If you've been on this website for longer than a few days, you will notice that any pro-censorship effort by *any* government gets a lot of negative commentary.
There were several articles about Australian government sucking because they tried state-mandated censorship (for the children of course), there were tons of articles in the YRO category criticizing the US government (voting machines sucking, Bush sucking, Obama maybe being too pro-copyright, etc).
Exactly why should China be treated any differently?
Maybe you are a little over-sensitive to the idea that China isn't all that?
Yes, it's just you. You are not pointing out factual errors in the article, just complaining that there is a report of something you apparently agree is rather negative. How about complaining that the unelected politicians over there commit to this behavior?
Exactly why are you trying to compare China with the free(er) world? They are entirely different situations when it comes to control of information. The very fact that you can say "wow, this is all propaganda" without fearing that knock on your door already contradicts what you're trying to say.
The Chinese government has an elaborate system in place to *control* which news media its citizens may get their information from. Criticize the state and your site gets blocked. With some bad luck, you personally get blocked as well.
We on the other hand, can consult any news media we like. Some choose to consult the likes of Fox News, which seems to have 24/7 negative reporting on the US government (i.e. Obama). Now we may see that as pure propaganda, but we are still free to make up our minds on our own terms and *without* government intervention.
Maybe you should stop arguing with trolls or otherwise intellectually challenged people:-) I have never seen any person use the argument of emigration in a way that was not painfully ignorant. Someone using such an argument against you isn't looking for an honest exchange of ideas or a debate.
Why pick the E.U. though, what's wrong with Canada for example?
You know, it's time to hit whatever button will cause this unnecessary overreaction to halt.
The most harmful thing for kids is having controlling adults around them who can't prioritize actual dangers. The kids already know all the bad words and most likely they know more bad words than you.
If you want to keep your kids from hearing bad words, keep them isolated from their peers.
Sorry about the idiot part -- that was indeed uncalled for.
Of course not everything is a gray area, but if we are talking about murder, theft and child molestation, we can find logical and utilitarian reasons as well as moral or emotional ones. Eliminating these direct threats creates a more efficient and productive society. Worrying about your life every single day is kind of distracting.
However, keep in mind that they are still subject to interpretation: freeing a slave amounts to theft (slaves are property). Killing a person may be heroic or plain murder (depends on target and reason). Child porn may be made by a sick person (50 year old) or it may be made by a naive 16 year old teenager with a webcam.
So even in relatively absolute cases, things aren't always that absolute.
I don't think it's wrong to take the opinions of the community into account, but one also has to remember that a community may be divided over various issues (e.g. abortion, embryonic stem cells, etc) or may currently have a number of clearly wrong opinions (e.g. various -isms).
It's still going to be up to you to take all the information available to you and form the best possible set of opinions.
You live in a community and if said community says you should stop you either remove yourself completely from that community (good luck) or you comply.
Dear e2d2, your comment indicates a way of thinking that is borderline idiotic.
Just open any random history book and you will find that almost all of the people we celebrate as heroes and great thinkers today actually went against contemporary standards. This is not limited to just history, but religion as well. According to the Bible, Jesus went against Roman moral standards. Would you tell Jesus to comply?
Why do we know the name of an average person like Rosa Parks, but not Bob Whatever who told her to take a back seat? Perhaps that was some smuck like you telling her to comply?
Secondly, morals are relative and change over time. This is trivial to verify. Just go back in time a little and you'll find that blatant racism and sexism were the moral norm. Women should stay at home, right? Go back a little further, and you will find atrocities as slave trade, burning people at the stake, etc. All moral and accepted by a majority of the community at the time. According to you, they either weren't sane or they didn't see it as wrong.
Heck, just look across different societies right now and the differences in moral standards. Simple example: cows are considered sacred in some places, but eaten in others. Conversely, cats are considered as pets with a set of rights in some places, cooked alive in others. Abortion: big issue in some places, mandated by the government in others.
But... this process is still ongoing. Now we are seeing things like gay marriage be a big issue for a slim majority. This too will change. In a decade or two, it will be both morally and legally acceptable. People opposing it today will seem as crazy then as people denouncing Elvis for making "n*gger music" (back then, the N-word was morally acceptable).
