I would say "good" cannot be of the nature that it is unalloyed with anything else anywhere as a dependency.
In this case, that scenario is addressed by not introducing something far less "good", that is, the elimination of human free will that leads to such events, at which point we've made "good" and "evil" moot concepts entirely.
I am saying the notion of human "absolute" good is simply using a words to suggest something that doesn't, and cannot, exist, like demanding a square circle. This isn't an argument, this is failure to meaningfully use words.
Is it good to be alive? Generally, people would say "yes". Ah, but, there is a non-zero amount of "bad" every morning when you have to make the effort to get up. Is it good to have a job? Yes, but there is a non-zero amount of "bad" to have to drive into work, pollute the environment, etc.
The reality is, though, they still remain good, and noting a consequential necessary "evil" does not change this. The only confusion here, literally in all cases with even the slightest thought, is the projection of an unalloyed "good" which is used as a term but not further elaborated on by the argument. What did Epicurus? Well, mainly because he couldn't, because he'd be talking to other philosophers, who wouldn't let that do anything other than completely fall apart within a few sentences if he didn't drop his sound-bite and hastily exit, so to speak.
"One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn't dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy."
--Jean-Louis Gassee
Seems she'd be better off considering it a case of successful divine stealth-marketing, then, rather than mucking it up with her own universally-reviled (including by other theists) form of trolling.
Funny how similar atheists and Young Earth Creationists can be in some respects...
"That whole 'process of evolution' thing that was basically one continuous bloodbath of anarchy? Nah, bad things started with religion. Before that was... well, we need not look at that, really, but if we did I'm sure that evolutionary change mainly works by the causal mechanisms of smiles, lollipops, and giggles."
This form of context-dropping is so pervasive by Dawkins and Hitchens et al ('et al' here being their parrot minions) it really should have its own fallacy. I propose "Argument from the non-existent".
And yes, Christianity does have general consensus on ethical matters, internally. More importantly, it proposes a basis for an objective methodology to arrive at such, which is absolutely necessary to even hope to have a functional ethical system.
Secular philosophy, does not have agreement on even the broadest general axioms. Compare Utilitarianism, Hedonism, Pragmatism, Stoicism, Consequentialism, Objectivism, Nietzschean "will to power", etc., etc., etc. No agreement whatsoever in methodology or resultant norms, and no reason to think that will ever change. "Not Christian" is not, actually, anything in particular at all, even if Slashdot tends to like this particular Reification Fallacy.
You were saying you read the book where this did not occur, as opposed to one you're making up where it did?
that's an argument of philosophy that can be had without resorting to sacrificing your own daughters up for rape
But not necessarily an argument of philosophy that can be carried on while a violent mob threatening everyone is outside. In any case, the point is moot--nowhere does the Bible say this offer was acceptable to God, and in fact his direct representatives, as stated as being present, prevented it. Similarly, if a historian mentions an event of mass-murder in a book, that book lacking any suggestion anywhere that he personally advocated that mass-murder, that advocacy is not present, however much it might be seen as personally advantageous to one's agenda to suggest it is.
Curious... how is it that you do that psychic thought-check of all religious people, to know all their positions contradict science?
I mean, it's obviously directly epistemologically invalid as a claim, so I'm looking for your supernatural technique.
Sure, we can get into common issues such as Catholicism accepting evolution, and anything whatsoever (say, within the range of material manifestations of "miracles") being theoretically possible per uncontroversial hard established physics (QM), and one might avoid confusion as to Proximate and Ultimate Causes, but your claim to psychic powers has me intrigued right off the bat.
There is still essentially zero consensus on ethics as derived from secular philosophy, and over the entire time you have described, it has never diverged from zero consensus.
Do me a favor. You write down your Top 5 moral axioms on a slip of paper. Ask another person holding your viewpoint to do the same. Compare for correlation--and absolute precondition to a -functional- ethical system (as opposed to just throwing out the word "morality", and continuing on your merry way). I'm not even addressing consensus on on the -other- preconditions to having a functional moral system, just asking for the merest correlation in base premises.
Apart from that, no, there has been for all practical purposes no advance whatsoever in secular moral philosophy. Though, an overview of the history of the field, or the political history of man per se, should have demonstrated that for you in Philo 101.
Please demonstrate the objective basis for, and Natural Selection disadvantage resulting from, your rant^H^H^H^H particular wholly-subjective, totally-ignorable personal construct.
