"The information in the articles flatly contradict your claim that this was a "computer glitch." The difference in how the two databases classified race had a predictable effect:"
But it was mandated by a lawsuit settlement. I don't see how you get around that. The other option is to just not put in place the filter, which is what they are doing with this upcoming election. Of course, that means that many people will be voting in violation of state law, but I'm sure that will get very little media attention.
"Furthermore, there is no "insinuendo" in claiming that in Florida (you know, near Cuba?) the Hispanic vote is predominantly Republican."
The _CUBAN_ hispanic vote is predominantly Republican (80%). The rest of the hispanic vote is 60% Democrat. In addition, I'll have to look the numbers up again, but I think that the "other hispanic" is more populous than the "Cuban hispanic" group, by a 60/40 margin. Therefore, if the goal of the filter was to influence the election for republicans, the effect would have been minimal at best, or possibly even negative for republicans, given that this is a prison population that they are allowing to vote.
So, the accusatory side of this issue has no motive, and the defence has a clear explanation - they were trying to comply with a lawsuit.
"A fact that those who asked for the report were warned about numerous times, but ignored, even though they were told what effect this would have on the results that were reported."
But it was not their decision to make. The method of determining who got excluded came from a lawsuit settlement.
I won't argue that Florida's IT department isn't incompetent - I'm sure they are, just like most government IT projects. However, if you look at the claims from each side, you'll find that the state's side has clear argument and specific reasoning (we had this lawsuit, coupled with these computer systems, which gave the given result), while the accusers only have speculation (we think you're guilty, even though it was unlikely to affect actual vote counts very much - the insinuendo from the article was that hispanics are just as republican as black people are democrat, but in fact among hispanics it's about 55/45, and the democratic prison population, like most prison populations, is probably a little left of that.).
Doing some reading, it appears that it really was a computer glitch. There were multiple databases. One of them did not have a "hispanic" category, listing hispanics as white. It appears that in order to be excluded, both their names and races had to be identical on the voter registration and the exclusion database. Since voter registration included the "hispanic" category and the crime database did not, hispanics who did not classify themselves as white in their voter registration were excluded from the exclusion list.
"Wait a minute. Are you saying that there are 22,000 black felons in Florida, but only a couple dozen hispanic felons? Are you serious?"
I'm saying I have no idea. None of the reports - even the critical ones - I have seen have suggested an alternate source for the data. If you could supply me with one that would be greatly appreciated.
"Besides, it's already been extensively investigated; the vast majority of people on the list were *Distinctly Not* felons."
So how was the information gathered? Did they pull random black people out of a hat?
"compared to, say, a state-run "felon" purge list with 22,000 blacks on it (by far democratic voters) but only a few dozen hispanics (in Florida, notably Republican leaning)?"
Are you sure they weren't, say, felons? In fact, I'm pretty sure felons mostly vote democratic. This is why the democrats are trying to get laws changed through the ACLU to permit felons to vote.
It was actually a radio report. You could probably follow up by calling the radio station - (918) 743-7814.
Just for fun and a little offtopic, here is another story about voter fraud in Oklahoma during Democratic runoffs - http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/7/27/150807.shtml
Here in Oklahoma the Democrats will not let ANY bill through that mandates voters present identification when voting. We have a lot of people in nursing homes who haven't voted for 10 years that have called up the election board and found out that they had voted consistently for the last 6 or 7 years. We also have people who's address is an empty lot voting, and still the Democratic state legislature will not allow any election reforms.
I read the paper. While it is true technically, it relies on the compiler not changing much over the years to work (i.e. version 1.0 probably couldn't infect 2.0). So if you used an old compiler to compile a new compiler, you're pretty safe.
Pantheism says that "spiritual stuff" is in everything (or every living thing, depending on the pantheist). It is different from atheism which says there is nothing spiritual at all. Pantheism says everything is spiritual, but does not believe in a single supreme being.
'After all, there are many different religions with different opinions on what God supposedly says, so why do they use the term "evil", when they only have a different opinion?'
