"By your definition, that Catholic is a bigot against Catholicism, just by not talking about his religion during that zoning meeting."
Aside from how I've explained that your statement is wrong, it supports my position. For your sake, I'll repeat myself:
By my logic, that Catholic is only biased against Catholicism if he refuses to talk about his beliefs during the zoning meeting because of their nature; he's not a bigot if he refuses to talk about them because they're irrelevant. In addition, it's in no way surprising or unusual for somebody to be bigoted in some way against their own religion; many people believe inconsistent things or behave in ways inconsistent with their claimed beliefs, so the situation that you describe is quite believable.
My core claim is this: literally separating church ("belief systems") and state ("government") is impossible. It's only attemptable if you define "church" to be some belief systems and not others, which is inherently bigoted. Rather than promoting some belief systems over others, the state should avoid that, instead treating all belief systems equally and fairly, inasmuch as a belief system respects the law (no "get out of jail free" cards). (In practice, of course, the state will fail to live up to this ideal because government is comprised of flawed people, and none of us are as stupid as all of us.)
a retarded moron like yourself
If I were a retarded moron I would make irrelevant personal attacks instead of sticking to the point. Real retarded morons don't understand the difference between attacking a position and attacking a person. Do you?
By your definition, that Catholic is a bigot against Catholicism, just by not talking about his religion during that zoning meeting.
What, you think that Catholics are never bigoted against Catholicism? I envy your lack of cynicism. A Catholic can certainly be biased against other Catholics, as well as against what they feel is imposed on them from above. People less arrogant than you or I often feel insecure about their own beliefs, which is why so many people change their beliefs so often these days. Most people are inconsistent about something, if not a lot of things. Lots of supposedly religious people just go through the motions of their religion out of inertia, because it's how they've been brought up or whatever, without actually believing.
Though, you do exaggerate somewhat. Being silent isn't enough to warrant the charge of bigotry; they have to actually believe that being silent about Catholicism is good simply because it's Catholicism and not because it has nothing to do with the meeting.
Yeah, that sounds like something a retarded moron like yourself would believe.
I'm pretty sure that a real retarded moron wouldn't be able to out-grammar, out-spell and out-argue you. Besides, what do you have against retarded morons?
Since all relilgions are banned, no matter who proposes them, there is no bigotry.
Banning "all religions" is impossible. Banning all religions except for secular humanism is bigotry, just as banning all religions except for Catholicism is bigotry.
First off, there is no "religion of secularism".
Go ahead, tell me a pray from any secularist church. You can't?
Then post a picture to any secular holy symbol. You can't?
You don't need prayers, or organization, to have a religion. All it takes is a distinct set of religious beliefs, and absence of belief in any one religion counts. If you ask somebody his religious beliefs, and he says "I'm an athiest," that's a valid answer. That's what his religion is.
Secular humanism comprises a set of religious beliefs. If it helps, use the synonym "belief system" or "set of beliefs" instead of the word "religion". They're the same thing. Here's what you wrote earlier, with that substitution in bold:
Since all belief systems are banned, no matter who proposes them, there is no bigotry.
You can't ban all sets of beliefs from government meetings. It just doesn't make sense.
>At the point that someone prohibits a religious practice (even in a limited context) because it is religious, they are practicing the religious belief that says that religious practices should be prohibited (in that context).
Everything isn't a religious belief.
Of course, but every belief about something religious is a religious belief.
>This is self-contradictory. In other words, saying that religious statements are bad (or good or whatever) is a religious statement.
No, it's a "religious statement" statement.;)
It's a statement about something religious: that's what a religious statement *is*.
>"I don't know and I don't care" is a perfectly valid choice, but it is a choice. You apparently believe that it is not worth taking a position on; this is itself a position that you have taken -- and a religious position, since the topic is religion.
Every lack of action on any given subject is not itself an action, or else I'd be doing infinite things at once, and on every possible topic too!
That's not so implausible, but it's simply very large, not infinite. It's not doing "almost infinite" things at once, it's believing "almost infinite" things at once; in practice, though, not caring about most things dramatically decreases the amount of brain power necessary to do this.
Think of religious belief as a set of states that is the power set of all individual religious beliefs. Each element in the set represents a "state of belief", like one state of a state machine. Every possible set/state of religious beliefs are described by one of the elements of the set (a power set is composed of sets), and everybody has the ability to move from one element/state to another by changing their mind. Your beliefs are described by the "I don't care" set, where people fall by default (I don't believe that babies start out with religious beliefs) and where you choose to remain. Regardless of your action or lack of action, your religious beliefs are described by one of the elements of the power set. Everybody's are.
Just because the effect of not promoting any religion happens to coincide with the goals of the secular humanists doesn't mean that the government is promoting it.
