You said that the statement misrepresented Gore's contribution. No one disputes that it's not going down in history as the most articulate and clearest of communications. Whether or not it's just something you forget about, or something you judge a man's character by is very much based on his intentions or how badly he mispoke. When asked about this particular controversy, both Vince Cerf and Marc Andreesen defended Gore. Had he done something unbecoming, like taken credit which was not his, these two are of sufficient knowledge and credibility to acknowledge such a transgression. Neither did, they defended Gore instead. If you take the entire episode, in context, and give each the benefit of the doubt, that they acted in good faith, the only reasonable conclusion is that Gore's statement was vague. No one attempted to hide the vagueness, they clarified it. Unless you assume that these men are liars, there is no rational basis for speaking as if Gore acted with malice or deceit.
Becuase by claiming it didn't exist before then, he's not giving proper due credit to people like Vint Cerf, who's work predated his funding.
It seems that this was your original complaint. When Vince Cerf not only doesn't complain, but defends this statement, then don't you think you're out of line maybe? Your position isn't "contradicted by the evidence in the slightest"? And for the record, that is the point against which I have been arguing. How you've managed to see a straw man, is beyond me.
Just how far are you willing to descend into irrational absudity? Gore didn't know? Vince Cerf and Marc Andreesen just said he was instrimental and knowledgable for what reason? You have what information not presented here to overcome the weight of this evidence? Your position is untenable if you examine it in good conscience.
So, the Vice-President of the US actually tried to claim that he had been the impetus for the creation of a highly complex technical system after a career in law. This doesn't sound absurd to you?
Is this the Inept bit here? Assume the most absurd scenario, regardless of how many participants claim in good faith that such a scenario was not the case. The leap of faith required for your position reveals it's irrational nature.
Not ignoring. I wasn't aware of it. It appears I was wrong. Thank you for pointing out this bit of evidence that I had overlooked. No problem.
I still hold to both. The most profound differences here are as a result of differences of opinion regarding word usage. You accuse me of imprecision in language, yet the very roots of our language imprecisely reflect their various meanings today. A precise idea can be descibed accurately, even if it takes several attempts to convey it. If you could not use a knife to reproduce a wood cut, would you suddenly claim the original's craftsman was nothing more than a victum of luck? Would it be impossible to recreate the wood cut without reporducing all the craftsman's tools or his workshop in every detail? Language and ideas are no different.
You attempt to attribute very narrow definitions to each word so as to preclude any other use. I frequently do the same. It is an exercise in clarification of position, of manipulating language to convey a sense of exactly what your stated position is. Law is precise for a reason, it could be said that computer languages are extremely precise languages. Science uses exact language. I define words to clarify exactly what I mean by them, not to preclude other usage. Other usage is fine, as long as that usage's meaning is clearly stated. It's not a manipulation of language, as my intent is to clarify, not decieve.
What it is not is an excursion down the road to find absolute truth (epistemology), which is ultimately nothing more than mental masturbation. I will grant you that the two are frequently not so very far apart though. The words are used to define and describe the epistemology, your choice of words does not dictate your epistemology. It is hardly mental masturbation, that's like saying the scientific method is mental masturbation.
It is not any different, and it's hardly any more fragile than the basis for any other human interaction. They are both expressions of the same psychological drives. It is different, you have no certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow. You know the odds are pretty good though, so you don't worry about it when you go to bed. Similarly, you weigh the liklihood of getting caught speeding or killing someone who dishonors you. You know that to some measurable extent, you may not get away with it. It is the collective political will, along with the wealth of the nation that determines the probability of enforcement. To say that one posesses "inalienable rights" is to support a falsified statement. To say that you won't cheat on your taxes, because you don't want to get caught, is to make a conclusion based on probabilities. That both choices contain some element of faith does not eliminate the rational aspects of the latter.
It appears you were under the misconception that I was arguing law or legal theory. I was not. Rather, my statements are about something I see to be above any law or legal theory. Outside of law, there is simply the arbitrary imposition of moral goals aka tyranny. Your entire argument is the classical justificationalists position, that at some point a leap of faith is taken and given that all people are equal, one leap is no better than another. This nihlistic position was disproven in WW Bartley's "The Retreat to Commitment". These choices can be defined rationally, given that moral goals are as unique as fingerprints. If one's truth is the most efficeint means to their moral goals, then no matter what moral goals a person has their preferences for action should logically correspond. Where they do not correspond, probability suggests that it's due to a misunderstanding the moral goals involved. Laws are a normalization of those goals, that's why law changes, but must stay logically consistent. It's not that morals are above the law, it's just all that's left when the law breaks down.
History has shown time and again that self-determination (the "rights" to rebellion, self-def
No, the unanimous requirement is that all 9 States agree. Article XIII. It's clear as a bell. If all 9 states do not agree, the action is not valid. It's no different than if an item were unanimously sent to the current States with a requirement of 2 States ratifying.
You're ignoring the the pertinent Congressional decision on Sept. 28th 1787. The Resolution of Sept. 28th, 1787, Submitting the Constitution to the Several States stated the following: Resolved Unanimously that the said Report with the resolutions and letter accompanying the same be transmitted to the several legislatures in Order to be submitted to a convention of Delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof in conformity to the resolves of the Convention made and provided in that case.
That fulfills Art. 13 in the AoC. Congress only had to unanimously decide to send the Constitution to the States to satisfy Art. 13. The 9 state requirement was legally covered by the Sept. 28th unanimous vote.
Replace "rebel" with * and you've got a pretty good general statement there.:) Intentionally so. Moral goals are as individual as DNA and purely subjective. Any moral decision would have just as much variation and subjectivity. This is one of the reasons that a right to rebel doesn't appear anywhere in legal theory outside of natural law theory, and there the authority comes from interpreting God's will.
I wasn't arguing the theory of knowledge, rather an interpretation of words. "Semantics" is more suited to my position than "epistemology." Your belief may vary, but arguing which words better suit the argument furthers confirms the semantic basis for disagreement.:) It's not semantics, you're claiming that the idea of rights, somehow has more force because people hold certain beliefs. How is this no different than a religious cult? Is the entire basis of our civilization that fragile? I claim that the evidence states otherwise. The psychological observation you've made here has no bearing on law or legal theory. This isn't a matter of disagreement on wording, and the question of authority in a Liberal legal system is a question of epistemology.
And the basis of all law is this civil contract which is in turn based on faith in society. This is different than the use of the terms faith and belief you've used elsewhwere. Faith in society to enforce it's laws has a measureable history, like a credit score. That's a far cry from a faith in a deity for which there is no physical evidence. Equivocating the two uses of faith here does not follow logically.
Like Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, etc. Easily dispelled, like any other myth. Haven't checked your barometer for the longevity of "false powers" have you? Belief is a powerful thing, even if you choose to deny that fact. That doesn't make it the basis for law, or where the source of authority for law comes from.
Last I checked, understanding something is not completely (or even partially) true and still choosing to support the dissemination of the idea is not irrational if you also understand your purpose for doing so. No, that's irrational. The truth is the most efficient means for reaching one's moral goals, so if believing 2 + 2 = 5 is required to reach your moral goals, then it is the truth for your purposes, even if it is not truth in the epistemological model called arithmetic. If we were talking abotu aritmetic and you asserted 2 + 2 = 5, then I could evaluate that it was false for that model. Similarly, since we are dicussing the model of Western Law, American Constitutional Law and legal theory, I can evaluate statements to be true or false. An opinion is a statement which attaches a moral claim or judgement to a fact. An assertion of fact, as to the nature of an idea is not simply a matter of opinion. Again, these are issues of epistemology, not semantics.