Because the claim of theism is that there _is_ a true evil. The claim of atheism is that there's nothing but matter, and we just happen to be interesting clumps of matter. You can go from theism "I believe in God" to "I believe God has these mandates", but I don't see how you go from believing that we are just interesting clumps of matter to believing that it actually matters which side of the fence you are on in dealing w/ these different clumps of matter.
You're missing my point here. If what is right/wrong is a personal choice, then even if you have an opinion on the matter it is only that - opinion. "evil" doesn't come into play because really you only have a difference of opinion. It would be on the same plane as me calling you evil because I don't like the color of shirt that you are wearing.
I'm not sure that qualifies as total atheism or a moderate form of pantheism (what is will, where do you get it, and what gives "living things" will and not computer chips).
I would hope that it would take more than a resolution of that issue to make you religious. Christianity is a historical, not a philosophical, proposition. It shouldn't be examined true/false based on whether you agree with the doctrine or if you like the teaching, it should only be examined with the question "did it happen?" The apostle Paul agrees wholeheartedly that if Jesus's resurrection is not part of history, then Christians should be pitied most of all people.
It's not about want you want or how you want morality to be handled, it's whether or not you believe in the historicity of the Bible. If you do, I can't imagine an argument for not serving God. If you do not believe in the historicity, I can't imagine an argument for why you would believe in God.
For most believers, trust in God comes about initially by experiencing God in our own lives. Sometimes other evidence comes up. For example, my son was healed from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (see here) after much prayer (confirmed by multiple echocardiograms).
Also, at variance with what you think, most Christians do not follow Christianity because they already agree with it, but rather because they have become convinced that Christ truly did die for our sins. This causes a change in belief, not a continuation of existing belief.
If atheism believes that your monitor is of the same substance/worth as a carbon lifeform, why would we have the statement about people but not about computer monitors?
"I just don't happen to belive that I need to be a good boy because if I don't, I will burn in some mythical hell for all eternity."
That's actually a side-issue for what I'm discussing. I'm not talking about doing X for fear of punishment, but deciding right/wrong that is transferrable to others. The Christian reason for right/wrong is that God sets the standard (this is the case whether or not punishments/rewards stem from it), and we follow that standard. What you seem to be saying is that right/wrong stems from the environment. That seems to indicate to me that what I believe is right or wrong is based on my environment. If that is the case, then I can't see why anyone would call someone else or someone else's actions "evil". I don't call a computer "evil" just because someone else programmed it - it's just a computer working off of its instruction set. Likewise I don't consider electricity to be evil, even when someone get fried from lightning, because the electricity was just following it's physical path. I don't see how, if morality is simply a cause/effect relationship, how an individual could be blamed for their actions, much less derided as "evil".
No concept of "should" is based in fact (although you can use facts to get from one 'should' to another). It seems to me that atheism says that there is nothing to get "shoulds" from, there are only physiological wants. Therefore, I don't see how a classification of morality works when there is nothing but phyisiology at play. Wouldn't morality be akin to racism, since it is a born-in, or environmentally conditioned condition which each of us has no control over? If so, how can one person's environmentally conditioned / born in set of morals tell another person's environmentally conditioned / born in set of morals that they are evil or wrong?
"What possesses any of us to adhere to whatever load of balls we happen to believe in? Just psychological happenstance really!"
But that's precisely my problem with such an atheistic outlook. It's hard to call something "morality" that is just "psychological happenstance". If you believe that X is "psychological happenstance" it's hard to say that someone _else_ is evil just because they happened to have a different psychological happenstance than you do, since it's just environmental anyway.
"Personally, my soul tells me what right and wrong are."
That's the problem. Some people's souls say nothing. Does that mean that nothing is right or wrong? The term "evil" signifies that it should be publicly obvious or at least discoverable when someone is doing an evil act. But if good/evil right/wrong are personal decisions, then really "fighting evil" makes no sense, it's actually just "fighting _them_" (whoever 'them' is - because for them, you are evil).
"Why do Christians believe that their book is better than the others or that their priests are better authorities than anyone else?"
That's simple - they believe that it was given by God. It's a historical, not really a theological/philosophical reason. They (or we, more specifically) believe that, for whatever reason, God started moving in the lives of people through Abraham and those after him. If this is a true historical happening, Christianity and its doctrines are in fact true. If this event did not occur, Christianity is a lie.