We can move on to a point-by-point rebuttal, but we may as well get the question of whether your statements have any possible weight at all out of the way first. More efficient that way.
Funny how so many religious people cite scientific studies that found people in hospitals who were prayed for had better recovery rates, but when a double-blind study was performed, where the patients didn't know they were being prayed for, and there was no difference between the prayed-for and not-prayed-for groups, they either ignore it or use it as evidence that god demands faith without proof (never mind that this ignores the faith of those who were prayed-for in the double-blind study).
I'll do neither, but instead point out there is no way to construct a scientific study to test this, because you can't create a valid control group within the scope of what the study purports to test. However many people you -think- are praying for the "prayed for" group, and however you think you are limiting the "not prayed for" group, this is statistical noise compared to the actual counts of people praying for both, worldwide. Presuming prayer actually works the way it definitionally would, there would be several thousand times as many praying for "All the people with cancer", "All the sick of the world", "The challenged people in country X", etc., etc., which would apply to members of both groups, at numbers dwarfing whatever is pretended to be the study's "enforced" count.
No control group, no science. Dress it up with "double-blind" or whatever science-ey terminology trappings you like, it's completely scientifically invalid, by definition.
You're also extensively conflating the implications of "evidence" with those of "proof", but that's a topic for another day...
The quote makes some significant presumptions as to the nature of "good" (with respect to, for example, whether it could definitionally be an unalloyed specific absolute, versus an open-ended scale), as well as the presumption that you (or Epicurus) personally have the slightest idea what you mean in an absolute sense by the "good" or "evil" by which you propose that we evaluate God.
But let's see if I'm wrong. Is eating a steak good, or evil?
On your "the Bible" notation: This is hardly sufficient to falsify it. Paul makes quite clear different people have different gifts, including specific reference to the "speaking in tongues" your actual cited verse references (likely, you meant the next verse--same principle).
"Signs that follow them that believe" in no way reasonably means that -every- believer will be able to do -all- these things. In the same manner we can't falsify "science" by claiming that if you can't personally create a nuclear fusion device, you have falsified science. "Nuclear fusion devices" is indeed associatable with "those who practice science", but your restricted sense of supposedly-necessary meaning that -everyone- must exhibit this is no more valid here than with respect to the Bible.
As for particular groups that do exhibit the particular cited "gifts", certain Pentecostal groups are noted for this. Whether one might dismiss this as a particularly extreme form of "placebo effect", the fact remains.
And, for a broadly-accessible (if not effort-free) test, I'd personally suggest investigating Hesychasm.
It was a quick way to note the authority under which the notation that no references to Jesus should be expected to exist was made, as the organization asserting it may not have been immediately clear from the link itself. Simple case of referencing an actual authority (and not a Christian-advocacy one, but rather an Israeli historical organization) in the field for a question requiring it. That is all, AC.
Since it seems to answer much of the preceding responses as well...
would Engineers really create wealth all by themselves?
Yes.
On a smaller scale given a particular time-frame, true, but it is inevitable. The value is intrinsic, not extrinsic. For example, the Cotton Gin -objectively- created wealth, and if no one involved with it in the types of roles you mention did as they did historically, it still -inevitably- would have done so, with a different set of ancillary facilitators. Similarly, Apple made huge monetary profits off of the Unix derivative of which they in fact themselves provided a tiny percentage of the actual work involved. However, BSD was -intrinsically- of value, and it was not necessary for Apple to be the particular company to commercially exploit that value.
All the value is created by the Engineer. Scaling and marketing increase its short-term payoff, for which the other participants receive compensation, but there is no extrinsic limitation other than people (pretty much interchangeable) and money (completely interchangeable). It is merely by the happenstance that an investor happens to have money that the Engineer does not, that the investor is credited with any relevance to the process at all.
Wealth is not dollars-per-unit of time provided by the market. Wealth is, again, at base, specifically and only the multiplier made possible to the value of the source time, materials, and labor. "Profit", which is not "wealth", is a distant cousin which is derived primarily, if not exclusively, from differentials in knowledge of a market from the Engineer at a given moment in time, between the producers of wealth and those who manage to put themselves in the position of getting their hands on some of the results of the production.
To quote Ayn Rand in a manner neither she nor the Tea Party she's apparently taken over the role of economic authority for would probably like...
"Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality."
To put it simply, the fact you have money does not mean you created value represented by that money. Managers qua managers do not create wealth. Investors do not create wealth. Engineers create wealth, by multiplying the value of labor and materials.
