> So now you are talking about rights? That contradicts your last post when you said "No, my rights were not what we were talking about at all."
You have a lot of nerve accusing me of inconsistency when you can't seem to comprehend the meaning of context. I'll put it in painfully simple terms, so you can see from start to finish where I went, and so you might grasp that it's all consistent. You put forward that I thought intent to track was a violation of one's right to privacy in this quote:
Intent itself does not violate your rights (what we were talking about).
I went on to say that I introduced the word "intent" to differentiate between observation and tracking. The word "intent" has context ONLY in that differentiation, not in rights as a whole. You keep going back to the fact that we're discussing rights, but then try to tie in my use of the word "intent" when that's not contextual. The discussion as a whole is about rights. The concept of intent does not apply to the discussion as a whole, only to the particular differentiation between observation and tracking. You keep hyperextending it out of its limited context and then using that hyperextension to attack my argument as a whole. Your error does not make my argument inconsistent.
> You said you were worried about oversight of the system to prevent cops from slacking off and abusing it instead of working instead. Now you are saying you feel tracking is a violation of rights?
I said both of these things, and they are not inconsistent nor contradictory. Are you claiming that I can't be concerned about both things and be consistent? In actuality they're only tangentially related to each other.
> I can't debate you if you can't be at least somewhat consistent in your arguments.
Your inability has little to do with my arguments, it has only to do with your inability to read my arguments without running them through a mental filter.
Ok, so here is the distilled list of my complaints. See if this doesn't make it a little easier to get a grip on them.
1.) The difference between observation and tracking is intent. Note that this statement does not address nor apply to any rights. It is a definition.
2.) Camera systems make tracking simpler than not having them. Again, note that no discussion of rights has taken place at all.
3.) There are documented cases of abuse of such systems. This is realistically to be expected, and again, note that I have not posited that this means they shouldn't exist. It does prove, however, that such systems do need some sort of oversight.
4.) Civilian oversight of such systems leads to a reduction in abuse of such systems. One more time, no mention of rights.
5.) Historically, departments that install these systems resist with great effort any external oversight of such systems.
6.) Now, for the parts that involve rights, and my arguments. Because these systems make it rather easier to violate the right of privacy as it applies to tracking (please don't try to say that this statement is meant to imply that looking at you on the street is a violation of rights; I'll explicitly say that the violation of rights only occurs when someone is actively tracking without warrant or probable cause), anyone who wants to install and use such a system must be willing to submit to oversight by the community that will be under observation by the system. Because municipalities (including Baltimore) resist such efforts, I feel that they should be forbidden to install such systems until they're willing to allow such oversight. As my example presented, when the Tuscaloosa situation occurred, and the spokesman for the Alabama State Police denied the misuse and refused to press the issue after the public got to watch it on cable TV, it took a public outcry to initiate action. That's insufficient oversight, so therefore I feel that the Alabama State Police shou
> This ruling is a non-event. As you noticed, it doesn't change anything in the general understanding of the law. It explicitly requires a reasonable suspicion to be present if an arrest is to be made.
That's a very disingenuous statement. By saying that it's a non-event, and that it doesn't change anything, is inaccurate. What it changes is what can be employed to satisfy "reasonable suspicion" in a way that many feel is overstepping the Fourth Amendment. The SCOTUS ruling (that it doesn't overstep Amendment IV) fundamentally changes how law enforcement officers can justify an arrest, by making it much easier to demand "papers" and by making it simple to project reasonable suspicion on not presenting them.
> The question was: "is the Nevada law unconstitutional ?" The answer is : "No".
And the discussion following is about whether SCOTUS erred in this answer. Calling it the usual/. bragging is simple flamebait.
Nice try, but you seem dead set on melding two separate points of discussion into one. The first statement by me is that tracking is a violation of rights. The second statement by me is that tracking cannot be done without intent. These are separate statements, meant to address separate things. You're trying to force the two together by tying intent in tracking to "intent is a violation of rights" and you're just wrong in that. My mention of intent is only meant to describe the difference between observation and tracking. It's the act of tracking that I feel is a violation. Not the intent, the act. Not the intent, the ACT. Got it now?
> Stop claiming you were talking about something else and admit you were wrong.
I will not, and I made no such claim. Reread my statements, and then reread the paragraph above.
> If you will admit that your origional statement was wrong and these cameras do not necessarily invade one's so called right to privacy (in a public place)...I'll let you go. But not until then.
Reread the first reply paragraph yet again, and then point out where I mentioned that the cameras, as opposed to the misuse of them, are an intrinsic violation. Until then, I have no interest in whether you "let me go" since you're only commenting on what you want me to say, not on what I actually did say.
I'm disappointed. You missed my point on every single point. I'm going to go through them again, and I'm going to be painfully clear on them, so we can re-rail this discussion.
> Intent itself does not violate your rights (what we were talking about).
No, my rights were not what we were talking about at all. I presented that the difference between observation and tracking is intent. Don't read deeper into it than that, because to do so takes the concept of intent out of definition and into legality. Intent to track is not illegal, nor a violation of rights. But, one cannot track unintentionally. Got it now?
> And you think my article is just as outdated as yours?
Not at all. My point is that my article is the best information I found, and yours came out recently enough that I'm not horribly remiss for having missed it. A search for "Alabama Tuscaloosa surveillance camera abuse" on Google doesn't show your article even today.
> For staring at a girl's butt? Probably something like sensitivity training.
You seem to have trouble getting past what he was staring at and getting to the real fault, which was misusing the surveillance system. If he was using the DoT database to dig up dirt on his neighbor's driving record, he'd have been fired. I know that because the Alabama State police did just that to someone who did it. So what makes this abuse of official systems somehow less egregious?
> Let me get this straight. You are a privacy advocate...
Oh, now I get it. Take note, I'm not much of a privacy advocate. My beef is with governmental agencies operating without oversight. This aligns with privacy advocates in this matter, but not in many others.
>...and you are complaining that an employer was hesitant to release an employee's name?
"Employer" is deceptive on your part. Public agencies and private businesses operate under different rules, and that's proper. If a Wal-Mart employee was doing this in the store, I wouldn't care if they released the name of the employee or not. I have the option to vote against this sort of thing with my wallet. I don't have the same recourse against the police.
> So you are advocating firing everyone who stares at a pretty girl's butt?
Here we are, back to what he was watching. No, that's never been my point. My point is that I advocate public oversight of public employees. I advocate that public employees who misuse public systems like this be fired. I don't care that he stared at women's parts. If he used it to watch some guy with a bad hairdo, I'd still want to see him removed from the job, because his job it to watch the monitors for criminal activity, and he wasn't doing that job.
