The only reason the usage of that phrase ever changed is because large numbers of ignorant people started using it incorrectly, and now we're left without an unambiguous, concise way of accusing someone of assuming what they are pretending to prove. The usage of "begs the question" we are discussing is only standard in the same sense, and for the same reasons, that.doc, Microsoft Windows, and IE's broken implementation of HTML and CSS are standard.
Thinking about VR, though, it does make you wonder about the interrogation potential for completely controlling someone's environment. If you thought the Ministry was scary in 1984, just imagine the interrogator controlling your entire reality. There was actually a surprisingly good TNG episode where Riker was put through VR interrogation so that he would reveal something important. Each of those constructed realities seemed entirely convincing at first but as he started to find flaws, the reality would shatter and be replaced by something new. Scary.
That may have been the operative theory behind the CIA's LSD experiments, although they never worked out. There was a Battlestar Galactica episode where hallucinogens were used to interrogate Baltar, and in fact some sort of hallucination (caused by a yet-unknown means) was used before that point to control him rather thoroughly.
Indeed. And if the people of Africa followed the Church's teachings--not only on condoms, but on sex in general--HIV would not be an epidemic today. Condoms are used in either of two cases. One case is extramarital or premartial sex, which the Church is against in principle. The other is intramarital sex, which doesn't propogate HIV other than in the case of birth. And I think the Church in that case would recommend remaining celibate even within marriage rather than spreading HIV to one's offspring.
Now you're telling me that the people of Africa, who obviously aren't following the Church's teachings on sexual morality, are afflicted with an HIV epidemic because they are following the Church's teachings on sexual morality?
It is Britain's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun
And it was the first to sell 1 million copies a day.
Well then...seems that this 'evil right wing, middle class' paper outsells your liberal stuff.
So..to you, the wingnut, makes it evil.
Compare this to fox news. It clobbers all other cable news shows...
"Folks, I'm no fan of reality...Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington owned slaves? If I want to say he didn't, that's my right! And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact. We should apply these principles to all information! All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true, for instance, that Africa has more elephants today than it did ten years ago. Now, I don't know if that's actually true. But if it was true, boy, that would be a real blow to the environmentalists. As usual, the Bush administration is on the cutting edge of information management. While they've admitted that Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction, they've also insinuated he did have weapons of mass destruction--insinuations that have been repeated over and over again on cable news for the past 3 and a half years. And now, the result is, 18 months ago, only 36% of Americans believed it, but 50% of Americans believe it now! Man, that number's growing almost as fast as the population of African elephants!...What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge. Now, the "blame ignorance first" crowd is gonna say that something is either true or it isn't, and it doesn't matter how many people agree....If you go against what the majority of people perceive to be reality, you're the one who's crazy!...Together, we can create a reality we all agree on: the reality we just agreed on."
In Britain, a "republican" is someone who wants to abolish the monarchy and replace it with a republic. They do have them, but they're not allowed to hold office because they refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen.
These are principles not beliefs. They are elevated to this level due to millions of empirical observations that give us cause to assert they are true. The universe, for the most part, obeys causality and is rational, leading us to hold such "beliefs" while being able to make falsifiable predictions based on them, and deducing other "beliefs" which also involve the real world around us and are similarly falsifiable. We do not want them to be true, and in fact we abandon them every time a great discovery is made.
You're still assuming (at least) two things without any evidence: first, that empirical observation is an accurate means of knowing the world, and second, that the universe will continue to behave in the future as it has in the past.
Why should he be? If I believed (incidentally, I don't) that there was an afterlife, I wouldn't care too much about this one either, except insofar as it affected one's stakes in the afterlife.
you need to have unbiased scientific proof you are doing the right thing
I'd like to see you apply that principle to everything you do in life. I don't even think you'd be able to get out of bed--because "scientific proof" doesn't exist. Science is born of skepticism, not certainty. Proof is reserved to mathematics. Science doesn't give us proof, it gives us a system of constantly changing beliefs that, along with a few supporting assumptions, is supposed to predict the future. Except when it fails and we have to revise our theory.
And here's the kicker--science only gives us descriptive beliefs about the natural world. The Church isn't in that business. Your concern is preventing the spread of bodily disease and prolonging life on earth. That's not the Church's concern. What we have here is a disagreement in moral values.
If people stop believing in it, it stops existing. You're criticizing a guy who goes around saying not to use condoms just because millions of other people choose to believe him. Where's the criticism for the millions?
and would like an insight into economics (and ethics) based purely on deductive reasoning from basic axioms...
You know, I think that's the worst way to do an empirical science, but that's just me. At least Ayn Rand got away with it for claiming she was doing philosophy.
He has considerable legal authority over the employment of many priests throughout the world
That's not legal authority per se, that's ecclesiastical authority.
and he is head of the faith that teaches that any use of contraceptives inside of marriage is a sin.
