The idea of God as a noninterventionist, nonfalsifiable extra-universal entity is a modern invention in response to (if we go way back) classical determinism. Most people believed - and many still believe - in a directly interventionist deity whose existence can be experimentally distinguished from non-existence.
I don't think "most people" can even articulate such a specific belief. Where did you obtain your data? You're just making this up.
Besides, that's another false dichotomy: what about the idea of a deity who can intervene at will but whose existence cannot be experimentally proven? If his existence could be "experimentally distinguished from non-existence," then he would be a deity at all. He would be a phenomenon manipulatable by human beings, and therefore no more powerful than humans themselves.
Many, if not most, of the great minds of history were religious.
For some 15 centuries in Europe apostasy was punished with social exclusion, prison or death. No wonder they all were "religious". Notice how since we got this "freedom of religion" the ratio of religious scientist literally plummeted.
You make a good point, although generalized. But then you follow it with a gross generalization, and an unsubstantiated assertion. Where did you obtain your data?
He's the almighty creator of the universe. He exists outside of space and time.
Care to provide evidence for this factual statement? No? So anything goes, even an "invisible guy".
I never said it could be "proven" scientifically. There's plenty of evidence in the world and universe surrounding you; the only issue is how it is interpreted. Both sides will point to the same thing as evidence supporting their beliefs.
I still think it's silly to keep saying, "invisible guy." That makes it sound like God is just some random guy walking down the street who isn't visible. Of course, if you want to ridicule those who believe in God, you'll imply that. But that's not what the Bible claims about God.
He gave you free will to do what you want and believe what you want.
No, according to your supposed sacred book (gen 2:17) he was against that idea. Satan gave us free will, that's who you should thank if you believe that "metaphor" (or whatever your "strong faith" calls it).
"...but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Gen 2:17
Free will is exactly what God gave people, and that verse proves it. God gave them a command because he gave them the ability to choose whether to obey it. And they chose not to. Satan did not give them free will; he enticed them to use their free will to choose not to obey God. The importance of that distinction cannot be underrated.
Are you saying that there are no Christians in India? Because that isn't true.
No, I don't think Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism are true.
When did I say that my beliefs should be given special deference? I live in the USA, and our Constitution respects no particular religion. It requires freedom of religious belief and practice.
Siamese twins have literally nothing whatsoever to do with the point I'm making. And you know that.
Transsexuality has everything to do with people's beliefs. If people believe it's a real physical "condition" that requires "treatment", then people will try to "fix" it. Or if people believe it's a psychological condition caused by trauma that amounts to the refusal to accept reality, then the treatment will be to try to help people accept reality, rather than helping them surgically alter their bodies and chemically reprogram them.
I'm not a bigot just because I disagree with you. Bigotry is simply the new witch-hunt. It's the refuge often retreated to when people refuse to argue rationally.
Oops, you just presupposed that God isn't real, that there is no eternity, and you generalized the entire Bible--an anthology of 66 ancient books covering a variety of genres, times, places, and purposes--into one lump text that is either wholly factual or wholly mythical.
You've presupposed your own reasonableness and correctness and asserted that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Allow me to use your words against you: If reasonable non-believers would come out and say, "We can't prove God isn't real," and "we acknowledge that the Bible is a complex work often misinterpreted and misused and intentionally misrepresented," then we reasonable believers might cut you more slack.
Using science as a tool within religion? as harmonious as their intentions might be; i would describe them as "ignorantly agnostic"... Acknowledging science as a useful tool is acknowledging it as a rational way of deducing and validating evolving theories (no pun intended) about reality from empirical evidence... which is and always has been in direct conflict with religious belief; a lack of empirical evidence and a lack of logical reasoning.
This is a strong but unverifiable assertion. You're presupposing that:
1) empirical evidence for the existence of God could be found; 2) that it is impossible to both believe in God and believe that there is a physical reality which can be studied empirically; 3) that anything which cannot be empirically proven to exist must not exist; 4) that it is illogical to believe in the existence of God or anything else that cannot be empirically proven.
Not only are those presuppositions illogical, but they are easily disproven by simple history. At one time we did not know that microscopic things existed: bacteria, viruses, molecules, atoms, etc. Their very existence was not even considered, much less visualized, and much less proven. We did not even conceive of their existence. But now we know that they do exist.
