One key difference to believe that there is something out there, and the other to believe that nothing is out there.
No. Atheism is not "a belief there are no gods", it is a lack of belief in a god or gods.
Belief is the presence of conviction without the presence of correlating objective fact. This is what makes it distinct from knowledge. It is also what makes the claimed agnostic position untenable - either you believe in a god or gods, or you don't. There's no middle ground between those two positions that is sectioned off by knowledge (objective fact.) So every self-proclaimed agnostic is actually a theist or an atheist.
Quite aside from your incorrect understanding of atheism, the point still stands that atheism carries no instructions, tenets, rules, etc. Stalin didn't do what he did because he was atheist, following "atheist dogma." There is no such dogma. He did what he did because he was a sociopath.
Religion, on the other hand, has directly instructed such acts, and contains numerous rationalizations based on the various religion's dogmas that lead directly to such acts.
Pelosi's argument is based entirely on the blatent misinterpretation of the commerce clause, which authorizes the government to regulate interstate commerce. SCOTUS has, in a fit of abject stupidity, generalized this into intrastate commerce with the "reasoning" that if an issue "affects" interstate commerce at any remove, they can regulate it.
This is clearly not the intent of the clause; if the founders had meant to authorize regulation of interstate and intrastate commerce, the commerce clause would read "To regulate Commerce... anywhere within the nation", but it doesn't. It reads "To regulate Commerce... among the several States." The meaning of "among" has not changed; it means between. Not within.
This is another case of the judiciary gone insane, handing the government virtually unlimited power on the basis of reasoning that is outright stupid. No such authority can be found anywhere in the constitution; therefore, the government doesn't have any. It just has power, based upon coercion. That's why this is no longer a constitutional republic.
Just because some paranoid mcarthyist hacks in the government think some guy seems a bit whack doesnt mean they should have a right to go around fucking people over with no fly lists unless its proven in a court.
Actually, this has been to the supreme court, and so isn't going to change.
You see, when the public backed the idea that people convicted of certain crimes (sexual, violent) should be publicly listed (on web sites, etc.), the courts decided to find a way to pretend that wasn't an ex post facto violation for the previously convicted (and those not convicted, because they put them on there as well, for instance those with adjudication withheld judgments.)
In order to pull that bit of conceptual legerdemain off, they said that the government has the right to list the citizens, because such listing is (get ready now) "not punitive" because the government isn't the agent causing the listee problems. It's the other citizens, businesses, etc. doing it, you see. That whole... can't get a job, a place to live, credit, being the targets of posters on telephone poles, the occasional outright mugging or murder, and of course, being driven to suicide. Not the government's problem or responsibility.
Since, the justices said, while giving each other dancing hip shots on the head of this particular pin, such listing (cough) isn't punitive, it doesn't violate ex post facto, which explicitly forbids either the states or the feds from changing a punishment by adding to it after it has already been set at sentencing (among other things.)
Of course this concept -- the idea that such listing isn't punitive -- is utterly nonsensical, but the thing is, it is nonsensical at the level of the supreme court, which makes it a formidable thing to overturn (practically, it makes it almost impossible, actually.)
What falls out of it, though, is a magical government right to put citizens on all kinds of lists without their consent, and without any judicial process whatsoever, regardless of the consequences that fall out of such listing in trying to pursue one's life.
From this, we get no-fly lists, where the government isn't stopping you from flying, it's the airline; the no-buy lists, where the government isn't stopping you from buying, it's the car dealer or other dealer; the terrorist list, where the government isn't stopping you from getting a job, it's the employer, and so forth.
This is just one of many fine examples of why we should not tolerate the "re-interpretation" of constitutional issues by the people in the courts. The constitution obviously means exactly what it says; it is the literally the constituting authority for the government; therefore, the government does not have the authority to do anything that is outright forbidden in the constitution, not directly, and not by invoking this kind of legalistic bullshittery. If the people want to change something in the constitution, that's what article five is for.
So while the argument that the government "should" go through judicial process to commit these harms to the citizens and others within our borders is sound, sensible, and constitutionally obvious, the supreme court has made it a non-starter.
