one could make a strong case that the 4th and 10th amendments to the Constitution establish the principle that privacy (at least from the Government itself) is guaranteed by the Constitution.
Yeah, one could make a strong case that the 10th amendment mean anything. The "right" to privacy is just the popular meaning of the day.
I could say that it is self-evident and inaliable that an unborn baby have the right to life, and you could say the same about the right to abortion. Not all things are as self evindent as we would like.
The real world features violence, nudity, sex, offensive language and concepts. Deal with it...
The real world also features rape, incest, torture, and all sorts of evil things. That doesn't mean they are healthy to be watching or worth putting in movies. Maybe I'm just a big loser, but I see a lot more violence, nudity, and sex in movies than I do in real life.
Why does everyone get so uptight about nudity?
For most people, nudity leads to lust. For married people especially, lust towards another person is not good. (Maybe you can find a wife that feels good about being cheated on.) Therefore, you might want to avoid the things that lead to lust.
there is no reason to sanitize and dumb down a story so that the over-sensitive can handle it.
Controlling the amount of violence and nudity in a movie has nothing to do with "dumbing down". Making movies for people who doen't want to think, but just want to see killing and nudity, that what I would call dumbing down. I can't even remember the last intellegent movie that was made that actually made me think.
Or more realistically, buy telemarketer's lists, and inform the idiots who actually buy this stuff (by phone/email/whatever) what the result of people giving into SPAM/telemarketers is, and how they are ruining it for everyone. Most of them probably don't even know, and it is unlikely that they read anything like Slashdot that would inform them.
Hasn't worked for the millions of pot smokers being persecuted in the name of the children.
Thats because there aren't enough of them. There really has to be a majority of people who want it legalized, and the numbers simply aren't there. The majority of adults will probably never smoke pot on a regular basis, and the ones who don't are not likely to want something to be legalized that is much more harmful than cigarettes. (Likewise, we need to make sure that the adults who do not understand digital rights or really have much of a care at least hear the argument from those who do enjoy such things.) When I was a teeneager I kind of liked the fact that marijuana was illegal. It made it more of a thrill. However, I do thing that the punishments for users are way too stiff, especially for kids.
BTW, I know several people who aren't right in the head because of drugs they used when they were a teeneager. Some things simply shouldn't be legalized.
I too usually vote Republican. I am very tempted to send such a letter just to prove my point to him, but I don't want non-corrupt Republicans to suffer because of one corrupt dimwit. Well, OK, these days there are quite a few dimwits in the Republican party, I still believe in its ideals. Perhaps at the very least, politicians need to be aware that most people are not blindly loyal to everyone in their favorite party, and to accomplish this, voters need to stop BEING blidly loyal to every politician who is in his or her favorite party.
I don't understand why Orrin Hatch, a republican, wants to give the RIAA and MPAA more power than the CIA or NSA. What doesn't make sense in particular is that the entertainment industry is the biggest contributing group to the democratic party. If they lose money, so do the democrats, which is good for the republican party, and ultimitely, his job. This in addition to the fact that this proposed legislation is so obviously morally wrong makes this very strange to me.
I happen to know that Taiwan has a lower tax rate than the US. Why aren't they on your tax rate chart? Also, why don't they just show the tax rate, instead of doing a tax rate per GDP?
You think television and video games don't effect behavior? Try playing Gran Turismo for a while and then go out driving. I'm not the only person I know who has problems with this.
I don't know what Bible you are reading, but mine says nothing about any staircase or rope breaking. You can always go back to the original copies of the text if you think your copy has gotten skewed. There is bound to be some slight discrepancies, but by an large the four accounts of the time of Jesus are incredibly accurate when you consider they were written by four different people who were not always in the same place at the same time.
Also, you say that the interpretation is underconstrained, but most Christians believe that the majority of the Bible is fairly literal, while it is the atheists and agnostics in general who would like people to have a looser interpretation because they think this "only way" stuff is dangerous. However, there is bound to be some figurative writing in the Bible because part if it is written in poem, and if you remember how Jesus spoke, it wasn't exacly literal. In fact he had to translate everything because people didn't want to make any attempt to figure out what he was talking about.
As for the Bible contradicting archeology, this is simply not true. For example, just recently, the a city was unearthed that fits perfectly with the Bible's description of Jericho, and even the walls were still intact, with one section of them broken down. What they found in the structures fit with the Jews taking over the city.
