Well then you won't mind if I shoot you dead right? After all since most murders would claim being prosecuted for murder is wrong by your logic murders should be perfectly legal.
Actually, I doubt it. They may protest things specific to their case, or protest their innocence, but I doubt many murderers kill people with a belief that murder should be legal. After all, if it was legal, then anyone else (such as the police) could murder them in turn.
if you drive recklessly and get caught, you might lose your driver's licence, because you are endangering your fellow citizens' lives.
If you committed a crime, and were convicted, yes. But if it was decided that people had a right to drive cars, then the Government wouldn't be allowed to prevent people from doing so based on a suspicion.
Your analogy is also flawed in that people generally don't have a right to drive cars on public roads - what with the danger imposed and necessity to pass a test - but it's plausible that a country may see Internet access as a right.
You know, kind of like Einstein, who was "religious" in the sense that he believed in a fundamental and purposeful (deterministic) order, rather than the stark random chance esposed by the "non-religious"
Well exactly, they are only "religious" in this sense, not in the sense of the religions followed by billions of people on the planet.
This is not "essentially religious belief", this is using the same word to describe a very different concept, that is nothing to do with the supernatural or theism.
By definition, not one word of "critical assessment" has been carried out on theories that have not yet been postulated. You can provide a library of congress of books criticizing all the theories ever suggested about god etc, and it is all worthless in respect of a new theory that comes out tomorrow.
Eh? Dawkins rejects the God hypothesis (which he carefully defines in The God Delusion) after detailed critical assessment.
Now you are switching your argument to criticising him for rejecting theories that have not even been proposed? How can he reject something that hasn't even been postulated? Tell me, what example of a theory which hasn't been postulated, has Dawkins rejected?
I'd say it's rather extremist to take the actions of someone quite obviously seen as an extremist, even by the standards of most people even within the same religion, and use as an illustration of how screwed up religous people are.
Let's see: criticising treating faith as a virtue, versus flying planes into buildings.
Nope sorry, still can't see that these are anywhere near on the same level of extremism.
As for the atheist-jihadic, the meaning of that is that someone taking a purist rationalistic stand, such as Dawkings does, that then spends so much effort as to even get in the 9/11-debate (that have nothing to do with the evolutionist-creationalist, which is what Dawkings normally meddles in) and get all bug-eyed about how this is what happens when religion poisons people, he has, by far, left the realm of rationalism.
No, that's not a "jihad". Atheists don't have jihads by definition. Where is he behaving irrationally?
Well, we haven't found any "unicorn bones" that didn't involve the horn of a narwhal. So there's a complete lack of evidence or reason for the belief in the existence of a unicorn.
On the other hand there is a universe that we live in, and so far no solid (i.e. testable) scientific theory for its origin.
But not knowing how something happened isn't by default evidence for a particular made up explanation. You could apply this argument to unicorns - if I find rubbish has been mysteriously disappearing out of my bins, then I could claim this is evidence for the existence of unicorns who come about eat out of my bins.
Of course this would be absurd - just because I can make up a story involving unicorns doesn't mean the mystery is itself evidence for unicorns. A mystery is just that - a mystery, whether it's missing rubbish, or where did the Universe come from.
So the idea that a creator may exist can't be completely logically dismissed even if it's well beyond current scientific understanding.
Ah, well now you've switched the argument to the idea that god may exist. Sure, we shouldn't dismiss the idea that god may exist, just as we shouldn't with unicorns either, in fact. But in both cases, there is no evidence, and it is reasonable to reject belief in the existence of both on those grounds.
Seriously, after 9/11 he went out in british media and used the terror acts as a springboard for his anti-religous campaigning, how extremist isn't that?
It's not as extremist anywhere near as 9/11, that's how extremist it isn't.
I have no problem with people questioning faith or being agnostics, atheists or whatever, but claiming to be a rationalist and then going all atheist-jihadic
What on earth does that mean?
I'll be the first to say that not all religious people should be judged by the actions of extremists, but this popular anti-atheist tactic is absurd: that someone who writes books and gives talks is anywhere near comparable to religious extremists, just because you don't like what they say!
IMO agnosticism is the only tenable position for the non-theist.
What, the belief that God's existence is unprovable? Sounds like a statement of faith to me.
