You were closer at the start with "any number" than with your subsequent "dozen."
You can come up with any number of numerological associations for any event. Seriously. Try it some time. Pick any event, and you can come up with a dozen, if you try.
There are literally infinite numerological associations for any single event. Since the number of associations for any one event is allowed to relate to any number of other single events, and to each of those in any number of ways, this is a "larger infinity" than the set of all real numbers. Of course, it is also completely meaningless, but then, you already knew I was talking numerology, so I just redundantly repeated there what I had already told you implicitly by the very fact of replying to you at all.
Do not misconstrue that as support for the invasion of Iraq on the pretext of nuclear weapons known not to be there by the elected officials who told the US public that such weapons were in Iraq, and ready to be launched at a moment's notice. PIBM just made a stupid comparison. GWB is still much, much stupider.
It is unfortunate that we do have these Anti-Christ public figures speaking for Christianity though. I think it is important to understand the difference.
And I think that something Christ said about a "tree" and "its fruit" is applicable.
Judging from your response, I came off somewhat more dismissive than I intended, so I'm trying again.
Learning ABOUT religions is NOT the same thing as being indoctrinated INTO a religion.
Agreed, but instruction in religions, on par with the other topics you mentioned, tends to imply a validity which some of us believe religions do not deserve. I agree with parts of your argument.
Think about if instead of "religion," you inserted "American history" or "government" or "biology" into your post. As for "things that are real," religions are real. What they believe in may or may not be real, but the religions themselves are as real as capitalism or democracy or feudalism, and have a huge impact on our modern day-to-day world.
I agree that religions have a "huge impact on our modern day-to-day world." I have also decided, based on the overall nature of that impact, that I want no part of any religion. It is not necessary to prove to anybody that religions and their results are purely or even overwhelmingly evil. It is completely sufficient to have reached the opinion, as I have, that the impact of religions is more bad than good, and decide for oneself what level of participation in religion, if any, is appropriate. Teaching children respect for the nature of fact, evidence, and respect for others will be sufficient, in my opinion, for those reasons.
Depending on the sucker being born this minute being me, I see. Sorry, Barnum, but I'm not taking your bait.
Perhaps you should go explore what the word "secular" is actually defined as. I will be here when you are done.
No, if you have found a specific error, go ahead and cite it. In the meantime, I won't help you pretend that I'm the one using words incorrectly. I will be here when you are done evading the weakness of your previous arguments.
I think what the United States needs right about now is a virus that kills about 80% of all litigators. You still need a few for legitimate, rational affairs, but it's clear that American civilization is going to be crushed under the weight of sheer greed, stupidity and self-destructive self-interest.
Instead of wasting valuable bio-engineering talent, I'd propose that no public or publicly-funded institution may teach law classes, unless it institutes as a graduation requirement a thesis project to search all statutes in force in that jurisdiction -- local, state, or federal, students' choice -- and make a case for the nullification of one, under any applicable constitutions or local charters.
We The People will inform the legal profession when the body of law has been sufficiently winnowed to those that protect our rights, without favoritism to legal specialists. Until self-representation is a viable option, no more new lawyers who don't clean up after themselves.
So, how exactly is revealing a password any more incriminating than say, allowing police into your home -which is "standard practice"?
That all depends on where exactly any incriminating evidence is.
-Don't tell us that you killed her -which would be incriminating, just tell us your password -which is something absolutely neutral.
I think a more applicable analogy is to D.B Cooper, who wouldn't be in a big hurry, if he managed to open his 'chute, to create a Web page publishing his current place of residence and a map to the inaccessible ravine where the remainder of his heist landed. http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianextra/2007/12/an_fbi_agent_parachutes_into_t.html
Mr. Branden, I told you already, our association is finished!
[plz see The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics by James S. Valiant if you're considering any mod but +, Funny or Insightful. I'll also accept Informative, but that isn't my primary goal.]
Okay, name somebody "innocent" in a metaphysical sense...
Why? I'm not talking only about one particular person, nor my philosophically ideal person, Rand's, or yours. I'm talking about the standard assumption, from which specific claims of guilt must proceed among civilized peoples, wherever they happen to be. Remember, the specific doctrine of Original Sin was established by notoriously uncivilized theocrats and their beaureaucratic subordinate scribblers. The burden of proof is not on me, here. If you're a US citizen, you're already required by the Constitution to make that assumption, which is also imposed on everybody else, protecting you from wrongful imprisonment. That requirement applies to you regardless of whether or not you properly appreciate the corollary protection of your own freedom.