It was illegitimate under the AoC because once 9 states ratified it, those member states ceased to view the AoC as governing documents, a fact that was in direct contravention of the requirement for unanimity. The unanimous vote would have been to send the Constitution to the states. Hence, that vote legitimized the procedure of moving to the Constitution with only 9 states.
We could have a new Constitutional Convention tommorrow, and have that Convention draft a document requiring only 2 states to ratify it for it to be formally adopted by those states. The Constitution has specific ammendment requirements in Article 5, which would need to be fulfilled to change to another document. Any ammendments that come out of a Constitutional Convention must be ratified by 3/4's of the states in order to pass. 2 states couldn't just adopt a new Constitution, convention or no convention.
That would be in direct contravention of our current governing document, whether or not the rest of the states eventually supported the move. I'm not saying the secession from the government under the Articles of Confederation was either right or wrong, simply that it was in violation of the governing document at the time. Civility does not make something legal. Legality does not make something right. You're still not correct about the passage of legal status with regard to the Articles of Confederation. The Federal Government would consider any move illegal and would attempt to enforce Federal law. So those states would not have been able to secede. Are you trying to argue there is some moral right to secede or a legal one? There has never been a legal one. The right to rebel morally has always been recognized by those who share the rebel's moral goals and opposed by those who don't. So what, it still doesn't establish a right.
While you may argue there are no absolute rights, it is all a matter of semantics. I certainly agree there is no natural force that insures victory, or even compels action in the face of overwhelming odds. It's not semantics, it's epistemology. If the basis for you're laws authority isn't some natural enforcement, you'd better understand what is the ultimate mechanism for enforcement.
The definition of "rights" is very subjective in nature, but rights derive their power from belief. Nope, not at all. Rights are defined very precisely. They must be. Rights get their power from the civil contract, faith in society to enforce it's laws based on past experience, nothing more.
Thus, it is necessary to support the belief in rights by speaking in absolute, rather than relative, terms. Nonsense. All rights are positive law, there is no absolute or natural authority from which they flow. Perpetuating myths like their "inalienable nature" does nothing to strengthen them. We may determine that defending each others rights is more efficient to reaching our collective goals than not defending them, we may even back up that position with the threat of violence. That does nothing to make those rights any more absolute.
Since I support the concept of rights, I speak of them in absolute terms rather than subjectively, in order to lend power to the concept. It's a false power, easily dispelled as any other myth.
Thus, there are in fact absolute rights. You may say otherwise, I just won't agree with your argument.:) You don't have to agree, the argument proves you position incorrect. You're allowed to irrationally continue advocating a false belief. It would be more rational to understand why you choose to defend a system of rights and whether or not it is internally consistent. You should determine if it is universal and how so.
Political opinions are rational choices, and can be attacked regardless of your moral opinion. Your moral opinion may be valid, but your political opinions are not so by default since they can be measured.
Annapolis Convention. Nine states agreed to send delegates to Annapolis to discuss commerce, but only five state delegations arrived on time. Because of the poor attendance, the delegates decided to invite the states to another convention. Alexander Hamilton drafted an address to the states, inviting them to a convention to be held in Philadelphia in 1787, to discuss not only commerce, but all matters necessary to improve the federal government. After debate, on February 21, 1787, Congress endorsed the plan to revise the Articles of Confederation.
After carefully reviewing the draft, the Convention approved the Constitution on September 17. After signing it and sending it to Congress, the Convention adjourned.
Congress Receives the Constitution. Although some congressmen were displeased at the Convention for doing far more than revising the Articles of Confederation, on September 28 Congress agreed to pass the Constitution on to the states, so each could debate it in separate ratifying conventions. Nine states had to agree to the new Constitution for it to go into effect.
Seems like a perfectly legal transition, which in no way means secession was legitimatized by the process. As for absolute rights, there are none. There are rights you are willing to kill in order to defend or otherwise a point at with you will enforce political decisions with violence. There is no "right to rebellion". Others may support a rebellion for moral reasons or practical political purposes, but there is no natural force that will insure victory in a morally just rebellion, thus, no absolute right to rebel.
Which would include Congress' power to raise a militia to crush an insurrection, wouldn't it? To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; The South fired on Ft. Sumter when the Federal forces wouldn't leave. I'd say that would qualify as an insurrection. So I don't think that the War of Northern Agression was a blow to States Rights.
How could you have a logically consistent system if the states had the right to determine citizenship?
It was over the Presentment Clause (Article 1, Section 7). That describes how a piece of legislation is passed. It's very specific and in order to change the procedure, one must ammend the Constitution. So in a way, you're correct.
While I agree with the rest of the post, Various theological systems cannot possibly provide the truth for anything at all. What specifically were you thinking of?
Let's say you're moral goal is to be closer to God. Since this is just as arbitrary as saying, I believe people are good, or I believe that Justice should prevail, it is a valid moral goal. A theological system may be the most efficient means for realizing that goal. If your goal was to be "closer to God" and you went and studied science exclusively, you might have a much more difficult time, achieving increased "closeness to God". Hence, for your moral goals, a theological system is your *TRUTH*.
If that involves believing that you've had a converstation with God, who can possibly prove or disprove such a claim. If it meets your moral goal of being "closer to God", then isn't it the truth as far as you're concerned?
If I say I have a conversation with God, is that truth? If so, then we better amend the Bible and include half the population in the mental ward in Bellevue. If a group of people in the ancient world say someone was inspired by God or talked to God, how can we possibly prove it to be true? They had little science, mathematics or mental health diagnosis so we cannot take something that we have not been able to reproduce or we witness as a part of our human experience at face value.
Again, it's utility depends entirely on your moral goals. If a particular theology allows you to be at peace, which allows you to live a productive and happy life, then isn't it useful? Just as useful as any of the convienent but unnecessary technology we have?
If all people are equal, then all moral perspectives must be equal. This is the basic secular justification of relativism. All knowledge is relative and equal. Which conservatives denounce as a loss of values. Using this model of choices, I can evaluate different theologies, institutions, actions of others, etc. and decide which whill most likely help me to reach my moral goals. I might do this by relying solely on those things that I believe represent my moral goals, I might try to find means used to reach other moral goals and see if I can adapt them to reach my own.
I have a serious dislike for religion being based on the words of man describing things that no one seems to be able to prove or even experience and selling it as Truth.
I can also evaluate the honesty of systems, institutions and people. If I am told what the moral goals of that group or person is, I can look at their actions and determine how probable they are at achieving those goals. If achievement is improbable, then I can assume they are either incompetent (for whatever reason) or lying about their moral goals. This allows me to hold people to standards, while still recognizing inherent equality or liberty of conscience.
Why wasn't the Greek Pantheon the Truth? Actually, that's an easy one: Constantine I made Xtianity the official religion. Woe be to they who do not follow the Official Roman Religion...
As Popper says, History has traditionally been taught as the history of power and criminality.
Allowing the protections to stand would have eroded private property rights. Remember that slaves are chattel, legally speaking. From the point of view of the law's internal consistency, you could not allow state protection laws to stand if slavery was Federally protected.