That's why I said "de facto" and not "de jure". The government doesn't necessarily claim to promote it, but they are promoting the same things.
To be perfectly clear, I don't necessarily have a problem with the government promoting the religion of secular humanism, as long as they give equal time to other religions. That's a difficult, possibly impossible balancing act, but such is life. What's unconstitutional is when they promote one religion (de facto or de jure) above others.
I'm not sure if I would choose to defend myself with a firearm.
After a shotgun, for home use I recommend a short sword or hand-spear (like the the short-handled one the Zulus used). That is much deadlier than a handgun in close quarters provided you're willing to be aggressive. But using it is much more personal than using a handgun.
I'm attracted to pepper spray; it seems like a good compromise between effectiveness and nonlethality. I'm not too athletic, so a sword isn't optimal, and I've heard that swords that don't suck are expensive. If I am overpowered and have my weapon used against me, I might survive a bout with pepper spray.
To be honest, if I'm ever attacked with lethal force my plan is to have the last laugh by virtue of living in a death penalty state.
Nice troll attempt, but you can't distract me from the main point:
There is no bigotry in banning all religious activities at government functions.
That depends entirely on circumstances. Banning an activity for being religious is bigotry, and an example of government-sponsored promotion of the religion of secularism.
Attempting to ban "all religious activities" is inherently hypocritical, because carrying out such a ban is itself a religious activity.
Not tolerating an activity because it's religious is bigotry, as opposed to not tolerating an activity because it's stupid.
No. The issue is not about the activity, but about the use of governmental facilities for that activity while an official government activity is taking place.
You are confused about what an "activity" is. The activity that is not being tolerated in these theoretical examples is "praying at an official government event," not "praying". Nobody's suggested preventing people from "praying". This whole conversation is about "praying at a government event". That's the activity being discussed.
When you prohibit "praying at a government event", whether or not it's bigotry depends on your reason for prohibiting it. If you prohibit it because it's a religiously oriented activity, it's bigotry. If you prohibit it because the person suggesting it is black, it's bigotry. If you prohibit it because you don't agree with that particular religion, it's bigotry. If you prohibit it because it has nothing to do with zoning, it's not bigotry.
At the point that you are saying a prayer ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion;"), you are supporting some religion.
At the point that someone prohibits a religious practice (even in a limited context) because it is religious, they are practicing the religious belief that says that religious practices should be prohibited (in that context). This is self-contradictory. In other words, saying that religious statements are bad (or good or whatever) is a religious statement.
>In its loosest sense, 'lack of religion' certainly is a religion. The belief that organized religions are not true is a religious belief, yet it is often characterized as "lack of religion".
I don't believe that they are not true, I simply don't have a religious belief at all. A belief is a positive action. It takes some effort to believe something, and I don't expend any of that effort on the supernatural either way.
Your lack of belief is a positive action to not choose. "I don't know and I don't care" is a perfectly valid choice, but it is a choice. You apparently believe that it is not worth taking a position on; this is itself a position that you have taken -- and a religious position, since the topic is religion.
>Similarly, the belief that the natural world is all that ever was is a religious belief.
Eh? How does that involve the supernatural?
If the natural world is all that ever was, there is no supernatural. Naturalism is a religious belief.
>Everybody has religious beliefs about the existence or not of the supernatural. Making secular humanism the state religion is just as bad as making Catholicism the state religion.
Where is secular humanism the state religion?
It was explicitly the state religion in the Soviet Union. It's the de facto state religion in many countries, including the United States (or at least, that's the trend.) The dominant interpretation of "separation of church and state" does not recognize that secularism is a religious belief system, and so current practice promotes it over others.
I did. Not tolerating an activity because it's religious is bigotry, as opposed to not tolerating an activity because it's stupid. It's like being biased against a person because of their skin color as opposed to being biased against somebody because of their actions.
You think I'm stupid because of what I wrote. That's not necessarily bigotry. If you thought I was stupid because of my race/creed/color/sex, that's bigotry, because race/creed/color/sex doesn't determine whether or not somebody's stupid.
>The government is not obligated to protect you from exposure to someone else's religion, be it in a government meeting or not. You and I do not have a right to prayer-free zoning meetings, though we do have a right to campaign to replace those public officials who allow zoning meeting time to be wasted in that manner.
The government is specifically prohibited from preferentially supporting one religion over another. A government official standing up in an official capacity and preaching is doing exactly that. He is forcing you as a taxpayer to pay him to try and convert others.
I don't think that anybody has suggested allowing government officials to preach in an official capacity, aside from military chaplains, whose job is to do just that. (Are there any atheist chaplains? There should be.) The situation I'm concerned with is where somebody (who may or may not be a government official) says something like "I think that somebody should pray before every city council meeting" and then some government official (who may or may not be the same person) says "OK, go ahead." That's no different from somebody saying "I think that our elementary school kids should sing a song before every city council meeting" or "I think that we should go around the room and say our favorite color before every city council meeting." It becomes religious bigotry when somebody says "no, that's an act of a religion I don't agree with, so you can't do it".
