I don't think that the murders had anything at all to do with atheism. They were politically motivated. It was all about power, not religious beliefs. I also think you're confused about agnostics. It doesn't mean they don't care. It just means that they don't believe there is any evidence to support or refute the existence of a deity.
Atheists don't direct the followers to murder fellow human beings, the philosophy does not have clean hands, as far as attrocities goes.
As near as I can tell, atheists don't do anything in the name of there (lack of) religious beliefs. They don't believe in religions, so they do things for more worldly reasons.
Even the most totalitarian regime can't make everyone 'disappear'. If enough people sit-in, stand up, or otherwise peaceably resist The totalitarians have two choices: kill everyone (and then who would they boss around?) or at least pay lip service to what the protestors want.
Sure, they can't kill everyone, but there have been plenty of instances in history where they've killed thousands or even millions of people. Now if you don't want to be one of those people who get slaughtered, you can either keep your mouth shut or you can fight your own war against those who would have you killed for voicing your opinion.
hence the israelis go after the rock throwing palestinis with uzis, then secret police, and they would probably drop a nuke on them if it wouldn't fuck up their own backyard.
Apples and oranges. We're talking about standing up to your own government, not 2 countries fighting.
Phrased like that, you could make any religious group sound like a bunch of whackjobs. Christians, Muslims, anyone at all I think. Face it, there is no real evidence of anyone's religious beliefs. That's why they are called faiths. Therefore it's quite easy to declare that any religious group is a bunch of whackjobs for believing something that there is no evidence of, and that's before you even get down to their individual rituals and texts for the really hilarious stuff.
Ok, I'm not entirely familiar with the reasons for these slaughters, but I don't recall atheism being part of it. Are you saying that Stalin and Pol Pot killed people because they believed in a god of some sort? Were Stalin and Pol Pot atheists?
This is sort of beside the point. Scientology should have the right to control the copying of their copyrighted documents.
Even copyrighted documents are allowed to be copied under certain circumstances. One of those is for the purpose of criticism or comment. That seems to fit the current case. The documents pretty much criticize themselves in the eyes of most rational people. Publishing them in their entirety seems warranted. Additionally, it could be argued that it was in the public interest that these documents be revealed, given what happens to people that find out too late about the Scientology "religion" and try to leave it.
Right, nothing totalitarian about getting spit on, punched, blasted with a firehose.
You can have that kind of stuff done to you in Seattle. That's not totalitarian. A totalitarian regime would likely have you and possibly your family executed for voicing an opinion that contradicts that of the government. Stage a peaceful sit-in, and you will disappear. You are obviously not talking about the same thing as the original post. Maybe you wouldn't mind being a martyr (which usually doesn't happen anyway since you will likely just disappear), but many people would rather live to see the changes they fight for.
True, but what good is a protest if you can't communicate your message? I've heard the protestors try to do so, but they fail miserably. Many of them seem to be barely literate.
Write him a polite, respectful letter explaining what you believe to be the flaws in his reasoning. Then suggest alternatives. Don't be antagonistic, we need allies in Congress if we're going to have a real chance of fixing copyright laws anytime soon.
If schools are going to allow students to lead prayers and such on school grounds and/or during school hours, then they had damn well better be prepared to defend the rights of students practicing minority religions from the less tolerant students. Schools have a VERY bad track record of preventing violence and harrassment of "different" students.
Not that I expected any less from a bunch of common thieves.
As opposed to what? Corporate thieves? Those who bribe politicians for legislation? Those who fix prices in an attempt to avoid fair market prices? Quit acting like the music industry is so fucking squeeky clean. They are much bigger thieves than any of us will every be by downloading some songs from Napster. They steal millions from us and from the artists whose rights they claim that they care so much about. They're hypocrits and you've bought into their bullshit. The fans are the only ones who give a shit about the artists. Until we have a system that let's fans contribute directly to the artists for their work, both artists and fans will continue to get fucked by the music industry.
Ok, I'll give it a shot and subject myself to the fearsome wrath of the moderators.
Basically the DMCA says that reverse engineering is legal. I'm not going to go look up the section number right now, but I know for a fact that they made exceptions for reverse engineering, otherwise it might never have made it through Congress. Now, where they were clever and malicious is when they made it illegal to circumvent any technology that serves as a protection for the copyright on the media. So basically they are saying that reverse engineering is legal, as long as you can do it without cracking their encryption or any other method of protection they use, no matter how weak it is.
Yes, this is a poor explanation, but since nobody else posted an actual answer to his question, I figure this is better than nothing. And I didn't want to go hunting for quotes and section numbers. I might come back and post a link or 2 for more info later.
