If only we could get Charles Manson on the mat with a megaphone....

yes i believe mr. mansons scriptures would express the views of "the family"

Maybe Mr.Haggard could preach about the dangers of drugs and homosexual prostitutes

Yes...

I sure his security team would personally clear the bathrooms of all heathens.

True except that the wrestlers who are doing the prayer are not singling anyone out purposefully. Again the prayer's intention is for the safety of the wrestlers. No one is purposefully making someone anxious. Why should the wrestler stop the praying for what he believes in, just because another wrestler is a little uncomfortable? Should we not allow wrestlers to pray right before the whistle because it might make the opponent a little uncomfortable? In my opinion, most of the wrestlers that choose not to go to the prayer don't because they would rather focus on their wrestling. They don't sit there and think about being left out.

This may be true for most wrestlers but there will be some who feel awkward and compelled to join in because of pressure.

We cannot infringe upon the rights of others just to make a few people happy.

"The position of the KSHSAA is as follows: Because of the diversity of people attending KSHSAA post-season events, the KSHSAA member schools should observe a moment of silence for personal thoughts and meditation instead of invoking a prayer."


The above statement came directly from Rick Bowden in an email today(2/16/11).

I just think that people need to be sensitive and compassionate to the Jewish, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Mormans, Jehova Witness and anyone else who could be attending. I commend these young people and everyones faith. I am not putting anyones faith down. I just personally feel its place is not in the center of the mat but instead in a private place. I am not a god hater. I understand that there are conflicting interests, values, beliefs, cares and concerns in this world. Good luck and health to all the wrestlers and peace to all.

Never said anything about force or threats. I equate this to my earlier comment that this is "like a white dude running through a black neighborhood yelling the "N" word. Do you agree that woud be coercive? This organized prayer will be presented by a few in front of people of probably many different Christian denominations, probably a few Catholics, perhaps and Asian or two, even an athesist, and I know one team at Holden that has a couple of Muslim wrestlers and a couple of Hmongs. I find this to be offensive and coercive. Also, I think I can find a court decision that says there is no such thing as a non-denominational prayer.

If Doug has an email from KSHSAA stating no objection, then why all the secrecy unless he wanted a repeat of last year's row on this same subject on this forum. Apparaently even Chief did not know of the supposed KSHSAA position---or he surely would have mentioned it!

I have my opinions, others have theirs. Enough said. End of subject.

We are being sensitive it seems to me like you guys are not being very sensitive by sitting here telling teenagers what they can and cant do. and if you have witnessed these before its just on the side of the mat a little group while everyone is running around talking not like its made a huge deal. And can you explain to me how we are being insensitive you do realize the above listed religions have the same right to do as we are right??? No one is telling them no.

Chanute Regionals - Wrestler from Prairie View High School
Arkansas City Regionals - Wrestler from Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School

We have half of the regionals filled up.

Regionals that have not been volunteered for are
4A
Concordia and Maize
5A
Hays and Shawnee-Mill Valley
6A
All 4 Regionals.

If you wish to lead one of these just let me know. My contact info is on the very first page.

Thanks,
Michael Vander Linden

The position of the KSHSAA is as follows: Because of the diversity of people attending KSHSAA post-season events, the KSHSAA member schools should observe a moment of silence for personal thoughts and meditation instead of invoking a prayer."

does that mean kshaa is going to put a stop to this?

OK...

The law of Biogenesis states that “life only arises from life”. In science a law means there are no exceptions to that rule. Take the law of gravity- no exceptions to that law. So why would there be any exceptions to the law of Biogenesis? i.e. the big bang theory, life coming from non-life.