I don't believe in invisible elephants either, even though I can't prove them don't exist? So does that mean I'm "believing in something independent of scientific proof"? Of course not - you appear to be confusing "believing" with "not believing".
And what does "non-theist" mean? Try reading your post again with "atheist" replaced by "non-theist" to see how little sense it makes.
Note also that being agnostic and being atheist are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts. Technically we are all agnostic, in that we don't know if God exists, but the more useful question is whether we believe in God or not.
My objection to Dawkins principles is that he suggests that all theories of god should be rejected without any critical assessment.
All the books he has written attempting to show why the hypothesis should be rejected, and all the talks and interviews he does, do not count as "critical assessment"?
Atheists have given far more thought to the possibility of god, compared with say, faeries, unicorns, orbital teapots and other similar "theories". I'm not sure what the "court of science" is, but theists have also been given more than enough chance to have their say.
I find he is becoming more a self-appointed spokesman for atheists (a priest, if you will)
Well that's exactly what he isn't, and what he shouldn't be, and I suspect he'd agree with that (I've seen him in interviews saying something along the lines of how his book is one of many by several different authors, and there's a place for his point of view among others). No one claims him to be a self-appointed spokesman, other than non-atheists trying to make a straw man.
In fact, as scientist, I find atheism in general to be more and more repulsive to scientific thinking - in that it rejects without proof any possibility of gods, fairies etc rather than just rejecting the theories as unproven - I suppose that makes me an agnostic now. Oh well.
No it does not reject the possibility of gods. It simply rejects the assertion that god exists (or the "theories" as unproven, as you say). Strictly speaking, many if not most atheists are agnostics too, but that is beside the point. I reject belief because there is no evidence. If someone asked if you believed in flying teapots, I bet you would answer "No", and not change the question as to whether there was some possibility of them existing.
Just because I reject belief doesn't mean I am unwilling to change that position should evidence appear.
Did you read The God Delusion? Much of it is about showing how the probability of gods existing is low, but to do that, one cannot reject the possibility of gods existing altogether.
Which atheists are you referring to when you claim that they reject the possibility of gods?
In Sweden anything that has been made by a machine can't be copyrighted so I'd guess you can't get sued for it and the RIAA might even risk losing their copyright.
So how does that work for everything from electronic instruments, to a computer program spewed out by your compiler?
That's what away messages and invisible mode are for.
They certainly help (although it's annoying that a lot of IM clients don't have invisibility, but maybe that's changed since I last looked), but the problem is that people then assume you are away or offline, and don't message you even if they do have some reason to contact you. It still doesn't give the same connotations as a phone - that my phone is probably on so it's worth trying to call me, but (a) it might not be (so if I don't want to answer, they don't know I'm ignoring them), (b) they don't get the impression that I'm always up for smalltalk chit-chat just because my phone is usually on.
Why is the creationism debate on Slashdot always posed as "Idiots who think God magiced the Earth into existence last tuesday*" vs "Reasonable people"? Outside the American South there are plenty of Christians whose belief as to the origins of life is compatible with the current science. I'm Christian and I believe Evolution is perfectly compatible, as do most other mainstream denominations. If God controls a complex system like the weather, then why would He have a problem with bringing about life through the mechanisms of the universe He created?
If you accept evolution, then you're counted in the "reasonable people" group.
I'm not sure what the problem is here - the debate here is Creationists (in the sense of believing that an "intelligent designer" created everything as we see it today) versus people who accept science. The reason why the debate is always posed like that is because that's what the debate _is_. There's not much of an evolution debate between two groups of people who both accept evolution! As you say yourself, your views are compatible with evolution, so that puts you in the latter category.
If you mean that you describe yourself as a creationist because you believe God created the Universe, well that's just a semantics issue - just because you use the same label doesn't mean that people ranting about Creationists are talking about you.
Till then if I choose to believe in FSM or anything else, you have no grounds to mock me.. because your beliefs aren't grounded on any *proven* evidence....
You might say that my belief in religion is just blind faith in something that is not proven. by that same definition, your faith in evolution is blind too - because that isn't proven yet.
Evolution is supported by an overwhelming amount of proven evidence. His beliefs are grounded on proven evidence.
I have to use one already. I wasn't informed about needing one until I needed to make a payment - as a result, I had to wait a week before I received the device in the post, and I could make the payment. Thankfully it was nothing urgent.
