Correct. However, you incorrectly believe it means "right to have your life preserved by someone else."
Why limit it to taking or defending life?
Because... that's what the phrase means. The history of the phrase Thomas Jefferson used is pretty well-documented: he got them from John Locke. You will find his writings full of assertions that no one has the right to take away your life, nor your right to live... but never that anyone else can be compelled to provide you with the means to live.
Indeed -- self-evidently -- if you could compel me to provide you with the means to live, this would violate Locke's other two fundamental rights: the rights to liberty and property.
So... yeah, you're just wrong here.
Why do you not see life can also be the ACT of living?
You have the right to live. You just can't force me to help you continue to live.
A financial barricade IS a barricade.
No one put up a financial barricade to your living.
What is the point of having a right to something if it is effectively unavailable to them?
So everyone who has terminal cancer, for which there is no cure, has no right to life? Is that what you're saying? That such a disease violates your rights?
Incorrect. Many Christians throughout history have treated Judaism as some bastard religion; that even though Christianity comes ultimately through Judaism, that it is something new and different and vastly superior. They do not believe "Judaism + Christ = Christianity," they believe Christ is Christianity, and Judaism is evil.
It's not a rational belief, but it's been unfortunately common here and there over the past 2000 years.
Arrogance.
Incorrect. Nothing I said was arrogant in the slightest bit. Perhaps you do not know what the word "arrogant" means?
I don't think you know much about religions
That IS correct -- you do think that -- but your thought is wrong.
why do you believe Islam is different?
Because I know various ways in which they are different.
Would you like me to enumerate them?
I won't bore you with the many differences in practice, and relatively minor differences (of which there are scores). I already gave you one: Islam doesn't believe that people are justified before God through acceptance of Christ, through his sacrifice. Islam does not, indeed, recognize any promise of salvation at all.
You might think these are minor differences, but they speaks to the nature of God himself, and they are not interchangable, any more than Christianity and atheism are interchangable. If we cannot have an assurance of salvation through faith -- as even Abraham did, according to the Old Testament, long before Christ came -- then it fundamentally changes the reasons why we believe God created us in the first place: to have free-willed beings that would choose to love Him. It changes everything.
No, he did not. He said that government should be responsible for securing your RIGHT to life, liberty, and property. There's a big difference. Bastiat NEVER would have expressed that government has any obligation to keep you alive, so the answer to your question is "yes, but it does not secure your RIGHT to life."
If its impossible to do your rights have been violated.
False. Seriously, that makes no sense. You do not understand what rights are, or how they work. Let me try again: your right to life means you have a right to not have someone else TAKE your life. It means you have a right to DEFEND your life. It does NOT mean that anyone else is obligated to KEEP YOU ALIVE.
You may have a right to cross the street but if there is a barricade preventing you to cross, then your rights have been violated.
No one is erecting a barricade to you keeping yourself alive. No such barricade exists. You're inventing things that aren't real.
Until a fetus has a functioning brain, it is not sentient - alive yes but not sentient. It is no more different than my thumb or fingernail.
That is obviously false. Biology proves you completely wrong. I chose my words carefully: it is "biologically a distinct and unique human life."
"Distinct and unique human life" means that it is a separate living organism. A thumb or fingernail is not: it's a component of a larger organism. When that cell division begins, even before implantation, it is a separate living being, with its own DNA, that is independently alive (not that it is not dependent on another organism for life, but that its living is defined independently, by its own biological activity).
Whether or not this particular life has yet achieved sentience is irrelevant to any point I made, so I don't know why you brought it up. But your point that a distinct, unique human life is not different from a tiny component of another organism... that's nonsense, biologically.
You COULD argue, on the other hand, that it is similar to a bacteria or some other organism that lives inside a person. But that ignores the fact that the newly created life we're talking about here is an actual human life. An independent, distinct, unique, living, organism that is of species Homo sapiens.
You do not have to believe that rights are conferred upon this unique, distinct, human life until its brain starts functioning. But you have no rational argument against me doing so. I presume your argument is that rights are only conferred when the organism reaches "sentience," but that's an arbitrary distinction to my mind.
If you think sentient life begins at conception (two cells) and should be protected, then all life should be protected - especially since they are more sentient like an ant for example.
No, I think all HUMAN life is conferred with rights, which is, of course, the tradition of the United States, going back to the Declaration of Independence. Nothing more, nothing less.
I do not have the arrogance to push my beliefs on anyone elses.
That wasn't what you were talking about: you were simply talking about BELIEF in a "right religion." And you expressed such a belief yourself.
You do realize that islam and Christianity all came from Judaism? They all share a common 'old testament' for the lack of a better world?
You say that as though it is meaningful. If you knew much about modern evangelical Protestant Christianity, you would know that it considers itself to be nothing more than Judaism + Christ. Many of this faith believe that Jewish people will be saved under the Abrahamic covenant, whereas everyone else must be saved under the Messianic covenant.
But there's no significant similarity between Islam and Christianity, except for common heritage. The beliefs are very, very different.
ALL religions are talking about the same basic beliefs.
Shrug. You don't know much about religions. Christianity believes that people are justified before God from the sacrifice of God-made-flesh. This is entirely different from Islam, and it is not just some "minor" belief: it's one of the main points. And then there's the Eastern beliefs which are even more different.
There is no right or wrong when everyone is talking about the same thing but in different languages.
That is YOUR religious belief, and you cannot -- by your own logic -- assert that it is right.
FALSE - there is no such thing as a 'right religion'. To say so implies there is a 'wrong' religion.
First, yes, I believe there is a right religion, and many wrong ones.
That said, however, I misread what the person wrote. I read it as "there is no 'right to religion'" or somesuch. So I did not mean to say "of course there is" a "right religion." I do, however, believe it to be true.
Regardless, what they guy said was completely asinine and stupid. His argument is that since there is no "right religion" -- which I agree I cannot assert objectively for others, but I nevertheless disagree with -- therefore... I cannot teach my children that there is a right religion.
Complete and utter bullshit.
With so many religions in the world what are the odds you were born into the 'right' one?
Much, much greater than the odds that a universe would exist that could support life; that a planet would exist that could support life; and that evolution on that planet would result in sentient life.
If you wanna talk odds.
The world will be a lot better place to live when everyone realizes that there is no such thing as 'my god' and 'your god'. Everyone is really talking about the exact same thing, with the interpretations diverging because people push what they want to believe into the religion.
Hm. So you are saying that if we just all followed your view, that we all are talking about the exact same thing, instead of saying we all have the "right religion," that the world would be better.
This view of yours... it actually sounds a lot like a religion itself. And you assert it's right, and that those who disagree with it are wrong.
You might want to think about reconsidering your view that there is no "right religion" if you're gonna go ahead and tell us all what to believe.
If people stop reading what they want to in the message and actually LISTEN to the message, we'd all just get along.
It's not "reading into" the message of the Bible to see that it says there is a "right religion." The Bible's quite plain and specific in this. Indeed, you have to IGNORE the message to come away with a different message.