The question for Christians is simply, "did it happen" (also "does it happen" because we believe that God still works today). If the answer is "no", then we are fools. If it is "yes", then thank the Lord for working in us for whatever His strange reasons are.
'Human nature is subjective, and so is "good" and "bad".'
The problem is that a given person must decide what is good and bad. I don't see how the fundamentals of atheism fits with any other morality than "do what comes naturally to me". I'm not saying that atheists don't have morals, but that atheistic philosophy isn't what is producing them or even necessarily fully compatible with them (obviously, atheism isn't a complete rampart against them - after all, if there's nothing to it, then going with it and against it have the same values - on the other hand, why would someone bother to control themselves, if, fundamentally by nature, it does not matter?).
"Atheism is a belief that there is no god. It says absolutely nothing about whether or not you believe that people or living creatures are special or not."
Isn't that pantheism?
"Some have the categorical imperative, some believe people should be as free as possible, some want the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and some just believe in a few old laws carved on a rock by a mad old dude halfway up a mountain three thousand years ago. Take your pick!"
That's kind of what I'm asking, how would an atheist pick?
But I don't see where one who is an atheist would get such concepts. From your statement it seems that they appear out of thin air. How would someone who is an atheist determine what is right or wrong?
" Well some of us atheists use 'evil' as a term of judgement, meaning 'immoral'"
"Oh, and atheists do often believe that some things are right and other things are wrong"
But I don't see where such concepts such as "right" and "wrong" can come from in a pure atheistic mentality. Why would something be "right" or "wrong" if everything is _only_ a sophisticated collection of atoms. Why are the atoms of a carbon-based form of more worth than silicon?
Slashdot Mirror
"The information in the articles flatly contradict your claim that this was a "computer glitch." The difference in how the two databases classified race had a predictable effect:"
But it was mandated by a lawsuit settlement. I don't see how you get around that. The other option is to just not put in place the filter, which is what they are doing with this upcoming election. Of course, that means that many people will be voting in violation of state law, but I'm sure that will get very little media attention.
"Furthermore, there is no "insinuendo" in claiming that in Florida (you know, near Cuba?) the Hispanic vote is predominantly Republican."
The _CUBAN_ hispanic vote is predominantly Republican (80%). The rest of the hispanic vote is 60% Democrat. In addition, I'll have to look the numbers up again, but I think that the "other hispanic" is more populous than the "Cuban hispanic" group, by a 60/40 margin. Therefore, if the goal of the filter was to influence the election for republicans, the effect would have been minimal at best, or possibly even negative for republicans, given that this is a prison population that they are allowing to vote.
So, the accusatory side of this issue has no motive, and the defence has a clear explanation - they were trying to comply with a lawsuit.
"A fact that those who asked for the report were warned about numerous times, but ignored, even though they were told what effect this would have on the results that were reported."
But it was not their decision to make. The method of determining who got excluded came from a lawsuit settlement.
I won't argue that Florida's IT department isn't incompetent - I'm sure they are, just like most government IT projects. However, if you look at the claims from each side, you'll find that the state's side has clear argument and specific reasoning (we had this lawsuit, coupled with these computer systems, which gave the given result), while the accusers only have speculation (we think you're guilty, even though it was unlikely to affect actual vote counts very much - the insinuendo from the article was that hispanics are just as republican as black people are democrat, but in fact among hispanics it's about 55/45, and the democratic prison population, like most prison populations, is probably a little left of that.).
Doing some reading, it appears that it really was a computer glitch. There were multiple databases. One of them did not have a "hispanic" category, listing hispanics as white. It appears that in order to be excluded, both their names and races had to be identical on the voter registration and the exclusion database. Since voter registration included the "hispanic" category and the crime database did not, hispanics who did not classify themselves as white in their voter registration were excluded from the exclusion list.
"Wait a minute. Are you saying that there are 22,000 black felons in Florida, but only a couple dozen hispanic felons? Are you serious?"
