Let me expand slightly. without invoking Right or Wrong there is no rational reason to justify CARING about what is true. truth is no longer any more relevant the falsehood.
For instance if I held no strong moral beliefs and you could prove to me scientifically that it was detrimental to myself and all involved for me to brutally touchier and kill people who disagree with me we might image our conversation would go something like this.
U: Look what I can prove. Me: why should I care. U: um, because you should. Me: I don't and there is no reason I should. Give me one reason I should.
U: walk away frustrated because you have no answer. Without invoking right and wrong you have no way of persuading me I should not do what I know is wrong if it pleases me. Further more all the scientific proof in the world is completely irrelevant to me because I don't care about your (t)ruth because i don't believe in (T)ruth.
This would force the outside observer ( as many people are) to note: 'Fat lot of good all your studying and hard work did for you to accomplish your science. Why should anyone care, little lone me. I don't see the point in me wasting my time with any of that science stuff.' And it is exactly that attitude that is undermining the interest in science today as far as my personal experience has shown me.
"It's precisely because I think we ARE accidents of nature and evolution, that we only have our lives on this Earth to spend, that I am motivated to learn, to do, and to interact with others."
Your list is very telling. I noticed a very important omission. Are you motivated to seek out what is true? How about when what is true would be to your personal or professional detriment? What if you owned a tobacco company and could PROVE tobacco killed people? should you share your research?
Science is the search for what is physically VERFIABLY true. Religion is the search for what is spiritually true. Spiritually true things are not verifiable through the scientific method because they exist outside the physical realm by definition.
You are very right that a belief in God makes the things that are in heaven MORE important then the physical world, but it also makes the things in the physical world MORE important then if you do not believe in God, because the physical world is moved from being a chance occurrence with no particular meaning to be a most exquisite piece of art designed by a far superior intellect which expresses something vitally important about that being. What does it express? Love.
So then you agree with my point that IF a god exist the science is extreemly relivant and IF god does not exist there really isn't any good reason to care.
my point was if you do not believe in an absolute truth that is absolutely important then the most relevant thing IS what "resonates" with you personally NOT what is factually true. This is why fewer people are interested in finding out what IS factually true today. This is why they don't care.
Also, if there is not god what is 'wrong' with me forcing you to believe whatever I like, assuming I were capable of something so asinine?
Incidentally I would find the idea of a "God who can change his mind" very disturbing. That would imply a God that exists inside of time and is subject too it, it would also lead to the conclusion that god did not create time was subject too it and must have been created by the same creator who created time, therefore it could not be god at all. The theology I adhere to teaches that God is unchanging in state, but is in a state of constant motion.
You have mistaken my first premise. If there is no God no immortality. Then all that there IS is this life and all that is IMPORTANT is how i feel. mathematically truth , scientific truth is only IMPORTANT in so much as it affects how I feel about myself and the world around me. If that is the case then there is no reason I should not adopt beliefs , especially as it pertains to things difficult to understand or where that facts are remotely questionable, that feel good to me, because this life is all I have and how I feel during it is all that is the MOST important thing. Further more if I investigate things rationally that might challenge me and then I would need to change. Change is uncomfortable so the most logical thing to do is to learn as little as possible while creating for myself the illusion that I am educating myself.
My premise was that not that mathematical truth could not exist without God. ( that would be an interesting discussion in itself, but a little too off topic and would take many hours.)
My premise is that without God most individuals find scientific truth of little VALUE. I know many people with no religious belief at all and most of them also have no real interest in what is true, because what is true is only important to them from the perspective of what it can do for them.
For a religious person what is true SHOULD be the single most important thing in their lives. Religion is almost by definition the search for spiritual truth. On the other hand without religion you are much more hard pressed to justify why you should care what is true at all.
Most of the 'evils of religion' people decry actually come when individuals deviate from the philosophy they are imperfectly practicing and choose convince over the search for truth.
Interestingly ID does not preclude the creation of life on earth by Alien life forms from another planet after 'Terra'forming the earth.
The fact is it that the scientific data itself supports design so well that the only way around it is to suppose something like the super-universe 'theory'.
If you find an aluminum container sitting on a rock full of sweet bubbly liquid and marked with the words 'coke'. you don't assume it somehow 'just appeared' there. Given all the evidence that we have thus far accumulated the assumption that life 'just occurred' is extremely less likely to be true statistically then that a can of coke ' just occurring'.
However If i found a can of coke I most certainly would wonder and would be justified to investigate how it did occur. The truth of what happened is much more important then the fact some people are unwilling to accept that a inelegant being put the coke can there. Beside that if we rule out the possibility that an intelligence created and placed the coke can we run the risk of both.
