It explains why Hitler didn't consider himself evil, but it doesn't mean that his actions where decent.
Debating the accuracy of those axioms would be off-topic for this story. And let's be honest: neither side would persuade the other of anything in this kind of forum.
I was presenting a model in which that guy might have had the best of intentions, while still engaging in politics that some disagree with. In doing so, I was trying to argue that we shouldn't impugn his motives without more information.
Also, I was using the word "orthodox" in the lower-case. I didn't specifically mean the Russian / Eastern / Greek / etc. Orthodox denominations.
But making a stand against someone because they're gay seems petty...and I'm straight. What happened to live and let live?
Two separate issues, I think.
From an orthodox Christian perspective, making a stand against homosexual conduct is making a stand for homosexual persons. To orthodox Christians, practicing homosexuality is sin, and unrepentant sin is a path towards eternal destruction. To be "pro homosexuality" would, for such Christians, be like being "pro all-you-can-eat buffet" for morbidly obese people. It's what they want, but (on the Christian view), it's directly contrary to their long-term well-being.
The "live-and-let-live" issue is quite separate. I don't think there's anything in classical Christian theology that requires Christians to pursue the legislation of Christian behavior.
There's an important point that I think is often lost in these discussions. Orthodox Christian theology maintains several points: (1) Homosexuality is a sin, (2) unrepentant sin goes hand-in-hand with alienation from God, and (3) alienation from God leads to both unhappiness in this present life and a missed opportunity for happiness after death.
Based on that set of axioms, it can be completely loving to encourage someone to repent of his sins and choose to follow Jesus. Practicing homosexuality is a sign that someone isn't doing that. It would therefore be unloving or even hateful to affirm homosexual relations.
Now I'm sure 90% of the Slashdot crowd disagrees with those axioms. And it's certainly the case that a person can proclaim to be Christian but actually hate gay people. But there are some Christians for whom that's not the case, and I don't think any of us knows Mozilla's CEO well enough to guess in which group he sits.
Agreed. But no one makes you use Netflix either, to go with your analogy.
Or to go with the road analogy: what the scumbag ISP's are doing is more akin to letting you only drive at a slower speed limit on a toll road if you're unwilling to pay. They don't entirely deprive you of the right to use it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm in no way advocating this train-wreck of a policy situation. I'm just not sure the original analogy worked well.
Agreed. Calculus is a specific mathematical, symbolic approach to computation. Solving the same kinds of problems by a different means is not calculus.
The reason it wasn't obvious is that someone might see them going after their watchers, and also breaching the separation of powers, as a far worse offense than violating the Fourth Amendment, as gutted by the SCOTUS.
We were (I hope) trying to screen presidential candidates with accurate forsight. Because that matters for policy-making. Romney clearly won this one.
How many other things were said at the time by either candidate but weren't borne out by time?
I agree that this is the more important question. I'm sure we could cherry-pick examples that pu any candidate in a better light than some other. That being said, there are a few predictions (well, more policy statements, I guess) that Obama has utterly gotten wrong:
If you like your insurance, you can keep it
If you like your doctors, you can keep your doctor
He'd run the most transparent White House in history.
Not saying that Romney didn't have any epic prediction / promise failures. They're just not coming to mind. I'm sure someone will remind us.
I got to admit I become a little skeptical of her because of her hula-hoop bashing.
Agreed. The way I see it, there are basically two kinds of people in the world: people who like hula hoops, and people who are joyless humorless busybodies. I think we can all agree that Julie's unfortunate problems were completely predictable from her distaste for hula hoops.
I used to work on. DoD research lab. Whenever the security team didn't inderstandt something, they shut down the network. They didn't know much, so they shut down systems often and for long periods. And their performance was judged entirely on howamy attacks got through, not on our lab's productivity.
It's a big reason why they kept on loosing gold developers and researchers, me included.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair points. I failed to indicate the variety of views on the topic.
Sick axioms don't excuse that much.
It explains why Hitler didn't consider himself evil, but it doesn't mean that his actions where decent.
Debating the accuracy of those axioms would be off-topic for this story. And let's be honest: neither side would persuade the other of anything in this kind of forum.
I was presenting a model in which that guy might have had the best of intentions, while still engaging in politics that some disagree with. In doing so, I was trying to argue that we shouldn't impugn his motives without more information.
Also, I was using the word "orthodox" in the lower-case. I didn't specifically mean the Russian / Eastern / Greek / etc. Orthodox denominations.
But making a stand against someone because they're gay seems petty...and I'm straight.
What happened to live and let live?
Two separate issues, I think.
