"As a matter of fact, the GGP caused me to spend about 8.5 hours straight of reading up on the subject (as the history of religions is one of my pet interests)."
Good for you. Since ignorance about religion seems to be the rule here on slashdot, I applaud anybody of intellectual mind who considers religion to be worth studying at all.
"1. Your reply, although it purports to address the relationship of both Unitarian Universalism and Unitarianism with Christianity, ends up addressing only Unitarian Universalism."
That's because there is no modern Unitarian Church. In 1961, the Unitarian and Universalist Churches merged, hence UUism. Even before the merger, no Unitarian sect believed in the deity of Jesus. Belief in the deity of Jesus is a prerequisite of being accepted into a Christian church. That's why it's called "Christian", because they believe Jesus was Christ.
"2. The UUA admits to there being a historical link to Unitarianism, and refers to Unitarianism as a form of Christianity, right on their own website."
You seem to be genuinely confused. Nowhere in the linked page is Unitarianism referred to as a form of Christianity, and frankly, it'll be a cold day in hell when the UUA self-identifies as such. Can you please quote the passage from our website that led you to believe this?
The only connection that the UUA refers to between UUism and Christianity is here, when it says "Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;". Note, firstly, that this statement refers to the historical origins of our faith, not to it's present existance. Note, secondly, that this statement is referring to "teachings" rather than dogma or theology, and specifically only to those teaching which call upon us to love our neighbors as ourselves. In short, the ONLY part of Christianity which the UUA even acknowledges as an influence is three words - "love thy neighbor". It is also worth noting that this does not exist within the context of the 7 Purposes and Principles, which are the ONLY things UUs are REQUIRED to believe. In other words, you would be allowed to join a UU church without believing that our faith has historical roots in Christianity whatsoever (wheras you would not be allowed to join a Christian church without believing that Jesus was the Messiah). Thirdly, and most importantly, the teachings of Christianity drawn from by our faith are mentioned in the context of being WHOLLY EQUAL with teachings from Judaism, Humanism, and Paganism.
"3. Your final remark about Christians is a gross generalization, as there were (and are) Trinitarian (see my previous post) as well as Nontrinitariandoctrines, all identifying themselves as Christian."
Um, maybe you missed how the whole thing was underlined and linked directly to a wikipedia page. That's because this wasn't my remark, it was a direct quote from the wiki.
There are, in theory, non-trinitarian forms of Christianity. However, have you ever seen a Ebionite church? How about a Arian church? No? How about a Oneness Pentacostal Church? The fact of the matter is 99.9% of modern day Christianity is trinitarian. The trinity is accepted as dogma by the following denominations: Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christianity (Greek, Russian, etc), Anabaptists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, and the Church of Christ.
No, I'm afraid the only denomination which exists today that gives any credence at all to your assertion is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And you'd be hard pressed to find any mainstream Christian church that would ever agree that Mormons are Christians. One could not hold Mormon beliefs and be accepted into the congregation of a Christian church.
Again, I'm proud of you for doing as much research as you have. If you'd like to pursue it further, I recommend "A Chos
"The fact that Unitarians reject the notion of God being a Trinity doesn't mean they are not Christians."
Dude, seriously, stop embarassing yourself.
Reasons why Unitarian Universalists are not / Unitarians historically were not Christians:
1) UU's don't require belief that Jesus was the son of God 2) UU's don't even require belief that Jesus even existed 3) UU's don't require belief that God is a Trinity 4) UU's don't require belief that God even exists 5) UU's don't require belief in sin 6) UU's don't require belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible, or any other self-proclaimed holy book 7) UU's don't require belief in heaven and hell 8) UU's don't require belief that any church, including our own, has a monopoly on the truth
Once again, if there's any subject on which slashdotters are mor ignorant and bigoted about than religion, I don't want to know what it is.
You have succeeded in missing the point completely. I'll try one more time.
Jefferson did not believe that Jesus was the son of God any more than you or I are. One of the beliefs that Christianity is based upon is that Jesus was God made flesh, the Messiah, born of a virgin and conceived by the holy spirit. You can't be a Christian and think Jesus was just a prophet. Hell, even Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet - there's an entire book of the Koran devoted to Jesus. So I guess by your incredible flawed reasoning that makes all Muslims Christians too.
Most importantly, Jefferson didn't believe in the Trinity. From the Wiki: "Christians believe that God is a unity in Trinity, that is to say that God is one being "subsisting" in three divine persons, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son (sometimes called the "Logos"), who pre-existed eternally with the Father, but became man at one point of time." All major Christian churches require a belief in the trinity.
The Jefferson Bible wasn't published until 1903.
You flail it, dude. Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian, no matter how much you may wish it were so.
Wow. Just... wow. I don't even know where to start with this. I really expected a more cogent argument from somebody with a 5-digit uid. But oh well, here goes.
"Industrialization would have gradually eliminated the need for slaves,"
But if slavery hadn't been abolished, why would they have industrialized? The south is still not an industrial area without slavery, but you think that *with* slavery it *would* be? Can you please explain that?
"Its not like slavery is really gone, its just morphed in to a somewhat gentler form."
While sweat shops are certainly a bad thing that should be done away with, it doesn't change the fact that slavery was FAR FAR FUCKING WORSE.
Your anti-religious prejudice and hatred has now put you in the admirable position of defending slavery and criticizing the abolition therof. Good job.
"fanatically religious abolitionists pushed their cause to far to fast"
Wow. If you really think that being against SLAVERY is a cause that CAN be pushed too far too fast, then with all due respect, I'm gonna say fuck you.