1) missing the whole point of there being a coke can and completely misunderstanding in purpose 2) avoiding legitimate experiments that might lead to greater knowledge of how the coke can came to be.
Besides ruling out possibilities without experiments that invalidate them is VERY unscientific.
You may have went to catholic school but were you ever a catholic? I just ask the question because you have completely misunderstood the meaning of the word mystery as it pertains to Catholic teaching. A mystery is something that is: a) not yet explained b) is composed of two KNOWN facts that seem to be in conflict and we do not YET have enough information or may never have enough information to rectify.
A catholic should NEVER stop searching for the deeper meaning and explanation of a mystery.
As a matter of fact that is one of the primary reasons religious monasteries were founded for the purpose of 'contemplating' spiritual mysteries.
Incidentally it was also one of the primary motivators for the development of the scientific method in the western culture pre renaissance.
The search for truth in both the physical and the spiritual world is at the very depth and heart of catholic teaching.
The truest cause of anti-intellectualism is the anti-religion movement. The reason is very simple if you are an atheist or any other form of moral relativist including those folks who go around trying to sport the claim that 'in the end all religions are equal' you cannot answer this question:
"why truth?"
To be more specific. If there is no God/gods no absolute truth that is critically relevant and can be known then WHY should i care about science? Why should I care what is true? Why not believe whatever happens to make me feel better to believe? If my mind and body are mere accidents then why should I trust any conclusion that I come to anyway? So what if you happen to be able to "PROVE" something is a fact? What if that 'fact' doesn't 'resonate' with me and it feels better for me to believe something else. why shouldn't I ?
In summery the existence of science as a discipline is based on the idea that knowing what is true about the observable world is valuable and important. Without moral and philosophical context to support that assumption all you have left is what feels good to the individuals involved. Not enough people have that 'good feeling' about science and where it is taking us for them to consider it to be relevant.
I guess maybe making a few movies might help to bolster that 'good feeling in the short term' *shrug*
I think that the worst problem caused by Microsoft is not so much in what the have given us ( the consumers of the world ) it is in what they have denied us. Because they have used and abused their monopoly power unchecked for so long. Microsoft establishes a defacto 'state of the art'. It is accepted by the general consumer that most computers
work like Microsoft based machines. Here is a simple example. the.Net environment and IDE are much improved, in fact as a professional developer of Microsoft based products I would have to say it as a whole is light years ahead of their last IDE.
That being said the same technology was available for development on the NEXT box ( by same I mean an IDE that was as easy and intuitive to use and an object library that was as rich and easy to understand). That technology was available 10 years ago and if Microsoft hadn't quashed Objective C in favor of it's far less superior IDE
we could easily be 10 years more advanced in IDE and object technology now then we are. THAT is Microsoft's fault , they abuse their OS monopoly in
a way that sores up their other shoddy projects
and in the end the consumers lose.
*sarcasm* I agree a womans body is her own business and if she chooses to use her hand to slit someone elses throat I don't think the state should have anything to say about it. *sarcasm*
Oh wait you object but in this case another person is involved.
Gee I reply mabey you should rethink your first statement because the same objection applies.
'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.'
That is the test of first rate stupidity. An intelligent person recognizes conflicts in what they believe and either resolves them or changes what they believe. An ideas if they are true CAN NOT conflict with one another.
I think what the parent wants to ask is
how do you rectify the competing GOALS
of information privacy vs. freedom of information.
The simple answer is you can not any more then you
can rectify the design goals of security vs. freedom. What you do is seek a compromise based on what the individuals involved believe to be of the highest value to the system ( in this case society) as a whole.
I think the slogan 'information wants to be free' is just that a slogan like 'remember the Alamo' it is catchy but means different things depending on who is saying it and why.
The general principle it touches is that power is garnered from the possession of knowledge so it makes sense from a democratic perspective that the greatest freedom for the people can be obtained by the greatest openness of government.
It makes sense from a commerce and scientific perspective that the more people who have access to research data the better likelihood there is that that information will be applied in useful ways.
It makes sense from a technology perspective that the ability to have peer review on a wide scale and all the other advantages garnered by open source development probably outweigh the advantages that copyright would have afforded that code.
On the other hand working from the same principle that knowledge is power the less knowledge people have about me , especially corporations and governments, the less power they have to influence or prosecute me. (the less power they have to be of service to me as well. ) but in general most people prefer to have autonomy and the less someone else knows about you the less their ability to control and manipulate you, not to mention harass you with annoying advertisements and phone calls. That is why most people believe in some level of person information privacy.
Is it just me or does it look to anyone else like this water could gotten there along with whatever object struck the surface to create the crator? Good to keep an open mind to all posibilities when doing science.
