For those unaware of what a Bose-Einstein condensate is, check here: for the info. It really is an amazing and laudable acheivement, especially considering that we have created a state of matter that, as far as we know, exists nowhere else in the universe. Go mankind!
As noted above, the research essentially codifies the "market for lemons" theory of economics: a description of how asymetric information effects markets.
The classic example is of used cars: where each car can either be a "lemon" (a bad one that will break down quickly) or a "plum" (good one that'll run fine). But while dealers know which each car is (knowing its history), consumers don't. Without some remedy, what the theory predicts will happen in this situation is this: consumers will only be willing to pay the _average_ value of both lemons and plums (to hedge their risk), which means that the prices they are willing to pay for a used car are usually below the value sellers are willing to get for their "plums." This has the effect of making dealers much more willing to offer lemons for sale than plums. Eventually, this means that the market for used cars becomes almost all lemons, and consumers lower their willingness to pay even further to reflect this. This is, needless to say, a sub-optimal outcome, so clearly defining it, as the Nobel Prize winners have, is truly useful for people who seek to identify and fix such problems.
Some corrections. First of all, Israel would never "assinate" anyone: I didn't mean to insinuate that they were that barbaric. I meant "assassinate," of course.
Secondly, I probably should have mentioned more specifically that their assassination attempt was via bombing.
And I would note that Arafat is not the only one to release terrorists from jail. Israel actually did exactly this when they tried to assinate Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, who was in jail at the time, serving a 12 year sentance imposed on him by the Palestinian Authority. Instead of killing him, however, they killed 11 of his guards and set him free. Their later success in killing him last November is what touched off the recent wave of bombings.
What is sort of tragically hilarious about this situation is that Israel's major complaint was that Arafat wouldn't jail terrorists. This is just a little hypocritical considering the fact that they BLEW UP THE JAIL Arafat was holding this particular terrorist. If they hadn't, he never would have escaped to plan the assisination of that Israeli minister in the first place.
To be fair, the commitee didn't know about Menchu's/her biographer's fabrications when they awarded her the prize, and there is, of course, the debate over whether it matters (whether true in every respect or not, the work did what it did to call attention to the plight of Guatemala). I'm not a fan of Menchu, but I don't think the awards should be based on my political opinions. If they were though...
Re:applicability of Nobel Prizes in the modern wor
on
Nobel Prizes Awarded
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· Score: 4, Insightful
---As for the economics award, the world has no use for a science dedicated to depriving people of freedom and controlling them.---
This is an extremely unfair assement of the field of economics. Just because you may not like the some of the thrust of a social science is no reason to charge it with evil motives. And I would guess from your characterization that your sense of an "economist" is a boogeyman out of the Wall Street Journal, not a brilliant and thoughtful man like Joeseph Stiglitz. Indeed, the general thrust of academic economics is almost entirely the OPPOSITE of what you describe: it's normative goals are everywhere and always to maximize things like choice and social welfare.
I would. Because this has nothing to do with wartime. This has been his agenda from day 1 of his presidency (his first act was to request, as president, that Americans pray), and he's already gained a lot of legal ground already. Funding the sale of religious ideology with government money? Making himself the arbiter of what is a religion and what is not? Bush has gone far beyond any previous president, even Reagan or his father, or the simpering Clinton.
---its interesting stuff and its not turning into any sort of flame war or anything, so thanks again---
Again, I'm not a final authority on anything, so don't worry!
---The first person in the scenario does not believe that there is any gods out there, that there is no being that is higher up then us that we cannot see but he is there. So, the first person doesn't believe in god/gods in any sense. ---
Well, the way you phrased it this time though, that's more akin to me than it is the dogmatic anti-theist you described before: I don't believe in any of that. That doesn't mean that I claim there are no gods (higher beings, whatever), but the fact is that I don't see any evidence of it. It's possible. But an infinate number of things are possible, and until I get some good reason to believe in one of them, I can't believe. So here is a true statement about me: I don't have belief in gods, in any sense.
Now, if from that I then went and said: "no gods exist"- that would be a pretty silly statement: and you'd be quite justified in thinking of that as arrogant (I would go further: it's DISHONEST, because it claims as true something you don't actually _know_ is true).
Note, however, that the fact that something (like a god) might be invisible and intangible only makes it worse: I would have even LESS to go on. This is the point of the burden of proof: it's so that I can't "prove" a claim simply by making my claims more and more unprovable. If I claim that I have a leprechaun in my house, you might ask to see it. You see nothing. So I claim that it's invisible. You ask to touch it. So I claim that it's intangible. If there were no burden of proof, you'd then be forced to believe in my leprechaun, simply because I claimed it was there. But that is not the case. In fact, I've only HURT my ability to prove my case by making my leprechaun claims unfalisfiable.
Let's look at what you could do: you deny my CLAIM that there is a leprechuan in my house. Or you could deny that leprechauns exist. The first denial is justifiable, the second is not. Taking it back to atheists and theists: many atheists are accused of "denying god," when what they are really doing is denying the CLAIMS made for god. In the end, all we have to deal with are people's claims about what is true and what is not. And if those claims are faulty, we are quite justified in rejecting them and remaining unconvinced.
---Well I think I can see what you are saying. It still doesn't change my mind when it comes to how people will use this.---
It shouldn't! I am only arguing that our morality should ALREADY avoid being based on arbitrary distinctions like species for precisely this reason. However, that doesn't mean that anyone WILL be more moral or humane, or that this technology will lead to only good things. It very well COULD create horrors. In fact there are many horrors perprated on animals with higher degrees of moral characteristics already that that some people believe need to be redressed as well.
Sorry, another huge response. I'm long-winded. Just bail out of it if it gets boring!
---You take 2 people, person number one believes that there is no god. The second person lacks the belief in god. What is the difference between these 2 people.---
Well, for starters, the first person may not be an atheist (they may believe in a _different_ god), but they certainly could be (they may not believe in any gods). The second person could also be an atheist. But for that to be totally clear, you'd have to state it like this: "they don't believe in gods." So, let's just take the case to mean that both people are, indeed, atheists.
