columbia, South Carolina, to 25 percent. This was probably as a result of his suggestion that weekly bombing of [[Iraq]] following [[Operation Desert Fox]] in December 1998 may have contributed sufficiently to [[Arab]] anger at the United States as to make the [[September 11, 2001 attacks|September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks]] inevitable. Paul was excoriated by [[Rudy Giuliani]], who said that this was the most bizarre explanation for the attacks he had ever heard. Other Republican commentators sought to explain Paul's continued strength in post-debate polls as the result of multiple votes by his supporters or voting by non-Republicans. In response to Rudy Giuliani, the next day at the National Press Club, Ron Paul offered Rudy a book list to read regarding the issue of American foreign policy. These books are ''Imperial Hubris'' by Michael Scheuer, ''Dying to Win'' by Robert Pape, ''Blowback'' by Chalmers Johnson, and ''The 9-11 Commission Report'' by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks.

Eric Dondero, a former Ron Paul staffer, has declared himself a candidate against Paul in the 2008 Republican primary election to represent the 14th District of Texas in Congress.

Paul has garnered large amounts of support from activists, particularly on the [[Internet]]. Many have come up with creative ways to campaign for their candidate. For example, some Paul supporters, who are not officially affiliated with his campaign, purchased a blimp to fly overhead with the phrases "Who is Ron Paul? Google Ron Paul" and "Ron Paul Revolution". <ref>http://www.ronpaulblimp.com/</ref>

=== Possible Campaign censorship by the Media ===

Fox News has more times excluded Ron Paul from its programs, even in at least one case removing him from Iowa Straw Poll results. Fox News' results left out Paul (as well as [[Tom Tancredo]]), even though they scored 9.1% and 13.7%, respectively.

=== Straw Poll results ===

Ron Paul was recently established as the most frequent winner of Straw Poll, as reported on his site: [http://www.ronpaul2008.com/straw-poll-results/].

==Telephone Hotline==
Ron Paul runs a toll-free [[telephone]] hotline with a recorded message of conservative commentary. It is updated every Monday. The number is 1-888-322-1414.

==Books by Ron Paul==
* ''Challenge to Liberty''. Lake Jackson, Tex.: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education
* ''Gold, Peace, and Prosperity''. Lake Jackson, Tex.: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education
* ''Ten Myths About Paper Money''. Lake Jackson, Tex.: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education
* ''The Case for Gold''. Reprinted by the [[The Cato Institute|Cato Institute]], 1982; Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007. ISBN 0-932790-31-3. ([http://www.mises.org/books/caseforgold.pdf])
* ''A Republic, If You Can Keep It''
* ''Mises and Austrian Economics: A Personal View''. Auburn, Ala.: [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]], 1984.
* ''Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution After 200 Years''. Lake Jackson, Tex.: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, 1987. ([http://www.dailypaul.com/node/65] Book distributed with permission in 7 parts in pdf-format)
* ''A Foreign Policy of Freedom''. Lake Jackson, Tex.: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, 2007. ISBN 0-912453-00-1

== References ==

* Gwynne, Sam (1 October, 2001). ''Texas Monthly''.
* Bernstein, Alan (May 23, 1996). “Newsletter excerpts offer ammunition to Paul's opponent; GOP hopeful quoted on race, crime”, ''The Houston Chronicle'', p. A33.
<references />

==External Links==
===Official Sites and Publications===
* [http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ Official Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Site]
* [http://www.house.gov/paul/ Official web site of Congressman Ron Paul]
* [http://www.myspace.com/congressmanronpaul Ron Paul's MySpace page]
* [http://www3.webng.com/ronpaul Ron Paul Grassroots Campaign] 
* [http://antiwar.com/paul/archives.php Rep. Ron Paul's Column for Antiwar.com]
* [http://www.mediamonitors.net/ronpaul2.html Commentary by Rep. Paul on U.S. policy in the Middle East]
* [http://www.counterpunch.org/paul03182004.html The Broadcast Indecency Act, An Indecent Attack on the First Amendment] by Ron Paul
* [http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr062702.htm Is America a Police State?], speech before the U.S. House of Representatives on June 27, 2002

===Positions and Quotations===
* [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ron_Paul Quotes by Ron Paul on Wikiquote]
* [http://senate.ontheissues.org/Ron_Paul.htm On the Issues - Ron Paul] issue positions and quotes
* [http://vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=BC031929 Project Vote Smart - Ron Paul]
* [http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/p000583/ Voting record maintained by the Washington Post]
* [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ron_Paul SourceWatch Congresspedia - Ron Paul]
* [http://www.medicalmarijuanaprocon.org/BiosInd/Paul.htm Congressman Ron Paul and Medical Marijuana]

===Third Party Sources about Ron Paul===
* [http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allsummary.asp?CID=N00005906 OpenSecrets.org - Congressional campaign contributions]
* [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2008/primaries/candidates/paul.html Vote 2008: Ron Paul - Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer]
* [http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/can_detail/P80000748 Federal Election Commission - Presidential campaign contributions]
* [http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/ron-paul.html Advocates for Self-Government profile of Ron Paul]
* [http://www.virtuemag.org/articles/ron-paul Virtue Magazine Political profile of Ron Paul]
* [http://dailypaul.com/node/53 The American Dream - Through the Eyes of Mrs. Ron Paul] by Mrs. Ron Paul on TheDailyPaul.

===Articles and Editorials about Ron Paul===
* [http://www.321gold.com/editorials/taylor/taylor031706.html Congressman Ron Paul Talks About Gold, Oil & the Economy]
* [http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2004/pr042104.htm National Taxpayers Union Honors Ron Paul as one of 29 Congressmen who are "Taxpayer's Friends"]

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[[Category:United States Representatives]]
[[Category:2008 Presidential Candidates]]
[[Category:Republican Party]]
[[Category: 110th United States Congress]]