85% of those are more accurate than the ones done scientifically (this is probably true, because of the lack of due diligence on the people who come up with statistics).
One of the problems w/ today's programmers is that they don't have the theoretical knowledge to understand why MySQL might not be the best thing to use instead of Oracle, and why PostgreSQL is a much better fit.
Likewise, many of them are opting not to learn assembly language, and are winding up not knowing how computers actually work. It's very frustrating.
On top of that, few programmers know of even the leaps that computer science made in the 60's, and are still using the state-of-the-art from the 50's. That's great if you know the difference, but if it's because you just aren't aware of it then there's a problem. Things like closures, continuations, hygienic macros, languages w/ better type systems, multimethods, ambiguous values, and lazy evaluation just to name a few. The fact that a language w/ a garbage collector was seen as a huge improvement in the 90s showed just how far behind we were.
A lot of programmers start off in a tiny little area and never even peer to see what might be beyond the horizon. How many Windows programmers even know what a regular expression is? How many C/C++ programmers know that they can have garbage collection _in_ C/C++? How many people have had to implement logic processing in a language that just wasn't well-suited to it, just because they didn't know the languages that were better?
I see this happen all the time, and it's very frustrating. Some software houses, in an entire staff, do not have anyone who looks above the day-to-day grind to see what else might be out there.
One thing that I think BSD users forget is that the more Linux users there are, the more BSD-compatible software gets used/written/tested. An increase in Linux helps Free UNIX, and BSD can't help but benefit from that.
Out of curiosity, has anyone tried those GNU-ized BSD's coming out of Debian?
Here's the big question (on a somewhat serious note): are made-up statistics any less accurate than those done "scientifically" but with bad questions and bad methodology?
Actually, a lot of regulation _helps_ predatory capitalism. When you have a lot of regulations, then the only companies that have the capital to make a profit are the existing entities that caused you so much trouble you had to start regulating in the first place. The only new companies who can overcome this are large, monied companies. This leaves small, value-based, ethical companies completely out of the picture, so, at best you wind up with a regulated immorality, rather than a free morality.
What really needs to happen is for free citizens to stand up and start NOT BUYING PRODUCTS from people who are obviously grossly immoral.
Part of the problem comes from the fact that ethics are not taught in school. In order for something like this to come off, you have to have ethical failures by at least three distinct parties: Microsoft, their advertising agency, and whatever media the advertising was displayed in. If zero out of three institutions have the moral clarity to get rid of this nonsense, I don't think we can attribute it to the advertisers, I think it's part of the general lack of ethical standards and me-based morality of our generation. To these three entities, all of this was ethical because it benefitted them.
"About 100 million Americans will demonstrate their lack of understanding of this in November, and will either cast their votes for the pro-business and anti-labor Republican, or pro-business and anti-labor Democrat."
Two things:
1) Please don't call it "pro-business". Pro-corporation is a better term. EVERYONE is involved in business. Being pro-business simply means allowing people to conduct their own business (whether financial or otherwise) freely, while being pro-corporation means taking a socialist/mercantilistic approach, and favoring corporations (especially powerful corporations) above the general population.
2) I'm not sure I agree with your idea that Americans don't understand this. Most of them do, they just aren't sure what to do about it. They pick an R or D system, not because it matches who they are, but because it doesn't go as far outside as the other. In order to correct the situation, it would require funding. That requires bankers, which just undermines the whole concept from the start.
Unfortunately, to start such a revolution, you would need financial backing. You would probably go to a banker, and then you have just undermined your entire revolution.
"Christianity is the moral foundation upoun which the Third Reich built its actions."
That's funny, considering that they held Christianity in contempt and thought it was just more Jew morality:
"National Socialism and Christian concepts are irreconcilable. The Christian churches build upon man's ignorance and are endeavoring to keep the greatest number of people in a state of ignorance....Our National Socialist concept of the world is on a far higher plane than are the ideas of Christianity, whose essential points have been taken from the Jews. For that reason too, we have no need of Christianity....." (Martin Bowman)
It is true that Hitler used Christians when it suited him, but he used every other group when it suited him, too. But the core values of Naziism was not Christianity by any stretch of the imagination.
Mein Kampf asserted that Darwinism was the only possible basis of a successful Germany. The Nazis felt good about their mass killings because they thought it was good evolutionary science.
According to Albert Einstein:
" Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
Here's another good quote from Hitler about the Church:
'... organized lie [that] must be smashed. The State must remain the absolute master. When I was younger, I thought it was necessary to set about [destroying religion]... with dynamite. I've since realized there's room for a little subtlety.... The final state must be... in St. Peter's Chair, a senile officiant; facing him a few sinister old women... The young and healthy are on our side... it's impossible to eternally hold humanity in bondage and lies.... [It] was only between the sixth and eighth centuries that Christianity was imposed upon our peoples.... Our peoples had previously succeeded in living all right without this religion. I have six divisions of SS men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn't prevent them from going to their death with serenity in their souls.'