> If the trooper had been watching girls out of his car they would have never found out.
For the third time, I don't give a damn what he was watching. They had a proven case of abuse of a public system for personal use, and they denied it in the face of proof positive, and it took a hue and cry to get them to 'fess up and do something about it. Once more, I don't care that he was watching women. I care that even after he did it there was no recourse for the public to prevent such misuse other than public outcry. When a system used to monitor the public is in use, the oversight must be such that abuses can be discovered and addressed publicly. Since the police force doesn't seem interested in allowing the general populace any way to do that, my proposal is that we take away their toys until they realize they can't do it that way. We're not talking about a private concern here. I see no reason why the police, to whom we give large latitude of investigation, should be allowed to bury their dirty laundry. If anything they should be less able to do so than the public at large.
> Fine. You want to regulate it out of existence. Still inconsistent and ill
I don't recall mentioning the idea of legality here. The idea is that observation can occur in the course of normal contact, but tracking cannot. One must actively intend to track, while one can observe "by accident". Therefore intent is required for tracking.
> > "but you're closer to legitimacy to demand that I don't actively follow you around observing you."
> Only if I can show that you represent a threat to me or in some other way harrassing me.
There are those who feel that following someone around observing them is harassment. Unless the tracker has a legitimate reason for doing the following, it amounts to stalking. "Being out in public" should not constitute one of those legitimate reasons. Also, note that I avoid the word "observation" in all of these statements, about which more follows.
> There will be records of who accessed which tape when.
I'd be comfortable if the records for who accessed what when were public records, but they aren't. More importantly, there's no record if it's done in real time.
> Sure, because you are singling out people who have not broken the law. Not the case with cameras that cover public areas.
Is it really so hard to conceive "following" a person from camera view to camera view? I've done this myself at a bank, when a patron who was angry and brandishing an umbrella was moving around the building.
> Thats why we have these things called judges. A cop writing you a ticket does not automatically mean you are guilty in our system.
Anyways, how are you going to prove it in the traditional system?
True, but the traffic ticket was an example. It's easier to prove that someone is following you in real life than via traffic cameras. Sure, there are real life examples of trackers not getting caught, but I can't see this system making it better, and I can see it making it worse.
> Do you always try to prove your points by posting grossly outdated articles?
Your article was dated three weeks ago, so it's not really fair to accuse me of being grossly out of date. But it does raise a few questions. First, what discipline was meted out? Why did it take months to release the name of the offender? Why is he still working the job after proving he's not responsible? Why is he allowed to "refuse to answer questions" about breaking police rules? This points up my main problem with this.
> What is your point anyways? That cameras in public places should be abolished because some people could abuse them in ways similar to abuses done without cameras?
Whoops. This wasn't even close to my point, which I can see now makes you misread my intention on many statements. My complaint with these systems is that they're always installed with the statements that "they won't be abused" and that it's in the public's best interest. However, then the same deaprtments that say that it won't be abused absolutely and resolutely refuse to allow any effective oversight at all. The Alabama case simply points up my point, in that when signals from these cameras, while they were being misused, were sent to cable TV channels, it still took months and a public outcry to find out the basics such as who the offender was. Even after he was exposed, he's still a police officer and still doing the same job. If those videos hadn't run on public access, do you really expect me to believe that anything at all would have been done about it? Would Officer Minor have faced any repercussions at all, even if he was caught by his peers, if the general public wasn't pounding on the commissioner's door? If you do, you have a lot more faith in the upright nature of that commissioner than I do. You reread my article, and take a good look at this quote from that article:
"Our officer was absolutely not inappropriately following young women," Ellis said.
> They are interconnected, if not the same thing. If I can observe you I can track you. And I need to be able to observe at least some aspect of your life in order to track you.
They are interconnected, yes, but they are not the same. The division lies with intent. Tracking requires observation, but observation does not require tracking. You're not allowed to demand that I not look at you in public, but you're closer to legitimacy to demand that I don't actively follow you around observing you.
> Yeah, like those problems don't exist with traditional law enforcement. If anything they are less of a problem with video as now the officer can't lie and say they saw the black guy trying to steal a car or whatever excuse they think up.
Again, the problem lies with intent. This system makes it much easier to do more than observing, and it makes the "follow this person around until he does something we can prosecute for" much easier, and much less provable. Sure, it happens in absence of these systems, but at least then there's some possibility to prove it. More importantly, if someone wants to track you, it's easier to do it without your knowledge than with traditional police work. A bored police officer isn't going to follow some young woman around in a patrol car all day just for kicks, but a bored camera operator just might.
> Besides, those are based on observation, not tracking, which blows a hole wide open in your division theory.
Following someone for miles on the road, waiting until they make a mistake so you can pull them over, is illegal in most states on the basis of tracking being illegal for non-offenders. Doing the same with a series of cameras is also going to be illegal? And how do you go about proving that's what happened when the police give you your tenth ticket for "crossing the median line" because you happened to spill your beer on a cop at a nearby bar? Don't try to tell me that there's decent accountability. In the case where an operator used the cameras in an Alabama town to zoom in on coeds' breasts and buttocks, and in which the camera feeds were running on a local cable channel so lots of folks saw it, the PD didn't even release the name of the offending officer. Unless the folks installing this set of cameras is going to be a heck of a lot more open about accountability, then the chance for abuse is too high.
The basis for your argument and the basis for his do not mesh, and therefore you both end up going to extremes to defend your case. The simple problem he has, and which I share, is that the right to privacy is divisible into the right to privacy from observation, and the right to privacy against tracking. You seem to think that he wants the first, when what he seeks is the second. Casual observation does not carry the same considerations as tracking. You can look at someone on the street all you like, but when you begin singling them out and watching them, you begin to move toward invasion. The big gripe with these cameras is not that they can do the first, which is observe your actions in a public place. It's that they can do the second, which is observe your actions in all public places. There are reported cases where people put in control of these cameras have abused them, and there's no real way to "watch the watchdogs" to be sure that it doesn't happen, so it's passed over the line from invasion of privacy from observation to invasion of privacy from tracking. It's easy to say, "don't do anything wrong and you have nothing to worry about" but that's simply not true. When the something you're doing wrong is having the wrong color skin walking through a neighborhood policed by a prejudiced camera operator, or being near the girlfriend of a jealous police officer, then you can begin to see why there are those who don't like being tracked.
> Besides, if you think people don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, get out your camera, head downtown, and start taking pictures of everyone you see passing by. You will quickly discover that many people do indeed have a very real expectation of privacy, reasonable or otherwise. And if they decide to take you to court over your photograph, they'll win too.