You may answer this by suggesting that we must therefore eventually be able to prove that God exists. There are two counters to this argument: 1) that we can never know when "it's been long enough" to conclude that we would have proven his existence by now; and 2) it is a presupposition to insist that God must exist within our physical universe.
If they are thought to be truly compatible then they are not well understood.
I agree with you: neither God nor science are well understood by us.
It's not entirely unreasonable to come to the conclusion that science could be used to validate religion though... After all, observing science, when people come up with a new ideas; hypotheses are borne. Scientific method is then used to help verify these, if they accumulate a substantial body of supporting evidence they ascend to the less fallible state of "theory". However the problem with using concepts of reality proposed by a religion as a hypothesis for scientific analysis, is that by definition many of their concepts such as "God" are not verifiable:
Exactly: they are not verifiable. Therefore I submit that it is indeed UNreasonable to come to the conclusion that science could be used to validate the existence of God. (Please note, I don't care for the word "religion", because it's rather meaningless here. Religion as a concept is created by people. The issue here is whether God exists and created the universe.)
The "Principle of Verification" (A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, 1971), for something to be meaningful it must be verifiable: it must be possible to ether prove or disprove it. If nether is possible then it is a meaningless proposition. This might initially seem like an easy way out of considering things that are not possible to verify but it is much deeper than that: Why is it meaningless?
This is basically the worship of science. It makes science the ultimate arbiter of truth--and since science is only as advanced as our understanding, it makes human beings the ultimate arbiters of truth. But it doesn't take a historian to recognize our miserable track record. It's basically saying, "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist." And that is patently illogical--and unscientific. Even a scientist would admit that just because something is yet unobserved doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just consider all the hypothesizing about dark matter and dark energy and quantum foam.
Look at how hypotheses are formed for a moment: they are attempts to explain a phenomenon (an observable occurrence that is yet unexplained). This means hypotheses are grounded in reality,
There is another set of neurotics: those who won't acknowledge the existence of reasonable Christians who believe both that God created and that science is a useful tool to learn about what God created. These are the majority of Christians.
Anyone who adheres to a false dichotomy is not seeking truth.
Not true. There are christians (never met one) and pick and mix christians (as follows).
So you're simply defining "Christian" by your own personal criteria. That's fine, but be honest about it: just because not everyone agrees on what the canonical criteria are doesn't mean that yours are.
I have heard some of the most amazing justifications for how the bible can be wrong but still be right. Some impressive gymnastics of thought to avoid reality and assign the additional external yet unprovable entity.
Yep, there is a wide spectrum of people with a wide spectrum of ideas. But it would be a shame to rule out the truth because of people who misunderstand it.
I have been through the threat that (one) of my parents were disappointed by my lack of belief and been threatened that I will see the truth in the end (I respond that we both will).
I'm sorry, that must have been a painful experience. You're right, eventually all people will see the truth, whether they believe it now or not.
I have been described by christians as more christian than most christians. This is a mistake conflating christian with good.
I think you're conflating the noun with the adjective. If one recognizes Christ as one to be emulated, then the adjective has a positive denotation. That's clearly what those people meant about you.
Don't let un-Christlike "Christians" give Christ a bad name: He is who He is regardless of how other people act, even those who claim to follow Him. They don't prove Him wrong; they simply prove themselves fallible.
I have spoken with various religious believers who try to 'enlighten' me yet they cant provide one good reason why I should assume such a being exists. The end result is always that they cant prove my acceptance of reality as wrong.
What's your point? that we can't scientifically prove the existence of God? I never claimed that we can. There's a world--a universe, even--of evidence that each side will interpret as supporting their beliefs. If you insist that someone "prove" to you that God exists, you have set up impossible criteria that no one can ever meet--no one except yourself. You've already made up your mind.
A reasonable christian is not a christian.
That's really quite a silly thing to say. It's the same as saying, "Anyone who believes in God and in Christ is an unreasonable, irrational fool who can't think clearly and comprehend reality." And anyone could say the same about atheists, and it would be just as silly and meaningless.
The more complicated truth is that there are so many versions of christians with wildly different beliefs believing they are true christians that there isnt one.
