Because advocating the assassination of one man is a direct threat of bodily harm.
But if no bodily harm has been committed, why would it be illegal? Why are you not free to speak favourably about your head of state being assassinated, yet you are free to talk about the (former) head of another state being assassinated? The link between advocating genocide and having genocide actually happen has been shown too clearly in Europe in both the recent and more distant past.
Because the minute you outlaw a political movement just because...
Outlawing a political movement that advocates eradicating people and other political movements and has a track record to prove they're not kidding seems pretty right to me. The current political parties are not allowed engage in criminal activities either, so why would you allow a party that's all about criminal activities and human rights violations?
Note that there are Nazi groups (just like the KKK) in various parts of Europe, including Germany.
If we can outlaw the Nazi Party then surely we can outlaw the Communist Party. You're not a Commie, right?
Did anyone dare to answer that question with "yes" during the McCarthy period? At that time, communists were a perceived threat to the U.S.
Your speech is limited because you can't announce racist viewpoints or ideologies.
Tell that to some of the people in my country, because they don't seem to be aware of this fact.
Do you outlaw all viewpoints that you disagree with or just those that offend you?
That's a loaded question. The same question can be asked about libel.
If you can't understand the logic of my position then you don't understand freedom.
It's unfortunate that you finished with this line of empty circular rethoric, because it tarnishes and otherwise reasonable argument.
Advocating the assassination of the President is not free speech and has been illegal for quite some time.
Interestingly, it doesn't seem to bother you that you cannot freely advocate assassinating the president or vice-president, but it does bother you if you cannot freely advocate assassinating Jews? Practically every country in the world has free speech according to its own definitions. Clearly, the U.S. laws recognize that limitless free speech is dangerous and boundaries must be in place for what can be said or written. Anyone who has sued for libel can confirm that.
I have trouble understanding why outlawing the Nazi party is a bad thing. You're not a Nazi, right? Maybe you can give a better example of how my free speech is supposedly limited in Europe, because my complete lack of sympathy for racists is in the way of understanding your point.
Your argument is flawed. While the underlying networking technology may indeed have originated in the U.S., "the building" is most certainly owned, paid for and operated by local ISPs/government. The gift of the technology of the internet seems rather small and pathetic in exchange for the gift of the technologies of the written/printed word, ships, wheels, manufacturing, weapons, etc, etc? In fact, even the roots of the dominant religion in the U.S. is imported from abroad.
Now if you wanted to use an analogy, you're better off looking at phonebooks as it's closer to the action of resolving a name to a number. It is much more intuitive from this analogy that it is potentially burdensome if a foreign entity can disable your phonebooks at will. Now you can argue on and on about how things have been going great thus far and whatever, but isn't it exactly a typical aspect of the U.S. culture to be prepared for eventualities even though they have yet to occur? I think your government can save a LOT of money if they stopped investing in protection against problems that haven't happened yet.
Finally, an "us guys vs. you guys" is a rather silly attitude, because chances are that you're not exactly the highest level player on "your" team. The ones who are the real players seem to place common business sense well ahead of any nationalistic tendencies.
Last time I checked I had the right to be a neo-Nazi and try to convert others to my viewpoint in the United States.
It's a lousy analogy because the U.S. has no troublesome history with Nazis that Germany has. Now to get a better comparison, look at your right to be a Moslim fundamentalist advocating (but not taking part in) terrorist activities against the U.S. or advocating the assassination of the president. Can you honestly say that you can advocate those things freely without getting unwanted attention or being detained? In the relatively recent past, could a person say he/she supported Communism without getting into trouble? Was Russia more free at that time in that regard?
Seriously though, I see it as positive that high quality open source projects are truly cross-platform and also include windows. Even if one is entirely anti-MS, it is still beneficial for that person's goal that there is a very easy migration path: move from OS software running on windows to the same OS software on linux/mac/etc.
I find it rather mind boggling that the entity that is supposedly the most involved and omnipresent around is so hard to detect that even its entire existence is in doubt. I really would like a powerful invisible friend, though...
The core of Christianity and Islam is repetitive idolation and worship of a central human (or half-human) person. They are personality cults. Somehow they both manage to easily dismiss the claims of the other cult as nonsense even though they use almost exactly the same reasoning.
It is normal these days to dismiss modern personality cults as nonsense and manipulation, yet somehow cults about 1500-2000 years old are not dismissed on the same basis?
The non-existence of something cannot be proven and thus I admit that it is too strong a statement. However, this falls in the same category as "Unicorns do not exist" and "Ghosts do not exist". While it cannot be 100% proven, it is still the more prudent statement than that of a follower of a personality cult who is inherently a lot more biased, given the system of infinite punishment and infinite rewards that person regards as reality.