Engineers, predominately in the "middle class", create, and thereby -earn-, money. For derivative forms of acquisition of money, which is the means of the majority of the "upper class", it is much more accurate to say they "get their hands on" money than they "earn" it.
This is the premise that the Right in the U.S. will only accept insofar as it's a tautological definition where they simply declare "I happen to have this much money, therefore I earned proportionately that much more". No, absolutely not. You simply have a zero barrier-to-entry in the business processes you participate in, by virtue of already having money, relative to those who don't have it at equivalent scale. This will be discovered soon enough in the U.S. when we have plenty of people still willing to move money around, and move people who create money around (as long as it pays sizable dividends for marginal actual personal value-add), and nobody actually creating the value without which money is meaningless.
The delusion that "having money = earning money" is presently being refuted in America in the most direct, manifestly-obvious way.
...the thought processes of such cultural collisions.
I imagine something like this, but the interaction would have been very interesting...
When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!
--Darwin, um, yeah... Darwin, to get past the more-reflexive mods
Meanwhile the anti-evolutionary creationists will forever emphasize that there are spaces between the data points.
Similarly, whenever my boss complains my code doesn't compile, I simply explain to him that it's just that there are "spaces between the object dependencies".
On a legal level, the reality is that the local legal system (often not exactly a bastion of ethical consistency) is going to do what it does by the heuristic/political means it does, and that's that.
On more of a philosophical level, such as you're addressing, I think there's still an argument even for strident Free Speech advocates that this isn't simply a speech issue, it's also a quasi-property issue.
As the old analogy goes, you're free to say anything you like about me (as long as it is true or your opinion), but I'm not obliged to let you camp out on my lawn and give you a megaphone to do it with.
With regard to the "memorial site" for the girl, this has to me much more of the tenor of "property" than a site like Slashdot, in that somebody invested resources (time, if nothing else) in creating something concrete dedicated to a particular purpose. The "trolling" seems to have as much the nature of "property destruction" as "free expression". If this guy had created his own site expressing his opinions, on his own dime, so to speak (though, in this case those opinions seem to be pretty inane), I think the negative reaction that would be elicited here would be quite a bit less. The fact that he didn't take this route, in fact, seems to speak pretty clearly to what his real underlying intent was.
Again, this is more of a conceptual argument, in that on a legal level there would be questions as to the "property" nature of the memorial site, etc., but leaving aside such philosophical compromises a legal system entails, I think we can still, without contradiction, object to this particular behavior without rejecting Free Speech principles.
And as an advocate of science, I hope you'll come to the factual conclusion that those who proclaim themselves as champions of the "science versus religion" false dichotomy, in fact do nothing but damage both science and religion.
But, glad to hear you take your definitive determinations of scientific questions from lawyers--as long as they wear one of those cool black robes and sit on an elevated platform.
Since you're confident they have "demolished" it, and you wouldn't be taking such a claim on "mere faith", why not simply present your refutation, and be informative to Slashdot--if you think you can, and this isn't mere poseur bluff?
I get quite a lot of that, actually. Show me otherwise.
My motives? I'm a theist, and I don't like a priori suppression of hypotheses that are uncontroversially accepted as within the domain of "science", based upon criteria that virtually every other scientific principle would have failed at they hypothesis-formation stage, if applied at its original proposal, such that we'd never know of it. And I don't like this being done as sheer hypocritical arbitrariness completely provable as such by taking every single scientist's published papers and pointing out the untestable premises contained in it, line by line, until we get to a hundred and move on with life. Thing is, I agree that inferential support is a valid scientific criterion, -and so does every scientist-, except when the topic of ID comes up.
So, in short, honestly: A) I'm a theist, have never made any attempt to hide this (refer to my posts and my sig I've had for 8 years, if unsure on this), and B) I don't like science being damaged, especially by people claiming they are supporting it.
So, you've got just an Ad Hominem... in four parts.
Indeed, nothing new to see here.
But since lately everyone replies to me Anonymous Coward, I can't even tell if I'm still responding to the same person. Makes thread continuity difficult... so, really, I'll have to wait for a more conducive time for discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
Evil enough to eliminate all human free will to avoid any incidence of it? No.
That would be "evil", not "good", to do.
I would say "good" cannot be of the nature that it is unalloyed with anything else anywhere as a dependency.
In this case, that scenario is addressed by not introducing something far less "good", that is, the elimination of human free will that leads to such events, at which point we've made "good" and "evil" moot concepts entirely.
