Thanks for that well-written reply, which I have only just read due to personal stuff that kept me off slashdot:)
The only religion that science ever threatens is one which claims scientific proof. Those religions which claim such things (or claim things which contradict the findings of science) can be scientifically disproven. This is why the mainstream Christian Church (for example) has moved steadily away from any areas covered by science over the centuries. The grounds of the two scjhools of thought is, at a basic level, now entirely seperate. A rational theist can only claim that they choose to belive, and scicne has no argument about people's choices about intangibles, really.
All of the evidence we've ever had of God, that any theologian has ever had of God, has been 1) His Works and 2) Personal, subjective experience of God. #1 is easily provable to the man who has had #2. But without #2, it's impossible to prove #1.
I'd disagree with that. The belief in #1 follows from #2, but is in now way proven thereby. Proof requires evidence, whilst #2 provides faith which is necessary to reach the interpretation required to believe #1. Proof and faith are very different things.
Thanks for the book recommendation, but I shall pass for now. There are many scriptural and philosphical writings.. but the fact that the scientific community doesn't yet recognise prayer as a valid mechanism for affecting the physical world suggests strongly to me that the arguments in the book will not be conclusive. Beautifully written, I'm sure, but almost certainly much the same as the other philosphical and/or rhetorical arguments which I have heard from members of various religions - none of which offer any testable hypothesis, I'm afraid.
But the book of the dead is on my general list of "stuff I should probably read at some point", so I daresay I'll get around to it one day:)
God is two things to me, and both have been proven by science. The first is that there was a process that created our natural laws and our universe; those laws are not random. The second is the "personal God"- the feeling of the presence of the divine that causes human beings to do community-inspired acts of goodness. This is absolute proof of the second.
Your first is not anything like proof of existence of a deity. It's proof of a natural process and of non-random laws. As far as I know, science has not yet discovered how the universe was created. Can you provide a reference?
I don't see the link between your second statement and science. Anyway, just because one feels a certain way does not indicate the existence of a deity. And it's perfectly possible to do community-inspired acts of kindness without that feeling - or without any faith. Occam's razor would indicate that people feeling a divine presence is more likely to mean that people get a feeling of a divine presence rather then there actually *being* a divine presence with them.
Perhaps I misunderstood your claim that science has proven both your points, and that these points in some way support the hypothesis that there is a deity or deities. Could you elaborate?
The fact that we now have a more repeatable way to stimulate the same areas of the brain that fasting and prayer do, does not negate that fasting and prayer *also* work.
While you're at it, can you please provide a reference for this as well? In all credible double-blind tests I've ever read about, prayer was shown to have no effect whatsoever.
Actually, an interesting point from what I wrote above: I spent about 2 months (on and off) trying to work out what the Tokyo office wanted. Many emails, and quite a few phone calls were made. Then we sent out a guy to finish off the code (he'd started it in London, based on what we THOUGHT was required). He had my research and English spec (and his preliminary code) as the basis of what was going to be done, but basically, *he* sorted the final stuff out on the spot, in less than a week. It turned out that a lot of the stuff I thought was wrong, or not *quite* right.
It emerged (and I *never* thought I'd say this, let alone write it) that having a coder on the spot, saying "if we use these rules, you'll get THIS result" turned out to be *more* efficient than getting the spec right beforehand. More accurate, as well.
I simply could *not* nail down an accurate spec for 2 months, because of the problems of translation. The Tokyo guys didn't speak perfect English. I speak no Japanese. We were all intelligent business people; I'm a geek, and a Japanese guy was a geek. We couldn't do it. The only language which worked, at the end of the day, was the logical programming language which spat out results, and the analysis thereof.
When we got to THAT level, the business people could finally say: "change this to Y", or "this value should be X". They had the Japanese technical spec, the system output, and the business knowledge. Only then could we resolve *every* issue.