You already sort of show the difference in your own comparison with the part "and he is.... god" -- by adding that part, the statement maker is already dismissing tons of other deities and religions and implicitly making statements like "Allah does not exist", "Wodan does not exist", etc, etc.
I'm assuming that you're making a joke, but... if a core element of biology has to be accompanied by a baseless disclaimer, then it would only be fair that churches prominently display such disclaimers as well since their assertions are not only unproven, but usually also heavily disputed by members of the same religion (but other demonination).
It seems to me that the issue here is that some companies are giving those regimes direct assistance in the evil deeds that those companies' governments are already implicitly condoning.
The solution is quite easy: just make laws that forbid companies from supplying such assistance to those regimes. The goal of a company is to make money, preferably within existing laws. It's pretty sure they're not breaking the laws of of e.g. China and Myanmar, so people can only be surprised that companies in the business of making money are trying to make money.
If people are so concerned about democracy, freedom of speech and other bla bla, then why import so many goods from China (repressive communist regime) or import oil from Saudi Arabia (fundamentalist Islamic)? At the end of the day, it's all about the money and practically no one is even marginally innocent in this.
While I agree that accountability is a good thing, liability without major restrictions seems like a dangerous thing. I am a software developer myself and I give my clients the guarantee that all bugs they discover within 6 months will be removed free of charge. Since I have no knowledge of how much losses they will claim as a result from even trivial bugs (yes, some clients are greedy), accepting liability is not something I'm going to do.
Here are some interesting links that tell more about how carbon dating works. The link you posted is just creationist talk and not even the best of its kind. You need to know more about the intrinsics of the method before you can judge the scientific merit.
But just because one is not living in fear of something (because they think its just make-believe), does not mean they are unafraid of it.
But here's the point: the common aspect of every major religion that ever existed is the denial of the unpleasant reality of death. You are the one who ducks the confrontation with death and thus require an afterlife to feel OK. You also indicate that you duck confrontations with other-believers because your life is hard (?), yet you make sweeping statements that attract their attention.
I on the other hand welcome an afterlife with enthusiasm. How can you say I am fearful of it? It's unfortunate that the claims are unplausible in my eyes, because I'm actually biased in favour of it.
You didn't answer my question on whether you fear Allah. As I understand, you are in denial of Allah's existence for some reason.
The difference is that my views on life and personal philosophies don't center around denying the existence of 2500 deities. Your views on the other hand depend for a great deal on the denial of death. In fact, one of the most celebrated and most important events in Christianity is the alleged resurrection of Jesus.
Fear seems to be more an inherent concept in Christianity as almost all Christians at some point mention Hell as the end-stop for me if I don't join the cult.
I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get such misinformation about Christianity?
From the Bible. It outlines quite clearly that non-acceptance of the Christian deity equals going to hell, regardless of how nice or bad the person in question has been. I've spoken to various Christians over time and while they differ in many points of view and reasoning, they are without exception very clear about what happens to me if I don't accept the Christian deity as reality. Where I can be "saved" (i.e. joining the club) is not the issue.
Are you claiming that Christian heaven is open to atheists, Hindus, Moslims and so on? If so, then your views fall in the category of "some Christian sects".
I think you're misreading or misunderstanding or both... ? You clearly said their choice was based on fear and that they are in denial of your deity's existence as a result of being terrified of it... that means they implicitly accept the deity's possible existence. This is a logical thing to think for someone who is entrenched in his own views.
My argument was not against the Christian faith, but against the notion that people who do not follow this faith are still somehow fearful of its hypothesized deity. My point still stands unrefuted as you even show open disinterest in how those people regard your faith and only focused on preaching.
I could even grant that the Christian deity exists in the exact way that you outlined and your point would still be invalid.
Well, the point of my post was not to argue the validity of specific religions, but to point out that the claim that non-believers are "frightened" somehow is silly.
It is silly to make broad statements about people grouped only by not believing what you believe in because they may be a lot more diverse and intricate than what you expect. You cannot understand a person who believes other things if you express their thoughts in what you believe.
There have been over 2500 deities recorded in human history. Maybe you subscribe to the notion of the Christian God, but that means you are in denial of the thousands of others. There is no way you're not going to go to some hell according to some religion's teaching. My guess is that most Christians are not in the least fearful of Allah or Wodan... how much of a mental leap is it then to understand that people cannot be fearful of entities they don't believe exist?
I am not at all terrified by the concept of eternal happy life or absolute justice. What DOES terrify me is the idea that the most intelligent, logical and consistent being in the universe (and beyond) would require me to join a personality cult and accept that the worst sin possible is not rape or murder and so on, but to deny the validity of the religion. Remember that according to Christianity and Islam, even people who are the most loving, caring, law-abiding and humble will be punished, while unpleasant, bigoted and rude people supposedly get great rewards.
It really does seem that some people like yourself cannot grasp (terrified perhaps) that their views are regarded as little more than baseless mysticism and personality reverence.
