the 'proud' crap is just pandering to a demographic
You're entirely missing the point. There are many people who feel that gay == shameful, the direct implication being that they want gay folk to feel ashamed. Proud is an in-their-face declaration that they are not ashamed.
That's all it is.
It's the same for any aspect of life for which there are detractors; some people think geekery is a bad thing; hence "geek and proud." Some people think prostitution is a bad thing; hence "sex worker and proud", and so on for a long list of "your prejudices do not define me" issues.
It's a very natural -- and correct -- reaction to a society where people are encouraged to coerce others into specific behavioral channels without regard for the consent or interest of those others.
Belief is a poor cognitive substitute for confidence. The jury can decide which evidence they have more confidence in, or neither, without ever venturing into an act of faith -- and that's just how they should do it.
Stalin and Mao found no ideas in atheism -- lack of belief in a god or gods -- that led them to kill anyone. This simply because there are no such ideas. Atheism has no dogma, no canon, no nothing. The state of atheism consists of a lack of belief in a god or gods, and nothing else. Consequently, ideas like "kill some number of people" by definition come from another source. And in particular:
Stalin and Mao were psychopaths (crackpots, frankly), and that is where you want to look to find out what drove them to kill. Whatever you find, it is an absolute certainty it won't be atheism.
However, the crusades were, in fact, driven to a significant extent specifically by theist reasoning, canon and dogma. As were the murders and tortures perpetrated during the inquisitions, the witch-hunts and subsequent burnings, blood libel, and pogroms, many events such as the 9/11 incidents, various wars, as well as the lesser but still despicable centuries of subjugation of women, repression of sexuality, interference with relationships and legislation, social ostracism, and so on.
I will also say that theist thought has also been the prime motivator for a massive amount of great art in many forms -- sculpture, paintings, architecture, music and a whole host of various other artifacts, and when charity and compassion are foremost and the compulsion to impose belief is absent or at least minimal, theism is at its absolute best at doing little to no harm while doing extensive good. This does not, in any way, say that we should forget, or forgive, or ignore, the many evils done in the past, being done now, and those impending, in the cause of theism.
So you want to be very careful before you go waving Stalin and Mao around as examples of atheism causing problems, or, as a counter to the historical fact of the murders committed directly for the (various) causes of religion . Atheism providing a rationale to harm others is not the reality. It's never been the reality. Claiming it is the reality is either disingenuous or ignorant.
we do know that the big bang created a whole lot of hot, dense plasma with incredible amounts of energy
No. We don't know that. It is the theory with the most adherents today; but inasmuch as it depends upon physics that we have no inkling of, we're quite short of "knowing" that this is what happened. Right now, it might as well have a formal basis of "it started with magic."
We're extrapolating backwards; and like a thrown baseball where the pitcher was unseen, we run the danger of assuming the ball came out of the ground and trying to make up an explanation to fit that idea -- because we can't see the pitcher. If true, that would take new physics understandings/discoveries. The big bang has the same requirements. That should be more than enough reason to not apply really high confidence to the big bang idea -- yet. Still, based on hand-waving though it is, it's the best there is at this point in time because like the thrown baseball, we can make the picture work all the way down to the ground, It all makes sense until... it suddenly doesn't. The odds are decent that it is correct, and we just have to figure a few more things out (or a lot of them), but since we have not gotten there yet... some reserve is called for.
No. Belief is an act of faith; an assumption/assertion of truth without requirement of evidence.
One can (and should) consider at all evidence and conjectures arising from that evidence with a measure of confidence, one that is derived directly from the ability of that evidence to exhibit consensually experiential, repeatable characteristics measurable and observable in our objective reality, where those characteristics appear to confirm or falsify the conjecture(s) at hand. That confidence might be high or low, but it is not based upon faith; it is not belief; and in the final analysis, it should not be absolute.
Has there been a successful experiment that shows an amoeba evolving into a sentient being?
We can start right now. I assume you have several billions of years available for observation, data recording and so on, yes?