"By pushing their agenda to fast the abolitionists pushed the U.S. in to a war that killed around 600,000-700,000"
But the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of slaves who died, well, that was OK?
"If abolition had taken a more gradual pace"
Are you even listening to yourself? Should we have taken a "more gradual pace" ending the holocaust because American soldiers would die? Should we have taken a "more gradual pace" revolting against England?
Slavery is fucking wrong. Slavery, whenever and wherever it occurs, should be fucking ended by any means fucking necessary. Say you disagree with that. Go on, say it.
"so the South could have weaned its economy from slavery"
Yeah. That's probable. I'm sure southeast asia will be "weaning" themselves from those sweatshops you claim to be so concerned about any day now. They'll just give them up without any pressure from anybody else.
"religion seems to be at the root of bloody conflicts that have claimed millions of lives."
Being prejudiced against all religion, and having as strong an inbuilt motivation to blame religion for everything you can, you are simply seeing what is most convenient to your narrow, bigoted worldview to see. Again, you are blinded to the obvious by your unthinking hatred of all religion. Religion isn't any more to blame for war, pestilence, famine, disease and death then economics are, or racism, or the uneven distribution of natural resources, or climate and weather, or any number of other factors.
"The racist slavers were wrong in uniformly treating all blacks as subhuman and worthless. Unitarian's are equally wrong in uniformly treating all peoples as equals and of equal worth."
OK, let me get this straight. UU's are EQUALLY AS WRONG AS SLAVE TRADERS?! I'm gonna give you a chance to reconsider this.
Oh, and "of equal worth"? Can you please show me where exactly that phrase is in our literature? Can you show me where the word "equal" or "equality" occurs once in our purposes and principles? What #1 says is: All people have value just because they're alive. It doesn't say EQUAL value. Just that anybody who's alive isn't completely worthless.
"The reality is every human being is different. We start with different strengths and weaknesses, and our life experience creates people across a complete spectrum of worth. Some end up saints and some end up evil incarnate."
But even evil people can change their behavior, and therefore have value - even if it's only in their potential. Every living person has value, no matter how little or how much, no living person is completely worthless or irredeemable.
"Some are completely lazy, useless, worthless burdens on society."
Name one. Name one single person in the history of mankind that didn't at least make his mother smile once in a while, or pet his dog. Name one person who never, EVER, put any posit
"But, its pretty clear Christianity has done very little that is positive for Western culture and has done it vast harm."
Again with the oversimplification.
There has been, and continues to be, a vast disparity between the teachings of Jesus (really just thermodynamics on a human scale, conservation of energy as applied to human relations, etc) and the horrible twisted things that humankind has done with them. In this, Christianity is no different from any other religion. The Koran doesn't say to fly planes into buildings, but try telling the fundies that. The Bible doesn't say to have Crusades, but nobody cared.
The teachings of any religion, unfortunately, have very little to do with what humans choose to do in that religion's name.
That said, I think it's just incorrect to say that Christianity has done nothing positive for society. If it weren't for Christianity, specifically Protestantism and Methodism, chances are slavery would still exist here today. In many ways, Christianity was the first religion to espouse the doctrine that all people, no matter what caste or class or family background or race or gender, were worth God's love.
You appear to be taking a very creative interpretaion of what he said.
Jefferson said time and again that he considered Jesus to be the best example of man to walk the Earth, but did not consider him Godly. In fact, he took a razor blade and cut out every refernce made in the Bible to Jesus' divine parentage (along with every other supernatural element of the Bible). It's now called the Jefferson Bible. Did he belive in and try to adhere to the DOCTRINES of Jesus (which he mentions three times just in what you have quoted)? Yes. DId he believe Jesus was God made flesh? That he was one third of the trinity? Nope. Sure didn't. Guess what that makes him?
Isaac Newton was a Unitarian, thanks very much. Like his friend John Locke. Please get your facts straight before accusing others of ignorance.
Have there been bad Christians? Yes. Have there been good ones too? Most definately. You can't point to any group that big and say they're all the same, just like you can't do that with blacks or women.
No no no... GAY aliens! They're in it with the queers! They're building landing strips for gay Martians! I swear to God! You know what, Stuart? I like you. You're not like the other people here in the trailer park.
"it would be like the government forcing McDonald's to Serve food from Burger King, or Vice Versa."
Firstly, you're wrong because your analogy is specious. It wouldn't be like forcing McDonalds to SELL BK product, the CLEC's do a good job of selling the product. It would be more like, if burger ovens were incredibly expensive, and McDonalds owned 99% of them, forcing McDonalds to MAKE burgers for BK, which BK would then resell.
Secondly, you're wrong because Micky D's and the King are much more evenly matched as competitors than baby Bells and CLEC's are. Because it's not as prohibitively expensive to buy burger ovens as it is to lay copper wire over an entire city, county, state or nation.
Thirdly, I hope you realize you just used "McDonalds" and "unconstitutional" in the same thought. That alone should give you some pause - but you're obviously a zealot, so it probably won't.
"open up your own telephone company by laying your own cable down to compete, you have every right to do so."
It takes more than a "right" to start a business. It takes investment capital. In the case of telco's, every CLEC out there owning their own infrastructure would be three things. 1) Fiscally impossible. 2) Incredibly wasteful. 3) Incredibly ugly - can you imagine every telephone pole made 100 feet high, carrying cables for every single telco in the country? Is that a street you'd want to drive down or live on? Especially since all these wires are all using only 1% of their capacity?
Do you realize that you're defending predatory, monopolistic, anti-competitive, anti-free market status quo?