>It would be nice if it went away, but it's only a civil rights issue if somebody uses its religious nature as a reason to promote or oppose it.
How is praying *not* promoting a religion?
It is. I made a mistake by omitting the word "unfairly" before "promote or oppose". If a government doesn't give equal time to different groups that want to pray during a public event, or if it prohibits prayer because of its religious nature, then it's unfair. If government says "it's irrelevant to the purpose of this meeting, let's get back to business" then it's being fair.
Schools can be used for church meetings as long as they are available to all the different religions.
Correct, and I believe that to be the case in practice as well as in theory.
>When discussing religion and government, rules and policies must be equitable and fair even when "lack of religion" is considered to be a religion. Government policies that oppose certain practices simply for being religious are bad because they favor the "lack of religion" religion over other religions.
Except that 'lack of religion' isn't religion by definition.
Speaking strictly, you're correct; however, speaking strictly, "lack of religion" does not exist. Everybody has one form of religion or another.
In its loosest sense, 'lack of religion' certainly is a religion. The belief that organized religions are not true is a religious belief, yet it is often characterized as "lack of religion". Similarly, the belief that the natural world is all that ever was is a religious belief. Everybody has religious beliefs about the existence or not of the supernatural. Making secular humanism the state religion is just as bad as making Catholicism the state religion.
The US Revolution was a citizen insurrection, resulting in a liberal democracy. No firearms = no successful insurrection = no US democracy.
To expand on that, firearms give military significance to people with little military training. Previously, military force was monopolized by those who could afford to train for a lifetime. (This is an oversimplification, but firearms did increase the significance of peasant armies, leading to governments that care about what the common people think.)
When somebody prays or carries out other religious expression during meetings or on government property, it does not force everyone else to support their religion.
It does force that religion upon them. If I am there to discuss zoning issues, I should not be forced to listen to someone else's religous propaganda first.
The government is not obligated to protect you from exposure to someone else's religion, be it in a government meeting or not. You and I do not have a right to prayer-free zoning meetings, though we do have a right to campaign to replace those public officials who allow zoning meeting time to be wasted in that manner.
I consider prayer at official government functions to be at about the same level of badness as political pork projects. It would be nice if it went away, but it's only a civil rights issue if somebody uses its religious nature as a reason to promote or oppose it. I oppose it because it's irrelevant and unnecessary and because it makes some people uncomfortable, not because it's religious, and that's why my opposition to it is not bigotry. Prayer at government events is nowhere near as bad as real civil rights problems like state-sponsored violence against minorities.
Government property can be used for religious functions. Although why you would want to when there are lots of churches around doesn't make sense.
Lots of churches are short of space, usually because they're new, poor and/or growing. It's not unusual to hear of a church that rents space from a business or school while they prepare to build or buy space of their own. Church buildings can be shared (maybe one church uses a building on Sunday morning and another uses it Sunday afternoon), but if everyone wants their meeting to be on Sunday, it limits things. On the other hand, schools and theaters are often unused on Sunday mornings, and are not averse to extra rental income.
A government-owned religious statue in a park hurts nobody (though paying for one is an unwise use of government resources.)
It's not about "hurt". It's about whether the government is seen as favouring one religion over another.
Appearances are less important than whether or not actual bigotry (pro- or anti-) is taking place. In most cases of religious monuments on government land, only one religious group has ever asked or offered to build a monument. It would be a civil rights problem if a group asked or offered to donate a religious monument to the government and the government refused because of the group's religious nature, and it would be a worse civil rights problem if the government allowed it for some religious groups and didn't allow it for others. The mere existence of a religious monument or decoration on public property is not evidence of religious bigotry, but getting rid of a religious monument or decoration because it is religious is.
When discussing religion and government, rules and policies must be equitable and fair even when "lack of religion" is considered to be a religion. Government policies that oppose certain practices simply for being religious are bad because they favor the "lack of religion" religion over other religions.
>Unless of course, it's the ability to carry out prayer or other religioius expression during meetings or on government property. Then the ACLU is indeed forcing government (courts) to take your rights away.
You have every right to pray on your own property, or anyone else's property who is cool with it. What you don't have the right to do is force everyone else to support your religion, so either government supports each religion equally, or not at all.