I mind. I can see a realativivly easy future solution to this problem however. with hand held divices becoming more previlant and wireless networking more accessible the day will come when it is reasonable for your employer to expect that anything personal you do while at work. ( including reading slash) be done on your own computer you bought witht the network access you paid for. There of coarse are other security nightmares in that, but it does solve the privacy issue.
Yes, to assert a "fact" that is not in direct evidence is the best wroking definition of faith I can think of. That being said I believe athiesm requires a great deal more faith the thiesm. if for no other reason because it implies a higher level of risk. As pascal suggested.
strictly ethics is the study of morality.
It tries to answer question like:
"if someone is kind to you should you kill them?"
Otherwise why shouldn't one person kill and the other reward kindness dependant entirely on their own disposition?
It is very much like this. Two people sit in a room and talk about a vase that may have been in a room they both came from. One of them says there was no vase it was only a shadow that made the other person think there was a vase. The other person says it was a red vase. The first person says no it was blue.
There is a great deal of evidence that suggest God exist. As much or more then that there is life on other planets. If you believe in the likely hood of one you should ask yourself why you place a higher standard of evidence on the other.
here is one little piece.
The fact that you believe other people should believe what you believe about a situation sufficiently to make it worth your trouble to talk to them about it is evidence , not proof , but certainly evidence that you were created to believe in a morality that could be commonly accessed, because you obviously believe two people should be able to agree. The only way a morality can be expected to be commonly accessed is if it has an existence independent of those people talking about it. I.E. if the vase exists.
in order truly be an atheist you must be an anarchist because you cannot believe in any COMMON morality from which law can be derived. In the context you propose law can only exist because there are those strong enough to enforce it. Since they are the ones doing the enforcing there is no reason they should not also choose what is law and no reason those who can disobey should not when it is to their advantage. the only logical motivation for any action is the self interest with which all other creatures in nature act. even that fails to be a logical reason for action , but it is at least a compelling one.
The fact that you persist in believing, without logic to support it, the idea there should be some kind of agreement between people on what they should or should not do implies that concept is ingrained deep in your being. It supports the hypothesis you were designed, be evolution or god, to have this kind of belief. when you find a shoe it often implies at least a good probability there exist a foot. You betray your own principles by claiming the vase is red.
First off, just a small correction, if you will indulge me. There is no such thing as a belief in faith. You can have faith in a belief, but not the other way around. You can have faith in the belief that your car breaks will work. Your faith may or may not be reasonable, and your belief may or may not be correct. Faith is the acceptance of any belief as fact that has not been tested completely yet. Most people have extraordinary faith in the effectiveness of their breaks, if they didn't they would drive quite differently. So I have no belief in my faith. I do have faith in the fact that there is a transcendent being who created the universe. I base that faith on fact and experience, in the same way someone who puts faith in their breaks develops that faith.
In some sense I agree with you. People have many beliefs that have nothing to do with anything.
If there is truly an argument for morality without a belief in some kind of god i would like to hear it.
My intention was not to pick on anyone who applies the term "atheist" to themselves I was making a statement about the kind of atheism the Chinese government promotes, which it learned to promote from soviet Russia. It is best summed up by the statement "there is no morality outside the laws given by those who govern ".
However their atheism IS the most logical kind of atheism.
I would demonstrate it like this: "If we start with the premise there is no god, no transcendence, no moral absolute then there is no system of absolute value either. If there is no system of absolute value then it is impossible to talk about equality, because equality implies the equivalence of values, which can only be measured within the confines of an accepted system of norms. The statement all things are equal becomes vacuously true because all things are now of no measurable value. Thus there is no basis for my treatment of a human any differently then a dog or a grapefruit because they are of equal value. If one can be sold why not the other? If one can be destroyed or eaten because of my desire or need why not the other?"
In order to refute the argument you must fault it's premise or it's logic. It's logic I believe to be irrefutable, not that I haven't been wrong before. If you find fault in it's premise then you are not a true atheist. - ie. "rejective of and/or without theistic belief" . You may not believe in the Christian God. You may not believe in a living god, but you do posses a theistic belief if you believe there are moral absolutes, because the absolute must somehow exist outside of and independent of the human brain.
A good example of a true atheist would be Pavlov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov). He is quoted in one of my college psychology books in something like ' the sooner human beings deal with the reality there is no such thing as free will and let governments go about the process of conditioning their citizens into correct behavior the better off the whole human race will be.'