Let's continue for a moment down the analogistic path. When American (and foreign) space missions have flown, and have carried into space scientific experiments and equipment, they weren't all from the same person or company. Do you think that every single scientist who needed experimental results from space should have built and flown their own shuttle? Would you have the scientific community be kept from the knowledge that helps you and me lead better lives rather than have all the experiments piggyback up on the same shuttle? Would you have every astronomer build their own Hubble telescopes rather than use the one that exists, and share it?
At one end of the scale, you have fast food franchises. When you open one, investment costs are relatively low. Accordingly, there's millions of these places, and they all compete. At the other end of the scale, you have going into outer space, or laying copper to every house in the nation.
"when Netscape was losing their market share to Microsoft over Internet Explorer"...it was because IE came bundled with the OS, wheras netscape did not. Again you defend predatory, anti-competitive, monopolistc practices.
"taking market share away from Microsoft"
What planet do you live on? Here on Earth, IE has 86.56% of browser market share, as opposed to Firefox's MIGHTY EIGHT PERCENT!! This in spite of the fact that IE is the WORST BROWSER EVER WRITTEN! This in spite of the fact that Netscape had over 50% market share until 1997! Gee, how on Earth did that happen? Woo hoo, let's hear it for predatory monopolies!
"Revscat, that is what happens when the Free Market decides"
Only an utter zealot (or a troll posting anonymously) would treat the phrase "free market" as a proper noun to be capitalized.
Look, Einstein, this is how it works. Regulation, like everything else in life, operates within a spectrum. On the far end, you have over-regulation. I honestly can't think of any recent examples of this, but I'm sure it exists somewhere, probably in Europe. In the middle, you have regulation at it's most appropriate level, where business and consumers are equally represented. These are called CHECKS AND BALANCES, maybe you've heard of them. At the other end, you have UNDER-regulation. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as under-regulation. It
The thing that makes solid-state, lightning-fast storage attractive to me is digital multitrack recording. In that world, the faster your drive the more tracks can be recorded at once. The thing is, when you're recording 18 tracks of 16/44.1 PCM, 1 gig lasts about ten seconds. The same can be said about digital video. I applaud the speed, and I probably will wind up buying one, but when the capacities get as high as standard drives are now PLUS that speed, then it'll be something I won't be able to live without.
"Indeed, more people might be inclined to see it, but the filmmaker also gets no money at all to make the next film with."
You are making two very faulty assumptions: that all films are made with money earned from the previous one (so how'd the first one get made?), and that people who'd seen it on a 17" computer monitor in lossy, compressed format through tinny little speakers would never want to see it projected from film onto a big screen through a huge sound system.
"That's because what you download is an approximation of the original"
I've gotten plenty of copied, full 16/44 PCM quality CD's from friends of mine. I've still gone out and bought the CD's in the store. In fact, CD's that I like a lot, and that apparently others do too because they keep getting stolen, I've bought two or three times. I've bought 99% by Meat Beat Manifesto no less that four. So *ding!* you're wrong - full quality copies of CD's serve just as much as free promotion as mp3's do.
"You can get from me everything you can get from the copy in the record store."
Really? I can get a CD and not a CDR from you? I can give you money and know that some of it at least theoretically supports an artist I like? Wow, you're pretty cool. I mean wrong. *Dingding!*
"since the artists get paid nothing for a copy of their work"
You appear to have a very poor understanding of how the recording and music industries operate.
OK, so you think the artists should be paid more money for their work. The logical extension of that admirable sentiment is this - let's abolish recorded music. All of it. Let's get rid of this thing that lets a band play in your living room every night for a one-time fee of $10-20. Let's get back to the business model where, if you want to hear a band you like, you have to travel physically to where they are performing that night and pay $15-250 for a ticket. As somebody who's been in way more bands than you have I can say with authority that *that's* the only thing that's gonna get the artist paid.
Tell me, Mr. Expert, how many people do you think have attended concerts, payed for tickets, bought T-shirts and merchandise, for the sole reason that they either heard an artist over a P2P network or were given a copy of a store-bought CD by a friend? How on Earth can you possible say those artists get paid nothing and pretend to be rational? Much less not *dingdingding!* wrong?
Because, as a veteran of several bands and a former chief engineer of a grammy award producing studio, I'll be the first to tell you that musicians don't make shit off record deals, especially ones with major labels. They're given a very high-interest loan, called an "advance" in record company slang (*cough* USURY *cough*), which, if they're lucky, will cover the expense of making and promoting a record. But 99 times out of 100 it doesn't. So then the musicians are left owing some very exploitative and unscrupulous people money. Whatever pathetic half-a-cent-per-$18-CD royalties do get supposedly paid to the artist don't even pay the interest on what they're left owing the label.
The only recording artists who are rich today are rich becuase of their concert tours and merchandising deals, not their record contracts. Not even the Beatles got rich off their records.
"you have the money"
Bullshit. I've spend my last $10 in the world on a really good CD more times that I can count. And I know dozens of others who have too. I've had rent checks bounce because I bought too many CD's. In fact, I've had the check to the record store bounce. So again, you're *dingdingdingding!* wrong - having the money has nothing to do with it.
"Most people don't."
Wow. You appear to think that most music-lovers are like you, and are cynical, cold-hearted, exploitative assholes. I prefer to think that most music-lovers are like me, and are loving, generous, and supportive.
