That must be what I was remembering. I lived in Albuquerque about a decade ago, so pardon me if my memory of the details of vehicle inspection requirements is a bit dusty.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say we have the right to "life, liberty, the persuit of happiness, and driving large metal objects down government built roads and highways."
No, but it does say that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." While the right of free passage on public lands and highways (using the prevailing transportation technology of the day) is not explicitly protected by the Bill of Rights, it was a well-recognized right under English law, dating back at least to the reign of King Edward I (1272-1307). The founding fathers would have considered this right so basic and universal as to not need explicit protection. It defies the imagination to say that the 9th Amendment does not protect, at a minimum, any rights which were universally understood under English Common Law at the time it was written.
Amendment 14, Section 1:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
For the hard of thinking, this means all protections granted by the Constitution at the Federal level extend down to the state level. If Congress is prohibited from establishing an official religion, so are the States. If Congress is not allowed to interfere with the free practice of religion, neither are the states. If the federal government is not allowed to impose cruel and unusual punishments, neither are the states. Get it?
Please keep in mind that the judge in question swore an oath before God to support the Constitution and to uphold the law of the land. The law of the land happens to be strict seperation of church and state. Regardless of whether or not a judge personally agrees with a given law, he is bound by his oath to abide by it and to uphold it. If he could not agree to those terms, he should not have swore the oath. By violating that oath, he is not only dishonoring himself and his office, he is breaking a promise he made before God almighty. HMM, what does the Bible have to say about breaking convenants with God? I seem to recall that the big guy looks down on that sort of thing. While you're at it, consider the point that misappropriating public resources is theft. Does the phrase "thou shalt not steal" ring any bells?
A government official (like a judge) cannot use the power of the office he or she holds to promote their personal religion. Why does the God Squad have such a problem understanding this? Basic ethics dictate that public officials are not allowed to use public resources for personal benefit, no matter how many other people benefit from it as well.
If you still can't understand the problem, let's use an analogy to take religion out of the equasion. Let's say a government official owns stock in a company, which you also happen to own stock in. He uses the power of his office to make it appear that the Government has endorsed this company over it's competitors. While this may benefit you personally and make you happy, it is still an abuse of the public's trust and is immoral, unethical, and illegal.
Religion has no place in government. Government has no place in religion. If you don't like that fact, your choices are to: try to amend the Constitution, move to a theocracy, or STFU.
It would have been apparant if I hadn't fubared my HTML. Damn preview button.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
This violates due process by imposing a legal penalty on people who have not been convicted of a crime by a court of law. An interlock like this is very similar to the monitoring devices used to ensure that people sentenced to home detention are actually at home. Making me take a breath test every time I start my car sounds like a deprivation of liberty to me.
The SC has (mistakenly, IMHO) ruled that a breath test does not constitute a "search" under the 4th amendment, so there's no point in persuing anything along those lines as grounds for invalidating the law. Likewise, unless the interlock keeps a log of it's readings which could be used as evidence, it's not self-incriminating.
Another point is that this probably violates the commerce clause as well. The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to regulate interstate commerce (Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 3); since New Mexico is not known as a major car-producing area, it seems pretty likely that any purchace of a car is going to involve interstate commerce at some point. It further impacts interstate commerce because any car originally sold in NM would have to have the interlock removed before it could be sold in another state. The Supreme Court has held a very broad interpretation (perhaps over-broad, but that's another issue) of the commerce clause, so there's probably ample ground to invalidate it on those grounds alone, without even getting into the Due Process issue.
What the founding fathers forgot to put into the Constitution was a "bloody stupid" clause, to keep Congress and the States from passing laws which are, well, bloody stupid.
It will probably be a crime to disable the device. This could turn a simple speeding ticket into a trip to the pokey.
New Mexico has periodic (annual, IIRC) vehicle safety inspections. If your interlock were disabled, you wouldn't get your inspection sticker and couldn't legally drive your car.