When somebody prays or carries out other religious expression during meetings or on government property, it does not force everyone else to support their religion. I, personally, think it's stupid and offensive to bring overt religious activity into a government meeting (like praying before a school awards dinner), but that's not government supporting religion (it's government tolerance of specific religious individuals who feel that they should conduct that religious activity at that time and place), and it's not at all unreasonable to use government property for religious activity as long as it's done in a fair and equitable manner. For example, a religiously-themed after-school club should be able to meet on school property, just like any other after-school club. A church, synagogue, mosque or other religious organization should be able to use space in a government building to use for their services under the same terms that any other social club receives from the government. A government-owned religious statue in a park hurts nobody (though paying for one is an unwise use of government resources.)
What this country really needs is a Freedom From The Freedom From Religion Foundation Foundation. But that's not the ACLU, so I'll stop now.
What's with "owning a gun" such a high civil liberty?
Doesn't freedom of expression come way before that?
The reasoning of those who consider "owning a gun" to be an important civil liberty is that it is the final protector of freedom of expression. The idea is that when the jackbooted thugs from the government threaten to take away your freedom, good citizens first protest, then vote against it, then take up arms in civil insurrection. Without firearms, civil insurrection is futile.
Now, you and I know that in this day and age, in a country with a professional military, civil insurrection is largely futile anyway. Gun nuts know this too, and that's why they're in favor of civilians being allowed to own military-grade weapons like machine guns and grenades. Most draw the line at WMD. I think the idea is that with military-grade weapons, a law-abiding citizen stands a chance of lasting against a government attack long enough for the courts to intervene, or something like that. I, personally, have my doubts.
To them, it's not a matter of choosing between freedom of expression and freedom to own firearms, it's a matter of choosing between having both, or having only freedom of expression (with nothing to back it up but faith that your government won't one day take it away.)
I say "them" and not "us" because I'm not sure where I put myself. I support the social changes that firearms made possible (liberal democracy etc.), but I am unsure about the morality of self-defense. I do note that my culture supports the right of self-defense, which is probably good enough to allow citizens to own firearms, and I do believe that it is useful socially for citizens to be able to defend themselves, so that's probably enough for most to consider me lumped in with the gun nuts, even though I'm not sure if I would choose to defend myself with a firearm.
I haven't upgraded a CPU for like... ever. IMO ugprading is not worth it. Usually when I upgrade it's more than CPU only, I need new type of RAM, new stuff like USB 2.0. And at the end, new mobo + CPU = better choice than simply a bit faster CPU that would run in the old machine.
But then you've got an old mobo + CPU + RAM just begging to be thrown inside of an old chassis and hooked up to an old HD... and then you notice that for hardly any dollars, your old, secondary machine can have a faster processor. It's sure nice when you can take your "crash and burn" machine up a notch or two for peanuts.
True, but is the amount of heat produced always directly proportional to the amount of fuel used? In other words, is the efficiency of the furnace a constant, or are some settings more efficient (in terms of heat per fuel) than others? The claim of a previous poster was that some furnaces have multiple settings: a "heat the place up real fast" setting that's less efficient and a "maintain constant temperature" setting that's more efficient.
If such furnaces don't exist, then as I mentioned in my earlier post, it's more efficient to keep the thermostat set as low as possible for as often as possible.
I don't see how having a higher low-setting could ever save heating energy.
Here's one way how having a higher low-setting could save heating energy: at unoccupied temperature A, the furnace burns 1 unit of fuel per time unit. At unoccupied temperature B, which is higher than A, the furnace burns 1.1 units of fuel per time unit. During the transition period from unoccupied to occupied temperatures, the furnace burns 10 units of fuel per time unit. The transition period from A to occupied takes 100 time units and the transition period from B to occupied takes 10 time units. The greater the difference between transition times, the longer you'd need to run the house at unoccupied temperature A to recoup the losses endured from the longer transition time; at a certain point, this time becomes longer than one's schedule allows, and it is then that it would be more efficient to use unoccupied temperature B.
If the furnace doesn't use more fuel during the transition period, then it's true that keeping the thermostat set as low as possible as often as possible will minimize fuel consumption.
My point is that software is more than just a sequence of instructions...
Then we disagree about one of the basic axioms of the chain of logic. If it were true that software were more than just a sequence of instructions, then I would probably agree with you, but it's not, so I don't. It's only a black box to people who don't understand it (which is most people, which explains much.)
I don't like the idea of patenting all solutions to a problem, but patenting a solution (whether tangible or not) to problem is, and always should be, perfectly acceptable.
Regardless of the economic consequences? If so, then what, in your view, motivates the existence of the patent system in the first place?
Historically, economic or military development has occasionally been promoted by ignoring or nationalizing a patent. The patent system is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
Silly me. I was thinking that the point of using a platform independent language was to create platform independent apps. Where do I get such absurd ideas?
I agree, it is absurd to think that platform independence is the only reason why somebody would ever want to use a language that supports it. Such languages often have other desirable features as well.
Nonsense. I can think of plenty of reasons to innovate and to create new products other than their potential patentability.
