Google isn't saying we need marriage for gays, exactly, they are saying that we need equal treatment. If the government is giving preferential treatment to heterosexuals and denying it to everyone else, then that's wrong.
The question is whether or not the government is actually giving preferential treatment to heterosexuals and denying it to everyone else.
For instance a homosexual has all the same rights as a heterosexual. However, marriage isn't a right. Nobody has a right to marriage. Marriage, as far as the government is concerned, a legal contract. What does that contract get you? Inheritance, and a say in legal and medical matters, along with the right to be held legally accountable for the spouses actions in certain situations.
Without marriage, you can have all of the same "rights:" Inheritance - use a will, set up a trust with both people as trustees or buy and own things jointly. Legal issues - sign a durable power of attorney. Medical issues a health care power of attorney (different names in different states). The concept of marriage just gets you those things without having to do the separate steps.
Since all of the benefits or "rights" granted through marriage are legal issues, marriage is in effect a civil contract between two people. If the state of being married is really a civil convention of a union between two people that grants a number or legal benefits without having to enter into separate legal proceedings with the other individual, then the government should just clear up the language and refer to civil unions for all people and get out of the marriage business all together.
Marriage doesn't give any of these rights, in and of itself. It does provide a packaged deal of benefits, but they are still available individually.
Actually, the governent should not be in the love or marriage business at all. What the government should be involved with is the civil contract side of marriage, ie. civil unions. The government should be extending rights to the legal union of two people. If the goverment wants to recognize religous weddings as a civil union that's fine. If not, then like in other countries, you enter into a civil union and then go have a church wedding.
Leave marriage to the churches and leave the legal contracts to the goverment.
Lots of generalisations in that very circular argument. Growing up, we had the rhyme "Don't step on the crack, break the devil's back." and we avoided stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. Please explain the politics of that superstition, or throwing salt over one's shoulder or knocking on wood. A baseball player wearing a specific pair of socks, or shaking a rally cap seems to be non-political, too.
As such, not all supertition is politics which then counters the rest of your argument. Religion does not require any more power than any other belief does.
Actually what you are trying to say is that religous would have killed a lot more if they had todays weapons. We have no way of knowing if that would be true or not. We do know that there were other non-religous groups that did much harm, such as the Huns, the Visigoths and any number of other groups, so it seems that brutality is not something specific to religion, but to the time in question.
It might be the end of the PC but not the BC or business computer. All these new "memes" are great for consumer devices, but do we really think that professional offices will have people typing on tablets or even keyboards connected to tablets? The recent SCOTUS ruling on the affordable health care act was 110 pages. If this is truly the end of the PC, how will that be accomplished on a tablet or phone?
The USSR and China were modern systems and as as such able to use modern killing methods and modern communications and modern organizational methods to slay their opponents.
Hand a "Pope Innocent III" machine guns and breechloading rifles, and "God" would know a lot more of "his own".
God might know but for the rest of us it is pure speculation -- that plus it is physically and therefore scientifically impossible to ever know what Innocent III may have done or not.
In addition, as others have posted, the cursades were not about religon, but territory. Specifically reclaiming what was previously taken. While catholicism was the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire, the Pope was also a political ruler and it is important to separate the actions of state from the action of the church. (never thought I would be defending the catholics!).
Sadly you are very much incorrect in your assertion that making religious organizations tax exempt "keeps them from being able to tell their followers who to vote for." Churches do this all the time; they send out emails encouraging their members to vote against things or vote for specific candidates. Sure they are not supposed to do this but there is absolutely no enforcement of this rule. Heck didn't the Catholic church sue the federal government over healthcare laws requiring uniform coverage of workers (please note that churches were exempt from this, only entities which are not directly tied to churches were bound by it)? If that isn't getting involved in the political system then I don't know what is.
In the United States, a church can loose its tax exempt status if it tells people who to vote for. This has been the law since the 1940s and many a church has lost its status. As for voting on issues, the courts have ruled that is permissable since most issues are moral or values based and that is what religion is about.