You got it all wrong. The existence or non-existence of a god is irrelevant. There are logically two possibilities here:
1. God does not exist and thus there is no evidence whatsoever to support a claim that it does exist.
2. God does exist, but the game is designed -- by the one who created this reality no less -- that evidence can not be found through rational means. The whole reward/punishment system is based on accepting the premises without evidence.
Besides, why does this even matter to you? If you're religious, don't you already have all the evidence you need?
I would hope that those people will realize that they lost their money on a bad investment and will spend their money more wisely in the future. That would be a nice feedback mechanism.
Efforts such as these give the impression the advances in spaceflight will gravitate towards commercial companies catering to consumers, rather than expensive government projects.
Out of curiosity: exactly *what* impact have the ten commandments had on the legal system??
I just don't get how some people continue to make claims like this when it's trivial to demonstrate that one could *openly* violate at least 6 out of the 10 commandments and not get into any sort of legal trouble at all.
In fact, even the only good commandment "thou shalt not kill" can be openly violated in the right circumstances. Plus, it's not like the ancient Romans allowed their citizens to just randomly kill one another.
In contrast, we have things like Hammurabi's Code which is historically seen as the actual origin of modern law... and it predates Christianity entirely.
While I can definitely appreciate your conciliatory approach, it does seem apparent that you're mischaracterizing all three to make them seem the same.
First, let's get this out of the way: the whole point of Creationism/ID is to put the Christian God in the (science) classroom. While the theoretical underpinnings are vague, not falsifiable and largely refuted, the motivations and the religious backgrounds of their founders and supports are absolutely not.
Rejection of evolution is a problem on multiple levels. It has massive amounts of independently verifiable emperical evidence to back it up. It is the basis of modern biology and medicine. You can not ignore this. In a sense, we're talking about rejection of reality. But then again, this is not surprising, since the common element of ALL religions is the rejection of the ultimate harsh reality: death.
What kind of philosophical problems would you run into? That it's hard to comprehend the vast complexity of nature? While it may seem like a simple solution to shift the problem to some vague supernatural entity, this is merely a matter of shifting the problem to a domain where you don't have to think about it. However hard it may be, it's infinitely easier to try to tackle the complexities of measurable reality than trying to figure out a tricky entity that by its very nature refuses to even prove something as simple as its own existence!
Sure, the collective of all living beings may form an intelligence in itself and you may call that an intelligent designer. There have been many fascinating stories about scientists studying the physics of some weird effect of insects for example. But this is not a kind of design that Creationism/ID proposes at all.
The Netherlands in general is more tolerant than (or on par with) most other countries. That doesn't mean it's perfect or devoid of stupid people, or of problems that people associate with letting too many of the 'wrong' foreigners in.
I don't hang out much with idiots, so perhaps my perspective is a bit skewed.
Don't take this the wrong way, but: what does make you want to stay in NL? The weather *is* too cold. We would've been out of here this winter if we didn't have to work on a project.
Just curious: which part of the country are/were you living in?
I've been living in The Netherlands for 20+ years and don't recognize what you're saying at all. Then again, I'm living in The Hague (one of the big cities) and not one of the small villages.
The Netherlands is one of the least religiously dominated countries in Europe: even the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage (of of the #1 priorities it seems of most religious groups). The only places you'll still have the narrowminded attitudes are in the smaller isolated villages.
Well, we know the area in the brain that deals with religious experiences. It's a mechanism that is increasingly understood. While I believe the word "delusion" is a bit strong, it's also accurate in my opinion.
There is no one "modern implementation" of Christianity.
No, but there is modern culture and a way for religion to be implemented within that culture. Christianity is certainly "compatible" with being consumption-oriented. I don't believe it was so at its core. Maybe you have a perspective on that.
All implementations conflict, to one degree or another, with its root; as its root is perfect and its implementations are imperfect.
That's a rather escapist argument: it's not hard to see that people take whatever they *feel* makes sense and put a divine label on it. We might as well say Communism is perfect at its core in spite of being a failure in reality.
As for religion inherently bashing logic, it doesn't; however it is inherently devoid of the fallacy that logic is the one and only source of truth.
It's ironic how in the same line you're bashing logic in the same line where you say religion isn't. Besides, please explain how logic can be used as a source for information? As far as I know, it's just a number of rules arguments must play by in order not to be invalid. When they are invalid, we say "hey, that's a fallacy". So, using the word "fallacy" where you advocate against logic is pretty odd in that light.