---In my opinion, the first person is arrogant, as I feel it is impossible to know for a fact that god does not exist.---
The first person might well be arrogant, but it does depend on WHICH god you are talking about. For the utterance "god" to even have some intelligible meaning, we need to give it a definition. Otherwise, discussing "god" would be like discussing "unies" when no one on either side even knew what an "unie" was. Now, for some definitions of god, it MIGHT be possible to logically disprove them deductively. The two most common disproofs of SPECIFIC gods are the arguement from evil, and the arguement from non-belief. The first disproof argues that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-benevolent god is inconsistent with the existence of evil. However, to escape this disproof, all one has to do is weaken one of the assumptions slighty: maybe god is not ALL powerful, but is bound by concerns of logic (the Catholic view) which make it impossible for him to both stop evil and permit free will (though "free will" is a strange, non-cognitive issue in itself..). Or maybe god is not benevolent as WE might understand it (the Calvinist view). The second disproof concerns a god who is claimed to be known to all, and to have eternal punishment for allegience, and eternal pain for defiance. This god is inconsistent with the existence of people who are legitimate non-believers (which is one reason non-believers are so threatening). Even if we wanted to somehow delude ourselves into denying that there is a god, this arguement still makes no sense: there's no reason any sane person would do that, considering the rewards and punishments. NOTHING is worth it. I cerrtainly wouldn't do it: what's the point in lying to myself? There are counter-arguements to this too, but you get the idea: if a given _definition_ can contradict established facts, then there IS the potential for disproof of THAT definition.
However, you are quite right that "gods" in general can NEVER be disproven. At best, those disproofs would only rule out particular kinds of gods, not "gods." Here's why: if a "god" could have any characteristics, it could be anything, fit any definition one dreamt of, or be even beyond our imagination. And if it could be, for instance, omnipotent, then it would have the power to make it look to ANYONE exactly as if it did not exist. While this may seem like a victory to theists, it's not. An totally unknowable god is, obviously, unprovable. It's a double-edged sword: the more agnostical they make their god, the harder it is to even say for sure that it exists. And the less you define it, the more meaningless the statement "god exists" becomes (like getting ever closer to saying "an unie exists!")
Also note another little wrinkle: many people have gods which I would agree DO exist. For instance: Caesar. Some believe the universe is their god (Tolland-esque Pantheists). I agree that Caesar and the universe exist: but these are not MY gods, and I don't believe in them as gods. Again, what "as gods" means is a little dicey: at best we can only go one what people tell us it means to them.
---Does the second person not know for sure if there is a god, but wont believe there is one unless he/she is shown some sort of solid proof that there is one?---
Yes. They need have no beliefs about the existence of god whatsoever, particularly the belief that there is one. But it's often best seen as even more passive than that. They simply have not encountered any reason to believe. This could be because all the reasons they have encoutnered seem faulty (and one might actively debunk those reasons without being anything more than an unbeliever), or even because they've never even HEARD of the claim that "there is this entity called god." Babies, for instance, are often said to be atheists. So are rocks. Anything that simply doesn't have a god belief. You don't really need a "reason" for the abscence of a particular characteristic. Further, the person could even be irrational: they could refuse to start believing even IF they are shown evidence of god. This is all because "atheist" is simply a category, not any sort of belief system.
---If that is a case, then I could probably 'label' myself as an atheist. I find it strange that someone could think, without a doubt, that there is a higher being that had created us in some way. I would not classify that as false information, but I would also not classify it as true.---
Right: in any metaphysical discussion, all that really matter is if there is enough evidence to justify calling something "true." If there isn't, we don't. This is important, because it applies even to things that we haven't even IMAGINED yet. I don't believe in giant space goats living deep inside Pluto: not because I have any evidence against this, or even because there's no evidence: it's mostly because, before this moment, I never even THOUGHT about that possibility before! But even if I never had you could still legitimately say that I didn't believe in them. However, important point is this. I may not have any reason to think a god exists, but someone else might. And I can't assume that a given believer is without good reasons for their belief: EVEN if I've heard every arguement they have and found it unworkable. The roots of religious belief are VERY personal things: often far too complex to state as "arguements." People's thresholds for acceptable evidence are certainly very different as well, even on non-religious matters. So I try not to challenge people on their beliefs overmuch. If they believe, they probably have a reason that, while it might be unaccpetable to me, is important to them. And ultimately, they are better judges of what they should believe than I could ever be for them.
One last point: you _could_ probably correctly label yourself as an atheist, but you don't necessarily have to as a matter of practice. First of all, few atheists consider "atheism" to be an important part of their lives. Since all it is is a privative label, it doesn't tell people anything about THEM, who they are (which is what really matters in life), and ultimately they really just want to live life like everyone else (even theists don't brush their teeth in a "theist" manner: they brush their teeth just like atheists!). Only atheists with an interest in religion and tolerance of belief/non-belief, like me, even enjoy discussing these sorts of subjects.
Perhaps more importantly though, despite my best efforts, atheists are misunderstood, hated, and generally not treated well. The American public would rather vote a homosexual into office than a non-believer, and they aren't too fond of homosexuals to begin with. Some states still even have laws against non-believers holding public office. So it's definately an issue one has to consider: maybe they could be called an atheist, but it's generally not something they want to bring up at dinner parties. Lincoln, for instance, was probably an unbeliever, but he had to hide it or else risk losing the coalition of preachers that were key to keeping the Union together. Sometimes pragmatism trumps complete disclosure, and that's the issue most non-believers have to face at some point in their lives, in our present society: hypocrisy or misery. Not great choices! But life is crazy sometimes.
---Who is to decide if this person wants a life of his own? ---
It is a difficult question, but it is not one that is unique to hybrids: we confront that question even with natural animals. At least in this case, we ASK those questions: whereas with the "human/not human" model we simply arbitrarily label something and then consider our moral obligations fulfilled.