If you're not a US citizen, I don't particularly care about your opinion of our laws. I'm just glad you don't have the right to vote to make the body of statute subsequent to the Constitution even stupider than it already is.
The philosophical basis of that requirement, the assumption of innocence, is also the product of centuries of debate over essential human nature and the essential nature of governments, and whatever you intend to conflate with it by your "Miss Rand" crack is true, and legally binding, independent of her writing.
In short, all Original Sin and statist arguments rely implicitly -- and rely on it never being made explicit -- that individual humans are "flawed" while the authority in question is treated as a pure abstraction, perfect by implication. Yes, the argument, especially the synthesis of certain abstractions from fields usually treated as separate and unrelated in academia, is assisted by Ayn Rand. But the same arguments can be assembled from Locke, Jefferson, and Voltaire, and many others.
(not "innocent of X", as you're changing your statement--"innocent" -unqualified-)
I am not changing my statement. No such "qualification" may be assumed necessary. Innocence must be assumed "-unqualified-".
Then I'll ask for your nonsubjective criteria for that determination, with a statement as to what -earned- guilt would be, assuming you acknowledge it. When you make reference to what you can, a legally codified body of law, I'll ask for it for a politically-opposite country.
Go ahead and ask that, but I won't reply until you first rebut or concede the primary point I made in the same post:
Now that my little tangent, sparked by your "sense of harmony with life" gibberish is over, I note that your position is weak on less subtle measures, as well.
I find many people willing to say "How do you know it isn't figure X or Y or Z instead?"--I find very few who actually will put their effort where there [sic] mouth is and actually argue figure X, Y, or Z. Which, if they truly are asserting they are of equivalent plausibility, they should have no problem with doing.
The post to which you replied did not assert "equivalent plausibility" and your counterargument therefore applies only to the straw man you constructed, not to your actual opponent.
Basically, your question is conceptually identical to saying, "So, you believe in political stance X. How do you know political stance Y or Z or Q isn't actually correct?" Well, by evaluating it, like everything else in life, and this question is hardly a refutation of any stance one may hold for their notion of "X".
Now, you seem to be forgetting the context of the thread, which is, in your words, "political stance X": use of public money in support of a particular religious dogma. The subsequent question to which you replied, why this particular religious dogma, is a fair one, in this context.
Change that "produce" to read 540 percent of the energy used to "cultivate & harvest" and the same statement is accurate, violating no laws of thermodynamics or conservation of energy. Switchgrass ethanol delivers more of the energy it takes from the sun, through harvesting and fermentation processes, than the most efficient [for fuel] genetically modified corn. Energy from the sun was left out of the "540 percent" figure, which is a comparison only to energy expended in the various stages of manufacturing. Since I'm not putting forth any effort, and neither are you, to keep the Sun going, I think it's fair to leave it out in that calculation.
You don't understand the magnitude of the standards problem.
I think you don't understand the magnitude of the existing standards solutions, but I might have been too brief. My previous comments are based on the knowledge (presumed common -- incorrectly?) that regional, not federal, accreditation authorities already provide that service for colleges and universities, and are very well-trusted and -respected by employers who seek "college graduates" of all varieties. Since this works so well for post-secondary education and its interactions with the free market for its graduates, it's my opinion that the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate a likelihood that a similar arrangement would be problematic for other levels of education, or at least explain why I should consider that plausible.
A) you don't believe the evidence really exists. To me, while I have to admit there is a slight possibility of this being true, it would take a fabrication and conspiracy on such a worldwide scale that it's just silly.
B) you accept the evidence but believe the scientists are intentionally lying. Again, seems to take a huge conspiracy
While the conspiracies you suggest would be as silly as you say, they have not been suggested by anybody but yourself, that I've noticed. There are enough silly ideas flying about here without you concocting more, and attributing them like a straw man argument, to the other side.
The ID group deserves all of the flack it gets. It has no scientific basis. You can neither prove nor disprove what they say, it isn't science.
So true. Sometime after acknowledging the fact that respect must be earned, and accordingly developing verifiable hypotheses, the ID crowd may receive the respect it craves. Not before then.
I will call anybody who rejects evolution an idiot
That's pretty unnecessary. If someone disputes the cellular structure of a potato, you can show them with a Microscope. You don't have to be an asshole.
That's a very generous attitude for you to take. I, like the GP, tend to feel that when I have been imposed upon to prove the obvious, it is my responsibility, to the next person whose time would be wasted on similarly trivial tasks, to notify that waster of my time that it is in an idiot. Your mileage may vary.
Correct, and thats why I said that definition is almost arbitrary. We decided that its what makes a specie.