Looking at the context, homosexuality is as much a sin as eating shellfish or wearing clothes of certain modern fabrics. If it's as much a sin as something that's obviously not a sin, then it's obvious to understand that it's really not something to get worked up about.
Try to at least read the thing without cultural bias...
I agree the word "rubbish" was ill-chosen, but I do not despise religion itself. There are lots of belief systems that a majority of people consider to be false, yet can still appreciate. It's not like I'm going to despise kids for believing in Santa.
The difference is that with religion, it's actual adults with power and money pushing flawed logic with energy and fanaticism. It is difficult to remain modest while those who assault logic on every level shout the loudest.
It complicates matters that those who are so vocal also act in ways that appear completely in conflict with the very tenets of the religion they advocate. I'm all for the concept of "love your enemies" and to be forgiving. I wish I'd actually see that attitude more often.
If you're religious and it helps you become a better person, good for you. However, if you're going to tell me that I'll go to Hell for not believing in your deity (which is no more real to me than Santa is to you), then do not expect any respect for your intellect.
As I understand from quotes that people throw around, a relevant part of the indoctrination process deals with preparing followers to ward off critisms. Either their own or from skeptics. Why listen to me when I'm blind and Hell-bound anyway? Logic schmogic.
Pride in a religion is nothing wrong unless you start killing people in its name.
It depends completely on the form of pride. Does that pride entice you to hate others or act nasty towards them? I don't see why in the transition from "not-wrong" to "wrong", you'd put the cut-off point at killing people. If I hit you in the face, I wouldn't have killed you, but it'd still be wrong.
Don't forget that tolerance works both ways - from "less open" to "more open" and from "more open" to "less open".
I have no issue whatsoever with people who keep their religion to themselves or who behave in ways that I would expect, i.e. modest, kind and forgiving. I know people who are like that and I have no troubles with them.
Instead, we are confronted almost daily with "proud Christians" who are so intensely narrowminded that they cannot even comprehend that we do not secretly believe in God and by extension fear God. I never understand the logic behind yelling "you'll go to Hell for [insert triviality]!!" to someone who doesn't believe in a Hell.
Now you'll probably claim those people aren't "real Christians", but realize they are vocal and cannot be ignored. As you know, they are very active politically. Heck, if you're active in politics, your best bet is to claim you're religious even if you're not. Too many people associate it with being "good".
Let's not get into the specifics of your particular religion, because IMO if you take a step back, it is rather ridiculous. So many things are taken out of context, interpreted to fit biases or simply translated incorrectly. For example, "Jesus walks ON water" is written same as "Jesus wants NEXT TO water" in the original language.
Then the whole anti-homo stuff... jeez. Only 0.02% of the whole book can be interpreted to be about gays somehow and even that can be explained away through context and interpretation (e.g. good luck following all the rules in Leviticus). Yet Christianity appears to be all about sexuality and homosexuality in particular. That's what they're really vocal about and even base voting decisions on.
Then there's the Jesus guy... an illiterate carpenter who care about poor sick people. While I don't believe he had any powers, I can run a thought experiment of "what would Jesus do". Well, it's *really* hard for me to imagine that such a figure would endorse any of the smug bigoted consumption-oriented Christians of today.
Can you at least see how modern implementation of religion doesn't even inherently bash logic, but even conflict with its own roots?
I really wish we as a humanity could put all this rubbish behind us. On the other hand, humanity being what it is, we could most likely expect something even worse (e.g. Scientology)...
To phrase it more clearly: in spite of the flaming or downmodding you apparently expected, no one is likely to care enough about you or your site to get worked up about it.
You already know that this method is only practical for small sites of little economic consequence and that isolationalist ideas aren't likely to be well-received on an international site like SlashDot.
What's your point then? Are you trolling? It's not exactly a novel or clever idea to use geo-targeted filtering or routing. That's what CDNs do all the time.
It seems unlikely that anyone is going to care about you or your site.
Then again, firewalling out high-risk IP blocks such as from China or Russia is not necessarily a bad idea. They can go to the.cn or.ru portal versions!
Argh, your argument is so broken and in conflict with itself, it's painful to read.
Yes, of course we can evaluate the trustworthiness of the witness: we know a LOT about the social and biological mechanisms that make people have religious experiences (literally at the push of a button) or see things that aren't there.