That said, I am all about acceptance of others. I encourage all people of all faiths and non-faiths -- and even agnostics -- to love one another, to live together with one another, and to be at peace. It doesn't mean I don't -- or shouldn't -- think most of 'em are wrong, though.
It also doesn't mean I think a parent doesn't have the right to teach the opposite. I disagree with that teaching, but just like I can't force my "right religion" on anyone else, I also can't force a parent to not teach their child that Muslims are evil. It sucks that they do that, but I have no right to say differently, and neither does the government acting on my, or your, or everyone else's, behalf.
It's only a fetus after 10 weeks. Before that it is an embryo.
Irrelevant. If you read the context, I called it a child, and the other respondent "corrected" me by calling it an embryo. My point is that it doesn't matter what you call it. At some point before implantation, it's an actual human life.
And in the first trimester the woman probably never realized she was pregnant.
Yeah I am gonna have to call bullshit on that one. Ever hear of morning sickness? It's not like at some point a few hundred years ago some doctor slapped himself in the head and said, "oh, so THAT'S why so many women were getting sick... they were actually pregnant at the time!"
For thousands of years, many women have been well aware of the human life growing inside them, long before it was large enough to show, and long before it started to detectably move.
So because they are your kids, the government can tell you NOTHING about how to raise them.
Correct.
So if you want to pull them out of school and teach them how evolution is evil, or blacks are evil, or Muslims are evil then you should have that right.
Also correct.
And if you want to sexually abuse them and smack them around at your own will then thats solely your business too and the government has no right to interfere.
If by "smack them around" you mean to cause serious physical harm, then the answer to both is no, because that is a violation of their rights. That's where the distinction (obviously) lies.
But as long as there's a First Amendment, government has no right to say that teaching a child any of those things you described is a violation of that child's rights. For it to do that, it would have to assert that my views are wrong, and it is literally incapable of such an assertion.
And that's a great thing. I am grateful, as everyone should be, to live in a country where the government is not allowed to decide what is goodthink and what is badthink.
Free does not mean absolute freedom to do anything you wish as any time.
No one ever said or implied that. I said the equivalent of, "I have the right to swing my fist, and government can't tell me how to do it, when to do it, or when to stop." That's absolutely true, but what is also true that I am not allowed to punch someone else in the nose.
As long as they are not causing harm to someone else, they ARE free to do anything they like
Really?
Yes.
Try driving around without a seatbelt. Try being naked in your own backyard.
I didn't say government PROPERLY RECOGNIZES that freedom. As to the former, the government is clearly wrong: it has no right to force you to wear a seatbelt.
The latter is different: if your backyard is in public view, this does potentially become harm to others. If it is not in public view, then yes, you're free to do it.
Who the hell said anything about Christianity being a lie?
In this discussion, the only thing I saw being discussed that was harmful was some stuff about religious views, and then you said that parents should not be allowed to pump their kids' heads full of lies.
If I misread your intent, I apologize, but I saw nothing else that I thought you could have been referring to.
But what we are talking about is your so called right to teach your children anything you like without the state being able to impose any minimum standard of a curriculum.
It's not a "so-called" right. It's an actual right.
I would say this is inherently harmful to the child, along the lines of sexual or mental abuse.
So Abraham Lincoln was the victim of abuse at the hands of his parents. Ooooooooo K.
You're not making any sense whatsoever.
Instead of school lets say you wanted to teach your child to drive a car - perfectly legal and acceptable., However that child still must demonstrate a certain amount of competence via a government run standardized exam.
Your analogy makes no sense. The only reason a test is required (of ANYONE, not just children), is for the physical safety of other people on public roads. That's it. If I am going to drive on private roads, I need no license (unless, of course, the owner of the road requires it).
So unless you're going to argue that a child needs to have a certain type of understanding of math or science for the physical safety of other people -- which you cannot do, obviously -- your analogy simply makes no sense.
Isn't education more important than learning how to drive?
Yes, but eating and sleeping are more important than both education and learning to drive... should government impose standards on those, too?
So why shouldn't there be a minimum standard?
Why SHOULD there be? As noted above... the reason for a driver's test is for the physical safety of others. Why should there be a test for children?
You clearly want to discuss that too.
Shrug. It's in your sig, you keep including it.
Clearly you dont know or understand the difference between a social program and socialism.
False. YOU are the one who does not know what "socialism" means. You know, perhaps, one limited definition of it, but you don't really know what it means.
You bring up forced by the government as a criteria.
No, I did not. Maybe you also do not know what the word "criteria" means? What I said is that when universal health insurance is forced by government, it is socialist. That does not mean that anything forced by government is socialist.
Socialism is often incorrectly, but not un-usefully, described as state ownership of the means of production. So if government owned all (or almost all) health care, as it does in many Western countries, that would be socialist. I think almost everyone would agree with this.
However, socialism is about results, not about specific means: the result being that government has sufficient control to enforce whatever they wish in that area o
What definition is that? I didn't mention any obsolete definition.
If you think the term "apologetics" used to describe general defense of an idea is obsolete... shrug. You're wrong. I use it often, as do many people. Some dictionaries, such as the Oxford American Dictionary, list it as the primary definition, while others list the Christian one as the primary definition.
To call it obsolete is either dishonest or ignorant. I won't do you the disservice of guessing which.
the christian version when talking about God is out of context
Except that you were NOT talking about God. You're either being dishonest or forgetful. You had a long paragraph of 150 words that didn't mention God or religion at all, and at the very end, you mentioned apologetics.
Then you need to go back to studying apologetics.
Less so than you. Because while you take offense at my tone, yours is even worse. Your very comment to me was the (incorrect) reply: "You assume the worst, then prove it wrong. And you did a poor job of that, even. Were you homeschooled?"
You're not fooling anyone.
But far worse than tone, you are not actually providing logical or reasoned arguments. And that's more important than tone.
How about this: can you convince, using any objective means, that the back of your computer exists when it is not being observed? The answer is no. So by YOUR "logic," believing in the unobserved back of your computer is the same as believing in an invisible pink elephant that follows you around everywhere.
The best you can do is that because I'm not omnipresent, something I've seen before and can see again and that thousands of people have seen and can see again can't be observed 100% of the time, God must exist.
I never implied any such thing, in fact. Not even close. Nothing in my argument implied "God must exist." I didn't get anywhere close to such an implication. Are you feeling alright?
I was just demonstrating the self-evident fact that your assertion that a belief in God is the same -- to an outside observer -- as a belief in an invisible pink elephant, is nonsense. As I said: not all unprovable beliefs are equal. You were pretending they WERE equal, and I simply and clearly demonstrated that you were wrong.
Fun to play with, but I'm bored now.
Translation: you cannot provide a reasoned or logical argument, so, yet again, you will just toss out insults. You're not fooling anyone.
Speaking of invisible animals people talk to, I could be like James Stewart in Harvey: "In this world... you can be oh-so-smart, or oh-so-pleasant. Well, for years, I was smart. I recommend pleasant." However, there's too much at stake. I am much smarter than you, and I feel it is my obligation to shoot down your insane, liberty-hating, unconstitutional, irrational, child-harming, arguments.
[you gave] a clear example of the dangers of brainwashing children.