Oh, wait. The fossil record has already done much of this for us. Intermediate forms of life abound; also, the process of evolution has been repeatedly verified such that the process itself is validated without question. Evolution, (capital E) the idea that evolution is what changed us, as you sort of said, from single cell organisms to where we are today, is the very best hypothesis we have, because it inspires many testable things (including the process itself) and thus far, none of those tests have been failed. Some of them are inconclusive at this point, but it may take quite a while to gather the data required to falsify or confirm the predictions.
Creationism, on the other hand, has passed no tests, suggests no testable issues, and is 100% at odds with a great deal more than just "did we Evolve"; the idea that the earth, the animals on it, including humans, are a few thousand years old, is flat out 90 degrees from objective reality.
Science does in fact have a testable theory. And they are testing it constantly. And it's doing fine in that regard.
So, short version: One side does have a testable theory. Science.
I am not in the least afraid to criticize or argue with/against a Muslim or any other theist. The issue at hand isn't fear; the issue is need.
The reality is, Muslims are not all in my face, trying to change the laws that affect me or the public schools my offspring go to. Nor are Hindus, Saucer cultists, Scientologists, etc. Or if they are, it's at such a low level of effectiveness that I just don't care.
But Christians are in my face. They're screwing up laws that directly affect me, they have already screwed up such laws, they are trying rather hard to screw up our schools (further) and because they are actively screwing things up, I am anti-pretty-much-the-whole-shooting-match. This creates a rather exclusive, but entirely deserved, focus on Christianity.
The day they go back into their homes and churches and the public square to act out no further than to speak their minds, while they stop trying to use the law to tell me I must do this or that, is the day I will no longer be concerned with them. That day does not appear to be coming soon.
It is entirely one thing to have the university provide the education of "our current understanding is that c religion believes y and the history of c is is known to this extent"; next week, "our current understanding is that d religion believes z and the history of d is known to this extent" and so on. That's just education and it is well within the norms for *education*.
It is entirely another to say "the earth is 6000 years old and you should believe that because Religious Dogma." That is a religious performance on university grounds, and its only intent is to spread delusion.
The first thing to consider is that if you travel with, or have on your person, an amount of money a police officer simply finds interesting, they can seize that money without any reason. So you're to keep the money in the bank, then, right? Sure, so the second thing to consider is that it can be seized from your bank without any reason also.
Apparently, we're supposed to keep our money at home. Although there's already a law against hoarding coins.
Dark Matter and Dark Energy are not terms that should conjure up weirdness in your mind. Not at this point, anyway.
Neither concept has a shred of evidence behind it indicating that anything exotic is going on. If you really want a good handle on the terms, just think of them as "We hope some sources of energy and matter we can't detect are out there because otherwise, the math behind our hypotheses doesn't work."
It's a limitation of trying to figure out what's going on incredible distances -- and times -- from us with a combination of barely functional tools, our (decent, I'm guessing) grasp of science, and the participant's intuitions.
I didn't say you had to learn them. I said they were there. The implication -- true -- that there are many more to learn to get to higher levels of literacy. I also pointed out that 2000 was a specific level of literacy.
Try not to get too carried away with your imagination. Just read what I said. Not what you think I said.
As for a simplified character vocabulary, take a trip to Taiwan, why don't you. See how that works out for you.
If the Chinese language is really such a notoriously difficult language to learn (and to speak) there ought to be no one using it anymore, right?
Wrong.
When we're young, we benefit from massive plasticity in our language learning skills, and of course any child who learns Mandarin (and sometimes Cantonese as well) is going to make a much better native speaker than I am ever going to make, despite the fact that I've devoted years to it and am highly motivated.
It's not just learning words. It is how things are said, references to metaphors and myths and such, and the fact that it is not a "spelled" language; the characters you're familiar with each represent a word part or a word that means one thing on its own, often something else in combination, and very few of them are used the way we use them in western speech. About 2000 of them constitute (approximately) high school literacy. But there are about 50 thousand of them. Bad enough? Oh no. A while back, Those In Power decided they were to o hard, so they "simplified" a bunch of them. Great, right? So you only have to learn the simplified ones, right? Wrong. The traditional ones are everywhere, and plus, some places in asia use the old ones, not the new ones. And then...