I'm saying I have no idea. None of the reports - even the critical ones - I have seen have suggested an alternate source for the data. If you could supply me with one that would be greatly appreciated.
"Besides, it's already been extensively investigated; the vast majority of people on the list were *Distinctly Not* felons."
So how was the information gathered? Did they pull random black people out of a hat?
"compared to, say, a state-run "felon" purge list with 22,000 blacks on it (by far democratic voters) but only a few dozen hispanics (in Florida, notably Republican leaning)?"
Are you sure they weren't, say, felons? In fact, I'm pretty sure felons mostly vote democratic. This is why the democrats are trying to get laws changed through the ACLU to permit felons to vote.
That's odd. I must have pasted the wrong URL. Here's the one I was trying to paste:
t s
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/774567/pos
I think I was mixing my X-Windows clipboard selections when I pasted the original.
It was actually a radio report. You could probably follow up by calling the radio station - (918) 743-7814.
7 /150807.shtml
Just for fun and a little offtopic, here is another story about voter fraud in Oklahoma during Democratic runoffs - http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/7/2
Here in Oklahoma the Democrats will not let ANY bill through that mandates voters present identification when voting. We have a lot of people in nursing homes who haven't voted for 10 years that have called up the election board and found out that they had voted consistently for the last 6 or 7 years. We also have people who's address is an empty lot voting, and still the Democratic state legislature will not allow any election reforms.
I read the paper. While it is true technically, it relies on the compiler not changing much over the years to work (i.e. version 1.0 probably couldn't infect 2.0). So if you used an old compiler to compile a new compiler, you're pretty safe.
Pantheism says that "spiritual stuff" is in everything (or every living thing, depending on the pantheist). It is different from atheism which says there is nothing spiritual at all. Pantheism says everything is spiritual, but does not believe in a single supreme being.
'After all, there are many different religions with different opinions on what God supposedly says, so why do they use the term "evil", when they only have a different opinion?'
Because the claim of theism is that there _is_ a true evil. The claim of atheism is that there's nothing but matter, and we just happen to be interesting clumps of matter. You can go from theism "I believe in God" to "I believe God has these mandates", but I don't see how you go from believing that we are just interesting clumps of matter to believing that it actually matters which side of the fence you are on in dealing w/ these different clumps of matter.
You're missing my point here. If what is right/wrong is a personal choice, then even if you have an opinion on the matter it is only that - opinion. "evil" doesn't come into play because really you only have a difference of opinion. It would be on the same plane as me calling you evil because I don't like the color of shirt that you are wearing.
"many atheists believe in free will."
I'm not sure that qualifies as total atheism or a moderate form of pantheism (what is will, where do you get it, and what gives "living things" will and not computer chips).
"IMHO true atheism is very rare."
I agree. I have just never understood people who were both true atheists and moralists, which is why the post.
"And that, in general, is why im not religious."
I would hope that it would take more than a resolution of that issue to make you religious. Christianity is a historical, not a philosophical, proposition. It shouldn't be examined true/false based on whether you agree with the doctrine or if you like the teaching, it should only be examined with the question "did it happen?" The apostle Paul agrees wholeheartedly that if Jesus's resurrection is not part of history, then Christians should be pitied most of all people.
It's not about want you want or how you want morality to be handled, it's whether or not you believe in the historicity of the Bible. If you do, I can't imagine an argument for not serving God. If you do not believe in the historicity, I can't imagine an argument for why you would believe in God.
For most believers, trust in God comes about initially by experiencing God in our own lives. Sometimes other evidence comes up. For example, my son was healed from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (see here) after much prayer (confirmed by multiple echocardiograms).
Also, at variance with what you think, most Christians do not follow Christianity because they already agree with it, but rather because they have become convinced that Christ truly did die for our sins. This causes a change in belief, not a continuation of existing belief.
But why? What's the justification?
If atheism believes that your monitor is of the same substance/worth as a carbon lifeform, why would we have the statement about people but not about computer monitors?
"I just don't happen to belive that I need to be a good boy because if I don't, I will burn in some mythical hell for all eternity."