If you need more evidence, let me know, and I'll provide it.
"Here in Australia, if you walk into a public hospital needing treatment, you will not be turned away. If you walk into a private hospital they will tell you to pay up or fuck off."
That's probably because you _have_ socialized medicine. In countries like ours, I am not aware of hospitals that will turn you down completely because of lack of funds. In fact, no Catholic hospital (which is most of them) will refuse treatment because of lack of funds.
"Where's the cost to freedom?"
If you are to guarantee health care, that means that you have to guarantee that the service of health care be available. What if there aren't enough doctors? Do you then compel certain individuals to become doctors who would otherwise choose another career? What if someone thinks that the state's concept of treatment is complete bunk? Do they get treated what they perceive is the "right" way or do they get the same treatment as everyone else? I can tell you for a fact that my son would be dead today if hospitals administered their "standard care" to him. However, since hospitals here are private, they are more free.
In addition, there are many aspects to medicine that are morally questionable - abortion, for instance. In socialized medicine (correct me if I am wrong), the doctors have to follow the morality of the state, and cannot choose themselves if they believe an operation is immoral (as America is becoming more socialized, this is happening increasingly here, too).
Also, there is the general concept that taking money away from one person to serve the purposes of another is stealing, even if the purposes are good. For a good overview of that concept, you should read thesethreecolumns by Walter Williams and Neil Boortz's book (by the way, Neil Boortz used to be a liberal/socialist).
"There is no guarantee that either of these support mechanisms will help an individual."
There is no guarantee that _any_ support mechanism, including socialized medicine, will help an individual.
It's nice to believe in such things, but they just aren't the case. Welcome to life, there are no guarantees. Usually, when someone tries to guarantee X, they do so at the cost of just about everything else, especially freedom.
I agree with all of your points except the one about exceptions. You said:
"Exceptions. I'm trying to think of a modern language without exceptions. Hell, even C and Forth have exceptions."
I think he was talking about useful exceptions. Java has a real nice way of handling exceptions, and since it is GC'd you don't have the same hideous problems that you do in C/C++ with memory allocation.
Personally, the reason I think that Java sucks is the same reason I think most languages suck:
* No macro system
* No closures (you _can_ do closures w/ objects, but it's REALLY UGLY)
* No continuations
* No tuple-returning functions (this increases code size by about 50%)
Of those, the lack of tuple-returning functions is probably the biggest practical issue on a daily basis. For example, with Perl, I can grab a row from a database query like this
Macro systems (true macro systems, like Scheme's, not crap like C/C++ macros) are nice, because they allow you to emulate just about any feature of any other language. Scheme doesn't have exceptions, but you can combine continuations and Scheme's macro system and make exceptions. Scheme doesn't have dynamic variables, but again you can build them w/ macros. Scheme doesn't have tuple-returning functions, but you get the picture (hopefully).
Continuations are _really_ nice in complex code, but they aren't that necessary on a daily basis. They are more useful in behind-the-scenes functions.
Closures are pretty darn useful, but you can usually code around them pretty well if you don't have real ones.
If you haven't noticed, I like Scheme because it has a few really powerful features, and the macro system can be used to stitch these features together into just about any other feature of any other programming language.
Actually, I'd say it is you who needs to do more reading of scripture if you include the cleanliness and sabbath laws in your description of what is biblical principle. Especially since the regulation against male/male relationships is re-iterated in the New Testament, specifically as something that marks someone as turning away from God.
"STFU n00b"
I wouldn't classify myself as a n00b. I've studied quite extensively in all of the issues you've raised, in textual criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, Biblical languages (mostly Greek, some Hebrew, no Aramaic), interpretation issues, translation issues, copying issues, authorship issues, and other issues that might or might not be relevant to this discussion.
"Until someone likes you looks past all those damn trees, sees the forest, and actually starts following those Biblical principals you laud so highly (human compassion being far more important then laws concerned with seed spillage)"
On what do you base this idea that I am uncompassionate? I'm not saying that I am compassionate, but I see nothing in this conversation that would lend someone to think me not compassionate, unless you hold the belief that everyone who calls a sin a sin as uncompassionate. Jesus certainly called a sin a sin. I think it _is_ compassion to tell someone when they are going wrong. I certainly appreciate my friends who tell me when I'm doing wrong much more than those who simply remain silent.
"Hating gays (or calling what they do immoral which boils down to the same thing) is nowhere supported in the words of Jesus. In fact, he was the most tolerant liberal person around."
