Uh, yeah.... I would not call two non-related Wikipedia pages "data". What you want is a chart that looks at real families and sees if they moved out of poverty, and then asked their religious association.
You're asking the wrong questions. You seek to defend irrileligion . I seek a better world for the inhabitants here. You know a little about what's trendy this year. I've explored the trends of 10,000 years of history. You maybe had a HS ecology course. I've written the equations that caused Einstein to say, "God does not play dice with the universe". You've probably led a comfy suburban or gentrified yuppy life. I've done economic development in an area with a $20K per-capita income. You maybe have a hobby of "philosophy". I've spent 20 years trying to find the roots of (and solutions to) persistent US poverty. The odds that you've both derived the energy states of quarks...and the Capital Asset Pricing Model...are thin.
Whenever I see people arguing for the demise of religion, I'm pretty sure they have no idea whatsoever what organized religion is about. I'm pretty sure they've never seen what it brings to otherwise practical or even cynical old ladies as they outlast their husbands, and sometimes sons or daughter, by decades. Never witnessed the year in and year out charitable work. Never seen the sense of community brought to people. Never participated in the continuation of cultural traditions from generation to generation.
Indeed, the very idea of individual freedom is a uniquely Christian one. If it wasn't, would we be sitting here?
Comparing countries is rarely a good thing when it's done like this.
For example, Finland is often cited as an educational utopia. However, Finland is nearly homogeneous, has outlawed slavery for about 500 years, has minimal immigration, is the smaller than several US states, and has a climate quite different from the American south. We can glean ideas from it, but we can't reliably cite it as a success model we should emulate in general.
Similarly, many countries spend a fraction of what we do on Defense. When earthquake prevents air support to Haiti, it's the US who has the capacity to open an airfield and coordinate the supply flow. When Tsunami devastates Japan, it's the US who has the resources to bootstrap a recovery. That phone in your hand? It does so much because of the satellites that the US DoD put up there to supply millimeter-level position data, and worldwide communications capability. (It's software and support network was also largely the result of incredibly innovative financial vehicles generally invented in or near the US.)
So taking on your latter comment would be counter-productive. It would be better to examine economic mobility within the US.
As to the former sections of the comment, we were talking religious organizations, not "people affiliated with religions" as individuals. You accidentally conflated the two, or thought I was, when I wasn't in that sense.
Fun to see people pop up with the predictable, "science is winning" comments, but of course the science-religion boundary is only a small part of the story, and really not the most interesting to people who are inquisitive.
A much more intriguing line of query involves religion re public and individual liberty, welfare, and pursuit of happiness.
That is, thoughtful people will ask if this news helps or hurts people overall.
Thoughtful people would, of course, never use a phrase like 'religious wacko', idiot, etc, so, alas, this thread will see little deep inquiry.
If there are a few of you, here, you may be interested in this: lack of religion in the us is strongly correlated with poverty; economic mobility (escaping poverty, "climbing the economic ladder", achieving the "American dream") strongly correlates with religious affiliation.
And, historically, religious organizations have been at the forefront of most social change, education and the civil rights movement among them.
And there you go again. Using the word demonizing. Why in the world do you think any of these words apply to what I and others wrote here? I don't feel you understand their meanings.
But then that's the point. You folk don't have to engage in the issues. You just call people stupid, assume their ignorance if they disagree with you, denounce them as close-minded, remove their views from the mainstream press, censure them from the Senate floor if you need to, and most offensive to me personally as an 8 year user, mod them down on Slashdot. Discussing the issue never occurs to you all; why would it, you can look down your nose and thats it. My, my, how admirable.
Thanks for giving an answer, rather than just moding as flamebait or offering anonymous diatribe.
But I'm not sure that the nationality of the award makers really helps me to understand why or if the science prizes in general are more carefully considered than the Peace Prize.
1) Please, come out of hiding, and stand up for what you believe, if you do.