Not even close. Speaking as an ex-CB'er, an extra class ham operator, and an EE with oodles of RF experience I can tell you that in both CB and ham operation, the things you can say, never mind broadcast, are strictly limited by FCC rules.
For instance, the closest a ham can normally come to a voice-mode broadcast is when calling CQ, which is looking for another ham to talk to. You can't (just as one example) fire up at 10pm every night on 7.175 MHz and present a program about quasars, current events, sex toys - or even ham radio. It's strictly forbidden. There are a few exceptions that have been made, for instance, W1AW in the northeast broadcast the band conditions for many years, might still be doing it for all I know (the ham bands basically don't work very well in times of low sunspot conditions, as now.) But I can't broadcast anything on any band, licensed to operate there or not - even though I hold both the highest class ham license and a broadcast engineer's license. As a musician, I can't even broadcast my own original compositions. Political discussion is actually forbidden.
CB is the same. No broadcasting.
if you're emphasizing the broad in broadcast
Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. The act of speaking to another ham about the weather and the propagation conditions and perhaps the relative merits of ham gear is one thing; putting on a show that educates about rare jazz, local mineral clubs, entertains with the local garage band, or speaks to political issues at any remove... that's something else entirely, and that is what I'm talking about when I say we have been disenfranchised.
partly because that's mostly how we knew how to do it (aside from the ad hoc community or public access station), partly because it's always been that case that money talks.
No, not really. It's been trivially easy to set up an AM band station that is spectral rules compliant since, oh, about 1950. Today, an FM or AM broadcaster, with antenna, costs a hundred bucks and up. You could easily cover your entire neighborhood for that kind of money, or a small town (like the one I live in - a mile in every direction and you're golden, here.) There are kits and there are ready made units - a few minutes visit to ramseyelectronics.com will bring you up to speed you on that subject.
It's never been a technology problem. It's strictly a regulatory problem. A serious one.
Get an iPod Touch (or an iPhone, if you need a phone); install any one of the drawing programs on it from a whiteboard to AutoCAD's awesome layer-based drawing system, and use that.
The touchscreen interface allows unrestricted freedom of drawing and 1:1 relationship between your drawing motion and the drawing that you can't get with a tablet; the work-spaces of some of the software are quite large (and layers are useful here); and the software is inexpensive. The icing on the cake is that there are tons of other useful apps as well.
The downside, of course, is the cost of the iPod. But other than that, it's the perfect solution. If you already have one, then it's a slam-dunk: a few bucks (like, one or two... or maybe $20 for the autoCAD one if I recall, not sure), and you're golden.
The FCC's tasking is to maintain orderly control of a supposedly scarce resource, parceling out that resource fairly for the good of our society, and ensuring that users of the resource do not interfere with each others broadcasts so that its utilization is not compromised.
How this turned into a game of censorship is a story of failure of government, and failure of the citizens. Not to mention downright unconstitutional. There is no authority given to the government that allows it to implement censorship; and there is an explicit legal wall against it that can only be misinterpreted by idiots in the form of the first amendment to the US constitution:
Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
Sadly, they never did a decent job of seeing to the good of our society, preferring to service the demands of corporations over any recognition that the citizens might have something to say as well. What do I mean? Well, where are the citizen's broadcast bands? Nowhere, that's where. This is not a technological problem, or a scarcity problem. We've simply been disenfranchised.
The Internet is not a scarce resource. We can make "more of it" simply by laying cable and deploying devices. It won't interfere with the rest of the Internet. It doesn't require parceling out; its nature is that the more entities connect to it, the more pipe we lay, the better it gets.
So what, we should be asking, is the FCC doing anywhere near it? Doesn't someone need their hand slapped about now?
His work discusses the focus on a charismatic leader
...like Jesus or Mohamed. The fact that the leader is no longer around isn't relevant; they're still cult leaders, and their charisma, real or fictional, outlasts them.
the isolation from family and community
...like the disciples and the persecuted Christian community in the Roman environment. Plenty of that to go around, certainly. A good start for any cult. Which, BTW, is exactly how the Romans characterized them.
the deceptions about beliefs
...like the imaginary sky fairy whose favorite project was magicking the earth up out of nothing, playing build-a-lady from some guy's rib, turning people to salt, telling them the earth is 6000 years old... or the virgins who await if you pop off in Allah's martial service... or "hell." Etc.
the hypnotic techniques often used
...like hymns, prayer, fasting, community pressure, conforming to standards like marriage under the claimed authority of the organization, the pressure to "confess" your "sins", etc., ad nauseum.
and various layers used to surround the central leader and dogma and encourage each member to enter each layer by discarding more and more of their free will, their sense of self, and usually their money as they enter further.