No, that is not a logical conclusion. Christ said that the final judge would be His word. Just because you haven't met anyone who lives up to it--or even if there isn't a single person who truly, completely lives up to it--does not mean that there are no people whom Christ would recognize as Christian. You are simply putting yourself in the judge's seat.
You prove this point by claiming a majority of christians are true yet all christians I speak to have different beliefs when they are apart. The only common denominator seems to be that they think some guy existed as the son of god. But as they cant define the god nor understand the man (agreed between them) then they are still a ball of chaos.
No, I never claimed that at all. Go back and read what I
Whether you believe a certain religion is based on falsehood or truth has no bearing on actual truth. If you lump all religions into one category, that still has no bearing on actual truth. And whether other people practice a religion in one way or another has no bearing on actual truth.
"Religion" is largely created by humans--and many of them are entirely so.
If God is real, he is real whether you think so or not, and whether other religions follow his commands or not.
So my point ultimately is, if you judge God's existence based on how other people act, you are not making the decision for yourself. There might not be a single person on the face of the earth who is acting as God would have him act, but that doesn't mean that God isn't real, just that people are fallible.
My point is that most Christians aren't "fundamentalists," but the media, with stories like this, portrays them as such.
Also, these labels are highly invective, not least because "fundamentalist" is also used to describe people of other religions who blow up themselves and innocent people. So it's a cheap shot to label these people, none of whom would advocate such heinous violence, with the same adjective.
If there was no Adam & Eve, there was no Fall, therefore no Original Sin, therefore no need for Jesus (assuming he existed) to die in order to "save" us from said Sin, therefore no "eternal life"
1. There might not have been a literal Adam and Eve, a first two human beings. They could be figurative examples for early humans.
2. There might not have been a singular "fall" involving the eating of a singular fruit from a singular tree. That could also be a figurative example of the decline in morality and relationship with God by early humans.
3. Therefore those two ideas have no bearing on the reality of sin and the necessity of Christ's sacrifice, nor on eternal life.
there's no actual evidence to take the first few chapters of Genesis as figurative.
That is patently untrue. You're either lying or woefully ignorant of the real issues. There are a multitude of reasons to consider Genesis's creation stories as less than literal descriptions of Creation.
The universe needs no creator for all the same reasons god needs no creator.
That's your opinion; it's not a fact. If you don't care where the universe came from, that's up to you.
If your definition of god is so far removed from the main stream that all you need him for is a stand in for the words "big bang" then you my friend are a closeted atheist.
That statement makes no sense at all. What does "the main stream" have to do with anything? What is "main stream"? What if it's wrong? That's basically just a bandwagon fallacy.
That's very interesting, thanks. Only thing I'm curious about: are you saying that in Greek, the sound made by the omicron-upislon dipthong was only made by the dipthong? My understanding--recognizing the limitations of our knowledge about ancient pronounciations--is that "ou" and "u" make basically the same sound.
Wow. Let me draw your attention to a few things from the article:
July 25, 2023 — As part of its second-quarter earnings announcement today, local transportation and delivery giant Uber announced its biggest bet on autonomous vehicles yet, saying it would purchase 2,500 driverless cars from Google....
Uber has committed to invest up to $375 million for a fleet of Google’s GX3200 vehicles, which are the company’s third generation of autonomous driving cars, but the first to be approved for commercial use in the U.S. The deal marks the largest single capital investment that Uber has made to date, and is also the first enterprise deal that Google has struck for its new line of driverless vehicles.
It’s been just five years since Google announced it would begin manufacturing its own driverless cars, and just two-and-a-half years since those vehicles have hit the streets.
Why do the medallion holders sit at the airport to watch YouTube? Couldn't they do that anywhere in the city, like next to a coffee shop or overlooking the bay?
Slashdot Mirror
Who said that they never have some sort of suicide note? You?
So you mean that they sit at the airport because the chances of any one taxi being hailed for a ride from the airport is low?
Whether God is indirectly observable depends on how you interpret the universe.
The idea of God as a noninterventionist, nonfalsifiable extra-universal entity is a modern invention in response to (if we go way back) classical determinism. Most people believed - and many still believe - in a directly interventionist deity whose existence can be experimentally distinguished from non-existence.