That's the fun part of these automatic translators
Actually, this may not be automatic. Japanese and English are (I understand) two languages which differ on fundamental levels. It's not like trying to get to the station and using Franglais: "poor alley a la gar?" It's totally different. Translation is very, very hard, and words are used differently, too. My last job involved working from a spec written in Japanese, and translated by obviously intelligent Japanese people into English. It was... interesting... work, and involved asking the Tokyo office the same question multiple times in different ways, and then cross-referencing the answers, to see if they were consistent.
Also, one of my favourite Japanese poems reads like this: "She said she would come At once, and so I waited Till the moon rose In the October dawn"
That's from "One Hundred Poems From the Japanese"; I have a different translation in another book, which comes complete with an explanation of over 100 words (I kid you not) of all the different interpretations of the Japanese original, and why that specific translation was selected. It turns out that the original Japanese is written to be gender-ambiguous, and person-ambiguous. It's not "she" and "I", but something like "unresolved consious being" waiting for "mysterious, gender-ambiguous lover-person about whom I care".
You can see why they settled for a snappier version for the poem translation.
So while I love the meloncholy of the translation, I also feel a bit cheated by the fact that my language won't support the original concept, which sounds even better (when you make up words for those concepts and then replay them in slow-mo in your head).
Also, it makes me very glad not to have to translate instruction manuals or business specs.
Actually, cricket is an excuse to lie in the sun all day drinking beer while watching other people do gentle excerise. The rules are there so that anyone who questions what you're doing will eventually give up and go away by the time you're explaining the rule for Leg Before Wicket - if not sooner. Anyone who has taken the time to learn the rules enjoys lazing in the sunshine, so you're safe from them.
The only flaw in this otherwise superb idea is that Britain doesn't actually get any sunshine.
I'm one of the people who don't think God's existence can be proven
Me too, only moreso:)
Thanks for the link, I did give it a quick scan, but stopped at about the third logical fallacy I found - near the top, in other words:)
Thanks also for the Deuteronomy reference.. heh, I can argue over interpretation with the best of 'em, and the English translation doesn't (to me) preclude the existence of other gods (I googled for some alternate translations as well). I'd be interested to know what the original said, but alas I don't read any other languages (let alone ancient ones).
If anyone can recommend a good book on this subject, I'd be fascinated; the evolution of religion is a subject I enjoy exploring.
There's only one, my friend. "The Christian God is real."
There is a question I would like answered, but googling for "God exists Bible" doesn't give me a very narrow resultset, I'm afraid.
So: Does the Bible state that the Yahweh is the *only* god? The (modern) translated text of the Commandments says: "Worship no god but me.. Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the LORD your God and I tolerate no rivals"
Which suggests to me that, though there ARE other gods, they should not be seen as more important than Yahweh. Does the Bible actually state anywhere that there are no other gods, or just that they shouldn't be worshipped over Yahweh?
I grant you that in the history of the USA that prior to invading Iraq we've never before launched a pre-emptive attack on a country that has not made any belligerent moves towards the USA
Unless you count all the countries in the Carribean, Central America, and half of South America.
No, they believe it. Agnostics (I am one) think [evolution/natural selection] the most likely explanation.
This is why people say atheists are illogical.
No, they don't believe it; atheism is the absence of faith (or "belief" of that sort).
As Richard Dawkins (a well known atheist) said: I don't believe in the existence of gods in the same way I don't belive in a magic red teapot which lives half way between the Earth and Mars and answers prayers.
An Agnostic (I used to be one), would say that it's possible that the magic red teapot exists, but more likely that it doesn't. The atheist says: "Teapot? Red? Magic? Show me proof, or I'm not interested; extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
To be consistent, therefore, an agnostic should take a neutral position on gods, magic red teapots, fairies at the bottom of the garden, and evil pixies who are the root cause of unemployment - along with any other extraordinary hypotheses which have no little or no proof to substantiate them, and plenty to the contrary.
It was actually the illogical nature of that stance which moved me from agnosticism to atheism.