I am saying the notion of human "absolute" good is simply using a words to suggest something that doesn't, and cannot, exist, like demanding a square circle. This isn't an argument, this is failure to meaningfully use words.
Is it good to be alive? Generally, people would say "yes". Ah, but, there is a non-zero amount of "bad" every morning when you have to make the effort to get up. Is it good to have a job? Yes, but there is a non-zero amount of "bad" to have to drive into work, pollute the environment, etc.
The reality is, though, they still remain good, and noting a consequential necessary "evil" does not change this. The only confusion here, literally in all cases with even the slightest thought, is the projection of an unalloyed "good" which is used as a term but not further elaborated on by the argument. What did Epicurus? Well, mainly because he couldn't, because he'd be talking to other philosophers, who wouldn't let that do anything other than completely fall apart within a few sentences if he didn't drop his sound-bite and hastily exit, so to speak.
Are you able to objectively define "evil", to make it mean something for argument? If not, why use the word?
Let's start with something easier. Is eating a steak good, or evil?
God works at Apple.
"One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn't dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy."
--Jean-Louis Gassee
Seems she'd be better off considering it a case of successful divine stealth-marketing, then, rather than mucking it up with her own universally-reviled (including by other theists) form of trolling.
Funny how similar atheists and Young Earth Creationists can be in some respects...
"That whole 'process of evolution' thing that was basically one continuous bloodbath of anarchy? Nah, bad things started with religion. Before that was... well, we need not look at that, really, but if we did I'm sure that evolutionary change mainly works by the causal mechanisms of smiles, lollipops, and giggles."
This form of context-dropping is so pervasive by Dawkins and Hitchens et al ('et al' here being their parrot minions) it really should have its own fallacy. I propose "Argument from the non-existent".
Here you go.
And yes, Christianity does have general consensus on ethical matters, internally. More importantly, it proposes a basis for an objective methodology to arrive at such, which is absolutely necessary to even hope to have a functional ethical system.
Secular philosophy, does not have agreement on even the broadest general axioms. Compare Utilitarianism, Hedonism, Pragmatism, Stoicism, Consequentialism, Objectivism, Nietzschean "will to power", etc., etc., etc. No agreement whatsoever in methodology or resultant norms, and no reason to think that will ever change. "Not Christian" is not, actually, anything in particular at all, even if Slashdot tends to like this particular Reification Fallacy.
No excuses for killing your kid, period.
You were saying you read the book where this did not occur, as opposed to one you're making up where it did?
that's an argument of philosophy that can be had without resorting to sacrificing your own daughters up for rape
But not necessarily an argument of philosophy that can be carried on while a violent mob threatening everyone is outside. In any case, the point is moot--nowhere does the Bible say this offer was acceptable to God, and in fact his direct representatives, as stated as being present, prevented it. Similarly, if a historian mentions an event of mass-murder in a book, that book lacking any suggestion anywhere that he personally advocated that mass-murder, that advocacy is not present, however much it might be seen as personally advantageous to one's agenda to suggest it is.
Yes, that post should have been as a reply to your reply's parent. Sorry, haven't had my coffee yet. ;)
Curious... how is it that you do that psychic thought-check of all religious people, to know all their positions contradict science?
I mean, it's obviously directly epistemologically invalid as a claim, so I'm looking for your supernatural technique.
Sure, we can get into common issues such as Catholicism accepting evolution, and anything whatsoever (say, within the range of material manifestations of "miracles") being theoretically possible per uncontroversial hard established physics (QM), and one might avoid confusion as to Proximate and Ultimate Causes, but your claim to psychic powers has me intrigued right off the bat.
Do you have a newsletter to accompany this hobby?
There is still essentially zero consensus on ethics as derived from secular philosophy, and over the entire time you have described, it has never diverged from zero consensus.
Do me a favor. You write down your Top 5 moral axioms on a slip of paper. Ask another person holding your viewpoint to do the same. Compare for correlation--and absolute precondition to a -functional- ethical system (as opposed to just throwing out the word "morality", and continuing on your merry way). I'm not even addressing consensus on on the -other- preconditions to having a functional moral system, just asking for the merest correlation in base premises.
Apart from that, no, there has been for all practical purposes no advance whatsoever in secular moral philosophy. Though, an overview of the history of the field, or the political history of man per se, should have demonstrated that for you in Philo 101.
Please demonstrate the objective basis for, and Natural Selection disadvantage resulting from, your rant^H^H^H^H particular wholly-subjective, totally-ignorable personal construct.