False. In fact, nothing I said implied any danger whatsoever. That was only you introducing a question-begging fallacy: you think what I said is dangerous, therefore, it proves his point! But there's no evidence it's dangerous, and you provided no argument to demonstrate it.
Can you, to an outsider, convince them that your invisible friend is real when someone else's isn't? The answer is no, so by all objective means, believing in God is the same as believing in an invisible pink elephant who follows you around everywhere
Incorrect. It's hard to know how to respond to this illogical mush, because the conclusion is not remotely supported by the assertion.
How about this: can you convince, using any objective means, that the back of your computer exists when it is not being observed? The answer is no. So by YOUR "logic," believing in the unobserved back of your computer is the same as believing in an invisible pink elephant that follows you around everywhere.
The obvious point is that not all unprovable things are equal. I have many arguments from logic, from history, from tradition that support the existence of a personal God. They may not convince you, but they exist, and they are rational. On the other hand, I've never heard a single argument from logic, from history, or from tradition that supports the existence of this pink elephant. They are obviously not the same, and your continued assertions just make you look like you're only out to tear down religion (which, of course, is true).
when I bring up that you are being an ass about your position and should probably go back to the church's guidelines on answering criticis, you tell me that I need to go study the church's guidelines on answering criticism?
No, I did not tell you that. I see now, you were using a specific, and somewhat rare, definition of "apologetics." There are no "guidelines on answering critics" in my church. None at all. There is a branch of Christian philosophy known as apologetics, of course, but that is not from any specific church. I studied apolgetics under one of the best modern Christian apologists in the world, JP Moreland, so I am quite familiar with it.
However, when I hear the term "apologetics" -- especially when, as you used it, it's not in a specifically Christian context, since you were talking about DSM4 and so on -- I most often think of the term in its broader sense. I know some Greek, you see, and "apologia" simply means "speaking in defense." So every time I defend any view -- including homeschooling, global warming skepticism, gun rights, and so on -- it is, definitionally, an exercise in apologetics.
And now you know.
As to being an "ass" about my position... shrug, far less so than you were.
You have just enough information about everything to be dangerous.
Oh no, I have far more than enough to be dangerous. And dangerous I am.
You strike me as a really intelligent 12 year old.
Really? Is this really what it boils down to? I shoot down your arguments and you resort to such blatant -- and insipid -- ad hominem?
It's "hands off my mind", not "don't tell me what to do".
It's both.
You're simply wrong about Gore. The academic consensus is very strong.
False, and false. But even if the latter was true, I've already demonstrated that the consensus view -- that AGW is a "fact" -- is not based on actual science.
Popular media might not portray it very reliably or well, but it's there.
Please stop being an ass. I went into great detail from my own research, and you're pretending that this is about media portrayal.
Academia is the most reliable institution for determining truth that we have.
No, it's not. Institutions are not reliable for determining truth at all. The only reliable way to determine truth is to actually invesitgate, interpret, discuss, and debate.
I mean, you're sitting here saying I should trust researchers when just today it was unassailably demonstrated that some climate scientists flaunted the law and lied to prevent having to release their climate data to the public.
You might "make up your own mind", but if you don't study the field, you might as well be making stuff up
Your appeal-to-authority fallacy won't get you anywhere. When these people are kicking out scientists who disagree with them; hiding their own data explicitly so the public won't get to see it; and blatantly misrepresenting their own study's findings in order to push their view... and you accuse ME of making stuff up?
Not to mention the fact that you are clearly being hypocritical about Gore: he has not much more knowledge about the field than me (and in some areas, less), so why give him a pass? Oh right, because he's on the side of this manufactured "consensus." That's no excuse for your double standard.
I am going to take the last part of your reply separately, and then continue on with the discussion in another comment. Once you realize how dumb your reply was, you can consider whether or not you want to save face by replying, or whether you want to just use your misrepresentation as an excuse for backing out of the discussion.
Not that you MUST reply, but it's quite obvious that you have no basis from Godwin's Law for backing out, and so it certainly comes off as nothing more than a cheap excuse.
Unfortunately, you've failed by Godwin's Law here, and you shamefully lose the discussion
False. Just like you have misrepresented rights, the role of government, climate science, homeschooling, and more, you have also misrepresented Godwin's Law. And terribly so, too. Firstly, because what I said had nothing whatsoever to do with Godwin's Law; and secondly, because Godwin's Law does not in any way proscribe the actions it describes.
Godwin's Law simply says that ""As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
So no, Godwin's Law does not say I lose the discussion (if it did, it would be an irrational Law, because such a comparison cannot, logically, define a loser or winner).
Even if it did say that, it would require I made a comparison to Nazis or Hitler, which I did not do: I merely asserted the fact that your stated viewpoint would allow for such atrocities as the Holocaust. There's no denying this fact. What you could -- and I hope would -- deny is that you meant what you actually said.
Again, I gave you plenty of opportunity to describe, in any sort of detail, WHY government has this "right" you describe. I pointed out the inherent problem with your stated view -- that it would legitimize the Holocaust -- in the hope that you would refine your position and perhaps investigate, within yourself, WHY you believe what you do.
Because if you know why you believe government has any right to outlaw homeschooling, you certainly haven't shared it here.
Until you do that, well, you have precisely no point, and no amount of misrepresenting Godwin's Law will let you claim victory to anyone except yourself.
It's not a "I get to live as I please so long as I can religiously justify it", it's a "I can believe as I like".
Not just believe, but also ACT.
And no, Gore's efforts are not "utterly flawed".
Yes, they are. Almost everything he said misrepresents the actual science; his conclusions are not backed up by science; and he pretends that he is the last and final word.
I am not arguing anthropogenic global warming theory is incorrect. I am asserting it is very flawed, and has not been remotely demonstrated as "fact" or anything of the sort.
Gore's warnings are about as good as we could hope for, and they're quite necessary to keep the biosphere alive.
Except no, they are not. That's the problem. His warnings are baseless. Again: we do not know the globe is currently warming; we do not know man caused it; and we do not know we can prevent it. For your claim to be true, that his warnings are "necessary to keep the biosphere alive," at least the first or third would have to be true: we would need to know there is warming, and that we can stop it. But those are not supported by science.
It's surprising that it's become such a political issue
Not really, no, when you realize what's behind it: it's at root an effort by the left to control people (whether or not the science backs up what Gore says, that is how the left uses it: to control). They make it a political issue by saying we have to do this and that and the other thing, and use this as their reason why.
But it's almost entirely baseless. Carbon credits and offsets do nothing at all. Preventing oil and gas exploration does nothing at all. The overwhelming majority of "green" initiatives, including "green" buildings and hybrid cars, do nothing at all. Even if everything Gore says and predicts is true.
It's about control. Population control for some; cultural control for others; economic control for all of them.
Global warming is academically-noncontroversial fact, and we know that human activity contributed significantly to it.
You're wrong on all counts. It is not fact at all, and we do not know that man has contributed significantly to it. Not if you actually follow, you know, science.