I agree. There are many reasons (hobby, fun, etc), but the biggest reason products are created is for profit. Usually if a product is anything but the most complex, it is readily copied by competitors. This results in little profit for the original inventor.
Most created products are not inventions. Usually, developer profit is generated via contract: an entity has a need for something, so it pays one or more entities to create it. The entity then uses that thing in some way.
I am less concerned with profit for the original inventor than I am concerned with the impact on society and the economy, and currently, the impact is negative. If we eliminated software patents, we would not eliminate innovation in software; instead, we would accelerate it.
Third, software is essentially a sequence of instructions, and a recipe is not an invention.
That's like saying that you can't patent a new type of paint because its color is blue. A sequence of instructions (ie a business method) is indeed patentable.
I don't understand the analogy. Could you elaborate? Of course you shouldn't be able to patent a process for making a new kind of paint, but I am open to arguments for patenting a new material or compound itself. A method is not an invention.
A business method, being not an invention, should not be patentable; that it is in practice is another flaw of the current patent system. (Not everything created is an invention: if I write a book, it is not an invention. My feces are not an invention. A sports strategy is not an invention.)
Fourth, the unique properties of software allow its development to be very rapid
Since that is the case, you should be arguing for shorter patent lengths.
I am: a length of zero for software patents.
I don't know if this is a trait common to all computer programmers, but in general, I favor simple, elegant solutions to problems. With regard to the problems of software patents, we have essentially three options:
1) keep the current system as it is, spending all kinds of time, effort and money and inhibiting progress
2) tweak the current system, spending more time, effort and money and hopefully in the end inhibiting progress less than we currently do
3) eliminate software patents entirely, spending much less time, effort and money (zero, to be precise) and encouraging progress
Of those three, one jumps out at me as maximizing the ratio of progress to expenditure, and at the same time, having the lowest overall expenditure.
This I don't get. Why should we limit the ability for an ingenius inventor to gain a government funded temporary monopoly for software, but not for a physical thing?
I can think of a few reasons. First, the three problems you note dominate all of the software patents that are issued, so eliminating software patents altogether would accomplish much more good than harm (and would be far easier to do too.) Second, software is essentially a number, and while we like to think that we have invented or created a piece of software, that number has always existed and will always exist, and numbers are not inventions. Third, software is essentially a sequence of instructions, and a recipe is not an invention. Fourth, the unique properties of software allow its development to be very rapid (compared to the development of physical products), and patents inhibit this rapid development, which has negative economic consequences. Remember that patents don't exist in a state of nature: they are an artificial creation designed to create economic benefit for society, and since software patents' economic harm exceeds their economic benefit, they're counterproductive.
Without patents there is little incentive (ie money) for new products to be made.
Nonsense. I can think of plenty of reasons to innovate and to create new products other than their potential patentability.
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How much is that in Libraries of Congress?
Aside from how I've explained that your statement is wrong, it supports my position. For your sake, I'll repeat myself:
By my logic, that Catholic is only biased against Catholicism if he refuses to talk about his beliefs during the zoning meeting because of their nature; he's not a bigot if he refuses to talk about them because they're irrelevant. In addition, it's in no way surprising or unusual for somebody to be bigoted in some way against their own religion; many people believe inconsistent things or behave in ways inconsistent with their claimed beliefs, so the situation that you describe is quite believable.
My core claim is this: literally separating church ("belief systems") and state ("government") is impossible. It's only attemptable if you define "church" to be some belief systems and not others, which is inherently bigoted. Rather than promoting some belief systems over others, the state should avoid that, instead treating all belief systems equally and fairly, inasmuch as a belief system respects the law (no "get out of jail free" cards). (In practice, of course, the state will fail to live up to this ideal because government is comprised of flawed people, and none of us are as stupid as all of us.)
If I were a retarded moron I would make irrelevant personal attacks instead of sticking to the point. Real retarded morons don't understand the difference between attacking a position and attacking a person. Do you?
What, you think that Catholics are never bigoted against Catholicism? I envy your lack of cynicism. A Catholic can certainly be biased against other Catholics, as well as against what they feel is imposed on them from above. People less arrogant than you or I often feel insecure about their own beliefs, which is why so many people change their beliefs so often these days. Most people are inconsistent about something, if not a lot of things. Lots of supposedly religious people just go through the motions of their religion out of inertia, because it's how they've been brought up or whatever, without actually believing.
Though, you do exaggerate somewhat. Being silent isn't enough to warrant the charge of bigotry; they have to actually believe that being silent about Catholicism is good simply because it's Catholicism and not because it has nothing to do with the meeting.
I'm pretty sure that a real retarded moron wouldn't be able to out-grammar, out-spell and out-argue you. Besides, what do you have against retarded morons?