Also it's annoying if you're somewhere where you do have an Internet connection, but you don't have this device (not to mention when the battery runs out, or you lose it or it breaks).
People joke about cheques being outdated - this device may be a good thing for security purposes, but with these sorts of issues, I'm never going to be able to switch to purely being online, so I still have to keep the chequebook around.
Indeed - the problem isn't "Always on", after all I'm fine with my mobile or my landline being always on. The problem is that with IM, it's become "Always on, and always advertising me as on". And so as soon as you come online, however many 10s or 100s of people on your list think that means you're up for making random small talk.
I'd rather IM was treated like a phone - call me if you want to talk about something, but it doesn't mean I'm always up for idle chit chat.
There are other senses, most notably sense of balance, without which it can lead to motion sickness.
I think a big issue is not input, but output - for it to be Matrix-like, it needs to know every movement of your body, not to mention the problems when your movement doesn't match up with the external reality (e.g., what happens if you walk into a wall on the outside world, or how do you simulate walking up stairs that aren't there, or jumping off a cliff?). I can't see how it can be done without a neural interface.
Presumably when that technology exists, it will be reasonable doubt that such videos could be fake. So the remaining issue is "Imagine the difficulties in a court of law when all audio, photo, and video evidence is suspect."
This is an issue, but we are already experiencing it, in that images at least can be faked reasonably well (I'm sure plenty of people have done joke images of political leaders in dodgy situations, but hardly anyone thinks it's real, and so it doesn't cause a scandal).
It's a tradition that goes back to Ultima -- let the players do whatever they want, even if some of these things might be downright horrible. It's a test of their morality (or lack thereof), and they still have the chance to do the "right thing".
This is a good point. I mean, a game where you go out and violent murder prostitutes with very realistic graphics and reactions would likely be banned (at least here in the UK, where they still control what adults are allowed to see). But in the future, games are more likely to be much more open in terms of gameplay. Killing people might not be part of the game at all - but if you pick up a baseball bat and beat someone with it, the game engine will faithfully simulate and show you the results...
Maybe this will be a good thing in that it will make it less likely for games to be censored. But I fear what draconian new ways that pro-censorship people will think up in order to control what people do in computer games (especially in online games - it wouldn't surprise me to see people pushing for a law to criminalise virtual fictional actions done in computer games).
I think the answer has to be yes. Watching a rape or murder has got to warp people. You can't say "advertising works", and then say showing graphic violence has no effect.
You can, when people are using a different meaning of "works" in each case. Advertising informing me about a product and making me think "Hmm, maybe I'll buy that", versus "Oh, I think I'll go out and rape someone". If watching something could influence us that strongly, it would be like suggesting that an advert would compel me to go and steal the product.
As you say, it's already happened with popular media like TV, and it hasn't cause an explosion in people going out and murdering people.
I agree it's inconsistent that nipples are demonised more than violence. Though I suspect many of those who want nipples to be censored would be in favour of censoring fictional depictions of violence too.
If you can solve the "identity theft" problem, you won't have to worry about this in the future.
Actually there were other problems resulting from operation ore that weren't related to identity theft, e.g., people who'd accessed adult sites only but whose details were still caught up in the database (see the Wikipedia article linked in the summary).
Of course it would be great to solve the identity theft problem, but witchhunts and bad police investigations are going to continue to create problems in this area.
I understand your position but unfortunately the only other alternative is to make the court secret which can seriously jeopardize the result at the end.
That's not true - you can restrict information from being publically advertised by national media, without having to make a court secret. Sure, someone can still walk into the court and tell people, but a newspaper publishing the details would be in contempt of court.
This already happens, for example with underaged people who are are charged, not to mention victims who receive anonymity. Sometimes there are details relating to a case which are not allowed to be published due to the risk of it prejudicing the jury.
It's perfectly doable for adults who are charged too, without resorting to secret courts.
Slashdot Mirror
Well then you won't mind if I shoot you dead right? After all since most murders would claim being prosecuted for murder is wrong by your logic murders should be perfectly legal.
Actually, I doubt it. They may protest things specific to their case, or protest their innocence, but I doubt many murderers kill people with a belief that murder should be legal. After all, if it was legal, then anyone else (such as the police) could murder them in turn.