I have found that many of the claims about the erosion of States Rights are along these lines. Someone is just upset that the correct interpretation of the law doesn't go their way. It's the same thing with Activist Judges. People don't like the decisions and don't understand the law, so they make up a boogeyman. States Rights is the same thing. Federalism is a means, not an end.
I'd like to hear just one States Right that the Feds shouldn't have jurisdiction over.
Appearently it meant Civil War before the Civil War too. Jackson sent 50,000 troops to the border of SC during his Presidncy over seccession. When someone actually tried it, they went up against N. America's largest army. I don't see how the repercussions are any different today.
It was more a question of epistemology and argument. I would not be suprised in the least if the Universe's constants were so in order for the Universe to be self consistent. The issue of Justificationalism is when someone calls into question the evidence behind your assertion. There is an issue of regression until you reach some aspect of the issue where one states "Well, that's just what you believe" and the other counters with the same charge. The answer in Bartley's book is to take it out of some unknowable or unconveyable personal terms as a sacred belief or arbitrary choice and show it as a rational choice made using logic. He dubs this Pan-Critical Rationalism.
In other words, science is the most efficient means for us to predict our surrounding's behavior, whereas religion may be the most efficient means to accomplish other goals. These goals are our moral goals, the scientific method is the means by which we reach the moral goal of understanding the activities around us. The scientific method becomes the TRUTH as far as questions of science are concerned. The falsifiable theory that is then derived is that if we use the scientific method, then we use the most efficient means to learn factual knowledge about our environment.
Since I can define the model and it's moral goals, I can submit it as a choice for you. You can then make a choice as an informed consumer in a marketplace of ideas. I can also measure the efficiency of actions to reach moral goals, even if I don't share those moral goals. It means that I can make an honest and guileless case to you and you can make a rational choice as an informed consumer, which, from one perspective, proves the utility of debate.
In a way, you could say it's the epistomology of science.
I'm aware that Canon law now has Marriage listed as a sacrament, that was not always the case and was in fact a pretty recent development. Canon laws concerning marriage date back forever and there were sacramental marriages vs. ones where the priest was involved, but marriage was never considered a sacrament like communion until recently.
Secondly, impotence, the inability to have sex, rather than infertility was a barrier to having a marriage approved by the Church. That comes directly from 1000 year old Canon law.
Historicaly, the Church made it very easy to get married. You used to only need a priest and secret marriages were common. IIRC, this was stopped in the Middle Ages and parental consent became necessary, along with other requirements.
The line item veto was ruled un-Constitutional by SCOTUS. The "small government" party (yeah right) did let the pay as you go rules lapse though.
Seriously, line-item veto's are a great Constitutional discussion. It would probably require an Ammendment to the Constitution in order to change from the method Congress uses now to something that resembled line-item veto's or riderless legislation.
With regard to States Rights, the only thing the Civil War answered was if the states have a right to seceed. The idea that such a right might exist came more from fertile imaginations than any logical study of the law or historical precedent.
Having read a history of Christian marriage law (among others) in Europe, I'm wondering where you got your information. I've never seen a reference to fertility being necessary requirement for marriage. Hell, you couldn't tell who was infertile really until this century.
I've been meaning to get to Rawl's, he's still a couple of books down the list.
I am currently working with Popper's 5 part definition of Justice and a Bartley inspired definition of Truth. I don't believe moral positions can be proven, but I believe institutions and nations have definite moral goals which can be articulated and proven as such. We can then evaluate how effectively those moral goals are reached given proposed actions and how closely those moral goals align with our own.
I think these idea's synch up with Berman's descriptions of the development of Western legal institutions. It also falls in line with Popper's emphasis on institutional engineering. Together, I believe there is a model for stating what the United States Federal government's moral goals are and then logically evaluating how well a given piece of legislation fulfills those goals. We should be able to do this objectively, even if our own moral goals do not match those were are evaluating.
This should allow for contextual relativism without suffering from the inability to apply standards. I think this also deals with some of the issues brought up in Roberto Unger's Knowledge and Politics, which is also on my reading list.
First of all, you're mischaracterizing the Taliban. All murder carried out with the Taliban's approval was according to their interpretation of Islamic law. The Taliban were/are extremely religious people, just like Al Qaeda is full of extremely religious people and all those Catholics and Protestants who slaughtered each other in Europe were extremely religious people.
It's not a far out comparison to note that extremist Christian sects have gained more visibility and that many politicians pander to them. We don't have to have these people's vision completely implemented before there is a problem, some of the proposals these extremists advocate may be acceptable to mainstream Christians, but completely antithetical to American ideology, like same-sex marriage.
The comparison with the Taliban is because the Taliban was a theocracy, and if you look at many mainstream Christians, they don't really have a problem with ideas like US law comes from the Bible. That is a problem as it is a direct contradiction to the principles upon which our system operates. Our government is secular, it has NO OPINION of religious issues or edicts. Just look at the Mass Supremes ruling on gay-marriage, they found the state had no legitimate interest in banning gay-marriage, that the ban was based entirely on religious or moral views and therefore violated the liberty of conscience (religious freedom) of gay citizens of Mass.
Once mainstream Americans applaude the denial of certain citizen's rights because of religion, how far off is murder? Ashcroft's Justice Dept. already approved torture in contradiction to US precedent and law without consequences, what's to stop Gonzales from deciding that there isn't really a separation of church and state? Mainstream America doesn't seem to see this behavior as abnormal, they re-elected these people.
This has gone beyond a mere culture war. This is a war being waged by the insane in their effort to subvert and ultimately subdue sanity itself. To replace science with Pentacostalism, replace teaching with preaching, and replace truth with myth.
Correct.
These maniacal, land-locked Southerners are determined to hammer out their new techno-theocracy at any cost, and they are winning, people. They are winning.
First of all. These Pentacostal types had massive growth in California starting in the 70's. In fact, most of their growth has been on the left coast and upper mid-west, not the South. As someone pointed out, Kansas ain't the South. In fact, the only Southern States which are land-locked are Tennesee and Arkansas, both of which border the Mississippi. Everthing else is on the water, and no we don't consider Texas to be part of the South, it's Texas, there's a difference. We sent all our criminals and kooks to Texas to annoy the Mexicans, look up Texas history sometime.
Secondly, while they may be currently winning, this has happened at least two other times before this. I really think this is just another "Great Awakening". We must stand vigilent while the nation goes through it's gyrations, but it's not the end of the world and these people don't have as much power as they think.
They have seized control of the terms of all debate, seized the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and are within a hairsbreadth of controlling the entire Judiciary. We are heading inexorably toward the nightmare world envisioned by authors like Alice Walker in books like A Handmaid's Tale. All it's going to take is one more 9/11-style attack and you'll be having to recite Bible verses in order to leave your house in the morning.
Don't Panic. You can still beat these people in any rational debate if you know your position. That's really the problem, is that most people don't know how to articulate their own epistemology in the face of religious fantacism. I wouldn't worry about anyones vision of dystopia other than Kafka's The Trial myself. Given that the history of Western Law has been precisely about ridding society of the arbitrariness of The Trial, I don't think these people can make a persuasive enough argument to radically change the entire fabric of Western civiliation. They're annoying, and it's unfair that rational people have to put up with this nonsense, but that's life. Quit waiting for the sky to fall and learn how to deal with these people effectively.