As you mention, interlocks now are used by court order only. This is Constitutional and reasonable. Someone needs to re-educate Mr. Martinez about the Constitution:
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
This isn't a case of "pro-opensource" vs "anti-opensource". This is a case of License Holy Wars. This is a case of RMS getting his knickers in a twist because someone has the audacity to release a useful and popular open-source program without the Holy GPL. I'm suprised he's not saying that it should be called "GNU/Apache" instead of just "Apache".
ESR and RMS are mouthpieces more than contributers. While both have made significant contributions (Fetchmail and EMACS respectively), but primary role has been that of demagogues.
It's interesting to compare the attitudes of ESR and RMS to that of technical leaders like Linus and Miguel de Icaza, who spend less time ranting and more time creating.
I could make an observation about spouting off on/. vs doing somthing productive, but I'm not in a self-depreciatingmood right now.
Since you want to construct a straw man by putting words into my mouth, let me return the favor.
1) I should believe in God because the Bible says so, and the Bible can't be wrong because it is the literal word of God.
Sorry, but that's a classical logical fallacy called begging the question. Basically, we can stop right here, because this simple fact renders all subsequent arguments moot; any further discussion is nothing more than mental masturbation -- enjoyable, but ultimately unproductive. Show me proof that the Christian Bible is the Word of God which isn't based on logical fallacies, and you'll have a willing convert. I'll even spot you one by stipulating that there is a supreme being (which is itself an unprovable assumption).
2) If I can't resolve the seemingly-obvious contridictions, it's because I'm too stupid or lazy to understand the explanations used to dismiss them.
Sorry, but that's another logical fallacy called an ad hominim attack.
3) Besides, there really aren't any contridictions because a bunch of very smart guys read the Ancient Greek and Hebrew versions and figured out what they really meant to say, instead of what they actually did say.
Yet another logical fallacy: appeal to authority.
4) The verses aren't contridictory because this word over used here doesn't mean the same thing as it does when it's used over there.
Equivocation is also a logical fallacy.
5) These are not the contridictions you are looking for. Move along.
Sorry, the Jedi Mind Trick don't work on me. The fallacy of exclusion doesn't work either.
8) If you don't believe as we believe, you will suffer eternal damnnation.
Wow! Three logical fallacies for the price of one: appeal to concequences, appeal to popularity, and untestability.
Well, when you consider that the all the big home electronics and office supply stores frequently have CD-R spindles for $0 after rebate, you really can't beat them on a $/MB basis. A spindle of 50 800MB CD-Rs for the net cost of a single first-class postage stamp ($0.37) and envelope (call it $0.03), plus 2 months interest on $20 ($0.10 at 3.0%APR) works out to a penny a disk.
The internet is not a thing; it's an agreement. Spam is a problem because it takes advantage of the openness of the SMTP protocol. We could end (or at least drastically reduce) spam tomorrow if we all agreed to use a new standard for sending & receiving email. The two challenges are designing a spam-resistant protocol, and getting it accepted by the majority of email users. There have been several good proposals on how to make it more difficult to send spam; one particuarly good one is to have the sender "pay" for sending the email by forcing the to perform a complex calculation before accepting the message.
With enough brains working on the problem, it is possible to design a spam-resistant mail system. The real problem is going to be overcoming inertia and replacing SMTP with something better.
Evidentally this John fellow was really a lunatic or a moron.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I can not understand why the most powerful being in the universe would chose to communicate with his creations via the self-contridictory rantings of an intolerant fanatic.
The Bible is undeniably self-contridictory. If it were not, it would be unnecessary to create elaborate arguments to explain and justify the blatant contridictions which are apparant to anyone who hasn't had their bullshit sensors permently fried through a lifetime of indoctrination.
It's impossible for an intellectually honest person to reconcile the entire Bible with the post-Enlightenment interpretation of the philosopy attributed to Jesus; which is why Thomas Jefferson felt it necessary to compile his own bible. Jefferson spent the better part of his adult life in the process of, to use his own description, seperating the diamonds from the dunghill in order to produce what he felt was an accurate rendition of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Sadly, many modern Christians (particuarly those on the far right) denounce Jefferson's work as heretical and blasphemous. It has been my experience that the religion practiced by most people calling themselves "Christian" has precious little in common with the philosophy so masterfully related by Jefferson.