---The local authorities come and investigate, and the company states that these things are not human. They are like animals, which do not have the same rights. What is to be done? ---
If they are like animals, then it would make sense to treat them like animals of comparative capacities. If it didn't, if you found it wrong, it wouldn't make sense to treat animals of comparative capacities like that either. However, I would never treat an animal of the capacities you describe that way, and I do think that certain animals deserve certain rights based on their characteristics. It is ridiculous, for instance, to bemoan the destruction of a first-trimester fetus but not a dolphin. A first-tri fetus has, at best, the mental and emotional capacities of a shrimp, while a dolphin is close to humans inasfar as it's intelligence and emotions, and ability to suffer or fear death. Maybe we do not think that dolphins deserve rights: but we cannot coherently then conclude that fetuses deserve rights for anything other than arbitrary or superstitious reasons. Or, maybe we want to bemoan the death of BOTH fetus and dolphin, AND shrimp, but it is nonsense to give the fetus more moral weight just because it is genetically human, or because it could POTENTIALLY grow into a being with more capacities (and hence more rights)
---What happens if I create a hybrid human that cannot talk, cannot think at a high intelligence level, and cannot feel pain. According to you, this would not be a person who would be able to tell me in any way that he feels that he is an individual, or that he wants life.---
You are missing my point: which is that whether or not it is labeled a "person" or not is simply not relevant. What is relevant are things like whether it has any desires that are being frustrated. Of course it may be hard to find out, but no harder than it is for normal animals, and we ALSO have to consider our moral stances on the treatment of normal animals as well.
I'm sorry this is so long, but I tried to reply in full, giving my reasons for you to examine, and without simply dismissing you. It is a subject I care about, being a person interested in greater understanding between believers and non-believers.
---From what I know, and I am not a religion expert or anything,---
This is my understanding as someone who studies religion and philosophy, is very concerned with the effects of these issues on people's lives, and as an actual atheist. But, that doesn't make me an expert, of course.:) Nothing can!
---is that someone who is an atheist does not believe that there is a god.---
Nope. This is what many theists will tell you, but it is not the way most atheists define themselves, the way most atheists have done so throughout history, or the metaphysically meaningful definition:
---atheism litterally means "without god belief" which is NOT "belief that there is no god: "a" = "without", as in "amoral", or "asymetrical" and "theism" = "god belief.
--some people have a belief that a god exists: this is called theism. Some people, however (about 15% worldwide), don't have this belief. We need some way to distinguish ourselves from the majority by what they have and we lack. But otherwise, we have NOTHING in common (no "belief"): just that we LACK something others have. Atheism is a "negative" definition: it conveys no positive characteristic, but rather simply rules out ONE possible positive characteristic
--Believing that a god does not exist is NOT distinctive only to atheists, and hence cannot be a definitional criteria for distinguishing atheists from theists. Some theists claim that some gods don't exist. Some theists (liberal theologians like Paul Tillich) even claim that their own gods don't exist. It is thus more accurate to simply say that some PEOPLE believe that a particular god doesn't exist (and we are ALWAYS only talking about particular gods), and that some happen to be atheists, and some happen to be theists. Some atheists DO believe that God doesn't exist: but this does not define all of atheism any more than the fact that some racecar drivers are blond means that racecardriving implies blond drivers.
--In discussions of the existence of something, non-belief is a far more important category than "anti-belief" This is because the burden of proof is entirely on the person claiming that something like god exists. One doesn't need to "disprove" the existence of god not to believe. The case for any claim rests on the value of the _positive_ evidence for it, and if that case is weak, then there is no reason TO believe the claim.
--this definition makes theism/atheism into a binary on the issue of belief. A theist is someone who takes the active step of believing in a god, while atheists do not take that step. This leaves no semantic ambiguity, without forcing views on people merely by semantic convention.
---Both of these definitions came from dictionary.com.---
This is an issue irritating to most atheists. Dictionaries are records of popular usage, but that means that they are primarily written by theists (especially Noah Websters, on which dictionary.com is based) who are often not afraid to put their views directly into definitions. Under "atheist" you'll also find the definition "wicked"- a definition, needless to say, that athiests have always objected to as well. You should also note that the definition for "God" in M-W implicitly assumes that God exists, while the dictionary does NOT do that for other beliefs: for things like astrology or faries, it used phrases like "proported" or "believed to be."
---Someone who is agnostic believes that there might, or might not be, they cannot be certain.---
An agnostic indeed says "I don't have knowledge of God." This can either mean that they simply don't, or, as in it's original formulation (as you note), that they think such knowledge is IMPOSSIBLE to have. Note, however, that agnosticism does not speak to the issue of belief. Belief is a different issue than knowledge, and this is a key distinction as to why atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive: they ultimately refer to different things. This means that when you tell me that you don't think you have, or even can have knowledge of god, I can _still_ say: "Yes yes, but do you BELIEVE in god, or not?" And saying that you are agnostic does not answer _that_ question (the question which theism/atheism are concerned). As I noted, many people are not certain whether or not a god exists: but choose to believe in god on faith.
---Then you are agnostic.---
The "weak" form of agnostic, yes (I don't have beliefs about the "knowability" of god, since that knowability is, to me, also unknown). But since that form is so trivial (we ALL have MANY things that we have no knowledge of), I rarely bother to include it. If I DID have knowledge of god, I wouldn't be an atheist, so the point is sort of moot. However, not all agnostics are atheists: some are theists.
---An athiest BELIEVES that there is NO god.---
Well, I don't have that belief. However, I also do not believe IN a god, as theists (even agnostic theists) do. If I tell people that I do not believe in god, they will immediately conclude that I am an atheist. In the end, you can use whatever word you want to describe me, but the fact remains that my non-belief is not itself a belief, but my lack of god-beliefs IS what distinguishes me from theists.
---If you are saying you do not have knowledge of the proof of god, you are not stating that there is not one.---
I have no idea if there is a God or not. When I was a baby, I also had no idea (that was before I could even HAVE coherent ideas that I can remember). This hasn't changed. I also didn't believe in god then (since I wasn't able to believe in ANYTHING) and I still don't believe.
---You are stating that you are unsure. That is being agnostic.---
Yes, but because I am unsure, I have not/cannot take the step of believing in god. Therefore, I am _also_ an atheist.
---If i was an atheist, I would believe that there is no god completely. There would not be a shred in my mind that there is a god.---
If that is what "atheist" means... but that is not what the majority of athiests define themselves as. Surely we have a right to define ourselves, rather than being defined by the slander of others! I should now explain what this slander is, why I call it slander, and why it is so popular for theists to use that definition:
Consider again: if I tell someone that I don't believe, they'll happily label me an atheist. But then they'll also, quite wrongly, claim that I "believe there is no god, without a shred of doubt that there is no God." They will then claim that I am arrogant, think I know everything, have faith, hate god for the bad things he did to me, etc.