The Catholic Church along with a large number of protestant churches did sue the US Government over the HHS mandate on the grounds it infringed on their religous rights. They even told their followers to contact their representatives to overturn it. That is all legal and allowed as it is about an issue. If they had said to vote out everybody who supported the mandate, that would be a violation. Now I am not stupid and I know a lot of catholics and protestants are saying just that. However, that is not their leadership. Individuals, even if they belong to a church, are free to excercise their freedom of speech -- of course individuals aren't tax exempt.
While wikepeida does state that the 30 years war was initially a religous war between protestants and catholics, that was for the entire duration. In addition, what is not made clear is that it was the German princes (who were mainly protestant) pushing back against the Holy Roman Empire, which of course was Catholic. In reality, it was not a war over religion, but over political power. The German princes wanted to be free of roman rule and the romans wanted to maintain that rule. This is similar today with the middle east. The conflict between Isreal and the Palestinians, although having religious overtones, is not actually a religious conflict, put a political one.
You DO know that MODERN POPULATIONS in both Russia and China were vastly greater when Stalin and Mao did their thing, and killing technology was far more ADVANCED, than when superstitionists went on their sprees long before?
Different times mean different levels of opportunity.
So you are justifying what Stalin and Mao did because it occurred in modern times with modern weapons and they had greater opportunity to kill and imprison?
There wasn't an income tax code for approximately the first 150 years of the country, so the reasoning given doesn't hold water. By the time the tax code was established, religious organizations were providing much of the medical care, orphanages and other social welfare systems. Congress decided that this was good as it benefited society and it should be encouraged. As such, contributions to these organizations were encouraged, though the tax code.
Then in the 40s, many churches became out spoken regarding reparations from the war and the treatment of the Germans and Japanese people. The government felt that this was counter to its agenda. Out of fear of the power of churches the law was changed that to keep the tax exempt status, churches could not get involved with politics. As a side note, this was also around the same time that Eisenhower wanted to start the interstate highway system to mimic the autobahn. His concern being that like the churches, the railroads were too powerful and could thwart the movement of troops.
Basically, the issue with churches being tax exempt and not being allowed to be active in politics stems from them providing a public service for the common good but also in protecting those in power from the popularity of religious leaders.
In comparing numbers of dead, never forget to scale for total population. For example, the total death toll of the crusades is estimated at about 200,000 - but then, the total world population at the time is estimated at 250-300 mio. people. So you'd have to kill at least 5 mio. today to get rid of the same percentage of the population.
The crusades were a direct response to Muslim aggression--an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands. Islam had invaded and conquered 2/3 of the christian lands, all the way up into Spain. Yes, there were two empires that were theocratic involved in the crusades, however they were not about religion, but territory. That does not mean that both sides were not brutal. It simply means that the crusades were not a religious war, but a political war and ethnic cleansing. As most scholars of history point out, it is important to distinquish between the christian church in terms of religion and the Holy Roman Empire, which was an administrative and political entity.
There is no infectious nature to atheism. There is no faith. There is no ignorance. There is no irrationality. There is no dogma.
The vast majority of atheists simply sit on the side of the evidence. There is no objective reproducible evidence for the existence of gods or supernatural effects and plenty of contradictory objective reproducible evidence respective to supernatural effects, so those are not something that should be believed in.
Secular humanism could be viewed just as much a "religion" as Stalin and Mao being the gods of their religion and for the same reasons you posted previously.
As for atheists sitting on the side of evidence, just as there is no objective reproducible evidence for the existence gods or supernatural effects, there is no objective evidence showing the non-existance. So, atheists really don't sit on the side of evidence, because there is no evidence, one way or the other. Now atheists can claim, that since there is no evidence of gods or the supernatural, they do not believe, etc. But that position cannot be claimed on the evidence.
The fault in your reasoning is a simple one. If it is raining and you don't have an umbrella, you will get wet does not mean that if you do not have an umbrella you will get wet (as it might not be raining). Likewise, lack of scientific proof that a deity exists does not mean that a deity does not exist.
Actually, many christian churches use the term priest, not just the Roman Catholic Church. Although RC is probably the largest one that uses that term.
Not exactly the same, but pre-reformation Catholicism almost fits the bill. They just had all their texts in latin, and forbid translating it into any language the common people knew. The only people who had the time or opportunity to learn latin were the priests, so the reading and interpretation of their holy texts was exclusively the domain of the clergy. They didn't have law suits back then, but they did issue legal bans against the translations.