I talked to an ex-science teacher and his whole argument came down to "Occam's Razor". But how is this different from having your whole argument coming down to believing that "A God exists"? They both something that you are guiding your life on, either of which you really can't prove is correct/true/THE TRUTH.
Welcome to Justificationalism. That's the classic argument, that we can never prove one or the other, so we just make an arbitrary decision and choose to *believe* science or *believe* religion. It's a false view of what happens. You make a rational decision between two models based on your moral goals.
Science is a tool, a provably efficient method for explaining the mechanics of the Universe in which we live, regardless of the nature of it's creation or it's owner. If your moral goals are such that you believe it would be good to understand the mechanics of a physical event, then science will be the most efficient means for achieving those goals. If your moral goals are such that you value the question Why did something happen, then Faith is a much better tool. Science will never tell us *WHY* the Big Bang happened, only *HOW*. Science does not say whether the Big Bang was a good idea or a bad one, it just tells us how likely it is that something happened in a certain way.
Now, since the *TRUTH* can be defined as the most efficient means for reaching one's moral goals, science can in fact provide the *TRUTH* for some questions. Various theological systems are equally capable of providing the *TRUTH* for other questions. One *TRUTH* does not preclude the other as they each have their own context of moral goals. One can externally evaluate if a moral goal is more efficiently achieved via one method or another. If you adequately describe your moral goals to me and then propose a method for achieving those goals, I can rationally criticize the probability that your are correct, even if I do not share your moral goals. So, while knowledge may be relative and the truth dependent upon the relative context, this does not remove it's ability to be measured and reported upon. If you look at the actual criticism of "relativism" from the religious right, that is the main attack, that it removes standards and measurements, which I've shown here is a false assertion.
What amazes me is how much Protestant Theology had in determining the answer to things like Justificationalism and the definition of science. Those who argue for the arbitrariness of science's hold on truth and that truth as such cannot be measured from a Christian perspective, have a very weak grasp on their own theology. The history of Western Law and Protestant Theology argues contrary to their position. I highly recommend reading WW Bartley's "The Retreat to Commitment" to better understand Justificationalism and the epistemology of science.
This is not what science argues. You've created a false dichotomy by saying that:
Either you argue for an eternal Creator that set everything in motion - or you argue for an eternal Universe that just happened.
There is a third possible option here. You can say that we have no evidence to support either theory, thus at this time, science has no opinion either way. In fact, what science does say about the creation of the Universe is that a Big Bang event happened 14+ Billion years ago and we don't know what existed before that, or why the event happened. We only know that the evidence points to this event happening. Science does not attempt to describe the Universe before the Big Bang, because it has no evidence of that existence. Secondly, the Big Bang does not suppose an eternal Universe. If there is enough mass in the Universe, then the whole thing could collapse. The eventual heat death of the Universe looks more likely, but these are competing theories, which have falsifiable paramters and supporting evidence for each. The heat death theory is currently winning, because we can't find enough mass to cause a collapse.
Personally, I'd rather put my faith in the evidence we do have in a Creator, than putting my faith in a still mysterious _something_ that caused the universe to do the whole big *foom* thing.
You can do that, but it's not science and is not in any way what science does, therefore it is not appropriate in a science class. There is evidence for the "big *foom* thing", there is no evidence for or against a creator, which is why you need faith for the creator bit, but not the "big *foom* thing". Faith is in the realm of religion, the scientific process itself has no use for faith. People who practice the scientific method may also have faith in un-scientific things, but when they say they are practicing science, they prove their results without the use of faith, even if faith inspired them to do science in the first place.
There was a great quote in the article: "These people are going to obfuscate about these definitions," complained Jack Krebs, vice president of the pro-evolution Kansas Citizens for Science, whose members filled many of the 180 auditorium seats not taken by journalists, who came from as far away as France. "They have created a straw man. They are trying to make science stand for atheism, so they can fight atheism."
This is the truth. These Fundamentalists think they're fighting atheism and equate science with atheism cause their own theology is such utter crap. They can't reconcile their own belief system with the changing modern world and have inflicted their shortcomings on the rest of us. So here's your alternative, science has no opinion on questions of faith. Science is agnostic, not athiest. Science is a tool, in order for the tool to be effective it must function without faith. Faith is fine, as long as you can recognize what is faith and what is science, otherwise you'll never be able to wield science effectively.
Consider Kerry's repeated accusation that Bush had enacted a "Ban on stem cell research." Bush didn't ban research. He vastly restricted federal funding for stem cell research, but that just doesn't have the same euphonic ring to it. So Kerry deliberatly reworded things
I didn't like that either. From a liberal perspective, it's a valid statement. Since Bush did ban new stem cell lines from Federal funding and the existing lines were found to be contaminated, there was an effective ban on research. I don't think that justifies turning up the rhetoric to vilify. I don't think this was a topic that one could vilify the Bush Administration on as easily as others. I think the Kerry campaign was a poor judge of what issues Bush could be vilified on in general.
While this claim obviously inserts emotional prejudice into a claim, and is a bit too lawyerly for my tastes, it is at least true in it's context. The Bush Admin has made claims over Iraq's WMD, torture, Social Security and energy, that are not true from any context. The numbers just don't match and the logic doesn't follow, even if you are generous in accepting their assumptions.
For instance, Social Security is attacked as a bad investment for individuals, when in fact it's a national insurance policy. Replacement plans are sold as having all the benefits of the insurance plan, while also being an investment which you own. Essentially, an insured investment. There is no reduction in cost to GDP in these plans, it just shuffles the books. The criticism used to create the need for these plans is that Social Security is too expensive and heading towards a crisis (in 2042). The reasonable measurement is then to see if the new plan reduces the true cost of providing this benefit. If we are going to privatize some portion of the system or try to raise revenue through domestic investments, then payout of benefits still comes from our GDP, the same way it would if we payed taxes and the benefit was paid from that.
The point here being, I don't like assertions that have additives, but are true in a lawyer's sense of the term. On the other hand, I really don't like being lied to, or being fed utopian fantasies; it's insulting to my intelligence. This second form of transgression, I find much more dishonest as you could not possibly believe such statements to be true without being incompetent. I'll take emotionally charged rhetoric over delusional fantasy any day.
What strawman? You're the one creating the strawman by over-emphasizing the wording, counter to all evidence. The quotes I've given were in direct response to the controversy over the questionable accuracy of Gore's statement. And for most of the people on the Internet, it does equal web browsing. For craps sake, anyone who has been around this long has had front row seats to watching web browsing make the Internet into what it is today.
While you're being a stickler for logical fallacies, what about benefit of the doubt? His statement is accurate in it's intended context. It is supported and corroborated in that context. Is it not a logical fallacy to then attack the statement as disenginious instead of simply overlooking a vague communication or poorly chosen words?
"Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today."
This statement is nothing but irrelevant sour grapes. It's like saying if Ted Turner hadn't started a 24hr cable news network, someone else would have. Well, Ted Turner did and you now know CNN instead of what someone else would have done. Same thing with the Internet, Gore wrote the High Performance Computing Act, Andreesen gives a grant from this legislation credit with allowing him to write Mosaic, they did it, they get the credit.