...like suicide bombing missions, monasteries, seminaries, tithing, altar boys and girls, prelates, bishops, archbishops, popes...
Yeah, religions are definitely cults. I totally agree.
You might profit from actually studying the inquisition(s), as I have. With a few much bandied exceptions, they weren't what you portray them as.
I have studied them. I portray them as multiple wars specifically characterized by horrific and specifically religious atrocities. If you think they were other, by all means, make your case. I didn't say who started them, or make any claims about justification for keeping them going. My key problem with them is the acts of religious evil that saturate the reporting of the events.
Religion was a post-hoc rationalization--an attempt to turn that greed towards what was regarded as a good purpose, not a driving force. Not that I agree with that rationalization, but your characterization is flawed.
That wasn't my characterization. So your whole argument is trashed. The crusades are a religious problem because they are a mass of religion-justified atrocities. As I have said elsewhere, justifying self defense is no problem. Justifying rape, pillage, infanticide... can't be done. When - as is the case with the crusades - the permission, and not just that, but the instructions, to commit those acts comes from religion... then we have our master criminal identified. Its name is religion.
...you might take a look at how Stalin (an avowed atheist) treated the Jews
You should have read the thread.
Atheism contains no dogma, no instructions, no justifications, no tenets, no belief. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. So it isn't in any way responsible for Stalin (or anyone else's) descent into evil sociopathic blundering.
Religion, on the other hand, uniformly contains instructions, dogma, tenets, and so forth. People do things specifically in the name of religious instruction. History is replete with examples. An astonishing number of those examples are evil. Even the written mythos of religion - the bible, the koran - contain extreme examples of religiously inspired evil. Mohammad humping his 9 year old "wife". Lot offering his daughters to the crowd. Jesus assaulting merchants. God turning people into pillars of salt. It's like reading about psychotic children.
Consequently, your attempt to tar the atheist lack of belief fails simply because that idea, the lack of belief in a god or gods, is so insubstantial and dogma free that no tar can possibly stick to it. If I say absolutely nothing to you about your life, you cannot blame me for influencing your life choices. And that's atheism in a nutshell. It says nothing about anything but that there is no belief in a god or gods. End of story.
who the hell DIDN'T subjugate women prior to the invention of industrialized society and The Pill
Sure. It's always convenient to have slaves. So tell me, this makes it OK that religion still does so? That it codifies it? That it's written down for all to see and stick to in the bible, in the koran? Oh. Guess not. That's what I thought. So you fail. Looks like it is correct to castigate religion for propagating that retarded old nonsense, isn't it? Thought so.:)
Burning of scientists at the stake? Uhmmm... I'm trying to think of an example. Do you have one? I really can't think of one.
Sure. Giordano Bruno. Google him. He's not the only one, either. Maybe your history needs a little brushing up.
Abandonment of adherents? What on EARTH are you talking about?
I'm talking about excommunication. A very powerful religious tool in the past, and to some degree, still today (see the Jehovah's Witnesses modern "dis-fellowship" practice, for instance. Again, study your history. Find out what happened to those who were excommunicated.
Respect is an earned quality. Not a given one. Religion has not earned my respect. I am not anti-religious people; or at least, I am only "anti" those religionists who do evil under the guidance of religion or otherwise.
I have no gripe whatsoever with those religious people who manage to not follow the guidance of their religion into doing harm such as clinic bombing, gay hating, marriage classing, blue law creation, suicide bombing, exorcism, withholding of medical care, telling people they're "going to hell", the "earth is 6000 years old" and so on and so forth.
And sure, some of those very people deserve, and have, my respect. Religion, however, does not. Your assertion of tribalism is (people) class based, and it does not apply to me.
