But "indivisible" doesn't mean that everyone follows lock-step in thought and action. It means that the United States, once divided, will cease to be the United States.
I suggest reading this before citing Holy Trinity as a statement from on high. The "Christian Nation" quote is dictum, not law.
And the States are soverign except for the powers they cede to the federal government. This is the idea of balance that permeates our Constitution. Although the states voluntarily yield power to the federal government, all governmental power derives from the people. So, if we were to be literalists, we are a nation of individuals.
The "indivisible-ness" derives not from the fragility of the ties that bind, but rather the notion that we as a nation cannot exist without each other. Once the nation chooses to divide itself, it is no longer the United States.
Because implicitly, that says, "One nation under no god, indivisible."
No, in fact it makes no statement whatsoever about the supernatural. That's precisely what the government of the United States is supposed to say about God: absolutely nothing.
The absence of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance endorses an agnostic mode of living (humanism - a secular, materialistic religion - I dare say). It says, "We do not acknowledge a power greater than ourselves to which our living and governing are accountable."
Again, no. You cannot draw any conclusions based on the absence of saying something. Consider this:
John says to Mary, "Do you like fruit?" Mary replies, "I like bananas." John cannot rationally conclude that Mary only likes bananas and no other fruit based on that statement alone. She has not talked about kiwi fruits or anything else. Pragmatically speaking, there is an implication (based on rules of discourse and whatnot), but the logical result of that conversation is that John knows that Mary likes bananas, and that's it.
End result: The government is not supposed to endorse or prohibit the free exercise of religion. That includes every viewpoint. Unfortunately, in a situation like this where there is no empirically "true" religion, there can never be a end to the discussion. More importantly, the functions of government are not dependant on the existance/non-existance of a Supreme Being. Morality does not have to derive from the Divine.
On a more personal note, I always wonder why Christians feel so compelled to espose their belief in God/Jesus in public. Jesus even admonished against public prayer. Your belief in God should be a private matter, not something that must be poured into the ears of your neighbors. Imagine, if you will, that the United States were a mostly Hindu society, and you were Christian. Would you want to be compelled to recite a pledge not only to your country, but that that country is "one nation, under the gods/Vishnu/Siva/Ganesh/etc."?
You remove God from the statement (or from government, for that matter), you don't deny the existence of God, nor do you affirm the existence of God. This is the perfect balance. Decisions of this nature are dependant on the individual.
Atheists do not have the right to tell the government to deny God; but they do have the right to proclaim their belief in the absence of God in a public manner. Just the same as any theist. However, they also have the right not to have theistic beliefs thrust on them byt their government, which is what this is all about.
In fact, government should deal with the Divine much in the same that science does (should?): Be agnostic. State religion is bad (see: ), and state persecution of religion is bad (see: any of the aforementioned theocracies, in addition to China's dealing with religious groups). The government is supposed to encourage public discussion and free expression. Fundamentalists and atheists can argue til they're blue in the face, but when it comes to public policy, God gets in the way. We can't demostrate that God encourages certain rituals (communion, etc.), but we can arrive at good public policy through rational discourse that's devoid of the Divine. Although many religions prohibit murder, it's not a religious prohibition, since it serves a social/secular purpose that transcends individual rights (so if I believe God wants me to kill Slashdot geeks, the rights of other people to live trumps my religious beliefs.)
In the same vein, science cannot admit or prohibit God. Admission means that we have demonstrated the existance of the Divine. Saying that the Divine does NOT exist is contrary to the scientific method; namely, you cannot prove a negative.
It's a very fascinating conundrum: How to deal with the Divine. In general, it seems like the best policy for both science and the government to pass over it in silence.
The Google toolbar is one of the coolest things about IE (maybe the only one <grin/>). However, you need a Windows system with IE in order to install and use it. Are there plans to have to toolbar available for Mozilla, and non-Microsoft systems in general?
In fact, the larger and more informative the sign, the more likely people are to ignore it. Put a gigantic banner outside your store that says "We do not sell bananas!!", and I guarantee, even if you are a HARDWARE store, you'll get at least 20 inquiries a day asking if you sell bananas.