I've heard all the stories about how Andreesen stole this code, or they would have written it anyway but Andreesen wanted to comercialize it with the dude from SGI so he finished it early, over a weekend. So what, Bill Gates bought DOS too. They still get credit for getting shit done. Al Gore deserves that same credit, and Vince Cerf and Marc Andreesen agree. I put a lot more weight in their opinions of this bit of history than Rush Limbaugh or J Random Poster on/..
Slashdot Mirror
You said that the statement misrepresented Gore's contribution. No one disputes that it's not going down in history as the most articulate and clearest of communications. Whether or not it's just something you forget about, or something you judge a man's character by is very much based on his intentions or how badly he mispoke. When asked about this particular controversy, both Vince Cerf and Marc Andreesen defended Gore. Had he done something unbecoming, like taken credit which was not his, these two are of sufficient knowledge and credibility to acknowledge such a transgression. Neither did, they defended Gore instead. If you take the entire episode, in context, and give each the benefit of the doubt, that they acted in good faith, the only reasonable conclusion is that Gore's statement was vague. No one attempted to hide the vagueness, they clarified it. Unless you assume that these men are liars, there is no rational basis for speaking as if Gore acted with malice or deceit.
Becuase by claiming it didn't exist before then, he's not giving proper due credit to people like Vint Cerf, who's work predated his funding.
It seems that this was your original complaint. When Vince Cerf not only doesn't complain, but defends this statement, then don't you think you're out of line maybe? Your position isn't "contradicted by the evidence in the slightest"? And for the record, that is the point against which I have been arguing. How you've managed to see a straw man, is beyond me.
Just how far are you willing to descend into irrational absudity? Gore didn't know? Vince Cerf and Marc Andreesen just said he was instrimental and knowledgable for what reason? You have what information not presented here to overcome the weight of this evidence? Your position is untenable if you examine it in good conscience.
So, the Vice-President of the US actually tried to claim that he had been the impetus for the creation of a highly complex technical system after a career in law. This doesn't sound absurd to you?
Is this the Inept bit here? Assume the most absurd scenario, regardless of how many participants claim in good faith that such a scenario was not the case. The leap of faith required for your position reveals it's irrational nature.
Not ignoring. I wasn't aware of it. It appears I was wrong. Thank you for pointing out this bit of evidence that I had overlooked.
No problem.
I still hold to both. The most profound differences here are as a result of differences of opinion regarding word usage. You accuse me of imprecision in language, yet the very roots of our language imprecisely reflect their various meanings today.
A precise idea can be descibed accurately, even if it takes several attempts to convey it. If you could not use a knife to reproduce a wood cut, would you suddenly claim the original's craftsman was nothing more than a victum of luck? Would it be impossible to recreate the wood cut without reporducing all the craftsman's tools or his workshop in every detail? Language and ideas are no different.
You attempt to attribute very narrow definitions to each word so as to preclude any other use. I frequently do the same. It is an exercise in clarification of position, of manipulating language to convey a sense of exactly what your stated position is.
Law is precise for a reason, it could be said that computer languages are extremely precise languages. Science uses exact language. I define words to clarify exactly what I mean by them, not to preclude other usage. Other usage is fine, as long as that usage's meaning is clearly stated. It's not a manipulation of language, as my intent is to clarify, not decieve.
What it is not is an excursion down the road to find absolute truth (epistemology), which is ultimately nothing more than mental masturbation. I will grant you that the two are frequently not so very far apart though.
The words are used to define and describe the epistemology, your choice of words does not dictate your epistemology. It is hardly mental masturbation, that's like saying the scientific method is mental masturbation.
It is not any different, and it's hardly any more fragile than the basis for any other human interaction. They are both expressions of the same psychological drives.
It is different, you have no certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow. You know the odds are pretty good though, so you don't worry about it when you go to bed. Similarly, you weigh the liklihood of getting caught speeding or killing someone who dishonors you. You know that to some measurable extent, you may not get away with it. It is the collective political will, along with the wealth of the nation that determines the probability of enforcement. To say that one posesses "inalienable rights" is to support a falsified statement. To say that you won't cheat on your taxes, because you don't want to get caught, is to make a conclusion based on probabilities. That both choices contain some element of faith does not eliminate the rational aspects of the latter.
It appears you were under the misconception that I was arguing law or legal theory. I was not. Rather, my statements are about something I see to be above any law or legal theory.
Outside of law, there is simply the arbitrary imposition of moral goals aka tyranny. Your entire argument is the classical justificationalists position, that at some point a leap of faith is taken and given that all people are equal, one leap is no better than another. This nihlistic position was disproven in WW Bartley's "The Retreat to Commitment". These choices can be defined rationally, given that moral goals are as unique as fingerprints. If one's truth is the most efficeint means to their moral goals, then no matter what moral goals a person has their preferences for action should logically correspond. Where they do not correspond, probability suggests that it's due to a misunderstanding the moral goals involved. Laws are a normalization of those goals, that's why law changes, but must stay logically consistent. It's not that morals are above the law, it's just all that's left when the law breaks down.
History has shown time and again that self-determination (the "rights" to rebellion, self-def
No, the unanimous requirement is that all 9 States agree. Article XIII. It's clear as a bell. If all 9 states do not agree, the action is not valid. It's no different than if an item were unanimously sent to the current States with a requirement of 2 States ratifying.
:)
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You're ignoring the the pertinent Congressional decision on Sept. 28th 1787. The Resolution of Sept. 28th, 1787, Submitting the Constitution to the Several States stated the following:
Resolved Unanimously that the said Report with the resolutions and letter accompanying the same be transmitted to the several legislatures in Order to be submitted to a convention of Delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof in conformity to the resolves of the Convention made and provided in that case.
That fulfills Art. 13 in the AoC. Congress only had to unanimously decide to send the Constitution to the States to satisfy Art. 13. The 9 state requirement was legally covered by the Sept. 28th unanimous vote.
Replace "rebel" with * and you've got a pretty good general statement there.
Intentionally so. Moral goals are as individual as DNA and purely subjective. Any moral decision would have just as much variation and subjectivity. This is one of the reasons that a right to rebel doesn't appear anywhere in legal theory outside of natural law theory, and there the authority comes from interpreting God's will.
I wasn't arguing the theory of knowledge, rather an interpretation of words. "Semantics" is more suited to my position than "epistemology." Your belief may vary, but arguing which words better suit the argument furthers confirms the semantic basis for disagreement.
It's not semantics, you're claiming that the idea of rights, somehow has more force because people hold certain beliefs. How is this no different than a religious cult? Is the entire basis of our civilization that fragile? I claim that the evidence states otherwise. The psychological observation you've made here has no bearing on law or legal theory. This isn't a matter of disagreement on wording, and the question of authority in a Liberal legal system is a question of epistemology.
And the basis of all law is this civil contract which is in turn based on faith in society.
This is different than the use of the terms faith and belief you've used elsewhwere. Faith in society to enforce it's laws has a measureable history, like a credit score. That's a far cry from a faith in a deity for which there is no physical evidence. Equivocating the two uses of faith here does not follow logically.
Like Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, etc. Easily dispelled, like any other myth. Haven't checked your barometer for the longevity of "false powers" have you? Belief is a powerful thing, even if you choose to deny that fact.
That doesn't make it the basis for law, or where the source of authority for law comes from.
Last I checked, understanding something is not completely (or even partially) true and still choosing to support the dissemination of the idea is not irrational if you also understand your purpose for doing so.