The science behind global warming works like this: we see some warming, we have a hypothesis that mostly fits the data, we don't have any other strongly supported hypotheses... and that's it. Literally. When the IPCC says that it is "likely" that anthropogenic warming has had a "discernible influence on many physical and biological planetary systems," what it actually means is that 89 percent of observational series from 75 studies support the hypothesis.
(Note that this also means that 11 percent of the observational series DID NOT support the hypothesis... which is a far cry from saying this is "fact.")
But simply saying a hypothesis is supported is not how you come about scientific "fact." You need to follow it through to the other step and actually demonstrate that the hypothesis is true (or that there are no other possible answers, which is usually far more difficult). This has not been done.
The anthropogenic global warming theory would be stronger if there were no serious objections to it. But there are. The theory asks us to believe that this warming is unique because of the manmade CO2 increases, but this leaves similar warming patterns unexplained. The theory asks us to believe that there's a direct correlation between CO2 and temperature, but that doesn't explain the apparent cooling period we're in, nor previous warming periods where temperature rose long before CO2.
Oh, and I forgot one of my favorite objections: the theory assumes that the increase is going to continue, when it's entirely possible that we've reached a saturation point beyond which we won't see continued w
There are more iPhones sold than Macs. There are plenty of apps & developers for the iPhone. There are more xboxes sold than Macs. There are plenty of apps & developers for the xbox.
Yes, but that's beside the point, which is that unless they want Mac OS X to just die, they won't do it. Most people want options, not limitations. If Apple did this, then Microsoft and Linux would take over a huge consumer base.
I would like to think that Apple will always sell computers. And that they will always be hackable. But as I look around, I see that there is a distinct possibility that may not be the case.
Then your comment makes no sense. You said I "made his point" -- which was that parents should not be allowed teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins -- and then you say now that you believe in freedom of exercise of religion, which he was explicitly denying.
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
I think you made his point quite nicely.
So you don't believe in the First Amendment's guarantee of the freedom of exercise of religion. Noted. Depressing, but noted.
I don't deny freedom of religion. People can believe whatever weird shit they like, they just don't get to have society's institutions recognise or care about their beliefs.
Then... you deny freedom of religion.
Al Gore's message, while it does not mesh perfectly with the sciences, is about as on-target as one might hope for a politician trying to make a difference in the world.
If by "on-target" you mean "utterly flawed," OK.
The broad terms of that debate are indeed over (the scientific community has had a strong consensus for a very long time, the data is overwhelming, and the areas of study have moved on to the specifics).
False. We do not know that the globe is on a warming trend. (We know it WAS on one, but we don't know if we're still on one, and there's more direct evidence that we are NOT than that we ARE.) We do not know what caused the warming we've had. And we do not know if we can do anything about it.
All of those things -- which constitute the "broad terms" -- are unknown and entirely up for debate.
The "evolution is a big hoax" folk, by contrast, are on the same ground as the flat earth folk.
OK, I will concede that global warming is not quite in the same bag as that. Still, Al Gore's a lot closer to those folks than he is to, say... actual scientists who honestly evaluate the data and the limits of their understanding.
And no, the state, as a representative of society, has the right to decide what a good education is.
Only for those who choose to subject themselves to the state's schools. For everyone else? Nope.
Your claim here seems to rest on the idea that "society" has the right to do it, so therefore the government has the right to do it. But "society" has no such right, either.
A good education connects the solid conclusions from the societal institutions of science with the public, alongside teaching civics, the arts, maths, and various other topics.
That's a fine opinion. But you have not justified forcing that opinion on others.
While in theory, a parent who really understands their basic topics could teach their child the early versions of these fields, thise parents are in fact rare
Nope. Almost EVERY parent is perfectly capable of doing it. It's not complicated or hard.
... and instead it's often used by nutters who want to pass on some of their ignorance to their kids and bigots who don't want their kids mixing with those of different races.
Shrug. The data is clear: homeschooled kids end up getting better educations than their public school counterparts, doing markedly better on state exams and so on.
The child's interests are more important
Yes, but the parents are the ones who decides what the child's interests ARE, and how to best serve them.
they should be exposed to the current state of the fields taught and get the broader set of ideas that teachers and other kids provide
First, once again, that's your opinion. You have not justified forcing it on others.
Second, you obviously don't know much about homeschooling anyway, since the majority of homeschool kids DO work with other kids and adults in the process of getting their education.
Parents have plenty of time to inculturate their kids, and so if they're ignorant or racist as part of their faith/culture the kids will be exposed to both sets of ideas and rub shoulders with those of other races.
You act like the government has some "right" to "get" the kids to try to indoctrinate those kids with society's values. It does not have any such right.
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but there is no "freedom" to force your audience to listen to you.
Sigh. Why do people think I am talking about speech, when I am -- I think, very obviously -- talking about religion?
Although, there sure is a right to force your kids to listen to you. Obviously.
I don't want people running around mistakenly thinking that they are 'free' to do anything they like
As long as they are not causing harm to someone else, they ARE free to do anything they like.
Whether it is sexually moleting their children or pumping their heads full of lies - both ends up traumatizing them for life.
Great. Now all you have to do is demonstrate that Christianity is a lie.
I won't hold my breath waiting for you to do what no one has ever been able to do.
Of course, that's bullshit anyway. Most parents lie to their kids with no evidence of ill effects. Whether it's Santa Claus, or Newtonian physics, or the value of Pi, or that we have three coequal branches of government. OK, that last one has screwed up a lot of people, bad example. But still, you get my point, I hope: simply calling something a "lie" isn't evidence that it is harmful.
So you not only have to show that Christianity is a lie, but ALSO show that it is harmful. And you cannot do either one. You can show that SOME forms of Christianity (like Benny Hinn's) are lies or are harmful, but that's not the same thing.
But your freedom stops where it impacts another human being.
No. Your freedom ends where it HARMS another human. You have no right to not be impacted by me; you have a right to not be HARMED by me.
Lets say it as it is - you are an anarchist who believes the laws do not apply to you.
Um. Not remotely, no. That is a good example of a lie, though.
You think you can do anything you like regardless of the consequences
Nope. Another lie.
and then hide behind a social document like the constitution
Hide behind? No. Rely on, as our highest civil law? Yes, of course.
probably never having read the thing
Another lie. A very boring one, too.
You are a hypocrite.
Funny, you presented no evidence of hypocrisy. Might I suggest it's because you HAVE none?
And again, universal health care -- when forced by government -- IS socialist. By definition. Read some Bastiat sometime.
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea.
Just because it is not a good idea doesn't mean it should be illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
You are adding words.
So are you.
the phrase is 'right to life'
Correct. However, you incorrectly believe it means "right to have your life preserved by someone else."
Why limit it to taking or defending life?
Because ... that's what the phrase means. The history of the phrase Thomas Jefferson used is pretty well-documented: he got them from John Locke. You will find his writings full of assertions that no one has the right to take away your life, nor your right to live ... but never that anyone else can be compelled to provide you with the means to live.
Indeed -- self-evidently -- if you could compel me to provide you with the means to live, this would violate Locke's other two fundamental rights: the rights to liberty and property.
So ... yeah, you're just wrong here.