Only correct in a very limited sense. You can take pictures in pulbic all you like, and face no legal ramifications (although many people will get very upset if you take their picture). The release is because you can't use someone's image in a commercial or public regard (in an ad or as part of an art exhibit) without permission. That's where the lawsuits happen, and that's why there are release forms for professionals.
> The Muggie may not be able to pull his/her gun in time, but all another citizen has to do is pull his/her gun and stick it in the muggers back and tell the mugger to drop the gun or else.
This only seems to work when muggers attack people in view of other people, which strangely doesn't happen all that often. Nice try.
> The gun isn't really for the muggie's sack its more for the average joe walking down the street, turing him into a citizen police officer.
No, it doesn't turn him into a citizen police officer. It turns him into a firearm-carrier, nothing more or less. You seem to have this fantasy going where the only crime in society is strangers attacking, but only in positions where regular citizens can see them and react to them, and the criminals never have help from accomplices, and a thousand other pieces that make you sound like a hyperidealistic fool (sorry for the insult, but it fits here). It seems that citizens in your world never drink, never manage to hit bystanders, never face criminals who outnumber them, never have to deal with criminals who don't give them a chance to shoot back, and never get attacked while they're alone, or attacked by someone they know. Not one of these situations would warrant having or using a gun (because it wouldn't help), and most of them would be made horrendously worse by using a gun. You need to temper your considerations with a huge dose of reality if you think for a moment that arming everybody will eliminate, or even significantly reduce, crime (even just violent crime, since non-violent crime wouldn't be changed nor affected at all by this idea).
The sad part is that I have to side with Joe's Dodge in this case. Sure, it's true that Joe's sold the car, but Dodge built the car, and the owner is responsible for insuring against damage and bad luck. For certain, if I was Joe, I'd have pled his case to Dodge, but I see no reason why Joe's Dodge should eat the cost of a manufacturing defect, and I doubt Dodge would have reimbursed the dealership for replacing the car (although they might reimburse the owner directly to avoid a lawsuit).
> You can't get out of debts by dying: they can sue your estate.
Accurate, but not to this point. You can't get out of debt by dying, but you can generally get out of ongoing service contracts by dying. Would you seriously consider that they're providing cell service to a dead person? No judge would accept that argument, and cell contracts are usually non-transferrable.
In such cases, an attorney's assistance would be invaluable.
> When my partner died, it was a nightmare to get all the dialup services cancelled, etc. etc. Anybody who has a credit card which is automatically billed, that billing goes on regardless - not that dead people have to worry about credit ratings, but it can cost your estate (read, your friends and family) a lot of time and money.
First, while you and yours are alive, make sure each adult has a single credit account for them alone. If you're married, have your husband get a credit card in his name, and get one in only yours. Then, if one or the other person dies, simply close the accounts that are joint. Also, to prevent those companies that continue to bill after an account closes, report all of the cards lost. That shuts down the autodebit pipe tight. Also (and this has security benefits even when you're alive), get one card that will be used only for autodebit stuff, and put all autodebits on that one card. Never use a checking account for this stuff, get a card, and only one. That also simplifies stopping such things upon death.
> do you really want your shower door visibly clean? I thought you slashdotters were concerned about privacy!
Yes, I know it's a joke, but c'mon! Visibly clean doesn't mean transparent. My car is visibly clean after a washing, but that doesn't mean I can see the engine through the hood. The serious point is that it's easy to tell when the soap scum has built up on a glass door, and it's relatively easy to clean correctly. Not so with vinyl, unless you take it down and toss it in the washer.
Godwin himself stated that the law accredited to him is a tongue-in-cheek analysis of statistics, not a method of enforcement, and that it was never intended to be used to stop a thread or declare a "winner". So maybe you should stop doing it, perhaps. You Nazi.
> On the contrary, the scientific method was birthed by religious people who founded it on things that must be accepted as blind assumptions by atheistic/agnostic scientists.
Sorry, but this doesn't follow. Firstly, who cares whether the people who came up with the scientific method were religious or not? Sure, it may bias their view, but the idea behind replicatable testing doesn't require faith in and of itself.
> You believe in induction, right? Prove that it's reliable without resorting to a circular argument.
Believe in induction? That's a faith-based statement. I use inductive reasoning, but there's no reason I have to use it. If another, better method comes along, I'd switch.
Let's tackle the rules:
> 1. induction is a reliable method to obtain belief
See above. I use Newtonian mechanics as well, because it works in the macro world. When I need to switch to some venue where Newtonian mechanics doesn't work, I have to discard it for something else. If induction provided falsifiable results, I'd dump it in a flash.
> 2. the physical world is not an illusion
Sure, it's an assumption, but not cast in stone nor holy. If I found evidence that the "real" world wasn't, I'd alter my worldview to match it. How many of the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar still thought the Matrix was real? I would not reject that evidence simply because it's heretical.
> 3. laws of the universe are consistent (and to the extent that they appear inconsistent, we just haven't defined them well enough yet)
Nice try, but the laws of the Universe are consistent by their definition. If one is found to be inconsistent, it's rejected or modified (see Newtonian mechanics, which were relegated to lesser status when they were found to be inconsistent at the atomic level). This isn't faith, it's definition. If a natural law is found to be inconsistent, it loses its standing as a natural law.
> 4. it is better to believe something that is true than something that is not...Notice that by #4, we're even making value judgements.
I'd concede this point if only it was limited to science, but since every scientist and every religionist (in fact, every person) adheres to this, I hardly consider it to be something scientists hold a monopoly on, so it's disingenuous to say it's a tenet of science instead of a tenet of humanity.
> Then they tried to convince me that the "speediest way to your home is through the planet core". I said "But the core is molten rock, with lots of uranium and fission and crap going on! I'd never survive!"
A little imagination, please! There are spots all over anyplace on Earth named "Crying Falls" or "Ladderback Ridge" or "The Devil's Left Nipple" or some nonsense. Is it so hard to believe there's a big, deep underwater cave on Naboo named "The Planet Core" that turns out to go under some intervening land mass such that the fastest way from the Gungan city to the capital (by watercraft) is through said-same cave?
Think, people, think. If we don't plug the holes in George Lucas's plots, who will?
> It never ceases to amaze me how emotional people get when someone sets out to prove or disprove some aspect of religious history - it's almost as if their egos need it not to be true...