I am atheist about the teapot because there is no evidence for it. That does not mean that I "believe" that the teapot is not there, or that I have "faith" in the absence of the teapot.
I RTFA. It was a quarter of a cent each. As parent says, that makes it too expensive to spam. But it is a not even a blip on my budget to send all my email ( 50+/- per month )
How about for a genuine startup company with an amazing business plan and a website which becomes popular overnight in (say) Zimbabwe right now?
Don't get me wrong; I like the idea of certifying people who follow procedures laid down by Right Thinking People (i.e. me) and allowing their emails to be delivered. I don't like the idea that USD0.0025 (or even USD 0.0001) per email is affordable for everyone who acts correctly worldwide, and I don't see how you can "guarantee delivery" when any ISP is at liberty to create a blacklist based on the people on the whitelist.
It sounds like a bias towards companies who can afford to pay a "tiny" overhead. I need to think about it more.
After all, God says that there will be only one God, him (her/it/whatever)
I've been thinking about that part of the Bible recently, actually. From memory, it says something along the lines of "Thou shalt have no gods but me.. for I am a jealous god."
Which implies that there *are* other gods, but you shouldn't worship them. Does the Old Testament actually state that there are no other gods, or does it state that they shouldn't be worshipped?
I'd look it up, but I can't be bothered to read the whole thing, and googling for "god" and "Bible" gives me more than five hits; so I am lazily hoping that a random/.er will have more information than I do.
I doubt the poll is genuine. On the results page, they *also* have the analysis of the numbers. I'm willing to bet that if all./ers voted, it would *still* say "94% believe..."
I think we both agree that the governing body can ONLY derive its power from the people.
Thank you! That's what I was trying to say - but using a great many more words than were actually necessary.
Did you know that the Magna Carta is NULL and VOID ? Any contract signed under duress is not valid!
Heheh could we make the same argument for, say, the peace treaty which ended any given war? After all, if you sign a bit of paper under the threat of several million armed men hoving into view, could that also be classed as duress?
Actually, most of Magna Carta is long obsolete, as subsequent Acts of Parliament have overridden or nullified bits of it. Sorry - can't find a reference, but it was much discussed in the Press when our current govt wanted to abolish trial by jury in some cases (such as complex fraud, which juries hardly ever actually understand). There was much outcry about Magna Carta, and then somebody pointed out than only a handful of clauses from it are actually still legal. I'd be very surprised, for example, if the bit about owing money to a Jew was still valid in an English court:)
Though to be fair, I do still long for the days when you could have simple volume-to-data equations such as:
' thought we might need case insensitivty here, but the users were ' insistent that it would never, ever be required If Trim(allUnquotedText) = "ME TOO!" Then
aolUsers = aolUsers + 1
avgGroupIQ = avgGroupIQ / 3 End If
Ahh, the good old days.
OK, bring on the jokes about VB programmers and AOL users...
If there are many, many, many more comments like this for Vista than there were for XP or 2000, then that implies that Vista is a far, far, far worse operating system.
Or it implies that there are many, many more users nowadays, and the same proportion are complaining. Or that a larger proportion now feel able to comment in an informed manner in public due to having more experience. Or that places to complain on are more easily found since this webbie-thing got all grown up. Or that more people just feel like bashing Microsoft because they are Microsoft. Or that more people take the time to complain when before they didn't.
The volume of complaints tells us about the volume of complaints, and nothing more, I'm afraid, without further context.
Government Laws are _completely_ arbitrary, and I am under no obligation to follow a bad law, even if the law imposes penalties.
An interesting point. To take it one stage further - sometimes breaking the law on purpose is fully justified. Who would nowadays look back and accuse the Suffragettes of being unreasonable by breaking the law to protest illegaly, given than women were denied the vote?
Or who would like to step up and say that Rosa Parks should have moved to the back of the bus?
I suppose that the people of any given society decide for themselves which laws are worth following and which not. If there's too much disagreement between the people and the government, then the govt get voted out (in a democracy) or end up like Nicolae Ceausescu.