If you think that calling acts that people do "immoral", I hate to tell you, but that makes Jesus the most intolerant person there was. He loved everyone, but also told them to "sin no more". That indicates that what they _were_ doing was sin (i.e. - it was immoral).
Jesus was very tolerant, not because He did not believe in sin, but because He knew that people were capable of overcoming sin. Really, according to the modern viewpoint, Jesus was very intolerant because he told people they were sick because of their sin and that God had sent destruction to large buildings because of the sins of the city. However, Jesus came to proclaim the good news - that we get a second chance!
"If you can even come up with any even purely hypothetical method by which other people willingly engaging in gayness (in private) could have any negative effect on you, me, or society then let's hear it."
As for morality in and of itself, this question isn't important. The important part is if you believe that the Bible is true, then God said that homosexuality is wrong. Presumably, God is smarter than us. If not, He probably wouldn't be God.
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't any practical consequences. The consequences aren't for me, particularly, but for the next generation. It's the same kind of problems that have arisen in the last generation because of divorce. If marriage is officially recognized, that will probably lead ot official recognition of homosexual marriage in government schools. This means that my kids will spend 7 hours a day in an environment where the true meaning of marriage is completely lost, and would probably be a hate crime if it were taught. That only leaves me 5 daylight hours to correct the damage. I _can_ homeschool, and probably will, but note that I still have to pay money to people who are teaching this to children. This causes many people not able to afford the homeschool option, because it's too expense to both pay taxes and homeschool.
This is actually by design. Secular humanists in the 1930's (I think, I'll have to re-check that year) explicitly said that they plan on using government schools as a way to de-church children, saying that a few hours on sunday will not be able to un-do the teaching they get for many hours a day every day.
One thing to note about marriage in general, that most people seem to be mistaken about, is the reason for marriage in the first place. This past generation of divorce happened largely because we forgot what marriage is for. The purpose of marriage is _not_ love (although having love sure helps!). The purpose of marriage is raising a family. This is the reason why the state is involved in the first place -- having a stable family _is_ in the interest of the state (a stable family structure usually means that the state has less to do). Without this purpose, there is no reason why the state should have _any_ involvement in marriage whatsoever.
Now, how you think that believing in immorality leads to torture, is itself a tortured line of thinking:)
"Too much has been done in the name of religion for anyone to convincingly argue that it is good for us"
That's a silly argument. If you think religion is bad, you should look at what atheistic states have done. Stalin killed by the tens of millions, Hitler killed about 6 million. I don't think that the death toll from the entire history of religious persecution matches that done by atheism in this century alone.
Sure, there have been atrocities committed in the name of religion. But it seems if you look at the information available (not much since atheism hasn't been around long) that religion is a limitting factor to violence, not an escalating one, even when religion is used as the validation for the practices.
"There are still morals in secular humanism, but they are based on observations of results rather than dogma written by cult leaders thousands of years ago."
This isn't quite true. You _cannot_ have morals without dogma. Secular humanism doesn't have as many as other theological beliefs, but it plainly has some. For example, why is killing your neighbor wrong? Because it violates the rights of the individual? Where did the individual get rights? In order to get past descriptive to perscriptive, you have to have decided how you _want_ the world to look. There is no way to deduce that scientifically, it can only come from dogma.
In fact, the freedoms we have in the United States are based on Christian dogma. As Patrick Henry said:
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."
Personally, I think that the reason that secularism has been so inclusive in the US is because of Christianity. In places where Biblical Christianity was not as strong, secularism has not generally been as egalitarian as it is here. Simply, if you don't believe that there is anything special about "life" as opposed to other types of matter except for complexity, it means that there's no real reason for _any_ morality, even that which restrains violating the rights of the individual. If you don't believe that life is different than other matter, then killing a person isn't different than breaking a computer.
You don't call that a theological proposition, or only "weakly so"? How _more_ theological could you be? This statement says that "either there is no God, or if there is a God, He does NOT do X." That's a plainly theological statement.
First of all, most arguments and lists of atrocities in the Bible were not done by the command or even saction of God. Most lists of such would be cut by 2/3 if you just look at what God specifically requested. The Bible is one of the few national books that record both the good and the bad of the administrations. Most of the Bible is narrative, not prescriptive, meaning that while you can pull some morality from narrative passages, they are there to record history, not rules.
As to the rest, the question is simply whether or not you believe in the God of the Bible or not. God is not God because we want Him to be, nor does He cease to be God if we don't like who He is. If the God of the Bible is true, then He is God even if you don't like Him. If the God of the Bible is not true, then, as the apostle Paul puts it, we Christians are to be pitied above all others. But whether the God of the Bible is true certainly has nothing to do with whether or not one of His creations likes His politics.