From an orthodox Christian perspective, making a stand against homosexual conduct is making a stand for homosexual persons. To orthodox Christians, practicing homosexuality is sin, and unrepentant sin is a path towards eternal destruction. To be "pro homosexuality" would, for such Christians, be like being "pro all-you-can-eat buffet" for morbidly obese people. It's what they want, but (on the Christian view), it's directly contrary to their long-term well-being.
The "live-and-let-live" issue is quite separate. I don't think there's anything in classical Christian theology that requires Christians to pursue the legislation of Christian behavior.
There's an important point that I think is often lost in these discussions. Orthodox Christian theology maintains several points: (1) Homosexuality is a sin, (2) unrepentant sin goes hand-in-hand with alienation from God, and (3) alienation from God leads to both unhappiness in this present life and a missed opportunity for happiness after death.
Based on that set of axioms, it can be completely loving to encourage someone to repent of his sins and choose to follow Jesus. Practicing homosexuality is a sign that someone isn't doing that. It would therefore be unloving or even hateful to affirm homosexual relations.
Now I'm sure 90% of the Slashdot crowd disagrees with those axioms. And it's certainly the case that a person can proclaim to be Christian but actually hate gay people. But there are some Christians for whom that's not the case, and I don't think any of us knows Mozilla's CEO well enough to guess in which group he sits.
As with everything else, Pick two.
Does that count for girlfriends as well?
Is anything really changing? This strikes me more as mollifying.
No one makes you take a toll road.
Agreed. But no one makes you use Netflix either, to go with your analogy.
Or to go with the road analogy: what the scumbag ISP's are doing is more akin to letting you only drive at a slower speed limit on a toll road if you're unwilling to pay. They don't entirely deprive you of the right to use it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm in no way advocating this train-wreck of a policy situation. I'm just not sure the original analogy worked well.
This is how the internet dies : Toll roads.
Well, toll roads didn't kill real, physical roads. So I suspect we're going to see the death of something other than the actual Internet.
As someone who works in Cambridge next to MIT, I'm skeptical that Stanford has all the good people.
If your kids are fifty cents away from starvation, I'd argue that the "unnecessary moonshot" isn't the reason why you can't afford them.
If 50 cents / kid is no big deal, then it should also be fine for me to *not* pay that, wouldn't you say?
In fact, if 50 cents / person is no big deal, how about we make it optional for every taxpayer, and just take up a voluntary collection instead?
So why did you have kids you can't afford and why is that our problem?
So it's only valid to have kids so long as we can afford an unnecessary moonshot?
I'm working my ass off just to support my family. I already can't afford to save up for my kids' college, and our medical bills are extensive.
Ask my how much I want to be taxed to send someone to the moon right now.
I think you'll find that defining "properly" in this context runs into the same critique you made about "shortage".
Agreed. Calculus is a specific mathematical, symbolic approach to computation. Solving the same kinds of problems by a different means is not calculus.
Of course I am.
The reason it wasn't obvious is that someone might see them going after their watchers, and also breaching the separation of powers, as a far worse offense than violating the Fourth Amendment, as gutted by the SCOTUS.
I can't tell of you're being facetious or not.
We were (I hope) trying to screen presidential candidates with accurate forsight. Because that matters for policy-making. Romney clearly won this one.
I agree that this is the more important question. I'm sure we could cherry-pick examples that pu any candidate in a better light than some other. That being said, there are a few predictions (well, more policy statements, I guess) that Obama has utterly gotten wrong:
If you like your insurance, you can keep it
If you like your doctors, you can keep your doctor
He'd run the most transparent White House in history.
Not saying that Romney didn't have any epic prediction / promise failures. They're just not coming to mind. I'm sure someone will remind us.
I got to admit I become a little skeptical of her because of her hula-hoop bashing.
Agreed. The way I see it, there are basically two kinds of people in the world: people who like hula hoops, and people who are joyless humorless busybodies. I think we can all agree that Julie's unfortunate problems were completely predictable from her distaste for hula hoops.
Nobody. Absolutely NOBODY.
The large number of persons who also idolized Steve Jobs, I suspect.
I used to work on. DoD research lab. Whenever the security team didn't inderstandt something, they shut down the network. They didn't know much, so they shut down systems often and for long periods. And their performance was judged entirely on howamy attacks got through, not on our lab's productivity.
It's a big reason why they kept on loosing gold developers and researchers, me included.
When people who don't need those services are compelled to by (ultimately) the threat of violence by the government, it's hard to love the policy.
Obviously you get 5,000 women pregnant, and ask each one of them to backup just one DVD-R!
I don't get it. What's the candied apples thing all about?
Is there nothing he couldn't do?
Women.
(I kid, I kid.)