No, what settles it is the argument that follows the assertion, not the assertion itself. If you want to debate, then debate. If you just want to mock people, go away.
A god with "foresight to see that good may come out of evil" is pretty hazy on the meaning of good and evil. If that means god created both, then both must be okay. God evidently condones evil? How can you call him good then? Foresight comes with omniscience, by the way. Another point for me.
Firstly, I was not necessarily ascribing those particular qualities to the Christian god. I was merely pointing out categories that would fit with our world that were not covered by Epicurus' model.
I don't think God tolerates evil for the sake of the good that comes out of it. I think he tolerates evil because he is constrained by his sense of justice (see the other thread if you want to talk about this). God says "Here's the best way to live: love me, and love each other". Humanity says "Pfft. Stuff that." Evil results. God will not stop the evil, because the evil is a just consequence of humanity's decision.
nothing can happen that god did not want to happen. 'Sin' is suddenly an oxymoron. Your house of cards is collapsing
Bzzzt. That has not been demonstrated. Nothing can happen that God could not forsee happening. That doesn't mean he necessarily condones it. See the other threads if you want to discuss how God's omnipotence doesn't extend to logical contradictioons.
It depends on your definition of a god, really. The definition of god I'm working with is something along the lines of "a supernatural, self-aware entity".
When it comes to the Christian god, I would further qualify that definition with the qualities listed in the Bible: just, merciful, all-powerful, all-knowin - and yes, angry, wrathful and jealous. Those terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
if you want someone dead, and there are no moral reasons to prevent you from committing the act
But God does have moral constraints on him. He is a god of justice. He cannot act in a way contrary to his own nature.
God is, by definition, the ultimate arbiter of what shall be. If he created a universe without sin, and allowed sin into it, then he must have wanted sin in it.
There are some things that God cannot do. That's not because he isn't omnipotent, it's because they are logically impossible. God cannot create a square circle, because the two terms exclude each other. God cannot create a world without free will without creating a world that has the possibility of sin, because the two are mutually exclusive. If a person does not have the ability to sin, they do not have free will.
If you believe an impossible thing just because someone you trust told you it's true, then you are not a free thinker
What impossible thing am I believing? Everyone believes things that other people tell them. Thinking would be too much hard work, otherwise. A thinking person does not derive every fact for himself, from personal experience. He examines other people's experience, other people's explanations, and determines for himself which of their theories fit the facts. It's that last point - ensuring you have a reason for believing what you believe - that denotes a free thinker.
"Sin" is jargon. It's basically a shorthand for "rebelling against God". It's useful in a technical context, and pointless outside of it, the same as the term "meme". Memetics is a useful scientific model as you say, but calling someone an idiot because they believe something that other people believe, and throwing in the word "meme" to give the insult some authenticity, is stupid.
And he was wrong then, too. A god constrained by a sense of justice, a god with the foresight to see that good may come out of evil, or a god that did not wish to pre-empt the free will of man are all consistent with out world. Epicurious had a too-narrow view of benevolence.
if you think it's possible, you are an idiot whose mind is vulnerable to every kind of irrational meme.
I could say the same about your post. Possessing power and exercising it are not the same thing.
You are saying that if I have the power to kill someone, and the desire to kill them, then I will kill them. That's patently false - things like self-control, knowledge of the consequences of my action and other forces will (probably) stop me from going out and shooting anyone I hate.
You're creating a strawman. I never said God wanted a world without sin. I said he created a world without sin. I don't think anyone is qualified to really define what God's motivation is, but my standing theory is that God wanted a people who would recognize his greatness, and turn to him of their own accord, not a bunch of people who had no choice but to worship him.
As for being vulnerable to irrational memes, I'm not the one spouting off the worst sort of cliched jargon, like "meme".
That's easy. God didn't create a sinful people. He created innocent people with free will, who choose to rebel against him - sin. The punishment for sin is death (physical and spritual) - and because God is perfectly just, he cannot set aside punishment for someone simply because he loves them. A price must be paid for sin, or there would be no justice. So instead of taking the price out of our hide, he paid it himself. It was the solution to the paradox of being perfectly just and perfectly loving.
And no, it hasn't changed the basic sinful nature of man - everyone is still born sinful. What Christianity claims is that when somebody sees their own sinfulness, realizes they can't fix it by themselves, and turn to God for forgiveness, that is when the change in nature takes place.
As to psychology and philosophy being more useful than religion, I would argue that all three can be equally "superstitious".