The right to an internet account? So, France supplies every citizen with an account until they've had three strikes?
"Right" does not mean "The Government must provide every citizen with it", but that they cannot take it away.
Freedom of speech does mean the Government should provide you with a platform to broadcast your views.
Right to a family life does not mean that the Government must provide every Slashdotter with a wife.
I don't see why this is any different.
if you drive recklessly and get caught, you might lose your driver's licence, because you are endangering your fellow citizens' lives.
If you committed a crime, and were convicted, yes. But if it was decided that people had a right to drive cars, then the Government wouldn't be allowed to prevent people from doing so based on a suspicion.
Your analogy is also flawed in that people generally don't have a right to drive cars on public roads - what with the danger imposed and necessity to pass a test - but it's plausible that a country may see Internet access as a right.
You know, kind of like Einstein, who was "religious" in the sense that he believed in a fundamental and purposeful (deterministic) order, rather than the stark random chance esposed by the "non-religious"
Well exactly, they are only "religious" in this sense, not in the sense of the religions followed by billions of people on the planet.
This is not "essentially religious belief", this is using the same word to describe a very different concept, that is nothing to do with the supernatural or theism.
By definition, not one word of "critical assessment" has been carried out on theories that have not yet been postulated. You can provide a library of congress of books criticizing all the theories ever suggested about god etc, and it is all worthless in respect of a new theory that comes out tomorrow.
Eh? Dawkins rejects the God hypothesis (which he carefully defines in The God Delusion) after detailed critical assessment.
Now you are switching your argument to criticising him for rejecting theories that have not even been proposed? How can he reject something that hasn't even been postulated? Tell me, what example of a theory which hasn't been postulated, has Dawkins rejected?
I'd say it's rather extremist to take the actions of someone quite obviously seen as an extremist, even by the standards of most people even within the same religion, and use as an illustration of how screwed up religous people are.
Let's see: criticising treating faith as a virtue, versus flying planes into buildings.
Nope sorry, still can't see that these are anywhere near on the same level of extremism.
As for the atheist-jihadic, the meaning of that is that someone taking a purist rationalistic stand, such as Dawkings does, that then spends so much effort as to even get in the 9/11-debate (that have nothing to do with the evolutionist-creationalist, which is what Dawkings normally meddles in) and get all bug-eyed about how this is what happens when religion poisons people, he has, by far, left the realm of rationalism.
No, that's not a "jihad". Atheists don't have jihads by definition. Where is he behaving irrationally?
Well, we haven't found any "unicorn bones" that didn't involve the horn of a narwhal. So there's a complete lack of evidence or reason for the belief in the existence of a unicorn.
On the other hand there is a universe that we live in, and so far no solid (i.e. testable) scientific theory for its origin.
But not knowing how something happened isn't by default evidence for a particular made up explanation. You could apply this argument to unicorns - if I find rubbish has been mysteriously disappearing out of my bins, then I could claim this is evidence for the existence of unicorns who come about eat out of my bins.
Of course this would be absurd - just because I can make up a story involving unicorns doesn't mean the mystery is itself evidence for unicorns. A mystery is just that - a mystery, whether it's missing rubbish, or where did the Universe come from.
So the idea that a creator may exist can't be completely logically dismissed even if it's well beyond current scientific understanding.
Ah, well now you've switched the argument to the idea that god may exist. Sure, we shouldn't dismiss the idea that god may exist, just as we shouldn't with unicorns either, in fact. But in both cases, there is no evidence, and it is reasonable to reject belief in the existence of both on those grounds.
Seriously, after 9/11 he went out in british media and used the terror acts as a springboard for his anti-religous campaigning, how extremist isn't that?
It's not as extremist anywhere near as 9/11, that's how extremist it isn't.
I have no problem with people questioning faith or being agnostics, atheists or whatever, but claiming to be a rationalist and then going all atheist-jihadic
What on earth does that mean?
I'll be the first to say that not all religious people should be judged by the actions of extremists, but this popular anti-atheist tactic is absurd: that someone who writes books and gives talks is anywhere near comparable to religious extremists, just because you don't like what they say!
IMO agnosticism is the only tenable position for the non-theist.
What, the belief that God's existence is unprovable? Sounds like a statement of faith to me.