That he is. It's not a teaching or a faith I agree with, but had this been framed from the start as a criticism of Catholicism rather than a personal criticism of the Pope for being Catholic, it would have been more honest.
I have to say that's an extremely simplistic and dogmatic view of morality. Had Ratzinger refused to have been drafted, there would be a dead Ratzinger and someone else would have taken his place. As a matter of fact, Ratzinger hardly even served due to illness, and defected as soon as he safely could. I do find it ironic that the current Pope chose not to sacrifice himself in a meaningless act of martyrdom, but I don't find it in any way blameworthy.
You mean other than the belief that the universe acts according to natural laws that we can discover and understand? Or that the belief that the universe acts in predictable ways, or that it will continue to behave the same way in the future as it has in the past?
It's not a misdirection at all, since it's not intramarital sex that spreads AIDS by and large. If their objection to the Pope is simply that he is a religious leader, then why don't they come out and say so without dancing around the issue?
I didn't change the subject at all, and I'm well aware of Catholic teaching on this subject. But the simple fact is that sex within monogamous marriages does not spread AIDS.
Most of your complaint boils down to this: the Catholic Church is a church. It has doctrines, beliefs, and practices. With regard to abortion: if someone in a position of power and authority consistently works against the Church's beliefs, do you honestly begrudge the Church for withholding their sacraments from that person? In any case, the Democratic Party is even worse at forcing people to "toe the line on abortion". Have you noticed that many openly abortion-choice Catholics remain Catholic and continue receiving sacraments? Did you notice that almost no pro-life Democrats remain today, with the few pro-lifers there were changing their tune in the early-to-mid-90's and the few who refused to do so having faded from national prominence? Why is it that one organization can maintain discipline on a matter of belief, while another is excoriated--despite the fact that as a religious institution, maintaining consistent moral teachings is a very central purpose for their existence?
You are obviously aware that the Pope served in the Wehrmacht
He was drafted into the army by a fascist state. Not something he had any choice over or should be blamed for.
his previous employment was as head of the Inquisition (which did in fact kill a few people in its heyday)
In 1981, Ratzinger was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Inquisition, although the activities we now associate with "the Inquisition" ended centuries before Ratzinger's birth.
forbids the use of condoms and family planning resulting in disease and famine
He holds no legal authority outside a few blocks in Rome. He is the head of a faith that teaches chastity outside of marriage, but so is the Dalai Lama.
goes around dressed in gold
Yes, the Pope does wear papal vestments, although "dressed in gold" is another exaggeration. You might have also noticed that the Pope is indeed Catholic. Look, if you have a bone to pick with the Pope, at least be honest about it. Don't go around misleading people.
Generally I find when talking with religious types that they do hold rational beliefs, lots of them. It's just that they don't all fit together into a coherent picture of the world; something which usually goes unnoticed.
I don't think anyone fits all their beliefs together into a coherent picture of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
The only reason the usage of that phrase ever changed is because large numbers of ignorant people started using it incorrectly, and now we're left without an unambiguous, concise way of accusing someone of assuming what they are pretending to prove. The usage of "begs the question" we are discussing is only standard in the same sense, and for the same reasons, that .doc, Microsoft Windows, and IE's broken implementation of HTML and CSS are standard.
That may have been the operative theory behind the CIA's LSD experiments, although they never worked out. There was a Battlestar Galactica episode where hallucinogens were used to interrogate Baltar, and in fact some sort of hallucination (caused by a yet-unknown means) was used before that point to control him rather thoroughly.
Indeed. And if the people of Africa followed the Church's teachings--not only on condoms, but on sex in general--HIV would not be an epidemic today. Condoms are used in either of two cases. One case is extramarital or premartial sex, which the Church is against in principle. The other is intramarital sex, which doesn't propogate HIV other than in the case of birth. And I think the Church in that case would recommend remaining celibate even within marriage rather than spreading HIV to one's offspring.
Now you're telling me that the people of Africa, who obviously aren't following the Church's teachings on sexual morality, are afflicted with an HIV epidemic because they are following the Church's teachings on sexual morality?
Man, why not just hack your nervous system to spontaneously orgasm at will?
Well then...seems that this 'evil right wing, middle class' paper outsells your liberal stuff. So..to you, the wingnut, makes it evil.
Compare this to fox news. It clobbers all other cable news shows...
"Folks, I'm no fan of reality...Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington owned slaves? If I want to say he didn't, that's my right! And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact. We should apply these principles to all information! All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true, for instance, that Africa has more elephants today than it did ten years ago. Now, I don't know if that's actually true. But if it was true, boy, that would be a real blow to the environmentalists. As usual, the Bush administration is on the cutting edge of information management. While they've admitted that Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction, they've also insinuated he did have weapons of mass destruction--insinuations that have been repeated over and over again on cable news for the past 3 and a half years. And now, the result is, 18 months ago, only 36% of Americans believed it, but 50% of Americans believe it now! Man, that number's growing almost as fast as the population of African elephants!...What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge. Now, the "blame ignorance first" crowd is gonna say that something is either true or it isn't, and it doesn't matter how many people agree....If you go against what the majority of people perceive to be reality, you're the one who's crazy!...Together, we can create a reality we all agree on: the reality we just agreed on."