I don't think "most people" can even articulate such a specific belief. Where did you obtain your data? You're just making this up.
Besides, that's another false dichotomy: what about the idea of a deity who can intervene at will but whose existence cannot be experimentally proven? If his existence could be "experimentally distinguished from non-existence," then he would be a deity at all. He would be a phenomenon manipulatable by human beings, and therefore no more powerful than humans themselves.
Many, if not most, of the great minds of history were religious.
For some 15 centuries in Europe apostasy was punished with social exclusion, prison or death. No wonder they all were "religious". Notice how since we got this "freedom of religion" the ratio of religious scientist literally plummeted.
You make a good point, although generalized. But then you follow it with a gross generalization, and an unsubstantiated assertion. Where did you obtain your data?
He's the almighty creator of the universe. He exists outside of space and time.
Care to provide evidence for this factual statement? No? So anything goes, even an "invisible guy".
I never said it could be "proven" scientifically. There's plenty of evidence in the world and universe surrounding you; the only issue is how it is interpreted. Both sides will point to the same thing as evidence supporting their beliefs.
I still think it's silly to keep saying, "invisible guy." That makes it sound like God is just some random guy walking down the street who isn't visible. Of course, if you want to ridicule those who believe in God, you'll imply that. But that's not what the Bible claims about God.
He gave you free will to do what you want and believe what you want.
No, according to your supposed sacred book (gen 2:17) he was against that idea. Satan gave us free will, that's who you should thank if you believe that "metaphor" (or whatever your "strong faith" calls it).
"...but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Gen 2:17
Free will is exactly what God gave people, and that verse proves it. God gave them a command because he gave them the ability to choose whether to obey it. And they chose not to. Satan did not give them free will; he enticed them to use their free will to choose not to obey God. The importance of that distinction cannot be underrated.
Are you saying that there are no Christians in India? Because that isn't true.
No, I don't think Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism are true.
When did I say that my beliefs should be given special deference? I live in the USA, and our Constitution respects no particular religion. It requires freedom of religious belief and practice.
What's your point?
Siamese twins have literally nothing whatsoever to do with the point I'm making. And you know that.
Transsexuality has everything to do with people's beliefs. If people believe it's a real physical "condition" that requires "treatment", then people will try to "fix" it. Or if people believe it's a psychological condition caused by trauma that amounts to the refusal to accept reality, then the treatment will be to try to help people accept reality, rather than helping them surgically alter their bodies and chemically reprogram them.
I'm not a bigot just because I disagree with you. Bigotry is simply the new witch-hunt. It's the refuge often retreated to when people refuse to argue rationally.
50% Troll
50% Insightful
I think that means I'm onto something.
How can I argue with your three names and ridicule? There is no answer to your angry ranting and raving.
Oops, you just presupposed that God isn't real, that there is no eternity, and you generalized the entire Bible--an anthology of 66 ancient books covering a variety of genres, times, places, and purposes--into one lump text that is either wholly factual or wholly mythical.
You've presupposed your own reasonableness and correctness and asserted that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Allow me to use your words against you: If reasonable non-believers would come out and say, "We can't prove God isn't real," and "we acknowledge that the Bible is a complex work often misinterpreted and misused and intentionally misrepresented," then we reasonable believers might cut you more slack.
Using science as a tool within religion? as harmonious as their intentions might be; i would describe them as "ignorantly agnostic"... Acknowledging science as a useful tool is acknowledging it as a rational way of deducing and validating evolving theories (no pun intended) about reality from empirical evidence... which is and always has been in direct conflict with religious belief; a lack of empirical evidence and a lack of logical reasoning.
This is a strong but unverifiable assertion. You're presupposing that:
1) empirical evidence for the existence of God could be found;
2) that it is impossible to both believe in God and believe that there is a physical reality which can be studied empirically;
3) that anything which cannot be empirically proven to exist must not exist;
4) that it is illogical to believe in the existence of God or anything else that cannot be empirically proven.
Not only are those presuppositions illogical, but they are easily disproven by simple history. At one time we did not know that microscopic things existed: bacteria, viruses, molecules, atoms, etc. Their very existence was not even considered, much less visualized, and much less proven. We did not even conceive of their existence. But now we know that they do exist.