Banning "all religions" is impossible. Banning all religions except for secular humanism is bigotry, just as banning all religions except for Catholicism is bigotry.
You don't need prayers, or organization, to have a religion. All it takes is a distinct set of religious beliefs, and absence of belief in any one religion counts. If you ask somebody his religious beliefs, and he says "I'm an athiest," that's a valid answer. That's what his religion is.
Secular humanism comprises a set of religious beliefs. If it helps, use the synonym "belief system" or "set of beliefs" instead of the word "religion". They're the same thing. Here's what you wrote earlier, with that substitution in bold:
You can't ban all sets of beliefs from government meetings. It just doesn't make sense.
Of course, but every belief about something religious is a religious belief.
It's a statement about something religious: that's what a religious statement *is*.
That's not so implausible, but it's simply very large, not infinite. It's not doing "almost infinite" things at once, it's believing "almost infinite" things at once; in practice, though, not caring about most things dramatically decreases the amount of brain power necessary to do this.
Think of religious belief as a set of states that is the power set of all individual religious beliefs. Each element in the set represents a "state of belief", like one state of a state machine. Every possible set/state of religious beliefs are described by one of the elements of the set (a power set is composed of sets), and everybody has the ability to move from one element/state to another by changing their mind. Your beliefs are described by the "I don't care" set, where people fall by default (I don't believe that babies start out with religious beliefs) and where you choose to remain. Regardless of your action or lack of action, your religious beliefs are described by one of the elements of the power set. Everybody's are.
That's why I said "de facto" and not "de jure". The government doesn't necessarily claim to promote it, but they are promoting the same things.
To be perfectly clear, I don't necessarily have a problem with the government promoting the religion of secular humanism, as long as they give equal time to other religions. That's a difficult, possibly impossible balancing act, but such is life. What's unconstitutional is when they promote one religion (de facto or de jure) above others.
I'm attracted to pepper spray; it seems like a good compromise between effectiveness and nonlethality. I'm not too athletic, so a sword isn't optimal, and I've heard that swords that don't suck are expensive. If I am overpowered and have my weapon used against me, I might survive a bout with pepper spray.
To be honest, if I'm ever attacked with lethal force my plan is to have the last laugh by virtue of living in a death penalty state.
That depends entirely on circumstances. Banning an activity for being religious is bigotry, and an example of government-sponsored promotion of the religion of secularism.
Attempting to ban "all religious activities" is inherently hypocritical, because carrying out such a ban is itself a religious activity.
You are confused about what an "activity" is. The activity that is not being tolerated in these theoretical examples is "praying at an official government event," not "praying". Nobody's suggested preventing people from "praying". This whole conversation is about "praying at a government event". That's the activity being discussed.
When you prohibit "praying at a government event", whether or not it's bigotry depends on your reason for prohibiting it. If you prohibit it because it's a religiously oriented activity, it's bigotry. If you prohibit it because the person suggesting it is black, it's bigotry. If you prohibit it because you don't agree with that particular religion, it's bigotry. If you prohibit it because it has nothing to do with zoning, it's not bigotry.
How do you define bigotry, then?
Please elaborate about how my statements have been incorrect. I'm interested in hearing new viewpoints, even if they're wrong.
At the point that someone prohibits a religious practice (even in a limited context) because it is religious, they are practicing the religious belief that says that religious practices should be prohibited (in that context). This is self-contradictory. In other words, saying that religious statements are bad (or good or whatever) is a religious statement.
Your lack of belief is a positive action to not choose. "I don't know and I don't care" is a perfectly valid choice, but it is a choice. You apparently believe that it is not worth taking a position on; this is itself a position that you have taken -- and a religious position, since the topic is religion.
If the natural world is all that ever was, there is no supernatural. Naturalism is a religious belief.
It was explicitly the state religion in the Soviet Union. It's the de facto state religion in many countries, including the United States (or at least, that's the trend.) The dominant interpretation of "separation of church and state" does not recognize that secularism is a religious belief system, and so current practice promotes it over others.
I did. Not tolerating an activity because it's religious is bigotry, as opposed to not tolerating an activity because it's stupid. It's like being biased against a person because of their skin color as opposed to being biased against somebody because of their actions.
You think I'm stupid because of what I wrote. That's not necessarily bigotry. If you thought I was stupid because of my race/creed/color/sex, that's bigotry, because race/creed/color/sex doesn't determine whether or not somebody's stupid.
I don't think that anybody has suggested allowing government officials to preach in an official capacity, aside from military chaplains, whose job is to do just that. (Are there any atheist chaplains? There should be.) The situation I'm concerned with is where somebody (who may or may not be a government official) says something like "I think that somebody should pray before every city council meeting" and then some government official (who may or may not be the same person) says "OK, go ahead." That's no different from somebody saying "I think that our elementary school kids should sing a song before every city council meeting" or "I think that we should go around the room and say our favorite color before every city council meeting." It becomes religious bigotry when somebody says "no, that's an act of a religion I don't agree with, so you can't do it".