We can move on to a point-by-point rebuttal, but we may as well get the question of whether your statements have any possible weight at all out of the way first. More efficient that way.
Funny how so many religious people cite scientific studies that found people in hospitals who were prayed for had better recovery rates, but when a double-blind study was performed, where the patients didn't know they were being prayed for, and there was no difference between the prayed-for and not-prayed-for groups, they either ignore it or use it as evidence that god demands faith without proof (never mind that this ignores the faith of those who were prayed-for in the double-blind study).
I'll do neither, but instead point out there is no way to construct a scientific study to test this, because you can't create a valid control group within the scope of what the study purports to test. However many people you -think- are praying for the "prayed for" group, and however you think you are limiting the "not prayed for" group, this is statistical noise compared to the actual counts of people praying for both, worldwide. Presuming prayer actually works the way it definitionally would, there would be several thousand times as many praying for "All the people with cancer", "All the sick of the world", "The challenged people in country X", etc., etc., which would apply to members of both groups, at numbers dwarfing whatever is pretended to be the study's "enforced" count.
No control group, no science. Dress it up with "double-blind" or whatever science-ey terminology trappings you like, it's completely scientifically invalid, by definition.
You're also extensively conflating the implications of "evidence" with those of "proof", but that's a topic for another day...
The quote makes some significant presumptions as to the nature of "good" (with respect to, for example, whether it could definitionally be an unalloyed specific absolute, versus an open-ended scale), as well as the presumption that you (or Epicurus) personally have the slightest idea what you mean in an absolute sense by the "good" or "evil" by which you propose that we evaluate God.
But let's see if I'm wrong. Is eating a steak good, or evil?
On your "the Bible" notation: This is hardly sufficient to falsify it. Paul makes quite clear different people have different gifts, including specific reference to the "speaking in tongues" your actual cited verse references (likely, you meant the next verse--same principle).
"Signs that follow them that believe" in no way reasonably means that -every- believer will be able to do -all- these things. In the same manner we can't falsify "science" by claiming that if you can't personally create a nuclear fusion device, you have falsified science. "Nuclear fusion devices" is indeed associatable with "those who practice science", but your restricted sense of supposedly-necessary meaning that -everyone- must exhibit this is no more valid here than with respect to the Bible.
As for particular groups that do exhibit the particular cited "gifts", certain Pentecostal groups are noted for this. Whether one might dismiss this as a particularly extreme form of "placebo effect", the fact remains.
And, for a broadly-accessible (if not effort-free) test, I'd personally suggest investigating Hesychasm.
Yawn.
It was a quick way to note the authority under which the notation that no references to Jesus should be expected to exist was made, as the organization asserting it may not have been immediately clear from the link itself. Simple case of referencing an actual authority (and not a Christian-advocacy one, but rather an Israeli historical organization) in the field for a question requiring it. That is all, AC.
Regarding your assertion of appropriate expectation of references to Jesus given the timeframe of the Dead Sea Scrolls, could you provide your relative qualifications on the matter relative to this organization?
Such as, say, the number of international symposia on the subject of the Scrolls you have hosted?
TIA.
Since it seems to answer much of the preceding responses as well...
would Engineers really create wealth all by themselves?
Yes.
On a smaller scale given a particular time-frame, true, but it is inevitable. The value is intrinsic, not extrinsic. For example, the Cotton Gin -objectively- created wealth, and if no one involved with it in the types of roles you mention did as they did historically, it still -inevitably- would have done so, with a different set of ancillary facilitators. Similarly, Apple made huge monetary profits off of the Unix derivative of which they in fact themselves provided a tiny percentage of the actual work involved. However, BSD was -intrinsically- of value, and it was not necessary for Apple to be the particular company to commercially exploit that value.
All the value is created by the Engineer. Scaling and marketing increase its short-term payoff, for which the other participants receive compensation, but there is no extrinsic limitation other than people (pretty much interchangeable) and money (completely interchangeable). It is merely by the happenstance that an investor happens to have money that the Engineer does not, that the investor is credited with any relevance to the process at all.
Wealth is not dollars-per-unit of time provided by the market. Wealth is, again, at base, specifically and only the multiplier made possible to the value of the source time, materials, and labor. "Profit", which is not "wealth", is a distant cousin which is derived primarily, if not exclusively, from differentials in knowledge of a market from the Engineer at a given moment in time, between the producers of wealth and those who manage to put themselves in the position of getting their hands on some of the results of the production.