I have several friends and an uncle refer to themselves as "atheists". I also have several relatives who truly are atheists, although would not claim it if you asked them. Most of those people who apply the term atheists to themselves are actually agnostics, because they cling to some residual idea of Morality or god... or at least spirituality. In order however to practice true atheism ( the philosophical ideal). You must reject any notion of theism-" the idea there is a god" Otherwise you are claiming a philosophy but not adhering to it, further if you claim there is a universally accessible absolute you are implying the existence of a frame of reference from which all morality can be judged. That in turn implies the existence of some kind of transcendent absolute, a type of god. It is just as illogical to call oneself an atheist and then claim their is some kind of universally accepted morality as it is to claim you are a Christian but that there is no such thing as God. That being said, I have found a very few people in this world who's beliefs actually are derived logically.
I agree with what you are saying the problem that you will experience however is that the idea that such a thing as a human right exists is not universally accepted. More over that such a right is inalienable can also be brought into question.
A true atheist ( as the Chinese government promotes ) must believe human beings are a interesting chemical process and little more. Therefore why should this chemical process have any more rights then any other. Say a dog or a lake. The simple answer, from the perspective of some people, is that no such thing exists as a right either inalienable or otherwise.
I agree just because someone "feels" differently then you do does not mean they are unethical, because as long as you remain in the comfortable realm of talking about "feelings" their can be no such thing as unethical, or immoral.
So the real/ fist question you must answer for yourself is " Is there any such thing as right and wrong" the second question is " if there is such a thing how can we tell what that is?"
Because "feelings" will never work as a way to decide that question. What if i "feel" it is unethical for anyone to prevent access to any kind of information because i value freedom of individual choice over the protection of society.
Furthermore what if I "feel" that there is nothing wrong with enforcing my moral view on others nations to liberate their citizens from their governments oppression of the individual.
Who's ethics should be respected?
Why should i value someone else's ethics more highly then i value mine one? In other words what is the basis of the idea of respect for others? Why should we respect other peoples choices?
If you can't answer these questions you have no basis for discussing the actions of ANYONE including the collections of anyones we call a corporation.
All you open source people out there should be refusing to buy non-"open source" photography.
Seriously why would you buy a photograph if the photographer will not sell you the right to reprint it. I don't mean art for your wall, but the fact is
as far as I'm concerned if I pay someone to create a
'portrait' of my or take pictures at my wedding that is precisely a 'work for hire' and ___I___ should have the copy write to that work. When I had my wedding done I insisted on it.
btw my wife is a professional photographer. You can certainly structure your prices in such a way as to make money from the 1st purchase of photos so you don't NEED to retain the copy write to them.
Besides that have you ever tried to get a reprint done of someone's wedding photo on their 20th or 50th wedding anniversary good luck finding the photographer.
just my 2 cents.
You are incorrect about the catholic teaching on homosexuality. In so much as homosexuality is not choosen an individual is not responsible for it.
( Church leaders and to a lesser extent cannon admits this MAY be the case as far as preference is concered. Actually I doubt it is in cannon law at all you are probably refreing to the recent catachism.)
The ACTION of having homosexual sex IS choosen. Further more someone who has homosexual sex is considered to have commited a "mortal" sin. Which means unless they consiously disavow and refute aka repent from thier previous action of having homosexual sex before they die. This person will forever burn in eternal fire.
That is STILL the catholic teaching on the matter and really hasn't changed at all.
A further point is that the Catholics believe the DOGMAS of the catholic church are immutable what changes over time is our understanding of them and our practice of our understanding not the teachings themselves.
Catholics do not believe religion specifically the catholic religion is in need of being self correcting they believe that God himself both corrects and leads it and protects those responsible for it's promalgation from error.
For the Record I am a practicing Catholic and if you want further documentation on these things I can provide it. fish_in_the_c at yahoo mail.
well are your really connecting A to B to C or are you connecting A to D to E to B to C and looking like you are connecting A to C plausable deniablility is part of this shell Game I suspect.
It would be better if B stipped all IP information from A before sending it to C acting as a kind of VPN/router and if eache client in the chain did the same thing so you can't tell if the traffic file is hosted on the client or someone it is connected too.
has anyone ever considered how stupid all this is in respect to the fact that it is virtually physically impossible to close the "analog whole" in DRM. Seriously want to make a copy of your DRM song. Hook the speaker/headphone jack to the microphone jack. play / record. if said device can't handle playing and recording at the same time get two devices. Same with video. It just isn't that hard and they are investing millions to basically make people jump through another hoop.
I think we should just scrap copywrite law and move on with life already.
Why should I buy a book when I can go to the library and check it out and read it. ( perhaps we should make libraries illegal since they stomp on some peoples business modle). What we should have is electronic libraries with every book ever published in them. ( you can't make a copy only read it.) But currently our social structures for getting people paid to do the work of creating all those nice books have not kept up with our technology.
For the record I am not a supporter of laws that shore up business modles that are in need of being replaced.