I would say that time will tell, except that it already has. Neither the invention of magnetic tape, nor of cassette recorders spelled the end of music or the RIAA. Neither did the advent of cassette clubs. Neither did the bootlegging of live performances or studio albums that the RIAA didn't deign to sell through their own channels. Some of the most wildly successful bands ever have gained that success by encouraging home taping, by encouraging show bootlegging, and by recording
"the only "money" the indie film producer would see is what he makes on that one copy."
which is different from how it works now... how?! Do you think that a band gives their record company 100,000 pressed CD's to distribute? No, they give them ONE MASTER. And that's, technically, what they're paid for - though they are usually given an advance of money to make the album with up front.
Almost everybody I know that downloads does the same thing I do. We download whatever we can, delete what we don't like, and buy what we do. I've bought a lot of CD's that I would never have heard of if it hadn't been for P2P. I buy them because I want to support the artists, I want to have the liner notes and stickers and bonus DVD's or whatever that comes with the CD itself. I like having a CD collection, I can't stand the sight of a bunch of burned discs in slimline cases with no room on the spine for a label.
In other words, P2P is doing what ClearChannel refuses to do - expose the public to new music. This is why I say it's free promotion.
There will always be a few unscrupulous bastards that will get off on getting something for nothing, but I honestly believe they're much fewer in number than anybody thinks.
"I agree, but will there be enough of such people to sustain a business model?"
Remember when the RIAA said cassettes were going to kill vinyl, and no recording artist would ever make a penny again, and won't somebody please think of the set designers, and the sky is falling?
I do. I remember when consumer grade tape recorders of any kind were illegal in the US, thanks to the RIAA's lobbying clout. Ever see an 8-track cartridge recorder? Ever wonder why not? And gee, in some blinding coincidence, 8-track somehow was the biggest bomb of a format the RIAA ever forced down the public's throat. Gee, I wonder why?
Funny thing is, they wound up making a ton of money on cassettes in the 80's and 90's, just like they're going to make a ton of money off mp3's once they quit bitching about it and get with the reality of the marketplace already.
And most of you here are too young to remember it, but in the 80's there were these things called cassette clubs. And it would consist of people signing up on a mailing list, and whenever somebody in the club bought an album, they'd dupe it for everybody else on the list, most of whom were complete strangers. So "file sharing" has been going on for about 30 years now in the music scene. Somehow music has survived. In fact, somehow music has thrived.
So no, I'm not worried about the business model at all. I'm a musician myself, I've been chief engineer at a recording studio, I've seen all aspects of the business. And it's more than robust enough to survive a little file-sharing.
"If so, is that enough money to encourage creativity?"
Real creativity has nothing to do with how much money you make off it. The artists who are the most creative are usually the ones without the record deals. I think South Park summed it up perfectly - the only artists who are making such a huge deal about file sharing are the ones who suck, and need the muscle of the RIAA cartel and their price-fixing schemes in order to have even the appearance of success (which somehow never lasts more than one album).
Creativity preceeds profit, and doesn't expect it. Creativity is it's own reward. Profit is nice, and most artists won't turn down money for their work (though some will), but no serious artist wakes up in the morning and says "today I'm gonna make a million dollars". They wake up and say "today I'm gonna make the best piece of art ever."
"First of all, please don't drive down the street with your stereo turned up. It annoys people like me."
I don't even have a car right now, so I think you're safe for a while...
"Secondly, that's not the only alternative at all."
Why not? I'm publicly broadcasting a copyrighted work whose publishing is controlled by ASCAP, SECAM, or BMI. I've seen car stereos that have larger effective broadcast ranges than some low power FM stations. Why should all those people get to hear all that music for *nothing*? Won't somebody please think of the set designers...
"Surely we can find a compromise point between giving a copy to two friends and putting it up on a website for two million?"
Nobody's putting them up on websites, and nobody's distributing them to two million people. You appear to have a vastly inflated sense of the P2P scene.
The situation will be remedied, and the forces involved will come to a better balance than exists today. But the means to that end is for the RIAA to wake up one morning with the taste of its own balls in the back of it's throat, because that's where we'll have put them.
Artists should have rights. Consumers should have rights. The single biggest impact on those rights is the RIAA. Copyright law, and frequent and outrageous changes to it, are one of their primary tools for doing so. As it stands today, the RIAA is taking money from the mouths of the artists it claims to represent, not giving them any of the money it's making from the file-sharing suits, and claiming they're the good guys. They must be, and will be, stopped, if not by the gutless Republican Congress than by the sheer force of the market.
Couldn't agree more. My original point was that mp3's are today what cassette was in the 80's - which is to say, good enough for most people. Somehow the conversation got dragged over into whether or not mp3's were as "good" as pcm.
"So redistribution for no profit, no matter at what scale it occurs, should be legal?"
Yup. It's free promotion. There will always be people who want to buy the real thing because they've seen/heard a copy of it and like it. Ownership matters, as I'm constantly reminded by my friends on the right. One of the main reasons communism failed in many places is because people like to own their own stuff - and in many cases, to brag about how much they paid for it.
Besides, the alternative would be me having to pay mechanical royalties just for driving down the street with my stereo up really really loud.
Slashdot Mirror
Dammit, why, oh why don't I preview... I meant Microsoft... Creative has the menu/OS patent... duh...
"The article mentioned Rokr lacks the clickwheel that makes its big brothers function so slickly."
Of course it does. After all, didn't you hear? Creative invented that. That's why they got the patent on it.
How about both?
Binary thinking is for machines...
"As a matter of fact, the GGP caused me to spend about 8.5 hours straight of reading up on the subject (as the history of religions is one of my pet interests)."
Good for you. Since ignorance about religion seems to be the rule here on slashdot, I applaud anybody of intellectual mind who considers religion to be worth studying at all.