You may answer this by suggesting that we must therefore eventually be able to prove that God exists. There are two counters to this argument: 1) that we can never know when "it's been long enough" to conclude that we would have proven his existence by now; and 2) it is a presupposition to insist that God must exist within our physical universe.
If they are thought to be truly compatible then they are not well understood.
I agree with you: neither God nor science are well understood by us.
It's not entirely unreasonable to come to the conclusion that science could be used to validate religion though... After all, observing science, when people come up with a new ideas; hypotheses are borne. Scientific method is then used to help verify these, if they accumulate a substantial body of supporting evidence they ascend to the less fallible state of "theory". However the problem with using concepts of reality proposed by a religion as a hypothesis for scientific analysis, is that by definition many of their concepts such as "God" are not verifiable:
Exactly: they are not verifiable. Therefore I submit that it is indeed UNreasonable to come to the conclusion that science could be used to validate the existence of God. (Please note, I don't care for the word "religion", because it's rather meaningless here. Religion as a concept is created by people. The issue here is whether God exists and created the universe.)
The "Principle of Verification" (A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, 1971), for something to be meaningful it must be verifiable: it must be possible to ether prove or disprove it. If nether is possible then it is a meaningless proposition. This might initially seem like an easy way out of considering things that are not possible to verify but it is much deeper than that: Why is it meaningless?
This is basically the worship of science. It makes science the ultimate arbiter of truth--and since science is only as advanced as our understanding, it makes human beings the ultimate arbiters of truth. But it doesn't take a historian to recognize our miserable track record. It's basically saying, "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist." And that is patently illogical--and unscientific. Even a scientist would admit that just because something is yet unobserved doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just consider all the hypothesizing about dark matter and dark energy and quantum foam.
Look at how hypotheses are formed for a moment: they are attempts to explain a phenomenon (an observable occurrence that is yet unexplained). This means hypotheses are grounded in reality,
There is another set of neurotics: those who won't acknowledge the existence of reasonable Christians who believe both that God created and that science is a useful tool to learn about what God created. These are the majority of Christians.
Anyone who adheres to a false dichotomy is not seeking truth.
Not true. There are christians (never met one) and pick and mix christians (as follows).
So you're simply defining "Christian" by your own personal criteria. That's fine, but be honest about it: just because not everyone agrees on what the canonical criteria are doesn't mean that yours are.
I have heard some of the most amazing justifications for how the bible can be wrong but still be right. Some impressive gymnastics of thought to avoid reality and assign the additional external yet unprovable entity.
Yep, there is a wide spectrum of people with a wide spectrum of ideas. But it would be a shame to rule out the truth because of people who misunderstand it.
I have been through the threat that (one) of my parents were disappointed by my lack of belief and been threatened that I will see the truth in the end (I respond that we both will).
I'm sorry, that must have been a painful experience. You're right, eventually all people will see the truth, whether they believe it now or not.
I have been described by christians as more christian than most christians. This is a mistake conflating christian with good.
I think you're conflating the noun with the adjective. If one recognizes Christ as one to be emulated, then the adjective has a positive denotation. That's clearly what those people meant about you.
Don't let un-Christlike "Christians" give Christ a bad name: He is who He is regardless of how other people act, even those who claim to follow Him. They don't prove Him wrong; they simply prove themselves fallible.
I have spoken with various religious believers who try to 'enlighten' me yet they cant provide one good reason why I should assume such a being exists. The end result is always that they cant prove my acceptance of reality as wrong.
What's your point? that we can't scientifically prove the existence of God? I never claimed that we can. There's a world--a universe, even--of evidence that each side will interpret as supporting their beliefs. If you insist that someone "prove" to you that God exists, you have set up impossible criteria that no one can ever meet--no one except yourself. You've already made up your mind.
A reasonable christian is not a christian.
That's really quite a silly thing to say. It's the same as saying, "Anyone who believes in God and in Christ is an unreasonable, irrational fool who can't think clearly and comprehend reality." And anyone could say the same about atheists, and it would be just as silly and meaningless.
The more complicated truth is that there are so many versions of christians with wildly different beliefs believing they are true christians that there isnt one.
No, that is not a logical conclusion. Christ said that the final judge would be His word. Just because you haven't met anyone who lives up to it--or even if there isn't a single person who truly, completely lives up to it--does not mean that there are no people whom Christ would recognize as Christian. You are simply putting yourself in the judge's seat.