(Very) simple example. In English, I I ask you if you want soup, you might say "No." Easy, right? So you how to say no, (Bu Shi) Now you know what to say if I ask you about the soup and you don't want it, right? Wrong. In Mandarin, the question of if you want it is composed, literally, "want not want", (yao bu yao) to which you are expected to answer either "not want" or "want." (Bu yao) or (yao). And down the rabbit hole we go.:)
Trust me. As an adult English speaker, you go into learning Mandarin thinking it's easy, you're in for a serious encounter with your limitations.
It may well, somehow, be our fault that you are cracked, but it an absolute certainty that our habits of actually talking to people are superior to yours of sitting at a table or walking down the street with your friends, looking only at your phones, as you busily talk to anyone but the people you're actually with.
Among the healthy and mature, there's no right "not to be offended"; not for men, and not for women. There is 100% equality here.
Such offense is subjective; every possible attempt to minimize it by law boils down to an unworthy suppression of freedom, something that is unhealthy for society no matter how you go about it.
Even when a particular mode of speech, or some consensual/personal action, is pretty much uniformly despised, it's far better to know who says, and therefore has motivation to say, or does, these terribly offensive things, than it is for society to repress these people and then jump up in stark surprise when they move from unseen and unheard to resentful action as a means of kicking back against said repression.
Speech, in many cases, serves as a moderately effective safety valve. You never want to close such a valve and walk away. Because you get this.
If something you look at offends you, look away. If something you hear offends you, stop listening. If something people do offends you, don't participate. Your subjective feelings of offense can never rise to the relevance required to legitimately regulate the behavior of others.
Until something breaks your bones, damages your property/finances, or impugns your reputation, or these things similarly directly affect those for whom you perform the role of parent or guardian, the correct action is to turn to managing your own sensibilities -- rather than trying to control other people's actions.
Now, as to the immature and incompetent, in particular, children: Parents and guardians have a dual responsibility here. In order to be able to execute that responsibility, your home should be a safe haven in the sense of you being able to completely control who, and what information, gets in, and when they get in, and when they must leave. Society owes it to you to see to it that this capacity is readily available to you. Your home should indeed be your castle. To the extent it isn't, society has either failed you, or you have failed your charges. Schools and/or any other situation requiring attendence must likewise be supportive and safe, or society has lost its legitimate right to force your children to attend.
Immaturity:
On the one hand, it is your responsibility to see to it that your charges are not bullying, generally or specifically being an asshole to others. You are responsible for inculcating the understanding that immature and/or insufficiently abled minds can be taken to, and beyond, the brink by bullying, and then you must see to it that this understanding translates into reasonable behavior by your charges (which, by the way, will work to reduce many types of essentially pointless trolling later on.)
On the other, it is also your responsibility to see to it that your charges are not being bullied. You should know where your charges hang out, who they hang with, what the environment is like, and you should step in when that environment, in your estimation, becomes unhealthy. Stepping in may involve a note to someone else's parent or guardian, removing your charge from the harmful environment, or simply providing sufficient perspective so that the behavior is seen in the light of failure of the perpetrator, rather than any kind of lessening of the value or self-image of the target.
Incompetence:
If your charge cannot be taught to healthily handle the speech, displays, or consensual actions of others, then it is your job to see to it that they are not exposed to those things. It is not society's responsibility to turn the entire planet into a padded room for your charge. If you need a padded room, you should build one of your own.
For every story I have heard so far of horrible consequences to bullying, my reaction has been "Where were the parents during all this?"
And I have to ask: If your charges are not being raised with healthy self-images and a strong sense of self, what the fuck ar
You're quite right that roads will need to be upgraded to provide telemetry to autonomous cars, and this will happen gradually over many, many decades.
Didn't say that, didn't mean to imply it, and don't believe it. Other than that, no.:)
Slashdot Mirror
You're entirely missing the point. There are many people who feel that gay == shameful, the direct implication being that they want gay folk to feel ashamed. Proud is an in-their-face declaration that they are not ashamed.
That's all it is.
It's the same for any aspect of life for which there are detractors; some people think geekery is a bad thing; hence "geek and proud." Some people think prostitution is a bad thing; hence "sex worker and proud", and so on for a long list of "your prejudices do not define me" issues.