We have a long line of deities (2500 in recorded history) that people have died for and sacrified to. Most of them are mutually exclusive. We have people with high military ranks who claim to have seen UFOs, we have people who have seen the monster of Loch Ness, etc, etc. There is no way that they can all be true, yet we have trustworthy witnesses making those claims.
Guess what, your trustworthy witnesses are dismissed by atheists in the same way that you dismiss other trustworthy witnesses yourself. Atheists are just more consistent than you are.
Now comparing physical law to legal law is of course broken: they are opposite. Physical laws are enforced by reality itself and we can only try to learn their rules better. We already comply. The laws aren't decided by humans or verified by anecdotal evidence. BUT, even if we did follow your route, we'd have a pretty strong case by knowing the mechanisms that render your witness testimony unreliable and in conflict with itself. In fact, we could put even the most atheistic person on the stand and trigger religious experiences in them to demonstrate the mechanism.
It's evolutionarily functional self-delusion, not reality.
I also have to point out that it's peculiar to mention death sentences being carried out based on witness testimony when it's established fact that even today, innocent people are being locked up and even executed.
All in all, the only logical and consistent conclusion is: it's in your head.
God obviously exists in the minds of a lot of people. This is not surprising as there is a lot of published evidence of the social and biological mechanisms that make people have religious experiences (e.g. the "God Hat" where this can be reprodicibly triggered at will).
As for the physical world, however, I have not seen anything to even hypothesize that there is an entity actively messing around with the laws of physics as part of some larger plan. Every single time, phenomena turn out to be consistent and - if not too complicated - possible to model and predict. Heck, even humans with their supposed free will are usually easy to predict if you have enough information.
All evidence really points to God being in people's minds first and foremost. That would certainly explain why all gods (not just yours) go out of their way to remain hidden from those who don't believe. Well, of course the Sun-God was pretty visible, but telescopes kind of shatter that idea.
As much as people like to believe their brains are excempt from the physical world, it really is part of the physical world and subject to measurements and knowledge derived from such measurements.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, you're not sane in your head.
If you've been on this website for longer than a few days, you will notice that any pro-censorship effort by *any* government gets a lot of negative commentary.
There were several articles about Australian government sucking because they tried state-mandated censorship (for the children of course), there were tons of articles in the YRO category criticizing the US government (voting machines sucking, Bush sucking, Obama maybe being too pro-copyright, etc).
Exactly why should China be treated any differently?
Maybe you are a little over-sensitive to the idea that China isn't all that?
Yes, it's just you. You are not pointing out factual errors in the article, just complaining that there is a report of something you apparently agree is rather negative. How about complaining that the unelected politicians over there commit to this behavior?
Exactly why are you trying to compare China with the free(er) world? They are entirely different situations when it comes to control of information. The very fact that you can say "wow, this is all propaganda" without fearing that knock on your door already contradicts what you're trying to say.
The Chinese government has an elaborate system in place to *control* which news media its citizens may get their information from. Criticize the state and your site gets blocked. With some bad luck, you personally get blocked as well.
We on the other hand, can consult any news media we like. Some choose to consult the likes of Fox News, which seems to have 24/7 negative reporting on the US government (i.e. Obama). Now we may see that as pure propaganda, but we are still free to make up our minds on our own terms and *without* government intervention.
Maybe you should stop arguing with trolls or otherwise intellectually challenged people :-) I have never seen any person use the argument of emigration in a way that was not painfully ignorant. Someone using such an argument against you isn't looking for an honest exchange of ideas or a debate.
Why pick the E.U. though, what's wrong with Canada for example?
Anyway... greetings from the E.U. :-)
While I agree with the content of your posts, I do wonder why the hell you're dissing the E.U. in your signature. It is rather contrasting.
You know, it's time to hit whatever button will cause this unnecessary overreaction to halt.
The most harmful thing for kids is having controlling adults around them who can't prioritize actual dangers. The kids already know all the bad words and most likely they know more bad words than you.
If you want to keep your kids from hearing bad words, keep them isolated from their peers.
Sorry about the idiot part -- that was indeed uncalled for.
Of course not everything is a gray area, but if we are talking about murder, theft and child molestation, we can find logical and utilitarian reasons as well as moral or emotional ones. Eliminating these direct threats creates a more efficient and productive society. Worrying about your life every single day is kind of distracting.
However, keep in mind that they are still subject to interpretation: freeing a slave amounts to theft (slaves are property). Killing a person may be heroic or plain murder (depends on target and reason). Child porn may be made by a sick person (50 year old) or it may be made by a naive 16 year old teenager with a webcam.