Not true,, not true, not true! There were several translations of the Latin Vulgate into the vernacular. The Vulgate was the official translation, however. What kept it from being common was the great expense. Only the wealthy could afford their own copy, whether in the vernacular or in latin.
... Christianity doesn't require you to pay money before they will reveal all of the church doctrines...
True, but once they suck you in all Christian organisations want your money and they want it tax free.
But it is still a believer's choice to give or not, unlike scientology. And you should be glad that they are tax exempt. That's the only thing that keeps them from being able to tell their followers who to vote for. Being tax exempt means they can only speak on the issues, not the candidates.
That is only because Scientology is still young. Given time, I am sure they can kill as many people as good old fashioned cults have managed to.
You do know that in the 20th century, the two godless societies of the former USSR and China killed many more people than the so called cults have throughout their entire history.
Let me say first that I find Scientology repulsive and a particularly greasy form of pyramid scheme. However, compared to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic trinity, they are responsible for much less evil and far fewer deaths. Between those three religions you have tens of millions slaughtered in pointless wars over minor differences in doctrine. You have sexism that runs deep through the dogma of all three. You have churches who have officially sanctioned everything from genocide to sexually abusing children to slavery. This stuff isn't even in the distant past. I can find examples in the last century where each of these religions has committed terrible atrocities.
Scientology is easy to hate because it is so ridiculous, so absurd, and generally unpopular. It's an easier target than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. But if you really take a step back and look at the doctrine of those three faiths, they are equally as ridiculous.
Why not include the Aztecs in your list so you can claim they also practice human sacrifice? While christianity did rise from Judaism, the three are not really related in the way you are trying to make them.
As for your claims of sanctioning genocide, sexually abusng children and slavery, particularly not in the distant past, I'd like to see your documentation. If you could produce documentation of such events by the various religions and sects to demonstrate how these things were officially sanctioned, then you would be doing a great service to the/. readers.
There are many things to validly complain about with organized religion, however, wild unsubstantiated claims, as you make are not valid complaints but just show your own ignorance and bigotry.
Call all your critics liars (and wife-beaters and child molesters if possible), send private detectives and Sea Org types to follow and harass them, sue them and anyone who supports them, cry religious persecution to the cops and govt officials, rinse, wash, repeat...
From reading the 'popular science' explanations the Higgs field and Higgs Boson is what gives everything else mass. So if we can find a way of turning off' the interaction with the Higgs Field we suddenly remove all mass, inertia, weight etc.
There are doubtless guys out there much smarter than I am who will be able to tell why this won't work, but if it does then it's our big stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and ultimately the stars.
While countering the Higgs Field to produce anti-gravity is mathematically possible, so too is it mathematically possible to travel faster than the speed of light. In both cases, it just takes enough energy. I think mathematically the amount of energy required is somewhat in excess of all of the energy in the Universe, but mathematically it's possible. Scientifically, that is a different story.
"Made in the USA" and "Assembled in the USA from foreign and domestic parts" have substantially different meanings, and Google is using the wrong one of these phrases in order to fool fools.
Actually they are not. The FTC has very specific regulations as to what constitutes Made in the USA and the Nexus Q meets those regulations.
Agreed. When do you ever see an electronics product state "Made in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc."? It's the final step that matters and there's always only one country mentioned.
Obviously, you haven't been in Best Buy, lately. Most TVs and consumer products do say Made in one of those places.
The FTC requires that country-of-origin claims be assessed by portioning the manufacturing costs of the final product. A couple of dollars worth of foreign components/costs in an otherwise domestically sourced product that costs $300 is not considered to be an issue. If, on the other hand, the final product cost $5, then it's not acceptable to make a "Made in the USA" claim.
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Google isn't saying we need marriage for gays, exactly, they are saying that we need equal treatment. If the government is giving preferential treatment to heterosexuals and denying it to everyone else, then that's wrong.
The question is whether or not the government is actually giving preferential treatment to heterosexuals and denying it to everyone else.