In Britain, a "republican" is someone who wants to abolish the monarchy and replace it with a republic. They do have them, but they're not allowed to hold office because they refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen.
You're still assuming (at least) two things without any evidence: first, that empirical observation is an accurate means of knowing the world, and second, that the universe will continue to behave in the future as it has in the past.
Did the Vatican also assassinate JFK and destroy the World Trade Center in your world?
Why should he be? If I believed (incidentally, I don't) that there was an afterlife, I wouldn't care too much about this one either, except insofar as it affected one's stakes in the afterlife.
I'd like to see you apply that principle to everything you do in life. I don't even think you'd be able to get out of bed--because "scientific proof" doesn't exist. Science is born of skepticism, not certainty. Proof is reserved to mathematics. Science doesn't give us proof, it gives us a system of constantly changing beliefs that, along with a few supporting assumptions, is supposed to predict the future. Except when it fails and we have to revise our theory.
And here's the kicker--science only gives us descriptive beliefs about the natural world. The Church isn't in that business. Your concern is preventing the spread of bodily disease and prolonging life on earth. That's not the Church's concern. What we have here is a disagreement in moral values.
If people stop believing in it, it stops existing. You're criticizing a guy who goes around saying not to use condoms just because millions of other people choose to believe him. Where's the criticism for the millions?
You know, I think that's the worst way to do an empirical science, but that's just me. At least Ayn Rand got away with it for claiming she was doing philosophy.
That's not legal authority per se, that's ecclesiastical authority.
and he is head of the faith that teaches that any use of contraceptives inside of marriage is a sin.That he is. It's not a teaching or a faith I agree with, but had this been framed from the start as a criticism of Catholicism rather than a personal criticism of the Pope for being Catholic, it would have been more honest.
I have to say that's an extremely simplistic and dogmatic view of morality. Had Ratzinger refused to have been drafted, there would be a dead Ratzinger and someone else would have taken his place. As a matter of fact, Ratzinger hardly even served due to illness, and defected as soon as he safely could. I do find it ironic that the current Pope chose not to sacrifice himself in a meaningless act of martyrdom, but I don't find it in any way blameworthy.
You mean other than the belief that the universe acts according to natural laws that we can discover and understand? Or that the belief that the universe acts in predictable ways, or that it will continue to behave the same way in the future as it has in the past?
It's not a misdirection at all, since it's not intramarital sex that spreads AIDS by and large. If their objection to the Pope is simply that he is a religious leader, then why don't they come out and say so without dancing around the issue?
You're telling me that condoms would prevent contaminated blood transfusions or infected medical equipment?
That's not quite the Church's primary belief here.
Why don't you go do that instead of demanding it from those who honestly and in good faith do not believe in it?
I didn't change the subject at all, and I'm well aware of Catholic teaching on this subject. But the simple fact is that sex within monogamous marriages does not spread AIDS.
I think the first Mac without FireWire was simply the first Mac.
Most of your complaint boils down to this: the Catholic Church is a church. It has doctrines, beliefs, and practices. With regard to abortion: if someone in a position of power and authority consistently works against the Church's beliefs, do you honestly begrudge the Church for withholding their sacraments from that person? In any case, the Democratic Party is even worse at forcing people to "toe the line on abortion". Have you noticed that many openly abortion-choice Catholics remain Catholic and continue receiving sacraments? Did you notice that almost no pro-life Democrats remain today, with the few pro-lifers there were changing their tune in the early-to-mid-90's and the few who refused to do so having faded from national prominence? Why is it that one organization can maintain discipline on a matter of belief, while another is excoriated--despite the fact that as a religious institution, maintaining consistent moral teachings is a very central purpose for their existence?
He was drafted into the army by a fascist state. Not something he had any choice over or should be blamed for.
his previous employment was as head of the Inquisition (which did in fact kill a few people in its heyday)In 1981, Ratzinger was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Inquisition, although the activities we now associate with "the Inquisition" ended centuries before Ratzinger's birth.
forbids the use of condoms and family planning resulting in disease and famineHe holds no legal authority outside a few blocks in Rome. He is the head of a faith that teaches chastity outside of marriage, but so is the Dalai Lama.
goes around dressed in goldYes, the Pope does wear papal vestments, although "dressed in gold" is another exaggeration. You might have also noticed that the Pope is indeed Catholic. Look, if you have a bone to pick with the Pope, at least be honest about it. Don't go around misleading people.
I don't think anyone fits all their beliefs together into a coherent picture of the world.
Gays don't actually consider me one of them because I also fuck women. Nor do I consider myself one of them. So for all I know I'm not allowed either.