It's a very natural -- and correct -- reaction to a society where people are encouraged to coerce others into specific behavioral channels without regard for the consent or interest of those others.
Belief is a poor cognitive substitute for confidence. The jury can decide which evidence they have more confidence in, or neither, without ever venturing into an act of faith -- and that's just how they should do it.
Stalin and Mao found no ideas in atheism -- lack of belief in a god or gods -- that led them to kill anyone. This simply because there are no such ideas. Atheism has no dogma, no canon, no nothing. The state of atheism consists of a lack of belief in a god or gods, and nothing else. Consequently, ideas like "kill some number of people" by definition come from another source. And in particular:
Stalin and Mao were psychopaths (crackpots, frankly), and that is where you want to look to find out what drove them to kill. Whatever you find, it is an absolute certainty it won't be atheism.
However, the crusades were, in fact, driven to a significant extent specifically by theist reasoning, canon and dogma. As were the murders and tortures perpetrated during the inquisitions, the witch-hunts and subsequent burnings, blood libel, and pogroms, many events such as the 9/11 incidents, various wars, as well as the lesser but still despicable centuries of subjugation of women, repression of sexuality, interference with relationships and legislation, social ostracism, and so on.
I will also say that theist thought has also been the prime motivator for a massive amount of great art in many forms -- sculpture, paintings, architecture, music and a whole host of various other artifacts, and when charity and compassion are foremost and the compulsion to impose belief is absent or at least minimal, theism is at its absolute best at doing little to no harm while doing extensive good. This does not, in any way, say that we should forget, or forgive, or ignore, the many evils done in the past, being done now, and those impending, in the cause of theism.
So you want to be very careful before you go waving Stalin and Mao around as examples of atheism causing problems, or, as a counter to the historical fact of the murders committed directly for the (various) causes of religion . Atheism providing a rationale to harm others is not the reality. It's never been the reality. Claiming it is the reality is either disingenuous or ignorant.
I didn't want to work at all. But that eating thing, and that shelter thing, and that health thing... ...soooo inconvenient.
> There is evidence that the human mind can communicate with matter at the quantum level.
Cite?
No. We don't know that. It is the theory with the most adherents today; but inasmuch as it depends upon physics that we have no inkling of, we're quite short of "knowing" that this is what happened. Right now, it might as well have a formal basis of "it started with magic."
We're extrapolating backwards; and like a thrown baseball where the pitcher was unseen, we run the danger of assuming the ball came out of the ground and trying to make up an explanation to fit that idea -- because we can't see the pitcher. If true, that would take new physics understandings/discoveries. The big bang has the same requirements. That should be more than enough reason to not apply really high confidence to the big bang idea -- yet. Still, based on hand-waving though it is, it's the best there is at this point in time because like the thrown baseball, we can make the picture work all the way down to the ground, It all makes sense until... it suddenly doesn't. The odds are decent that it is correct, and we just have to figure a few more things out (or a lot of them), but since we have not gotten there yet... some reserve is called for.
That's because it is the crackpots who pose the most danger to the rest of society.
No. Belief is an act of faith; an assumption/assertion of truth without requirement of evidence.
One can (and should) consider at all evidence and conjectures arising from that evidence with a measure of confidence, one that is derived directly from the ability of that evidence to exhibit consensually experiential, repeatable characteristics measurable and observable in our objective reality, where those characteristics appear to confirm or falsify the conjecture(s) at hand. That confidence might be high or low, but it is not based upon faith; it is not belief; and in the final analysis, it should not be absolute.
We can start right now. I assume you have several billions of years available for observation, data recording and so on, yes?
Oh, wait. The fossil record has already done much of this for us. Intermediate forms of life abound; also, the process of evolution has been repeatedly verified such that the process itself is validated without question. Evolution, (capital E) the idea that evolution is what changed us, as you sort of said, from single cell organisms to where we are today, is the very best hypothesis we have, because it inspires many testable things (including the process itself) and thus far, none of those tests have been failed. Some of them are inconclusive at this point, but it may take quite a while to gather the data required to falsify or confirm the predictions.