Actually, the wholesale slaughter of non-believers was never a part of the Bible. Did God sanction some specific acts of genocide? Yes. But on the whole, other religions were tolerated, but not if done by Israelites. Foreigners were free to believe whatever they wanted, even within the borders of Israel. In fact, God specifically told the Israelites to care for aliens living within their borders, as they were once aliens living in a strange land.
The specific Biblical principle I was referring to was that Paul listed homosexuality in Romans as "sinful desires" and "indecent acts", and used it as proof that they had exchanged the knowledge of God for a lie. There are a few other passages, too.
Of course, what most people miss in studying theology, is that who God is has nothing to do with who they want God to be. Many people try to judge Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions on whether or not it has ideas that are pleasing to them. However, if truth is what you are after, this is a completely backwards way of looking at it. I do not believe a given description of George W Bush based on who I want him to be, but rather who he is. If evidence shows him to be X, it doesn't matter if I want him to be Y or not, he is X. Likewise, it does not matter if you want God to look like X or Y, it only matters what His nature actually is. Unfortunately, there are not any measures (that I know of, anyway), of determining for certain the nature of God without presuming certain beliefs. However, the judgment should not be based on what we _want_ to believe but rather what _is_.
"How is society better off if gays stayed repressed, sad, and angry?"
Are you sure they would be?
"So much for peace and love of Christ eh?"
Christ loves homosexuals, just like he loves all of us sinners. However, Christ calls us out of our sin into His righteousness. All of us, no matter what our sin. Notice that to the woman that He saved from stoning He gave the instruction "go and sin no more". Jesus loved the woman and did not wish people to persecute her, but wanted her to live better than her impulses would lead her.
"Perhaps blind people should stop letting their genetically predisposed problem be a problem. It's their choice to be blind right?"
What a silly argument. As I mentioned in my original post, noone I know of has a problem with someone having the desires and urgings - those _are_ products of genetics. However, we are not bound to act out of them. Even people who do not believe in Christianity knows they have control over their actions. Have you ever been attracted to someone and not had sex with them? If so, that is evidence that genetic urgings do not force you to behave in certain ways. Genetics may _constrain_ your behavior (for example, it may be impossible for you to have a relationship with a woman), but it does not force many behaviors (for example, your genes do not force you to have sex with any particular person, or anyone for that matter).
As I understood it, the conversation was about whether or not people were responsible for their own actions, or if they could throw it all off as someone else's fault or a fault of genetics. I was pointing out that genetic predisposition does not mean that someone is forced to do what they are genetically predisposed to do, and in many cases society is better off if they don't.
"You have no evidence to support your world view and yet your willing to _FORCE_ people (ie by force, gunpoint if neccesary - which is what passing a law really is) to conform to _YOUR_ worldview."
That's the funniest thing I've heard all day. Where do you assume that I think it should be law to not engage in homosexual acts? I said no such thing. I simply said it was immoral. THAT is a first amendment right.
" We have the Constitution to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority - the entire homosexuality issue is a shining example of why we have the constitution, and every day I see people like you trying to bypass it, or pervert it (FMA)."
I think this is mostly your own imagination, as indicated by your previous comment. The FMA does not violate any part of the constitution, except perhaps that it goes beyond the explicit powers listed in the constitution (if you throw it out on that basis, you also have to get rid of medicare, social security, welfare, etc.).
"you are infavor of not respecting otherpeoples rights"
What evidence do you say this on? I respect all people's rights.
"I respect your right for you to be a intolerant homophobic fascist theistic bigot"
That's pretty amusing. Homophobic? That would indicate that I'm scared of homosexuals. Not the case. In fact, I have had several homosexual friends. They know that I think what they do is wrong. Likewise I have friends who drink excessively, and they know that I think what they do is wrong. Fascist? Far from it. Fascism is actually another form of socialism, and I am a free market kind of guy. Theistic? Wholeheartedly. Bigot? I'd say that you were the one reading presuppositions into the argument, not me.
As for secular humanism, I've never actually heard Rush (or anyone on talk radio, for that matter) mention secular humanism. Of course, it's been about 5 years since I've listened to Rush, so he could be mentioning it now. My reasons for not liking secular humanism are too long to list here, but mainly it's the fact that secular humanism is a theological proposition, but is being pushed as a scientific proposition. Our society and schools are promoting/advocating secular humanist theology, while at the same time chanting "separation of church and state", which seems a contradiction to me.
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85% of those are more accurate than the ones done scientifically (this is probably true, because of the lack of due diligence on the people who come up with statistics).
One of the problems w/ today's programmers is that they don't have the theoretical knowledge to understand why MySQL might not be the best thing to use instead of Oracle, and why PostgreSQL is a much better fit.