It occurs to me that the label "Christian" bears a lot in common to the label "Hacker", in that both are used by groups with diametrically opposed values to describe themselves. Script-kiddie "hackers" have almost exactly the same relation to classical MIT-style "hackers" as Jeffersonian "Christians" have to far-right bible-beater "Christians". Just as the real hackers have had their name sullied by the script kiddies of the world, the true followers of Jesus's philosophy have had their name sullied by misguided idiots. In a perfect world, it wouldn't be necessary to have to label oneself as a "white-hat hacker" or a "Jeffersonian Christian" in order to distinguish oneself from the the undesirables; but this is not a perfect world. By labelling oneself as a "christian" without providing any additional qualification, you allow an outsider to unconciously lump you together with the lunatic fringe.
I think that comparing all telemarketers to a serial killer is a bit harsh. The people making the calls are just poor shlubs who are doing the only thing they can to survive -- they are no more detestable than a prostitute or a beggar working a street corner. The real subhuman dirtballs are the rich bastards who finance and use telemarketing operations.
When listing your things that Christians believe, you left out the "some". It's great that you find libertarian ideals in your religion -- I have respect for the strength of your convictions. I wish all Christians believed in "live and let live in peace" as you do. Sadly, that is demonstrably untrue; if it were so, there would be no reason to have this debate. The Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of the world have a radically different interpretation of Christianity than you do, based on available evidence.
There are a great many people, who have as much claim to call themselves Christians as you do, who would disagree with each and every point you have made. The Religious Right is full of people who would be more than happy to use the power of the government to impose their intrepretation of Christian values on Christian and non-Christian alike, and our legal system is full of examples of their successful attempts to do so.
As an aside, the flavor of Christianity you describe has much more in common with my wife's religion (Wicca) than it does with the version(s) practiced by most of the people I have met who call themselves "Christians".
That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
(2 Chronicles, 15:13)
Particuarly if they actively worship another god:
He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
(Exodus 22:20)
And especially if they're a member of a religion you really don't like:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live
(Exodus 22:18)
Even if they're your family:
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die
(Deuteronomy 13:6-10)
I voted Libertarian last time because I knew my state (MD) was going to Gore by a wide margin. My primary goal was to vote AGAINST The Shrub, as it will be again this year. Voting for Gore would have made no difference. My hope was that the LP might get enough votes to actually get recognition as a major party. No such luck. Since MD has almost always gone to the democrats, I don't see any harm in voting LP again this year, but I'll have to change that stance if it looks like it's going to be close. I'd vote for Pat Robertson if it helped keep Shrub out of office.
Christianity and libertarianism are closely related.
I have to disagree with you on that, my friend. There may be Christians who find support for their libertarian ideals in Christian teachings, but there's nothing inherently libertarian about the Christian religion. The Bible has just as much (if not more) support for authoritarian government as it does for libertarian government.
The Bible contains so many contridictory and mutually exclusive passages that, with a little selective quoting, you can find support for just about anything from universal brotherhood to wholesale genocide.
I think the point the grandparent is trying to make is that weasel words carry no FACTS. Information != Facts. Weasel words allow opinion to be easily mistaken as facts. Introducing opinion into a factual discussion with the purpose of misleading the listener is intellectually dishonest. "He was arrested while carrying a bag" is intellectually honest. Idle speculation that the bag might have contained dope or a bomb contributes no factual content and actively leads the listener to make a conclusion on supposition.
Any diagnostic / troubleshooting software that requires that the computer boot into the operating system first is largely useless. It does nothing to help you fix a problem which is preventing the OS from booting.
Generic tools like memtestX86 are a good start, but there is a limit to what you can do with generic tools. Ultimately, you need hardware-specific tests. Hardware manufactures need to do a better job of providing diagnostic tools for the things they sell. Yeah, you can test the gross functionality of any sound card by playing music, but to do a complete test you need something designed for that specific card.