The definition is chosen according to the ability to propagate a set of traits to progeny. Propagation of traits defines a biological pattern that is repeated over time. That is not "arbitrary."
Plus, a tiger and a lion can mate together, but they're quite different creatures. A lot more different than many creatures that can't mate together. Thats why you have to add "that produce fertile offsprings". But oh, in many cases, if you have a male of A, and a female of B, the offspring is not fertile, BUT, if you have a female of A, and a male of B, then the offspring will be!
The exceptions to the theory are few and far between in comparison to examples that are consistent with the theory of evolution. That small number of exceptions is not nearly sufficient to call it "arbitrary." You're way off base.
Bacteria being immune doesn't prove anything unless you can prove that not a single one of those billions of bacteria was _already_ immune.
Incorrect. Immunity exhibited by subsequent generations of bacteria to antibiotics that were previously sufficient to cure infections does prove selection, by their environment, for that trait.
Similarly with living things changing over time, could be a sign of natural selection but you need to be a bit more specific about what kinds of changes over time before claiming proof of the creative power of random mutation.
Similarly, if you doubt the potential of "random mutation" it is up to you pursue an alternative hypothesis, not just say that a theory is incomplete -- which scientists know already -- therefore, God did it, which is not a logical conclusion anyway.
I don't believe I did lump biogenesis in with evolution. I simply said that it is something evolutionists have to have faith in. They either have to have faith that everything came about through natural means, or they have to believe that everything came about through supernatural means (intelligent design, gasp!). I suppose some evolutionists say they don't know.But if they don't know, then why are they so avidly opposed to teaching intelligent design in schools?
Because there is not one shred of evidence for intelligent design. So-called "holes" in evolutionary theory are mostly fabrications of pastors who don't know science from their elbows, but those gaps that do exist do not imply an intelligent designer. They are gaps, not loopholes.
Every person taking the side of evolution over creationism here was perfectly respectful of every religious person's opinion until an attempt to spend public money on a religious dogma. You forgot that the context of the discussion is one specific group's preference for their own opinion, over the law. To construe the secular, or scientific, or atheist counterargument as intolerant of "different opinions" is dishonest.
Grin, I have a book about Tesla's work, which includes an account of a fairly compact apparatus that powered a car that traveled about 100 mph, IIRC. No, I don't claim to be smart enough to do that, I just doubt the most extreme stories about him, like that one. OOTH, I do believe what I've read about him favoring AC for public power grids, while Thomas Alva Edison was saying something more like, nobody will ever have a need for anything beyond DC. It's not at all hard for me to believe that the guy with gov backing would have less efficient ideas, and make useful, but comparatively minor advances, given piles of funds and employees.
Anyway, I don't claim to be in Tesla's league. But I'm not sure he was, either. Being so much smarter than those around him leaves wide open the possibility that the small part from that story was not a power source at all, but just a connector or some mundane part in a circuit whose important parts the author never understood at all.
I'm not at all interested in judging you, but if you take offense at reactions to the use of public money to support an establishment of religion, FYI, I might think that's silly.
Good points, and thanks for the addition to my working vocabulary, "transcranial magnetic stimulation." I don't believe anything I read on wikipedia until I can verify it -- in a professional journal in the case of theoretical science & medical research -- but FYI my preliminary reading indicates something contrary to what you said:
They want us to believe that human life is significantly different from other life and requires a 'soul' to give us our sentience, even though we know enough to completely and utterly change a person's personality and even end their sentience by performing surgery on or otherwise influencing their very palpable brains (lobotomies, transcranial magnetic stimulation).
Maybe wikipedia is wrong [again], but their current article suggests that TMR is not an example of a potential means "to completely and utterly change a person's personality and even end their sentience by performing surgery on or otherwise influencing their very palpable brains."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation
Offline repetitive TMS: where performance at a task is measured initially and then repetitive TMS is given over a few minutes, and the performance is measured again. This technique has the advantage of not requiring knowledge of the timescale of how the brain processes. However repetitive TMS is very susceptible to the placebo effect. [emphasis added] Additionally, the effects of repetitive TMS are variable between subjects and also for the same subject. A variant of this technique is the 'enhancement' technique, where repetitive TMS is delivered to enhance performance. This is even harder to achieve than the 'knock-out' technique.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if some guy on Slashdot knows something that he hasn't submitted to Wikipedia, and nobody else has gotten around to updating the relevant article there -- yet. Anyway, that's a fascinating topic, and a much more interesting way to pass some near-term spare time than re-hashing the same tired old "Prime Mover" and "non-overlapping magisteria" arguments!