Creationism, on the other hand, has passed no tests, suggests no testable issues, and is 100% at odds with a great deal more than just "did we Evolve"; the idea that the earth, the animals on it, including humans, are a few thousand years old, is flat out 90 degrees from objective reality.
Science does in fact have a testable theory. And they are testing it constantly. And it's doing fine in that regard.
So, short version: One side does have a testable theory. Science.
I am not in the least afraid to criticize or argue with/against a Muslim or any other theist. The issue at hand isn't fear; the issue is need.
The reality is, Muslims are not all in my face, trying to change the laws that affect me or the public schools my offspring go to. Nor are Hindus, Saucer cultists, Scientologists, etc. Or if they are, it's at such a low level of effectiveness that I just don't care.
But Christians are in my face. They're screwing up laws that directly affect me, they have already screwed up such laws, they are trying rather hard to screw up our schools (further) and because they are actively screwing things up, I am anti-pretty-much-the-whole-shooting-match. This creates a rather exclusive, but entirely deserved, focus on Christianity.
The day they go back into their homes and churches and the public square to act out no further than to speak their minds, while they stop trying to use the law to tell me I must do this or that, is the day I will no longer be concerned with them. That day does not appear to be coming soon.
Religious Study != Inculcation of Religion
It is entirely one thing to have the university provide the education of "our current understanding is that c religion believes y and the history of c is is known to this extent"; next week, "our current understanding is that d religion believes z and the history of d is known to this extent" and so on. That's just education and it is well within the norms for *education*.
It is entirely another to say "the earth is 6000 years old and you should believe that because Religious Dogma." That is a religious performance on university grounds, and its only intent is to spread delusion.
It's not "philosophy"
It's delusion
Because the criminals in government wield a very large bat indeed. And you don't.
It can also create powerful anger, desperation and a sense of being treated extremely unfairly.
Thinking just a bit longer term, the whole thing doesn't seem like a good idea at all.
Human nature being what it is.
Hoarding coins is already illegal.
The first thing to consider is that if you travel with, or have on your person, an amount of money a police officer simply finds interesting, they can seize that money without any reason. So you're to keep the money in the bank, then, right? Sure, so the second thing to consider is that it can be seized from your bank without any reason also.
Apparently, we're supposed to keep our money at home. Although there's already a law against hoarding coins.
Just let that sink in for a few minutes.
Dark Matter and Dark Energy are not terms that should conjure up weirdness in your mind. Not at this point, anyway.
Neither concept has a shred of evidence behind it indicating that anything exotic is going on. If you really want a good handle on the terms, just think of them as "We hope some sources of energy and matter we can't detect are out there because otherwise, the math behind our hypotheses doesn't work."
It's a limitation of trying to figure out what's going on incredible distances -- and times -- from us with a combination of barely functional tools, our (decent, I'm guessing) grasp of science, and the participant's intuitions.
The Obama haters are decidedly more butt-hurt, whiny, and ignorant of actual data than the Bush haters that preceded them.
Funny how that goes. :)
Again.
Troll. All you did here was invert my argument and then complain about it. I agree that the argument you made up is invalid.
Your entire sally was a troll, which is why I only gave it a one-line answer.
What I said was relevant. What you said definitely was not.
I didn't say you had to learn them. I said they were there. The implication -- true -- that there are many more to learn to get to higher levels of literacy. I also pointed out that 2000 was a specific level of literacy.
Try not to get too carried away with your imagination. Just read what I said. Not what you think I said.
As for a simplified character vocabulary, take a trip to Taiwan, why don't you. See how that works out for you.
Your experience is only your experience.
Anyway, whatever.
Wrong.
When we're young, we benefit from massive plasticity in our language learning skills, and of course any child who learns Mandarin (and sometimes Cantonese as well) is going to make a much better native speaker than I am ever going to make, despite the fact that I've devoted years to it and am highly motivated.