I can tell you that they are not contradictions just on the face of it
How exactly are the ideas of "Everyone is a sinner" and "Anyone who believes in Jesus is not a sinner" fail to contridict one another? These are blatantly contridictory statements without resorting to major semantic gymnastics.
Even if you translate the 6th Commandment as "Don't commit murder", how can you define the wanton killing of non-combatants by soldiers as anything else? Why would a god who doesn't want his followers to commit murder then command them to kill women and children and stone people to death for minor transgressions?
A huge amount of mental effort has been wasted trying to explain away the obvious contridictions in the Bible. Despite centuries of effort from some of the most brilliant theologians who ever lived, no one has been able to convincingly resolve the numerous discrepancies and contridictions in the Bible. It would be nice to be able to consign it to the dustbin of history, but unfortunately even non-believers have to understand the Bible in to defend themselves against the ignorant masses who refuse to accept anything else as an authoritative source of information.
The real problem is that printed paper currency is technologically obsolete, and has been for at least the last decade. We need a new kind of cash.
One solution would to go back to using coins made of precious metal, preferably where the value of the metal is close to the face value of the coin. Of course, governments hate this idea, as it destroys thier ability to conjure money from thin air. Gold coin is also impractical for large transactions, which is one of the main reasons we started using paper money in the first place.
Combined with modern anti-tamper technology, coins could be nearly impossible to counterfeit economically. No matter how good printing technology gets, it won't be able to reproduce a holographically etched hunk of gold. Even if the precious metal content is largely symbolic, it still serves the purpose of defeating counterfeiters by driving up the cost of the raw materials.
I understand allegory. The problem is that the vocal religious right does not
Have you listened to what modern Literalist Christians actually say? Take the Book of Job as an example. Most people would consider it to be an allegory designed to convey a theological point. However, there are a significant number of Christians (of the Falwell/Robertson brigade) would would maintain that Job is a literal and accurate transcription of actual historical events.
My personal observation is that the predominant view among anti-evolutionist Christians is that the KJV Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God. Yes, there are educated and rational Christians out there who have a more realistic intrepretation of the Bible; but they generally aren't the ones foaming at the mouth about evil-loution or driving around with bumper stickers where the "truth" fish is eating the "darwin" fish.
My original observation, that the God described in the Old Testament is capricious, bloodthirsty, and sadistic remains unchanged. Leviticus in particular has God threatining dire punishments or commanding his followers to perform barbaric acts in every third verse. Deuteronomy has God repeatedly ordering his followers to kill every man, woman, and child of neighboring tribes -- although if he was feeling particuarly generous he let the faithful rape the women and bring them home as slaves. 1 Samuel has him killing 50,070 people just for looking at him funny, as well as more genocidal commands. 2 Samuel has him punishing his own people with a plague for the unauthorized genocide committed by the former king, and sending another one because David conducted a census. In 2 Kings he has a pair of bears eat 42 rude children who were mocking his bald buddy Elisha. And the list goes on.
Even taken allegorically, the messages of the Old Testiment are crystal clear: "Mercilessly kill everyone who worships another god (or who lives in the general vicinity of people who worship another god)", and "Do what I want or else I will do horrible things to you and everyone you know".
(Warm) English beer has a reasonable taste because it is actually beer. The beverage known as "Budweiser" is not beer -- it's barley soda. Some people say it's rat piss, but that's provably wrong -- rat piss flouresces under a black light, Bud doesn't.
If your God thinks it's so important that we worship him and live by his rules, why has he hidden all evidence of his existance so completely? If he intended for there to be One True Faith, how come he did not reveal the same religion to all of his creations?
For the sake of argument, do you really think that God in the Judeo-Christian tradition is such a wimp that he couldn't manage to have written what he wanted?
Your religion says that God does not use humans as puppets because he created us with free will. Therefore, even if God literally dictated his words to a human, that human could willfuly change what he was told in the course of writing it down. Even if the original author faithfully recorded God's word, subsequent transcriptionists could willfully change what was written, and translators could willfuly slant the words to their own ends. Finally, the reader can willfully misunderstand (or selectively quote) Gods word to support his own predjudices.