2) Just where do you get words like virulent, vile, destroy, and discredit? Where in the world do you come up with the sort of thoughts that allow you to apply those words to what is written here? Why are you so monstrously opposed to the civil and free exchange of ideas?
3) If you read the original post and the comments, you will see that we feel there are any number of people whose work this year had more to do with peace than Al Gore's. If this were the Nobel Environment Award or something, I'd be glad to enter into debate about whether Gore and Company have plans to help or hurt the global environment. That's not the point. The point is that people who really are putting their lives on the line to achieve peace and freedom from oppression should have a crack at this famous award.
Who are the omnipotent scholars who can blithely assign decent comments like z80kid's a troll modifier? Who anointed these people?
Now, my original comment may have been off topic, but my point was that the politicization of the Peace Prize is so blatant that it can now make thoughtful people wonder about the value of the science prizes. I truly don't understand game theory, or some of the other things that win the Nobel. I might like to become one of the people who at least understand a little, especially if it affects decisions on things like software patents. But if fairly learned people like myself lose interest in the set of prizes because of the simple-mindedness of the Peace prize, then the Nobel legacy is certainly headed downhill.
OK, I won't pretend I understand anything about Economics. But I do know a good bit about what creates and maintains the conditions for peace. Even if you are the most die-hard Al Gore fan, and a true believer in Global Warming (or Climate Change or whatever its called this month), surely you wouldn't think that work on GL-CC trumps the brave work of the monks in Burma, or the brave blue-thumbed Iraqis, or any of a dozen other individuals and groups working to end war, famine, and oppression around the world?
So, if the Nobel committees can so blow this prize, going back to giving it to the dictator Yasser Arafat, do the other prizes have meaning? Are they better vetted than the Peace Prize? How and Why?
Its good to hear that you are concerned for the kids in the middle east. Now, ask some honest questions, and you will come to see why the President of the United States (Wm. Jefferson Clinton) and the Congress of the United States made it the policy of the United States that the Government of Iraq (Sadaam Hussein) must be removed.
Ask a few more honest questions, and you will see why the Congress of the United States, Hillary Clinton included, voted to go to war, though they were too cowardly to declare war. It was not and could never be about nuclear weapons or biohazards. If those were an excuse to go to war, we'd have attacked India, Pakistan, N. Korea, Iran, and Israel.
We did not go into the Civil War over "Union", we did not go into Gulf War I about the price of oil, and we did not go into Panama to protect a canal.
All of these are about these few words: All men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We can't achieve that for everyone, at any time. But if we are not chasing that, we are not what we claim. That is why we go to war, it is the only reason for which we ever go to war.
He was connected, my doltish friends. Why do you think we've lost so many of Americas best, and so much of our national treasure?
There are a million analogies, find your own, but the rotten apple is as good as any. When you have an entire region filled with tyrants, and the worst tyrant among them sits in the most strategic crossroads in the middle of all the rest, he is directly connected to the violence that erupts from the oppressed peoples all around.
You, sitting in your comfy office, simply cannot hope for your kids to be safe while the Middle east is the raging cesspool of violence it has become all these years. Something has to be done, and Iraq is the strategic center of gravity.
Do rise above your personal hatred for GW and think a little in geostrategic terms.
You categorize this under "Science"? What passes for science in your world these days?
And BTW, no on ever believed that Saddam plotted 9/11. We do know that he publicly announced $25,000 rewards to suicide bombers and terrorists, that he hosted terrorist training camps in country, that he worked to create an environment throughout the middle eadt that set the conditions for terrorist organizations to thrive, and that he embraced both Islam and violent government.
Ahh, the convenience of memory and theology:
See these remarks if you don't want to look past the first Google item:
"Upon entering office in January of 2001, President Bush inherited from the Clinton administration a policy of regime change. That policy was based upon the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (P.L. 105-338), which stated, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." This policy was unanimously approved by the Senate and strongly supported by the Clinton administration.