As I understand, one of the jamming related problems with GPS is not by criminals/terrorists, but by the government when they see the need. It seems more of a political than a technical nature. That's one of the potential benefits of the Galileo system: to have more than one "supplier" of such information.
It simply says, "we have assumed too much -- let's go back and revisit our assumptions."
I have no trouble with revisiting assumptions to replace them with better models. We wouldn't have Einstein's theory of relativity if we didn't do so. That is what the scientific method is about. However, this is not just about replacing formulas with better ones but about using ID to make Christianity more acceptable in science. Surely, you agree that there is a strong Christian link?
that we were created by a completely blind process that had no ends in mind -- that's where you get disagreement.
ID as I understand it from you completely allows for this to happen. You agreed in a previous post that the designer of an intelligently designed object (like a computer) does not itself need to be designed. That leads me to the conclusion that intelligence does not need to be linked according to you and Darwinian evolution is possible according to ID. Johnson states opposition to theistic evolution too, so he does seem to favour an involved Designer.
If a person believes that God acted in the world, then it would be a very weak belief if they thought he left no empirical evidence.
Yes, I agree. The problem, however, is that emperical evidence is often ignored or interpreted as a test when it conflicts with the bible. There is perhaps a bit too much noise about what Christianity really claims, because there are too many conflicting accounts.
We have emperical evidence (of sorts) that UFOs exist. Does that mean that a religion based around UFOs finds itself validated that way?
It is an accepted fact that we live in a material reality and that science models a lot of this reality. The issue seems to be whether something outside of this reality - something supernatural - influences this reality. More than removing assumptions, I think it's about adding assumptions where materialistic assumptions don't work out.
Science started off in Western culture as an extension of theology and philosophy. It was made possible by the assumptions about nature brought by Christianity.
If that's true, then hasn't the ID puzzle been solved already in favour of naturalism? The evolution of science seems to favour naturalism so to speak.
Likewise, if naturalism is a faulty assumption, that means that the logical conclusions drawn from naturalism is also faulty.
It's not a black & white situation: naturalism will never be 100% faulty. We can see that a wide range of sciences work very well, even though they are entirely naturalistic. The Designer seems to favour repeatable naturalistic processes with minimum naturalistically detectable involvement.
On the other hand, even if you can prove that intelligent design has taken place in the universe, then still you have no conclusions regarding the Designer and what designed humans. Certainly, as a Christian you would like to find some emperical evidence that can only be interpreted in favour of your own god and not UFO-beings or even theistic evolution?
I realize that I am accusing you of having bias. On the other hand, I have every reason to want your claims to be true: according to my present views, I have only a double-digit number of years left to live. According to your views (at least how I assume them to be), I have millions of cool years ahead of me. It's against my interest for me to be right and in that sense, I am biased against myself:-)
You are saying that Christians cannot do cosmology with non-materialistic assumptions on the same playing field as naturalists with materialistic assumptions, and complaining that Christians are trying to impose their views on others, but not complaining about the same for materialists.
Neither person can deny that a material world exists and that our physical reality is ruled by highly consistent laws of physics. We have overwhelming amounts of emperical evidence for that. The only part where Christian cla
How is that an issue with ID? What most people don't understand is that ID is simply a measurement.
You are mistaking quantifiable measurements of physical properties with qualitative ones. ID is not simply about making measurements, it's part of what is called the Wedge Strategy.
Besides, if everything needs to have been designed directly or indirectly, then sooner or later you'll run into the question of what designed the designer. Since you seem to claim that ID apparently allows for pockets of unlinked intelligence, evolution theory should be compatible with it, but the leading ID proponents are against evolution theory.
Yes, but doing so abandons the very concept of reason.
So by embracing reason as the arbiter of one's actions, one abandons it? That doesn't make sense.
Which ones are these? Philip Johnson does not claim that scientifically,...
Well, Phillip Johnson wrote in 1999 "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion.... This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact."
Dembski writes in 'Intelligent Design; the Bridge Between Science and Theology' the following: "Christ is indispensible to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a scientific theory can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to Christ. But the conceptual soundness of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ."
In 2000, Dembski writes "Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God."
Then in 2003, Phillip Johnson is quoted as saying "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."
Phillip Johnson makes numerous references to Darwin's theory of evolution and clearly regards evolution incompatible with ID.
It's clear to me that those ID proponents not only believe something supernatural occurred, but also have a very clear idea of who the Designer is. They themselves are fully aware of the strategy to repackage religious aspects in science as a first step to introducing overtly religious aspects into it.
However, most ID'ers and Creationists believe that science is not the only means to knowledge.
Then it rather defeats the purpose to try to use science as a route to finding out about the Designer. What purpose does ID serve you personally? You already know more than science can teach you about the Designer and what the Designer wants from you. Just open the Bible and you'll read what you need to know. Why do you need a foundation in science, which is by its nature rooted in naturalism?