For instance a homosexual has all the same rights as a heterosexual. However, marriage isn't a right. Nobody has a right to marriage. Marriage, as far as the government is concerned, a legal contract. What does that contract get you? Inheritance, and a say in legal and medical matters, along with the right to be held legally accountable for the spouses actions in certain situations.
Without marriage, you can have all of the same "rights:" Inheritance - use a will, set up a trust with both people as trustees or buy and own things jointly. Legal issues - sign a durable power of attorney. Medical issues a health care power of attorney (different names in different states). The concept of marriage just gets you those things without having to do the separate steps.
Since all of the benefits or "rights" granted through marriage are legal issues, marriage is in effect a civil contract between two people. If the state of being married is really a civil convention of a union between two people that grants a number or legal benefits without having to enter into separate legal proceedings with the other individual, then the government should just clear up the language and refer to civil unions for all people and get out of the marriage business all together.
Marriage doesn't give any of these rights, in and of itself. It does provide a packaged deal of benefits, but they are still available individually.
Actually, the governent should not be in the love or marriage business at all. What the government should be involved with is the civil contract side of marriage, ie. civil unions. The government should be extending rights to the legal union of two people. If the goverment wants to recognize religous weddings as a civil union that's fine. If not, then like in other countries, you enter into a civil union and then go have a church wedding.
Leave marriage to the churches and leave the legal contracts to the goverment.
Lots of generalisations in that very circular argument. Growing up, we had the rhyme "Don't step on the crack, break the devil's back." and we avoided stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. Please explain the politics of that superstition, or throwing salt over one's shoulder or knocking on wood. A baseball player wearing a specific pair of socks, or shaking a rally cap seems to be non-political, too.
As such, not all supertition is politics which then counters the rest of your argument. Religion does not require any more power than any other belief does.
Actually what you are trying to say is that religous would have killed a lot more if they had todays weapons. We have no way of knowing if that would be true or not. We do know that there were other non-religous groups that did much harm, such as the Huns, the Visigoths and any number of other groups, so it seems that brutality is not something specific to religion, but to the time in question.
It might be the end of the PC but not the BC or business computer. All these new "memes" are great for consumer devices, but do we really think that professional offices will have people typing on tablets or even keyboards connected to tablets? The recent SCOTUS ruling on the affordable health care act was 110 pages. If this is truly the end of the PC, how will that be accomplished on a tablet or phone?
You aren't making a complete comparison.
The USSR and China were modern systems and as as such able to use modern killing methods and modern communications and modern organizational methods to slay their opponents.
Hand a "Pope Innocent III" machine guns and breechloading rifles, and "God" would know a lot more of "his own".
God might know but for the rest of us it is pure speculation -- that plus it is physically and therefore scientifically impossible to ever know what Innocent III may have done or not.
In addition, as others have posted, the cursades were not about religon, but territory. Specifically reclaiming what was previously taken. While catholicism was the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire, the Pope was also a political ruler and it is important to separate the actions of state from the action of the church. (never thought I would be defending the catholics!).
Sadly you are very much incorrect in your assertion that making religious organizations tax exempt "keeps them from being able to tell their followers who to vote for." Churches do this all the time; they send out emails encouraging their members to vote against things or vote for specific candidates. Sure they are not supposed to do this but there is absolutely no enforcement of this rule. Heck didn't the Catholic church sue the federal government over healthcare laws requiring uniform coverage of workers (please note that churches were exempt from this, only entities which are not directly tied to churches were bound by it)? If that isn't getting involved in the political system then I don't know what is.
In the United States, a church can loose its tax exempt status if it tells people who to vote for. This has been the law since the 1940s and many a church has lost its status. As for voting on issues, the courts have ruled that is permissable since most issues are moral or values based and that is what religion is about.
The Catholic Church along with a large number of protestant churches did sue the US Government over the HHS mandate on the grounds it infringed on their religous rights. They even told their followers to contact their representatives to overturn it. That is all legal and allowed as it is about an issue. If they had said to vote out everybody who supported the mandate, that would be a violation. Now I am not stupid and I know a lot of catholics and protestants are saying just that. However, that is not their leadership. Individuals, even if they belong to a church, are free to excercise their freedom of speech -- of course individuals aren't tax exempt.