It is. I made a mistake by omitting the word "unfairly" before "promote or oppose". If a government doesn't give equal time to different groups that want to pray during a public event, or if it prohibits prayer because of its religious nature, then it's unfair. If government says "it's irrelevant to the purpose of this meeting, let's get back to business" then it's being fair.
Correct, and I believe that to be the case in practice as well as in theory.
Speaking strictly, you're correct; however, speaking strictly, "lack of religion" does not exist. Everybody has one form of religion or another.
In its loosest sense, 'lack of religion' certainly is a religion. The belief that organized religions are not true is a religious belief, yet it is often characterized as "lack of religion". Similarly, the belief that the natural world is all that ever was is a religious belief. Everybody has religious beliefs about the existence or not of the supernatural. Making secular humanism the state religion is just as bad as making Catholicism the state religion.
To expand on that, firearms give military significance to people with little military training. Previously, military force was monopolized by those who could afford to train for a lifetime. (This is an oversimplification, but firearms did increase the significance of peasant armies, leading to governments that care about what the common people think.)
The government is not obligated to protect you from exposure to someone else's religion, be it in a government meeting or not. You and I do not have a right to prayer-free zoning meetings, though we do have a right to campaign to replace those public officials who allow zoning meeting time to be wasted in that manner.
I consider prayer at official government functions to be at about the same level of badness as political pork projects. It would be nice if it went away, but it's only a civil rights issue if somebody uses its religious nature as a reason to promote or oppose it. I oppose it because it's irrelevant and unnecessary and because it makes some people uncomfortable, not because it's religious, and that's why my opposition to it is not bigotry. Prayer at government events is nowhere near as bad as real civil rights problems like state-sponsored violence against minorities.
Lots of churches are short of space, usually because they're new, poor and/or growing. It's not unusual to hear of a church that rents space from a business or school while they prepare to build or buy space of their own. Church buildings can be shared (maybe one church uses a building on Sunday morning and another uses it Sunday afternoon), but if everyone wants their meeting to be on Sunday, it limits things. On the other hand, schools and theaters are often unused on Sunday mornings, and are not averse to extra rental income.
Appearances are less important than whether or not actual bigotry (pro- or anti-) is taking place. In most cases of religious monuments on government land, only one religious group has ever asked or offered to build a monument. It would be a civil rights problem if a group asked or offered to donate a religious monument to the government and the government refused because of the group's religious nature, and it would be a worse civil rights problem if the government allowed it for some religious groups and didn't allow it for others. The mere existence of a religious monument or decoration on public property is not evidence of religious bigotry, but getting rid of a religious monument or decoration because it is religious is.
When discussing religion and government, rules and policies must be equitable and fair even when "lack of religion" is considered to be a religion. Government policies that oppose certain practices simply for being religious are bad because they favor the "lack of religion" religion over other religions.
When somebody prays or carries out other religious expression during meetings or on government property, it does not force everyone else to support their religion. I, personally, think it's stupid and offensive to bring overt religious activity into a government meeting (like praying before a school awards dinner), but that's not government supporting religion (it's government tolerance of specific religious individuals who feel that they should conduct that religious activity at that time and place), and it's not at all unreasonable to use government property for religious activity as long as it's done in a fair and equitable manner. For example, a religiously-themed after-school club should be able to meet on school property, just like any other after-school club. A church, synagogue, mosque or other religious organization should be able to use space in a government building to use for their services under the same terms that any other social club receives from the government. A government-owned religious statue in a park hurts nobody (though paying for one is an unwise use of government resources.)
What this country really needs is a Freedom From The Freedom From Religion Foundation Foundation. But that's not the ACLU, so I'll stop now.
The reasoning of those who consider "owning a gun" to be an important civil liberty is that it is the final protector of freedom of expression. The idea is that when the jackbooted thugs from the government threaten to take away your freedom, good citizens first protest, then vote against it, then take up arms in civil insurrection. Without firearms, civil insurrection is futile.
Now, you and I know that in this day and age, in a country with a professional military, civil insurrection is largely futile anyway. Gun nuts know this too, and that's why they're in favor of civilians being allowed to own military-grade weapons like machine guns and grenades. Most draw the line at WMD. I think the idea is that with military-grade weapons, a law-abiding citizen stands a chance of lasting against a government attack long enough for the courts to intervene, or something like that. I, personally, have my doubts.
To them, it's not a matter of choosing between freedom of expression and freedom to own firearms, it's a matter of choosing between having both, or having only freedom of expression (with nothing to back it up but faith that your government won't one day take it away.)