"1. Your reply, although it purports to address the relationship of both Unitarian Universalism and Unitarianism with Christianity, ends up addressing only Unitarian Universalism."
That's because there is no modern Unitarian Church. In 1961, the Unitarian and Universalist Churches merged, hence UUism. Even before the merger, no Unitarian sect believed in the deity of Jesus. Belief in the deity of Jesus is a prerequisite of being accepted into a Christian church. That's why it's called "Christian", because they believe Jesus was Christ.
"2. The UUA admits to there being a historical link to Unitarianism, and refers to Unitarianism as a form of Christianity, right on their own website."
You seem to be genuinely confused. Nowhere in the linked page is Unitarianism referred to as a form of Christianity, and frankly, it'll be a cold day in hell when the UUA self-identifies as such. Can you please quote the passage from our website that led you to believe this?
The only connection that the UUA refers to between UUism and Christianity is here, when it says "Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;". Note, firstly, that this statement refers to the historical origins of our faith, not to it's present existance. Note, secondly, that this statement is referring to "teachings" rather than dogma or theology, and specifically only to those teaching which call upon us to love our neighbors as ourselves. In short, the ONLY part of Christianity which the UUA even acknowledges as an influence is three words - "love thy neighbor". It is also worth noting that this does not exist within the context of the 7 Purposes and Principles, which are the ONLY things UUs are REQUIRED to believe. In other words, you would be allowed to join a UU church without believing that our faith has historical roots in Christianity whatsoever (wheras you would not be allowed to join a Christian church without believing that Jesus was the Messiah). Thirdly, and most importantly, the teachings of Christianity drawn from by our faith are mentioned in the context of being WHOLLY EQUAL with teachings from Judaism, Humanism, and Paganism.
"3. Your final remark about Christians is a gross generalization, as there were (and are) Trinitarian (see my previous post) as well as Nontrinitariandoctrines, all identifying themselves as Christian."
Um, maybe you missed how the whole thing was underlined and linked directly to a wikipedia page. That's because this wasn't my remark, it was a direct quote from the wiki.
There are, in theory, non-trinitarian forms of Christianity. However, have you ever seen a Ebionite church? How about a Arian church? No? How about a Oneness Pentacostal Church? The fact of the matter is 99.9% of modern day Christianity is trinitarian. The trinity is accepted as dogma by the following denominations: Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christianity (Greek, Russian, etc), Anabaptists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, and the Church of Christ.
No, I'm afraid the only denomination which exists today that gives any credence at all to your assertion is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And you'd be hard pressed to find any mainstream Christian church that would ever agree that Mormons are Christians. One could not hold Mormon beliefs and be accepted into the congregation of a Christian church.
Again, I'm proud of you for doing as much research as you have. If you'd like to pursue it further, I recommend "A Chos
"The fact that Unitarians reject the notion of God being a Trinity doesn't mean they are not Christians."
Dude, seriously, stop embarassing yourself.
Reasons why Unitarian Universalists are not / Unitarians historically were not Christians:
1) UU's don't require belief that Jesus was the son of God
2) UU's don't even require belief that Jesus even existed
3) UU's don't require belief that God is a Trinity
4) UU's don't require belief that God even exists
5) UU's don't require belief in sin
6) UU's don't require belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible, or any other self-proclaimed holy book
7) UU's don't require belief in heaven and hell
8) UU's don't require belief that any church, including our own, has a monopoly on the truth
On the other hand, "Christians believe that God is a unity in Trinity, that is to say that God is one being "subsisting" in three divine persons, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son (sometimes called the "Logos"), who pre-existed eternally with the Father, but became man at one point of time. The vast majority of Christian denominations (including Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, and most forms of Protestantism) hold to the statements of the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed (in the form of the Creed of Constantinople, 381) as summaries of the essentials of the faith."
See also here, where I discuss related issues. Please educate yourself about what you're going to discuss before you discuss it.
Once again, if there's any subject on which slashdotters are mor ignorant and bigoted about than religion, I don't want to know what it is.
You have succeeded in missing the point completely. I'll try one more time.
Jefferson did not believe that Jesus was the son of God any more than you or I are. One of the beliefs that Christianity is based upon is that Jesus was God made flesh, the Messiah, born of a virgin and conceived by the holy spirit. You can't be a Christian and think Jesus was just a prophet. Hell, even Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet - there's an entire book of the Koran devoted to Jesus. So I guess by your incredible flawed reasoning that makes all Muslims Christians too.
Most importantly, Jefferson didn't believe in the Trinity. From the Wiki: "Christians believe that God is a unity in Trinity, that is to say that God is one being "subsisting" in three divine persons, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son (sometimes called the "Logos"), who pre-existed eternally with the Father, but became man at one point of time." All major Christian churches require a belief in the trinity.
The Jefferson Bible wasn't published until 1903.
You flail it, dude. Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian, no matter how much you may wish it were so.
Wow. Just... wow. I don't even know where to start with this. I really expected a more cogent argument from somebody with a 5-digit uid. But oh well, here goes.
"Industrialization would have gradually eliminated the need for slaves,"
But if slavery hadn't been abolished, why would they have industrialized? The south is still not an industrial area without slavery, but you think that *with* slavery it *would* be? Can you please explain that?
"Its not like slavery is really gone, its just morphed in to a somewhat gentler form."
While sweat shops are certainly a bad thing that should be done away with, it doesn't change the fact that slavery was FAR FAR FUCKING WORSE.
Your anti-religious prejudice and hatred has now put you in the admirable position of defending slavery and criticizing the abolition therof. Good job.