Since Counterstrike wasn't even made to run on Linux, it's not surprising that it crashed. It crashes in Windows fairly often too. If I had to choose between rebooting after a crash or not, I think I'd choose not to. I suppose that does make Linux a better choice in this case.
As much as Slashdotters enjoy dismissing people's argument's due to spelling errors and such, it's not really a valid method of discrediting an argument.
Lawyers and judges look at intent all the time though. Intent is the only difference between many lesser crimes and their greater counterparts. Manslaughter and murder, for example. What is being created through the hate-crime laws is another level of crime, above our most severe crimes now. Now, if they can come up with enough evidence of your intent to blow up that gay pub because you hate gays, you are guilty of a crime greater than murder one. I'm really on the fence on this one. We already have several possible crimes that you can be convicted of if you kill someone. One part of me says, "Who cares if we have one more?" On the other hand, I'm afraid of how this could be abused (as most laws eventually are). I guess I think that if you can convict someone of murder one, then they'll be punished enough. Anything more than that is overkill (NPI, I live in Texas).
Next time with better arguments. Reading the court's ruling leads me to believe that the plaintiffs did a poor job of forming and presenting their arguments. They should have focused more on a couple of points that might have at least had a chance of making the court take a side and express an opinion on a real issue.
For example, I'd like to know how Congress thinks extending the copyright of an existing work encourages the creation of that work. I'd also like to know Congress' reasoning in determining that the extra 20 years would, in fact, "promote the progress of science and useful arts more than the previous term did." I think the government should have to explain itself, and this case did not ask the right questions to get useful answers from the government. If they try again in the future, I'd like to see them pursue these explanations.
WE complain about it here on/. all the time. That isn't getting it fixed though. Hatch's complaining isn't getting it fixed either. He needs to actually DO SOMETHING.
A lot of Republicans do care about the environment, they just don't want the government destroying capitalism in the name of the environment like the leftists want to do.
Capitalism is one of the main reasons the environment is being destroyed. If the effects of the destruction aren't going to negatively impact the next quarterly report, they're irrelevant. If I had to choose between the two, I think I'd choose the environment over capitalism.
If Microsoft makes their move too soon, then you may well end up being right. But if they are smart and wait until they get the legislation they need in place, we'll all be well and truly screwed.
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So you do it slowly over the course of a year or so... maybe they won't notice. :)
I don't think that the murders had anything at all to do with atheism. They were politically motivated. It was all about power, not religious beliefs. I also think you're confused about agnostics. It doesn't mean they don't care. It just means that they don't believe there is any evidence to support or refute the existence of a deity.
Atheists don't direct the followers to murder fellow human beings, the philosophy does not have clean hands, as far as attrocities goes.
As near as I can tell, atheists don't do anything in the name of there (lack of) religious beliefs. They don't believe in religions, so they do things for more worldly reasons.
Even the most totalitarian regime can't make everyone 'disappear'. If enough people sit-in, stand up, or otherwise peaceably resist The totalitarians have two choices: kill everyone (and then who would they boss around?) or at least pay lip service to what the protestors want.
Sure, they can't kill everyone, but there have been plenty of instances in history where they've killed thousands or even millions of people. Now if you don't want to be one of those people who get slaughtered, you can either keep your mouth shut or you can fight your own war against those who would have you killed for voicing your opinion.
hence the israelis go after the rock throwing palestinis with uzis, then secret police, and they would probably drop a nuke on them if it wouldn't fuck up their own backyard.
Apples and oranges. We're talking about standing up to your own government, not 2 countries fighting.
Phrased like that, you could make any religious group sound like a bunch of whackjobs. Christians, Muslims, anyone at all I think. Face it, there is no real evidence of anyone's religious beliefs. That's why they are called faiths. Therefore it's quite easy to declare that any religious group is a bunch of whackjobs for believing something that there is no evidence of, and that's before you even get down to their individual rituals and texts for the really hilarious stuff.
Ok, I'm not entirely familiar with the reasons for these slaughters, but I don't recall atheism being part of it. Are you saying that Stalin and Pol Pot killed people because they believed in a god of some sort? Were Stalin and Pol Pot atheists?
This is sort of beside the point. Scientology should have the right to control the copying of their copyrighted documents.
Even copyrighted documents are allowed to be copied under certain circumstances. One of those is for the purpose of criticism or comment. That seems to fit the current case. The documents pretty much criticize themselves in the eyes of most rational people. Publishing them in their entirety seems warranted. Additionally, it could be argued that it was in the public interest that these documents be revealed, given what happens to people that find out too late about the Scientology "religion" and try to leave it.
Right, nothing totalitarian about getting spit on, punched, blasted with a firehose.