I say "them" and not "us" because I'm not sure where I put myself. I support the social changes that firearms made possible (liberal democracy etc.), but I am unsure about the morality of self-defense. I do note that my culture supports the right of self-defense, which is probably good enough to allow citizens to own firearms, and I do believe that it is useful socially for citizens to be able to defend themselves, so that's probably enough for most to consider me lumped in with the gun nuts, even though I'm not sure if I would choose to defend myself with a firearm.
But then you've got an old mobo + CPU + RAM just begging to be thrown inside of an old chassis and hooked up to an old HD... and then you notice that for hardly any dollars, your old, secondary machine can have a faster processor. It's sure nice when you can take your "crash and burn" machine up a notch or two for peanuts.
True, but is the amount of heat produced always directly proportional to the amount of fuel used? In other words, is the efficiency of the furnace a constant, or are some settings more efficient (in terms of heat per fuel) than others? The claim of a previous poster was that some furnaces have multiple settings: a "heat the place up real fast" setting that's less efficient and a "maintain constant temperature" setting that's more efficient.
If such furnaces don't exist, then as I mentioned in my earlier post, it's more efficient to keep the thermostat set as low as possible for as often as possible.
Defined that way, religion will only end with the dying breath of the second to last human.
Here's one way how having a higher low-setting could save heating energy: at unoccupied temperature A, the furnace burns 1 unit of fuel per time unit. At unoccupied temperature B, which is higher than A, the furnace burns 1.1 units of fuel per time unit. During the transition period from unoccupied to occupied temperatures, the furnace burns 10 units of fuel per time unit. The transition period from A to occupied takes 100 time units and the transition period from B to occupied takes 10 time units. The greater the difference between transition times, the longer you'd need to run the house at unoccupied temperature A to recoup the losses endured from the longer transition time; at a certain point, this time becomes longer than one's schedule allows, and it is then that it would be more efficient to use unoccupied temperature B.
If the furnace doesn't use more fuel during the transition period, then it's true that keeping the thermostat set as low as possible as often as possible will minimize fuel consumption.
Actually, I'm white.
Then we disagree about one of the basic axioms of the chain of logic. If it were true that software were more than just a sequence of instructions, then I would probably agree with you, but it's not, so I don't. It's only a black box to people who don't understand it (which is most people, which explains much.)
Regardless of the economic consequences? If so, then what, in your view, motivates the existence of the patent system in the first place?
Historically, economic or military development has occasionally been promoted by ignoring or nationalizing a patent. The patent system is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
I agree, it is absurd to think that platform independence is the only reason why somebody would ever want to use a language that supports it. Such languages often have other desirable features as well.
Most created products are not inventions. Usually, developer profit is generated via contract: an entity has a need for something, so it pays one or more entities to create it. The entity then uses that thing in some way.
I am less concerned with profit for the original inventor than I am concerned with the impact on society and the economy, and currently, the impact is negative. If we eliminated software patents, we would not eliminate innovation in software; instead, we would accelerate it.
I don't understand the analogy. Could you elaborate? Of course you shouldn't be able to patent a process for making a new kind of paint, but I am open to arguments for patenting a new material or compound itself. A method is not an invention.
A business method, being not an invention, should not be patentable; that it is in practice is another flaw of the current patent system. (Not everything created is an invention: if I write a book, it is not an invention. My feces are not an invention. A sports strategy is not an invention.)
I am: a length of zero for software patents.
I don't know if this is a trait common to all computer programmers, but in general, I favor simple, elegant solutions to problems. With regard to the problems of software patents, we have essentially three options:
1) keep the current system as it is, spending all kinds of time, effort and money and inhibiting progress
2) tweak the current system, spending more time, effort and money and hopefully in the end inhibiting progress less than we currently do
3) eliminate software patents entirely, spending much less time, effort and money (zero, to be precise) and encouraging progress
Of those three, one jumps out at me as maximizing the ratio of progress to expenditure, and at the same time, having the lowest overall expenditure.
I can think of a few reasons. First, the three problems you note dominate all of the software patents that are issued, so eliminating software patents altogether would accomplish much more good than harm (and would be far easier to do too.) Second, software is essentially a number, and while we like to think that we have invented or created a piece of software, that number has always existed and will always exist, and numbers are not inventions. Third, software is essentially a sequence of instructions, and a recipe is not an invention. Fourth, the unique properties of software allow its development to be very rapid (compared to the development of physical products), and patents inhibit this rapid development, which has negative economic consequences. Remember that patents don't exist in a state of nature: they are an artificial creation designed to create economic benefit for society, and since software patents' economic harm exceeds their economic benefit, they're counterproductive.
Nonsense. I can think of plenty of reasons to innovate and to create new products other than their potential patentability.