Contrary to your ad hominim attack, I've put a great deal of thought into this subject. I've examined the evidence and found it lacking in every specification. Christian mythology does not hold up to even the most elementary scientific or logical standards. It is not even internally consistent with itself -- the Bible is so self-contridictory in so many places that it boggles the imagination. (EG: "Thou shall not kill" vs. "thou shall not suffer a witch to live"; "There is no man that sinneth not" vs. "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." )
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That must be what I was remembering. I lived in Albuquerque about a decade ago, so pardon me if my memory of the details of vehicle inspection requirements is a bit dusty.
Please keep in mind that the judge in question swore an oath before God to support the Constitution and to uphold the law of the land. The law of the land happens to be strict seperation of church and state. Regardless of whether or not a judge personally agrees with a given law, he is bound by his oath to abide by it and to uphold it. If he could not agree to those terms, he should not have swore the oath. By violating that oath, he is not only dishonoring himself and his office, he is breaking a promise he made before God almighty. HMM, what does the Bible have to say about breaking convenants with God? I seem to recall that the big guy looks down on that sort of thing. While you're at it, consider the point that misappropriating public resources is theft. Does the phrase "thou shalt not steal" ring any bells?
A government official (like a judge) cannot use the power of the office he or she holds to promote their personal religion. Why does the God Squad have such a problem understanding this? Basic ethics dictate that public officials are not allowed to use public resources for personal benefit, no matter how many other people benefit from it as well.
If you still can't understand the problem, let's use an analogy to take religion out of the equasion. Let's say a government official owns stock in a company, which you also happen to own stock in. He uses the power of his office to make it appear that the Government has endorsed this company over it's competitors. While this may benefit you personally and make you happy, it is still an abuse of the public's trust and is immoral, unethical, and illegal.
Religion has no place in government. Government has no place in religion. If you don't like that fact, your choices are to: try to amend the Constitution, move to a theocracy, or STFU.
The SC has (mistakenly, IMHO) ruled that a breath test does not constitute a "search" under the 4th amendment, so there's no point in persuing anything along those lines as grounds for invalidating the law. Likewise, unless the interlock keeps a log of it's readings which could be used as evidence, it's not self-incriminating.
Another point is that this probably violates the commerce clause as well. The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to regulate interstate commerce (Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 3); since New Mexico is not known as a major car-producing area, it seems pretty likely that any purchace of a car is going to involve interstate commerce at some point. It further impacts interstate commerce because any car originally sold in NM would have to have the interlock removed before it could be sold in another state. The Supreme Court has held a very broad interpretation (perhaps over-broad, but that's another issue) of the commerce clause, so there's probably ample ground to invalidate it on those grounds alone, without even getting into the Due Process issue.
What the founding fathers forgot to put into the Constitution was a "bloody stupid" clause, to keep Congress and the States from passing laws which are, well, bloody stupid.
<sarcasm>After all, if they're related to a criminal they must be criminals themselves, so we better be safe and lock them all up.</sarcasm>
All this is going to accomplish is cause every New Mexico resident to go out of state to buy their cars.
This isn't a case of "pro-opensource" vs "anti-opensource". This is a case of License Holy Wars. This is a case of RMS getting his knickers in a twist because someone has the audacity to release a useful and popular open-source program without the Holy GPL. I'm suprised he's not saying that it should be called "GNU/Apache" instead of just "Apache".
I could make an observation about spouting off on /. vs doing somthing productive, but I'm not in a self-depreciatingmood right now.
1) I should believe in God because the Bible says so, and the Bible can't be wrong because it is the literal word of God.
Sorry, but that's a classical logical fallacy called begging the question. Basically, we can stop right here, because this simple fact renders all subsequent arguments moot; any further discussion is nothing more than mental masturbation -- enjoyable, but ultimately unproductive. Show me proof that the Christian Bible is the Word of God which isn't based on logical fallacies , and you'll have a willing convert. I'll even spot you one by stipulating that there is a supreme being (which is itself an unprovable assumption).