That's actually a side-issue for what I'm discussing. I'm not talking about doing X for fear of punishment, but deciding right/wrong that is transferrable to others. The Christian reason for right/wrong is that God sets the standard (this is the case whether or not punishments/rewards stem from it), and we follow that standard. What you seem to be saying is that right/wrong stems from the environment. That seems to indicate to me that what I believe is right or wrong is based on my environment. If that is the case, then I can't see why anyone would call someone else or someone else's actions "evil". I don't call a computer "evil" just because someone else programmed it - it's just a computer working off of its instruction set. Likewise I don't consider electricity to be evil, even when someone get fried from lightning, because the electricity was just following it's physical path. I don't see how, if morality is simply a cause/effect relationship, how an individual could be blamed for their actions, much less derided as "evil".
"Empathy is hardly a concept/emotion that requires divinity."
It does require viewing people/animals as having something to empathize with that the purely physical world does not.
No concept of "should" is based in fact (although you can use facts to get from one 'should' to another). It seems to me that atheism says that there is nothing to get "shoulds" from, there are only physiological wants. Therefore, I don't see how a classification of morality works when there is nothing but phyisiology at play. Wouldn't morality be akin to racism, since it is a born-in, or environmentally conditioned condition which each of us has no control over? If so, how can one person's environmentally conditioned / born in set of morals tell another person's environmentally conditioned / born in set of morals that they are evil or wrong?
"What possesses any of us to adhere to whatever load of balls we happen to believe in? Just psychological happenstance really!"
But that's precisely my problem with such an atheistic outlook. It's hard to call something "morality" that is just "psychological happenstance". If you believe that X is "psychological happenstance" it's hard to say that someone _else_ is evil just because they happened to have a different psychological happenstance than you do, since it's just environmental anyway.
"Personally, my soul tells me what right and wrong are."
That's the problem. Some people's souls say nothing. Does that mean that nothing is right or wrong? The term "evil" signifies that it should be publicly obvious or at least discoverable when someone is doing an evil act. But if good/evil right/wrong are personal decisions, then really "fighting evil" makes no sense, it's actually just "fighting _them_" (whoever 'them' is - because for them, you are evil).
"Why do Christians believe that their book is better than the others or that their priests are better authorities than anyone else?"
That's simple - they believe that it was given by God. It's a historical, not really a theological/philosophical reason. They (or we, more specifically) believe that, for whatever reason, God started moving in the lives of people through Abraham and those after him. If this is a true historical happening, Christianity and its doctrines are in fact true. If this event did not occur, Christianity is a lie.
The question for Christians is simply, "did it happen" (also "does it happen" because we believe that God still works today). If the answer is "no", then we are fools. If it is "yes", then thank the Lord for working in us for whatever His strange reasons are.
'Human nature is subjective, and so is "good" and "bad".'
The problem is that a given person must decide what is good and bad. I don't see how the fundamentals of atheism fits with any other morality than "do what comes naturally to me". I'm not saying that atheists don't have morals, but that atheistic philosophy isn't what is producing them or even necessarily fully compatible with them (obviously, atheism isn't a complete rampart against them - after all, if there's nothing to it, then going with it and against it have the same values - on the other hand, why would someone bother to control themselves, if, fundamentally by nature, it does not matter?).
"Atheism is a belief that there is no god. It says absolutely nothing about whether or not you believe that people or living creatures are special or not."
Isn't that pantheism?
"Some have the categorical imperative, some believe people should be as free as possible, some want the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and some just believe in a few old laws carved on a rock by a mad old dude halfway up a mountain three thousand years ago. Take your pick!"
That's kind of what I'm asking, how would an atheist pick?
But I don't see where one who is an atheist would get such concepts. From your statement it seems that they appear out of thin air. How would someone who is an atheist determine what is right or wrong?
" Well some of us atheists use 'evil' as a term of judgement, meaning 'immoral'"
"Oh, and atheists do often believe that some things are right and other things are wrong"
But I don't see where such concepts such as "right" and "wrong" can come from in a pure atheistic mentality. Why would something be "right" or "wrong" if everything is _only_ a sophisticated collection of atoms. Why are the atoms of a carbon-based form of more worth than silicon?