Or need it to be true. The biggest problem I have with this is in extrapolation. There is a horde of folks who will look at pictures of a boat found on Ararat and say that it's proof positive that the Bible is correct, in everything. If you think that's not true, I say that it's already happened. I can't tell you how many people looked at the discovery of Nineveh and stated that the existence of the city meant that all of the Biblical stories about it were true, when the discovery of the city did nothing to provide direct proof of those stories. Discovering the Ark of Noah will trigger just as much furor, without proving anything at all. I don't really have a problem with folks going to Ararat and looking for a boat. I have a problem when those people purport to be doing "good science" when in reality they seem to have a strong religious agenda, because all they'll do is muddy the water even more than it already is. If they find nothing, it'll prove nothing, and if they find something that could be proof, then it'll just polarize opinion. Heck, look at how much controversy still surrounds the Shroud of Turin.
>...please, check your ad hominem attacks at the door.
His statement wasn't an ad hominem attack. He stated that if your theory was correct, then it must follow that something impossible happened in the formation of Earth, but that's invalidating your theory, not attacking it by attacking you. "You're an idiot, so your theory is wrong" is ad hominem, "laws of physics work this way, so your theory is wrong" is not. Saying you're wrong does not constitute an ad hominem attack unless he uses something about you (that's not related to the theory) to say you're wrong.
> The Old Testament is fully the word of God and is what s being referred to when Paul writes in 2 Timothy that 'All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped for every good work.' We are still instructed to obey God's law, which is given in the Old Testament and summarised by Jesus as loving God and loving your neighbour. At no point are the laws contradicted. rather, Jesus says that he has come not to take away anything from the law, but to fulfil it.
How does Jesus's summarization to "love God and love your neighbor" deal with OT statements like, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18)? The statement in Exodus is plain religious intolerance, to the point of killing, and that seems out of line with Jesus's message of "love your neighbor."
> Firstly, people don't understand the laws...
You know, I hear this an awful lot in discussions about Biblical contradictions, and it's a cop-out. In response I can say that even Christians don't understand the laws, since they keep misapplying them whenever it suits them, just like non-Christians misapply them when it suits them. If both sides can abuse the word of God to dodge Jesus's message, what place do you have to say I'm the one who's misunderstanding it?
> Secondly, people fail to distinguish between law and punishment. Homosexual acts are cited as being sinful in the OT and NT. The difference is that there was immediate judgement on earth and punishment in the form of stoning in the OT. In the NT, judgement is left until after death and there is no earthly punishment required to be administered by society. The law didn't change, just the time of judgement and punishment.
If this is true, then why was there a public outcry from churches when Texas repealed criminal charges for sodomy? Why didn't those Christians simply allow God to do the judging, like Jesus says they should? It seems that it's the Christians themselves that are falling short of Jesus in this regard, and this is the problem I have with most Christian churches, and most Christian people. They don't use their religion as an inspiration, but as a cudgel, and that's extremely hypocritical for a religion that preaches "love God and love your neighbors." Remember that I don't think that Christianity is to blame for all of society's ills, but I do take umbrage with those who say it's not responsible for any of them, and that society would be so much better if we all followed God's will. Perhaps that's true, but wouldn't you think that Christians should be doing it first if they want everyone else to follow?
> The majority of the NT is written by martyrs. Paul died while awaiting trial as a result of his missionary work. He died a martyr. The gospel writers were martyrs.
I concede this point, as I didn't know Paul was in prison when he died.
> Incidentally, the core value is actually love God and love your neighbour. God is at the centre, not man.
God is at the center, but neighbors get an honorable mention.
> such examples of "appalling behavior" are usually willfully taken out of context. The fact is that the central message of the NT is love - God's love for man, and how men should love each other. While it is certainly possible to find a few statements that can easily be warped to mean something else, the central message is love. If you read the whole NT cover to cover, you'd realize this.
I have read the New Testament (and the Old Testament) quite a few times, both when I was involved in the church and afterwards, and you're quite right that the underlying message of Jesus is love. This is what Christianity should be, and this is the point I want to address with you now.
> Jesus addresses this point directly - Luke 6:41-42...
He did, yes. This then requires me to ask why so many of his followers don't listen to His advice.
> You are confusing Christianity, the message with people who call themselves Christians, but who are not. If everyone truly did love their neighbor as themselves, many problems would go away - as you acknowledge. Somehow, it is hard for me to believe that a religion that says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" is responsible for the murder, rape, and general mayhem that pervade this world. I feel comfortable blaming those who ignore or willfully distort that message to their own selfish ends.
Confusing them? It would seem that this is the crux of the problem. A religion, any religion, is defined by the actions of its adherents. Ask any Muslim how this works, especially these last few years. When Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell come out with messages that insist on hate and division, I don't see a groundswell of "proper" Christians saying that this isn't Jesus's message to the world. While you profess that the real central tenet of Christianity is love and brotherhood, the vast majority of Christians don't follow that message, so either it isn't as important to the religion as you would have me think, or the religion needs some serious reworking, or Christians need to "get back to their roots". Choose one, but strangely, none of those choices seems to involve non-Christians.
In short, Christians as a whole have a lot of log removal to do before they can say that they're not just as much a part of the problems with this world as anyone else.
> Christians are not bound by Old Testament laws, so no stoning is required
This does beg the question why the Old Testament is part of the Bible, then. The real argument should be that Christians are bound by Old Testament except where the New Testament contravenes it, but even that comes up inaccurate. And still, it's not very difficult to find statements in the New Testament that require appalling behavior.
> This is one of the silliest objections to Christianity - you realize that the people who "cooked up" the New Testament all died as martyrs, right?
Not right. Some did, but some did not. How did Paul (nee Saul) die again? Still, how does this support your point? The fact that they died for their words doesn't in any way prohibit those words from being designed to control.
> Also, what is wrong with the central Christian value of "love your neighbor as yourself"?
Absolutely nothing. I'd like to ask this question of quite a few Christians, as well as quite a few non-Christians.
> Seems like if eveyone followed that value, then there wouldn't be problems with society.
Again true, but again it's not just the non-Christians that are ignoring this directive, and I could easily argue that no Christian has any right to ask my compliance to this unless he's willing to do it first.
> This society has major problems because people are selfish and lazy, not because of Christianity.
Very short-sighted of you to say this. You seem to think there's not enough blame to go around. It's possible that this society has major problems because people are selfish and lazy and because of Christianity, or maybe it's neither of those things alone. Your answer is so simplistic that it's meaningless.
Slashdot Mirror
> I guess why you rent the camcorder LOL.
That's right, because if you rent a camcorder and then don't return it, you don't have to pay for it. What an insight!