I don't believe in invisible elephants either, even though I can't prove them don't exist? So does that mean I'm "believing in something independent of scientific proof"? Of course not - you appear to be confusing "believing" with "not believing".
And what does "non-theist" mean? Try reading your post again with "atheist" replaced by "non-theist" to see how little sense it makes.
Note also that being agnostic and being atheist are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts. Technically we are all agnostic, in that we don't know if God exists, but the more useful question is whether we believe in God or not.
My objection to Dawkins principles is that he suggests that all theories of god should be rejected without any critical assessment.
All the books he has written attempting to show why the hypothesis should be rejected, and all the talks and interviews he does, do not count as "critical assessment"?
Atheists have given far more thought to the possibility of god, compared with say, faeries, unicorns, orbital teapots and other similar "theories". I'm not sure what the "court of science" is, but theists have also been given more than enough chance to have their say.
I find he is becoming more a self-appointed spokesman for atheists (a priest, if you will)
Well that's exactly what he isn't, and what he shouldn't be, and I suspect he'd agree with that (I've seen him in interviews saying something along the lines of how his book is one of many by several different authors, and there's a place for his point of view among others). No one claims him to be a self-appointed spokesman, other than non-atheists trying to make a straw man.
In fact, as scientist, I find atheism in general to be more and more repulsive to scientific thinking - in that it rejects without proof any possibility of gods, fairies etc rather than just rejecting the theories as unproven - I suppose that makes me an agnostic now. Oh well.
No it does not reject the possibility of gods. It simply rejects the assertion that god exists (or the "theories" as unproven, as you say). Strictly speaking, many if not most atheists are agnostics too, but that is beside the point. I reject belief because there is no evidence. If someone asked if you believed in flying teapots, I bet you would answer "No", and not change the question as to whether there was some possibility of them existing.
Just because I reject belief doesn't mean I am unwilling to change that position should evidence appear.
Did you read The God Delusion? Much of it is about showing how the probability of gods existing is low, but to do that, one cannot reject the possibility of gods existing altogether.
Which atheists are you referring to when you claim that they reject the possibility of gods?
In Sweden anything that has been made by a machine can't be copyrighted so I'd guess you can't get sued for it and the RIAA might even risk losing their copyright.
So how does that work for everything from electronic instruments, to a computer program spewed out by your compiler?
welcome to the free world where you can listen to whatever music you like, and hopefully let others do the same.
It's also a free world where he can say that formulaic chart pop music is crap, and he thinks this software will make it worse.
(I didn't get the impression that he thought the software should be criminalised or anything like that.)
That's what away messages and invisible mode are for.
They certainly help (although it's annoying that a lot of IM clients don't have invisibility, but maybe that's changed since I last looked), but the problem is that people then assume you are away or offline, and don't message you even if they do have some reason to contact you. It still doesn't give the same connotations as a phone - that my phone is probably on so it's worth trying to call me, but (a) it might not be (so if I don't want to answer, they don't know I'm ignoring them), (b) they don't get the impression that I'm always up for smalltalk chit-chat just because my phone is usually on.
Why is the creationism debate on Slashdot always posed as "Idiots who think God magiced the Earth into existence last tuesday*" vs "Reasonable people"? Outside the American South there are plenty of Christians whose belief as to the origins of life is compatible with the current science. I'm Christian and I believe Evolution is perfectly compatible, as do most other mainstream denominations. If God controls a complex system like the weather, then why would He have a problem with bringing about life through the mechanisms of the universe He created?
If you accept evolution, then you're counted in the "reasonable people" group.
I'm not sure what the problem is here - the debate here is Creationists (in the sense of believing that an "intelligent designer" created everything as we see it today) versus people who accept science. The reason why the debate is always posed like that is because that's what the debate _is_. There's not much of an evolution debate between two groups of people who both accept evolution! As you say yourself, your views are compatible with evolution, so that puts you in the latter category.
If you mean that you describe yourself as a creationist because you believe God created the Universe, well that's just a semantics issue - just because you use the same label doesn't mean that people ranting about Creationists are talking about you.
Till then if I choose to believe in FSM or anything else, you have no grounds to mock me.. because your beliefs aren't grounded on any *proven* evidence. ...