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Let me expand slightly. without invoking Right or Wrong there is no rational reason to justify CARING about what is true. truth is no longer any more relevant the falsehood.
For instance if I held no strong moral beliefs and you could prove to me scientifically that it was detrimental to myself and all involved for me to brutally touchier and kill people who disagree with me we might image our conversation would go something like this.
U: Look what I can prove.
Me: why should I care.
U: um, because you should.
Me: I don't and there is no reason I should. Give me one reason I should.
U: walk away frustrated because you have no answer. Without invoking right and wrong you have no way of persuading me I should not do what I know is wrong if it pleases me. Further more all the scientific proof in the world is completely irrelevant to me because I don't care about your (t)ruth because i don't believe in (T)ruth.
This would force the outside observer ( as many people are) to note: 'Fat lot of good all your studying and hard work did for you to accomplish your science. Why should anyone care, little lone me. I don't see the point in me wasting my time with any of that science stuff.' And it is exactly that attitude that is undermining the interest in science today as far as my personal experience has shown me.
"It's precisely because I think we ARE accidents of nature and evolution, that we only have our lives on this Earth to spend, that I am motivated to learn, to do, and to interact with others."
Your list is very telling. I noticed a very important omission. Are you motivated to seek out what is true? How about when what is true would be to your personal or professional detriment? What if you owned a tobacco company and could PROVE tobacco killed people? should you share your research?
Science is the search for what is physically VERFIABLY true.
Religion is the search for what is spiritually true. Spiritually true things are not verifiable through the scientific method because they exist outside the physical realm by definition.
You are very right that a belief in God makes the things that are in heaven MORE important then the physical world, but it also makes the things in the physical world MORE important then if you do not believe in God, because the physical world is moved from being a chance occurrence with no particular meaning to be a most exquisite piece of art designed by a far superior intellect which expresses something vitally important about that being. What does it express? Love.
So then you agree with my point that IF a god exist the science is extreemly relivant and IF god does not exist there really isn't any good reason to care.
my point was if you do not believe in an absolute truth that is absolutely important then the most relevant thing IS what "resonates" with you personally NOT what is factually true. This is why fewer people are interested in finding out what IS factually true today. This is why they don't care.
Also, if there is not god what is 'wrong' with me forcing you to believe whatever I like, assuming I were capable of something so asinine?
Incidentally I would find the idea of a "God who can change his mind" very disturbing. That would imply a God that exists inside of time and is subject too it, it would also lead to the conclusion that god did not create time was subject too it and must have been created by the same creator who created time, therefore it could not be god at all. The theology I adhere to teaches that God is unchanging in state, but is in a state of constant motion.
You have mistaken my first premise.
If there is no God no immortality. Then all that there IS is this life and all that is IMPORTANT is how i feel. mathematically truth , scientific truth is only IMPORTANT in so much as it affects how I feel about myself and the world around me. If that is the case then there is no reason I should not adopt beliefs , especially as it pertains to things difficult to understand or where that facts are remotely questionable, that feel good to me, because this life is all I have and how I feel during it is all that is the MOST important thing. Further more if I investigate things rationally that might challenge me and then I would need to change. Change is uncomfortable so the most logical thing to do is to learn as little as possible while creating for myself the illusion that I am educating myself.
My premise was that not that mathematical truth could not exist without God. ( that would be an interesting discussion in itself, but a little too off topic and would take many hours.)
My premise is that without God most individuals find scientific truth of little VALUE.
I know many people with no religious belief at all and most of them also have no real interest in what is true, because what is true is only important to them from the perspective of what it can do for them.
For a religious person what is true SHOULD be the single most important thing in their lives. Religion is almost by definition the search for spiritual truth. On the other hand without religion you are much more hard pressed to justify why you should care what is true at all.
Most of the 'evils of religion' people decry actually come when individuals deviate from the philosophy they are imperfectly practicing and choose convince over the search for truth.
Interestingly ID does not preclude the creation of life on earth by Alien life forms from another planet after 'Terra'forming the earth.
The fact is it that the scientific data itself supports design so well that the only way around it is to suppose something like the super-universe 'theory'.
If you find an aluminum container sitting on a rock full of sweet bubbly liquid and marked with the words 'coke'. you don't assume it somehow 'just appeared' there. Given all the evidence that we have thus far accumulated the assumption that life 'just occurred' is extremely less likely to be true statistically then that a can of coke ' just occurring'.
However If i found a can of coke I most certainly would wonder and would be justified to investigate how it did occur. The truth of what happened is much more important then the fact some people are unwilling to accept that a inelegant being put the coke can there. Beside that if we rule out the possibility that an intelligence created and placed the coke can we run the risk of both.