To quote Ayn Rand in a manner neither she nor the Tea Party she's apparently taken over the role of economic authority for would probably like...
"Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality."
To put it simply, the fact you have money does not mean you created value represented by that money. Managers qua managers do not create wealth. Investors do not create wealth. Engineers create wealth, by multiplying the value of labor and materials.
Engineers, predominately in the "middle class", create, and thereby -earn-, money. For derivative forms of acquisition of money, which is the means of the majority of the "upper class", it is much more accurate to say they "get their hands on" money than they "earn" it.
This is the premise that the Right in the U.S. will only accept insofar as it's a tautological definition where they simply declare "I happen to have this much money, therefore I earned proportionately that much more". No, absolutely not. You simply have a zero barrier-to-entry in the business processes you participate in, by virtue of already having money, relative to those who don't have it at equivalent scale. This will be discovered soon enough in the U.S. when we have plenty of people still willing to move money around, and move people who create money around (as long as it pays sizable dividends for marginal actual personal value-add), and nobody actually creating the value without which money is meaningless.
The delusion that "having money = earning money" is presently being refuted in America in the most direct, manifestly-obvious way.
...the thought processes of such cultural collisions.
I imagine something like this, but the interaction would have been very interesting...
When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!
--Darwin, um, yeah... Darwin, to get past the more-reflexive mods
Meanwhile the anti-evolutionary creationists will forever emphasize that there are spaces between the data points.
Similarly, whenever my boss complains my code doesn't compile, I simply explain to him that it's just that there are "spaces between the object dependencies".
On a legal level, the reality is that the local legal system (often not exactly a bastion of ethical consistency) is going to do what it does by the heuristic/political means it does, and that's that.
On more of a philosophical level, such as you're addressing, I think there's still an argument even for strident Free Speech advocates that this isn't simply a speech issue, it's also a quasi-property issue.
As the old analogy goes, you're free to say anything you like about me (as long as it is true or your opinion), but I'm not obliged to let you camp out on my lawn and give you a megaphone to do it with.
With regard to the "memorial site" for the girl, this has to me much more of the tenor of "property" than a site like Slashdot, in that somebody invested resources (time, if nothing else) in creating something concrete dedicated to a particular purpose. The "trolling" seems to have as much the nature of "property destruction" as "free expression". If this guy had created his own site expressing his opinions, on his own dime, so to speak (though, in this case those opinions seem to be pretty inane), I think the negative reaction that would be elicited here would be quite a bit less. The fact that he didn't take this route, in fact, seems to speak pretty clearly to what his real underlying intent was.
Again, this is more of a conceptual argument, in that on a legal level there would be questions as to the "property" nature of the memorial site, etc., but leaving aside such philosophical compromises a legal system entails, I think we can still, without contradiction, object to this particular behavior without rejecting Free Speech principles.
And as an advocate of science, I hope you'll come to the factual conclusion that those who proclaim themselves as champions of the "science versus religion" false dichotomy, in fact do nothing but damage both science and religion.
So, handwaving and links.
But, glad to hear you take your definitive determinations of scientific questions from lawyers--as long as they wear one of those cool black robes and sit on an elevated platform.
Since you're confident they have "demolished" it, and you wouldn't be taking such a claim on "mere faith", why not simply present your refutation, and be informative to Slashdot--if you think you can, and this isn't mere poseur bluff?
I get quite a lot of that, actually. Show me otherwise.
My motives? I'm a theist, and I don't like a priori suppression of hypotheses that are uncontroversially accepted as within the domain of "science", based upon criteria that virtually every other scientific principle would have failed at they hypothesis-formation stage, if applied at its original proposal, such that we'd never know of it. And I don't like this being done as sheer hypocritical arbitrariness completely provable as such by taking every single scientist's published papers and pointing out the untestable premises contained in it, line by line, until we get to a hundred and move on with life. Thing is, I agree that inferential support is a valid scientific criterion, -and so does every scientist-, except when the topic of ID comes up.
So, in short, honestly: A) I'm a theist, have never made any attempt to hide this (refer to my posts and my sig I've had for 8 years, if unsure on this), and B) I don't like science being damaged, especially by people claiming they are supporting it.
So, you've got just an Ad Hominem... in four parts. Indeed, nothing new to see here. But since lately everyone replies to me Anonymous Coward, I can't even tell if I'm still responding to the same person. Makes thread continuity difficult... so, really, I'll have to wait for a more conducive time for discussion.