Here in the UK, judges also play a part, and will not uphold a law which contravenes the Common Law, even if Parliament has passed it. Indeed, judges make the Common Law which is why, in the UK, there is no written law against murder - it's always been against the Common Law, which is based on "common sense" and previous rulings.
On a related note, slavery was never abolished in the UK for a similar reason - previous judgements based on the Common Law made it clear that one person owning another was clearly ridiculous, had no existing basis in law, and therefore could not be abolished as it had never existed (Feudalism aside, of course). Such a shame that slavery was legal in the colonies for so long, then.. but again, nobody today would blame any slave who broke the laws which said they were property...
Atheims says probability is zero (without sufficient evidence, naturally) and religion says that probability is one (again, without sufficient evidence). Agnosts believe that there is not enough information to make a judgement.
To me, atheists and religious people belong to the same group - stating something without evidence.
Actually, my atheistic viewpoint, as inspired by Dawkins, is not what you describe. Rather, my viewpoint is: "You [religion X] make a rather extraordinary claim. Do you have a single shred of evidence with which to back that up? No? Ah, then I will not base my life upon your hypothesis, and I shall waste no time in exmining it further. If you get actual evidence of any sort, feel free to let me know".
An agnostic point of view, however, would be: "You make extraordinary claims, sir. Do you have any evidence? No? Then I choose to neither believe nor disbelieve you, along with Santa Claus, faries, and Evil Pixies who cause people to vote Republican."
Though, as other posts have pointed out, my stance is "soft" atheism, rather than "hard", which IS what you describe...
Which was news to me.. sheesh.. we need more terms for atheists already?? Why hard and soft? Let's call ourselves Protestant and.. well... maybe not.
Ok.. I think I understand your logic; let me explain some more. My argument is not against belief. But that any god who decrees this: "Despite your having lived a good life, loved thy neighbour and generally tried to do good, I am condemning you to an enternity of damnation and hellfire for one reason, and one reason only: you did not belive in my existence" is a god who is not worthy of either belief or worship. In other words, if a deity has the power to define morality, and the morality boils down to "believe in ME or go to hell", then that's a deity with some pretty serious personality issues which REALLY need addressing. It's not a deity I would consider even making a cup of tea for, let alone praying to.
Yes, I conceed your point about Jesus Christ, the biblical leader to whom I refered. "Love Thy Neighbour" was not the primary point, but the secondary (actually, I'll just take your word for it). Sadly, had the priority been reversed, much religous-based conflict may have been avoided over the following millenia..
Actually Dawkins has a good bit on this, and I rather agree with it, having done my own analysis.
I suspect you talk of "The God Delusion", which changed my view from agnostic to atheist (despite his..er.. "holier-than-thou", rather condescending and sometimes downright annoying writing style).
What do I do in the even there is a God?...If I burn in hell, so be it. The chances of a hell to burn in are slim enough that I just can't bring myself to care in this life.
My view is that if there does turn out to be a god (or gods), and the only reason I burn is hell is that I saw no evidence for their existance and thus didn't believe, then this is not a deity worthy of belief; let alone worship.
There was a cool bloke once, who suggested that the most important thing in life is actually to love thy neighbour, and not get caught up in the minutae of rules, and (say) stone him to death for cutting his hair. Name of Jesus, if I recall my history correctly. But in the words of another really cool bloke: "Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for that well-written reply, which I have only just read due to personal stuff that kept me off slashdot :)
:)
The only religion that science ever threatens is one which claims scientific proof. Those religions which claim such things (or claim things which contradict the findings of science) can be scientifically disproven. This is why the mainstream Christian Church (for example) has moved steadily away from any areas covered by science over the centuries. The grounds of the two scjhools of thought is, at a basic level, now entirely seperate. A rational theist can only claim that they choose to belive, and scicne has no argument about people's choices about intangibles, really.