It's not just learning words. It is how things are said, references to metaphors and myths and such, and the fact that it is not a "spelled" language; the characters you're familiar with each represent a word part or a word that means one thing on its own, often something else in combination, and very few of them are used the way we use them in western speech. About 2000 of them constitute (approximately) high school literacy. But there are about 50 thousand of them. Bad enough? Oh no. A while back, Those In Power decided they were to o hard, so they "simplified" a bunch of them. Great, right? So you only have to learn the simplified ones, right? Wrong. The traditional ones are everywhere, and plus, some places in asia use the old ones, not the new ones. And then...
(Very) simple example. In English, I I ask you if you want soup, you might say "No." Easy, right? So you how to say no, (Bu Shi) Now you know what to say if I ask you about the soup and you don't want it, right? Wrong. In Mandarin, the question of if you want it is composed, literally, "want not want", (yao bu yao) to which you are expected to answer either "not want" or "want." (Bu yao) or (yao). And down the rabbit hole we go. :)
Trust me. As an adult English speaker, you go into learning Mandarin thinking it's easy, you're in for a serious encounter with your limitations.
No, honestly, you arrived pre-cracked.
It may well, somehow, be our fault that you are cracked, but it an absolute certainty that our habits of actually talking to people are superior to yours of sitting at a table or walking down the street with your friends, looking only at your phones, as you busily talk to anyone but the people you're actually with.
Among the healthy and mature, there's no right "not to be offended"; not for men, and not for women. There is 100% equality here.
Such offense is subjective; every possible attempt to minimize it by law boils down to an unworthy suppression of freedom, something that is unhealthy for society no matter how you go about it.
Even when a particular mode of speech, or some consensual/personal action, is pretty much uniformly despised, it's far better to know who says, and therefore has motivation to say, or does, these terribly offensive things, than it is for society to repress these people and then jump up in stark surprise when they move from unseen and unheard to resentful action as a means of kicking back against said repression.
Speech, in many cases, serves as a moderately effective safety valve. You never want to close such a valve and walk away. Because you get this.
If something you look at offends you, look away. If something you hear offends you, stop listening. If something people do offends you, don't participate. Your subjective feelings of offense can never rise to the relevance required to legitimately regulate the behavior of others.
Until something breaks your bones, damages your property/finances, or impugns your reputation, or these things similarly directly affect those for whom you perform the role of parent or guardian, the correct action is to turn to managing your own sensibilities -- rather than trying to control other people's actions.
Now, as to the immature and incompetent, in particular, children: Parents and guardians have a dual responsibility here. In order to be able to execute that responsibility, your home should be a safe haven in the sense of you being able to completely control who, and what information, gets in, and when they get in, and when they must leave. Society owes it to you to see to it that this capacity is readily available to you. Your home should indeed be your castle. To the extent it isn't, society has either failed you, or you have failed your charges. Schools and/or any other situation requiring attendence must likewise be supportive and safe, or society has lost its legitimate right to force your children to attend.
Immaturity:
On the one hand, it is your responsibility to see to it that your charges are not bullying, generally or specifically being an asshole to others. You are responsible for inculcating the understanding that immature and/or insufficiently abled minds can be taken to, and beyond, the brink by bullying, and then you must see to it that this understanding translates into reasonable behavior by your charges (which, by the way, will work to reduce many types of essentially pointless trolling later on.)
On the other, it is also your responsibility to see to it that your charges are not being bullied. You should know where your charges hang out, who they hang with, what the environment is like, and you should step in when that environment, in your estimation, becomes unhealthy. Stepping in may involve a note to someone else's parent or guardian, removing your charge from the harmful environment, or simply providing sufficient perspective so that the behavior is seen in the light of failure of the perpetrator, rather than any kind of lessening of the value or self-image of the target.
Incompetence:
If your charge cannot be taught to healthily handle the speech, displays, or consensual actions of others, then it is your job to see to it that they are not exposed to those things. It is not society's responsibility to turn the entire planet into a padded room for your charge. If you need a padded room, you should build one of your own.
For every story I have heard so far of horrible consequences to bullying, my reaction has been "Where were the parents during all this?"
And I have to ask: If your charges are not being raised with healthy self-images and a strong sense of self, what the fuck ar
Didn't say that, didn't mean to imply it, and don't believe it. Other than that, no. :)