Revelation as a source of knowledge is a key concept in Christianity.
It's a key concept in every teaching that claims close ties to (invisible) supernatural forces. The other key concept is that the worst sin possible is rejecting the religion.
but if you treat all sides with equal skepticism, then yes, you are truly a skeptic.
In all honesty, I don't treat all sides with equal skepticism, because not all sides present as strong a case. It is only natural for example, that I am more skeptical of a teaching that claims that Santa delivers presents than of one that is explained in naturalistic terms of parents buying presents.
But you are still missing the fact that ALL cosmologies are inherently a mix of science and philosophy, as admitted by ALL cosmologists.
The point I have an issue with is mixing it with politics and covert religious intentions. Clearly, the creation and support of the ID movement is largely from people who try to repackage the Christian God in secular terms. Maybe you are an exception, but the on
I think you are confusing Creationism and Intelligent Design. I acknowledge the differences between the two, but consider them to originate from the same agenda.
I read the article in the link you gave. There were some interesting points. Does the fact that objects such as computers are intelligently designed by humans mean for you that humans themselves have been intelligently designed as well? Is it possible that intelligence comes into existence by chance? That is: do you think every designing object must have a designer itself?
One of the issues I see with ID is that even if it can prove that the universe was designed intelligently, it still won't explain what designed the designers. Also, a whole realm is left open as to what designed us humans. For example, the people at Rael claim that aliens designed us. That say that the Bible even supports their claims.
Naturalism is the abandonment of reason, and is akin to admitting effects without a cause.
The dictionary definition says that naturalism is the philosophy that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.
in that ID does not suppose that anything supernatural has occurred.
That's odd, because the authoritative figures on this subject claim otherwise.
These questions have more practical import than all that science has given us in the last 1,000 years. To answer them wrong because we have assumed the answer before starting is simply ludicrous.
As you can see, proponents of Creationism and ID such as yourself are quick to jump from the unnamed Designer to the Christian God and the assumption that we humans must have been designed directly and personally by this Designer. It is much more likely in the scenario of a Designer that we were genetically engineered from apes and have no higher purpose than your average dog or cat. The assumption that higher purpose must exist stems from wishful thinking.
Not in the areas of cosmology or evolution. If these claims were independently verifiable, there would be no creationist movement.
I tend to agree with this, although I believe that no amount of solid science is enough against wishful thinking.
If you're going to be skeptical, shouldn't you be skeptical of ALL unverifiable claims, not just the ones that are based on theistic rather than atheistic assumptions?
Yes, but I can be perfectly skeptical of claims on both sides. The philosophical difference in opinion doesn't stem from preferring natural or supernatural explanations but from the wish to have religion be called religion and science science. I'm all for people being free to follow the personality-worship of their choice. I'll admit that the mathematical angle is a nice one, but the conclusions lead everywhere including UFO-based religions and not just to your church.
It is also true that secularists bring a specific set of assumptions. It is not true that the secular assumptions are somehow "more scientific" than the Christian ones.
I don't see it as a secular vs. religious issue: the lack of a religious basis of a claim still says little about its validity. However, the Scientific Method that is at the core of science demands claims to be independently verifiable and falsifiable. Most Christian claims do not meet that criterion and thus do not qualify as scientific. You might argue that science is religious too somehow, but you cannot argue that religion is scientific.
We can see that naturalism gives us the most practical tools and predictive powers. They might have assumptions at their basis, but those assumptions have been proven highly practical again and again. Supernatural claims are almost always circular and can only predict after the fact. Thus even if they had any validity to begin with, they'd still be useless for anything practical.
You can actually do the same for evolution, simply because Christianity is the dominant religion in america, for both evolutionists and creationists.
It's good that you agree that support of Darwin's theory of evolution is not based on what you call "secular assumptions". However, it is impossible to claim that any scientific field has near-100% dominance of Christians. The dictionary definition of Creationism links it strongly to believing in the Genesis myth.
Secular humanism...
Even if we assume what you say about secular humanism is true, then it's still a pointless argument because I brought up naturalism and not secular humanism.
Of course "skepticism" gets applied to other people's beliefs, not to secularism or naturalism.
The difference is that naturalism gives claims we can verify for ourselves. Supernaturalism gives claims we can only verify after we're dead. It's rather natural to be more skeptical of the latter.
while "skepticism" requires nothing at all except what you want it to require.
That same claim goes for about everything else, so it's pretty pointless.
Slashdot Mirror
Because advocating the assassination of one man is a direct threat of bodily harm.
But if no bodily harm has been committed, why would it be illegal? Why are you not free to speak favourably about your head of state being assassinated, yet you are free to talk about the (former) head of another state being assassinated? The link between advocating genocide and having genocide actually happen has been shown too clearly in Europe in both the recent and more distant past.