All of the evidence we've ever had of God, that any theologian has ever had of God, has been 1) His Works and 2) Personal, subjective experience of God. #1 is easily provable to the man who has had #2. But without #2, it's impossible to prove #1.
I'd disagree with that. The belief in #1 follows from #2, but is in now way proven thereby. Proof requires evidence, whilst #2 provides faith which is necessary to reach the interpretation required to believe #1. Proof and faith are very different things.
Thanks for the book recommendation, but I shall pass for now. There are many scriptural and philosphical writings.. but the fact that the scientific community doesn't yet recognise prayer as a valid mechanism for affecting the physical world suggests strongly to me that the arguments in the book will not be conclusive. Beautifully written, I'm sure, but almost certainly much the same as the other philosphical and/or rhetorical arguments which I have heard from members of various religions - none of which offer any testable hypothesis, I'm afraid.
But the book of the dead is on my general list of "stuff I should probably read at some point", so I daresay I'll get around to it one day
God is two things to me, and both have been proven by science. The first is that there was a process that created our natural laws and our universe; those laws are not random. The second is the "personal God"- the feeling of the presence of the divine that causes human beings to do community-inspired acts of goodness. This is absolute proof of the second.
Your first is not anything like proof of existence of a deity. It's proof of a natural process and of non-random laws. As far as I know, science has not yet discovered how the universe was created. Can you provide a reference?
I don't see the link between your second statement and science. Anyway, just because one feels a certain way does not indicate the existence of a deity. And it's perfectly possible to do community-inspired acts of kindness without that feeling - or without any faith. Occam's razor would indicate that people feeling a divine presence is more likely to mean that people get a feeling of a divine presence rather then there actually *being* a divine presence with them.
Perhaps I misunderstood your claim that science has proven both your points, and that these points in some way support the hypothesis that there is a deity or deities. Could you elaborate?
The fact that we now have a more repeatable way to stimulate the same areas of the brain that fasting and prayer do, does not negate that fasting and prayer *also* work.
While you're at it, can you please provide a reference for this as well? In all credible double-blind tests I've ever read about, prayer was shown to have no effect whatsoever.
Thanks!
Actually, an interesting point from what I wrote above: I spent about 2 months (on and off) trying to work out what the Tokyo office wanted. Many emails, and quite a few phone calls were made. Then we sent out a guy to finish off the code (he'd started it in London, based on what we THOUGHT was required). He had my research and English spec (and his preliminary code) as the basis of what was going to be done, but basically, *he* sorted the final stuff out on the spot, in less than a week. It turned out that a lot of the stuff I thought was wrong, or not *quite* right.
It emerged (and I *never* thought I'd say this, let alone write it) that having a coder on the spot, saying "if we use these rules, you'll get THIS result" turned out to be *more* efficient than getting the spec right beforehand. More accurate, as well.
I simply could *not* nail down an accurate spec for 2 months, because of the problems of translation. The Tokyo guys didn't speak perfect English. I speak no Japanese. We were all intelligent business people; I'm a geek, and a Japanese guy was a geek. We couldn't do it. The only language which worked, at the end of the day, was the logical programming language which spat out results, and the analysis thereof.
When we got to THAT level, the business people could finally say: "change this to Y", or "this value should be X". They had the Japanese technical spec, the system output, and the business knowledge. Only then could we resolve *every* issue.
That's the fun part of these automatic translators
Actually, this may not be automatic. Japanese and English are (I understand) two languages which differ on fundamental levels. It's not like trying to get to the station and using Franglais: "poor alley a la gar?" It's totally different. Translation is very, very hard, and words are used differently, too. My last job involved working from a spec written in Japanese, and translated by obviously intelligent Japanese people into English. It was... interesting... work, and involved asking the Tokyo office the same question multiple times in different ways, and then cross-referencing the answers, to see if they were consistent.