Not two months after he signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, President Clinton delivered an address to the nation explaining his decision to order air strikes against Iraqi military targets. He discussed the potential long-term threat posed by Saddam Hussein, stating,
"The hard fact is that so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, he threatens the well- being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with the new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.
". . . Heavy as they are, the costs of inaction must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them."
"
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
on
IT's Big Spenders
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
DARPA spent only $3.01 billion. Less on electronics.
1) So far, about 20 years of studying history, foreign policy, cognitive psychology, military art, and human nature.
Yes, the Iranians envy the Iraqis their democracy. What's more, they are coming over the border to participate, to help, to be a part of it. And the Palestinians coincidentally, held real elections too.
2) Interviews on the streets are interesting. For example, if you ask Iraqis, "Should the American troops leave now?" they all say no.
3) "I was a bit leery of his motives". So was I. Bush I should have intervened; lacking that, Clinton should have stepped in on his Inauguration day.
4) 600,000 is a fantasy number, created by lunatics. No serious 14 year old would quote it.
5) 20-30,000 people per year have died violently in Iraq since 1979.
Yes, your smugness is charming. Still, this is a real shooting war, with real lives, soldiers, innocent Iraqis', innocent Palestinians', and innoncent Americans' lives on the line. You haven't bothered to understand why we are winning--for some purposes already won--and the press isn't making one effort at helping you to learn the basics of what winning means in this war.
I can't teach you that here. What I can say is that, until you all start asking the question, "How do we find lasting peace across the Middle East," you won't find any answers. Until you open your mind to the lessons of history, you won't find answers. The good thing is, now Nancy Pelosi will finally be in the fight. Will she ask that question?
No person could ever have thought that Iraq would have a permanent democracy in six months.
My own feeling was that if we were lucky, we'd be able to secure Baghdad from Saddam's forces in 6 weeks to six months; by which time we could rightfully say that the "war" was over in the same sense Desert Storm was "over".
Now, to be honest, my feeling was that a weak government would take over, that we would not stay put, and that within 2-5 years, by democratic election or by coup, Iraq would slink back into 1)radical theocracy, 2) totalitarian dictatorship, or 3) some semi-functional central government which gradually becomes irrelevant.
Instead, we achieved a real democratic election, with a real constitution hard-won by the people, and a government that genuinely was the best that could be worked out by and for Iraqis. In short, they have self-determination, and they are learning how to keep it.
Even better, their neighbors in Iran, Syria, etc. are seeing this and envying them.
-- Now, to see a way forward, one has to actually look forward. One has to look at the 1200 year repression of the Shia, at the relative peacefulness of their theology, at the power-centered structure of the Sunni theology, at the positive experience the Kurds had governing themselves under the watchful eyes of the USAF for a decade. One has to be dissatisfied with the status quo of people dying by brutality or by starvation across the middle east forever now. And one has to look for possible solutions.
Or, one can take the intellectually vapid approach of saying, "George Bush doesn't speak fast enough, so he is dumb, so the war is wrong."
Back in the 90's certain Republicans complained the Bill Clinton only used military force to cover other problems. They could have thought about the fate and chances of the people of Bosnia, Iraq, wherever, but that takes work and compassion and study, and after all, who can be bothered with learning a 2500 or 4000 year old art.
Or do you mean, "hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't understand and respect...WWII"? Plenty of people back then were opposed to it.
No, friends, if the media behaved as it did then--with a modicum of interest in 1) objective reporting, 2) good storytelling, 3) winning, and 4) in the just plain human interest of our soldiers lives and work in the Middle East; yesterday's results would be quite different.
The populace cannot support what it never hears about, which is that we are winning, and ahead of any reasonable schedule. And, with unexpected good side effects having already occurred.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, yeah.... I would not call two non-related Wikipedia pages "data". What you want is a chart that looks at real families and sees if they moved out of poverty, and then asked their religious association.