1) missing the whole point of there being a coke can and completely misunderstanding in purpose
2) avoiding legitimate experiments that might lead to greater knowledge of how the coke can came to be.
Besides ruling out possibilities without experiments that invalidate them is VERY unscientific.
You may have went to catholic school but were you ever a catholic? I just ask the question because you have completely misunderstood the meaning of the word mystery as it pertains to Catholic teaching.
A mystery is something that is:
a) not yet explained
b) is composed of two KNOWN facts that seem to be in
conflict and we do not YET have enough information or may never have enough information to rectify.
A catholic should NEVER stop searching for the deeper meaning and explanation of a mystery.
As a matter of fact that is one of the primary reasons religious monasteries were founded for the purpose of 'contemplating' spiritual mysteries.
Incidentally it was also one of the primary motivators for the development of the scientific method in the western culture pre renaissance.
The search for truth in both the physical and the spiritual world is at the very depth and heart of catholic teaching.
The truest cause of anti-intellectualism is the anti-religion movement. The reason is very simple if you are an atheist or any other form of moral relativist including those folks who go around trying to sport the claim that 'in the end all religions are equal' you cannot answer this question:
"why truth?"
To be more specific.
If there is no God/gods no absolute truth that is critically relevant and can be known then WHY should i care about science? Why should I care what is true? Why not believe whatever happens to make me feel better to believe?
If my mind and body are mere accidents then why should I trust any conclusion that I come to anyway? So what if you happen to be able to "PROVE" something is a fact? What if that 'fact' doesn't 'resonate' with me and it feels better for me to believe something else. why shouldn't I ?
In summery the existence of science as a discipline is based on the idea that knowing what is true about the observable world is valuable and important. Without moral and philosophical context to support that assumption all you have left is what feels good to the individuals involved. Not enough people have that 'good feeling' about science and where it is taking us for them to consider it to be relevant.
I guess maybe making a few movies might help to bolster that 'good feeling in the short term' *shrug*
I think that the worst problem caused by Microsoft is not so much in what the have given us ( the consumers of the world ) it is in what they have denied us. Because they have used and abused their monopoly power unchecked for so long. Microsoft establishes a defacto 'state of the art'. It is accepted by the general consumer that most computers work like Microsoft based machines. Here is a simple example. the .Net environment and IDE are much improved, in fact as a professional developer of Microsoft based products I would have to say it as a whole is light years ahead of their last IDE.
That being said the same technology was available for development on the NEXT box ( by same I mean an IDE that was as easy and intuitive to use and an object library that was as rich and easy to understand). That technology was available 10 years ago and if Microsoft hadn't quashed Objective C in favor of it's far less superior IDE
we could easily be 10 years more advanced in IDE and object technology now then we are. THAT is Microsoft's fault , they abuse their OS monopoly in
a way that sores up their other shoddy projects
and in the end the consumers lose.
*sarcasm*
I agree a womans body is her own business and if she chooses to use her hand to slit someone elses throat I don't think the state should have anything to say about it.
*sarcasm*
Oh wait you object but in this case another person is involved.
Gee I reply mabey you should rethink your first statement because the same objection applies.
'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' That is the test of first rate stupidity. An intelligent person recognizes conflicts in what they believe and either resolves them or changes what they believe. An ideas if they are true CAN NOT conflict with one another. I think what the parent wants to ask is how do you rectify the competing GOALS of information privacy vs. freedom of information. The simple answer is you can not any more then you can rectify the design goals of security vs. freedom. What you do is seek a compromise based on what the individuals involved believe to be of the highest value to the system ( in this case society) as a whole. I think the slogan 'information wants to be free' is just that a slogan like 'remember the Alamo' it is catchy but means different things depending on who is saying it and why. The general principle it touches is that power is garnered from the possession of knowledge so it makes sense from a democratic perspective that the greatest freedom for the people can be obtained by the greatest openness of government. It makes sense from a commerce and scientific perspective that the more people who have access to research data the better likelihood there is that that information will be applied in useful ways. It makes sense from a technology perspective that the ability to have peer review on a wide scale and all the other advantages garnered by open source development probably outweigh the advantages that copyright would have afforded that code. On the other hand working from the same principle that knowledge is power the less knowledge people have about me , especially corporations and governments, the less power they have to influence or prosecute me. (the less power they have to be of service to me as well. ) but in general most people prefer to have autonomy and the less someone else knows about you the less their ability to control and manipulate you, not to mention harass you with annoying advertisements and phone calls. That is why most people believe in some level of person information privacy.
Is it just me or does it look to anyone else like this water could gotten there along with whatever object struck the surface to create the crator?
Good to keep an open mind to all posibilities when doing science.