Also, one of my favourite Japanese poems reads like this:
"She said she would come
At once, and so I waited
Till the moon rose
In the October dawn"
That's from "One Hundred Poems From the Japanese"; I have a different translation in another book, which comes complete with an explanation of over 100 words (I kid you not) of all the different interpretations of the Japanese original, and why that specific translation was selected. It turns out that the original Japanese is written to be gender-ambiguous, and person-ambiguous. It's not "she" and "I", but something like "unresolved consious being" waiting for "mysterious, gender-ambiguous lover-person about whom I care".
You can see why they settled for a snappier version for the poem translation.
So while I love the meloncholy of the translation, I also feel a bit cheated by the fact that my language won't support the original concept, which sounds even better (when you make up words for those concepts and then replay them in slow-mo in your head).
Also, it makes me very glad not to have to translate instruction manuals or business specs.
You're half right.
Actually, cricket is an excuse to lie in the sun all day drinking beer while watching other people do gentle excerise. The rules are there so that anyone who questions what you're doing will eventually give up and go away by the time you're explaining the rule for Leg Before Wicket - if not sooner. Anyone who has taken the time to learn the rules enjoys lazing in the sunshine, so you're safe from them.
The only flaw in this otherwise superb idea is that Britain doesn't actually get any sunshine.
I'm reply to THIS parent so that this post floats to the top.
Call me a karma-whore if you will, but this may save y'all some time.
The shortcut that worked for ME was CTRL-WINDOWS_BUTTON-A, not ALT.
I'm one of the people who don't think God's existence can be proven
:)
:)
Me too, only moreso
Thanks for the link, I did give it a quick scan, but stopped at about the third logical fallacy I found - near the top, in other words
Thanks also for the Deuteronomy reference.. heh, I can argue over interpretation with the best of 'em, and the English translation doesn't (to me) preclude the existence of other gods (I googled for some alternate translations as well). I'd be interested to know what the original said, but alas I don't read any other languages (let alone ancient ones).
If anyone can recommend a good book on this subject, I'd be fascinated; the evolution of religion is a subject I enjoy exploring.
There's only one, my friend. "The Christian God is real."
There is a question I would like answered, but googling for "God exists Bible" doesn't give me a very narrow resultset, I'm afraid.
So: Does the Bible state that the Yahweh is the *only* god? The (modern) translated text of the Commandments says: "Worship no god but me.. Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the LORD your God and I tolerate no rivals"
Which suggests to me that, though there ARE other gods, they should not be seen as more important than Yahweh. Does the Bible actually state anywhere that there are no other gods, or just that they shouldn't be worshipped over Yahweh?
And the Native Americans themselves, of course...
No, they believe it. Agnostics (I am one) think [evolution/natural selection] the most likely explanation.
This is why people say atheists are illogical.
No, they don't believe it; atheism is the absence of faith (or "belief" of that sort).
As Richard Dawkins (a well known atheist) said: I don't believe in the existence of gods in the same way I don't belive in a magic red teapot which lives half way between the Earth and Mars and answers prayers.
An Agnostic (I used to be one), would say that it's possible that the magic red teapot exists, but more likely that it doesn't. The atheist says: "Teapot? Red? Magic? Show me proof, or I'm not interested; extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
To be consistent, therefore, an agnostic should take a neutral position on gods, magic red teapots, fairies at the bottom of the garden, and evil pixies who are the root cause of unemployment - along with any other extraordinary hypotheses which have no little or no proof to substantiate them, and plenty to the contrary.
It was actually the illogical nature of that stance which moved me from agnosticism to atheism.
I am atheist about the teapot because there is no evidence for it. That does not mean that I "believe" that the teapot is not there, or that I have "faith" in the absence of the teapot.
I RTFA. It was a quarter of a cent each. As parent says, that makes it too expensive to spam. But it is a not even a blip on my budget to send all my email ( 50+/- per month )
How about for a genuine startup company with an amazing business plan and a website which becomes popular overnight in (say) Zimbabwe right now?