But all of this will be untrue. And when I say it's not true, they laugh and say "so really, you're not an atheist: you DO believe in god!"
This is the main reason theists try to define "atheism" as "the unreasonable and unprovable belief that no god exists." It serves to make their position look like a natural default. It's a great rhetorical tactic. And best of all: it totally draws attention away from the fact that THEY are the ones making the claim, and THEY have the burden of proof. Instead of having to prove their claims, all they have to do is refute the ridiculous straw man position of the belief in the non-existence of gods, and then they can declare that they've proven the existence of god. To many theists, the world looks like this: either you believe in (their) god, or you knowingly and arrogantly reject the existence of (their) god. Since they can easily label the second position as "arrogant" (even though it is no more arrogant than their position), this leads easily into evangelical arguements for belief. They would prefer that simple non-belief simply not exist: it's too threatening to even acknowledge.
But this is all unfair, and untrue. Some theist theologians have spoken out against this dishonesty, however, not only out of respect for atheists, but also be it puts the beliefs of theists in a clearly, more honorable light.
---Our creator may have given us the ability to do things that s/he doesn't approve of.---
Even "free will" cannot justify such an act morally. If i build a Frankstein armed witha nuclear bomb, and give it the free will to detonate it in a crowded mall, and it chooses to do so, I am then just as responsible for its actions as it was.
Everytime i hear that story, i still come no closer to understanding why you find it so plausible. God decided to set up a situation in which God would be killed, all in order to appease God?
Next time I owe someone $20, i'll be sure to tell them that, since they got a $20 paycheck from their employer, I've already had someone pay off my debt for me.
---Without knowing how such a hybrid would feel, then perhaps the genetic combination would result in a creature with barely functioning/poorly integrated body structure that results in a constant pain for the creature. ---
Yes, that would be horrible, and immoral to foist upon any being. And this has nothing at all to do with believing in God or not. If you get your kicks fom believing in God, that's cool with me. but we can both probably agree that causing immense and needless pain to ANYTHING, be it human or not, is bad. And if it is human enough to experience psychological suffering, that just makes it worse.
---Yes, but Atheism, like your religion, depends on faith to work. ---
Atheism is not a religion anymore than bald is a haircolor. It does not require faith or belief in any tenet. It is simply a category that some people, by their LACK of belief in god, fall into.
---He "believes" there is no god, so your argument is rather useless ---
There is no indication from that post that he "believes there is no god." Only that he doesn't believe IN a god. Big difference.
---And in my country (the U.S.), we like to keep our Church and State separate.---
some of us like that. But others of us, like our current President, hate it. And he's already been fairly successful in the strategy of setting up legal precedents that can be exploited later (it's already started: The president, acting in his powers of office, led the country in prayer and endorsed faith and religion (and condemned others): so how come we can't do the same in public schools?)
---If theology were science, then an experiment crossing a human and an animal would be one way to disprove the thesis "god exists".---
No it wouldn't. It might call into question so particular tenets of belief, but this has happened many many times before. The most that happens is that these tenets get discarded, or are said to have been misinterpretations, or are metaphors for an even greater understanding that we don't yet possess, etc. etc. You can't disprove an inferential negative, because there is an almost infinite amount of wiggle room, especially if you can change the definition of "God" whenever you need to.
---Of course, theology isn't science, so religious people don't want you to perform the experiment in the first place!---
No, I believe them when they raise what they feel are moral issues. They have as much right to do this as anyone else, and i think it's a good thing, as long as it doesn't become too authoritarian.
Jesus reffers pretty specifically to some natural and not-so-natural disasters that pretty much fit everyone's view of "the end of the world", but none of which happened. The Romans kept impeccable records of this stuff too, so there's not much wiggle room. The fall of Jerusalem is just one sign of the end times, and not only did it not happen very shortly (fourty years later) but the text in which this prediction was first written was very probably written AFTER it had already happened.
And regardless of how YOU interpret it, people like Paul and Peter DID believe that the end of the world was nigh, and that their generation would not pass away before the Second Coming.
---I myself am agnostic. What I believe is that I cannot be 100% certain if there is or is not a god.---
That still puts you sqaurely in the "atheist agnostic" camp. I too have no idea whether or not there is any sort of god (and there are many different things one could call "god). Hence, not having knowledge of it, i cannot claim to believe, and am therefore an atheist. Atheism and Agnosticism measure very different things (belief in a god vs. knowledge of a god), and hence are not mutually exclusive. Many agnostics are theists (they admit they have no knowledge, but believe on faith that there is a god).
---name one mulatto or quadroon who accomplished anything other then ingesting large quantites of mind altering substances, spreading STD's, and playing ball or makeing "music"! ---
Mariah Carey doesn't do any of those things: not even the last. So there.
---There is a VERY important question here. While religious, it is not ONLY religious - what IS a human?---
first of all, i don't think it Is a "religious" question in any sense. Some religions might have distinctive answers, but that doesn't make the question religious.
But more importantly, i DON'T think that is an important question: it's exactly the WRONG kind of question. Whether something is genetically human or not is simply not a good criteria on which to found ideas of rights and moral conduct. If non-human intelligent aliens existed, it would be ridiculous to treat them as morally unimportant merely because they are not "human." Rather, we need to decide what CHARACTERISTICS of ANY being are required for certain rights. We already do this to some extent: we don't allow some mentally challenged people the right to drive, because they don't have the capacity for it.
Personally, I would say that any being who had the capacity to want a life of its own and to be treated as an equal individual SHOULD be treated as one. Any any being that can suffer through pain should not be deliberately caused to have pain. Even if you don't agree with these examples, you see the idea: found your ideas of rights on the existence of _characteristics_ that are relevant to the moral issue being considered: not on silly things like categories of species, or on who is "human" and who is not. That shouldn't even be a consideration.
---Human balance is a built-in function, like blinking or breathing. We don't need machines fo those, either.---
you miss the point. The idea is that we need intuitive ways to interact WITH machines, who then can enhance what we already have. A razor scooter, even with a human at the helm, is far less stable than a gyroscoped computer, even WITHOUT a human at the helm.
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For those unaware of what a Bose-Einstein condensate is, check here: for the info. It really is an amazing and laudable acheivement, especially considering that we have created a state of matter that, as far as we know, exists nowhere else in the universe. Go mankind!