While wikepeida does state that the 30 years war was initially a religous war between protestants and catholics, that was for the entire duration. In addition, what is not made clear is that it was the German princes (who were mainly protestant) pushing back against the Holy Roman Empire, which of course was Catholic. In reality, it was not a war over religion, but over political power. The German princes wanted to be free of roman rule and the romans wanted to maintain that rule. This is similar today with the middle east. The conflict between Isreal and the Palestinians, although having religious overtones, is not actually a religious conflict, put a political one.
You DO know that MODERN POPULATIONS in both Russia and China were vastly greater when Stalin and Mao did their thing, and killing technology was far more ADVANCED, than when superstitionists went on their sprees long before?
Different times mean different levels of opportunity.
So you are justifying what Stalin and Mao did because it occurred in modern times with modern weapons and they had greater opportunity to kill and imprison?
There wasn't an income tax code for approximately the first 150 years of the country, so the reasoning given doesn't hold water. By the time the tax code was established, religious organizations were providing much of the medical care, orphanages and other social welfare systems. Congress decided that this was good as it benefited society and it should be encouraged. As such, contributions to these organizations were encouraged, though the tax code.
Then in the 40s, many churches became out spoken regarding reparations from the war and the treatment of the Germans and Japanese people. The government felt that this was counter to its agenda. Out of fear of the power of churches the law was changed that to keep the tax exempt status, churches could not get involved with politics. As a side note, this was also around the same time that Eisenhower wanted to start the interstate highway system to mimic the autobahn. His concern being that like the churches, the railroads were too powerful and could thwart the movement of troops.
Basically, the issue with churches being tax exempt and not being allowed to be active in politics stems from them providing a public service for the common good but also in protecting those in power from the popularity of religious leaders.
In comparing numbers of dead, never forget to scale for total population. For example, the total death toll of the crusades is estimated at about 200,000 - but then, the total world population at the time is estimated at 250-300 mio. people. So you'd have to kill at least 5 mio. today to get rid of the same percentage of the population.
Wikipedia has a nice list you can sort by percentage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
The crusades were a direct response to Muslim aggression--an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands. Islam had invaded and conquered 2/3 of the christian lands, all the way up into Spain. Yes, there were two empires that were theocratic involved in the crusades, however they were not about religion, but territory. That does not mean that both sides were not brutal. It simply means that the crusades were not a religious war, but a political war and ethnic cleansing. As most scholars of history point out, it is important to distinquish between the christian church in terms of religion and the Holy Roman Empire, which was an administrative and political entity.
You would be wrong.
There is no infectious nature to atheism. There is no faith. There is no ignorance. There is no irrationality. There is no dogma.
The vast majority of atheists simply sit on the side of the evidence. There is no objective reproducible evidence for the existence of gods or supernatural effects and plenty of contradictory objective reproducible evidence respective to supernatural effects, so those are not something that should be believed in.
Secular humanism could be viewed just as much a "religion" as Stalin and Mao being the gods of their religion and for the same reasons you posted previously.
As for atheists sitting on the side of evidence, just as there is no objective reproducible evidence for the existence gods or supernatural effects, there is no objective evidence showing the non-existance. So, atheists really don't sit on the side of evidence, because there is no evidence, one way or the other. Now atheists can claim, that since there is no evidence of gods or the supernatural, they do not believe, etc. But that position cannot be claimed on the evidence.
The fault in your reasoning is a simple one. If it is raining and you don't have an umbrella, you will get wet does not mean that if you do not have an umbrella you will get wet (as it might not be raining). Likewise, lack of scientific proof that a deity exists does not mean that a deity does not exist.
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up.
Actually, many christian churches use the term priest, not just the Roman Catholic Church. Although RC is probably the largest one that uses that term.
Not exactly the same, but pre-reformation Catholicism almost fits the bill. They just had all their texts in latin, and forbid translating it into any language the common people knew. The only people who had the time or opportunity to learn latin were the priests, so the reading and interpretation of their holy texts was exclusively the domain of the clergy. They didn't have law suits back then, but they did issue legal bans against the translations.