The AC, is in fact, quite mistaken. What he quoted here is not the core tenet of Christianity; this is just a nice way to live with God thrown in for good measure.
Actually, what he quoted here is Jesus, or almost - Matthew 22:37-40. If you follow those two commandments, you're fine, you don't need Jesus. The point, of course, is that you can't. People are sinful by nature, and that's where Jesus' sacrifice and the grace of God comes in.
Beamed power is a great concept, and with the advances in quantum technology, it could be become even more viable than originally thought. Many physics labs have teleported electrons, and a lab in Australia managed to teleport an entire laser beam. Imagine if we could teleport energy from those solar-orbit satellites down to earth. No loss of energy in the atmosphere, and if the teleports off, the energy just gets earthed straight away, no searing blaze of microwaves torching a town a la SimCity.
Are they providing free internet access? Or are the students paying for it, directly or indirectly? Because if they're paying for it, and legitimate mail gets lost due to the Universitys system, that's probably a basis for somebody to sue them. Failure to provide a service that was paid for. The Uni probably can't take the risk of legal action.
They can't do that. As the synopsis says, they are legally obliged to deliver all legitimate mail; if they just blacklist a whole subnet then they run the chance of blocking real mail. They just can't afford that.
The worm also runs a remote terminal server (on port 9997 I think). I don't know if you want it to go to the user or the admin, but somebody should do something about that too;p
CSS for style is wonderful. CSS for layout just ain't there. I mean, there's not even a standard way to position an element in the centre of the screen. I was trying to do just that, and I found a website outlining three different methods of centring elements, all with different levels of compatibility with various browsers.
When I write a GUI in Java, the most often-used layouts are the grid-based ones. Tables are almost the same thing for the web. If you want to do layout, I think there should be a way to define a grid for your page, which can then be referencd by your CSS to place elements.
Then you can have row spans, and column spans, and expand to fill cell, and it wouldn't be such a huge jump from a table-based design. Absolute positioning is good for floating elements, but lousy for almost everything else.
If it's backwards compatible, then stuff stripping watermarks, etc. Just use any old MP3 player that doesn't act on the DRM information in the file.
Having a DRM file-format doesn't mean squat unless you also have a DRM-aware player, and a mechanism to ensure that the media can only be played on such a player.
Yeah. It's really an over-correction. Children need greater legal protection, because they are dependant, and in a more vulnerable position. At the moment though, the balance has gone way too far trying to correct for this.
Education here is decided at the State level, for the most part, which means those policies get greater attention than they would if decided on by the local council. In terms of literature, I don't think the public system censors too much - they do try a bit hard to be "modern", but they don't seem to concerned with censoring lewdness or anything. Even my highschool wasn't, and it was a Christian school.
We've sort of gone the opposite way in regards to history. At least once a year, we had at least one unit that was basically all about how evil us white people were for what we did to the Aboriginals. It gets to the point were people are so sick of hearing about it, it loses any impact it might have had. Our history does skim over any negative side of Aboriginal culture (like infanticide - most early cultures practiced this, including the Romans, so its not just the Aboriginals). I suppose since Australia has so little history, and so little impact on anything outside our borders, there isn't really that much point to extensively re-writing it.
I think out syllabus is pretty good over-all. I just think there needs to be more discipline in the classroom. When shouting at a child is considered child abuse, it's become totally ridiculous. The only method of control teachers have now is intimidation, because its not overt. You can't even have detentions any more, because it inhibits the little darlings' social development. I personnally think we could do with more responsibility, and less social development, but hey.
Another plus Australian schools have is that they seem to be a little less stratified than American schools, in terms of social groups. But, again, the only experience I have with American schools is through a friend who went on exchange, so...
When you say darwinism, I'm not really sure what you mean. Darwin formulated a mechanism whereby animals adapt to their environments, which has been proven, as far as I know, and that aspect is perfectly compatible with creationism. Where evolutionists and creationists come to blows is so-called macro evolution, which postulates that simple organism grow in complexity due to darwinian forces.
I think the government in general needs to determine wether it should make moral decisions for its citizens; a "consentual crime" is basicallt the government making a moral decision for an individual. I personally think governments should stick to regulating interactions between people, not what people do by themselves. I don't particularly see why "perspectives" (like morality, or religion, or even the personal opinion of the teacher) should be taught at schools, as long as the teacher makes it plain that this is what they are.