Virg
You have a lot of nerve accusing me of inconsistency when you can't seem to comprehend the meaning of context. I'll put it in painfully simple terms, so you can see from start to finish where I went, and so you might grasp that it's all consistent. You put forward that I thought intent to track was a violation of one's right to privacy in this quote:
I went on to say that I introduced the word "intent" to differentiate between observation and tracking. The word "intent" has context ONLY in that differentiation, not in rights as a whole. You keep going back to the fact that we're discussing rights, but then try to tie in my use of the word "intent" when that's not contextual. The discussion as a whole is about rights. The concept of intent does not apply to the discussion as a whole, only to the particular differentiation between observation and tracking. You keep hyperextending it out of its limited context and then using that hyperextension to attack my argument as a whole. Your error does not make my argument inconsistent.
> You said you were worried about oversight of the system to prevent cops from slacking off and abusing it instead of working instead. Now you are saying you feel tracking is a violation of rights?
I said both of these things, and they are not inconsistent nor contradictory. Are you claiming that I can't be concerned about both things and be consistent? In actuality they're only tangentially related to each other.
> I can't debate you if you can't be at least somewhat consistent in your arguments.
Your inability has little to do with my arguments, it has only to do with your inability to read my arguments without running them through a mental filter.
Ok, so here is the distilled list of my complaints. See if this doesn't make it a little easier to get a grip on them.
1.) The difference between observation and tracking is intent. Note that this statement does not address nor apply to any rights. It is a definition.
2.) Camera systems make tracking simpler than not having them. Again, note that no discussion of rights has taken place at all.
3.) There are documented cases of abuse of such systems. This is realistically to be expected, and again, note that I have not posited that this means they shouldn't exist. It does prove, however, that such systems do need some sort of oversight.
4.) Civilian oversight of such systems leads to a reduction in abuse of such systems. One more time, no mention of rights.
5.) Historically, departments that install these systems resist with great effort any external oversight of such systems.
6.) Now, for the parts that involve rights, and my arguments. Because these systems make it rather easier to violate the right of privacy as it applies to tracking (please don't try to say that this statement is meant to imply that looking at you on the street is a violation of rights; I'll explicitly say that the violation of rights only occurs when someone is actively tracking without warrant or probable cause), anyone who wants to install and use such a system must be willing to submit to oversight by the community that will be under observation by the system. Because municipalities (including Baltimore) resist such efforts, I feel that they should be forbidden to install such systems until they're willing to allow such oversight. As my example presented, when the Tuscaloosa situation occurred, and the spokesman for the Alabama State Police denied the misuse and refused to press the issue after the public got to watch it on cable TV, it took a public outcry to initiate action. That's insufficient oversight, so therefore I feel that the Alabama State Police shou
> This ruling is a non-event. As you noticed, it doesn't change anything in the general understanding of the law. It explicitly requires a reasonable suspicion to be present if an arrest is to be made.
/. bragging is simple flamebait.
That's a very disingenuous statement. By saying that it's a non-event, and that it doesn't change anything, is inaccurate. What it changes is what can be employed to satisfy "reasonable suspicion" in a way that many feel is overstepping the Fourth Amendment. The SCOTUS ruling (that it doesn't overstep Amendment IV) fundamentally changes how law enforcement officers can justify an arrest, by making it much easier to demand "papers" and by making it simple to project reasonable suspicion on not presenting them.
> The question was: "is the Nevada law unconstitutional ?" The answer is : "No".
And the discussion following is about whether SCOTUS erred in this answer. Calling it the usual
Virg
> Yes sir, we were talking about rights.
Nice try, but you seem dead set on melding two separate points of discussion into one. The first statement by me is that tracking is a violation of rights. The second statement by me is that tracking cannot be done without intent. These are separate statements, meant to address separate things. You're trying to force the two together by tying intent in tracking to "intent is a violation of rights" and you're just wrong in that. My mention of intent is only meant to describe the difference between observation and tracking. It's the act of tracking that I feel is a violation. Not the intent, the act. Not the intent, the ACT. Got it now?
> Stop claiming you were talking about something else and admit you were wrong.
I will not, and I made no such claim. Reread my statements, and then reread the paragraph above.
> If you will admit that your origional statement was wrong and these cameras do not necessarily invade one's so called right to privacy (in a public place)...I'll let you go. But not until then.
Reread the first reply paragraph yet again, and then point out where I mentioned that the cameras, as opposed to the misuse of them, are an intrinsic violation. Until then, I have no interest in whether you "let me go" since you're only commenting on what you want me to say, not on what I actually did say.
Virg
> you mean that stupid, stupid movie (Armageddon) actually might have had the look of a comet right?
Well, this is made even funnier by the idea that Armageddon was a movie about a meteor, not a comet. Carry on.
Virg
I'm disappointed. You missed my point on every single point. I'm going to go through them again, and I'm going to be painfully clear on them, so we can re-rail this discussion.
...and you are complaining that an employer was hesitant to release an employee's name?
> Intent itself does not violate your rights (what we were talking about).
No, my rights were not what we were talking about at all. I presented that the difference between observation and tracking is intent. Don't read deeper into it than that, because to do so takes the concept of intent out of definition and into legality. Intent to track is not illegal, nor a violation of rights. But, one cannot track unintentionally. Got it now?
> And you think my article is just as outdated as yours?
Not at all. My point is that my article is the best information I found, and yours came out recently enough that I'm not horribly remiss for having missed it. A search for "Alabama Tuscaloosa surveillance camera abuse" on Google doesn't show your article even today.
> For staring at a girl's butt? Probably something like sensitivity training.
You seem to have trouble getting past what he was staring at and getting to the real fault, which was misusing the surveillance system. If he was using the DoT database to dig up dirt on his neighbor's driving record, he'd have been fired. I know that because the Alabama State police did just that to someone who did it. So what makes this abuse of official systems somehow less egregious?
> Let me get this straight. You are a privacy advocate...
Oh, now I get it. Take note, I'm not much of a privacy advocate. My beef is with governmental agencies operating without oversight. This aligns with privacy advocates in this matter, but not in many others.
>
"Employer" is deceptive on your part. Public agencies and private businesses operate under different rules, and that's proper. If a Wal-Mart employee was doing this in the store, I wouldn't care if they released the name of the employee or not. I have the option to vote against this sort of thing with my wallet. I don't have the same recourse against the police.
> So you are advocating firing everyone who stares at a pretty girl's butt?
Here we are, back to what he was watching. No, that's never been my point. My point is that I advocate public oversight of public employees. I advocate that public employees who misuse public systems like this be fired. I don't care that he stared at women's parts. If he used it to watch some guy with a bad hairdo, I'd still want to see him removed from the job, because his job it to watch the monitors for criminal activity, and he wasn't doing that job.
> If the trooper had been watching girls out of his car they would have never found out.