Likewise, many of them are opting not to learn assembly language, and are winding up not knowing how computers actually work. It's very frustrating.
On top of that, few programmers know of even the leaps that computer science made in the 60's, and are still using the state-of-the-art from the 50's. That's great if you know the difference, but if it's because you just aren't aware of it then there's a problem. Things like closures, continuations, hygienic macros, languages w/ better type systems, multimethods, ambiguous values, and lazy evaluation just to name a few. The fact that a language w/ a garbage collector was seen as a huge improvement in the 90s showed just how far behind we were.
A lot of programmers start off in a tiny little area and never even peer to see what might be beyond the horizon. How many Windows programmers even know what a regular expression is? How many C/C++ programmers know that they can have garbage collection _in_ C/C++? How many people have had to implement logic processing in a language that just wasn't well-suited to it, just because they didn't know the languages that were better?
I see this happen all the time, and it's very frustrating. Some software houses, in an entire staff, do not have anyone who looks above the day-to-day grind to see what else might be out there.
One thing that I think BSD users forget is that the more Linux users there are, the more BSD-compatible software gets used/written/tested. An increase in Linux helps Free UNIX, and BSD can't help but benefit from that.
Out of curiosity, has anyone tried those GNU-ized BSD's coming out of Debian?
Here's the big question (on a somewhat serious note): are made-up statistics any less accurate than those done "scientifically" but with bad questions and bad methodology?
27% of made-up statistics are right on the money.
Actually, a lot of regulation _helps_ predatory capitalism. When you have a lot of regulations, then the only companies that have the capital to make a profit are the existing entities that caused you so much trouble you had to start regulating in the first place. The only new companies who can overcome this are large, monied companies. This leaves small, value-based, ethical companies completely out of the picture, so, at best you wind up with a regulated immorality, rather than a free morality.
What really needs to happen is for free citizens to stand up and start NOT BUYING PRODUCTS from people who are obviously grossly immoral.
Part of the problem comes from the fact that ethics are not taught in school. In order for something like this to come off, you have to have ethical failures by at least three distinct parties: Microsoft, their advertising agency, and whatever media the advertising was displayed in. If zero out of three institutions have the moral clarity to get rid of this nonsense, I don't think we can attribute it to the advertisers, I think it's part of the general lack of ethical standards and me-based morality of our generation. To these three entities, all of this was ethical because it benefitted them.
"About 100 million Americans will demonstrate their lack of understanding of this in November, and will either cast their votes for the pro-business and anti-labor Republican, or pro-business and anti-labor Democrat."
Two things:
1) Please don't call it "pro-business". Pro-corporation is a better term. EVERYONE is involved in business. Being pro-business simply means allowing people to conduct their own business (whether financial or otherwise) freely, while being pro-corporation means taking a socialist/mercantilistic approach, and favoring corporations (especially powerful corporations) above the general population.
2) I'm not sure I agree with your idea that Americans don't understand this. Most of them do, they just aren't sure what to do about it. They pick an R or D system, not because it matches who they are, but because it doesn't go as far outside as the other. In order to correct the situation, it would require funding. That requires bankers, which just undermines the whole concept from the start.
Unfortunately, to start such a revolution, you would need financial backing. You would probably go to a banker, and then you have just undermined your entire revolution.
"Christianity is the moral foundation upoun which the Third Reich built its actions."
... organized lie [that] must be smashed. The State must remain the absolute master. When I was younger, I thought it was necessary to set about [destroying religion] ... with dynamite. I've since realized there's room for a little subtlety .... The final state must be ... in St. Peter's Chair, a senile officiant; facing him a few sinister old women ... The young and healthy are on our side ... it's impossible to eternally hold humanity in bondage and lies .... [It] was only between the sixth and eighth centuries that Christianity was imposed upon our peoples .... Our peoples had previously succeeded in living all right without this religion. I have six divisions of SS men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn't prevent them from going to their death with serenity in their souls.'
That's funny, considering that they held Christianity in contempt and thought it was just more Jew morality:
"National Socialism and Christian concepts are irreconcilable. The Christian churches build upon man's ignorance and are endeavoring to keep the greatest number of people in a state of ignorance....Our National Socialist concept of the world is on a far higher plane than are the ideas of Christianity, whose essential points have been taken from the Jews. For that reason too, we have no need of Christianity....." (Martin Bowman)
It is true that Hitler used Christians when it suited him, but he used every other group when it suited him, too. But the core values of Naziism was not Christianity by any stretch of the imagination.
Mein Kampf asserted that Darwinism was the only possible basis of a successful Germany. The Nazis felt good about their mass killings because they thought it was good evolutionary science.
According to Albert Einstein:
" Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
Here's another good quote from Hitler about the Church:
'
If you need more evidence, let me know, and I'll provide it.