Don't get me wrong; I like the idea of certifying people who follow procedures laid down by Right Thinking People (i.e. me) and allowing their emails to be delivered. I don't like the idea that USD0.0025 (or even USD 0.0001) per email is affordable for everyone who acts correctly worldwide, and I don't see how you can "guarantee delivery" when any ISP is at liberty to create a blacklist based on the people on the whitelist.
It sounds like a bias towards companies who can afford to pay a "tiny" overhead. I need to think about it more.
AOL... I do that too
Surely you meant to type:
"Me too!"
Ahem. Thank you, thank you. The old jokes are.. well.. old.
I'd accuse you of using a blatent Straw Man argument, if it wasn't so accurate.
After all, God says that there will be only one God, him (her/it/whatever)
/.er will have more information than I do.
I've been thinking about that part of the Bible recently, actually. From memory, it says something along the lines of "Thou shalt have no gods but me.. for I am a jealous god."
Which implies that there *are* other gods, but you shouldn't worship them. Does the Old Testament actually state that there are no other gods, or does it state that they shouldn't be worshipped?
I'd look it up, but I can't be bothered to read the whole thing, and googling for "god" and "Bible" gives me more than five hits; so I am lazily hoping that a random
They have a straw-man poll set up
./ers voted, it would *still* say "94% believe..."
I doubt the poll is genuine. On the results page, they *also* have the analysis of the numbers. I'm willing to bet that if all
Straw man indeed...
I think we both agree that the governing body can ONLY derive its power from the people.
:)
Thank you! That's what I was trying to say - but using a great many more words than were actually necessary.
Did you know that the Magna Carta is NULL and VOID ? Any contract signed under duress is not valid!
Heheh could we make the same argument for, say, the peace treaty which ended any given war? After all, if you sign a bit of paper under the threat of several million armed men hoving into view, could that also be classed as duress?
Actually, most of Magna Carta is long obsolete, as subsequent Acts of Parliament have overridden or nullified bits of it. Sorry - can't find a reference, but it was much discussed in the Press when our current govt wanted to abolish trial by jury in some cases (such as complex fraud, which juries hardly ever actually understand). There was much outcry about Magna Carta, and then somebody pointed out than only a handful of clauses from it are actually still legal. I'd be very surprised, for example, if the bit about owing money to a Jew was still valid in an English court
Though to be fair, I do still long for the days when you could have simple volume-to-data equations such as:
' thought we might need case insensitivty here, but the users were
' insistent that it would never, ever be required
If Trim(allUnquotedText) = "ME TOO!" Then
aolUsers = aolUsers + 1
avgGroupIQ = avgGroupIQ / 3
End If
Ahh, the good old days.
OK, bring on the jokes about VB programmers and AOL users...
If there are many, many, many more comments like this for Vista than there were for XP or 2000, then that implies that Vista is a far, far, far worse operating system.
Or it implies that there are many, many more users nowadays, and the same proportion are complaining. Or that a larger proportion now feel able to comment in an informed manner in public due to having more experience. Or that places to complain on are more easily found since this webbie-thing got all grown up. Or that more people just feel like bashing Microsoft because they are Microsoft. Or that more people take the time to complain when before they didn't.
The volume of complaints tells us about the volume of complaints, and nothing more, I'm afraid, without further context.
Government Laws are _completely_ arbitrary, and I am under no obligation to follow a bad law, even if the law imposes penalties.
An interesting point. To take it one stage further - sometimes breaking the law on purpose is fully justified. Who would nowadays look back and accuse the Suffragettes of being unreasonable by breaking the law to protest illegaly, given than women were denied the vote?
Or who would like to step up and say that Rosa Parks should have moved to the back of the bus?
I suppose that the people of any given society decide for themselves which laws are worth following and which not. If there's too much disagreement between the people and the government, then the govt get voted out (in a democracy) or end up like Nicolae Ceausescu.