For the third time, I don't give a damn what he was watching. They had a proven case of abuse of a public system for personal use, and they denied it in the face of proof positive, and it took a hue and cry to get them to 'fess up and do something about it. Once more, I don't care that he was watching women. I care that even after he did it there was no recourse for the public to prevent such misuse other than public outcry. When a system used to monitor the public is in use, the oversight must be such that abuses can be discovered and addressed publicly. Since the police force doesn't seem interested in allowing the general populace any way to do that, my proposal is that we take away their toys until they realize they can't do it that way. We're not talking about a private concern here. I see no reason why the police, to whom we give large latitude of investigation, should be allowed to bury their dirty laundry. If anything they should be less able to do so than the public at large.
> Fine. You want to regulate it out of existence. Still inconsistent and ill
I don't recall mentioning the idea of legality here. The idea is that observation can occur in the course of normal contact, but tracking cannot. One must actively intend to track, while one can observe "by accident". Therefore intent is required for tracking.
> > "but you're closer to legitimacy to demand that I don't actively follow you around observing you."
> Only if I can show that you represent a threat to me or in some other way harrassing me.
There are those who feel that following someone around observing them is harassment. Unless the tracker has a legitimate reason for doing the following, it amounts to stalking. "Being out in public" should not constitute one of those legitimate reasons. Also, note that I avoid the word "observation" in all of these statements, about which more follows.
> There will be records of who accessed which tape when.
I'd be comfortable if the records for who accessed what when were public records, but they aren't. More importantly, there's no record if it's done in real time.
> Sure, because you are singling out people who have not broken the law. Not the case with cameras that cover public areas.
Is it really so hard to conceive "following" a person from camera view to camera view? I've done this myself at a bank, when a patron who was angry and brandishing an umbrella was moving around the building.
> Thats why we have these things called judges. A cop writing you a ticket does not automatically mean you are guilty in our system.
Anyways, how are you going to prove it in the traditional system?
True, but the traffic ticket was an example. It's easier to prove that someone is following you in real life than via traffic cameras. Sure, there are real life examples of trackers not getting caught, but I can't see this system making it better, and I can see it making it worse.
> Do you always try to prove your points by posting grossly outdated articles?
Your article was dated three weeks ago, so it's not really fair to accuse me of being grossly out of date. But it does raise a few questions. First, what discipline was meted out? Why did it take months to release the name of the offender? Why is he still working the job after proving he's not responsible? Why is he allowed to "refuse to answer questions" about breaking police rules? This points up my main problem with this.
> What is your point anyways? That cameras in public places should be abolished because some people could abuse them in ways similar to abuses done without cameras?
Whoops. This wasn't even close to my point, which I can see now makes you misread my intention on many statements. My complaint with these systems is that they're always installed with the statements that "they won't be abused" and that it's in the public's best interest. However, then the same deaprtments that say that it won't be abused absolutely and resolutely refuse to allow any effective oversight at all. The Alabama case simply points up my point, in that when signals from these cameras, while they were being misused, were sent to cable TV channels, it still took months and a public outcry to find out the basics such as who the offender was. Even after he was exposed, he's still a police officer and still doing the same job. If those videos hadn't run on public access, do you really expect me to believe that anything at all would have been done about it? Would Officer Minor have faced any repercussions at all, even if he was caught by his peers, if the general public wasn't pounding on the commissioner's door? If you do, you have a lot more faith in the upright nature of that commissioner than I do. You reread my article, and take a good look at this quote from that article:
> They are interconnected, if not the same thing. If I can observe you I can track you. And I need to be able to observe at least some aspect of your life in order to track you.
They are interconnected, yes, but they are not the same. The division lies with intent. Tracking requires observation, but observation does not require tracking. You're not allowed to demand that I not look at you in public, but you're closer to legitimacy to demand that I don't actively follow you around observing you.
> Yeah, like those problems don't exist with traditional law enforcement. If anything they are less of a problem with video as now the officer can't lie and say they saw the black guy trying to steal a car or whatever excuse they think up.
Again, the problem lies with intent. This system makes it much easier to do more than observing, and it makes the "follow this person around until he does something we can prosecute for" much easier, and much less provable. Sure, it happens in absence of these systems, but at least then there's some possibility to prove it. More importantly, if someone wants to track you, it's easier to do it without your knowledge than with traditional police work. A bored police officer isn't going to follow some young woman around in a patrol car all day just for kicks, but a bored camera operator just might.
> Besides, those are based on observation, not tracking, which blows a hole wide open in your division theory.
Following someone for miles on the road, waiting until they make a mistake so you can pull them over, is illegal in most states on the basis of tracking being illegal for non-offenders. Doing the same with a series of cameras is also going to be illegal? And how do you go about proving that's what happened when the police give you your tenth ticket for "crossing the median line" because you happened to spill your beer on a cop at a nearby bar? Don't try to tell me that there's decent accountability. In the case where an operator used the cameras in an Alabama town to zoom in on coeds' breasts and buttocks, and in which the camera feeds were running on a local cable channel so lots of folks saw it, the PD didn't even release the name of the offending officer. Unless the folks installing this set of cameras is going to be a heck of a lot more open about accountability, then the chance for abuse is too high.
Virg
The basis for your argument and the basis for his do not mesh, and therefore you both end up going to extremes to defend your case. The simple problem he has, and which I share, is that the right to privacy is divisible into the right to privacy from observation, and the right to privacy against tracking. You seem to think that he wants the first, when what he seeks is the second. Casual observation does not carry the same considerations as tracking. You can look at someone on the street all you like, but when you begin singling them out and watching them, you begin to move toward invasion. The big gripe with these cameras is not that they can do the first, which is observe your actions in a public place. It's that they can do the second, which is observe your actions in all public places. There are reported cases where people put in control of these cameras have abused them, and there's no real way to "watch the watchdogs" to be sure that it doesn't happen, so it's passed over the line from invasion of privacy from observation to invasion of privacy from tracking. It's easy to say, "don't do anything wrong and you have nothing to worry about" but that's simply not true. When the something you're doing wrong is having the wrong color skin walking through a neighborhood policed by a prejudiced camera operator, or being near the girlfriend of a jealous police officer, then you can begin to see why there are those who don't like being tracked.
Virg
> Besides, if you think people don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, get out your camera, head downtown, and start taking pictures of everyone you see passing by. You will quickly discover that many people do indeed have a very real expectation of privacy, reasonable or otherwise. And if they decide to take you to court over your photograph, they'll win too.
Only correct in a very limited sense. You can take pictures in pulbic all you like, and face no legal ramifications (although many people will get very upset if you take their picture). The release is because you can't use someone's image in a commercial or public regard (in an ad or as part of an art exhibit) without permission. That's where the lawsuits happen, and that's why there are release forms for professionals.