So even in relatively absolute cases, things aren't always that absolute.
I don't think it's wrong to take the opinions of the community into account, but one also has to remember that a community may be divided over various issues (e.g. abortion, embryonic stem cells, etc) or may currently have a number of clearly wrong opinions (e.g. various -isms).
It's still going to be up to you to take all the information available to you and form the best possible set of opinions.
You live in a community and if said community says you should stop you either remove yourself completely from that community (good luck) or you comply.
Dear e2d2, your comment indicates a way of thinking that is borderline idiotic.
Just open any random history book and you will find that almost all of the people we celebrate as heroes and great thinkers today actually went against contemporary standards. This is not limited to just history, but religion as well. According to the Bible, Jesus went against Roman moral standards. Would you tell Jesus to comply?
Why do we know the name of an average person like Rosa Parks, but not Bob Whatever who told her to take a back seat? Perhaps that was some smuck like you telling her to comply?
Secondly, morals are relative and change over time. This is trivial to verify. Just go back in time a little and you'll find that blatant racism and sexism were the moral norm. Women should stay at home, right? Go back a little further, and you will find atrocities as slave trade, burning people at the stake, etc. All moral and accepted by a majority of the community at the time. According to you, they either weren't sane or they didn't see it as wrong.
Heck, just look across different societies right now and the differences in moral standards. Simple example: cows are considered sacred in some places, but eaten in others. Conversely, cats are considered as pets with a set of rights in some places, cooked alive in others. Abortion: big issue in some places, mandated by the government in others.
But... this process is still ongoing. Now we are seeing things like gay marriage be a big issue for a slim majority. This too will change. In a decade or two, it will be both morally and legally acceptable. People opposing it today will seem as crazy then as people denouncing Elvis for making "n*gger music" (back then, the N-word was morally acceptable).
That's a crazy argument. Any insistence on reality-based methods is *based* on the observable. It's the opposite of blind.
You got it all wrong. The existence or non-existence of a god is irrelevant. There are logically two possibilities here:
1. God does not exist and thus there is no evidence whatsoever to support a claim that it does exist.
2. God does exist, but the game is designed -- by the one who created this reality no less -- that evidence can not be found through rational means. The whole reward/punishment system is based on accepting the premises without evidence.
Besides, why does this even matter to you? If you're religious, don't you already have all the evidence you need?
I would hope that those people will realize that they lost their money on a bad investment and will spend their money more wisely in the future. That would be a nice feedback mechanism.
It does appear that consistent negative publicity helps. Too bad that it has taken over a [i]decade[/i] before changes appear.
It also seems that this long delay is going to lead to a rather messy situation... although possibly less so than it already was :-)
Efforts such as these give the impression the advances in spaceflight will gravitate towards commercial companies catering to consumers, rather than expensive government projects.
Doubtful, or the camera angle would have been better.
Out of curiosity: exactly *what* impact have the ten commandments had on the legal system??
I just don't get how some people continue to make claims like this when it's trivial to demonstrate that one could *openly* violate at least 6 out of the 10 commandments and not get into any sort of legal trouble at all.
In fact, even the only good commandment "thou shalt not kill" can be openly violated in the right circumstances. Plus, it's not like the ancient Romans allowed their citizens to just randomly kill one another.
In contrast, we have things like Hammurabi's Code which is historically seen as the actual origin of modern law... and it predates Christianity entirely.
While I can definitely appreciate your conciliatory approach, it does seem apparent that you're mischaracterizing all three to make them seem the same.
First, let's get this out of the way: the whole point of Creationism/ID is to put the Christian God in the (science) classroom. While the theoretical underpinnings are vague, not falsifiable and largely refuted, the motivations and the religious backgrounds of their founders and supports are absolutely not.
Rejection of evolution is a problem on multiple levels. It has massive amounts of independently verifiable emperical evidence to back it up. It is the basis of modern biology and medicine. You can not ignore this. In a sense, we're talking about rejection of reality. But then again, this is not surprising, since the common element of ALL religions is the rejection of the ultimate harsh reality: death.