I mind. I can see a realativivly easy future solution to this problem however. with hand held divices becoming more previlant and wireless networking more accessible the day will come when it is reasonable for your employer to expect that anything personal you do while at work. ( including reading slash) be done on your own computer you bought witht the network access you paid for. There
of coarse are other security nightmares in that, but it does solve the privacy issue.
Yes, to assert a "fact" that is not in direct evidence is the best wroking definition of faith I can think of. That being said I believe athiesm requires a great deal more faith the thiesm. if for no other reason because it implies a higher level of
risk. As pascal suggested.
strictly ethics is the study of morality. It tries to answer question like: "if someone is kind to you should you kill them?" Otherwise why shouldn't one person kill and the other reward kindness dependant entirely on their own disposition? It is very much like this. Two people sit in a room and talk about a vase that may have been in a room they both came from. One of them says there was no vase it was only a shadow that made the other person think there was a vase. The other person says it was a red vase. The first person says no it was blue. There is a great deal of evidence that suggest God exist. As much or more then that there is life on other planets. If you believe in the likely hood of one you should ask yourself why you place a higher standard of evidence on the other. here is one little piece. The fact that you believe other people should believe what you believe about a situation sufficiently to make it worth your trouble to talk to them about it is evidence , not proof , but certainly evidence that you were created to believe in a morality that could be commonly accessed, because you obviously believe two people should be able to agree. The only way a morality can be expected to be commonly accessed is if it has an existence independent of those people talking about it. I.E. if the vase exists. in order truly be an atheist you must be an anarchist because you cannot believe in any COMMON morality from which law can be derived. In the context you propose law can only exist because there are those strong enough to enforce it. Since they are the ones doing the enforcing there is no reason they should not also choose what is law and no reason those who can disobey should not when it is to their advantage. the only logical motivation for any action is the self interest with which all other creatures in nature act. even that fails to be a logical reason for action , but it is at least a compelling one. The fact that you persist in believing, without logic to support it, the idea there should be some kind of agreement between people on what they should or should not do implies that concept is ingrained deep in your being. It supports the hypothesis you were designed, be evolution or god, to have this kind of belief. when you find a shoe it often implies at least a good probability there exist a foot. You betray your own principles by claiming the vase is red.
First off, just a small correction, if you will indulge me. There is no such thing as a belief in faith. You can have faith in a belief, but not the other way around. You can have faith in the belief that your car breaks will work. Your faith may or may not be reasonable, and your belief may or may not be correct. Faith is the acceptance of any belief as fact that has not been tested completely yet. Most people have extraordinary faith in the effectiveness of their breaks, if they didn't they would drive quite differently. So I have no belief in my faith. I do have faith in the fact that there is a transcendent being who created the universe. I base that faith on fact and experience, in the same way someone who puts faith in their breaks develops that faith.
In some sense I agree with you. People have many beliefs that have nothing to do with anything.
If there is truly an argument for morality without a belief in some kind of god i would like to hear it.
My intention was not to pick on anyone who applies the term "atheist" to themselves I was making a statement about the kind of atheism the Chinese government promotes, which it learned to promote from soviet Russia. It is best summed up by the statement "there is no morality outside the laws given by those who govern ".
However their atheism IS the most logical kind of atheism.
I would demonstrate it like this:
"If we start with the premise there is no god, no transcendence, no moral absolute then there is no system of absolute value either. If there is no system of absolute value then it is impossible to talk about equality, because equality implies the equivalence of values, which can only be measured within the confines of an accepted system of norms. The statement all things are equal becomes vacuously true because all things are now of no measurable value. Thus there is no basis for my treatment of a human any differently then a dog or a grapefruit because they are of equal value. If one can be sold why not the other? If one can be destroyed or eaten because of my desire or need why not the other?"
In order to refute the argument you must fault it's premise or it's logic. It's logic I believe to be irrefutable, not that I haven't been wrong before. If you find fault in it's premise then you are not a true atheist. - ie. "rejective of and/or without theistic belief" . You may not believe in the Christian God. You may not believe in a living god, but you do posses a theistic belief if you believe there are moral absolutes, because the absolute must somehow exist outside of and independent of the human brain.
A good example of a true atheist would be Pavlov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov). He is quoted in one of my college psychology books in something like ' the sooner human beings deal with the reality there is no such thing as free will and let governments go about the process of conditioning their citizens into correct behavior the better off the whole human race will be.'