Virg
> The Muggie may not be able to pull his/her gun in time, but all another citizen has to do is pull his/her gun and stick it in the muggers back and tell the mugger to drop the gun or else.
This only seems to work when muggers attack people in view of other people, which strangely doesn't happen all that often. Nice try.
> The gun isn't really for the muggie's sack its more for the average joe walking down the street, turing him into a citizen police officer.
No, it doesn't turn him into a citizen police officer. It turns him into a firearm-carrier, nothing more or less. You seem to have this fantasy going where the only crime in society is strangers attacking, but only in positions where regular citizens can see them and react to them, and the criminals never have help from accomplices, and a thousand other pieces that make you sound like a hyperidealistic fool (sorry for the insult, but it fits here). It seems that citizens in your world never drink, never manage to hit bystanders, never face criminals who outnumber them, never have to deal with criminals who don't give them a chance to shoot back, and never get attacked while they're alone, or attacked by someone they know. Not one of these situations would warrant having or using a gun (because it wouldn't help), and most of them would be made horrendously worse by using a gun. You need to temper your considerations with a huge dose of reality if you think for a moment that arming everybody will eliminate, or even significantly reduce, crime (even just violent crime, since non-violent crime wouldn't be changed nor affected at all by this idea).
Virg
The sad part is that I have to side with Joe's Dodge in this case. Sure, it's true that Joe's sold the car, but Dodge built the car, and the owner is responsible for insuring against damage and bad luck. For certain, if I was Joe, I'd have pled his case to Dodge, but I see no reason why Joe's Dodge should eat the cost of a manufacturing defect, and I doubt Dodge would have reimbursed the dealership for replacing the car (although they might reimburse the owner directly to avoid a lawsuit).
Virg
> You can't get out of debts by dying: they can sue your estate.
Accurate, but not to this point. You can't get out of debt by dying, but you can generally get out of ongoing service contracts by dying. Would you seriously consider that they're providing cell service to a dead person? No judge would accept that argument, and cell contracts are usually non-transferrable.
In such cases, an attorney's assistance would be invaluable.
Virg
> When my partner died, it was a nightmare to get all the dialup services cancelled, etc. etc. Anybody who has a credit card which is automatically billed, that billing goes on regardless - not that dead people have to worry about credit ratings, but it can cost your estate (read, your friends and family) a lot of time and money.
First, while you and yours are alive, make sure each adult has a single credit account for them alone. If you're married, have your husband get a credit card in his name, and get one in only yours. Then, if one or the other person dies, simply close the accounts that are joint. Also, to prevent those companies that continue to bill after an account closes, report all of the cards lost. That shuts down the autodebit pipe tight. Also (and this has security benefits even when you're alive), get one card that will be used only for autodebit stuff, and put all autodebits on that one card. Never use a checking account for this stuff, get a card, and only one. That also simplifies stopping such things upon death.
Virg
> do you really want your shower door visibly clean? I thought you slashdotters were concerned about privacy!
Yes, I know it's a joke, but c'mon! Visibly clean doesn't mean transparent. My car is visibly clean after a washing, but that doesn't mean I can see the engine through the hood. The serious point is that it's easy to tell when the soap scum has built up on a glass door, and it's relatively easy to clean correctly. Not so with vinyl, unless you take it down and toss it in the washer.
Virg
Godwin himself stated that the law accredited to him is a tongue-in-cheek analysis of statistics, not a method of enforcement, and that it was never intended to be used to stop a thread or declare a "winner". So maybe you should stop doing it, perhaps. You Nazi.
Virg
> On the contrary, the scientific method was birthed by religious people who founded it on things that must be accepted as blind assumptions by atheistic/agnostic scientists.
Sorry, but this doesn't follow. Firstly, who cares whether the people who came up with the scientific method were religious or not? Sure, it may bias their view, but the idea behind replicatable testing doesn't require faith in and of itself.
> You believe in induction, right? Prove that it's reliable without resorting to a circular argument.
Believe in induction? That's a faith-based statement. I use inductive reasoning, but there's no reason I have to use it. If another, better method comes along, I'd switch.
Let's tackle the rules:
> 1. induction is a reliable method to obtain belief
See above. I use Newtonian mechanics as well, because it works in the macro world. When I need to switch to some venue where Newtonian mechanics doesn't work, I have to discard it for something else. If induction provided falsifiable results, I'd dump it in a flash.
> 2. the physical world is not an illusion
Sure, it's an assumption, but not cast in stone nor holy. If I found evidence that the "real" world wasn't, I'd alter my worldview to match it. How many of the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar still thought the Matrix was real? I would not reject that evidence simply because it's heretical.
> 3. laws of the universe are consistent (and to the extent that they appear inconsistent, we just haven't defined them well enough yet)
Nice try, but the laws of the Universe are consistent by their definition. If one is found to be inconsistent, it's rejected or modified (see Newtonian mechanics, which were relegated to lesser status when they were found to be inconsistent at the atomic level). This isn't faith, it's definition. If a natural law is found to be inconsistent, it loses its standing as a natural law.
> 4. it is better to believe something that is true than something that is not...Notice that by #4, we're even making value judgements.
I'd concede this point if only it was limited to science, but since every scientist and every religionist (in fact, every person) adheres to this, I hardly consider it to be something scientists hold a monopoly on, so it's disingenuous to say it's a tenet of science instead of a tenet of humanity.
Virg
> Then they tried to convince me that the "speediest way to your home is through the planet core". I said "But the core is molten rock, with lots of uranium and fission and crap going on! I'd never survive!"
A little imagination, please! There are spots all over anyplace on Earth named "Crying Falls" or "Ladderback Ridge" or "The Devil's Left Nipple" or some nonsense. Is it so hard to believe there's a big, deep underwater cave on Naboo named "The Planet Core" that turns out to go under some intervening land mass such that the fastest way from the Gungan city to the capital (by watercraft) is through said-same cave?
Think, people, think. If we don't plug the holes in George Lucas's plots, who will?
Virg
> It never ceases to amaze me how emotional people get when someone sets out to prove or disprove some aspect of religious history - it's almost as if their egos need it not to be true...
Or need it to be true. The biggest problem I have with this is in extrapolation. There is a horde of folks who will look at pictures of a boat found on Ararat and say that it's proof positive that the Bible is correct, in everything. If you think that's not true, I say that it's already happened. I can't tell you how many people looked at the discovery of Nineveh and stated that the existence of the city meant that all of the Biblical stories about it were true, when the discovery of the city did nothing to provide direct proof of those stories. Discovering the Ark of Noah will trigger just as much furor, without proving anything at all. I don't really have a problem with folks going to Ararat and looking for a boat. I have a problem when those people purport to be doing "good science" when in reality they seem to have a strong religious agenda, because all they'll do is muddy the water even more than it already is. If they find nothing, it'll prove nothing, and if they find something that could be proof, then it'll just polarize opinion. Heck, look at how much controversy still surrounds the Shroud of Turin.