What kind of philosophical problems would you run into? That it's hard to comprehend the vast complexity of nature? While it may seem like a simple solution to shift the problem to some vague supernatural entity, this is merely a matter of shifting the problem to a domain where you don't have to think about it. However hard it may be, it's infinitely easier to try to tackle the complexities of measurable reality than trying to figure out a tricky entity that by its very nature refuses to even prove something as simple as its own existence!
Sure, the collective of all living beings may form an intelligence in itself and you may call that an intelligent designer. There have been many fascinating stories about scientists studying the physics of some weird effect of insects for example. But this is not a kind of design that Creationism/ID proposes at all.
The Netherlands in general is more tolerant than (or on par with) most other countries. That doesn't mean it's perfect or devoid of stupid people, or of problems that people associate with letting too many of the 'wrong' foreigners in.
I don't hang out much with idiots, so perhaps my perspective is a bit skewed.
Don't take this the wrong way, but: what does make you want to stay in NL? The weather *is* too cold. We would've been out of here this winter if we didn't have to work on a project.
Just curious: which part of the country are/were you living in?
I've been living in The Netherlands for 20+ years and don't recognize what you're saying at all. Then again, I'm living in The Hague (one of the big cities) and not one of the small villages.
The Netherlands is one of the least religiously dominated countries in Europe: even the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage (of of the #1 priorities it seems of most religious groups). The only places you'll still have the narrowminded attitudes are in the smaller isolated villages.
Well, we know the area in the brain that deals with religious experiences. It's a mechanism that is increasingly understood. While I believe the word "delusion" is a bit strong, it's also accurate in my opinion.
There is no one "modern implementation" of Christianity.
No, but there is modern culture and a way for religion to be implemented within that culture. Christianity is certainly "compatible" with being consumption-oriented. I don't believe it was so at its core. Maybe you have a perspective on that.
All implementations conflict, to one degree or another, with its root; as its root is perfect and its implementations are imperfect.
That's a rather escapist argument: it's not hard to see that people take whatever they *feel* makes sense and put a divine label on it. We might as well say Communism is perfect at its core in spite of being a failure in reality.
As for religion inherently bashing logic, it doesn't; however it is inherently devoid of the fallacy that logic is the one and only source of truth.
It's ironic how in the same line you're bashing logic in the same line where you say religion isn't. Besides, please explain how logic can be used as a source for information? As far as I know, it's just a number of rules arguments must play by in order not to be invalid. When they are invalid, we say "hey, that's a fallacy". So, using the word "fallacy" where you advocate against logic is pretty odd in that light.
Looking at the context, homosexuality is as much a sin as eating shellfish or wearing clothes of certain modern fabrics. If it's as much a sin as something that's obviously not a sin, then it's obvious to understand that it's really not something to get worked up about.
Try to at least read the thing without cultural bias...
I agree the word "rubbish" was ill-chosen, but I do not despise religion itself. There are lots of belief systems that a majority of people consider to be false, yet can still appreciate. It's not like I'm going to despise kids for believing in Santa.
The difference is that with religion, it's actual adults with power and money pushing flawed logic with energy and fanaticism. It is difficult to remain modest while those who assault logic on every level shout the loudest.
It complicates matters that those who are so vocal also act in ways that appear completely in conflict with the very tenets of the religion they advocate. I'm all for the concept of "love your enemies" and to be forgiving. I wish I'd actually see that attitude more often.
If you're religious and it helps you become a better person, good for you. However, if you're going to tell me that I'll go to Hell for not believing in your deity (which is no more real to me than Santa is to you), then do not expect any respect for your intellect.
As I understand from quotes that people throw around, a relevant part of the indoctrination process deals with preparing followers to ward off critisms. Either their own or from skeptics. Why listen to me when I'm blind and Hell-bound anyway? Logic schmogic.
Pride in a religion is nothing wrong unless you start killing people in its name.
It depends completely on the form of pride. Does that pride entice you to hate others or act nasty towards them? I don't see why in the transition from "not-wrong" to "wrong", you'd put the cut-off point at killing people. If I hit you in the face, I wouldn't have killed you, but it'd still be wrong.
Don't forget that tolerance works both ways - from "less open" to "more open" and from "more open" to "less open".
I have no issue whatsoever with people who keep their religion to themselves or who behave in ways that I would expect, i.e. modest, kind and forgiving. I know people who are like that and I have no troubles with them.
Instead, we are confronted almost daily with "proud Christians" who are so intensely narrowminded that they cannot even comprehend that we do not secretly believe in God and by extension fear God. I never understand the logic behind yelling "you'll go to Hell for [insert triviality]!!" to someone who doesn't believe in a Hell.