You're asking the wrong questions. You seek to defend irrileligion . I seek a better world for the inhabitants here. You know a little about what's trendy this year. I've explored the trends of 10,000 years of history. You maybe had a HS ecology course. I've written the equations that caused Einstein to say, "God does not play dice with the universe". You've probably led a comfy suburban or gentrified yuppy life. I've done economic development in an area with a $20K per-capita income. You maybe have a hobby of "philosophy". I've spent 20 years trying to find the roots of (and solutions to) persistent US poverty. The odds that you've both derived the energy states of quarks...and the Capital Asset Pricing Model...are thin.
Whenever I see people arguing for the demise of religion, I'm pretty sure they have no idea whatsoever what organized religion is about.
I'm pretty sure they've never seen what it brings to otherwise practical or even cynical old ladies as they outlast their husbands, and sometimes sons or daughter, by decades. Never witnessed the year in and year out charitable work. Never seen the sense of community brought to people. Never participated in the continuation of cultural traditions from generation to generation.
Indeed, the very idea of individual freedom is a uniquely Christian one. If it wasn't, would we be sitting here?
Left as an exercise for the reader.
The data is indeed there, for the open-minded.
Comparing countries is rarely a good thing when it's done like this.
For example, Finland is often cited as an educational utopia. However, Finland is nearly homogeneous, has outlawed slavery for about 500 years, has minimal immigration, is the smaller than several US states, and has a climate quite different from the American south. We can glean ideas from it, but we can't reliably cite it as a success model we should emulate in general.
Similarly, many countries spend a fraction of what we do on Defense. When earthquake prevents air support to Haiti, it's the US who has the capacity to open an airfield and coordinate the supply flow. When Tsunami devastates Japan, it's the US who has the resources to bootstrap a recovery. That phone in your hand? It does so much because of the satellites that the US DoD put up there to supply millimeter-level position data, and worldwide communications capability. (It's software and support network was also largely the result of incredibly innovative financial vehicles generally invented in or near the US.)
So taking on your latter comment would be counter-productive. It would be better to examine economic mobility within the US.
As to the former sections of the comment, we were talking religious organizations, not "people affiliated with religions" as individuals. You accidentally conflated the two, or thought I was, when I wasn't in that sense.
| I'm curious, do you have any source for your strong correlation?
Yes.
(But not anecdotal).
Fun to see people pop up with the predictable, "science is winning" comments, but of course the science-religion boundary is only a small part of the story, and really not the most interesting to people who are inquisitive.
A much more intriguing line of query involves religion re public and individual liberty, welfare, and pursuit of happiness.
That is, thoughtful people will ask if this news helps or hurts people overall.
Thoughtful people would, of course, never use a phrase like 'religious wacko', idiot, etc, so, alas, this thread will see little deep inquiry.
If there are a few of you, here, you may be interested in this: lack of religion in the us is strongly correlated with poverty; economic mobility (escaping poverty, "climbing the economic ladder", achieving the "American dream") strongly correlates with religious affiliation.
And, historically, religious organizations have been at the forefront of most social change, education and the civil rights movement among them.
Ah, this is why I don't read /. any more! I'd forgot. Pointless comments to a straightforward question by know-nothings thinking themselves savant.
Building a park, building an app, family, etc. just seems to take time.
And there you go again. Using the word demonizing. Why in the world do you think any of these words apply to what I and others wrote here? I don't feel you understand their meanings.
But then that's the point. You folk don't have to engage in the issues. You just call people stupid, assume their ignorance if they disagree with you, denounce them as close-minded, remove their views from the mainstream press, censure them from the Senate floor if you need to, and most offensive to me personally as an 8 year user, mod them down on Slashdot. Discussing the issue never occurs to you all; why would it, you can look down your nose and thats it. My, my, how admirable.
Thanks for giving an answer, rather than just moding as flamebait or offering anonymous diatribe.
But I'm not sure that the nationality of the award makers really helps me to understand why or if the science prizes in general are more carefully considered than the Peace Prize.