The only part where any real contradictions exist is in the creation account. Yes, this does depend on how you interpret it, but the contradiction can also depend on how you interpret scientific findings. The scientific community is just as guilty of trying to disprove the Bible as the so-called "Christian scientists" (no not the denomination) are of trying to search for evidence to prove the Bible.
There will always be people who believe in God because when you see REAL miracles in response to prayer, speculation over a skull in Africa seems irrelevant.
Other than the fact that your post is totally off-topic, it is also totally untrue. People who have jobs which are low paying and rough are of course less likely to have any kind of help for this type of injury. It has nothing to do with color. Stop reading your racist propaganda and look out in the real world. If you have lived in Suburbia your whole life you might think that all white people (males in particular) have it made, but I can assure you that is not true. The vast majority of my white male friends have jobs in which they work their ass off for little pay and very few benifites. NONE of my female friends (well, except for my friend's moother) have ever endured such a job, nor have my Asian or black friends, though I do know plenty of mexicans with such jobs. I have had several minimum wage jobs, and the women were treated like queens compared to the men.
If you want to get some exposure to white males you don't fit your stereotype, you can talk to my great-grandfather who got CTS so bad that he had to stop using his right hand and write with his left hand. He was a mail carrier. Even our supposed "white male dominance" government appearently didn't take care of him. "White male excuse" my ass!
If we want to change the whole problem of people getting mistreated at work thing, then we have to educate people in school about their rights as an employee, and improve legislation to ensure that even people with low paying jobs have access to such things as low-cost health care and lawyers. But please don't turn it into a race issue, as much as you would like to.
Some of what you said is true, but the main thrust is that you are racist, sexist, and you would like everyone else to be as well. No thanks.
I find interesting the phrase that some people use, "You can't legislate morality." All legislation is trying to enforce some sense of morality for the sake of the rest of the country. Whether it is corporate regulations (you can't screw over consumers or destroy our environment), social security (if the rich won't take care of the poor voluntarily, we will take their money and do it for them), or thou shall not murder (don't kill people, you insensitive clod) all legislation has to do with morality.
Whatever the current moral standards of the day are is what will be used for legislation. People just don't always agree on the moral standards. Many standards have come from Christianity but most these days do not.
While we have the freedom of speech here in the U.S., similar thinking regarding the fear of talking about religion is alive here. Religion these days is like sex was 100 years ago - nobody thinks it is appropriate to talk about, as if some sort of war or riot is going to break out of we talk about it. When will people understand that there can be both peace and difference of opinions and beliefs at the same time? If we think we have to neuter ourselves for the sake of getting along with others, then we have truly given up. We don't need to voluntarily self-impose such restrictions as Egypt is on our own talk and thoughts. I am glad that the Matrix 2 looks at some of these issues. (Though I am always a little worried when Hollywood does try to look at religious issues.) I think that part of the reason many people think the movie is so deep is that they had never thought about such things for themselves before.
Only Christians that take the bible literally are intolerant.
Wow, you people are driving me nuts!! How you interperet the Bible has absolutely nothing to do with how tolerent you are!! For crying out loud, listen to yourself -- Anyone who interperets the Bible figuratively is alright, but if you happen to interperet it more literally (ie. maybe, just maybe Jesus really meant it when he said "No on can enter the Father except through me.") then I don't like you and I am going to call you intolerent, a bigot, and 10 other things.
No, I think you show pretty well what intolerence looks like.
To athiests, religion is a search for what helps you and makes life easier for you, because to them, there is no god, so all religions are equally wrong.
To those who believe in a god, religion is a search for the truth. (Is there a god?, what is he like?, what has he done?, what is his will for people?)
Until athiests understand this, they will always have a misunderstanding of what "resonable religions" are and of what tolerance means. I always hear atheists say that Christians are intolerent because they think their was is the only way. If religion is about feeling fulfilled, then yeah, there may be several ways, but if it is about the truth, then there is only one way, because there is only one truth.
Maybe certain athiests are right, maybe Christians are right, maybe Muslims are right, or maybe no one has discovered the complete truth yet.
Of course, we still need to appreciate those who don't agree with us, whether it involves religion, politics or emacs vs. vi debates. However, when it comes to matters involving the question, "What is the truth?", there is only one correct answer.
Now I'm confused. First you say "a large chuck of Aids funding goes toward education", but then you say "You are pitting logic against the raging hormones of hundreds of millions of teenagers? " in response to "If people stopped doing the things that spread AIDS (it's not exactly airborne), it would eventually go away".