Scientists say that human’s DNA is about 96% the same as an ape’s. This must be evidence that humans evolved from apes. Did you know that a cloud is made up of 96% water, a watermelon is made up of 96% water, and a jellyfish is made up of 96% water? Does that mean that they evolved from the same thing? No, this means that we have a common creator, God.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy) says that everything goes from organization to chaos. Evolution directly contradicts this. In evolution, everything goes from chaos to complexity by chance. Here is an example: A man in an airplane at 5,000 feet is holding 10,000 playing cards in two neat decks. He drops them out of the airplane. The cards are floating down towards earth in no order whatsoever. What are the chances that those cards will land on the ground spelling out WELCOME? Not very likely. When this is applied to evolution scientists say it takes more time for the chaos to become order. So, back to the example but this time the airplane is at 25,000 feet, allowing more time for the cards to organize themselves as they fall towards the ground. Do you think that just because of more time they will be able to spell the word WELCOME? No, they will probably be even more disorganized, with cards spread out even further.

Natural selection is change horizontally within a species. Evolution is change vertically where one species turns into another species. Change horizontally goes on every day, Christians accept this. They also accept survival of the fittest and adaptation to the environment. Those who believe in evolution often quote Darwin’s Finch example, where the beaks of the finches vary in size, shape, etc. This is change horizontally within a species, not vertical change. The finches are still finches. There are no known examples of transitional fossils that can be absolutely proven to be transitional fossils. Darwin said that if evolution were true there would be an plenty of transitional fossils, and we have yet to find one!

All we see is devolution!

Good question. Mr. Bowden did not say in his email. Maybe someone should ask him. He acknowledged that it had been brought to kshsaa attention in the past and that "we try to inform our post-season hosts of the policy." I'm not sure what that means.

There is no possible way of policing these prayers. Just as wrestlers pray on the mat before a match, so will they gather for a short prayer before the tournament. All of this talk of legality and liability is a scare tactic that is completely unenforceable.

What is commonly called the Law of Biogenesis was shown by Pasteur to apply to a small isolated environment (like a flask) for a limited amount of time (several weeks at most). It has not been shown at all to apply to the environment consisting of all the oceans, waterways, and surfaces on the planet over millions upon millions of years

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

Transitional fossils

With the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin this week, people around the world are celebrating his role as the father of evolutionary theory. Events and press releases are geared, in part, to combat false claims made by some who would discredit the theory.

One frequently cited "hole" in the theory: Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, aka missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false.

As key evidence for evolution and species' gradual change over time, transitional creatures should resemble intermediate species, having skeletal and other body features in common with two distinct groups of animals, such as reptiles and mammals, or fish and amphibians.

These animals sound wild, but the fossil record — which is far from complete — is full of them nonetheless, as documented by Occidental College geologist Donald Prothero in his book "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters" (Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero discussed those fossils last month at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, along with transitional fossils that were announced since the book was published, including the "fishibian" and the "frogamander."

At least hundreds, possibly thousands, of transitional fossils have been found so far by researchers. The exact count is unclear because some lineages of organisms are continuously evolving.

Here is a short list of transitional fossils documented by Prothero and that add to the mountain of evidence for Charles Darwin's theory. A lot of us relate most to fossils of life closely related to humans, so the list focuses on mammals and other vertebrates, including dinosaurs.