Well, both my parents are teachers here in Australia. The threat of getting accused of child abuse has become bad enough that teachers basically try to avoid any interaction with students apart from the bare minimum. And more and more paperwork is being demanded of them, so teacher's are really becoming more and more administrators rather than educators.
As for the actual syllabus, it's been changed a little from when I was at school. There's a compulsory civics class now, which I think is a definite improvement. Unless you do a higher level English, they concentrate mostly on current, popular works, rather than classics. I think the classics have more of a reputation for difficulty than they deserve, and they should at least get a look-in. Education is rather a big issue politically, so there's not really much of a commercial/political agenda being pushed - the other party would jump on it as soon as it happened.
Australia doesn't have a doctrine of seperation of church and state, but I went to a private Christian school in any case, so I can't really comment on that aspect of the public system.
From what I've heard, the US goes further in maths than standard highschool courses here, but that's only based on what I've heard.
I'm not American, so I haven't been through the American school system. But from what I've read, education systems throughout the world tend to push either darwinism or creationism.
There isn't necessarily one single correct interpretation for any particular set of facts. Or, as in the case of darwinism and creationism (depending on your definitions) there is only one set true interpretation, but which one is true hasn't been demonstrated conclusively. In cases like these, you need exposure to both schools of thought. After re-reading your original post, this may have been what you are getting at. But the usual moderated-up comment I see on darwinism-creationism generally espouses teaching only a single view - darwinism. So I responded to your post with that assumption.
As far as the correlation between ethnicity and poverty go, I can see the logic of avoiding that. How often to people jump the correlation-causality gap? This might be a case of giving too much data, with not enough interpretation - or without enough training in interpreting statistics. I know too many people who would see this as corroborating evidence for their "Aboriginals are natural bludgers" perspective. Throwing statistics like that at people without first explaining how to analyse statistics is just spin-doctoring.
The moral thing to do is for management is to uphold their DUTY to the shareholders.
Totally agreed. But there is a corollary: The moral thing to do is for government to uphold their DUTY to the people.
Capitalism, the way it is practiced in America, is a system that divides power. Corporations have the power of the dollar, and they have a duty to maximize their shareholder profits. The government has the power of legislation, and it has a duty to restrict corporations (which are by their nature amoral), to enforce morality when it comes to the good of their people.
What is moral is for the government to study the problem, determine how many Americans are being affected by off-shoring, determine the extent to which they are being affected, and determine wether the change is positive or negative in general. If it is a positive change, they should legislate to encourage it. If it is a negative change, they should legislate to discourage it. The role of the American Government is to protect Americans, not the people of other nations. If people in other nations want the protection of the American government, then they should put themselves under the same laws and restrictions as Americans, and become citizens.
Of course, the problem with this is that the power of the dollar trumps the power of legislation. Corporations are becoming more and more the holders of both economic power and political power. The checks and balances of capitalism are failing. And it's not the corporations fault, they are doing their job to perfection. It's the government that isn't doing its job.
All that being said, globalization would be a good thing for everyone, if economic globalization was matched by political globalization. Implied in that is a global standard of minimum wages, workers' rights, etc. At the moment, the Indians are winning the game because they're playing with different rules.
Well, the BitTorrent "team" doesn't develop the mac client. Bram just writes the vanilla perl client. All other clients are maintained by third parties.
Full of arrogance: "I would say that Islam is wrong".
Calling an assertion "arrogant" just because you believe it is wrong is stupid. Were all the people who believed that life was spontaneously generated in rotten meat arrogant? What about the people that believed alchemy could turn lead into gold? Were they arrogant for disagreeing with the people who told them it was a load of bull?
Disagreeing with someone or something is not necessarily "arrogance", even if your beliefs are wrong. (And for the record, I believe Christianity is not wrong)
You mean they were biased because of their being so close to him?
Like, say, every biographer is biased because they know the subject? Or like every historian who actually lived through an event is biased because they were there? What you label bias is labelled in history as a primary source.
Base their faith on hearsay: "I believe what the Bible says"
I believe what the Bible says because I believe the Bible is true. If you want a detailed apologesis of the Bible, I have no trouble discussing it with you, but it's really out of the scope of this discussion. I'd recommend an excellent book on the subject, Lee Strobel's "Case For Christ". Strobel is a professional journalist, and was a non-Christian when he first set out to write a book systematically disproving the Bible.