No, that's irrational. The truth is the most efficient means for reaching one's moral goals, so if believing 2 + 2 = 5 is required to reach your moral goals, then it is the truth for your purposes, even if it is not truth in the epistemological model called arithmetic. If we were talking abotu aritmetic and you asserted 2 + 2 = 5, then I could evaluate that it was false for that model. Similarly, since we are dicussing the model of Western Law, American Constitutional Law and legal theory, I can evaluate statements to be true or false. An opinion is a statement which attaches a moral claim or judgement to a fact. An assertion of fact, as to the nature of an idea is not simply a matter of opinion. Again, these are issues of epistemology, not semantics.
Yes it is deceptive, but it also serves a purp
It was illegitimate under the AoC because once 9 states ratified it, those member states ceased to view the AoC as governing documents, a fact that was in direct contravention of the requirement for unanimity.
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The unanimous vote would have been to send the Constitution to the states. Hence, that vote legitimized the procedure of moving to the Constitution with only 9 states.
We could have a new Constitutional Convention tommorrow, and have that Convention draft a document requiring only 2 states to ratify it for it to be formally adopted by those states.
The Constitution has specific ammendment requirements in Article 5, which would need to be fulfilled to change to another document. Any ammendments that come out of a Constitutional Convention must be ratified by 3/4's of the states in order to pass. 2 states couldn't just adopt a new Constitution, convention or no convention.
That would be in direct contravention of our current governing document, whether or not the rest of the states eventually supported the move. I'm not saying the secession from the government under the Articles of Confederation was either right or wrong, simply that it was in violation of the governing document at the time. Civility does not make something legal. Legality does not make something right.
You're still not correct about the passage of legal status with regard to the Articles of Confederation. The Federal Government would consider any move illegal and would attempt to enforce Federal law. So those states would not have been able to secede. Are you trying to argue there is some moral right to secede or a legal one? There has never been a legal one. The right to rebel morally has always been recognized by those who share the rebel's moral goals and opposed by those who don't. So what, it still doesn't establish a right.
While you may argue there are no absolute rights, it is all a matter of semantics. I certainly agree there is no natural force that insures victory, or even compels action in the face of overwhelming odds.
It's not semantics, it's epistemology. If the basis for you're laws authority isn't some natural enforcement, you'd better understand what is the ultimate mechanism for enforcement.
The definition of "rights" is very subjective in nature, but rights derive their power from belief.
Nope, not at all. Rights are defined very precisely. They must be. Rights get their power from the civil contract, faith in society to enforce it's laws based on past experience, nothing more.
Thus, it is necessary to support the belief in rights by speaking in absolute, rather than relative, terms.
Nonsense. All rights are positive law, there is no absolute or natural authority from which they flow. Perpetuating myths like their "inalienable nature" does nothing to strengthen them. We may determine that defending each others rights is more efficient to reaching our collective goals than not defending them, we may even back up that position with the threat of violence. That does nothing to make those rights any more absolute.
Since I support the concept of rights, I speak of them in absolute terms rather than subjectively, in order to lend power to the concept.
It's a false power, easily dispelled as any other myth.
Thus, there are in fact absolute rights. You may say otherwise, I just won't agree with your argument.
You don't have to agree, the argument proves you position incorrect. You're allowed to irrationally continue advocating a false belief. It would be more rational to understand why you choose to defend a system of rights and whether or not it is internally consistent. You should determine if it is universal and how so.
Political opinions are rational choices, and can be attacked regardless of your moral opinion. Your moral opinion may be valid, but your political opinions are not so by default since they can be measured.
Seems like a perfectly legal transition, which in no way means secession was legitimatized by the process. As for absolute rights, there are none. There are rights you are willing to kill in order to defend or otherwise a point at with you will enforce political decisions with violence. There is no "right to rebellion". Others may support a rebellion for moral reasons or practical political purposes, but there is no natural force that will insure victory in a morally just rebellion, thus, no absolute right to rebel.
Which would include Congress' power to raise a militia to crush an insurrection, wouldn't it?
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
The South fired on Ft. Sumter when the Federal forces wouldn't leave. I'd say that would qualify as an insurrection. So I don't think that the War of Northern Agression was a blow to States Rights.
How could you have a logically consistent system if the states had the right to determine citizenship?
It was over the Presentment Clause (Article 1, Section 7). That describes how a piece of legislation is passed. It's very specific and in order to change the procedure, one must ammend the Constitution. So in a way, you're correct.
While I agree with the rest of the post, Various theological systems cannot possibly provide the truth for anything at all. What specifically were you thinking of?
Let's say you're moral goal is to be closer to God. Since this is just as arbitrary as saying, I believe people are good, or I believe that Justice should prevail, it is a valid moral goal. A theological system may be the most efficient means for realizing that goal. If your goal was to be "closer to God" and you went and studied science exclusively, you might have a much more difficult time, achieving increased "closeness to God". Hence, for your moral goals, a theological system is your *TRUTH*.
If that involves believing that you've had a converstation with God, who can possibly prove or disprove such a claim. If it meets your moral goal of being "closer to God", then isn't it the truth as far as you're concerned?
If I say I have a conversation with God, is that truth? If so, then we better amend the Bible and include half the population in the mental ward in Bellevue. If a group of people in the ancient world say someone was inspired by God or talked to God, how can we possibly prove it to be true? They had little science, mathematics or mental health diagnosis so we cannot take something that we have not been able to reproduce or we witness as a part of our human experience at face value.
Again, it's utility depends entirely on your moral goals. If a particular theology allows you to be at peace, which allows you to live a productive and happy life, then isn't it useful? Just as useful as any of the convienent but unnecessary technology we have?
If all people are equal, then all moral perspectives must be equal. This is the basic secular justification of relativism. All knowledge is relative and equal. Which conservatives denounce as a loss of values. Using this model of choices, I can evaluate different theologies, institutions, actions of others, etc. and decide which whill most likely help me to reach my moral goals. I might do this by relying solely on those things that I believe represent my moral goals, I might try to find means used to reach other moral goals and see if I can adapt them to reach my own.
I have a serious dislike for religion being based on the words of man describing things that no one seems to be able to prove or even experience and selling it as Truth.
I can also evaluate the honesty of systems, institutions and people. If I am told what the moral goals of that group or person is, I can look at their actions and determine how probable they are at achieving those goals. If achievement is improbable, then I can assume they are either incompetent (for whatever reason) or lying about their moral goals. This allows me to hold people to standards, while still recognizing inherent equality or liberty of conscience.
Why wasn't the Greek Pantheon the Truth? Actually, that's an easy one: Constantine I made Xtianity the official religion. Woe be to they who do not follow the Official Roman Religion...
As Popper says, History has traditionally been taught as the history of power and criminality.
Allowing the protections to stand would have eroded private property rights. Remember that slaves are chattel, legally speaking. From the point of view of the law's internal consistency, you could not allow state protection laws to stand if slavery was Federally protected.
I have found that many of the claims about the erosion of States Rights are along these lines. Someone is just upset that the correct interpretation of the law doesn't go their way. It's the same thing with Activist Judges. People don't like the decisions and don't understand the law, so they make up a boogeyman. States Rights is the same thing. Federalism is a means, not an end.
I'd like to hear just one States Right that the Feds shouldn't have jurisdiction over.