Not true,, not true, not true! There were several translations of the Latin Vulgate into the vernacular. The Vulgate was the official translation, however. What kept it from being common was the great expense. Only the wealthy could afford their own copy, whether in the vernacular or in latin.
... Christianity doesn't require you to pay money before they will reveal all of the church doctrines...
True, but once they suck you in all Christian organisations want your money and they want it tax free.
But it is still a believer's choice to give or not, unlike scientology. And you should be glad that they are tax exempt. That's the only thing that keeps them from being able to tell their followers who to vote for. Being tax exempt means they can only speak on the issues, not the candidates.
You would be wrong.
Stalin and Mao were the gods of their religion built around a cult of personality and unwavering faith in authority and righteousness.
If you really believe that, then you would be sayng that Atheism is a religion, too. Is that really where you want to go?
That is only because Scientology is still young. Given time, I am sure they can kill as many people as good old fashioned cults have managed to.
You do know that in the 20th century, the two godless societies of the former USSR and China killed many more people than the so called cults have throughout their entire history.
Let me say first that I find Scientology repulsive and a particularly greasy form of pyramid scheme. However, compared to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic trinity, they are responsible for much less evil and far fewer deaths. Between those three religions you have tens of millions slaughtered in pointless wars over minor differences in doctrine. You have sexism that runs deep through the dogma of all three. You have churches who have officially sanctioned everything from genocide to sexually abusing children to slavery. This stuff isn't even in the distant past. I can find examples in the last century where each of these religions has committed terrible atrocities.
Scientology is easy to hate because it is so ridiculous, so absurd, and generally unpopular. It's an easier target than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. But if you really take a step back and look at the doctrine of those three faiths, they are equally as ridiculous.
Why not include the Aztecs in your list so you can claim they also practice human sacrifice? While christianity did rise from Judaism, the three are not really related in the way you are trying to make them.
As for your claims of sanctioning genocide, sexually abusng children and slavery, particularly not in the distant past, I'd like to see your documentation. If you could produce documentation of such events by the various religions and sects to demonstrate how these things were officially sanctioned, then you would be doing a great service to the /. readers.
There are many things to validly complain about with organized religion, however, wild unsubstantiated claims, as you make are not valid complaints but just show your own ignorance and bigotry.
Call all your critics liars (and wife-beaters and child molesters if possible), send private detectives and Sea Org types to follow and harass them, sue them and anyone who supports them, cry religious persecution to the cops and govt officials, rinse, wash, repeat...
Read all about it, and more.
Are you talking about scientology or the upcoming US presidential campaign?
I hope people appreciate the gravity of that statement.
From reading the 'popular science' explanations the Higgs field and Higgs Boson is what gives everything else mass. So if we can find a way of turning off' the interaction with the Higgs Field we suddenly remove all mass, inertia, weight etc.
There are doubtless guys out there much smarter than I am who will be able to tell why this won't work, but if it does then it's our big stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and ultimately the stars.
While countering the Higgs Field to produce anti-gravity is mathematically possible, so too is it mathematically possible to travel faster than the speed of light. In both cases, it just takes enough energy. I think mathematically the amount of energy required is somewhat in excess of all of the energy in the Universe, but mathematically it's possible. Scientifically, that is a different story.
"Made in the USA" and "Assembled in the USA from foreign and domestic parts" have substantially different meanings, and Google is using the wrong one of these phrases in order to fool fools.
Actually they are not. The FTC has very specific regulations as to what constitutes Made in the USA and the Nexus Q meets those regulations.
Agreed. When do you ever see an electronics product state "Made in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc."? It's the final step that matters and there's always only one country mentioned.
Obviously, you haven't been in Best Buy, lately. Most TVs and consumer products do say Made in one of those places.
The FTC requires that country-of-origin claims be assessed by portioning the manufacturing costs of the final product. A couple of dollars worth of foreign components/costs in an otherwise domestically sourced product that costs $300 is not considered to be an issue. If, on the other hand, the final product cost $5, then it's not acceptable to make a "Made in the USA" claim.
Here is a link to the FTC page which describes the situation a bit more clearly, if not nearly so briefly.
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard
If I had points, I'd mod you up! Unfortunately, I don't.