No wonder you quietly hate so many people: "The fundamental premise of Christianity is that everybody's evil, and everybody's going to hell". How can you be happy when your creator has created something so evil?
How can you comment on who or what I hate? If your talking arrogance, then I would say projecting your prejudices on me because I claim a particular faith would rank pretty well. Besides, when I say everyone is evil, I mean everyone. As in, me too. Besides, I can't believe people can take a look around the world, at any time in history, and say people are naturally inclined to goodness.
Christians don't believe God created something evil; he created something very good, gave that something (man) free choice, and man screwed it all up. If you want to get into a free will/predestination debate over this point, feel free, but again I think a full discussion is outside the scope of this argument.
Please, if you are going to attack me for what I believe, take the trouble to find what I believe before making those attacks. If you are going to claim Christianity is irrational, please present your arguments logically rather than accusing Christians of "arrogance" and "hatred"; words which are used for their emotive content, not their rationality.
Given that you admit that Churches, or more precisely priests, "screw up" what do you follow? How does one determine what is right and wrong?
Ok, well, I'm going to categorize Christian churches according to their views on the Bible. Catholic and Orthodox churches take the view that the priests' interpretation of the Bible is the word of God. Evanglical Churches believe that the Bible itself is the word of God, inspired, correct, and sufficient. Charismatic and pentecostal churches often (these churches are usually fairly independant, and what is said of one doesn't always apply to all) take the view that the individual's interpretation of the Bible is correct.
I'm evangelical. I believe that the Bible is the word of God, and that anything said in the Bible can be interpreted in the context of the Bible. Therefore, I believe in moral absolutes. I don't believe that Christian morality is defined by the behaviour of priests. What is right is what the Bible says is right.
Is the present view of homosexuality by churches (i.e. homosexuality is bad and should not be permitted in society) correct?
I'd say that homosexuality is a sin - Leviticus 18:22 "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." From a Biblical perspective, I'd say that's pretty clear. However, I'd disagree with the "should not be permitted in society" bit. In the Bible, all these laws are applied to Gods' people (the Jews, in the Old Testament). As Gods' people, these rules are for Christians as well. But nowhere in the Bible does it say "go out and force non-believers to act the same way you do". Forcing people "not to sin" won't save them; that requires a change of heart. All it will do is foster resentment, and it won't change a darn thing. Christians are told to evangelise, not tyranise.
Or how about when the Christian churches supported Nazism?
I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it advocates racism; the problem the Bible has with foreigners is not their race, it's their religion. Also, considering more than half the Bible is Semitic texts, considering Bible-based Christianity to be anti-Semitic is pretty absurd.
Or how about the Christian fundamentalists in USA claiming that Islam is evil and should be abolished?
I would say that Islam is wrong ("Jesus said...'No man comes to the Father but through me' John 14:6), but not that it should be abolished, mainly for the same reasons as with homosexuality. I think Christians shoud definately have a ministry to Muslims (which is difficult in extreme Muslim countries), but not that Islam (or any religion) should be forbidden.
Does your religion not say that God created humans? I'm talking about the Adam and Eve story. Aren't humans supposed to be some "special" beings that were created by God? Given that, how do you explain that we are almost identical to other animals on earth? Our physical characteristics are similar, our behaviour is identical, and so on.
The difference between man and the animals, according to the Bible, is that man was created "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27). That is generally taken to mean that man, alone among creation, makes a choice between good and evil. Man is the only moral animal. The Bible says that God created man to be the caretaker over creation. The original plan was:
God rules Man rules Nature.
But when Man rejected God's authority, then Man's moral authority over Nature was also broken. (Genesis 3:17 "cursed is the ground because of you").
Doesn't Christianity say that Noah rounded up all the animals and went to a ship? Does this make any (rational) sense at all? Can any human really round up all the animals? Right now, with more advanced technology, we still can't. In fact, we still discover new species every year.
Firstly, the distinction of "species" is fairly new, and arbitrary. I doubt Noah rounded up every species. But I'm pretty sure Noah packed on dogs, and cats, a
How 'bout you pick off a few Biblical points, and I'll rationalize them?
(Note, Biblical doctrine, not historical. Various churches over the years have made many mistakes and I'll admit that as quickly as anyone else. But God shouldn't be judged just because his people screw up so often.)
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"Epicurus was wrong." Well, that settles it.
No, what settles it is the argument that follows the assertion, not the assertion itself. If you want to debate, then debate. If you just want to mock people, go away.