"fanatically religious abolitionists pushed their cause to far to fast"
Wow. If you really think that being against SLAVERY is a cause that CAN be pushed too far too fast, then with all due respect, I'm gonna say fuck you.
"By pushing their agenda to fast the abolitionists pushed the U.S. in to a war that killed around 600,000-700,000"
But the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of slaves who died, well, that was OK?
"If abolition had taken a more gradual pace"
Are you even listening to yourself? Should we have taken a "more gradual pace" ending the holocaust because American soldiers would die? Should we have taken a "more gradual pace" revolting against England?
Slavery is fucking wrong. Slavery, whenever and wherever it occurs, should be fucking ended by any means fucking necessary. Say you disagree with that. Go on, say it.
"so the South could have weaned its economy from slavery"
Yeah. That's probable. I'm sure southeast asia will be "weaning" themselves from those sweatshops you claim to be so concerned about any day now. They'll just give them up without any pressure from anybody else.
"religion seems to be at the root of bloody conflicts that have claimed millions of lives."
Being prejudiced against all religion, and having as strong an inbuilt motivation to blame religion for everything you can, you are simply seeing what is most convenient to your narrow, bigoted worldview to see. Again, you are blinded to the obvious by your unthinking hatred of all religion. Religion isn't any more to blame for war, pestilence, famine, disease and death then economics are, or racism, or the uneven distribution of natural resources, or climate and weather, or any number of other factors.
"The racist slavers were wrong in uniformly treating all blacks as subhuman and worthless. Unitarian's are equally wrong in uniformly treating all peoples as equals and of equal worth."
OK, let me get this straight. UU's are EQUALLY AS WRONG AS SLAVE TRADERS?! I'm gonna give you a chance to reconsider this.
Oh, and "of equal worth"? Can you please show me where exactly that phrase is in our literature? Can you show me where the word "equal" or "equality" occurs once in our purposes and principles? What #1 says is: All people have value just because they're alive. It doesn't say EQUAL value. Just that anybody who's alive isn't completely worthless.
"The reality is every human being is different. We start with different strengths and weaknesses, and our life experience creates people across a complete spectrum of worth. Some end up saints and some end up evil incarnate."
But even evil people can change their behavior, and therefore have value - even if it's only in their potential. Every living person has value, no matter how little or how much, no living person is completely worthless or irredeemable.
"Some are completely lazy, useless, worthless burdens on society."
Name one. Name one single person in the history of mankind that didn't at least make his mother smile once in a while, or pet his dog. Name one person who never, EVER, put any posit
"But, its pretty clear Christianity has done very little that is positive for Western culture and has done it vast harm."
Again with the oversimplification.
There has been, and continues to be, a vast disparity between the teachings of Jesus (really just thermodynamics on a human scale, conservation of energy as applied to human relations, etc) and the horrible twisted things that humankind has done with them. In this, Christianity is no different from any other religion. The Koran doesn't say to fly planes into buildings, but try telling the fundies that. The Bible doesn't say to have Crusades, but nobody cared.
The teachings of any religion, unfortunately, have very little to do with what humans choose to do in that religion's name.
That said, I think it's just incorrect to say that Christianity has done nothing positive for society. If it weren't for Christianity, specifically Protestantism and Methodism, chances are slavery would still exist here today. In many ways, Christianity was the first religion to espouse the doctrine that all people, no matter what caste or class or family background or race or gender, were worth God's love.
Christianity was the first to claim the inherent worth and dignity of every person. (Why yes, I am a UU, how'd you guess?)
You appear to be taking a very creative interpretaion of what he said.
Jefferson said time and again that he considered Jesus to be the best example of man to walk the Earth, but did not consider him Godly. In fact, he took a razor blade and cut out every refernce made in the Bible to Jesus' divine parentage (along with every other supernatural element of the Bible). It's now called the Jefferson Bible. Did he belive in and try to adhere to the DOCTRINES of Jesus (which he mentions three times just in what you have quoted)? Yes. DId he believe Jesus was God made flesh? That he was one third of the trinity? Nope. Sure didn't. Guess what that makes him?
Not Christian.
Deists and Unitarians.
"Newton was a Christian"
Isaac Newton was a Unitarian, thanks very much. Like his friend John Locke. Please get your facts straight before accusing others of ignorance.
Have there been bad Christians? Yes. Have there been good ones too? Most definately. You can't point to any group that big and say they're all the same, just like you can't do that with blacks or women.
"And the Gray Aliens"
No no no... GAY aliens! They're in it with the queers! They're building landing strips for gay Martians! I swear to God! You know what, Stuart? I like you. You're not like the other people here in the trailer park.
Nice troll, dude. I can't resist.
...it was because IE came bundled with the OS, wheras netscape did not. Again you defend predatory, anti-competitive, monopolistc practices.
"it would be like the government forcing McDonald's to Serve food from Burger King, or Vice Versa."
Firstly, you're wrong because your analogy is specious. It wouldn't be like forcing McDonalds to SELL BK product, the CLEC's do a good job of selling the product. It would be more like, if burger ovens were incredibly expensive, and McDonalds owned 99% of them, forcing McDonalds to MAKE burgers for BK, which BK would then resell.
Secondly, you're wrong because Micky D's and the King are much more evenly matched as competitors than baby Bells and CLEC's are. Because it's not as prohibitively expensive to buy burger ovens as it is to lay copper wire over an entire city, county, state or nation.
Thirdly, I hope you realize you just used "McDonalds" and "unconstitutional" in the same thought. That alone should give you some pause - but you're obviously a zealot, so it probably won't.