Because the minute you outlaw a political movement just because...
Outlawing a political movement that advocates eradicating people and other political movements and has a track record to prove they're not kidding seems pretty right to me. The current political parties are not allowed engage in criminal activities either, so why would you allow a party that's all about criminal activities and human rights violations?
Note that there are Nazi groups (just like the KKK) in various parts of Europe, including Germany.
If we can outlaw the Nazi Party then surely we can outlaw the Communist Party. You're not a Commie, right?
Did anyone dare to answer that question with "yes" during the McCarthy period? At that time, communists were a perceived threat to the U.S.
Your speech is limited because you can't announce racist viewpoints or ideologies.
Tell that to some of the people in my country, because they don't seem to be aware of this fact.
Do you outlaw all viewpoints that you disagree with or just those that offend you?
That's a loaded question. The same question can be asked about libel.
If you can't understand the logic of my position then you don't understand freedom.
It's unfortunate that you finished with this line of empty circular rethoric, because it tarnishes and otherwise reasonable argument.
Advocating the assassination of the President is not free speech and has been illegal for quite some time.
Interestingly, it doesn't seem to bother you that you cannot freely advocate assassinating the president or vice-president, but it does bother you if you cannot freely advocate assassinating Jews? Practically every country in the world has free speech according to its own definitions. Clearly, the U.S. laws recognize that limitless free speech is dangerous and boundaries must be in place for what can be said or written. Anyone who has sued for libel can confirm that.
I have trouble understanding why outlawing the Nazi party is a bad thing. You're not a Nazi, right? Maybe you can give a better example of how my free speech is supposedly limited in Europe, because my complete lack of sympathy for racists is in the way of understanding your point.
Your argument is flawed. While the underlying networking technology may indeed have originated in the U.S., "the building" is most certainly owned, paid for and operated by local ISPs/government. The gift of the technology of the internet seems rather small and pathetic in exchange for the gift of the technologies of the written/printed word, ships, wheels, manufacturing, weapons, etc, etc? In fact, even the roots of the dominant religion in the U.S. is imported from abroad.
Now if you wanted to use an analogy, you're better off looking at phonebooks as it's closer to the action of resolving a name to a number. It is much more intuitive from this analogy that it is potentially burdensome if a foreign entity can disable your phonebooks at will. Now you can argue on and on about how things have been going great thus far and whatever, but isn't it exactly a typical aspect of the U.S. culture to be prepared for eventualities even though they have yet to occur? I think your government can save a LOT of money if they stopped investing in protection against problems that haven't happened yet.
Finally, an "us guys vs. you guys" is a rather silly attitude, because chances are that you're not exactly the highest level player on "your" team. The ones who are the real players seem to place common business sense well ahead of any nationalistic tendencies.
Last time I checked I had the right to be a neo-Nazi and try to convert others to my viewpoint in the United States.
It's a lousy analogy because the U.S. has no troublesome history with Nazis that Germany has. Now to get a better comparison, look at your right to be a Moslim fundamentalist advocating (but not taking part in) terrorist activities against the U.S. or advocating the assassination of the president. Can you honestly say that you can advocate those things freely without getting unwanted attention or being detained? In the relatively recent past, could a person say he/she supported Communism without getting into trouble? Was Russia more free at that time in that regard?
I'll probably get flamed for #2
That's for sure, you JERK!!!11!!1111111111!!!
Seriously though, I see it as positive that high quality open source projects are truly cross-platform and also include windows. Even if one is entirely anti-MS, it is still beneficial for that person's goal that there is a very easy migration path: move from OS software running on windows to the same OS software on linux/mac/etc.
I find it rather mind boggling that the entity that is supposedly the most involved and omnipresent around is so hard to detect that even its entire existence is in doubt. I really would like a powerful invisible friend, though...
The core of Christianity and Islam is repetitive idolation and worship of a central human (or half-human) person. They are personality cults. Somehow they both manage to easily dismiss the claims of the other cult as nonsense even though they use almost exactly the same reasoning.
.... god" -- by adding that part, the statement maker is already dismissing tons of other deities and religions and implicitly making statements like "Allah does not exist", "Wodan does not exist", etc, etc.
It is normal these days to dismiss modern personality cults as nonsense and manipulation, yet somehow cults about 1500-2000 years old are not dismissed on the same basis?
The non-existence of something cannot be proven and thus I admit that it is too strong a statement. However, this falls in the same category as "Unicorns do not exist" and "Ghosts do not exist". While it cannot be 100% proven, it is still the more prudent statement than that of a follower of a personality cult who is inherently a lot more biased, given the system of infinite punishment and infinite rewards that person regards as reality.