2) If I can't resolve the seemingly-obvious contridictions, it's because I'm too stupid or lazy to understand the explanations used to dismiss them.
Sorry, but that's another logical fallacy called an ad hominim attack. 3) Besides, there really aren't any contridictions because a bunch of very smart guys read the Ancient Greek and Hebrew versions and figured out what they really meant to say, instead of what they actually did say.
Yet another logical fallacy: appeal to authority.
4) The verses aren't contridictory because this word over used here doesn't mean the same thing as it does when it's used over there.
Equivocation is also a logical fallacy.
5) These are not the contridictions you are looking for. Move along.
Sorry, the Jedi Mind Trick don't work on me. The fallacy of exclusion doesn't work either.
8) If you don't believe as we believe, you will suffer eternal damnnation.
Wow! Three logical fallacies for the price of one: appeal to concequences, appeal to popularity, and untestability.
Well, when you consider that the all the big home electronics and office supply stores frequently have CD-R spindles for $0 after rebate, you really can't beat them on a $/MB basis. A spindle of 50 800MB CD-Rs for the net cost of a single first-class postage stamp ($0.37) and envelope (call it $0.03), plus 2 months interest on $20 ($0.10 at 3.0%APR) works out to a penny a disk.
With enough brains working on the problem, it is possible to design a spam-resistant mail system. The real problem is going to be overcoming inertia and replacing SMTP with something better.
The Bible is undeniably self-contridictory. If it were not, it would be unnecessary to create elaborate arguments to explain and justify the blatant contridictions which are apparant to anyone who hasn't had their bullshit sensors permently fried through a lifetime of indoctrination.
It's impossible for an intellectually honest person to reconcile the entire Bible with the post-Enlightenment interpretation of the philosopy attributed to Jesus; which is why Thomas Jefferson felt it necessary to compile his own bible. Jefferson spent the better part of his adult life in the process of, to use his own description, seperating the diamonds from the dunghill in order to produce what he felt was an accurate rendition of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Sadly, many modern Christians (particuarly those on the far right) denounce Jefferson's work as heretical and blasphemous. It has been my experience that the religion practiced by most people calling themselves "Christian" has precious little in common with the philosophy so masterfully related by Jefferson.
It occurs to me that the label "Christian" bears a lot in common to the label "Hacker", in that both are used by groups with diametrically opposed values to describe themselves. Script-kiddie "hackers" have almost exactly the same relation to classical MIT-style "hackers" as Jeffersonian "Christians" have to far-right bible-beater "Christians". Just as the real hackers have had their name sullied by the script kiddies of the world, the true followers of Jesus's philosophy have had their name sullied by misguided idiots. In a perfect world, it wouldn't be necessary to have to label oneself as a "white-hat hacker" or a "Jeffersonian Christian" in order to distinguish oneself from the the undesirables; but this is not a perfect world. By labelling oneself as a "christian" without providing any additional qualification, you allow an outsider to unconciously lump you together with the lunatic fringe.
I think that comparing all telemarketers to a serial killer is a bit harsh. The people making the calls are just poor shlubs who are doing the only thing they can to survive -- they are no more detestable than a prostitute or a beggar working a street corner. The real subhuman dirtballs are the rich bastards who finance and use telemarketing operations.
There are a great many people, who have as much claim to call themselves Christians as you do, who would disagree with each and every point you have made. The Religious Right is full of people who would be more than happy to use the power of the government to impose their intrepretation of Christian values on Christian and non-Christian alike, and our legal system is full of examples of their successful attempts to do so.
As an aside, the flavor of Christianity you describe has much more in common with my wife's religion (Wicca) than it does with the version(s) practiced by most of the people I have met who call themselves "Christians".
Kill everyone who does not believe in your god:
Particuarly if they actively worship another god: And especially if they're a member of a religion you really don't like: Even if they're your family:The Bible contains so many contridictory and mutually exclusive passages that, with a little selective quoting, you can find support for just about anything from universal brotherhood to wholesale genocide.