Appearently it meant Civil War before the Civil War too. Jackson sent 50,000 troops to the border of SC during his Presidncy over seccession. When someone actually tried it, they went up against N. America's largest army. I don't see how the repercussions are any different today.
It was more a question of epistemology and argument. I would not be suprised in the least if the Universe's constants were so in order for the Universe to be self consistent. The issue of Justificationalism is when someone calls into question the evidence behind your assertion. There is an issue of regression until you reach some aspect of the issue where one states "Well, that's just what you believe" and the other counters with the same charge. The answer in Bartley's book is to take it out of some unknowable or unconveyable personal terms as a sacred belief or arbitrary choice and show it as a rational choice made using logic. He dubs this Pan-Critical Rationalism.
In other words, science is the most efficient means for us to predict our surrounding's behavior, whereas religion may be the most efficient means to accomplish other goals. These goals are our moral goals, the scientific method is the means by which we reach the moral goal of understanding the activities around us. The scientific method becomes the TRUTH as far as questions of science are concerned. The falsifiable theory that is then derived is that if we use the scientific method, then we use the most efficient means to learn factual knowledge about our environment.
Since I can define the model and it's moral goals, I can submit it as a choice for you. You can then make a choice as an informed consumer in a marketplace of ideas. I can also measure the efficiency of actions to reach moral goals, even if I don't share those moral goals. It means that I can make an honest and guileless case to you and you can make a rational choice as an informed consumer, which, from one perspective, proves the utility of debate.
In a way, you could say it's the epistomology of science.
I'm aware that Canon law now has Marriage listed as a sacrament, that was not always the case and was in fact a pretty recent development. Canon laws concerning marriage date back forever and there were sacramental marriages vs. ones where the priest was involved, but marriage was never considered a sacrament like communion until recently.
Secondly, impotence, the inability to have sex, rather than infertility was a barrier to having a marriage approved by the Church. That comes directly from 1000 year old Canon law.
Historicaly, the Church made it very easy to get married. You used to only need a priest and secret marriages were common. IIRC, this was stopped in the Middle Ages and parental consent became necessary, along with other requirements.
The line item veto was ruled un-Constitutional by SCOTUS. The "small government" party (yeah right) did let the pay as you go rules lapse though.
Seriously, line-item veto's are a great Constitutional discussion. It would probably require an Ammendment to the Constitution in order to change from the method Congress uses now to something that resembled line-item veto's or riderless legislation.
With regard to States Rights, the only thing the Civil War answered was if the states have a right to seceed. The idea that such a right might exist came more from fertile imaginations than any logical study of the law or historical precedent.
Which States Rights were you referring to?
Marriage was never a sacrament.
Having read a history of Christian marriage law (among others) in Europe, I'm wondering where you got your information. I've never seen a reference to fertility being necessary requirement for marriage. Hell, you couldn't tell who was infertile really until this century.
I've been meaning to get to Rawl's, he's still a couple of books down the list.
I am currently working with Popper's 5 part definition of Justice and a Bartley inspired definition of Truth. I don't believe moral positions can be proven, but I believe institutions and nations have definite moral goals which can be articulated and proven as such. We can then evaluate how effectively those moral goals are reached given proposed actions and how closely those moral goals align with our own.
I think these idea's synch up with Berman's descriptions of the development of Western legal institutions. It also falls in line with Popper's emphasis on institutional engineering. Together, I believe there is a model for stating what the United States Federal government's moral goals are and then logically evaluating how well a given piece of legislation fulfills those goals. We should be able to do this objectively, even if our own moral goals do not match those were are evaluating.
This should allow for contextual relativism without suffering from the inability to apply standards. I think this also deals with some of the issues brought up in Roberto Unger's Knowledge and Politics, which is also on my reading list.
Get back to me when mainstream American christians applaud murder in their god's name.
NC residents mainstream enough?
First of all, you're mischaracterizing the Taliban. All murder carried out with the Taliban's approval was according to their interpretation of Islamic law. The Taliban were/are extremely religious people, just like Al Qaeda is full of extremely religious people and all those Catholics and Protestants who slaughtered each other in Europe were extremely religious people.
It's not a far out comparison to note that extremist Christian sects have gained more visibility and that many politicians pander to them. We don't have to have these people's vision completely implemented before there is a problem, some of the proposals these extremists advocate may be acceptable to mainstream Christians, but completely antithetical to American ideology, like same-sex marriage.
The comparison with the Taliban is because the Taliban was a theocracy, and if you look at many mainstream Christians, they don't really have a problem with ideas like US law comes from the Bible. That is a problem as it is a direct contradiction to the principles upon which our system operates. Our government is secular, it has NO OPINION of religious issues or edicts. Just look at the Mass Supremes ruling on gay-marriage, they found the state had no legitimate interest in banning gay-marriage, that the ban was based entirely on religious or moral views and therefore violated the liberty of conscience (religious freedom) of gay citizens of Mass.
Once mainstream Americans applaude the denial of certain citizen's rights because of religion, how far off is murder? Ashcroft's Justice Dept. already approved torture in contradiction to US precedent and law without consequences, what's to stop Gonzales from deciding that there isn't really a separation of church and state? Mainstream America doesn't seem to see this behavior as abnormal, they re-elected these people.
This has gone beyond a mere culture war. This is a war being waged by the insane in their effort to subvert and ultimately subdue sanity itself. To replace science with Pentacostalism, replace teaching with preaching, and replace truth with myth.
Correct.
These maniacal, land-locked Southerners are determined to hammer out their new techno-theocracy at any cost, and they are winning, people. They are winning.
First of all. These Pentacostal types had massive growth in California starting in the 70's. In fact, most of their growth has been on the left coast and upper mid-west, not the South. As someone pointed out, Kansas ain't the South. In fact, the only Southern States which are land-locked are Tennesee and Arkansas, both of which border the Mississippi. Everthing else is on the water, and no we don't consider Texas to be part of the South, it's Texas, there's a difference. We sent all our criminals and kooks to Texas to annoy the Mexicans, look up Texas history sometime.
Secondly, while they may be currently winning, this has happened at least two other times before this. I really think this is just another "Great Awakening". We must stand vigilent while the nation goes through it's gyrations, but it's not the end of the world and these people don't have as much power as they think.
They have seized control of the terms of all debate, seized the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and are within a hairsbreadth of controlling the entire Judiciary. We are heading inexorably toward the nightmare world envisioned by authors like Alice Walker in books like A Handmaid's Tale. All it's going to take is one more 9/11-style attack and you'll be having to recite Bible verses in order to leave your house in the morning.
Don't Panic. You can still beat these people in any rational debate if you know your position. That's really the problem, is that most people don't know how to articulate their own epistemology in the face of religious fantacism. I wouldn't worry about anyones vision of dystopia other than Kafka's The Trial myself. Given that the history of Western Law has been precisely about ridding society of the arbitrariness of The Trial, I don't think these people can make a persuasive enough argument to radically change the entire fabric of Western civiliation. They're annoying, and it's unfair that rational people have to put up with this nonsense, but that's life. Quit waiting for the sky to fall and learn how to deal with these people effectively.
I talked to an ex-science teacher and his whole argument came down to "Occam's Razor". But how is this different from having your whole argument coming down to believing that "A God exists"? They both something that you are guiding your life on, either of which you really can't prove is correct/true/THE TRUTH.