Every older generation says this of the younger generation. "Today's Youth: What's Wrong With Them?" Inevitably those of a more advanced age fail to recall the evils of their generation, like rampant racism, sexism, &c.
Moreover, if they perceive a decline in "morality" or whatever arbitrary yardstick they wish to use, they have to remember that these "amoral" children we raised by the same generation that reviles their lack of discipline.
I had a great idea: Wireless earpieces for cellphones. That wire is a pain to deal with. Of course, it almost feels like a similar idea to a remote controlled remote.
Somone's going to make a pile of cash off this idea, aren't they?
Re:Typoing your email address can be a drag
on
The Story of "Nadine"
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Dragging this offtopic, a good friend of mine was told to invest in Cisco Systems a few years ago. But he just heard the name and, being a non-techie, bought a bunch of shares in Sysco, the food services company.
Cisco went down, Sysco went up. Talk about pulling a Homer....
I won't go into the games we play to make this universe more interesting.
I will say that if think psychic phenomena are real, prove it. James Randi has a wonderful $1 million prize to the person who can PROVE the existence of paranormal phenomena.
No one has won it, and no one will. Why? Because psychic phenomena, et al., are bunk. It would be really neat to live in a world where you could read other people's thoughts and effect change in the world simply with your mind. But that's not the universe we have.
If you think otherwise, prove it. Don't post about how your uncle can dowse water, or how you saw your friend after he died, etc. Sit down and prove it; prove that there are phenomena that are attributable to paranormal forces.
I'm not trying to troll, it just pisses me off when normally rational people behave in subrational ways.
How did you implement sending the spam? We're talking about the Usenet, not the spam that we see today. It was with a fairly simple script, a Perl script, that just pulled the names of all the newsgroups off a particular server and, just one at a time, sent the message to them through the various Internet protocols that were in wide use at the time.
CaptianCarrot, you are missing something of vital importance. When one speaks of a separation of church and state, or of having an "objective" view of religion, there is no truth-assertion being made. Look at this logically: There is no definite proof of the existence of God. God has not shown up and demonstrated (his | her | its) presence. Most phenomena present in the world can be explained through rational, scientific thought and experiment; those phenomena that cannot be explained so readily inform our knowledge of the world. It's how we advance.
Once you bring God into the equation, science and logic break down; especially if we are speaking of the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic god(s). God is supposed to be omnipotent, meaning that ANY phenomenon can be attributed to God's will. Science and reason no longer have a place in mankind's world since any given phenomenon can be attributed to God's will.
Leaving aside the intense territorialism that comes will deeply held spiritual beliefs, one might now be able to see why religion taught in schools has to be an all-or-none proposition. When we speak of religion in science and rationality, we must be agnostic. God, unfortunately, gets in the way of learning. By saying NOTHING about religion, or that there is no evidence that leads us to choose one religion over the other, we as a species continue to advance.
So, rather than stating that all religions are equally true, perhaps we should state it thusly: There is no evidence to lead us to choose one religion over any other.
If you can prove not only the existence of God, but that (he | she |it) is of a particular faith, THEN we can start talking about the "truth" in religion. Otherwise, you are being just as illogical as your critics.
maybe! Although it's really powerful to be able to designate a site/server with a URL, it's intimidating for some folks. In addition, not every XXX.com is going to be the company you are looking for.
The solution to all this domain name crap is to abstract away from it -- users whould not have to type in all this www.load.of.crap.extention.in.Zimbabwe. The interface should be pure hyperlinking, no addresses.
(Full disclosure: I have worked with most of these companies).
Telephony-based voice-recognition is going to be the Next Great Thing (tm). The main companies that are involved in this stuff are SpeechWorks, Nuance (both work on the main speech recognition/software stuff), HeyAnita (which works with Sprint), and TellMe.
Slashdot Mirror
Olin College Engineers are FULLY ENDOWED
But "indivisible" doesn't mean that everyone follows lock-step in thought and action. It means that the United States, once divided, will cease to be the United States.
I suggest reading this before citing Holy Trinity as a statement from on high. The "Christian Nation" quote is dictum, not law.