A god with "foresight to see that good may come out of evil" is pretty hazy on the meaning of good and evil. If that means god created both, then both must be okay. God evidently condones evil? How can you call him good then? Foresight comes with omniscience, by the way. Another point for me.
Firstly, I was not necessarily ascribing those particular qualities to the Christian god. I was merely pointing out categories that would fit with our world that were not covered by Epicurus' model.
I don't think God tolerates evil for the sake of the good that comes out of it. I think he tolerates evil because he is constrained by his sense of justice (see the other thread if you want to talk about this). God says "Here's the best way to live: love me, and love each other". Humanity says "Pfft. Stuff that." Evil results. God will not stop the evil, because the evil is a just consequence of humanity's decision.
nothing can happen that god did not want to happen. 'Sin' is suddenly an oxymoron. Your house of cards is collapsing
Bzzzt. That has not been demonstrated. Nothing can happen that God could not forsee happening. That doesn't mean he necessarily condones it. See the other threads if you want to discuss how God's omnipotence doesn't extend to logical contradictioons.
It depends on your definition of a god, really. The definition of god I'm working with is something along the lines of "a supernatural, self-aware entity".
When it comes to the Christian god, I would further qualify that definition with the qualities listed in the Bible: just, merciful, all-powerful, all-knowin - and yes, angry, wrathful and jealous. Those terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
if you want someone dead, and there are no moral reasons to prevent you from committing the act
But God does have moral constraints on him. He is a god of justice. He cannot act in a way contrary to his own nature.
God is, by definition, the ultimate arbiter of what shall be. If he created a universe without sin, and allowed sin into it, then he must have wanted sin in it.
There are some things that God cannot do. That's not because he isn't omnipotent, it's because they are logically impossible. God cannot create a square circle, because the two terms exclude each other. God cannot create a world without free will without creating a world that has the possibility of sin, because the two are mutually exclusive. If a person does not have the ability to sin, they do not have free will.
If you believe an impossible thing just because someone you trust told you it's true, then you are not a free thinker
What impossible thing am I believing? Everyone believes things that other people tell them. Thinking would be too much hard work, otherwise. A thinking person does not derive every fact for himself, from personal experience. He examines other people's experience, other people's explanations, and determines for himself which of their theories fit the facts. It's that last point - ensuring you have a reason for believing what you believe - that denotes a free thinker.
"Sin" is jargon. It's basically a shorthand for "rebelling against God". It's useful in a technical context, and pointless outside of it, the same as the term "meme". Memetics is a useful scientific model as you say, but calling someone an idiot because they believe something that other people believe, and throwing in the word "meme" to give the insult some authenticity, is stupid.
And he was wrong then, too. A god constrained by a sense of justice, a god with the foresight to see that good may come out of evil, or a god that did not wish to pre-empt the free will of man are all consistent with out world. Epicurious had a too-narrow view of benevolence.
if you think it's possible, you are an idiot whose mind is vulnerable to every kind of irrational meme.
I could say the same about your post. Possessing power and exercising it are not the same thing. You are saying that if I have the power to kill someone, and the desire to kill them, then I will kill them. That's patently false - things like self-control, knowledge of the consequences of my action and other forces will (probably) stop me from going out and shooting anyone I hate.
You're creating a strawman. I never said God wanted a world without sin. I said he created a world without sin. I don't think anyone is qualified to really define what God's motivation is, but my standing theory is that God wanted a people who would recognize his greatness, and turn to him of their own accord, not a bunch of people who had no choice but to worship him.
As for being vulnerable to irrational memes, I'm not the one spouting off the worst sort of cliched jargon, like "meme".
That's easy. God didn't create a sinful people. He created innocent people with free will, who choose to rebel against him - sin. The punishment for sin is death (physical and spritual) - and because God is perfectly just, he cannot set aside punishment for someone simply because he loves them. A price must be paid for sin, or there would be no justice. So instead of taking the price out of our hide, he paid it himself. It was the solution to the paradox of being perfectly just and perfectly loving.
And no, it hasn't changed the basic sinful nature of man - everyone is still born sinful. What Christianity claims is that when somebody sees their own sinfulness, realizes they can't fix it by themselves, and turn to God for forgiveness, that is when the change in nature takes place.
As to psychology and philosophy being more useful than religion, I would argue that all three can be equally "superstitious".
The AC, is in fact, quite mistaken. What he quoted here is not the core tenet of Christianity; this is just a nice way to live with God thrown in for good measure.