"open up your own telephone company by laying your own cable down to compete, you have every right to do so."
It takes more than a "right" to start a business. It takes investment capital. In the case of telco's, every CLEC out there owning their own infrastructure would be three things. 1) Fiscally impossible. 2) Incredibly wasteful. 3) Incredibly ugly - can you imagine every telephone pole made 100 feet high, carrying cables for every single telco in the country? Is that a street you'd want to drive down or live on? Especially since all these wires are all using only 1% of their capacity?
Do you realize that you're defending predatory, monopolistic, anti-competitive, anti-free market status quo?
Let's continue for a moment down the analogistic path. When American (and foreign) space missions have flown, and have carried into space scientific experiments and equipment, they weren't all from the same person or company. Do you think that every single scientist who needed experimental results from space should have built and flown their own shuttle? Would you have the scientific community be kept from the knowledge that helps you and me lead better lives rather than have all the experiments piggyback up on the same shuttle? Would you have every astronomer build their own Hubble telescopes rather than use the one that exists, and share it?
At one end of the scale, you have fast food franchises. When you open one, investment costs are relatively low. Accordingly, there's millions of these places, and they all compete. At the other end of the scale, you have going into outer space, or laying copper to every house in the nation.
"when Netscape was losing their market share to Microsoft over Internet Explorer"
"taking market share away from Microsoft"
What planet do you live on? Here on Earth, IE has 86.56% of browser market share, as opposed to Firefox's MIGHTY EIGHT PERCENT!! This in spite of the fact that IE is the WORST BROWSER EVER WRITTEN! This in spite of the fact that Netscape had over 50% market share until 1997! Gee, how on Earth did that happen? Woo hoo, let's hear it for predatory monopolies!
"Revscat, that is what happens when the Free Market decides"
Only an utter zealot (or a troll posting anonymously) would treat the phrase "free market" as a proper noun to be capitalized.
Look, Einstein, this is how it works. Regulation, like everything else in life, operates within a spectrum. On the far end, you have over-regulation. I honestly can't think of any recent examples of this, but I'm sure it exists somewhere, probably in Europe. In the middle, you have regulation at it's most appropriate level, where business and consumers are equally represented. These are called CHECKS AND BALANCES, maybe you've heard of them. At the other end, you have UNDER-regulation. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as under-regulation. It
The thing that makes solid-state, lightning-fast storage attractive to me is digital multitrack recording. In that world, the faster your drive the more tracks can be recorded at once. The thing is, when you're recording 18 tracks of 16/44.1 PCM, 1 gig lasts about ten seconds. The same can be said about digital video. I applaud the speed, and I probably will wind up buying one, but when the capacities get as high as standard drives are now PLUS that speed, then it'll be something I won't be able to live without.
Yes they have.
A-fucking-men to that.
"Indeed, more people might be inclined to see it, but the filmmaker also gets no money at all to make the next film with."
You are making two very faulty assumptions: that all films are made with money earned from the previous one (so how'd the first one get made?), and that people who'd seen it on a 17" computer monitor in lossy, compressed format through tinny little speakers would never want to see it projected from film onto a big screen through a huge sound system.
YFI. HAND.
"That's because what you download is an approximation of the original"
I've gotten plenty of copied, full 16/44 PCM quality CD's from friends of mine. I've still gone out and bought the CD's in the store. In fact, CD's that I like a lot, and that apparently others do too because they keep getting stolen, I've bought two or three times. I've bought 99% by Meat Beat Manifesto no less that four. So *ding!* you're wrong - full quality copies of CD's serve just as much as free promotion as mp3's do.
"You can get from me everything you can get from the copy in the record store."
Really? I can get a CD and not a CDR from you? I can give you money and know that some of it at least theoretically supports an artist I like? Wow, you're pretty cool. I mean wrong. *Dingding!*
"since the artists get paid nothing for a copy of their work"
You appear to have a very poor understanding of how the recording and music industries operate.
OK, so you think the artists should be paid more money for their work. The logical extension of that admirable sentiment is this - let's abolish recorded music. All of it. Let's get rid of this thing that lets a band play in your living room every night for a one-time fee of $10-20. Let's get back to the business model where, if you want to hear a band you like, you have to travel physically to where they are performing that night and pay $15-250 for a ticket. As somebody who's been in way more bands than you have I can say with authority that *that's* the only thing that's gonna get the artist paid.
Tell me, Mr. Expert, how many people do you think have attended concerts, payed for tickets, bought T-shirts and merchandise, for the sole reason that they either heard an artist over a P2P network or were given a copy of a store-bought CD by a friend? How on Earth can you possible say those artists get paid nothing and pretend to be rational? Much less not *dingdingding!* wrong?
Because, as a veteran of several bands and a former chief engineer of a grammy award producing studio, I'll be the first to tell you that musicians don't make shit off record deals, especially ones with major labels. They're given a very high-interest loan, called an "advance" in record company slang (*cough* USURY *cough*), which, if they're lucky, will cover the expense of making and promoting a record. But 99 times out of 100 it doesn't. So then the musicians are left owing some very exploitative and unscrupulous people money. Whatever pathetic half-a-cent-per-$18-CD royalties do get supposedly paid to the artist don't even pay the interest on what they're left owing the label.
The only recording artists who are rich today are rich becuase of their concert tours and merchandising deals, not their record contracts. Not even the Beatles got rich off their records.
"you have the money"
Bullshit. I've spend my last $10 in the world on a really good CD more times that I can count. And I know dozens of others who have too. I've had rent checks bounce because I bought too many CD's. In fact, I've had the check to the record store bounce. So again, you're *dingdingdingding!* wrong - having the money has nothing to do with it.