As noted above, the research essentially codifies the "market for lemons" theory of economics: a description of how asymetric information effects markets.
The classic example is of used cars: where each car can either be a "lemon" (a bad one that will break down quickly) or a "plum" (good one that'll run fine). But while dealers know which each car is (knowing its history), consumers don't.
Without some remedy, what the theory predicts will happen in this situation is this: consumers will only be willing to pay the _average_ value of both lemons and plums (to hedge their risk), which means that the prices they are willing to pay for a used car are usually below the value sellers are willing to get for their "plums." This has the effect of making dealers much more willing to offer lemons for sale than plums. Eventually, this means that the market for used cars becomes almost all lemons, and consumers lower their willingness to pay even further to reflect this. This is, needless to say, a sub-optimal outcome, so clearly defining it, as the Nobel Prize winners have, is truly useful for people who seek to identify and fix such problems.
Some corrections. First of all, Israel would never "assinate" anyone: I didn't mean to insinuate that they were that barbaric. I meant "assassinate," of course.
Secondly, I probably should have mentioned more specifically that their assassination attempt was via bombing.
I think the initial poster WAS being sarcastic...
And I would note that Arafat is not the only one to release terrorists from jail. Israel actually did exactly this when they tried to assinate Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, who was in jail at the time, serving a 12 year sentance imposed on him by the Palestinian Authority. Instead of killing him, however, they killed 11 of his guards and set him free. Their later success in killing him last November is what touched off the recent wave of bombings.
What is sort of tragically hilarious about this situation is that Israel's major complaint was that Arafat wouldn't jail terrorists. This is just a little hypocritical considering the fact that they BLEW UP THE JAIL Arafat was holding this particular terrorist. If they hadn't, he never would have escaped to plan the assisination of that Israeli minister in the first place.
To be fair, the commitee didn't know about Menchu's/her biographer's fabrications when they awarded her the prize, and there is, of course, the debate over whether it matters (whether true in every respect or not, the work did what it did to call attention to the plight of Guatemala). I'm not a fan of Menchu, but I don't think the awards should be based on my political opinions. If they were though...
---As for the economics award, the world has no use for a science dedicated to depriving people of freedom and controlling them.---
This is an extremely unfair assement of the field of economics. Just because you may not like the some of the thrust of a social science is no reason to charge it with evil motives. And I would guess from your characterization that your sense of an "economist" is a boogeyman out of the Wall Street Journal, not a brilliant and thoughtful man like Joeseph Stiglitz. Indeed, the general thrust of academic economics is almost entirely the OPPOSITE of what you describe: it's normative goals are everywhere and always to maximize things like choice and social welfare.
---yes... properly applied American force results in peace. See: Germany and Japan---
If you have to strech 50 years back in history for an example, that's saying something...
I would. Because this has nothing to do with wartime. This has been his agenda from day 1 of his presidency (his first act was to request, as president, that Americans pray), and he's already gained a lot of legal ground already. Funding the sale of religious ideology with government money? Making himself the arbiter of what is a religion and what is not? Bush has gone far beyond any previous president, even Reagan or his father, or the simpering Clinton.
---its interesting stuff and its not turning into any sort of flame war or anything, so thanks again---
Again, I'm not a final authority on anything, so don't worry!
---The first person in the scenario does not believe that there is any gods out there, that there is no being that is higher up then us that we cannot see but he is there. So, the first person doesn't believe in god/gods in any sense. ---
Well, the way you phrased it this time though, that's more akin to me than it is the dogmatic anti-theist you described before: I don't believe in any of that. That doesn't mean that I claim there are no gods (higher beings, whatever), but the fact is that I don't see any evidence of it. It's possible. But an infinate number of things are possible, and until I get some good reason to believe in one of them, I can't believe. So here is a true statement about me: I don't have belief in gods, in any sense.
Now, if from that I then went and said: "no gods exist"- that would be a pretty silly statement: and you'd be quite justified in thinking of that as arrogant (I would go further: it's DISHONEST, because it claims as true something you don't actually _know_ is true).
Note, however, that the fact that something (like a god) might be invisible and intangible only makes it worse: I would have even LESS to go on. This is the point of the burden of proof: it's so that I can't "prove" a claim simply by making my claims more and more unprovable. If I claim that I have a leprechaun in my house, you might ask to see it. You see nothing. So I claim that it's invisible. You ask to touch it. So I claim that it's intangible. If there were no burden of proof, you'd then be forced to believe in my leprechaun, simply because I claimed it was there. But that is not the case. In fact, I've only HURT my ability to prove my case by making my leprechaun claims unfalisfiable.
Let's look at what you could do: you deny my CLAIM that there is a leprechuan in my house. Or you could deny that leprechauns exist. The first denial is justifiable, the second is not. Taking it back to atheists and theists: many atheists are accused of "denying god," when what they are really doing is denying the CLAIMS made for god. In the end, all we have to deal with are people's claims about what is true and what is not. And if those claims are faulty, we are quite justified in rejecting them and remaining unconvinced.
---Well I think I can see what you are saying. It still doesn't change my mind when it comes to how people will use this.---
It shouldn't! I am only arguing that our morality should ALREADY avoid being based on arbitrary distinctions like species for precisely this reason. However, that doesn't mean that anyone WILL be more moral or humane, or that this technology will lead to only good things. It very well COULD create horrors. In fact there are many horrors perprated on animals with higher degrees of moral characteristics already that that some people believe need to be redressed as well.
Sorry, another huge response. I'm long-winded. Just bail out of it if it gets boring!
---You take 2 people, person number one believes that there is no god. The second person lacks the belief in god. What is the difference between these 2 people.---
Well, for starters, the first person may not be an atheist (they may believe in a _different_ god), but they certainly could be (they may not believe in any gods). The second person could also be an atheist. But for that to be totally clear, you'd have to state it like this: "they don't believe in gods." So, let's just take the case to mean that both people are, indeed, atheists.