I have several friends and an uncle refer to themselves as "atheists". I also have several relatives who truly are atheists, although would not claim it if you asked them. Most of those people who apply the term atheists to themselves are actually agnostics, because they cling to some residual idea of Morality or god ... or at least spirituality. In order however to practice true atheism ( the philosophical ideal). You must reject any notion of theism-" the idea there is a god" Otherwise you are claiming a philosophy but not adhering to it, further if you claim there is a universally accessible absolute you are implying the existence of a frame of reference from which all morality can be judged. That in turn implies the existence of some kind of transcendent absolute, a type of god. It is just as illogical to call oneself an atheist and then claim their is some kind of universally accepted morality as it is to claim you are a Christian but that there is no such thing as God. That being said, I have found a very few people in this world who's beliefs actually are derived logically.
except perhaps simply executing any dissidants which
so far has not been an unuasal step for them. It is however one other governments have not tried.
I agree with what you are saying the problem that you will experience however is that the idea that such a thing as a human right exists is not universally accepted. More over that such a right is inalienable can also be brought into question. A true atheist ( as the Chinese government promotes ) must believe human beings are a interesting chemical process and little more. Therefore why should this chemical process have any more rights then any other. Say a dog or a lake. The simple answer, from the perspective of some people, is that no such thing exists as a right either inalienable or otherwise.
I agree just because someone "feels" differently then you do does not mean they are unethical, because as long as you remain in the comfortable realm of talking about "feelings" their can be no such thing as unethical, or immoral. So the real/ fist question you must answer for yourself is " Is there any such thing as right and wrong" the second question is " if there is such a thing how can we tell what that is?" Because "feelings" will never work as a way to decide that question. What if i "feel" it is unethical for anyone to prevent access to any kind of information because i value freedom of individual choice over the protection of society. Furthermore what if I "feel" that there is nothing wrong with enforcing my moral view on others nations to liberate their citizens from their governments oppression of the individual. Who's ethics should be respected? Why should i value someone else's ethics more highly then i value mine one? In other words what is the basis of the idea of respect for others? Why should we respect other peoples choices? If you can't answer these questions you have no basis for discussing the actions of ANYONE including the collections of anyones we call a corporation.
All you open source people out there should be refusing to buy non-"open source" photography. Seriously why would you buy a photograph if the photographer will not sell you the right to reprint it. I don't mean art for your wall, but the fact is as far as I'm concerned if I pay someone to create a 'portrait' of my or take pictures at my wedding that is precisely a 'work for hire' and ___I___ should have the copy write to that work. When I had my wedding done I insisted on it. btw my wife is a professional photographer. You can certainly structure your prices in such a way as to make money from the 1st purchase of photos so you don't NEED to retain the copy write to them. Besides that have you ever tried to get a reprint done of someone's wedding photo on their 20th or 50th wedding anniversary good luck finding the photographer. just my 2 cents.
FYI.
You are incorrect about the catholic teaching on homosexuality.
In so much as homosexuality is not choosen an individual is not responsible for it.
( Church leaders and to a lesser extent cannon admits this MAY be the case as far as preference is concered. Actually I doubt it is in cannon law at all you are probably refreing to the recent catachism.)
The ACTION of having homosexual sex IS choosen. Further more someone who has homosexual sex is considered to have commited a "mortal" sin. Which
means unless they consiously disavow and refute aka repent from thier previous action of having homosexual sex before they die. This person will forever burn in eternal fire.
That is STILL the catholic teaching on the matter and really hasn't changed at all.
A further point is that the Catholics believe the DOGMAS of the catholic church are immutable what changes over time is our understanding of them and our practice of our understanding not the teachings themselves.
Catholics do not believe religion specifically the catholic religion is in need of being self correcting they believe that God himself both corrects and leads it and protects those responsible for it's promalgation from error.
For the Record I am a practicing Catholic and if you want further documentation on these things I can provide it. fish_in_the_c at yahoo mail.
well are your really connecting A to B to C or are you connecting A to D to E to B to C and looking like you are connecting A to C plausable deniablility is part of this shell Game I suspect. It would be better if B stipped all IP information from A before sending it to C acting as a kind of VPN/router and if eache client in the chain did the same thing so you can't tell if the traffic file is hosted on the client or someone it is connected too.
has anyone ever considered how stupid all this is in respect to the fact that it is virtually physically impossible to close the "analog whole" in DRM.
Seriously want to make a copy of your DRM song. Hook the speaker/headphone jack to the microphone jack. play / record. if said device can't handle playing and recording at the same time get two devices. Same with video. It just isn't that hard and they are investing millions to basically make people jump through another hoop.
I think we should just scrap copywrite law and move on with life already.
Regards
Why should I buy a book when I can go to the library and check it out and read it. ( perhaps we should make libraries illegal since they stomp on some peoples business modle). What we should have is electronic libraries with every book ever published in them. ( you can't make a copy only read it.) But currently our social structures for getting people paid to do the work of creating all those nice books have not kept up with our technology.
For the record I am not a supporter of laws that shore up business modles that are in need of being replaced.