1) Please, come out of hiding, and stand up for what you believe, if you do.
2) Just where do you get words like virulent, vile, destroy, and discredit? Where in the world do you come up with the sort of thoughts that allow you to apply those words to what is written here? Why are you so monstrously opposed to the civil and free exchange of ideas?
3) If you read the original post and the comments, you will see that we feel there are any number of people whose work this year had more to do with peace than Al Gore's. If this were the Nobel Environment Award or something, I'd be glad to enter into debate about whether Gore and Company have plans to help or hurt the global environment. That's not the point. The point is that people who really are putting their lives on the line to achieve peace and freedom from oppression should have a crack at this famous award.
Who are the omnipotent scholars who can blithely assign decent comments like z80kid's a troll modifier? Who anointed these people?
Now, my original comment may have been off topic, but my point was that the politicization of the Peace Prize is so blatant that it can now make thoughtful people wonder about the value of the science prizes. I truly don't understand game theory, or some of the other things that win the Nobel. I might like to become one of the people who at least understand a little, especially if it affects decisions on things like software patents. But if fairly learned people like myself lose interest in the set of prizes because of the simple-mindedness of the Peace prize, then the Nobel legacy is certainly headed downhill.
OK, I won't pretend I understand anything about Economics. But I do know a good bit about what creates and maintains the conditions for peace. Even if you are the most die-hard Al Gore fan, and a true believer in Global Warming (or Climate Change or whatever its called this month), surely you wouldn't think that work on GL-CC trumps the brave work of the monks in Burma, or the brave blue-thumbed Iraqis, or any of a dozen other individuals and groups working to end war, famine, and oppression around the world?
So, if the Nobel committees can so blow this prize, going back to giving it to the dictator Yasser Arafat, do the other prizes have meaning? Are they better vetted than the Peace Prize? How and Why?
Slashdot was better than liberal rags like Newsweek.
Its good to hear that you are concerned for the kids in the middle east. Now, ask some honest questions, and you will come to see why the President of the United States (Wm. Jefferson Clinton) and the Congress of the United States made it the policy of the United States that the Government of Iraq (Sadaam Hussein) must be removed.
Ask a few more honest questions, and you will see why the Congress of the United States, Hillary Clinton included, voted to go to war, though they were too cowardly to declare war. It was not and could never be about nuclear weapons or biohazards. If those were an excuse to go to war, we'd have attacked India, Pakistan, N. Korea, Iran, and Israel.
We did not go into the Civil War over "Union", we did not go into Gulf War I about the price of oil, and we did not go into Panama to protect a canal.
All of these are about these few words: All men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We can't achieve that for everyone, at any time. But if we are not chasing that, we are not what we claim. That is why we go to war, it is the only reason for which we ever go to war.
And, it is working in Iraq better than expected.
He was connected, my doltish friends. Why do you think we've lost so many of Americas best, and so much of our national treasure?
There are a million analogies, find your own, but the rotten apple is as good as any. When you have an entire region filled with tyrants, and the worst tyrant among them sits in the most strategic crossroads in the middle of all the rest, he is directly connected to the violence that erupts from the oppressed peoples all around.
You, sitting in your comfy office, simply cannot hope for your kids to be safe while the Middle east is the raging cesspool of violence it has become all these years. Something has to be done, and Iraq is the strategic center of gravity.
Do rise above your personal hatred for GW and think a little in geostrategic terms.
You categorize this under "Science"? What passes for science in your world these days?
And BTW, no on ever believed that Saddam plotted 9/11. We do know that he publicly announced $25,000 rewards to suicide bombers and terrorists, that he hosted terrorist training camps in country, that he worked to create an environment throughout the middle eadt that set the conditions for terrorist organizations to thrive, and that he embraced both Islam and violent government.
What, still no comments on the great Cockroach Invasion which plagued the CMU campus? Where are my fellow Tartans on this?