"Here in Australia, if you walk into a public hospital needing treatment, you will not be turned away. If you walk into a private hospital they will tell you to pay up or fuck off."
That's probably because you _have_ socialized medicine. In countries like ours, I am not aware of hospitals that will turn you down completely because of lack of funds. In fact, no Catholic hospital (which is most of them) will refuse treatment because of lack of funds.
"Where's the cost to freedom?"
If you are to guarantee health care, that means that you have to guarantee that the service of health care be available. What if there aren't enough doctors? Do you then compel certain individuals to become doctors who would otherwise choose another career? What if someone thinks that the state's concept of treatment is complete bunk? Do they get treated what they perceive is the "right" way or do they get the same treatment as everyone else? I can tell you for a fact that my son would be dead today if hospitals administered their "standard care" to him. However, since hospitals here are private, they are more free.
In addition, there are many aspects to medicine that are morally questionable - abortion, for instance. In socialized medicine (correct me if I am wrong), the doctors have to follow the morality of the state, and cannot choose themselves if they believe an operation is immoral (as America is becoming more socialized, this is happening increasingly here, too).
Also, there is the general concept that taking money away from one person to serve the purposes of another is stealing, even if the purposes are good. For a good overview of that concept, you should read these three columns by Walter Williams and Neil Boortz's book (by the way, Neil Boortz used to be a liberal/socialist).
"There is no guarantee that either of these support mechanisms will help an individual."
There is no guarantee that _any_ support mechanism, including socialized medicine, will help an individual.
It's nice to believe in such things, but they just aren't the case. Welcome to life, there are no guarantees. Usually, when someone tries to guarantee X, they do so at the cost of just about everything else, especially freedom.
Not true. There are a lot of organizations that help out in such cases, and many doctors who do the work for free for people who can't afford it.
I agree with all of your points except the one about exceptions. You said:
"Exceptions. I'm trying to think of a modern language without exceptions. Hell, even C and Forth have exceptions."
I think he was talking about useful exceptions. Java has a real nice way of handling exceptions, and since it is GC'd you don't have the same hideous problems that you do in C/C++ with memory allocation.
Personally, the reason I think that Java sucks is the same reason I think most languages suck:
* No macro system
* No closures (you _can_ do closures w/ objects, but it's REALLY UGLY)
* No continuations
* No tuple-returning functions (this increases code size by about 50%)
Of those, the lack of tuple-returning functions is probably the biggest practical issue on a daily basis. For example, with Perl, I can grab a row from a database query like this
($firstname, $lastname, $zipcode) = $sth->fetchrow_array();
In Java (it's been a long time, so this isn't exact) it goes something like this:
row = statement.getrow()
firstname = (String) row.element_of_row(0);
lastname = (String) row.element_of_row(1);
zipcode = (String) row.element_of_row(2);
And that is just a waste of life and breath.
Macro systems (true macro systems, like Scheme's, not crap like C/C++ macros) are nice, because they allow you to emulate just about any feature of any other language. Scheme doesn't have exceptions, but you can combine continuations and Scheme's macro system and make exceptions. Scheme doesn't have dynamic variables, but again you can build them w/ macros. Scheme doesn't have tuple-returning functions, but you get the picture (hopefully).
Continuations are _really_ nice in complex code, but they aren't that necessary on a daily basis. They are more useful in behind-the-scenes functions.
Closures are pretty darn useful, but you can usually code around them pretty well if you don't have real ones.
If you haven't noticed, I like Scheme because it has a few really powerful features, and the macro system can be used to stitch these features together into just about any other feature of any other programming language.
Actually, I'd say it is you who needs to do more reading of scripture if you include the cleanliness and sabbath laws in your description of what is biblical principle. Especially since the regulation against male/male relationships is re-iterated in the New Testament, specifically as something that marks someone as turning away from God.
"STFU n00b"
I wouldn't classify myself as a n00b. I've studied quite extensively in all of the issues you've raised, in textual criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, Biblical languages (mostly Greek, some Hebrew, no Aramaic), interpretation issues, translation issues, copying issues, authorship issues, and other issues that might or might not be relevant to this discussion.
"Until someone likes you looks past all those damn trees, sees the forest, and actually starts following those Biblical principals you laud so highly (human compassion being far more important then laws concerned with seed spillage)"
On what do you base this idea that I am uncompassionate? I'm not saying that I am compassionate, but I see nothing in this conversation that would lend someone to think me not compassionate, unless you hold the belief that everyone who calls a sin a sin as uncompassionate. Jesus certainly called a sin a sin. I think it _is_ compassion to tell someone when they are going wrong. I certainly appreciate my friends who tell me when I'm doing wrong much more than those who simply remain silent.