And the States are soverign except for the powers they cede to the federal government. This is the idea of balance that permeates our Constitution. Although the states voluntarily yield power to the federal government, all governmental power derives from the people. So, if we were to be literalists, we are a nation of individuals.
The "indivisible-ness" derives not from the fragility of the ties that bind, but rather the notion that we as a nation cannot exist without each other. Once the nation chooses to divide itself, it is no longer the United States.
Because implicitly, that says, "One nation under no god, indivisible."
No, in fact it makes no statement whatsoever about the supernatural. That's precisely what the government of the United States is supposed to say about God: absolutely nothing.
The absence of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance endorses an agnostic mode of living (humanism - a secular, materialistic religion - I dare say). It says, "We do not acknowledge a power greater than ourselves to which our living and governing are accountable."
Again, no. You cannot draw any conclusions based on the absence of saying something. Consider this:
John says to Mary, "Do you like fruit?" Mary replies, "I like bananas." John cannot rationally conclude that Mary only likes bananas and no other fruit based on that statement alone. She has not talked about kiwi fruits or anything else. Pragmatically speaking, there is an implication (based on rules of discourse and whatnot), but the logical result of that conversation is that John knows that Mary likes bananas, and that's it.
End result: The government is not supposed to endorse or prohibit the free exercise of religion. That includes every viewpoint. Unfortunately, in a situation like this where there is no empirically "true" religion, there can never be a end to the discussion. More importantly, the functions of government are not dependant on the existance/non-existance of a Supreme Being. Morality does not have to derive from the Divine.
On a more personal note, I always wonder why Christians feel so compelled to espose their belief in God/Jesus in public. Jesus even admonished against public prayer. Your belief in God should be a private matter, not something that must be poured into the ears of your neighbors. Imagine, if you will, that the United States were a mostly Hindu society, and you were Christian. Would you want to be compelled to recite a pledge not only to your country, but that that country is "one nation, under the gods/Vishnu/Siva/Ganesh/etc."?
I know this was trying to be funny, but:
You remove God from the statement (or from government, for that matter), you don't deny the existence of God, nor do you affirm the existence of God. This is the perfect balance. Decisions of this nature are dependant on the individual.
Atheists do not have the right to tell the government to deny God; but they do have the right to proclaim their belief in the absence of God in a public manner. Just the same as any theist. However, they also have the right not to have theistic beliefs thrust on them byt their government, which is what this is all about.
In fact, government should deal with the Divine much in the same that science does (should?): Be agnostic. State religion is bad (see: ), and state persecution of religion is bad (see: any of the aforementioned theocracies, in addition to China's dealing with religious groups). The government is supposed to encourage public discussion and free expression. Fundamentalists and atheists can argue til they're blue in the face, but when it comes to public policy, God gets in the way. We can't demostrate that God encourages certain rituals (communion, etc.), but we can arrive at good public policy through rational discourse that's devoid of the Divine. Although many religions prohibit murder, it's not a religious prohibition, since it serves a social/secular purpose that transcends individual rights (so if I believe God wants me to kill Slashdot geeks, the rights of other people to live trumps my religious beliefs.)
In the same vein, science cannot admit or prohibit God. Admission means that we have demonstrated the existance of the Divine. Saying that the Divine does NOT exist is contrary to the scientific method; namely, you cannot prove a negative.
It's a very fascinating conundrum: How to deal with the Divine. In general, it seems like the best policy for both science and the government to pass over it in silence.
...one Nation, under your choice of a single diety, a pantheon of dieties, or no dieties at all, indivisible...
Or how about just "One nation, indivisible"?
The Google toolbar is one of the coolest things about IE (maybe the only one <grin/>). However, you need a Windows system with IE in order to install and use it. Are there plans to have to toolbar available for Mozilla, and non-Microsoft systems in general?
Does Google use any natural language processing (when dealing with web pages, queries, etc.)? Are you planning on doing more with NLP in the future?
In fact, the larger and more informative the sign, the more likely people are to ignore it. Put a gigantic banner outside your store that says "We do not sell bananas!!", and I guarantee, even if you are a HARDWARE store, you'll get at least 20 inquiries a day asking if you sell bananas.