So if you are for funding so that we can have better education, then you must think education will actually help, but this contradicts the idea that kids are going to do things that put them at risk regardless of whether or not those things could end up killing them.
Not all countries have, but I think that the US has reached a point where the only people who are going to get AIDS are the ones who are willing to participate in risky behavior knowing full well of the possible consequences, and these people's children. You either have self-control or you do not. Research can help, but the main thing now is spreading the knowledge we already have around the world.
"The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He's going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources."
Why is this story not in YRO? I cannot believe that no one else has complained about the obvious repression of this man's rights. We must be becoming very apathetic. People from the future have rights too!
Is the story true or not? Who cares? Such details have never stopped real civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson!
As close to a scam as possible without going over
on
Are Rebates Scandalous?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I once fell for a rebate offer from Best Buy in which you could get $30 back from a Western Digital hard drive and $30 back from some overpriced RAM, be only if you bought both. You had to send the memory UPC to one address and the hard drive UPC to another, while copies of the receipts went to both.
Well, I dug out the UPC from my hard drive box, triple checked the forms and receipts, following Best Buys handy "Rebate Receipt" guidelines (why can't the just take care of the rebate for me if they are going to go to this much trouble?). After waiting three months, I got the rebate back from my memory. Another month went by and I still didn't have the rebate from my hard drive back. I mailed and tried to call, with no luck. Then, I finally got back my original rebate letter I sent them, with everything except the UPC. It said that I had sent the wrong UPC. This was quite laughable because there were only two, and I knew that I sent the memory UPC to the correct address because I had already gotten back the rebate. So why didn't they send me back this "wrong UPC" ? I sent the whole thing back to them asking this question, and they sent it back to me again with a letter describing how they have to be strict to prevent fraud. I called and finally got ahold of someone, who gave me a different address to send my letter to. After sending it to this address and waiting a month, I finally got a letter back saying that the deadline for the offer has expired.. have a nice life.
Well, I will never buy anything from Western Digital again. Other than this misfortune, I have never had any problems getting back rebates, other than the absurdly long response times.
Alright, what you stated is probably more accurate than what I said. (Arabs don't want to destroy Jews, just relocate them.) However, that statement in itself may seem like it is demonizing them. I personally don't think it is, because not all Arabs feel that way and the ones the do aren't necessarily hateful, they just feel like it is wrong for Jews to be there based on religious beliefs. Something has got to give, though, because the nation of Isreal isn't going to be moving anytime soon.
That being stated, I think we are actually on the same page with the "image" thing. We should be doing things that are right which would improve our image, but not let our image come before whether it is right or wrong. Wouldn't it be great if AS A NATION we made an effort to raise money for relief in Afganistan and Iraq, much like we did with the September 11th thing? Maybe we could put donation boxes in post offices and other government buildings. In this case, we could be sure that it would actually get to the people, instead of humanitarian aid that goes to Africa and gets averted by the local warlords. Also, it wouldn't rely on economy-draining taxes like the rest of the war, though it would probably involve the usual 50% overhead our government seems to need for everything if they were actually the ones overseeing it. I am seriously considering writing my congressman and suggesting this. I think the majority of Americans would be glad to see something like this. I know there are already relief programs set up, but I think it takes some leadership to rally the people to take part in something as a group. This type of thing could become a tradition whenever there is a large need somewhere in the world. If that were to happen, our image around the entire world would improve, though we would still need to make sure that our leaders are not simultateously taking advantage of other countries. There are so many good things we could do to help the Arab world and our image with them other than sitting back while Saddam desecrates his own people and possibly us.
I think the biggest argument against the war would be that invading Iraq heightens the anti-West feeling in the middle east.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and sort of uh.... disagree with you there. When I make important decisions, you can be sure that how the middle east feels about them is the last thing on my mind. Islamic extremists are not reasonable people, and worrying about what they think is the equivalent of worrying what a KKK leader thinks. Sure, they may kill you, but in the grand scheme of things their opinions do not determine right and wrong. Most Iraqis support getting rid of Saddam, and would have done it themselves if they could have. The rest of the middle east is simply mad because they feel powerless and are being fed anti-american propaganda 24/7.
I have heard decent arguments against the war, but this is not one of them. People in the middle east who hate us do so because we support Israel. This is not going to change until the Arabs stop wanting to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth (something that most Jews do NOT want to do to them).