You prove this point by claiming a majority of christians are true yet all christians I speak to have different beliefs when they are apart. The only common denominator seems to be that they think some guy existed as the son of god. But as they cant define the god nor understand the man (agreed between them) then they are still a ball of chaos.
No, I never claimed that at all. Go back and read what I
Whether you believe a certain religion is based on falsehood or truth has no bearing on actual truth. If you lump all religions into one category, that still has no bearing on actual truth. And whether other people practice a religion in one way or another has no bearing on actual truth.
"Religion" is largely created by humans--and many of them are entirely so.
If God is real, he is real whether you think so or not, and whether other religions follow his commands or not.
So my point ultimately is, if you judge God's existence based on how other people act, you are not making the decision for yourself. There might not be a single person on the face of the earth who is acting as God would have him act, but that doesn't mean that God isn't real, just that people are fallible.
My point is that most Christians aren't "fundamentalists," but the media, with stories like this, portrays them as such.
Also, these labels are highly invective, not least because "fundamentalist" is also used to describe people of other religions who blow up themselves and innocent people. So it's a cheap shot to label these people, none of whom would advocate such heinous violence, with the same adjective.
Oops, your bigotry is showing.
Here is how it is faulty:
If there was no Adam & Eve, there was no Fall, therefore no Original Sin, therefore no need for Jesus (assuming he existed) to die in order to "save" us from said Sin, therefore no "eternal life"
1. There might not have been a literal Adam and Eve, a first two human beings. They could be figurative examples for early humans.
2. There might not have been a singular "fall" involving the eating of a singular fruit from a singular tree. That could also be a figurative example of the decline in morality and relationship with God by early humans.
3. Therefore those two ideas have no bearing on the reality of sin and the necessity of Christ's sacrifice, nor on eternal life.
I didn't say that he did imply that. I simply pointed out a fact. Your assuming I meant that is faulty reasoning on your part. :p
there's no actual evidence to take the first few chapters of Genesis as figurative.
That is patently untrue. You're either lying or woefully ignorant of the real issues. There are a multitude of reasons to consider Genesis's creation stories as less than literal descriptions of Creation.
The universe needs no creator for all the same reasons god needs no creator.
That's your opinion; it's not a fact. If you don't care where the universe came from, that's up to you.
If your definition of god is so far removed from the main stream that all you need him for is a stand in for the words "big bang" then you my friend are a closeted atheist.
That statement makes no sense at all. What does "the main stream" have to do with anything? What is "main stream"? What if it's wrong? That's basically just a bandwagon fallacy.
And who said that's all that I "need" him for?
I'm not sure what your point is.
There are a bunch of apps in the Play Store that can turn wifi on and off automatically. Llama can do it too, among many other things, and it's free.
Of course it matters. What if the sequestration process produces more CO2 than it sequesters?
You're just following the mindless, "We HAVE to do SOMETHING, NOW!" dogma. And that's a bigger risk to our lives than climate change.
That's very interesting, thanks. Only thing I'm curious about: are you saying that in Greek, the sound made by the omicron-upislon dipthong was only made by the dipthong? My understanding--recognizing the limitations of our knowledge about ancient pronounciations--is that "ou" and "u" make basically the same sound.
Wow. Let me draw your attention to a few things from the article:
July 25, 2023 — As part of its second-quarter earnings announcement today, local transportation and delivery giant Uber announced its biggest bet on autonomous vehicles yet, saying it would purchase 2,500 driverless cars from Google....
Uber has committed to invest up to $375 million for a fleet of Google’s GX3200 vehicles, which are the company’s third generation of autonomous driving cars, but the first to be approved for commercial use in the U.S. The deal marks the largest single capital investment that Uber has made to date, and is also the first enterprise deal that Google has struck for its new line of driverless vehicles.
It’s been just five years since Google announced it would begin manufacturing its own driverless cars, and just two-and-a-half years since those vehicles have hit the streets.
It's explicitly a "dispatch from the future."
Why do the medallion holders sit at the airport to watch YouTube? Couldn't they do that anywhere in the city, like next to a coffee shop or overlooking the bay?