Virg
>...please, check your ad hominem attacks at the door.
His statement wasn't an ad hominem attack. He stated that if your theory was correct, then it must follow that something impossible happened in the formation of Earth, but that's invalidating your theory, not attacking it by attacking you. "You're an idiot, so your theory is wrong" is ad hominem, "laws of physics work this way, so your theory is wrong" is not. Saying you're wrong does not constitute an ad hominem attack unless he uses something about you (that's not related to the theory) to say you're wrong.
Virg
Maybe I'm just confused, but I thought the Underpants Gnome's list was:
1.) Steal Underpants.
2.) ???
3.) Profit!
Am I still the only one who sees that the obvious entry for number 2 is:
2.) Sell them to old Japanese guys out of vending machines.
Why is this so tough? It's not even illegal, apparently.
Virg
Monthly ISP Bill - $50
Computer - $1000
12 years of primary school - Thousands of tax dollars.
Learning that "there" is a properly spelled word and that "usage" is the term you're harassing another poster about - Priceless.
Virg
> The Old Testament is fully the word of God and is what s being referred to when Paul writes in 2 Timothy that 'All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped for every good work.' We are still instructed to obey God's law, which is given in the Old Testament and summarised by Jesus as loving God and loving your neighbour. At no point are the laws contradicted. rather, Jesus says that he has come not to take away anything from the law, but to fulfil it.
How does Jesus's summarization to "love God and love your neighbor" deal with OT statements like, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18)? The statement in Exodus is plain religious intolerance, to the point of killing, and that seems out of line with Jesus's message of "love your neighbor."
> Firstly, people don't understand the laws...
You know, I hear this an awful lot in discussions about Biblical contradictions, and it's a cop-out. In response I can say that even Christians don't understand the laws, since they keep misapplying them whenever it suits them, just like non-Christians misapply them when it suits them. If both sides can abuse the word of God to dodge Jesus's message, what place do you have to say I'm the one who's misunderstanding it?
> Secondly, people fail to distinguish between law and punishment. Homosexual acts are cited as being sinful in the OT and NT. The difference is that there was immediate judgement on earth and punishment in the form of stoning in the OT. In the NT, judgement is left until after death and there is no earthly punishment required to be administered by society. The law didn't change, just the time of judgement and punishment.
If this is true, then why was there a public outcry from churches when Texas repealed criminal charges for sodomy? Why didn't those Christians simply allow God to do the judging, like Jesus says they should? It seems that it's the Christians themselves that are falling short of Jesus in this regard, and this is the problem I have with most Christian churches, and most Christian people. They don't use their religion as an inspiration, but as a cudgel, and that's extremely hypocritical for a religion that preaches "love God and love your neighbors." Remember that I don't think that Christianity is to blame for all of society's ills, but I do take umbrage with those who say it's not responsible for any of them, and that society would be so much better if we all followed God's will. Perhaps that's true, but wouldn't you think that Christians should be doing it first if they want everyone else to follow?
> The majority of the NT is written by martyrs. Paul died while awaiting trial as a result of his missionary work. He died a martyr. The gospel writers were martyrs.
I concede this point, as I didn't know Paul was in prison when he died.
> Incidentally, the core value is actually love God and love your neighbour. God is at the centre, not man.
God is at the center, but neighbors get an honorable mention.
Virg
> such examples of "appalling behavior" are usually willfully taken out of context. The fact is that the central message of the NT is love - God's love for man, and how men should love each other. While it is certainly possible to find a few statements that can easily be warped to mean something else, the central message is love. If you read the whole NT cover to cover, you'd realize this.
I have read the New Testament (and the Old Testament) quite a few times, both when I was involved in the church and afterwards, and you're quite right that the underlying message of Jesus is love. This is what Christianity should be, and this is the point I want to address with you now.
> Jesus addresses this point directly - Luke 6:41-42...
He did, yes. This then requires me to ask why so many of his followers don't listen to His advice.
> You are confusing Christianity, the message with people who call themselves Christians, but who are not. If everyone truly did love their neighbor as themselves, many problems would go away - as you acknowledge. Somehow, it is hard for me to believe that a religion that says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" is responsible for the murder, rape, and general mayhem that pervade this world. I feel comfortable blaming those who ignore or willfully distort that message to their own selfish ends.
Confusing them? It would seem that this is the crux of the problem. A religion, any religion, is defined by the actions of its adherents. Ask any Muslim how this works, especially these last few years. When Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell come out with messages that insist on hate and division, I don't see a groundswell of "proper" Christians saying that this isn't Jesus's message to the world. While you profess that the real central tenet of Christianity is love and brotherhood, the vast majority of Christians don't follow that message, so either it isn't as important to the religion as you would have me think, or the religion needs some serious reworking, or Christians need to "get back to their roots". Choose one, but strangely, none of those choices seems to involve non-Christians.
In short, Christians as a whole have a lot of log removal to do before they can say that they're not just as much a part of the problems with this world as anyone else.
Virg
> Christians are not bound by Old Testament laws, so no stoning is required
This does beg the question why the Old Testament is part of the Bible, then. The real argument should be that Christians are bound by Old Testament except where the New Testament contravenes it, but even that comes up inaccurate. And still, it's not very difficult to find statements in the New Testament that require appalling behavior.
> This is one of the silliest objections to Christianity - you realize that the people who "cooked up" the New Testament all died as martyrs, right?
Not right. Some did, but some did not. How did Paul (nee Saul) die again? Still, how does this support your point? The fact that they died for their words doesn't in any way prohibit those words from being designed to control.
> Also, what is wrong with the central Christian value of "love your neighbor as yourself"?
Absolutely nothing. I'd like to ask this question of quite a few Christians, as well as quite a few non-Christians.
> Seems like if eveyone followed that value, then there wouldn't be problems with society.
Again true, but again it's not just the non-Christians that are ignoring this directive, and I could easily argue that no Christian has any right to ask my compliance to this unless he's willing to do it first.
> This society has major problems because people are selfish and lazy, not because of Christianity.
Very short-sighted of you to say this. You seem to think there's not enough blame to go around. It's possible that this society has major problems because people are selfish and lazy and because of Christianity, or maybe it's neither of those things alone. Your answer is so simplistic that it's meaningless.
Virg