You already sort of show the difference in your own comparison with the part "and he is
I want to know who the bastards are that are adding this technology to their printers so I can avoid them like the plague.
That's in the article:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php
I'm assuming that you're making a joke, but... if a core element of biology has to be accompanied by a baseless disclaimer, then it would only be fair that churches prominently display such disclaimers as well since their assertions are not only unproven, but usually also heavily disputed by members of the same religion (but other demonination).
Why is there no push for such disclaimers?
It seems to me that the issue here is that some companies are giving those regimes direct assistance in the evil deeds that those companies' governments are already implicitly condoning.
The solution is quite easy: just make laws that forbid companies from supplying such assistance to those regimes. The goal of a company is to make money, preferably within existing laws. It's pretty sure they're not breaking the laws of of e.g. China and Myanmar, so people can only be surprised that companies in the business of making money are trying to make money.
If people are so concerned about democracy, freedom of speech and other bla bla, then why import so many goods from China (repressive communist regime) or import oil from Saudi Arabia (fundamentalist Islamic)? At the end of the day, it's all about the money and practically no one is even marginally innocent in this.
While I agree that accountability is a good thing, liability without major restrictions seems like a dangerous thing. I am a software developer myself and I give my clients the guarantee that all bugs they discover within 6 months will be removed free of charge. Since I have no knowledge of how much losses they will claim as a result from even trivial bugs (yes, some clients are greedy), accepting liability is not something I'm going to do.
Here are some interesting links that tell more about how carbon dating works. The link you posted is just creationist talk and not even the best of its kind. You need to know more about the intrinsics of the method before you can judge the scientific merit.
l
science.howstuffworks.com/carbon-14.htm
230nsc1.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.htm
www.c14dating.com/int.html
But just because one is not living in fear of something (because they think its just make-believe), does not mean they are unafraid of it.
But here's the point: the common aspect of every major religion that ever existed is the denial of the unpleasant reality of death. You are the one who ducks the confrontation with death and thus require an afterlife to feel OK. You also indicate that you duck confrontations with other-believers because your life is hard (?), yet you make sweeping statements that attract their attention.
I on the other hand welcome an afterlife with enthusiasm. How can you say I am fearful of it? It's unfortunate that the claims are unplausible in my eyes, because I'm actually biased in favour of it.
You didn't answer my question on whether you fear Allah. As I understand, you are in denial of Allah's existence for some reason.
The difference is that my views on life and personal philosophies don't center around denying the existence of 2500 deities. Your views on the other hand depend for a great deal on the denial of death. In fact, one of the most celebrated and most important events in Christianity is the alleged resurrection of Jesus.
Fear seems to be more an inherent concept in Christianity as almost all Christians at some point mention Hell as the end-stop for me if I don't join the cult.
I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get such misinformation about Christianity?
From the Bible. It outlines quite clearly that non-acceptance of the Christian deity equals going to hell, regardless of how nice or bad the person in question has been. I've spoken to various Christians over time and while they differ in many points of view and reasoning, they are without exception very clear about what happens to me if I don't accept the Christian deity as reality. Where I can be "saved" (i.e. joining the club) is not the issue.
Are you claiming that Christian heaven is open to atheists, Hindus, Moslims and so on? If so, then your views fall in the category of "some Christian sects".
I think you're misreading or misunderstanding or both... ? You clearly said their choice was based on fear and that they are in denial of your deity's existence as a result of being terrified of it... that means they implicitly accept the deity's possible existence. This is a logical thing to think for someone who is entrenched in his own views.
My argument was not against the Christian faith, but against the notion that people who do not follow this faith are still somehow fearful of its hypothesized deity. My point still stands unrefuted as you even show open disinterest in how those people regard your faith and only focused on preaching.
I could even grant that the Christian deity exists in the exact way that you outlined and your point would still be invalid.
How terrified are you of Allah?
Well, the point of my post was not to argue the validity of specific religions, but to point out that the claim that non-believers are "frightened" somehow is silly.
It is silly to make broad statements about people grouped only by not believing what you believe in because they may be a lot more diverse and intricate than what you expect. You cannot understand a person who believes other things if you express their thoughts in what you believe.
There have been over 2500 deities recorded in human history. Maybe you subscribe to the notion of the Christian God, but that means you are in denial of the thousands of others. There is no way you're not going to go to some hell according to some religion's teaching. My guess is that most Christians are not in the least fearful of Allah or Wodan... how much of a mental leap is it then to understand that people cannot be fearful of entities they don't believe exist?
I am not at all terrified by the concept of eternal happy life or absolute justice. What DOES terrify me is the idea that the most intelligent, logical and consistent being in the universe (and beyond) would require me to join a personality cult and accept that the worst sin possible is not rape or murder and so on, but to deny the validity of the religion. Remember that according to Christianity and Islam, even people who are the most loving, caring, law-abiding and humble will be punished, while unpleasant, bigoted and rude people supposedly get great rewards.