Welcome to Justificationalism. That's the classic argument, that we can never prove one or the other, so we just make an arbitrary decision and choose to *believe* science or *believe* religion. It's a false view of what happens. You make a rational decision between two models based on your moral goals.
Science is a tool, a provably efficient method for explaining the mechanics of the Universe in which we live, regardless of the nature of it's creation or it's owner. If your moral goals are such that you believe it would be good to understand the mechanics of a physical event, then science will be the most efficient means for achieving those goals. If your moral goals are such that you value the question Why did something happen, then Faith is a much better tool. Science will never tell us *WHY* the Big Bang happened, only *HOW*. Science does not say whether the Big Bang was a good idea or a bad one, it just tells us how likely it is that something happened in a certain way.
Now, since the *TRUTH* can be defined as the most efficient means for reaching one's moral goals, science can in fact provide the *TRUTH* for some questions. Various theological systems are equally capable of providing the *TRUTH* for other questions. One *TRUTH* does not preclude the other as they each have their own context of moral goals. One can externally evaluate if a moral goal is more efficiently achieved via one method or another. If you adequately describe your moral goals to me and then propose a method for achieving those goals, I can rationally criticize the probability that your are correct, even if I do not share your moral goals. So, while knowledge may be relative and the truth dependent upon the relative context, this does not remove it's ability to be measured and reported upon. If you look at the actual criticism of "relativism" from the religious right, that is the main attack, that it removes standards and measurements, which I've shown here is a false assertion.
What amazes me is how much Protestant Theology had in determining the answer to things like Justificationalism and the definition of science. Those who argue for the arbitrariness of science's hold on truth and that truth as such cannot be measured from a Christian perspective, have a very weak grasp on their own theology. The history of Western Law and Protestant Theology argues contrary to their position. I highly recommend reading WW Bartley's "The Retreat to Commitment" to better understand Justificationalism and the epistemology of science.
This is not what science argues. You've created a false dichotomy by saying that:
Either you argue for an eternal Creator that set everything in motion - or you argue for an eternal Universe that just happened.
There is a third possible option here. You can say that we have no evidence to support either theory, thus at this time, science has no opinion either way. In fact, what science does say about the creation of the Universe is that a Big Bang event happened 14+ Billion years ago and we don't know what existed before that, or why the event happened. We only know that the evidence points to this event happening. Science does not attempt to describe the Universe before the Big Bang, because it has no evidence of that existence. Secondly, the Big Bang does not suppose an eternal Universe. If there is enough mass in the Universe, then the whole thing could collapse. The eventual heat death of the Universe looks more likely, but these are competing theories, which have falsifiable paramters and supporting evidence for each. The heat death theory is currently winning, because we can't find enough mass to cause a collapse.
Personally, I'd rather put my faith in the evidence we do have in a Creator, than putting my faith in a still mysterious _something_ that caused the universe to do the whole big *foom* thing.
You can do that, but it's not science and is not in any way what science does, therefore it is not appropriate in a science class. There is evidence for the "big *foom* thing", there is no evidence for or against a creator, which is why you need faith for the creator bit, but not the "big *foom* thing". Faith is in the realm of religion, the scientific process itself has no use for faith. People who practice the scientific method may also have faith in un-scientific things, but when they say they are practicing science, they prove their results without the use of faith, even if faith inspired them to do science in the first place.
There was a great quote in the article:
"These people are going to obfuscate about these definitions," complained Jack Krebs, vice president of the pro-evolution Kansas Citizens for Science, whose members filled many of the 180 auditorium seats not taken by journalists, who came from as far away as France. "They have created a straw man. They are trying to make science stand for atheism, so they can fight atheism."
This is the truth. These Fundamentalists think they're fighting atheism and equate science with atheism cause their own theology is such utter crap. They can't reconcile their own belief system with the changing modern world and have inflicted their shortcomings on the rest of us. So here's your alternative, science has no opinion on questions of faith. Science is agnostic, not athiest. Science is a tool, in order for the tool to be effective it must function without faith. Faith is fine, as long as you can recognize what is faith and what is science, otherwise you'll never be able to wield science effectively.
Consider Kerry's repeated accusation that Bush had enacted a "Ban on stem cell research." Bush didn't ban research. He vastly restricted federal funding for stem cell research, but that just doesn't have the same euphonic ring to it. So Kerry deliberatly reworded things
I didn't like that either. From a liberal perspective, it's a valid statement. Since Bush did ban new stem cell lines from Federal funding and the existing lines were found to be contaminated, there was an effective ban on research. I don't think that justifies turning up the rhetoric to vilify. I don't think this was a topic that one could vilify the Bush Administration on as easily as others. I think the Kerry campaign was a poor judge of what issues Bush could be vilified on in general.
While this claim obviously inserts emotional prejudice into a claim, and is a bit too lawyerly for my tastes, it is at least true in it's context. The Bush Admin has made claims over Iraq's WMD, torture, Social Security and energy, that are not true from any context. The numbers just don't match and the logic doesn't follow, even if you are generous in accepting their assumptions.
For instance, Social Security is attacked as a bad investment for individuals, when in fact it's a national insurance policy. Replacement plans are sold as having all the benefits of the insurance plan, while also being an investment which you own. Essentially, an insured investment. There is no reduction in cost to GDP in these plans, it just shuffles the books. The criticism used to create the need for these plans is that Social Security is too expensive and heading towards a crisis (in 2042). The reasonable measurement is then to see if the new plan reduces the true cost of providing this benefit. If we are going to privatize some portion of the system or try to raise revenue through domestic investments, then payout of benefits still comes from our GDP, the same way it would if we payed taxes and the benefit was paid from that.
The point here being, I don't like assertions that have additives, but are true in a lawyer's sense of the term. On the other hand, I really don't like being lied to, or being fed utopian fantasies; it's insulting to my intelligence. This second form of transgression, I find much more dishonest as you could not possibly believe such statements to be true without being incompetent. I'll take emotionally charged rhetoric over delusional fantasy any day.
What strawman? You're the one creating the strawman by over-emphasizing the wording, counter to all evidence. The quotes I've given were in direct response to the controversy over the questionable accuracy of Gore's statement. And for most of the people on the Internet, it does equal web browsing. For craps sake, anyone who has been around this long has had front row seats to watching web browsing make the Internet into what it is today.
While you're being a stickler for logical fallacies, what about benefit of the doubt? His statement is accurate in it's intended context. It is supported and corroborated in that context. Is it not a logical fallacy to then attack the statement as disenginious instead of simply overlooking a vague communication or poorly chosen words?
"Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today."
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This statement is nothing but irrelevant sour grapes. It's like saying if Ted Turner hadn't started a 24hr cable news network, someone else would have. Well, Ted Turner did and you now know CNN instead of what someone else would have done. Same thing with the Internet, Gore wrote the High Performance Computing Act, Andreesen gives a grant from this legislation credit with allowing him to write Mosaic, they did it, they get the credit.
I've heard all the stories about how Andreesen stole this code, or they would have written it anyway but Andreesen wanted to comercialize it with the dude from SGI so he finished it early, over a weekend. So what, Bill Gates bought DOS too. They still get credit for getting shit done. Al Gore deserves that same credit, and Vince Cerf and Marc Andreesen agree. I put a lot more weight in their opinions of this bit of history than Rush Limbaugh or J Random Poster on