Why do you not see life can also be the ACT of living?
You have the right to live. You just can't force me to help you continue to live.
A financial barricade IS a barricade.
No one put up a financial barricade to your living.
What is the point of having a right to something if it is effectively unavailable to them?
So everyone who has terminal cancer, for which there is no cure, has no right to life? Is that what you're saying? That such a disease violates your rights?
That's nonsense, of course.
Biology proves you completely wrong. I chose my words carefully: it is "biologically a distinct and unique human life."
Of course - by definition. And a chicken would be a biologically distinct and unique chicken life. So what?
Ummmmmm. So ... you were wrong when you said it's the same as a thumb or fingernail. As I explained clearly.
Are you feeling OK?
but that's what ALL Christians believe.
Incorrect. Many Christians throughout history have treated Judaism as some bastard religion; that even though Christianity comes ultimately through Judaism, that it is something new and different and vastly superior. They do not believe "Judaism + Christ = Christianity," they believe Christ is Christianity, and Judaism is evil.
It's not a rational belief, but it's been unfortunately common here and there over the past 2000 years.
Arrogance.
Incorrect. Nothing I said was arrogant in the slightest bit. Perhaps you do not know what the word "arrogant" means?
I don't think you know much about religions
That IS correct -- you do think that -- but your thought is wrong.
why do you believe Islam is different?
Because I know various ways in which they are different.
Would you like me to enumerate them?
I won't bore you with the many differences in practice, and relatively minor differences (of which there are scores). I already gave you one: Islam doesn't believe that people are justified before God through acceptance of Christ, through his sacrifice. Islam does not, indeed, recognize any promise of salvation at all.
You might think these are minor differences, but they speaks to the nature of God himself, and they are not interchangable, any more than Christianity and atheism are interchangable. If we cannot have an assurance of salvation through faith -- as even Abraham did, according to the Old Testament, long before Christ came -- then it fundamentally changes the reasons why we believe God created us in the first place: to have free-willed beings that would choose to love Him. It changes everything.
No, he did not. He said that government should be responsible for securing your RIGHT to life, liberty, and property. There's a big difference. Bastiat NEVER would have expressed that government has any obligation to keep you alive, so the answer to your question is "yes, but it does not secure your RIGHT to life."
If its impossible to do your rights have been violated.
False. Seriously, that makes no sense. You do not understand what rights are, or how they work. Let me try again: your right to life means you have a right to not have someone else TAKE your life. It means you have a right to DEFEND your life. It does NOT mean that anyone else is obligated to KEEP YOU ALIVE.
You may have a right to cross the street but if there is a barricade preventing you to cross, then your rights have been violated.
No one is erecting a barricade to you keeping yourself alive. No such barricade exists. You're inventing things that aren't real.
Until a fetus has a functioning brain, it is not sentient - alive yes but not sentient. It is no more different than my thumb or fingernail.
That is obviously false. Biology proves you completely wrong. I chose my words carefully: it is "biologically a distinct and unique human life."
"Distinct and unique human life" means that it is a separate living organism. A thumb or fingernail is not: it's a component of a larger organism. When that cell division begins, even before implantation, it is a separate living being, with its own DNA, that is independently alive (not that it is not dependent on another organism for life, but that its living is defined independently, by its own biological activity).
Whether or not this particular life has yet achieved sentience is irrelevant to any point I made, so I don't know why you brought it up. But your point that a distinct, unique human life is not different from a tiny component of another organism ... that's nonsense, biologically.
You COULD argue, on the other hand, that it is similar to a bacteria or some other organism that lives inside a person. But that ignores the fact that the newly created life we're talking about here is an actual human life. An independent, distinct, unique, living, organism that is of species Homo sapiens.
You do not have to believe that rights are conferred upon this unique, distinct, human life until its brain starts functioning. But you have no rational argument against me doing so. I presume your argument is that rights are only conferred when the organism reaches "sentience," but that's an arbitrary distinction to my mind.
If you think sentient life begins at conception (two cells) and should be protected, then all life should be protected - especially since they are more sentient like an ant for example.
No, I think all HUMAN life is conferred with rights, which is, of course, the tradition of the United States, going back to the Declaration of Independence. Nothing more, nothing less.
I do not have the arrogance to push my beliefs on anyone elses.
That wasn't what you were talking about: you were simply talking about BELIEF in a "right religion." And you expressed such a belief yourself.
You do realize that islam and Christianity all came from Judaism? They all share a common 'old testament' for the lack of a better world?
You say that as though it is meaningful. If you knew much about modern evangelical Protestant Christianity, you would know that it considers itself to be nothing more than Judaism + Christ. Many of this faith believe that Jewish people will be saved under the Abrahamic covenant, whereas everyone else must be saved under the Messianic covenant.
But there's no significant similarity between Islam and Christianity, except for common heritage. The beliefs are very, very different.
ALL religions are talking about the same basic beliefs.
Shrug. You don't know much about religions. Christianity believes that people are justified before God from the sacrifice of God-made-flesh. This is entirely different from Islam, and it is not just some "minor" belief: it's one of the main points. And then there's the Eastern beliefs which are even more different.
There is no right or wrong when everyone is talking about the same thing but in different languages.
That is YOUR religious belief, and you cannot -- by your own logic -- assert that it is right.
Clearly you do not equate physical abuse with mental abuse.
Clearly you never demonstrated that anything having to do with homeschooling constitutes abuse.
There is no "right religion" to choose
False. Of course there is.
FALSE - there is no such thing as a 'right religion'. To say so implies there is a 'wrong' religion.
First, yes, I believe there is a right religion, and many wrong ones.
That said, however, I misread what the person wrote. I read it as "there is no 'right to religion'" or somesuch. So I did not mean to say "of course there is" a "right religion." I do, however, believe it to be true.
Regardless, what they guy said was completely asinine and stupid. His argument is that since there is no "right religion" -- which I agree I cannot assert objectively for others, but I nevertheless disagree with -- therefore ... I cannot teach my children that there is a right religion.
Complete and utter bullshit.
With so many religions in the world what are the odds you were born into the 'right' one?
Much, much greater than the odds that a universe would exist that could support life; that a planet would exist that could support life; and that evolution on that planet would result in sentient life.
If you wanna talk odds.
The world will be a lot better place to live when everyone realizes that there is no such thing as 'my god' and 'your god'. Everyone is really talking about the exact same thing, with the interpretations diverging because people push what they want to believe into the religion.
Hm. So you are saying that if we just all followed your view, that we all are talking about the exact same thing, instead of saying we all have the "right religion," that the world would be better.
This view of yours ... it actually sounds a lot like a religion itself. And you assert it's right, and that those who disagree with it are wrong.
You might want to think about reconsidering your view that there is no "right religion" if you're gonna go ahead and tell us all what to believe.
If people stop reading what they want to in the message and actually LISTEN to the message, we'd all just get along.
It's not "reading into" the message of the Bible to see that it says there is a "right religion." The Bible's quite plain and specific in this. Indeed, you have to IGNORE the message to come away with a different message.