It really does seem that some people like yourself cannot grasp (terrified perhaps) that their views are regarded as little more than baseless mysticism and personality reverence.
No, I thought exactly the same thing... that's why I clicked to read the story. Seriously!
As I understand, one of the jamming related problems with GPS is not by criminals/terrorists, but by the government when they see the need. It seems more of a political than a technical nature. That's one of the potential benefits of the Galileo system: to have more than one "supplier" of such information.
It simply says, "we have assumed too much -- let's go back and revisit our assumptions."
:-)
I have no trouble with revisiting assumptions to replace them with better models. We wouldn't have Einstein's theory of relativity if we didn't do so. That is what the scientific method is about. However, this is not just about replacing formulas with better ones but about using ID to make Christianity more acceptable in science. Surely, you agree that there is a strong Christian link?
that we were created by a completely blind process that had no ends in mind -- that's where you get disagreement.
ID as I understand it from you completely allows for this to happen. You agreed in a previous post that the designer of an intelligently designed object (like a computer) does not itself need to be designed. That leads me to the conclusion that intelligence does not need to be linked according to you and Darwinian evolution is possible according to ID. Johnson states opposition to theistic evolution too, so he does seem to favour an involved Designer.
If a person believes that God acted in the world, then it would be a very weak belief if they thought he left no empirical evidence.
Yes, I agree. The problem, however, is that emperical evidence is often ignored or interpreted as a test when it conflicts with the bible. There is perhaps a bit too much noise about what Christianity really claims, because there are too many conflicting accounts.
We have emperical evidence (of sorts) that UFOs exist. Does that mean that a religion based around UFOs finds itself validated that way?
It is an accepted fact that we live in a material reality and that science models a lot of this reality. The issue seems to be whether something outside of this reality - something supernatural - influences this reality. More than removing assumptions, I think it's about adding assumptions where materialistic assumptions don't work out.
Science started off in Western culture as an extension of theology and philosophy. It was made possible by the assumptions about nature brought by Christianity.
If that's true, then hasn't the ID puzzle been solved already in favour of naturalism? The evolution of science seems to favour naturalism so to speak.
Likewise, if naturalism is a faulty assumption, that means that the logical conclusions drawn from naturalism is also faulty.
It's not a black & white situation: naturalism will never be 100% faulty. We can see that a wide range of sciences work very well, even though they are entirely naturalistic. The Designer seems to favour repeatable naturalistic processes with minimum naturalistically detectable involvement.
On the other hand, even if you can prove that intelligent design has taken place in the universe, then still you have no conclusions regarding the Designer and what designed humans. Certainly, as a Christian you would like to find some emperical evidence that can only be interpreted in favour of your own god and not UFO-beings or even theistic evolution?
I realize that I am accusing you of having bias. On the other hand, I have every reason to want your claims to be true: according to my present views, I have only a double-digit number of years left to live. According to your views (at least how I assume them to be), I have millions of cool years ahead of me. It's against my interest for me to be right and in that sense, I am biased against myself
You are saying that Christians cannot do cosmology with non-materialistic assumptions on the same playing field as naturalists with materialistic assumptions, and complaining that Christians are trying to impose their views on others, but not complaining about the same for materialists.
Neither person can deny that a material world exists and that our physical reality is ruled by highly consistent laws of physics. We have overwhelming amounts of emperical evidence for that. The only part where Christian cla
How is that an issue with ID? What most people don't understand is that ID is simply a measurement.
...
... This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact."
You are mistaking quantifiable measurements of physical properties with qualitative ones. ID is not simply about making measurements, it's part of what is called the Wedge Strategy.
Besides, if everything needs to have been designed directly or indirectly, then sooner or later you'll run into the question of what designed the designer. Since you seem to claim that ID apparently allows for pockets of unlinked intelligence, evolution theory should be compatible with it, but the leading ID proponents are against evolution theory.
Yes, but doing so abandons the very concept of reason.
So by embracing reason as the arbiter of one's actions, one abandons it? That doesn't make sense.
Which ones are these? Philip Johnson does not claim that scientifically,
Well, Phillip Johnson wrote in 1999 "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion.
Dembski writes in 'Intelligent Design; the Bridge Between Science and Theology' the following: "Christ is indispensible to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a scientific theory can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to Christ. But the conceptual soundness of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ."
In 2000, Dembski writes "Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God."
Then in 2003, Phillip Johnson is quoted as saying "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."
Phillip Johnson makes numerous references to Darwin's theory of evolution and clearly regards evolution incompatible with ID.
It's clear to me that those ID proponents not only believe something supernatural occurred, but also have a very clear idea of who the Designer is. They themselves are fully aware of the strategy to repackage religious aspects in science as a first step to introducing overtly religious aspects into it.