---In my opinion, the first person is arrogant, as I feel it is impossible to know for a fact that god does not exist.---
The first person might well be arrogant, but it does depend on WHICH god you are talking about. For the utterance "god" to even have some intelligible meaning, we need to give it a definition. Otherwise, discussing "god" would be like discussing "unies" when no one on either side even knew what an "unie" was. Now, for some definitions of god, it MIGHT be possible to logically disprove them deductively. The two most common disproofs of SPECIFIC gods are the arguement from evil, and the arguement from non-belief.
The first disproof argues that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-benevolent god is inconsistent with the existence of evil. However, to escape this disproof, all one has to do is weaken one of the assumptions slighty: maybe god is not ALL powerful, but is bound by concerns of logic (the Catholic view) which make it impossible for him to both stop evil and permit free will (though "free will" is a strange, non-cognitive issue in itself..). Or maybe god is not benevolent as WE might understand it (the Calvinist view).
The second disproof concerns a god who is claimed to be known to all, and to have eternal punishment for allegience, and eternal pain for defiance. This god is inconsistent with the existence of people who are legitimate non-believers (which is one reason non-believers are so threatening). Even if we wanted to somehow delude ourselves into denying that there is a god, this arguement still makes no sense: there's no reason any sane person would do that, considering the rewards and punishments. NOTHING is worth it. I cerrtainly wouldn't do it: what's the point in lying to myself? There are counter-arguements to this too, but you get the idea: if a given _definition_ can contradict established facts, then there IS the potential for disproof of THAT definition.
However, you are quite right that "gods" in general can NEVER be disproven. At best, those disproofs would only rule out particular kinds of gods, not "gods." Here's why: if a "god" could have any characteristics, it could be anything, fit any definition one dreamt of, or be even beyond our imagination. And if it could be, for instance, omnipotent, then it would have the power to make it look to ANYONE exactly as if it did not exist. While this may seem like a victory to theists, it's not. An totally unknowable god is, obviously, unprovable. It's a double-edged sword: the more agnostical they make their god, the harder it is to even say for sure that it exists. And the less you define it, the more meaningless the statement "god exists" becomes (like getting ever closer to saying "an unie exists!")
Also note another little wrinkle: many people have gods which I would agree DO exist. For instance: Caesar. Some believe the universe is their god (Tolland-esque Pantheists). I agree that Caesar and the universe exist: but these are not MY gods, and I don't believe in them as gods. Again, what "as gods" means is a little dicey: at best we can only go one what people tell us it means to them.
---Does the second person not know for sure if there is a god, but wont believe there is one unless he/she is shown some sort of solid proof that there is one?---
Yes. They need have no beliefs about the existence of god whatsoever, particularly the belief that there is one. But it's often best seen as even more passive than that. They simply have not encountered any reason to believe. This could be because all the reasons they have encoutnered seem faulty (and one might actively debunk those reasons without being anything more than an unbeliever), or even because they've never even HEARD of the claim that "there is this entity called god." Babies, for instance, are often said to be atheists. So are rocks. Anything that simply doesn't have a god belief. You don't really need a "reason" for the abscence of a particular characteristic. Further, the person could even be irrational: they could refuse to start believing even IF they are shown evidence of god. This is all because "atheist" is simply a category, not any sort of belief system.
---If that is a case, then I could probably 'label' myself as an atheist. I find it strange that someone could think, without a doubt, that there is a higher being that had created us in some way. I would not classify that as false information, but I would also not classify it as true.---
Right: in any metaphysical discussion, all that really matter is if there is enough evidence to justify calling something "true." If there isn't, we don't. This is important, because it applies even to things that we haven't even IMAGINED yet. I don't believe in giant space goats living deep inside Pluto: not because I have any evidence against this, or even because there's no evidence: it's mostly because, before this moment, I never even THOUGHT about that possibility before! But even if I never had you could still legitimately say that I didn't believe in them.
However, important point is this. I may not have any reason to think a god exists, but someone else might. And I can't assume that a given believer is without good reasons for their belief: EVEN if I've heard every arguement they have and found it unworkable. The roots of religious belief are VERY personal things: often far too complex to state as "arguements." People's thresholds for acceptable evidence are certainly very different as well, even on non-religious matters. So I try not to challenge people on their beliefs overmuch. If they believe, they probably have a reason that, while it might be unaccpetable to me, is important to them. And ultimately, they are better judges of what they should believe than I could ever be for them.
One last point: you _could_ probably correctly label yourself as an atheist, but you don't necessarily have to as a matter of practice. First of all, few atheists consider "atheism" to be an important part of their lives. Since all it is is a privative label, it doesn't tell people anything about THEM, who they are (which is what really matters in life), and ultimately they really just want to live life like everyone else (even theists don't brush their teeth in a "theist" manner: they brush their teeth just like atheists!). Only atheists with an interest in religion and tolerance of belief/non-belief, like me, even enjoy discussing these sorts of subjects.
Perhaps more importantly though, despite my best efforts, atheists are misunderstood, hated, and generally not treated well. The American public would rather vote a homosexual into office than a non-believer, and they aren't too fond of homosexuals to begin with. Some states still even have laws against non-believers holding public office. So it's definately an issue one has to consider: maybe they could be called an atheist, but it's generally not something they want to bring up at dinner parties.
Lincoln, for instance, was probably an unbeliever, but he had to hide it or else risk losing the coalition of preachers that were key to keeping the Union together. Sometimes pragmatism trumps complete disclosure, and that's the issue most non-believers have to face at some point in their lives, in our present society: hypocrisy or misery. Not great choices! But life is crazy sometimes.
Sorry about the bills!
---Who is to decide if this person wants a life of his own? ---
It is a difficult question, but it is not one that is unique to hybrids: we confront that question even with natural animals. At least in this case, we ASK those questions: whereas with the "human/not human" model we simply arbitrarily label something and then consider our moral obligations fulfilled.
---The local authorities come and investigate, and the company states that these things are not human. They are like animals, which do not have the same rights. What is to be done? ---
If they are like animals, then it would make sense to treat them like animals of comparative capacities. If it didn't, if you found it wrong, it wouldn't make sense to treat animals of comparative capacities like that either.
However, I would never treat an animal of the capacities you describe that way, and I do think that certain animals deserve certain rights based on their characteristics.