Now you'll probably claim those people aren't "real Christians", but realize they are vocal and cannot be ignored. As you know, they are very active politically. Heck, if you're active in politics, your best bet is to claim you're religious even if you're not. Too many people associate it with being "good".
Let's not get into the specifics of your particular religion, because IMO if you take a step back, it is rather ridiculous. So many things are taken out of context, interpreted to fit biases or simply translated incorrectly. For example, "Jesus walks ON water" is written same as "Jesus wants NEXT TO water" in the original language.
Then the whole anti-homo stuff... jeez. Only 0.02% of the whole book can be interpreted to be about gays somehow and even that can be explained away through context and interpretation (e.g. good luck following all the rules in Leviticus). Yet Christianity appears to be all about sexuality and homosexuality in particular. That's what they're really vocal about and even base voting decisions on.
Then there's the Jesus guy... an illiterate carpenter who care about poor sick people. While I don't believe he had any powers, I can run a thought experiment of "what would Jesus do". Well, it's *really* hard for me to imagine that such a figure would endorse any of the smug bigoted consumption-oriented Christians of today.
Can you at least see how modern implementation of religion doesn't even inherently bash logic, but even conflict with its own roots?
I really wish we as a humanity could put all this rubbish behind us. On the other hand, humanity being what it is, we could most likely expect something even worse (e.g. Scientology)...
To phrase it more clearly: in spite of the flaming or downmodding you apparently expected, no one is likely to care enough about you or your site to get worked up about it.
You already know that this method is only practical for small sites of little economic consequence and that isolationalist ideas aren't likely to be well-received on an international site like SlashDot.
What's your point then? Are you trolling? It's not exactly a novel or clever idea to use geo-targeted filtering or routing. That's what CDNs do all the time.
It seems unlikely that anyone is going to care about you or your site.
.cn or .ru portal versions!
Then again, firewalling out high-risk IP blocks such as from China or Russia is not necessarily a bad idea. They can go to the
Argh, your argument is so broken and in conflict with itself, it's painful to read.
Yes, of course we can evaluate the trustworthiness of the witness: we know a LOT about the social and biological mechanisms that make people have religious experiences (literally at the push of a button) or see things that aren't there.
We have a long line of deities (2500 in recorded history) that people have died for and sacrified to. Most of them are mutually exclusive. We have people with high military ranks who claim to have seen UFOs, we have people who have seen the monster of Loch Ness, etc, etc. There is no way that they can all be true, yet we have trustworthy witnesses making those claims.
Guess what, your trustworthy witnesses are dismissed by atheists in the same way that you dismiss other trustworthy witnesses yourself. Atheists are just more consistent than you are.
Now comparing physical law to legal law is of course broken: they are opposite. Physical laws are enforced by reality itself and we can only try to learn their rules better. We already comply. The laws aren't decided by humans or verified by anecdotal evidence. BUT, even if we did follow your route, we'd have a pretty strong case by knowing the mechanisms that render your witness testimony unreliable and in conflict with itself. In fact, we could put even the most atheistic person on the stand and trigger religious experiences in them to demonstrate the mechanism.
It's evolutionarily functional self-delusion, not reality.
I also have to point out that it's peculiar to mention death sentences being carried out based on witness testimony when it's established fact that even today, innocent people are being locked up and even executed.
All in all, the only logical and consistent conclusion is: it's in your head.
God obviously exists in the minds of a lot of people. This is not surprising as there is a lot of published evidence of the social and biological mechanisms that make people have religious experiences (e.g. the "God Hat" where this can be reprodicibly triggered at will).
As for the physical world, however, I have not seen anything to even hypothesize that there is an entity actively messing around with the laws of physics as part of some larger plan. Every single time, phenomena turn out to be consistent and - if not too complicated - possible to model and predict. Heck, even humans with their supposed free will are usually easy to predict if you have enough information.
All evidence really points to God being in people's minds first and foremost. That would certainly explain why all gods (not just yours) go out of their way to remain hidden from those who don't believe. Well, of course the Sun-God was pretty visible, but telescopes kind of shatter that idea.
As much as people like to believe their brains are excempt from the physical world, it really is part of the physical world and subject to measurements and knowledge derived from such measurements.
It's in your head. Learn to live with it.