It's not fair to tar so many good and devote(sic) people with the same brush.
I'm not tarring people. I'm tarring religion. Religion causes people to do harm. Lots of harm. Varied harm. Extensive harm. Harm over century after century. This century. Previous centuries. So religion is bad. Not people who manage not to do harm who are religious; religion. Get it now?
[Why] the generalizations? I suppose we should judge all Atheists by Stalin and Mao too?
As I have said elsewhere in the thread, Stalin (and anyone else you care to name) wasn't directed to do what he did by atheism, because atheism has no dogma, no instruction, no goals, no tenets. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. No more. So to attribute any action to "atheism" as if it were a driving force is clueless. Stalin did what he did because he was a power-maddened sociopath. Atheism provided no more guidance to his actions than did the fact that he worked at an observatory at one point, or that he (probably) liked black bread. Correlation is not causation.
Also as mentioned elsewhere, any particular religion is still the same entity. It isn't people that are being pointed at here with a broad brush - it is religion. It is religion that carries the dogma, the precepts, the tenets, the goals, the instruction, the rationales... it is religion that brings these things forward and hands the people of today the same bloody stupidity as the people of Galileo's time. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to point the finger, broadly, at religion.
Yeah! And white people, with their history of colonialism, slavery, pillage, and rape of minorities need to be locked away as well. Because the sins of ones ancestors are exactly the same as acts committed today!
No. But any attempt at colonialism, slavery, pillage, torture, misogyny, class-ism, caste, and rape needs to be stepped upon. More directly, any organization that espouses these ideals needs to be stepped upon. The flaw in your idea there is that people, white or otherwise, are not the same as religion. Religion equates to things like the KKK; long-extant organizations that have formalized goals which have not changed in any significant manner, and a history of doing profound evil to pursue those goals (and sometimes, as with the KKK, goals that are themselves evil.)
You'll note that the KKK is not a reason to pillory current white people, and likewise, the tenets of religion are not a reason to pillory current people, even if religious - they are reason to pillory *religion*. The organization is responsible for the evil done at its behest and encouragement. You don't take that responsibility away by saying "well, they did that *yesterday*, so it doesn't matter any longer." It bloody well does. Because the organization isn't its own descendant: It's the *same entity*.
For instance, the US government is still responsible for jailing US citizens of Japanese ethnicity during WWII. Because it's the same organization. The responsibility doesn't go away when the legislators change seats. Sure, those original legislators are guilty too, and sure, modern legislators didn't cause the problem, but they are *still* responsible for the consequences, because they represent the organization, and the responsibility accrues to the organization. If they don't want to deal with the acts of the government, they shouldn't be in government. Any religion is exactly the same. So the atrocities of the crusades matter. The witch burnings matter. Galileo's imprisonment matters. Also, these things tell us what the religion will do if it has the freedom to do so. In the US, at least, we've managed to trim back access to such powers by separating church from state. Somewhat. Although lately, they've been making some very unfortunate gains back.
In any case, it isn't the sins of the ancestors that are the concern here: It is the fact that the religion instructed them to commit those sins, and that the religions have not changed a great deal from those days. Society has changed around them -- religion no longer officially serves as high level political authority right in the middle of the power structure -- but that doesn't mean that they aren't responsible when aircraft are flown into buildings, clinics are blown up, suicide bombers walk into crowds, or laws are made restricting the actions of the general public to those the religions think are "ok." Your assertion that religions of today are innocent of the kinds of motivations and acts we have seen in the past is simply unsustainable, no matter if made directly, or with a failed analogy, as above.
Your analogy breaks down immediately because an ancestor is a unique individual acting on their own; a religion is a still-extant entity that was, and is, acting on its own, using the same precepts it always has, and so is still culpable. They know it, too... just look at the apology for Galileo's imprisonment. Centuries later. Why? Because it's still the same Catholic church. The pope wasn't apologizing for the sins of an ancestor; he was apologizing for the sins of his organization. He's saying "we screwed up based on our beliefs", and I'm saying, "keep watching those idiots, they still believe the same stupid things and are the same stupid organization."