It is ridiculous, for instance, to bemoan the destruction of a first-trimester fetus but not a dolphin. A first-tri fetus has, at best, the mental and emotional capacities of a shrimp, while a dolphin is close to humans inasfar as it's intelligence and emotions, and ability to suffer or fear death. Maybe we do not think that dolphins deserve rights: but we cannot coherently then conclude that fetuses deserve rights for anything other than arbitrary or superstitious reasons. Or, maybe we want to bemoan the death of BOTH fetus and dolphin, AND shrimp, but it is nonsense to give the fetus more moral weight just because it is genetically human, or because it could POTENTIALLY grow into a being with more capacities (and hence more rights)
---What happens if I create a hybrid human that cannot talk, cannot think at a high intelligence level, and cannot feel pain. According to you, this would not be a person who would be able to tell me in any way that he feels that he is an individual, or that he wants life.---
You are missing my point: which is that whether or not it is labeled a "person" or not is simply not relevant. What is relevant are things like whether it has any desires that are being frustrated. Of course it may be hard to find out, but no harder than it is for normal animals, and we ALSO have to consider our moral stances on the treatment of normal animals as well.
I'm sorry this is so long, but I tried to reply in full, giving my reasons for you to examine, and without simply dismissing you. It is a subject I care about, being a person interested in greater understanding between believers and non-believers.
:) Nothing can!
---From what I know, and I am not a religion expert or anything,---
This is my understanding as someone who studies religion and philosophy, is very concerned with the effects of these issues on people's lives, and as an actual atheist. But, that doesn't make me an expert, of course.
---is that someone who is an atheist does not believe that there is a god.---
Nope. This is what many theists will tell you, but it is not the way most atheists define themselves, the way most atheists have done so throughout history, or the metaphysically meaningful definition:
---atheism litterally means "without god belief" which is NOT "belief that there is no god: "a" = "without", as in "amoral", or "asymetrical" and "theism" = "god belief.
--some people have a belief that a god exists: this is called theism. Some people, however (about 15% worldwide), don't have this belief. We need some way to distinguish ourselves from the majority by what they have and we lack. But otherwise, we have NOTHING in common (no "belief"): just that we LACK something others have. Atheism is a "negative" definition: it conveys no positive characteristic, but rather simply rules out ONE possible positive characteristic
--Believing that a god does not exist is NOT distinctive only to atheists, and hence cannot be a definitional criteria for distinguishing atheists from theists. Some theists claim that some gods don't exist. Some theists (liberal theologians like Paul Tillich) even claim that their own gods don't exist. It is thus more accurate to simply say that some PEOPLE believe that a particular god doesn't exist (and we are ALWAYS only talking about particular gods), and that some happen to be atheists, and some happen to be theists. Some atheists DO believe that God doesn't exist: but this does not define all of atheism any more than the fact that some racecar drivers are blond means that racecardriving implies blond drivers.
--In discussions of the existence of something, non-belief is a far more important category than "anti-belief" This is because the burden of proof is entirely on the person claiming that something like god exists. One doesn't need to "disprove" the existence of god not to believe. The case for any claim rests on the value of the _positive_ evidence for it, and if that case is weak, then there is no reason TO believe the claim.
--this definition makes theism/atheism into a binary on the issue of belief. A theist is someone who takes the active step of believing in a god, while atheists do not take that step. This leaves no semantic ambiguity, without forcing views on people merely by semantic convention.
---Both of these definitions came from dictionary.com.---
This is an issue irritating to most atheists. Dictionaries are records of popular usage, but that means that they are primarily written by theists (especially Noah Websters, on which dictionary.com is based) who are often not afraid to put their views directly into definitions. Under "atheist" you'll also find the definition "wicked"- a definition, needless to say, that athiests have always objected to as well. You should also note that the definition for "God" in M-W implicitly assumes that God exists, while the dictionary does NOT do that for other beliefs: for things like astrology or faries, it used phrases like "proported" or "believed to be."
---Someone who is agnostic believes that there might, or might not be, they cannot be certain.---
An agnostic indeed says "I don't have knowledge of God." This can either mean that they simply don't, or, as in it's original formulation (as you note), that they think such knowledge is IMPOSSIBLE to have. Note, however, that agnosticism does not speak to the issue of belief. Belief is a different issue than knowledge, and this is a key distinction as to why atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive: they ultimately refer to different things. This means that when you tell me that you don't think you have, or even can have knowledge of god, I can _still_ say: "Yes yes, but do you BELIEVE in god, or not?" And saying that you are agnostic does not answer _that_ question (the question which theism/atheism are concerned). As I noted, many people are not certain whether or not a god exists: but choose to believe in god on faith.
---Then you are agnostic.---
The "weak" form of agnostic, yes (I don't have beliefs about the "knowability" of god, since that knowability is, to me, also unknown). But since that form is so trivial (we ALL have MANY things that we have no knowledge of), I rarely bother to include it. If I DID have knowledge of god, I wouldn't be an atheist, so the point is sort of moot. However, not all agnostics are atheists: some are theists.
---An athiest BELIEVES that there is NO god.---
Well, I don't have that belief. However, I also do not believe IN a god, as theists (even agnostic theists) do. If I tell people that I do not believe in god, they will immediately conclude that I am an atheist. In the end, you can use whatever word you want to describe me, but the fact remains that my non-belief is not itself a belief, but my lack of god-beliefs IS what distinguishes me from theists.
---If you are saying you do not have knowledge of the proof of god, you are not stating that there is not one.---
I have no idea if there is a God or not. When I was a baby, I also had no idea (that was before I could even HAVE coherent ideas that I can remember). This hasn't changed. I also didn't believe in god then (since I wasn't able to believe in ANYTHING) and I still don't believe.
---You are stating that you are unsure. That is being agnostic.---
Yes, but because I am unsure, I have not/cannot take the step of believing in god. Therefore, I am _also_ an atheist.
---If i was an atheist, I would believe that there is no god completely. There would not be a shred in my mind that there is a god.---
If that is what "atheist" means... but that is not what the majority of athiests define themselves as. Surely we have a right to define ourselves, rather than being defined by the slander of others! I should now explain what this slander is, why I call it slander, and why it is so popular for theists to use that definition:
Consider again: if I tell someone that I don't believe, they'll happily label me an atheist. But then they'll also, quite wrongly, claim that I "believe there is no god, without a shred of doubt that there is no God." They will then claim that I am arrogant, think I know everything, have faith, hate god for the bad things he did to me, etc.