This talk of doing things based on what other people groups think is absurd. I reminds me of junior high school all over again. Of course, since this attitude is so prevelent these days, sometimes I forget that I am not still in junior high.
Universities have the right to decide who gets to use their facilities. Of course, public universities are not allowed to stop different groups from coming onto campus, but there is a big difference in organizing an event involving facilities that would usually be locked and letting them come onto campus and assemble freely. Here's another thought: What if Eminem requested to do a school convocation for the local kindergarden class to help educate them that they don't want to grow up to be a "faggot"? Would the school officials be forced to say, "Well heck, we can't stop you. What time do you want to do it?" Do you think I have a right to go into my school's music hall and start going to town at will? Is that my constitutional right? Of course not. I must get university's approval, then pay a large fee. If music companies or bands want to come to campus to protest, that is a different story, but I don't see Brittany Spears holding up a sign saying "Please support your local RIAA" any time soon.
Of course, all this is completely disregarding the fact the student governments would be much more likely to boycott the RIAA than school presidents.
I must say that I am against the Patriot Act. While invasion of privacy went on before it, now it is just to dang easy for them to invade our privacy.
That being said, what makes you think that privacy is really an "essential liberty"? I mean, the only people who get real privacy are the ones with enough money to afford a place to live. Homeless people do not have the luxury, yet we all act like it is an inaliable right on par with freedom of speech or freedom of religion. There is nothing about freedom of privacy in the bill of rights. People quote the the 9th, but I just don't see it as being as important as those specifically stated. Why do people get so bent out of shape about stuff like the Patriot Act, but not so much when other basic rights are being challenged?
Well, as it stands right now, De Beers has a worldwide monopoly on natural diamonds.
Yeah, I'm sure it will be a while before we see processors made from diamonds. We'll have to develop some sort of DRM (Diamond Rights Management) before they will let us use them in in the format we want them in.
Cut and paste reply? I worked on that thing longer than any post I have submitted even though I knew you would probably be the only one reading it, but yes, I do have a tendency to go off on tangents on things I feel strongly about. Although now that I have it, it will be good material for...:)
Also, I tend to address not just the post I am replying to, but beliefs and actions that I think are dangerous. Its not always easy separate the person from the issue. I certainly wasn't saying that you are sick and pathetic, but the idea of taking peoples rights away just because they do not have mainstream beliefs (which probably have been or may be minority beliefs at some point in time) is sick and pathetic in my opinion. I just see too many posts that are nothing but personal attacks and name-calling.
A few other points: 1) Your points about the site are true, but my point was that we cannot be willing to take away free speech for some people without setting a very dangerous precedence. Note: I take "speech" very literally and think that it is acceptable to ban other things that typically hide behind the freedom of speech. But free speech itself is VERY important because without it we can't oppose the government, which is actually what that site is about.
2) You seem to be against "extreme" things. I would be interested in knowing what your definition of extreme is. I seems that to most people it means beliefs and opinions that are VERY different than what most people have. I think it can also mean people who feel so strongly about something that they are willing to resort to violence or hatred against their "opponents". If that were the case, I would very much be against extremists. (This is why the aforementioned website does not bother me that much. They don't seem do be advocating oppression or violence, but their opponents make death threats and throw rocks at them.) However, it doesn't make much sense to me that there is anything inherently wrong with extremists who have very different beliefs, as long as they respect their fellow man and do not want to harm or oppress anyone. To me, a person who believes that we should form one huge commune, destroy our cars, live with nature, and give all our possessions to the government and a person who is very serious about his/her religion and takes the Bible or another holy book very literally both have perfectly valid opinions and don't deserve punishment more than anyone else.
I don't have a clear definition of what extreme really means, and I don't think that most really people do either, but I think a person's definition of extreme makes a huge difference in whether that person is in favor of controlling borderline terror groups or is actually in favor of oppressing the minority opinion. I wish the accepted definition were not what it is now. (Then again, I wish that the definition of left wing and right wing was not based on what it is now, which I think boils down to differences of moral convictions. It is way too divisive and has nothing to do with properties of government.)
3) I can see your points about not supporting people who are basically just being trolls, and not caring too much about their freedom to troll. I pretty much felt exactly the same as you did until I read "The New Thought Police". Maybe the laws they have in Canada are fine; I suppose we will see how bad it gets. I am just very suspicions of people's intentions who favor banning speech/thought/opinions. The more I see the cause and effect of people having their basic rights taken away, the more I love the Bill of Rights (well except for the $20 part) and the more I want to read and do something about peoples rights being oppressed in general, which is why I was looking it this article. That can't be a bad thing, can it?
