> This is a big moral problem for liberal Western democracies. Most > European and North American states, and a good portion of nations in > the rest of the world, are founded on the basis that every person is > entitled to the same basic rights as the rest. The philosophical > rhetoric that underlies these claims needs the postulate that all > human beings are somewhat equal--nobody is so much better > equipped, morally or intellectually or otherwise, that he can > take away the political rights of self determination from other men.
Well, actually it's not such a problem. To be "created" equal requires a creator. The idea is that, since none of us is the creator, we have no rights over the lives of one another, except insomuch as we mutually agree. Jefferson was not talking about intellectual, muscular, or moral equality--certainly he knew that some of us are smarter, more powerful, or more virtuous than others.
3) Evolution itself has plenty of room for a valid new theology based on the idea that God would WANT life to be free of God's direct design. This is known as "liberation theology" and though many Catholics disdain it, it's perfectly plausible.
This has nothing to do with liberation theology. Liberation theology is a mixture of Christian doctrine with Marxist doctrine, implying that Christians should get involved in Marxist revolutions, particularly in Latin America. Since Marxism includes atheism, the Catholic Church sees an inherent contradiction in liberation theology.
I always thought it was obvious: have you ever seen the copyright notices in MS' "About" boxes giving copyright credit to such entities as NCSA (MS didn't write Explorer or IIS from scratch!) and UCSB (Where did you think they got their TCP/IP suite: WalMart?)? Microsoft is upset that not all free software authors are willing to allow them to share (i.e., steal) their code.
The big question is whether MS (or others) have actually used GPL'd code. Since we can't see the source, it would be difficult to prove that certain machine code was generated from illicitly used GPL'd source. (Note that I am not accusing, but merely pointing out a possibility.)
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> Not all men are created equal.
> This is a big moral problem for liberal Western democracies. Most
> European and North American states, and a good portion of nations in
> the rest of the world, are founded on the basis that every person is
> entitled to the same basic rights as the rest. The philosophical
> rhetoric that underlies these claims needs the postulate that all
> human beings are somewhat equal--nobody is so much better
> equipped, morally or intellectually or otherwise, that he can
> take away the political rights of self determination from other men.
Well, actually it's not such a problem. To be "created" equal requires a creator. The idea is that, since none of us is the creator, we have no rights over the lives of one another, except insomuch as we mutually agree. Jefferson was not talking about intellectual, muscular, or moral equality--certainly he knew that some of us are smarter, more powerful, or more virtuous than others.
3) Evolution itself has plenty of room for a valid new theology based on the idea that God would WANT life to be free of God's direct design. This is known as "liberation theology" and though many Catholics disdain it, it's perfectly plausible.
This has nothing to do with liberation theology. Liberation theology is a mixture of Christian doctrine with Marxist doctrine, implying that Christians should get involved in Marxist revolutions, particularly in Latin America. Since Marxism includes atheism, the Catholic Church sees an inherent contradiction in liberation theology.
I always thought it was obvious: have you ever seen the copyright notices in MS' "About" boxes giving copyright credit to such entities as NCSA (MS didn't write Explorer or IIS from scratch!) and UCSB (Where did you think they got their TCP/IP suite: WalMart?)? Microsoft is upset that not all free software authors are willing to allow them to share (i.e., steal) their code.
The big question is whether MS (or others) have actually used GPL'd code. Since we can't see the source, it would be difficult to prove that certain machine code was generated from illicitly used GPL'd source. (Note that I am not accusing, but merely pointing out a possibility.)