"Hating gays (or calling what they do immoral which boils down to the same thing) is nowhere supported in the words of Jesus. In fact, he was the most tolerant liberal person around."
:)
If you think that calling acts that people do "immoral", I hate to tell you, but that makes Jesus the most intolerant person there was. He loved everyone, but also told them to "sin no more". That indicates that what they _were_ doing was sin (i.e. - it was immoral).
Jesus was very tolerant, not because He did not believe in sin, but because He knew that people were capable of overcoming sin. Really, according to the modern viewpoint, Jesus was very intolerant because he told people they were sick because of their sin and that God had sent destruction to large buildings because of the sins of the city. However, Jesus came to proclaim the good news - that we get a second chance!
"If you can even come up with any even purely hypothetical method by which other people willingly engaging in gayness (in private) could have any negative effect on you, me, or society then let's hear it."
As for morality in and of itself, this question isn't important. The important part is if you believe that the Bible is true, then God said that homosexuality is wrong. Presumably, God is smarter than us. If not, He probably wouldn't be God.
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't any practical consequences. The consequences aren't for me, particularly, but for the next generation. It's the same kind of problems that have arisen in the last generation because of divorce. If marriage is officially recognized, that will probably lead ot official recognition of homosexual marriage in government schools. This means that my kids will spend 7 hours a day in an environment where the true meaning of marriage is completely lost, and would probably be a hate crime if it were taught. That only leaves me 5 daylight hours to correct the damage. I _can_ homeschool, and probably will, but note that I still have to pay money to people who are teaching this to children. This causes many people not able to afford the homeschool option, because it's too expense to both pay taxes and homeschool.
This is actually by design. Secular humanists in the 1930's (I think, I'll have to re-check that year) explicitly said that they plan on using government schools as a way to de-church children, saying that a few hours on sunday will not be able to un-do the teaching they get for many hours a day every day.
One thing to note about marriage in general, that most people seem to be mistaken about, is the reason for marriage in the first place. This past generation of divorce happened largely because we forgot what marriage is for. The purpose of marriage is _not_ love (although having love sure helps!). The purpose of marriage is raising a family. This is the reason why the state is involved in the first place -- having a stable family _is_ in the interest of the state (a stable family structure usually means that the state has less to do). Without this purpose, there is no reason why the state should have _any_ involvement in marriage whatsoever.
Now, how you think that believing in immorality leads to torture, is itself a tortured line of thinking
"Too much has been done in the name of religion for anyone to convincingly argue that it is good for us"
That's a silly argument. If you think religion is bad, you should look at what atheistic states have done. Stalin killed by the tens of millions, Hitler killed about 6 million. I don't think that the death toll from the entire history of religious persecution matches that done by atheism in this century alone.
Sure, there have been atrocities committed in the name of religion. But it seems if you look at the information available (not much since atheism hasn't been around long) that religion is a limitting factor to violence, not an escalating one, even when religion is used as the validation for the practices.
"There are still morals in secular humanism, but they are based on observations of results rather than dogma written by cult leaders thousands of years ago."
This isn't quite true. You _cannot_ have morals without dogma. Secular humanism doesn't have as many as other theological beliefs, but it plainly has some. For example, why is killing your neighbor wrong? Because it violates the rights of the individual? Where did the individual get rights? In order to get past descriptive to perscriptive, you have to have decided how you _want_ the world to look. There is no way to deduce that scientifically, it can only come from dogma.
In fact, the freedoms we have in the United States are based on Christian dogma. As Patrick Henry said:
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."
Personally, I think that the reason that secularism has been so inclusive in the US is because of Christianity. In places where Biblical Christianity was not as strong, secularism has not generally been as egalitarian as it is here. Simply, if you don't believe that there is anything special about "life" as opposed to other types of matter except for complexity, it means that there's no real reason for _any_ morality, even that which restrains violating the rights of the individual. If you don't believe that life is different than other matter, then killing a person isn't different than breaking a computer.
"it just refuses the occurrence of miracles."
You don't call that a theological proposition, or only "weakly so"? How _more_ theological could you be? This statement says that "either there is no God, or if there is a God, He does NOT do X." That's a plainly theological statement.
Two things:
First of all, most arguments and lists of atrocities in the Bible were not done by the command or even saction of God. Most lists of such would be cut by 2/3 if you just look at what God specifically requested. The Bible is one of the few national books that record both the good and the bad of the administrations. Most of the Bible is narrative, not prescriptive, meaning that while you can pull some morality from narrative passages, they are there to record history, not rules.