Actually, what he quoted here is Jesus, or almost - Matthew 22:37-40. If you follow those two commandments, you're fine, you don't need Jesus. The point, of course, is that you can't. People are sinful by nature, and that's where Jesus' sacrifice and the grace of God comes in.
Beamed power is a great concept, and with the advances in quantum technology, it could be become even more viable than originally thought. Many physics labs have teleported electrons, and a lab in Australia managed to teleport an entire laser beam. Imagine if we could teleport energy from those solar-orbit satellites down to earth. No loss of energy in the atmosphere, and if the teleports off, the energy just gets earthed straight away, no searing blaze of microwaves torching a town a la SimCity.
Are they providing free internet access? Or are the students paying for it, directly or indirectly? Because if they're paying for it, and legitimate mail gets lost due to the Universitys system, that's probably a basis for somebody to sue them. Failure to provide a service that was paid for. The Uni probably can't take the risk of legal action.
They can't do that. As the synopsis says, they are legally obliged to deliver all legitimate mail; if they just blacklist a whole subnet then they run the chance of blocking real mail. They just can't afford that.
The worm also runs a remote terminal server (on port 9997 I think). I don't know if you want it to go to the user or the admin, but somebody should do something about that too ;p
I agree wholeheartedly.
CSS for style is wonderful. CSS for layout just ain't there. I mean, there's not even a standard way to position an element in the centre of the screen. I was trying to do just that, and I found a website outlining three different methods of centring elements, all with different levels of compatibility with various browsers.
When I write a GUI in Java, the most often-used layouts are the grid-based ones. Tables are almost the same thing for the web. If you want to do layout, I think there should be a way to define a grid for your page, which can then be referencd by your CSS to place elements.
Then you can have row spans, and column spans, and expand to fill cell, and it wouldn't be such a huge jump from a table-based design. Absolute positioning is good for floating elements, but lousy for almost everything else.
If it's backwards compatible, then stuff stripping watermarks, etc. Just use any old MP3 player that doesn't act on the DRM information in the file.
Having a DRM file-format doesn't mean squat unless you also have a DRM-aware player, and a mechanism to ensure that the media can only be played on such a player.
Yeah. It's really an over-correction. Children need greater legal protection, because they are dependant, and in a more vulnerable position. At the moment though, the balance has gone way too far trying to correct for this.
Education here is decided at the State level, for the most part, which means those policies get greater attention than they would if decided on by the local council. In terms of literature, I don't think the public system censors too much - they do try a bit hard to be "modern", but they don't seem to concerned with censoring lewdness or anything. Even my highschool wasn't, and it was a Christian school.
We've sort of gone the opposite way in regards to history. At least once a year, we had at least one unit that was basically all about how evil us white people were for what we did to the Aboriginals. It gets to the point were people are so sick of hearing about it, it loses any impact it might have had. Our history does skim over any negative side of Aboriginal culture (like infanticide - most early cultures practiced this, including the Romans, so its not just the Aboriginals). I suppose since Australia has so little history, and so little impact on anything outside our borders, there isn't really that much point to extensively re-writing it.
I think out syllabus is pretty good over-all. I just think there needs to be more discipline in the classroom. When shouting at a child is considered child abuse, it's become totally ridiculous. The only method of control teachers have now is intimidation, because its not overt. You can't even have detentions any more, because it inhibits the little darlings' social development. I personnally think we could do with more responsibility, and less social development, but hey.
Another plus Australian schools have is that they seem to be a little less stratified than American schools, in terms of social groups. But, again, the only experience I have with American schools is through a friend who went on exchange, so...
When you say darwinism, I'm not really sure what you mean. Darwin formulated a mechanism whereby animals adapt to their environments, which has been proven, as far as I know, and that aspect is perfectly compatible with creationism. Where evolutionists and creationists come to blows is so-called macro evolution, which postulates that simple organism grow in complexity due to darwinian forces.
I think the government in general needs to determine wether it should make moral decisions for its citizens; a "consentual crime" is basicallt the government making a moral decision for an individual. I personally think governments should stick to regulating interactions between people, not what people do by themselves. I don't particularly see why "perspectives" (like morality, or religion, or even the personal opinion of the teacher) should be taught at schools, as long as the teacher makes it plain that this is what they are.
Well, both my parents are teachers here in Australia. The threat of getting accused of child abuse has become bad enough that teachers basically try to avoid any interaction with students apart from the bare minimum. And more and more paperwork is being demanded of them, so teacher's are really becoming more and more administrators rather than educators.