I think the point the grandparent is trying to make is that weasel words carry no FACTS. Information != Facts. Weasel words allow opinion to be easily mistaken as facts. Introducing opinion into a factual discussion with the purpose of misleading the listener is intellectually dishonest. "He was arrested while carrying a bag" is intellectually honest. Idle speculation that the bag might have contained dope or a bomb contributes no factual content and actively leads the listener to make a conclusion on supposition.
Generic tools like memtestX86 are a good start, but there is a limit to what you can do with generic tools. Ultimately, you need hardware-specific tests. Hardware manufactures need to do a better job of providing diagnostic tools for the things they sell. Yeah, you can test the gross functionality of any sound card by playing music, but to do a complete test you need something designed for that specific card.
One solution would to go back to using coins made of precious metal, preferably where the value of the metal is close to the face value of the coin. Of course, governments hate this idea, as it destroys thier ability to conjure money from thin air. Gold coin is also impractical for large transactions, which is one of the main reasons we started using paper money in the first place.
Combined with modern anti-tamper technology, coins could be nearly impossible to counterfeit economically. No matter how good printing technology gets, it won't be able to reproduce a holographically etched hunk of gold. Even if the precious metal content is largely symbolic, it still serves the purpose of defeating counterfeiters by driving up the cost of the raw materials.
Have you listened to what modern Literalist Christians actually say? Take the Book of Job as an example. Most people would consider it to be an allegory designed to convey a theological point. However, there are a significant number of Christians (of the Falwell/Robertson brigade) would would maintain that Job is a literal and accurate transcription of actual historical events.
My personal observation is that the predominant view among anti-evolutionist Christians is that the KJV Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God. Yes, there are educated and rational Christians out there who have a more realistic intrepretation of the Bible; but they generally aren't the ones foaming at the mouth about evil-loution or driving around with bumper stickers where the "truth" fish is eating the "darwin" fish.
My original observation, that the God described in the Old Testament is capricious, bloodthirsty, and sadistic remains unchanged. Leviticus in particular has God threatining dire punishments or commanding his followers to perform barbaric acts in every third verse. Deuteronomy has God repeatedly ordering his followers to kill every man, woman, and child of neighboring tribes -- although if he was feeling particuarly generous he let the faithful rape the women and bring them home as slaves. 1 Samuel has him killing 50,070 people just for looking at him funny, as well as more genocidal commands. 2 Samuel has him punishing his own people with a plague for the unauthorized genocide committed by the former king, and sending another one because David conducted a census. In 2 Kings he has a pair of bears eat 42 rude children who were mocking his bald buddy Elisha. And the list goes on.
Even taken allegorically, the messages of the Old Testiment are crystal clear: "Mercilessly kill everyone who worships another god (or who lives in the general vicinity of people who worship another god)", and "Do what I want or else I will do horrible things to you and everyone you know".
(Warm) English beer has a reasonable taste because it is actually beer. The beverage known as "Budweiser" is not beer -- it's barley soda. Some people say it's rat piss, but that's provably wrong -- rat piss flouresces under a black light, Bud doesn't.
For the sake of argument, do you really think that God in the Judeo-Christian tradition is such a wimp that he couldn't manage to have written what he wanted?
Your religion says that God does not use humans as puppets because he created us with free will. Therefore, even if God literally dictated his words to a human, that human could willfuly change what he was told in the course of writing it down. Even if the original author faithfully recorded God's word, subsequent transcriptionists could willfully change what was written, and translators could willfuly slant the words to their own ends. Finally, the reader can willfully misunderstand (or selectively quote) Gods word to support his own predjudices.
Contrary to your ad hominim attack, I've put a great deal of thought into this subject. I've examined the evidence and found it lacking in every specification. Christian mythology does not hold up to even the most elementary scientific or logical standards. It is not even internally consistent with itself -- the Bible is so self-contridictory in so many places that it boggles the imagination. (EG: "Thou shall not kill" vs. "thou shall not suffer a witch to live"; "There is no man that sinneth not" vs. "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." )