Slashdot Mirror
What about the plants right to privacy? First they monitor all wildlife activity, next they will be monitoring all human activity. Mwwaa haaa haaa!!
If only they could figure out how to get flouride in the plants' water supply!
Yeah, one could make a strong case that the 10th amendment mean anything. The "right" to privacy is just the popular meaning of the day.
I could say that it is self-evident and inaliable that an unborn baby have the right to life, and you could say the same about the right to abortion. Not all things are as self evindent as we would like.
The real world also features rape, incest, torture, and all sorts of evil things. That doesn't mean they are healthy to be watching or worth putting in movies. Maybe I'm just a big loser, but I see a lot more violence, nudity, and sex in movies than I do in real life. Why does everyone get so uptight about nudity?
For most people, nudity leads to lust. For married people especially, lust towards another person is not good. (Maybe you can find a wife that feels good about being cheated on.) Therefore, you might want to avoid the things that lead to lust.
there is no reason to sanitize and dumb down a story so that the over-sensitive can handle it.
Controlling the amount of violence and nudity in a movie has nothing to do with "dumbing down". Making movies for people who doen't want to think, but just want to see killing and nudity, that what I would call dumbing down. I can't even remember the last intellegent movie that was made that actually made me think.
Or more realistically, buy telemarketer's lists, and inform the idiots who actually buy this stuff (by phone/email/whatever) what the result of people giving into SPAM/telemarketers is, and how they are ruining it for everyone. Most of them probably don't even know, and it is unlikely that they read anything like Slashdot that would inform them.
Thats because there aren't enough of them. There really has to be a majority of people who want it legalized, and the numbers simply aren't there. The majority of adults will probably never smoke pot on a regular basis, and the ones who don't are not likely to want something to be legalized that is much more harmful than cigarettes. (Likewise, we need to make sure that the adults who do not understand digital rights or really have much of a care at least hear the argument from those who do enjoy such things.) When I was a teeneager I kind of liked the fact that marijuana was illegal. It made it more of a thrill. However, I do thing that the punishments for users are way too stiff, especially for kids.
BTW, I know several people who aren't right in the head because of drugs they used when they were a teeneager. Some things simply shouldn't be legalized.
I too usually vote Republican. I am very tempted to send such a letter just to prove my point to him, but I don't want non-corrupt Republicans to suffer because of one corrupt dimwit. Well, OK, these days there are quite a few dimwits in the Republican party, I still believe in its ideals. Perhaps at the very least, politicians need to be aware that most people are not blindly loyal to everyone in their favorite party, and to accomplish this, voters need to stop BEING blidly loyal to every politician who is in his or her favorite party.
I don't understand why Orrin Hatch, a republican, wants to give the RIAA and MPAA more power than the CIA or NSA. What doesn't make sense in particular is that the entertainment industry is the biggest contributing group to the democratic party. If they lose money, so do the democrats, which is good for the republican party, and ultimitely, his job. This in addition to the fact that this proposed legislation is so obviously morally wrong makes this very strange to me.
I happen to know that Taiwan has a lower tax rate than the US. Why aren't they on your tax rate chart? Also, why don't they just show the tax rate, instead of doing a tax rate per GDP?
You think television and video games don't effect behavior? Try playing Gran Turismo for a while and then go out driving. I'm not the only person I know who has problems with this.
I don't know what Bible you are reading, but mine says nothing about any staircase or rope breaking.
You can always go back to the original copies of the text if you think your copy has gotten skewed. There is bound to be some slight discrepancies, but by an large the four accounts of the time of Jesus are incredibly accurate when you consider they were written by four different people who were not always in the same place at the same time.
Also, you say that the interpretation is underconstrained, but most Christians believe that the majority of the Bible is fairly literal, while it is the atheists and agnostics in general who would like people to have a looser interpretation because they think this "only way" stuff is dangerous. However, there is bound to be some figurative writing in the Bible because part if it is written in poem, and if you remember how Jesus spoke, it wasn't exacly literal. In fact he had to translate everything because people didn't want to make any attempt to figure out what he was talking about.
As for the Bible contradicting archeology, this is simply not true. For example, just recently, the a city was unearthed that fits perfectly with the Bible's description of Jericho, and even the walls were still intact, with one section of them broken down. What they found in the structures fit with the Jews taking over the city.