Mammals, including us

It is now clear that the evolutionary tree for early and modern humans looks more like a bush than the line represented in cartoons. All the hominid fossils found to date form a complex nexus of specimens, Prothero says, but Sahelanthropus tchadensis, found in 2001 and 2002, threw everyone for a loop because it walked upright 7 million years ago on two feet but is quite chimp-like in its skull size, teeth, brow ridges and face. It could be a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, but many paleoanthropologists will remain unsure until more fossils are found. Previously, the earliest ancestor of our Homo genus found in the fossil record dated back 6 million years.
-Most fossil giraffes have short necks and today's have long necks, but anatomist Nikos Solounias of the New York Institute of Technology's New York College of Osteopathic Medicine is preparing a description of a giraffe fossil, Bohlinia, with a neck that is intermediate in length.
Manatees, also called sea cows, are marine mammals that have flippers and a down-turned snout for grazing in warm shallow waters. In 2001, scientists discovered the fossil of a "walking manatee," Pezosiren portelli, which had feet rather than flippers and walked on land during the Eocene epoch (54.8 million years ago to 33.7 million years ago) in what is now Jamaica. Along with skull features like manatees (such as horizontal tooth replacement, like a conveyor belt), it also had heavy ribs for ballast, showing that it also had an aquatic lifestyle, like hippos.
Scientists know that mastodons, mammoths and elephants all share a common ancestor, but it gets hard to tell apart some of the earliest members of this group, called proboscideans, going back to fossils from the Oligocene epoch (33.7 million years ago to 23.8 million years ago). The primitive members of this group can be traced back to what Prothero calls "the ultimate transitional fossil," Moeritherium, from the late Eocene of Egypt. It looked more like a small hippo than an elephant and probably lacked a long trunk, but it had short upper and lower tusks, the teeth of a primitive mastodon and ear features found only in other proboscideans.
The Dimetrodon was a big predatory reptile with a tail and a large sail or fin-back. It is often mistaken for a dinosaur, but it's actually part of our mammalian lineage and more closely related to mammals than reptiles, which is seen in its specialized teeth for stabbing meat and skull features that only mammals and their ancestors had. It probably moved around like a lizard and had a jawbone made of multiple bones, like a reptile.
Dinosaurs and birds

The classic fossil of Archaeopteryx, sometimes called the first bird, has a wishbone (fully fused clavicle) which is only found in modern birds and some dinosaurs. But it also shows impressions from feathers on its body, as seen on many of the theropod dinosaurs from which it evolved. Its body, capable of flight or gliding, also had many of dinosaur features — teeth (no birds alive today have teeth), a long bony tail (tails on modern birds are entirely feathers, not bony), long hind legs and toes, and a specialized hand with long bony fingers (unlike modern bird wings in which the fingers are fused into a single element), Prothero said.
Sinornis was a bird that also has long bony fingers and teeth, like those seen in dinosaurs and not seen in modern birds.
Yinlong is a small bipedal dinosaur which shares features with two groups of dinosaurs known to many kids — ceratopsians, the beaked dinosaurs like Triceratops, and pachycephalosaurs, known for having a thick dome of bone in their skulls protecting their brains. Yinlong has the thick rostral bone that is otherwise unique to ceratopsians dinosaurs, and the thick skull roof found in the pachycephalosaurs.
Anchisaurus is a primitive sauropod dinosaur that has a lot of lizard-like features. It was only 8 feet long (the classic sauropods later on could be more than 100-feet long), had a short neck (sauropods are known for their long necks, while lizards are not), and delicate limbs and feet, unlike dinosaurs. Its spine was like that of a sauropod. The early sauropods were bipedal, while the latter were stood on all fours. Anchisaurus was probably capable of both stances, Prothero wrote.
Fish, frogs, turtles

Tiktaalik, aka the fishibian or the fishapod, is a large scaled fish that shows a perfect transition between fins and feet, aquatic and land animals. It had fish-like scales, as well as fish-like fin rays and jaw and mouth elements, but it had a shortened skull roof and mobile neck to catch prey, an ear that could hear in both land and water, and a wrist joint that is like those seen in land animals.
Last year, scientists announced the discovery of Gerobatrachus hottorni, aka the frogamander. Technically, it's a toothed amphibian, but it shows the common origins of frogs and salamanders, scientists say, with a wide skull and large ear drum (like frogs) and two fused ankle bones as seen in salamanders.
A creature on the way to becoming a turtle, Odontochelys semistestacea, swam around in China's coastal waters 200 million years ago. It had a belly shell but its back was basically bare of armor. Odontochelys had an elongated, pointed snout. Most modern turtles have short snouts. In addition, the roof of its mouth, along with the upper and lower jaws, was equipped with teeth, which the researchers said is a primitive feature for turtles whose mugs are now tipped with beaks but contain no teeth.