"Most people don't."
Wow. You appear to think that most music-lovers are like you, and are cynical, cold-hearted, exploitative assholes. I prefer to think that most music-lovers are like me, and are loving, generous, and supportive.
I would say that time will tell, except that it already has. Neither the invention of magnetic tape, nor of cassette recorders spelled the end of music or the RIAA. Neither did the advent of cassette clubs. Neither did the bootlegging of live performances or studio albums that the RIAA didn't deign to sell through their own channels. Some of the most wildly successful bands ever have gained that success by encouraging home taping, by encouraging show bootlegging, and by recording
...a tinfoil hat for your wallet!!
"the only "money" the indie film producer would see is what he makes on that one copy."
which is different from how it works now... how?! Do you think that a band gives their record company 100,000 pressed CD's to distribute? No, they give them ONE MASTER. And that's, technically, what they're paid for - though they are usually given an advance of money to make the album with up front.
Almost everybody I know that downloads does the same thing I do. We download whatever we can, delete what we don't like, and buy what we do. I've bought a lot of CD's that I would never have heard of if it hadn't been for P2P. I buy them because I want to support the artists, I want to have the liner notes and stickers and bonus DVD's or whatever that comes with the CD itself. I like having a CD collection, I can't stand the sight of a bunch of burned discs in slimline cases with no room on the spine for a label.
In other words, P2P is doing what ClearChannel refuses to do - expose the public to new music. This is why I say it's free promotion.
There will always be a few unscrupulous bastards that will get off on getting something for nothing, but I honestly believe they're much fewer in number than anybody thinks.
"I agree, but will there be enough of such people to sustain a business model?"
Remember when the RIAA said cassettes were going to kill vinyl, and no recording artist would ever make a penny again, and won't somebody please think of the set designers, and the sky is falling?
I do. I remember when consumer grade tape recorders of any kind were illegal in the US, thanks to the RIAA's lobbying clout. Ever see an 8-track cartridge recorder? Ever wonder why not? And gee, in some blinding coincidence, 8-track somehow was the biggest bomb of a format the RIAA ever forced down the public's throat. Gee, I wonder why?
Funny thing is, they wound up making a ton of money on cassettes in the 80's and 90's, just like they're going to make a ton of money off mp3's once they quit bitching about it and get with the reality of the marketplace already.
And most of you here are too young to remember it, but in the 80's there were these things called cassette clubs. And it would consist of people signing up on a mailing list, and whenever somebody in the club bought an album, they'd dupe it for everybody else on the list, most of whom were complete strangers. So "file sharing" has been going on for about 30 years now in the music scene. Somehow music has survived. In fact, somehow music has thrived.
So no, I'm not worried about the business model at all. I'm a musician myself, I've been chief engineer at a recording studio, I've seen all aspects of the business. And it's more than robust enough to survive a little file-sharing.
"If so, is that enough money to encourage creativity?"
Real creativity has nothing to do with how much money you make off it. The artists who are the most creative are usually the ones without the record deals. I think South Park summed it up perfectly - the only artists who are making such a huge deal about file sharing are the ones who suck, and need the muscle of the RIAA cartel and their price-fixing schemes in order to have even the appearance of success (which somehow never lasts more than one album).
Creativity preceeds profit, and doesn't expect it. Creativity is it's own reward. Profit is nice, and most artists won't turn down money for their work (though some will), but no serious artist wakes up in the morning and says "today I'm gonna make a million dollars". They wake up and say "today I'm gonna make the best piece of art ever."
"First of all, please don't drive down the street with your stereo turned up. It annoys people like me."
I don't even have a car right now, so I think you're safe for a while...
"Secondly, that's not the only alternative at all."
Why not? I'm publicly broadcasting a copyrighted work whose publishing is controlled by ASCAP, SECAM, or BMI. I've seen car stereos that have larger effective broadcast ranges than some low power FM stations. Why should all those people get to hear all that music for *nothing*? Won't somebody please think of the set designers...
"Surely we can find a compromise point between giving a copy to two friends and putting it up on a website for two million?"
Nobody's putting them up on websites, and nobody's distributing them to two million people. You appear to have a vastly inflated sense of the P2P scene.
The situation will be remedied, and the forces involved will come to a better balance than exists today. But the means to that end is for the RIAA to wake up one morning with the taste of its own balls in the back of it's throat, because that's where we'll have put them.
Artists should have rights. Consumers should have rights. The single biggest impact on those rights is the RIAA. Copyright law, and frequent and outrageous changes to it, are one of their primary tools for doing so. As it stands today, the RIAA is taking money from the mouths of the artists it claims to represent, not giving them any of the money it's making from the file-sharing suits, and claiming they're the good guys. They must be, and will be, stopped, if not by the gutless Republican Congress than by the sheer force of the market.
Couldn't agree more. My original point was that mp3's are today what cassette was in the 80's - which is to say, good enough for most people. Somehow the conversation got dragged over into whether or not mp3's were as "good" as pcm.
See my earlier replies re: agreed upon value of profit and free promotion.
"So redistribution for no profit, no matter at what scale it occurs, should be legal?"
Yup. It's free promotion. There will always be people who want to buy the real thing because they've seen/heard a copy of it and like it. Ownership matters, as I'm constantly reminded by my friends on the right. One of the main reasons communism failed in many places is because people like to own their own stuff - and in many cases, to brag about how much they paid for it.
Besides, the alternative would be me having to pay mechanical royalties just for driving down the street with my stereo up really really loud.