The only part where any real contradictions exist is in the creation account. Yes, this does depend on how you interpret it, but the contradiction can also depend on how you interpret scientific findings. The scientific community is just as guilty of trying to disprove the Bible as the so-called "Christian scientists" (no not the denomination) are of trying to search for evidence to prove the Bible.
There will always be people who believe in God because when you see REAL miracles in response to prayer, speculation over a skull in Africa seems irrelevant.
Other than the fact that your post is totally off-topic, it is also totally untrue. People who have jobs which are low paying and rough are of course less likely to have any kind of help for this type of injury. It has nothing to do with color. Stop reading your racist propaganda and look out in the real world. If you have lived in Suburbia your whole life you might think that all white people (males in particular) have it made, but I can assure you that is not true. The vast majority of my white male friends have jobs in which they work their ass off for little pay and very few benifites. NONE of my female friends (well, except for my friend's moother) have ever endured such a job, nor have my Asian or black friends, though I do know plenty of mexicans with such jobs. I have had several minimum wage jobs, and the women were treated like queens compared to the men.
If you want to get some exposure to white males you don't fit your stereotype, you can talk to my great-grandfather who got CTS so bad that he had to stop using his right hand and write with his left hand. He was a mail carrier. Even our supposed "white male dominance" government appearently didn't take care of him. "White male excuse" my ass!
If we want to change the whole problem of people getting mistreated at work thing, then we have to educate people in school about their rights as an employee, and improve legislation to ensure that even people with low paying jobs have access to such things as low-cost health care and lawyers. But please don't turn it into a race issue, as much as you would like to.
Some of what you said is true, but the main thrust is that you are racist, sexist, and you would like everyone else to be as well. No thanks.
I find interesting the phrase that some people use, "You can't legislate morality." All legislation is trying to enforce some sense of morality for the sake of the rest of the country. Whether it is corporate regulations (you can't screw over consumers or destroy our environment), social security (if the rich won't take care of the poor voluntarily, we will take their money and do it for them), or thou shall not murder (don't kill people, you insensitive clod) all legislation has to do with morality.
Whatever the current moral standards of the day are is what will be used for legislation. People just don't always agree on the moral standards. Many standards have come from Christianity but most these days do not.
While we have the freedom of speech here in the U.S., similar thinking regarding the fear of talking about religion is alive here. Religion these days is like sex was 100 years ago - nobody thinks it is appropriate to talk about, as if some sort of war or riot is going to break out of we talk about it. When will people understand that there can be both peace and difference of opinions and beliefs at the same time? If we think we have to neuter ourselves for the sake of getting along with others, then we have truly given up. We don't need to voluntarily self-impose such restrictions as Egypt is on our own talk and thoughts. I am glad that the Matrix 2 looks at some of these issues. (Though I am always a little worried when Hollywood does try to look at religious issues.) I think that part of the reason many people think the movie is so deep is that they had never thought about such things for themselves before.
Wow, you people are driving me nuts!! How you interperet the Bible has absolutely nothing to do with how tolerent you are!! For crying out loud, listen to yourself -- Anyone who interperets the Bible figuratively is alright, but if you happen to interperet it more literally (ie. maybe, just maybe Jesus really meant it when he said "No on can enter the Father except through me.") then I don't like you and I am going to call you intolerent, a bigot, and 10 other things. No, I think you show pretty well what intolerence looks like.
To athiests, religion is a search for what helps you and makes life easier for you, because to them, there is no god, so all religions are equally wrong.
To those who believe in a god, religion is a search for the truth. (Is there a god?, what is he like?, what has he done?, what is his will for people?)
Until athiests understand this, they will always have a misunderstanding of what "resonable religions" are and of what tolerance means. I always hear atheists say that Christians are intolerent because they think their was is the only way. If religion is about feeling fulfilled, then yeah, there may be several ways, but if it is about the truth, then there is only one way, because there is only one truth.
Maybe certain athiests are right, maybe Christians are right, maybe Muslims are right, or maybe no one has discovered the complete truth yet.
Of course, we still need to appreciate those who don't agree with us, whether it involves religion, politics or emacs vs. vi debates. However, when it comes to matters involving the question, "What is the truth?", there is only one correct answer.
Now I'm confused. First you say "a large chuck of Aids funding goes toward education", but then you say "You are pitting logic against the raging hormones of hundreds of millions of teenagers? " in response to "If people stopped doing the things that spread AIDS (it's not exactly airborne), it would eventually go away".