As for the actual syllabus, it's been changed a little from when I was at school. There's a compulsory civics class now, which I think is a definite improvement. Unless you do a higher level English, they concentrate mostly on current, popular works, rather than classics. I think the classics have more of a reputation for difficulty than they deserve, and they should at least get a look-in. Education is rather a big issue politically, so there's not really much of a commercial/political agenda being pushed - the other party would jump on it as soon as it happened.
Australia doesn't have a doctrine of seperation of church and state, but I went to a private Christian school in any case, so I can't really comment on that aspect of the public system.
From what I've heard, the US goes further in maths than standard highschool courses here, but that's only based on what I've heard.
I'm not American, so I haven't been through the American school system. But from what I've read, education systems throughout the world tend to push either darwinism or creationism.
There isn't necessarily one single correct interpretation for any particular set of facts. Or, as in the case of darwinism and creationism (depending on your definitions) there is only one set true interpretation, but which one is true hasn't been demonstrated conclusively. In cases like these, you need exposure to both schools of thought. After re-reading your original post, this may have been what you are getting at. But the usual moderated-up comment I see on darwinism-creationism generally espouses teaching only a single view - darwinism. So I responded to your post with that assumption.
As far as the correlation between ethnicity and poverty go, I can see the logic of avoiding that. How often to people jump the correlation-causality gap? This might be a case of giving too much data, with not enough interpretation - or without enough training in interpreting statistics. I know too many people who would see this as corroborating evidence for their "Aboriginals are natural bludgers" perspective. Throwing statistics like that at people without first explaining how to analyse statistics is just spin-doctoring.
worst education (creationism vs. darwinism anyone)
Sorry, how exactly does telling people what they are and are not allowed to have their children learn make America more free again?
The moral thing to do is for management is to uphold their DUTY to the shareholders.
Totally agreed. But there is a corollary: The moral thing to do is for government to uphold their DUTY to the people.
Capitalism, the way it is practiced in America, is a system that divides power. Corporations have the power of the dollar, and they have a duty to maximize their shareholder profits. The government has the power of legislation, and it has a duty to restrict corporations (which are by their nature amoral), to enforce morality when it comes to the good of their people.
What is moral is for the government to study the problem, determine how many Americans are being affected by off-shoring, determine the extent to which they are being affected, and determine wether the change is positive or negative in general. If it is a positive change, they should legislate to encourage it. If it is a negative change, they should legislate to discourage it. The role of the American Government is to protect Americans, not the people of other nations. If people in other nations want the protection of the American government, then they should put themselves under the same laws and restrictions as Americans, and become citizens.
Of course, the problem with this is that the power of the dollar trumps the power of legislation. Corporations are becoming more and more the holders of both economic power and political power. The checks and balances of capitalism are failing. And it's not the corporations fault, they are doing their job to perfection. It's the government that isn't doing its job.
All that being said, globalization would be a good thing for everyone, if economic globalization was matched by political globalization. Implied in that is a global standard of minimum wages, workers' rights, etc. At the moment, the Indians are winning the game because they're playing with different rules.
Yeah, sorrry, my bad
Well, the BitTorrent "team" doesn't develop the mac client. Bram just writes the vanilla perl client. All other clients are maintained by third parties.
I tried visiting that site and received..."Document contains no data".
I laughed for 2 straight minutes.
I can speak with perfect fluency every Russian word I know.
Full of arrogance: "I would say that Islam is wrong".
Calling an assertion "arrogant" just because you believe it is wrong is stupid. Were all the people who believed that life was spontaneously generated in rotten meat arrogant? What about the people that believed alchemy could turn lead into gold? Were they arrogant for disagreeing with the people who told them it was a load of bull?
Disagreeing with someone or something is not necessarily "arrogance", even if your beliefs are wrong. (And for the record, I believe Christianity is not wrong)
You mean they were biased because of their being so close to him?
Like, say, every biographer is biased because they know the subject? Or like every historian who actually lived through an event is biased because they were there? What you label bias is labelled in history as a primary source.
Base their faith on hearsay: "I believe what the Bible says"
I believe what the Bible says because I believe the Bible is true. If you want a detailed apologesis of the Bible, I have no trouble discussing it with you, but it's really out of the scope of this discussion. I'd recommend an excellent book on the subject, Lee Strobel's "Case For Christ". Strobel is a professional journalist, and was a non-Christian when he first set out to write a book systematically disproving the Bible.