You might say that my belief in religion is just blind faith in something that is not proven. by that same definition, your faith in evolution is blind too - because that isn't proven yet.
Evolution is supported by an overwhelming amount of proven evidence. His beliefs are grounded on proven evidence.
What evidence supports your beliefs?
I have to use one already. I wasn't informed about needing one until I needed to make a payment - as a result, I had to wait a week before I received the device in the post, and I could make the payment. Thankfully it was nothing urgent.
Also it's annoying if you're somewhere where you do have an Internet connection, but you don't have this device (not to mention when the battery runs out, or you lose it or it breaks).
People joke about cheques being outdated - this device may be a good thing for security purposes, but with these sorts of issues, I'm never going to be able to switch to purely being online, so I still have to keep the chequebook around.
Indeed - the problem isn't "Always on", after all I'm fine with my mobile or my landline being always on. The problem is that with IM, it's become "Always on, and always advertising me as on". And so as soon as you come online, however many 10s or 100s of people on your list think that means you're up for making random small talk.
I'd rather IM was treated like a phone - call me if you want to talk about something, but it doesn't mean I'm always up for idle chit chat.
There are other senses, most notably sense of balance, without which it can lead to motion sickness.
I think a big issue is not input, but output - for it to be Matrix-like, it needs to know every movement of your body, not to mention the problems when your movement doesn't match up with the external reality (e.g., what happens if you walk into a wall on the outside world, or how do you simulate walking up stairs that aren't there, or jumping off a cliff?). I can't see how it can be done without a neural interface.
Presumably when that technology exists, it will be reasonable doubt that such videos could be fake. So the remaining issue is "Imagine the difficulties in a court of law when all audio, photo, and video evidence is suspect."
This is an issue, but we are already experiencing it, in that images at least can be faked reasonably well (I'm sure plenty of people have done joke images of political leaders in dodgy situations, but hardly anyone thinks it's real, and so it doesn't cause a scandal).
It's a tradition that goes back to Ultima -- let the players do whatever they want, even if some of these things might be downright horrible. It's a test of their morality (or lack thereof), and they still have the chance to do the "right thing".
This is a good point. I mean, a game where you go out and violent murder prostitutes with very realistic graphics and reactions would likely be banned (at least here in the UK, where they still control what adults are allowed to see). But in the future, games are more likely to be much more open in terms of gameplay. Killing people might not be part of the game at all - but if you pick up a baseball bat and beat someone with it, the game engine will faithfully simulate and show you the results...
Maybe this will be a good thing in that it will make it less likely for games to be censored. But I fear what draconian new ways that pro-censorship people will think up in order to control what people do in computer games (especially in online games - it wouldn't surprise me to see people pushing for a law to criminalise virtual fictional actions done in computer games).
I think the answer has to be yes. Watching a rape or murder has got to warp people. You can't say "advertising works", and then say showing graphic violence has no effect.
You can, when people are using a different meaning of "works" in each case. Advertising informing me about a product and making me think "Hmm, maybe I'll buy that", versus "Oh, I think I'll go out and rape someone". If watching something could influence us that strongly, it would be like suggesting that an advert would compel me to go and steal the product.
As you say, it's already happened with popular media like TV, and it hasn't cause an explosion in people going out and murdering people.
I agree it's inconsistent that nipples are demonised more than violence. Though I suspect many of those who want nipples to be censored would be in favour of censoring fictional depictions of violence too.
If you can solve the "identity theft" problem, you won't have to worry about this in the future.
Actually there were other problems resulting from operation ore that weren't related to identity theft, e.g., people who'd accessed adult sites only but whose details were still caught up in the database (see the Wikipedia article linked in the summary).
Of course it would be great to solve the identity theft problem, but witchhunts and bad police investigations are going to continue to create problems in this area.
I understand your position but unfortunately the only other alternative is to make the court secret which can seriously jeopardize the result at the end.
That's not true - you can restrict information from being publically advertised by national media, without having to make a court secret. Sure, someone can still walk into the court and tell people, but a newspaper publishing the details would be in contempt of court.
This already happens, for example with underaged people who are are charged, not to mention victims who receive anonymity. Sometimes there are details relating to a case which are not allowed to be published due to the risk of it prejudicing the jury.
It's perfectly doable for adults who are charged too, without resorting to secret courts.