So if you are for funding so that we can have better education, then you must think education will actually help, but this contradicts the idea that kids are going to do things that put them at risk regardless of whether or not those things could end up killing them.
Not all countries have, but I think that the US has reached a point where the only people who are going to get AIDS are the ones who are willing to participate in risky behavior knowing full well of the possible consequences, and these people's children. You either have self-control or you do not. Research can help, but the main thing now is spreading the knowledge we already have around the world.
Why is this story not in YRO? I cannot believe that no one else has complained about the obvious repression of this man's rights. We must be becoming very apathetic. People from the future have rights too!
Is the story true or not? Who cares? Such details have never stopped real civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson!
I once fell for a rebate offer from Best Buy in which you could get $30 back from a Western Digital hard drive and $30 back from some overpriced RAM, be only if you bought both. You had to send the memory UPC to one address and the hard drive UPC to another, while copies of the receipts went to both.
Well, I dug out the UPC from my hard drive box, triple checked the forms and receipts, following Best Buys handy "Rebate Receipt" guidelines (why can't the just take care of the rebate for me if they are going to go to this much trouble?). After waiting three months, I got the rebate back from my memory. Another month went by and I still didn't have the rebate from my hard drive back. I mailed and tried to call, with no luck. Then, I finally got back my original rebate letter I sent them, with everything except the UPC. It said that I had sent the wrong UPC. This was quite laughable because there were only two, and I knew that I sent the memory UPC to the correct address because I had already gotten back the rebate. So why didn't they send me back this "wrong UPC" ? I sent the whole thing back to them asking this question, and they sent it back to me again with a letter describing how they have to be strict to prevent fraud. I called and finally got ahold of someone, who gave me a different address to send my letter to. After sending it to this address and waiting a month, I finally got a letter back saying that the deadline for the offer has expired.. have a nice life.
Well, I will never buy anything from Western Digital again. Other than this misfortune, I have never had any problems getting back rebates, other than the absurdly long response times.
Alright, what you stated is probably more accurate than what I said. (Arabs don't want to destroy Jews, just relocate them.) However, that statement in itself may seem like it is demonizing them. I personally don't think it is, because not all Arabs feel that way and the ones the do aren't necessarily hateful, they just feel like it is wrong for Jews to be there based on religious beliefs. Something has got to give, though, because the nation of Isreal isn't going to be moving anytime soon.
That being stated, I think we are actually on the same page with the "image" thing. We should be doing things that are right which would improve our image, but not let our image come before whether it is right or wrong. Wouldn't it be great if AS A NATION we made an effort to raise money for relief in Afganistan and Iraq, much like we did with the September 11th thing? Maybe we could put donation boxes in post offices and other government buildings. In this case, we could be sure that it would actually get to the people, instead of humanitarian aid that goes to Africa and gets averted by the local warlords. Also, it wouldn't rely on economy-draining taxes like the rest of the war, though it would probably involve the usual 50% overhead our government seems to need for everything if they were actually the ones overseeing it. I am seriously considering writing my congressman and suggesting this. I think the majority of Americans would be glad to see something like this. I know there are already relief programs set up, but I think it takes some leadership to rally the people to take part in something as a group. This type of thing could become a tradition whenever there is a large need somewhere in the world. If that were to happen, our image around the entire world would improve, though we would still need to make sure that our leaders are not simultateously taking advantage of other countries. There are so many good things we could do to help the Arab world and our image with them other than sitting back while Saddam desecrates his own people and possibly us.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and sort of uh.... disagree with you there. When I make important decisions, you can be sure that how the middle east feels about them is the last thing on my mind. Islamic extremists are not reasonable people, and worrying about what they think is the equivalent of worrying what a KKK leader thinks. Sure, they may kill you, but in the grand scheme of things their opinions do not determine right and wrong. Most Iraqis support getting rid of Saddam, and would have done it themselves if they could have. The rest of the middle east is simply mad because they feel powerless and are being fed anti-american propaganda 24/7.
I have heard decent arguments against the war, but this is not one of them. People in the middle east who hate us do so because we support Israel. This is not going to change until the Arabs stop wanting to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth (something that most Jews do NOT want to do to them).
This talk of doing things based on what other people groups think is absurd. I reminds me of junior high school all over again. Of course, since this attitude is so prevelent these days, sometimes I forget that I am not still in junior high.