That said, I am all about acceptance of others. I encourage all people of all faiths and non-faiths -- and even agnostics -- to love one another, to live together with one another, and to be at peace. It doesn't mean I don't -- or shouldn't -- think most of 'em are wrong, though.
It also doesn't mean I think a parent doesn't have the right to teach the opposite. I disagree with that teaching, but just like I can't force my "right religion" on anyone else, I also can't force a parent to not teach their child that Muslims are evil. It sucks that they do that, but I have no right to say differently, and neither does the government acting on my, or your, or everyone else's, behalf.
It's only a fetus after 10 weeks. Before that it is an embryo.
Irrelevant. If you read the context, I called it a child, and the other respondent "corrected" me by calling it an embryo. My point is that it doesn't matter what you call it. At some point before implantation, it's an actual human life.
And in the first trimester the woman probably never realized she was pregnant.
Yeah I am gonna have to call bullshit on that one. Ever hear of morning sickness? It's not like at some point a few hundred years ago some doctor slapped himself in the head and said, "oh, so THAT'S why so many women were getting sick ... they were actually pregnant at the time!"
For thousands of years, many women have been well aware of the human life growing inside them, long before it was large enough to show, and long before it started to detectably move.
So because they are your kids, the government can tell you NOTHING about how to raise them.
Correct.
So if you want to pull them out of school and teach them how evolution is evil, or blacks are evil, or Muslims are evil then you should have that right.
Also correct.
And if you want to sexually abuse them and smack them around at your own will then thats solely your business too and the government has no right to interfere.
If by "smack them around" you mean to cause serious physical harm, then the answer to both is no, because that is a violation of their rights. That's where the distinction (obviously) lies.
But as long as there's a First Amendment, government has no right to say that teaching a child any of those things you described is a violation of that child's rights. For it to do that, it would have to assert that my views are wrong, and it is literally incapable of such an assertion.
And that's a great thing. I am grateful, as everyone should be, to live in a country where the government is not allowed to decide what is goodthink and what is badthink.
Free does not mean absolute freedom to do anything you wish as any time.
No one ever said or implied that. I said the equivalent of, "I have the right to swing my fist, and government can't tell me how to do it, when to do it, or when to stop." That's absolutely true, but what is also true that I am not allowed to punch someone else in the nose.
As long as they are not causing harm to someone else, they ARE free to do anything they like
Really?
Yes.
Try driving around without a seatbelt. Try being naked in your own backyard.
I didn't say government PROPERLY RECOGNIZES that freedom. As to the former, the government is clearly wrong: it has no right to force you to wear a seatbelt.
The latter is different: if your backyard is in public view, this does potentially become harm to others. If it is not in public view, then yes, you're free to do it.
Who the hell said anything about Christianity being a lie?
In this discussion, the only thing I saw being discussed that was harmful was some stuff about religious views, and then you said that parents should not be allowed to pump their kids' heads full of lies.
If I misread your intent, I apologize, but I saw nothing else that I thought you could have been referring to.
But what we are talking about is your so called right to teach your children anything you like without the state being able to impose any minimum standard of a curriculum.
It's not a "so-called" right. It's an actual right.
I would say this is inherently harmful to the child, along the lines of sexual or mental abuse.
So Abraham Lincoln was the victim of abuse at the hands of his parents. Ooooooooo K.
You're not making any sense whatsoever.
Instead of school lets say you wanted to teach your child to drive a car - perfectly legal and acceptable., However that child still must demonstrate a certain amount of competence via a government run standardized exam.
Your analogy makes no sense. The only reason a test is required (of ANYONE, not just children), is for the physical safety of other people on public roads. That's it. If I am going to drive on private roads, I need no license (unless, of course, the owner of the road requires it).
So unless you're going to argue that a child needs to have a certain type of understanding of math or science for the physical safety of other people -- which you cannot do, obviously -- your analogy simply makes no sense.
Isn't education more important than learning how to drive?
Yes, but eating and sleeping are more important than both education and learning to drive ... should government impose standards on those, too?
So why shouldn't there be a minimum standard?
Why SHOULD there be? As noted above ... the reason for a driver's test is for the physical safety of others. Why should there be a test for children?
You clearly want to discuss that too.
Shrug. It's in your sig, you keep including it.
Clearly you dont know or understand the difference between a social program and socialism.
False. YOU are the one who does not know what "socialism" means. You know, perhaps, one limited definition of it, but you don't really know what it means.
You bring up forced by the government as a criteria.
No, I did not. Maybe you also do not know what the word "criteria" means? What I said is that when universal health insurance is forced by government, it is socialist. That does not mean that anything forced by government is socialist.
Socialism is often incorrectly, but not un-usefully, described as state ownership of the means of production. So if government owned all (or almost all) health care, as it does in many Western countries, that would be socialist. I think almost everyone would agree with this.
However, socialism is about results, not about specific means: the result being that government has sufficient control to enforce whatever they wish in that area o
the obsolete greek definition
What definition is that? I didn't mention any obsolete definition.
If you think the term "apologetics" used to describe general defense of an idea is obsolete ... shrug. You're wrong. I use it often, as do many people. Some dictionaries, such as the Oxford American Dictionary, list it as the primary definition, while others list the Christian one as the primary definition.
To call it obsolete is either dishonest or ignorant. I won't do you the disservice of guessing which.
the christian version when talking about God is out of context
Except that you were NOT talking about God. You're either being dishonest or forgetful. You had a long paragraph of 150 words that didn't mention God or religion at all, and at the very end, you mentioned apologetics.
Then you need to go back to studying apologetics.
Less so than you. Because while you take offense at my tone, yours is even worse. Your very comment to me was the (incorrect) reply: "You assume the worst, then prove it wrong. And you did a poor job of that, even. Were you homeschooled?"
You're not fooling anyone.
But far worse than tone, you are not actually providing logical or reasoned arguments. And that's more important than tone.
How about this: can you convince, using any objective means, that the back of your computer exists when it is not being observed? The answer is no. So by YOUR "logic," believing in the unobserved back of your computer is the same as believing in an invisible pink elephant that follows you around everywhere.
The best you can do is that because I'm not omnipresent, something I've seen before and can see again and that thousands of people have seen and can see again can't be observed 100% of the time, God must exist.
I never implied any such thing, in fact. Not even close. Nothing in my argument implied "God must exist." I didn't get anywhere close to such an implication. Are you feeling alright?
I was just demonstrating the self-evident fact that your assertion that a belief in God is the same -- to an outside observer -- as a belief in an invisible pink elephant, is nonsense. As I said: not all unprovable beliefs are equal. You were pretending they WERE equal, and I simply and clearly demonstrated that you were wrong.
Fun to play with, but I'm bored now.
Translation: you cannot provide a reasoned or logical argument, so, yet again, you will just toss out insults. You're not fooling anyone.
Speaking of invisible animals people talk to, I could be like James Stewart in Harvey: "In this world ... you can be oh-so-smart, or oh-so-pleasant. Well, for years, I was smart. I recommend pleasant." However, there's too much at stake. I am much smarter than you, and I feel it is my obligation to shoot down your insane, liberty-hating, unconstitutional, irrational, child-harming, arguments.