But all of this will be untrue. And when I say it's not true, they laugh and say "so really, you're not an atheist: you DO believe in god!"
This is the main reason theists try to define "atheism" as "the unreasonable and unprovable belief that no god exists." It serves to make their position look like a natural default. It's a great rhetorical tactic. And best of all: it totally draws attention away from the fact that THEY are the ones making the claim, and THEY have the burden of proof. Instead of having to prove their claims, all they have to do is refute the ridiculous straw man position of the belief in the non-existence of gods, and then they can declare that they've proven the existence of god. To many theists, the world looks like this: either you believe in (their) god, or you knowingly and arrogantly reject the existence of (their) god. Since they can easily label the second position as "arrogant" (even though it is no more arrogant than their position), this leads easily into evangelical arguements for belief. They would prefer that simple non-belief simply not exist: it's too threatening to even acknowledge.
But this is all unfair, and untrue. Some theist theologians have spoken out against this dishonesty, however, not only out of respect for atheists, but also be it puts the beliefs of theists in a clearly, more honorable light.
---Our creator may have given us the ability to do things that s/he doesn't approve of.---
Even "free will" cannot justify such an act morally. If i build a Frankstein armed witha nuclear bomb, and give it the free will to detonate it in a crowded mall, and it chooses to do so, I am then just as responsible for its actions as it was.
Everytime i hear that story, i still come no closer to understanding why you find it so plausible. God decided to set up a situation in which God would be killed, all in order to appease God?
Next time I owe someone $20, i'll be sure to tell them that, since they got a $20 paycheck from their employer, I've already had someone pay off my debt for me.
---If you don't believe wealth is easy to obtain you don't deserve it; and you wont receive it. Simple as that.---
Didn't i see you on an infomercial last night?
---Without knowing how such a hybrid would feel, then perhaps the genetic combination would result in a creature with barely functioning/poorly integrated body structure that results in a constant pain for the creature. ---
Yes, that would be horrible, and immoral to foist upon any being. And this has nothing at all to do with believing in God or not. If you get your kicks fom believing in God, that's cool with me. but we can both probably agree that causing immense and needless pain to ANYTHING, be it human or not, is bad. And if it is human enough to experience psychological suffering, that just makes it worse.
---Yes, but Atheism, like your religion, depends on faith to work. ---
Atheism is not a religion anymore than bald is a haircolor. It does not require faith or belief in any tenet. It is simply a category that some people, by their LACK of belief in god, fall into.
---He "believes" there is no god, so your argument is rather useless ---
There is no indication from that post that he "believes there is no god." Only that he doesn't believe IN a god. Big difference.
---And in my country (the U.S.), we like to keep our Church and State separate.---
some of us like that. But others of us, like our current President, hate it. And he's already been fairly successful in the strategy of setting up legal precedents that can be exploited later (it's already started: The president, acting in his powers of office, led the country in prayer and endorsed faith and religion (and condemned others): so how come we can't do the same in public schools?)
---If theology were science, then an experiment crossing a human and an animal would be one way to disprove the thesis "god exists".---
No it wouldn't. It might call into question so particular tenets of belief, but this has happened many many times before. The most that happens is that these tenets get discarded, or are said to have been misinterpretations, or are metaphors for an even greater understanding that we don't yet possess, etc. etc. You can't disprove an inferential negative, because there is an almost infinite amount of wiggle room, especially if you can change the definition of "God" whenever you need to.
---Of course, theology isn't science, so religious people don't want you to perform the experiment in the first place!---
No, I believe them when they raise what they feel are moral issues. They have as much right to do this as anyone else, and i think it's a good thing, as long as it doesn't become too authoritarian.
Jesus reffers pretty specifically to some natural and not-so-natural disasters that pretty much fit everyone's view of "the end of the world", but none of which happened. The Romans kept impeccable records of this stuff too, so there's not much wiggle room.
The fall of Jerusalem is just one sign of the end times, and not only did it not happen very shortly (fourty years later) but the text in which this prediction was first written was very probably written AFTER it had already happened.
And regardless of how YOU interpret it, people like Paul and Peter DID believe that the end of the world was nigh, and that their generation would not pass away before the Second Coming.
---I myself am agnostic. What I believe is that I cannot be 100% certain if there is or is not a god.---
That still puts you sqaurely in the "atheist agnostic" camp. I too have no idea whether or not there is any sort of god (and there are many different things one could call "god). Hence, not having knowledge of it, i cannot claim to believe, and am therefore an atheist. Atheism and Agnosticism measure very different things (belief in a god vs. knowledge of a god), and hence are not mutually exclusive. Many agnostics are theists (they admit they have no knowledge, but believe on faith that there is a god).
---name one mulatto or quadroon who accomplished anything other then ingesting large quantites of mind altering substances, spreading STD's, and playing ball or makeing "music"! ---
Mariah Carey doesn't do any of those things: not even the last. So there.
---There is a VERY important question here. While religious, it is not ONLY religious - what IS a human?---
first of all, i don't think it Is a "religious" question in any sense. Some religions might have distinctive answers, but that doesn't make the question religious.
But more importantly, i DON'T think that is an important question: it's exactly the WRONG kind of question. Whether something is genetically human or not is simply not a good criteria on which to found ideas of rights and moral conduct. If non-human intelligent aliens existed, it would be ridiculous to treat them as morally unimportant merely because they are not "human."
Rather, we need to decide what CHARACTERISTICS of ANY being are required for certain rights. We already do this to some extent: we don't allow some mentally challenged people the right to drive, because they don't have the capacity for it.
Personally, I would say that any being who had the capacity to want a life of its own and to be treated as an equal individual SHOULD be treated as one. Any any being that can suffer through pain should not be deliberately caused to have pain.
Even if you don't agree with these examples, you see the idea: found your ideas of rights on the existence of _characteristics_ that are relevant to the moral issue being considered: not on silly things like categories of species, or on who is "human" and who is not. That shouldn't even be a consideration.
---Human balance is a built-in function, like blinking or breathing. We don't need machines fo those, either.---
you miss the point. The idea is that we need intuitive ways to interact WITH machines, who then can enhance what we already have. A razor scooter, even with a human at the helm, is far less stable than a gyroscoped computer, even WITHOUT a human at the helm.