Universities have the right to decide who gets to use their facilities. Of course, public universities are not allowed to stop different groups from coming onto campus, but there is a big difference in organizing an event involving facilities that would usually be locked and letting them come onto campus and assemble freely. Here's another thought: What if Eminem requested to do a school convocation for the local kindergarden class to help educate them that they don't want to grow up to be a "faggot"? Would the school officials be forced to say, "Well heck, we can't stop you. What time do you want to do it?" Do you think I have a right to go into my school's music hall and start going to town at will? Is that my constitutional right? Of course not. I must get university's approval, then pay a large fee.
If music companies or bands want to come to campus to protest, that is a different story, but I don't see Brittany Spears holding up a sign saying "Please support your local RIAA" any time soon.
Of course, all this is completely disregarding the fact the student governments would be much more likely to boycott the RIAA than school presidents.
I must say that I am against the Patriot Act. While invasion of privacy went on before it, now it is just to dang easy for them to invade our privacy.
That being said, what makes you think that privacy is really an "essential liberty"? I mean, the only people who get real privacy are the ones with enough money to afford a place to live. Homeless people do not have the luxury, yet we all act like it is an inaliable right on par with freedom of speech or freedom of religion. There is nothing about freedom of privacy in the bill of rights. People quote the the 9th, but I just don't see it as being as important as those specifically stated. Why do people get so bent out of shape about stuff like the Patriot Act, but not so much when other basic rights are being challenged?
Microsoft trying to be greedy != Government cesorship. Its not like anyone would use MSN to do an internet search anyway.
Yeah, I'm sure it will be a while before we see processors made from diamonds. We'll have to develop some sort of DRM (Diamond Rights Management) before they will let us use them in in the format we want them in.
moz25,
:)
You make some very good points, but:
Cut and paste reply? I worked on that thing longer than any post I have submitted even though I knew you would probably be the only one reading it, but yes, I do have a tendency to go off on tangents on things I feel strongly about. Although now that I have it, it will be good material for...
Also, I tend to address not just the post I am replying to, but beliefs and actions that I think are dangerous. Its not always easy separate the person from the issue. I certainly wasn't saying that you are sick and pathetic, but the idea of taking peoples rights away just because they do not have mainstream beliefs (which probably have been or may be minority beliefs at some point in time) is sick and pathetic in my opinion. I just see too many posts that are nothing but personal attacks and name-calling.
A few other points:
1) Your points about the site are true, but my point was that we cannot be willing to take away free speech for some people without setting a very dangerous precedence. Note: I take "speech" very literally and think that it is acceptable to ban other things that typically hide behind the freedom of speech. But free speech itself is VERY important because without it we can't oppose the government, which is actually what that site is about.
2) You seem to be against "extreme" things. I would be interested in knowing what your definition of extreme is. I seems that to most people it means beliefs and opinions that are VERY different than what most people have. I think it can also mean people who feel so strongly about something that they are willing to resort to violence or hatred against their "opponents". If that were the case, I would very much be against extremists. (This is why the aforementioned website does not bother me that much. They don't seem do be advocating oppression or violence, but their opponents make death threats and throw rocks at them.) However, it doesn't make much sense to me that there is anything inherently wrong with extremists who have very different beliefs, as long as they respect their fellow man and do not want to harm or oppress anyone. To me, a person who believes that we should form one huge commune, destroy our cars, live with nature, and give all our possessions to the government and a person who is very serious about his/her religion and takes the Bible or another holy book very literally both have perfectly valid opinions and don't deserve punishment more than anyone else.
I don't have a clear definition of what extreme really means, and I don't think that most really people do either, but I think a person's definition of extreme makes a huge difference in whether that person is in favor of controlling borderline terror groups or is actually in favor of oppressing the minority opinion. I wish the accepted definition were not what it is now. (Then again, I wish that the definition of left wing and right wing was not based on what it is now, which I think boils down to differences of moral convictions. It is way too divisive and has nothing to do with properties of government.)
3) I can see your points about not supporting people who are basically just being trolls, and not caring too much about their freedom to troll. I pretty much felt exactly the same as you did until I read "The New Thought Police". Maybe the laws they have in Canada are fine; I suppose we will see how bad it gets. I am just very suspicions of people's intentions who favor banning speech/thought/opinions. The more I see the cause and effect of people having their basic rights taken away, the more I love the Bill of Rights (well except for the $20 part) and the more I want to read and do something about peoples rights being oppressed in general, which is why I was looking it this article. That can't be a bad thing, can it?