Charles Darwin's Legacy
Gallery: Drawing Dinosaurs
All About Evolution



Chief just about every major scientist refutes your claims made in your earlier post, I tried to keep this reply a short as possible but your ridiculous claims have no basis in science at all. You can find hundreds of scientific articles written by leading biologist, physisists, and geologists to refute every claim you made. your post is not based in fact but is purely fiction, what I have here is just a very small sampling of scholorly articles refuting your claims.

20 pages on this? Unbelievable, but not surprising.

Student-led prayer in public venues is constitutional, that is the whole purpose of the free exercise clause of the first amendment. Everybody should know that, it is a basic Civics lesson, many of you should actually read the whole amendment.

If a group of Muslims wanted to meet in the middle of the mat and perform a Salat, they would have the same opportunity as the group of collective Christians who have chosen to do the same thing this Friday. It is not a school sanctioned event and does not cause a substantive disruption. The Satanists who gather before the tournament to sacrifice a live chicken would cause a substantive disruption, not to mention health department concerns and would therefore not be allowed to perform such and act.

There isn’t a whole lot of rocket science taking place here. It can’t be put in the program or announced over the PA (unless TMP is hosting ) but a peaceful gathering of like-minded people who gather to pray in a non-disruptive manner in a public venue is legal 1,000 times out of a 1,000. It doesn’t matter how many bible verses you quote or don’t quote, this is legal. Don’t agree? Vote and send you money to people of influence who share your views.

To the wrestlers this weekend: theists, atheists and agnostics alike, GOOD LUCK to you no matter who you put in your corner.

In parting I leave you with one of my favorite verses, because I can:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” - Ephesians 6:12

I spit orange juice out of my nose when I read your comments about evolution. I will start with your point about the 2nd law.

You have said that the second law only applies to closed systems, this is a classic example of your lack of understanding and confusion of the experimental necessity for a closed system to test for the existence of the Second Law, with the actual actions of the Second Law being evident in the open systems in which we live. Because the universe itself may be considered to be an isolated system and all naturally occurring processes are irreversible, one statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing. In fact, Clausius summarized the first two laws for thermodynamics by: “The energy of the Universe is constant; the entropy is tending to
maximum.”
1. Irreversible processes will result in an increase in entropy of the universe.
(Irreversible process will result in entropy generation.) Irreversible processes
result in loss capability for performing work.
2. Reversible processes result in no increase in entropy of the universe. (Reversible
processes result in no entropy generation.)
3. Proposed processes which would result in a decrease of entropy of the universe
are impossible. (Impossible processes result in negative entropy generation.)

We, along with this entire universe are on a downward spiral towards an ever-increasing state of entropy (chaos). The Second Law of thermodynamics proves this point. And closed systems are an experimental necessity for us to test for and to observe the existence of the Second Law of thermodynamics that is evident in the universe we live in.

EVOLUTION IS IMPOSSIBILITY!

Redstorm, I mean no disrespect but...

"Organized prayer in the public school setting, whether in the classroom or at a school-sponsored event, is unconstitutional. The only type of prayer that is constitutionally permissible is private, voluntary student prayer that does not interfere with the school's educational mission."

"[ T] he Establishment Clause forbids state-sponsored prayers in public school settings no matter how nondenominational the prayers may be." Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992).

Look it up if you need to. I posted a good site previously to help educate the unimformed.

wow i thought last years talk about about smoking and drinking in front of children was great. but this one is better thanks for the reading material.

This is really starting to remind me of an episode of COPS. You always have that person who gets arrested because the cop tells them to do something and they refuse to obey a lawful order. They kick and scream all the way to jail (usually drunk) professing they did nothing wrong and they know their rights, and often times additional charges are added because of the damage they do during their tantrum. WHAT THESE KIDS ARE DOING IS LEGAL! If you disagree, please feel free to contact the police or possibly a judge prior to these events to have them stopped. I wonder what their response will be.........