You can have that kind of stuff done to you in Seattle. That's not totalitarian. A totalitarian regime would likely have you and possibly your family executed for voicing an opinion that contradicts that of the government. Stage a peaceful sit-in, and you will disappear. You are obviously not talking about the same thing as the original post. Maybe you wouldn't mind being a martyr (which usually doesn't happen anyway since you will likely just disappear), but many people would rather live to see the changes they fight for.
True, but what good is a protest if you can't communicate your message? I've heard the protestors try to do so, but they fail miserably. Many of them seem to be barely literate.
http://www.boucherforcongress.com/contribute.htm
Write him a polite, respectful letter explaining what you believe to be the flaws in his reasoning. Then suggest alternatives. Don't be antagonistic, we need allies in Congress if we're going to have a real chance of fixing copyright laws anytime soon.
If schools are going to allow students to lead prayers and such on school grounds and/or during school hours, then they had damn well better be prepared to defend the rights of students practicing minority religions from the less tolerant students. Schools have a VERY bad track record of preventing violence and harrassment of "different" students.
Maybe we can come up with enough money to purchase the necessary legislation to enact the above poster's idea.
Not that I expected any less from a bunch of common thieves.
As opposed to what? Corporate thieves? Those who bribe politicians for legislation? Those who fix prices in an attempt to avoid fair market prices? Quit acting like the music industry is so fucking squeeky clean. They are much bigger thieves than any of us will every be by downloading some songs from Napster. They steal millions from us and from the artists whose rights they claim that they care so much about. They're hypocrits and you've bought into their bullshit. The fans are the only ones who give a shit about the artists. Until we have a system that let's fans contribute directly to the artists for their work, both artists and fans will continue to get fucked by the music industry.
I have yet to see a shred of evidence that the music industry is losing money because of Napster.
Ok, I'll give it a shot and subject myself to the fearsome wrath of the moderators.
Basically the DMCA says that reverse engineering is legal. I'm not going to go look up the section number right now, but I know for a fact that they made exceptions for reverse engineering, otherwise it might never have made it through Congress. Now, where they were clever and malicious is when they made it illegal to circumvent any technology that serves as a protection for the copyright on the media. So basically they are saying that reverse engineering is legal, as long as you can do it without cracking their encryption or any other method of protection they use, no matter how weak it is.
Yes, this is a poor explanation, but since nobody else posted an actual answer to his question, I figure this is better than nothing. And I didn't want to go hunting for quotes and section numbers. I might come back and post a link or 2 for more info later.
Since Counterstrike wasn't even made to run on Linux, it's not surprising that it crashed. It crashes in Windows fairly often too. If I had to choose between rebooting after a crash or not, I think I'd choose not to. I suppose that does make Linux a better choice in this case.
As much as Slashdotters enjoy dismissing people's argument's due to spelling errors and such, it's not really a valid method of discrediting an argument.
1. No he hasn't
2. No they don't
3. Along with all of Europe
Lawyers and judges look at intent all the time though. Intent is the only difference between many lesser crimes and their greater counterparts. Manslaughter and murder, for example. What is being created through the hate-crime laws is another level of crime, above our most severe crimes now. Now, if they can come up with enough evidence of your intent to blow up that gay pub because you hate gays, you are guilty of a crime greater than murder one. I'm really on the fence on this one. We already have several possible crimes that you can be convicted of if you kill someone. One part of me says, "Who cares if we have one more?" On the other hand, I'm afraid of how this could be abused (as most laws eventually are). I guess I think that if you can convict someone of murder one, then they'll be punished enough. Anything more than that is overkill (NPI, I live in Texas).
This was exactly my thinking on the issue.
Next time with better arguments. Reading the court's ruling leads me to believe that the plaintiffs did a poor job of forming and presenting their arguments. They should have focused more on a couple of points that might have at least had a chance of making the court take a side and express an opinion on a real issue.
For example, I'd like to know how Congress thinks extending the copyright of an existing work encourages the creation of that work. I'd also like to know Congress' reasoning in determining that the extra 20 years would, in fact, "promote the progress of science and useful arts more than the previous term did." I think the government should have to explain itself, and this case did not ask the right questions to get useful answers from the government. If they try again in the future, I'd like to see them pursue these explanations.
Come back when you have something useful to say instead of that tripe you were spewing. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
WE complain about it here on /. all the time. That isn't getting it fixed though. Hatch's complaining isn't getting it fixed either. He needs to actually DO SOMETHING.
A lot of Republicans do care about the environment, they just don't want the government destroying capitalism in the name of the environment like the leftists want to do.
Capitalism is one of the main reasons the environment is being destroyed. If the effects of the destruction aren't going to negatively impact the next quarterly report, they're irrelevant. If I had to choose between the two, I think I'd choose the environment over capitalism.
If Microsoft makes their move too soon, then you may well end up being right. But if they are smart and wait until they get the legislation they need in place, we'll all be well and truly screwed.