He already said "free market." That means private high schools would determine their admissions standards (if any), which would be determined by the market for their graduates in college and trade schools, which would be determined by the general labor market. You see a contradiction where there is none. You are brainwashed.
Slashdot Mirror
Tsunami victims did not try to blow anybody up.
Do not misconstrue that as support for the invasion of Iraq on the pretext of nuclear weapons known not to be there by the elected officials who told the US public that such weapons were in Iraq, and ready to be launched at a moment's notice. PIBM just made a stupid comparison. GWB is still much, much stupider.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/13/1433254
We The People will inform the legal profession when the body of law has been sufficiently winnowed to those that protect our rights, without favoritism to legal specialists. Until self-representation is a viable option, no more new lawyers who don't clean up after themselves.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianextra/2007/12/an_fbi_agent_parachutes_into_t.html
Mr. Branden, I told you already, our association is finished!
[plz see The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics by James S. Valiant if you're considering any mod but +, Funny or Insightful. I'll also accept Informative, but that isn't my primary goal.]
Why? I'm not talking only about one particular person, nor my philosophically ideal person, Rand's, or yours. I'm talking about the standard assumption, from which specific claims of guilt must proceed among civilized peoples, wherever they happen to be. Remember, the specific doctrine of Original Sin was established by notoriously uncivilized theocrats and their beaureaucratic subordinate scribblers. The burden of proof is not on me, here. If you're a US citizen, you're already required by the Constitution to make that assumption, which is also imposed on everybody else, protecting you from wrongful imprisonment. That requirement applies to you regardless of whether or not you properly appreciate the corollary protection of your own freedom.
If you're not a US citizen, I don't particularly care about your opinion of our laws. I'm just glad you don't have the right to vote to make the body of statute subsequent to the Constitution even stupider than it already is.
The philosophical basis of that requirement, the assumption of innocence, is also the product of centuries of debate over essential human nature and the essential nature of governments, and whatever you intend to conflate with it by your "Miss Rand" crack is true, and legally binding, independent of her writing.
In short, all Original Sin and statist arguments rely implicitly -- and rely on it never being made explicit -- that individual humans are "flawed" while the authority in question is treated as a pure abstraction, perfect by implication. Yes, the argument, especially the synthesis of certain abstractions from fields usually treated as separate and unrelated in academia, is assisted by Ayn Rand. But the same arguments can be assembled from Locke, Jefferson, and Voltaire, and many others.
I am not changing my statement. No such "qualification" may be assumed necessary. Innocence must be assumed "-unqualified-".
Go ahead and ask that, but I won't reply until you first rebut or concede the primary point I made in the same post:
Change that "produce" to read 540 percent of the energy used to "cultivate & harvest" and the same statement is accurate, violating no laws of thermodynamics or conservation of energy. Switchgrass ethanol delivers more of the energy it takes from the sun, through harvesting and fermentation processes, than the most efficient [for fuel] genetically modified corn. Energy from the sun was left out of the "540 percent" figure, which is a comparison only to energy expended in the various stages of manufacturing. Since I'm not putting forth any effort, and neither are you, to keep the Sun going, I think it's fair to leave it out in that calculation.
Grin, I have a book about Tesla's work, which includes an account of a fairly compact apparatus that powered a car that traveled about 100 mph, IIRC. No, I don't claim to be smart enough to do that, I just doubt the most extreme stories about him, like that one. OOTH, I do believe what I've read about him favoring AC for public power grids, while Thomas Alva Edison was saying something more like, nobody will ever have a need for anything beyond DC. It's not at all hard for me to believe that the guy with gov backing would have less efficient ideas, and make useful, but comparatively minor advances, given piles of funds and employees.
Anyway, I don't claim to be in Tesla's league. But I'm not sure he was, either. Being so much smarter than those around him leaves wide open the possibility that the small part from that story was not a power source at all, but just a connector or some mundane part in a circuit whose important parts the author never understood at all.
I'm not at all interested in judging you, but if you take offense at reactions to the use of public money to support an establishment of religion, FYI, I might think that's silly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if some guy on Slashdot knows something that he hasn't submitted to Wikipedia, and nobody else has gotten around to updating the relevant article there -- yet. Anyway, that's a fascinating topic, and a much more interesting way to pass some near-term spare time than re-hashing the same tired old "Prime Mover" and "non-overlapping magisteria" arguments!
He already said "free market." That means private high schools would determine their admissions standards (if any), which would be determined by the market for their graduates in college and trade schools, which would be determined by the general labor market. You see a contradiction where there is none. You are brainwashed.