As to the rest, the question is simply whether or not you believe in the God of the Bible or not. God is not God because we want Him to be, nor does He cease to be God if we don't like who He is. If the God of the Bible is true, then He is God even if you don't like Him. If the God of the Bible is not true, then, as the apostle Paul puts it, we Christians are to be pitied above all others. But whether the God of the Bible is true certainly has nothing to do with whether or not one of His creations likes His politics.
Actually, the wholesale slaughter of non-believers was never a part of the Bible. Did God sanction some specific acts of genocide? Yes. But on the whole, other religions were tolerated, but not if done by Israelites. Foreigners were free to believe whatever they wanted, even within the borders of Israel. In fact, God specifically told the Israelites to care for aliens living within their borders, as they were once aliens living in a strange land.
The specific Biblical principle I was referring to was that Paul listed homosexuality in Romans as "sinful desires" and "indecent acts", and used it as proof that they had exchanged the knowledge of God for a lie. There are a few other passages, too.
Of course, what most people miss in studying theology, is that who God is has nothing to do with who they want God to be. Many people try to judge Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions on whether or not it has ideas that are pleasing to them. However, if truth is what you are after, this is a completely backwards way of looking at it. I do not believe a given description of George W Bush based on who I want him to be, but rather who he is. If evidence shows him to be X, it doesn't matter if I want him to be Y or not, he is X. Likewise, it does not matter if you want God to look like X or Y, it only matters what His nature actually is. Unfortunately, there are not any measures (that I know of, anyway), of determining for certain the nature of God without presuming certain beliefs. However, the judgment should not be based on what we _want_ to believe but rather what _is_.
"How is society better off if gays stayed repressed, sad, and angry?"
Are you sure they would be?
"So much for peace and love of Christ eh?"
Christ loves homosexuals, just like he loves all of us sinners. However, Christ calls us out of our sin into His righteousness. All of us, no matter what our sin. Notice that to the woman that He saved from stoning He gave the instruction "go and sin no more". Jesus loved the woman and did not wish people to persecute her, but wanted her to live better than her impulses would lead her.
"Perhaps blind people should stop letting their genetically predisposed problem be a problem. It's their choice to be blind right?"
What a silly argument. As I mentioned in my original post, noone I know of has a problem with someone having the desires and urgings - those _are_ products of genetics. However, we are not bound to act out of them. Even people who do not believe in Christianity knows they have control over their actions. Have you ever been attracted to someone and not had sex with them? If so, that is evidence that genetic urgings do not force you to behave in certain ways. Genetics may _constrain_ your behavior (for example, it may be impossible for you to have a relationship with a woman), but it does not force many behaviors (for example, your genes do not force you to have sex with any particular person, or anyone for that matter).
As I understood it, the conversation was about whether or not people were responsible for their own actions, or if they could throw it all off as someone else's fault or a fault of genetics. I was pointing out that genetic predisposition does not mean that someone is forced to do what they are genetically predisposed to do, and in many cases society is better off if they don't.
"In the meantime, please realize that legality and morality are two different things"
Where, exactly, did I talk about legality?
"You have no evidence to support your world view and yet your willing to _FORCE_ people (ie by force, gunpoint if neccesary - which is what passing a law really is) to conform to _YOUR_ worldview."
That's the funniest thing I've heard all day. Where do you assume that I think it should be law to not engage in homosexual acts? I said no such thing. I simply said it was immoral. THAT is a first amendment right.
"
We have the Constitution to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority - the entire homosexuality issue is a shining example of why we have the constitution, and every day I see people like you trying to bypass it, or pervert it (FMA)."
I think this is mostly your own imagination, as indicated by your previous comment. The FMA does not violate any part of the constitution, except perhaps that it goes beyond the explicit powers listed in the constitution (if you throw it out on that basis, you also have to get rid of medicare, social security, welfare, etc.).
"you are infavor of not respecting otherpeoples rights"
What evidence do you say this on? I respect all people's rights.
"I respect your right for you to be a intolerant homophobic fascist theistic bigot"
That's pretty amusing. Homophobic? That would indicate that I'm scared of homosexuals. Not the case. In fact, I have had several homosexual friends. They know that I think what they do is wrong. Likewise I have friends who drink excessively, and they know that I think what they do is wrong. Fascist? Far from it. Fascism is actually another form of socialism, and I am a free market kind of guy. Theistic? Wholeheartedly. Bigot? I'd say that you were the one reading presuppositions into the argument, not me.
As for secular humanism, I've never actually heard Rush (or anyone on talk radio, for that matter) mention secular humanism. Of course, it's been about 5 years since I've listened to Rush, so he could be mentioning it now. My reasons for not liking secular humanism are too long to list here, but mainly it's the fact that secular humanism is a theological proposition, but is being pushed as a scientific proposition. Our society and schools are promoting/advocating secular humanist theology, while at the same time chanting "separation of church and state", which seems a contradiction to me.