However, most ID'ers and Creationists believe that science is not the only means to knowledge.
Then it rather defeats the purpose to try to use science as a route to finding out about the Designer. What purpose does ID serve you personally? You already know more than science can teach you about the Designer and what the Designer wants from you. Just open the Bible and you'll read what you need to know. Why do you need a foundation in science, which is by its nature rooted in naturalism?
Revelation as a source of knowledge is a key concept in Christianity.
It's a key concept in every teaching that claims close ties to (invisible) supernatural forces. The other key concept is that the worst sin possible is rejecting the religion.
but if you treat all sides with equal skepticism, then yes, you are truly a skeptic.
In all honesty, I don't treat all sides with equal skepticism, because not all sides present as strong a case. It is only natural for example, that I am more skeptical of a teaching that claims that Santa delivers presents than of one that is explained in naturalistic terms of parents buying presents.
But you are still missing the fact that ALL cosmologies are inherently a mix of science and philosophy, as admitted by ALL cosmologists.
The point I have an issue with is mixing it with politics and covert religious intentions. Clearly, the creation and support of the ID movement is largely from people who try to repackage the Christian God in secular terms. Maybe you are an exception, but the on
I think you are confusing Creationism and Intelligent Design.
I acknowledge the differences between the two, but consider them to originate from the same agenda.
I read the article in the link you gave. There were some interesting points. Does the fact that objects such as computers are intelligently designed by humans mean for you that humans themselves have been intelligently designed as well? Is it possible that intelligence comes into existence by chance? That is: do you think every designing object must have a designer itself?
One of the issues I see with ID is that even if it can prove that the universe was designed intelligently, it still won't explain what designed the designers. Also, a whole realm is left open as to what designed us humans. For example, the people at Rael claim that aliens designed us. That say that the Bible even supports their claims.
Naturalism is the abandonment of reason, and is akin to admitting effects without a cause.
The dictionary definition says that naturalism is the philosophy that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.
in that ID does not suppose that anything supernatural has occurred.
That's odd, because the authoritative figures on this subject claim otherwise.
These questions have more practical import than all that science has given us in the last 1,000 years. To answer them wrong because we have assumed the answer before starting is simply ludicrous.
As you can see, proponents of Creationism and ID such as yourself are quick to jump from the unnamed Designer to the Christian God and the assumption that we humans must have been designed directly and personally by this Designer. It is much more likely in the scenario of a Designer that we were genetically engineered from apes and have no higher purpose than your average dog or cat. The assumption that higher purpose must exist stems from wishful thinking.
Not in the areas of cosmology or evolution. If these claims were independently verifiable, there would be no creationist movement.
I tend to agree with this, although I believe that no amount of solid science is enough against wishful thinking.
If you're going to be skeptical, shouldn't you be skeptical of ALL unverifiable claims, not just the ones that are based on theistic rather than atheistic assumptions?
Yes, but I can be perfectly skeptical of claims on both sides. The philosophical difference in opinion doesn't stem from preferring natural or supernatural explanations but from the wish to have religion be called religion and science science. I'm all for people being free to follow the personality-worship of their choice. I'll admit that the mathematical angle is a nice one, but the conclusions lead everywhere including UFO-based religions and not just to your church.
It is also true that secularists bring a specific set of assumptions. It is not true that the secular assumptions are somehow "more scientific" than the Christian ones.
I don't see it as a secular vs. religious issue: the lack of a religious basis of a claim still says little about its validity. However, the Scientific Method that is at the core of science demands claims to be independently verifiable and falsifiable. Most Christian claims do not meet that criterion and thus do not qualify as scientific. You might argue that science is religious too somehow, but you cannot argue that religion is scientific.
We can see that naturalism gives us the most practical tools and predictive powers. They might have assumptions at their basis, but those assumptions have been proven highly practical again and again. Supernatural claims are almost always circular and can only predict after the fact. Thus even if they had any validity to begin with, they'd still be useless for anything practical.
You can actually do the same for evolution, simply because Christianity is the dominant religion in america, for both evolutionists and creationists.
It's good that you agree that support of Darwin's theory of evolution is not based on what you call "secular assumptions". However, it is impossible to claim that any scientific field has near-100% dominance of Christians. The dictionary definition of Creationism links it strongly to believing in the Genesis myth.
Secular humanism...
Even if we assume what you say about secular humanism is true, then it's still a pointless argument because I brought up naturalism and not secular humanism.
Of course "skepticism" gets applied to other people's beliefs, not to secularism or naturalism.
The difference is that naturalism gives claims we can verify for ourselves. Supernaturalism gives claims we can only verify after we're dead. It's rather natural to be more skeptical of the latter.
while "skepticism" requires nothing at all except what you want it to require.
That same claim goes for about everything else, so it's pretty pointless.