"Upon entering office in January of 2001, President Bush inherited from the Clinton administration a policy of regime change. That policy was based upon the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (P.L. 105-338), which stated, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." This policy was unanimously approved by the Senate and strongly supported by the Clinton administration.
Not two months after he signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, President Clinton delivered an address to the nation explaining his decision to order air strikes against Iraqi military targets. He discussed the potential long-term threat posed by Saddam Hussein, stating,
"DARPA spent only $3.01 billion. Less on electronics.
They're falling...
and that's an old program...
...I mean, ...Brunei?
1) So far, about 20 years of studying history, foreign policy, cognitive psychology, military art, and human nature.
Yes, the Iranians envy the Iraqis their democracy. What's more, they are coming over the border to participate, to help, to be a part of it.
And the Palestinians coincidentally, held real elections too.
2) Interviews on the streets are interesting. For example, if you ask Iraqis, "Should the American troops leave now?" they all say no.
3) "I was a bit leery of his motives". So was I. Bush I should have intervened; lacking that, Clinton should have stepped in on his Inauguration day.
4) 600,000 is a fantasy number, created by lunatics. No serious 14 year old would quote it.
5) 20-30,000 people per year have died violently in Iraq since 1979.
Yes, your smugness is charming. Still, this is a real shooting war, with real lives, soldiers, innocent Iraqis', innocent Palestinians', and innoncent Americans' lives on the line. You haven't bothered to understand why we are winning--for some purposes already won--and the press isn't making one effort at helping you to learn the basics of what winning means in this war.
I can't teach you that here. What I can say is that, until you all start asking the question, "How do we find lasting peace across the Middle East," you won't find any answers. Until you open your mind to the lessons of history, you won't find answers. The good thing is, now Nancy Pelosi will finally be in the fight. Will she ask that question?
No person could ever have thought that Iraq would have a permanent democracy in six months.
My own feeling was that if we were lucky, we'd be able to secure Baghdad from Saddam's forces in 6 weeks to six months; by which time we could rightfully say that the "war" was over in the same sense Desert Storm was "over".
Now, to be honest, my feeling was that a weak government would take over, that we would not stay put, and that within 2-5 years, by democratic election or by coup, Iraq would slink back into 1)radical theocracy, 2) totalitarian dictatorship, or 3) some semi-functional central government which gradually becomes irrelevant.
Instead, we achieved a real democratic election, with a real constitution hard-won by the people, and a government that genuinely was the best that could be worked out by and for Iraqis. In short, they have self-determination, and they are learning how to keep it.
Even better, their neighbors in Iran, Syria, etc. are seeing this and envying them.
--
Now, to see a way forward, one has to actually look forward. One has to look at the 1200 year repression of the Shia, at the relative peacefulness of their theology, at the power-centered structure of the Sunni theology, at the positive experience the Kurds had governing themselves under the watchful eyes of the USAF for a decade. One has to be dissatisfied with the status quo of people dying by brutality or by starvation across the middle east forever now. And one has to look for possible solutions.
Or, one can take the intellectually vapid approach of saying, "George Bush doesn't speak fast enough, so he is dumb, so the war is wrong."
Back in the 90's certain Republicans complained the Bill Clinton only used military force to cover other problems. They could have thought about the fate and chances of the people of Bosnia, Iraq, wherever, but that takes work and compassion and study, and after all, who can be bothered with learning a 2500 or 4000 year old art.
Ahh!
Or do you mean, "hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't understand and respect...WWII"? Plenty of people back then were opposed to it.
No, friends, if the media behaved as it did then--with a modicum of interest in 1) objective reporting, 2) good storytelling, 3) winning, and 4) in the just plain human interest of our soldiers lives and work in the Middle East; yesterday's results would be quite different.
The populace cannot support what it never hears about, which is that we are winning, and ahead of any reasonable schedule. And, with unexpected good side effects having already occurred.