And so I do.
[you gave] a clear example of the dangers of brainwashing children.
False. In fact, nothing I said implied any danger whatsoever. That was only you introducing a question-begging fallacy: you think what I said is dangerous, therefore, it proves his point! But there's no evidence it's dangerous, and you provided no argument to demonstrate it.
Can you, to an outsider, convince them that your invisible friend is real when someone else's isn't? The answer is no, so by all objective means, believing in God is the same as believing in an invisible pink elephant who follows you around everywhere
Incorrect. It's hard to know how to respond to this illogical mush, because the conclusion is not remotely supported by the assertion.
How about this: can you convince, using any objective means, that the back of your computer exists when it is not being observed? The answer is no. So by YOUR "logic," believing in the unobserved back of your computer is the same as believing in an invisible pink elephant that follows you around everywhere.
The obvious point is that not all unprovable things are equal. I have many arguments from logic, from history, from tradition that support the existence of a personal God. They may not convince you, but they exist, and they are rational. On the other hand, I've never heard a single argument from logic, from history, or from tradition that supports the existence of this pink elephant. They are obviously not the same, and your continued assertions just make you look like you're only out to tear down religion (which, of course, is true).
when I bring up that you are being an ass about your position and should probably go back to the church's guidelines on answering criticis, you tell me that I need to go study the church's guidelines on answering criticism?
No, I did not tell you that. I see now, you were using a specific, and somewhat rare, definition of "apologetics." There are no "guidelines on answering critics" in my church. None at all. There is a branch of Christian philosophy known as apologetics, of course, but that is not from any specific church. I studied apolgetics under one of the best modern Christian apologists in the world, JP Moreland, so I am quite familiar with it.
However, when I hear the term "apologetics" -- especially when, as you used it, it's not in a specifically Christian context, since you were talking about DSM4 and so on -- I most often think of the term in its broader sense. I know some Greek, you see, and "apologia" simply means "speaking in defense." So every time I defend any view -- including homeschooling, global warming skepticism, gun rights, and so on -- it is, definitionally, an exercise in apologetics.
And now you know.
As to being an "ass" about my position ... shrug, far less so than you were.
You have just enough information about everything to be dangerous.
Oh no, I have far more than enough to be dangerous. And dangerous I am.
You strike me as a really intelligent 12 year old.
Really? Is this really what it boils down to? I shoot down your arguments and you resort to such blatant -- and insipid -- ad hominem?
Really?
I mean ... that's just ... sad.
No, you can't act as you like.
False.
That's not what freedom of religion is about.
Yes, it is.
It's "hands off my mind", not "don't tell me what to do".
It's both.
You're simply wrong about Gore. The academic consensus is very strong.
False, and false. But even if the latter was true, I've already demonstrated that the consensus view -- that AGW is a "fact" -- is not based on actual science.
Popular media might not portray it very reliably or well, but it's there.
Please stop being an ass. I went into great detail from my own research, and you're pretending that this is about media portrayal.
Academia is the most reliable institution for determining truth that we have.
No, it's not. Institutions are not reliable for determining truth at all. The only reliable way to determine truth is to actually invesitgate, interpret, discuss, and debate.
I mean, you're sitting here saying I should trust researchers when just today it was unassailably demonstrated that some climate scientists flaunted the law and lied to prevent having to release their climate data to the public.
You might "make up your own mind", but if you don't study the field, you might as well be making stuff up
Your appeal-to-authority fallacy won't get you anywhere. When these people are kicking out scientists who disagree with them; hiding their own data explicitly so the public won't get to see it; and blatantly misrepresenting their own study's findings in order to push their view ... and you accuse ME of making stuff up?
Not to mention the fact that you are clearly being hypocritical about Gore: he has not much more knowledge about the field than me (and in some areas, less), so why give him a pass? Oh right, because he's on the side of this manufactured "consensus." That's no excuse for your double standard.
I am going to take the last part of your reply separately, and then continue on with the discussion in another comment. Once you realize how dumb your reply was, you can consider whether or not you want to save face by replying, or whether you want to just use your misrepresentation as an excuse for backing out of the discussion.
Not that you MUST reply, but it's quite obvious that you have no basis from Godwin's Law for backing out, and so it certainly comes off as nothing more than a cheap excuse.
Unfortunately, you've failed by Godwin's Law here, and you shamefully lose the discussion
False. Just like you have misrepresented rights, the role of government, climate science, homeschooling, and more, you have also misrepresented Godwin's Law. And terribly so, too. Firstly, because what I said had nothing whatsoever to do with Godwin's Law; and secondly, because Godwin's Law does not in any way proscribe the actions it describes.
Godwin's Law simply says that ""As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
So no, Godwin's Law does not say I lose the discussion (if it did, it would be an irrational Law, because such a comparison cannot, logically, define a loser or winner).
Even if it did say that, it would require I made a comparison to Nazis or Hitler, which I did not do: I merely asserted the fact that your stated viewpoint would allow for such atrocities as the Holocaust. There's no denying this fact. What you could -- and I hope would -- deny is that you meant what you actually said.
Again, I gave you plenty of opportunity to describe, in any sort of detail, WHY government has this "right" you describe. I pointed out the inherent problem with your stated view -- that it would legitimize the Holocaust -- in the hope that you would refine your position and perhaps investigate, within yourself, WHY you believe what you do.
Because if you know why you believe government has any right to outlaw homeschooling, you certainly haven't shared it here.
Until you do that, well, you have precisely no point, and no amount of misrepresenting Godwin's Law will let you claim victory to anyone except yourself.
It's not a "I get to live as I please so long as I can religiously justify it", it's a "I can believe as I like".
Not just believe, but also ACT.
And no, Gore's efforts are not "utterly flawed".
Yes, they are. Almost everything he said misrepresents the actual science; his conclusions are not backed up by science; and he pretends that he is the last and final word.
I am not arguing anthropogenic global warming theory is incorrect. I am asserting it is very flawed, and has not been remotely demonstrated as "fact" or anything of the sort.
Gore's warnings are about as good as we could hope for, and they're quite necessary to keep the biosphere alive.
Except no, they are not. That's the problem. His warnings are baseless. Again: we do not know the globe is currently warming; we do not know man caused it; and we do not know we can prevent it. For your claim to be true, that his warnings are "necessary to keep the biosphere alive," at least the first or third would have to be true: we would need to know there is warming, and that we can stop it. But those are not supported by science.
It's surprising that it's become such a political issue
Not really, no, when you realize what's behind it: it's at root an effort by the left to control people (whether or not the science backs up what Gore says, that is how the left uses it: to control). They make it a political issue by saying we have to do this and that and the other thing, and use this as their reason why.
But it's almost entirely baseless. Carbon credits and offsets do nothing at all. Preventing oil and gas exploration does nothing at all. The overwhelming majority of "green" initiatives, including "green" buildings and hybrid cars, do nothing at all. Even if everything Gore says and predicts is true.
It's about control. Population control for some; cultural control for others; economic control for all of them.
Global warming is academically-noncontroversial fact, and we know that human activity contributed significantly to it.