Here in the UK, judges also play a part, and will not uphold a law which contravenes the Common Law, even if Parliament has passed it. Indeed, judges make the Common Law which is why, in the UK, there is no written law against murder - it's always been against the Common Law, which is based on "common sense" and previous rulings.
On a related note, slavery was never abolished in the UK for a similar reason - previous judgements based on the Common Law made it clear that one person owning another was clearly ridiculous, had no existing basis in law, and therefore could not be abolished as it had never existed (Feudalism aside, of course). Such a shame that slavery was legal in the colonies for so long, then.. but again, nobody today would blame any slave who broke the laws which said they were property...
go ahead and use it without citing any source.
Meh. Alas, I am too moral to do that, being an atheist humanist, and all.
What you got out there, BTW - an RSS feed on followups?
This thread is like, before yesterday, and you spotted my reaction! It's like... a miracle, almost.
No quote, just read the frickin' parent, I cannot possibly summarise
Dude.
I am so going to steal that and pretend I thought of it.
Atheims says probability is zero (without sufficient evidence, naturally) and religion says that probability is one (again, without sufficient evidence). Agnosts believe that there is not enough information to make a judgement.
To me, atheists and religious people belong to the same group - stating something without evidence.
Actually, my atheistic viewpoint, as inspired by Dawkins, is not what you describe. Rather, my viewpoint is: "You [religion X] make a rather extraordinary claim. Do you have a single shred of evidence with which to back that up? No? Ah, then I will not base my life upon your hypothesis, and I shall waste no time in exmining it further. If you get actual evidence of any sort, feel free to let me know".
An agnostic point of view, however, would be: "You make extraordinary claims, sir. Do you have any evidence? No? Then I choose to neither believe nor disbelieve you, along with Santa Claus, faries, and Evil Pixies who cause people to vote Republican."
Though, as other posts have pointed out, my stance is "soft" atheism, rather than "hard", which IS what you describe...
Which was news to me.. sheesh.. we need more terms for atheists already?? Why hard and soft? Let's call ourselves Protestant and.. well... maybe not.
Ok.. I think I understand your logic; let me explain some more. My argument is not against belief. But that any god who decrees this: "Despite your having lived a good life, loved thy neighbour and generally tried to do good, I am condemning you to an enternity of damnation and hellfire for one reason, and one reason only: you did not belive in my existence" is a god who is not worthy of either belief or worship. In other words, if a deity has the power to define morality, and the morality boils down to "believe in ME or go to hell", then that's a deity with some pretty serious personality issues which REALLY need addressing. It's not a deity I would consider even making a cup of tea for, let alone praying to.
Yes, I conceed your point about Jesus Christ, the biblical leader to whom I refered. "Love Thy Neighbour" was not the primary point, but the secondary (actually, I'll just take your word for it). Sadly, had the priority been reversed, much religous-based conflict may have been avoided over the following millenia..
Well I never knew that. I wonder who would be qualified to arbitrate in any contractual dispute? ;-)
Sadly, I can in fact answer that: the priests of the temple in question.
So in the old Roman world, priests were, in fact, lawyers too. Which explains a lot, actually..
Actually Dawkins has a good bit on this, and I rather agree with it, having done my own analysis.
..er.. "holier-than-thou", rather condescending and sometimes downright annoying writing style).
...If I burn in hell, so be it. The chances of a hell to burn in are slim enough that I just can't bring myself to care in this life.
I suspect you talk of "The God Delusion", which changed my view from agnostic to atheist (despite his
What do I do in the even there is a God?
My view is that if there does turn out to be a god (or gods), and the only reason I burn is hell is that I saw no evidence for their existance and thus didn't believe, then this is not a deity worthy of belief; let alone worship.
There was a cool bloke once, who suggested that the most important thing in life is actually to love thy neighbour, and not get caught up in the minutae of rules, and (say) stone him to death for cutting his hair. Name of Jesus, if I recall my history correctly. But in the words of another really cool bloke: "Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Other cool bloke is one "Mahatma Gandhi".