Every older generation says this of the younger generation. "Today's Youth: What's Wrong With Them?" Inevitably those of a more advanced age fail to recall the evils of their generation, like rampant racism, sexism, &c.
Moreover, if they perceive a decline in "morality" or whatever arbitrary yardstick they wish to use, they have to remember that these "amoral" children we raised by the same generation that reviles their lack of discipline.
I had a great idea: Wireless earpieces for cellphones. That wire is a pain to deal with. Of course, it almost feels like a similar idea to a remote controlled remote.
Somone's going to make a pile of cash off this idea, aren't they?
Dragging this offtopic, a good friend of mine was told to invest in Cisco Systems a few years ago. But he just heard the name and, being a non-techie, bought a bunch of shares in Sysco, the food services company.
Cisco went down, Sysco went up. Talk about pulling a Homer....
I won't go into the games we play to make this universe more interesting.
I will say that if think psychic phenomena are real, prove it. James Randi has a wonderful $1 million prize to the person who can PROVE the existence of paranormal phenomena.
No one has won it, and no one will. Why? Because psychic phenomena, et al., are bunk. It would be really neat to live in a world where you could read other people's thoughts and effect change in the world simply with your mind. But that's not the universe we have.
If you think otherwise, prove it. Don't post about how your uncle can dowse water, or how you saw your friend after he died, etc. Sit down and prove it; prove that there are phenomena that are attributable to paranormal forces.
I'm not trying to troll, it just pisses me off when normally rational people behave in subrational ways.
How did you implement sending the spam?
We're talking about the Usenet, not the spam that we see today. It was with a fairly simple script, a Perl script, that just pulled the names of all the newsgroups off a particular server and, just one at a time, sent the message to them through the various Internet protocols that were in wide use at the time.
Goddamn you Larry Wall.
CaptianCarrot, you are missing something of vital importance. When one speaks of a separation of church and state, or of having an "objective" view of religion, there is no truth-assertion being made. Look at this logically: There is no definite proof of the existence of God. God has not shown up and demonstrated (his | her | its) presence. Most phenomena present in the world can be explained through rational, scientific thought and experiment; those phenomena that cannot be explained so readily inform our knowledge of the world. It's how we advance.
Once you bring God into the equation, science and logic break down; especially if we are speaking of the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic god(s). God is supposed to be omnipotent, meaning that ANY phenomenon can be attributed to God's will. Science and reason no longer have a place in mankind's world since any given phenomenon can be attributed to God's will.
Leaving aside the intense territorialism that comes will deeply held spiritual beliefs, one might now be able to see why religion taught in schools has to be an all-or-none proposition. When we speak of religion in science and rationality, we must be agnostic. God, unfortunately, gets in the way of learning. By saying NOTHING about religion, or that there is no evidence that leads us to choose one religion over the other, we as a species continue to advance.
So, rather than stating that all religions are equally true, perhaps we should state it thusly:
There is no evidence to lead us to choose one religion over any other.
If you can prove not only the existence of God, but that (he | she |it) is of a particular faith, THEN we can start talking about the "truth" in religion. Otherwise, you are being just as illogical as your critics.
I think Danger's new product, the hiptop, is much cooler.
Why are we devolving back to pedal-operated machines? What about solar, &c. energy supplies?
maybe! Although it's really powerful to be able to designate a site/server with a URL, it's intimidating for some folks. In addition, not every XXX.com is going to be the company you are looking for.
The solution to all this domain name crap is to abstract away from it -- users whould not have to type in all this www.load.of.crap.extention.in.Zimbabwe. The interface should be pure hyperlinking, no addresses.
In fact, I've learned that if code works perfectly the first time, something went terribly, horribly wrong....
What about Sony? Or Universal?
All these great responses show that this site is worth it, hermano.
Congrats to both of yaz!
(Full disclosure: I have worked with most of these companies).
Telephony-based voice-recognition is going to be the Next Great Thing (tm). The main companies that are involved in this stuff are SpeechWorks, Nuance (both work on the main speech recognition/software stuff), HeyAnita (which works with Sprint), and TellMe.