No wonder you quietly hate so many people: "The fundamental premise of Christianity is that everybody's evil, and everybody's going to hell". How can you be happy when your creator has created something so evil?
How can you comment on who or what I hate? If your talking arrogance, then I would say projecting your prejudices on me because I claim a particular faith would rank pretty well. Besides, when I say everyone is evil, I mean everyone. As in, me too. Besides, I can't believe people can take a look around the world, at any time in history, and say people are naturally inclined to goodness.
Christians don't believe God created something evil; he created something very good, gave that something (man) free choice, and man screwed it all up. If you want to get into a free will/predestination debate over this point, feel free, but again I think a full discussion is outside the scope of this argument.
Please, if you are going to attack me for what I believe, take the trouble to find what I believe before making those attacks. If you are going to claim Christianity is irrational, please present your arguments logically rather than accusing Christians of "arrogance" and "hatred"; words which are used for their emotive content, not their rationality.
Given that you admit that Churches, or more precisely priests, "screw up" what do you follow? How does one determine what is right and wrong?
Ok, well, I'm going to categorize Christian churches according to their views on the Bible. Catholic and Orthodox churches take the view that the priests' interpretation of the Bible is the word of God. Evanglical Churches believe that the Bible itself is the word of God, inspired, correct, and sufficient. Charismatic and pentecostal churches often (these churches are usually fairly independant, and what is said of one doesn't always apply to all) take the view that the individual's interpretation of the Bible is correct.
I'm evangelical. I believe that the Bible is the word of God, and that anything said in the Bible can be interpreted in the context of the Bible. Therefore, I believe in moral absolutes. I don't believe that Christian morality is defined by the behaviour of priests. What is right is what the Bible says is right.
Is the present view of homosexuality by churches (i.e. homosexuality is bad and should not be permitted in society) correct?
I'd say that homosexuality is a sin - Leviticus 18:22 "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." From a Biblical perspective, I'd say that's pretty clear. However, I'd disagree with the "should not be permitted in society" bit. In the Bible, all these laws are applied to Gods' people (the Jews, in the Old Testament). As Gods' people, these rules are for Christians as well. But nowhere in the Bible does it say "go out and force non-believers to act the same way you do". Forcing people "not to sin" won't save them; that requires a change of heart. All it will do is foster resentment, and it won't change a darn thing. Christians are told to evangelise, not tyranise.
Or how about when the Christian churches supported Nazism?
I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it advocates racism; the problem the Bible has with foreigners is not their race, it's their religion. Also, considering more than half the Bible is Semitic texts, considering Bible-based Christianity to be anti-Semitic is pretty absurd.
Or how about the Christian fundamentalists in USA claiming that Islam is evil and should be abolished?
I would say that Islam is wrong ("Jesus said...'No man comes to the Father but through me' John 14:6), but not that it should be abolished, mainly for the same reasons as with homosexuality. I think Christians shoud definately have a ministry to Muslims (which is difficult in extreme Muslim countries), but not that Islam (or any religion) should be forbidden.
Does your religion not say that God created humans? I'm talking about the Adam and Eve story. Aren't humans supposed to be some "special" beings that were created by God? Given that, how do you explain that we are almost identical to other animals on earth? Our physical characteristics are similar, our behaviour is identical, and so on.
The difference between man and the animals, according to the Bible, is that man was created "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27). That is generally taken to mean that man, alone among creation, makes a choice between good and evil. Man is the only moral animal. The Bible says that God created man to be the caretaker over creation. The original plan was:
God rules Man rules Nature.
But when Man rejected God's authority, then Man's moral authority over Nature was also broken. (Genesis 3:17 "cursed is the ground because of you").
Doesn't Christianity say that Noah rounded up all the animals and went to a ship? Does this make any (rational) sense at all? Can any human really round up all the animals? Right now, with more advanced technology, we still can't. In fact, we still discover new species every year.
Firstly, the distinction of "species" is fairly new, and arbitrary. I doubt Noah rounded up every species. But I'm pretty sure Noah packed on dogs, and cats, a
Hmmmm....Christianity.
How 'bout you pick off a few Biblical points, and I'll rationalize them?
(Note, Biblical doctrine, not historical. Various churches over the years have made many mistakes and I'll admit that as quickly as anyone else. But God shouldn't be judged just because his people screw up so often.)