You're wrong on all counts. It is not fact at all, and we do not know that man has contributed significantly to it. Not if you actually follow, you know, science.
The science behind global warming works like this: we see some warming, we have a hypothesis that mostly fits the data, we don't have any other strongly supported hypotheses ... and that's it. Literally. When the IPCC says that it is "likely" that anthropogenic warming has had a "discernible influence on many physical and biological planetary systems," what it actually means is that 89 percent of observational series from 75 studies support the hypothesis.
(Note that this also means that 11 percent of the observational series DID NOT support the hypothesis ... which is a far cry from saying this is "fact.")
But simply saying a hypothesis is supported is not how you come about scientific "fact." You need to follow it through to the other step and actually demonstrate that the hypothesis is true (or that there are no other possible answers, which is usually far more difficult). This has not been done.
The anthropogenic global warming theory would be stronger if there were no serious objections to it. But there are. The theory asks us to believe that this warming is unique because of the manmade CO2 increases, but this leaves similar warming patterns unexplained. The theory asks us to believe that there's a direct correlation between CO2 and temperature, but that doesn't explain the apparent cooling period we're in, nor previous warming periods where temperature rose long before CO2.
Oh, and I forgot one of my favorite objections: the theory assumes that the increase is going to continue, when it's entirely possible that we've reached a saturation point beyond which we won't see continued w
Look at the game console:computer ratio. Look at the iPhone. It's a computer that is also a phone.
Yes, and almost everyone who has a game console or an iPhone also has a Mac, PC, or Linux box.
They do not care if those systems are closed because they are used for specific tasks. They want, in addition, a computer that is not so limited.
Primary...By units
No, by machine type.
There are more iPhones sold than Macs. There are plenty of apps & developers for the iPhone. There are more xboxes sold than Macs. There are plenty of apps & developers for the xbox.
Yes, but that's beside the point, which is that unless they want Mac OS X to just die, they won't do it. Most people want options, not limitations. If Apple did this, then Microsoft and Linux would take over a huge consumer base.
I would like to think that Apple will always sell computers. And that they will always be hackable. But as I look around, I see that there is a distinct possibility that may not be the case.
I don't.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Then your comment makes no sense. You said I "made his point" -- which was that parents should not be allowed teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins -- and then you say now that you believe in freedom of exercise of religion, which he was explicitly denying.
Make up your mind.
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
I think you made his point quite nicely.
So you don't believe in the First Amendment's guarantee of the freedom of exercise of religion. Noted. Depressing, but noted.
I don't deny freedom of religion. People can believe whatever weird shit they like, they just don't get to have society's institutions recognise or care about their beliefs.
Then ... you deny freedom of religion.
Al Gore's message, while it does not mesh perfectly with the sciences, is about as on-target as one might hope for a politician trying to make a difference in the world.
If by "on-target" you mean "utterly flawed," OK.
The broad terms of that debate are indeed over (the scientific community has had a strong consensus for a very long time, the data is overwhelming, and the areas of study have moved on to the specifics).
False. We do not know that the globe is on a warming trend. (We know it WAS on one, but we don't know if we're still on one, and there's more direct evidence that we are NOT than that we ARE.) We do not know what caused the warming we've had. And we do not know if we can do anything about it.
All of those things -- which constitute the "broad terms" -- are unknown and entirely up for debate.
The "evolution is a big hoax" folk, by contrast, are on the same ground as the flat earth folk.
OK, I will concede that global warming is not quite in the same bag as that. Still, Al Gore's a lot closer to those folks than he is to, say ... actual scientists who honestly evaluate the data and the limits of their understanding.
And no, the state, as a representative of society, has the right to decide what a good education is.
Only for those who choose to subject themselves to the state's schools. For everyone else? Nope.
Your claim here seems to rest on the idea that "society" has the right to do it, so therefore the government has the right to do it. But "society" has no such right, either.
A good education connects the solid conclusions from the societal institutions of science with the public, alongside teaching civics, the arts, maths, and various other topics.
That's a fine opinion. But you have not justified forcing that opinion on others.
While in theory, a parent who really understands their basic topics could teach their child the early versions of these fields, thise parents are in fact rare
Nope. Almost EVERY parent is perfectly capable of doing it. It's not complicated or hard.
... and instead it's often used by nutters who want to pass on some of their ignorance to their kids and bigots who don't want their kids mixing with those of different races.
Shrug. The data is clear: homeschooled kids end up getting better educations than their public school counterparts, doing markedly better on state exams and so on.
The child's interests are more important
Yes, but the parents are the ones who decides what the child's interests ARE, and how to best serve them.
they should be exposed to the current state of the fields taught and get the broader set of ideas that teachers and other kids provide
First, once again, that's your opinion. You have not justified forcing it on others.
Second, you obviously don't know much about homeschooling anyway, since the majority of homeschool kids DO work with other kids and adults in the process of getting their education.
Parents have plenty of time to inculturate their kids, and so if they're ignorant or racist as part of their faith/culture the kids will be exposed to both sets of ideas and rub shoulders with those of other races.
You act like the government has some "right" to "get" the kids to try to indoctrinate those kids with society's values. It does not have any such right.
Kids are broadly ill-served with homeschool
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but there is no "freedom" to force your audience to listen to you.
Sigh. Why do people think I am talking about speech, when I am -- I think, very obviously -- talking about religion?
Although, there sure is a right to force your kids to listen to you. Obviously.
I don't want people running around mistakenly thinking that they are 'free' to do anything they like
As long as they are not causing harm to someone else, they ARE free to do anything they like.
Whether it is sexually moleting their children or pumping their heads full of lies - both ends up traumatizing them for life.
Great. Now all you have to do is demonstrate that Christianity is a lie.
I won't hold my breath waiting for you to do what no one has ever been able to do.
Of course, that's bullshit anyway. Most parents lie to their kids with no evidence of ill effects. Whether it's Santa Claus, or Newtonian physics, or the value of Pi, or that we have three coequal branches of government. OK, that last one has screwed up a lot of people, bad example. But still, you get my point, I hope: simply calling something a "lie" isn't evidence that it is harmful.
So you not only have to show that Christianity is a lie, but ALSO show that it is harmful. And you cannot do either one. You can show that SOME forms of Christianity (like Benny Hinn's) are lies or are harmful, but that's not the same thing.
But your freedom stops where it impacts another human being.
No. Your freedom ends where it HARMS another human. You have no right to not be impacted by me; you have a right to not be HARMED by me.
Lets say it as it is - you are an anarchist who believes the laws do not apply to you.
Um. Not remotely, no. That is a good example of a lie, though.
You think you can do anything you like regardless of the consequences
Nope. Another lie.
and then hide behind a social document like the constitution
Hide behind? No. Rely on, as our highest civil law? Yes, of course.
probably never having read the thing
Another lie. A very boring one, too.
You are a hypocrite.
Funny, you presented no evidence of hypocrisy. Might I suggest it's because you HAVE none?
And again, universal health care -- when forced by government -- IS socialist. By definition. Read some Bastiat sometime.
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea.
Just because it is not a good idea doesn't mean it should be illegal.