Christianity is no different from any other major religion in the horrors it has created
Oh, I agree completely. Except for Scientology. Thus far. They're young, I'm pretty sure they'll find a way. Look how quickly the Heaven's Gate saucer religion managed to get people killed. Scientology's just a little retarded, that's all. They'll probably find a reason. Xenu and all.
Scientology refuses to even tell you what they believe without you spending large amounts of money. If you "convert", you do so without any knowledge or even opportunity to examine their beliefs. The beliefs, such as they are, are not revealed until after you've emptied your bank account for them.
Ok. And Christianity tells you up front, as does Islam. Though both say you won't "get it" until you drop your logic and sense of reality and "just believe", which can, and often does, take quite some time. And time, as the wise man tells us, is money. I guess the order of the revelation of the superstitious dogma seems like a pretty minor point to me. There are differences in the order of teaching, and who you get to talk to, in every religion. Your average Catholic doesn't get to converse with, or receive the pope's specific advice; your average Islamist doesn't get to speak to, or receive guidance from, the Ayatollah, either. But in both cases, apply enough money, and bingo, you have an audience. And the Vatican basement is renowned for the squirreling away of large amounts of art and writings. Just try and get to those. Money (first) will definitely be involved. Scientology's flaw here, if I understand you, is that they seem to have formalized the process. I don't see that as disqualifying them from being essentially the same as the others: Marketers of superstition to the weak-minded, the gullible and the non-critical thinkers (in various combinations.) Another thing is that Scientology certainly does give you starter dogma, just like the others do. The ratio of starter to "you'll get that later" is different, that's all. You'll be paying, in money and time and lost opportunities to be a sensible human being, no matter which one you go with.
Pretty much all "actual religions" are happy -- overeager, even -- to tell you what they believe. Their holy books are publicly available. Only this one charges you many thousands of dollars to learn what your own religion's beliefs are if you convert.
Agreed, that's the general case. But how does it make one vendor of superstition different from another? Money up front, or money later? They both will happily take your money insofar as you let them and spend that money as they see fit (if you ever visit the Vatican, this point will be made resoundingly clear. Or the basement of your local Mormon church. Or the headquarters of Scientology. Etc.) They both will sell you nonsense as if it were truth. They both will take advantage of the political system to make you pay the taxes they should be paying.
And again, "mainstream" religions have a long, consistent history of imprisoning, torturing and/or killing those who don't believe or even just don't quite believe the same. Scientology is just barely a beginner here. So far. So I really have a difficult time with any argument that they are worse than the others.
Personally, I see one vendor of superstitious nonsense as in the same industry and carrying the essential same goal set as any of the others. They peddle imaginary hucksterism, they want your money so they can do more of that, and they also want your money so they can spread the system far and wide by whatever means are affordable. Some of them do good in process; some do evil; some do both. "Feed a child and warp their mind" is a pretty good summary of most religious outreach. You find very few anonymous religious outreach programs. In other words, soup kitchens where no one says anything but "good morning, have some soup" and in answer to "who are you people", answer "just people concerned about your well being." It's largely a shell game with goals that are generations wide; convert and prosper, fail to convert and fail entirely.
The Scientologists, being new at this, have a more "now" approach to income and conversion, but I think it will boil down to the same thing in the long run.
There are far more inclusionist Muslims than there are inclusionist Scientologist.
There are far more Muslims. As for how many scientologists believe Hubbard dances on the head of a pin with aliens, I don't know, and you don't know -- what we both know is that there are plenty of them. Regardless, it isn't a matter of quantity that validates or invalidates their position, so the point you're trying to make is moot. The issue is, those "mainstream" religions have a history of very recent extreme violence, extreme violence that is at the direction of the religion itself. They are not clean of hand here.
You're(sic) analogy with the Pope might have had traction 800 years ago, but the Church's position in secular politics was emasculated several times in the last 300 years.
The Pope has plenty of authority where it matters: With Catholics. He tells them what to do, and a very large number of them do it. He is anything but "emasculated." Likewise the Mormons are effective politically, the Islamists, and so on. To the degree that they aren't, it isn't generally a credit to their religion.
Methinks you have... [ad hominem dribbling clipped]
Really? Personal attacks? This is how you think you'll make a telling point?
My arguments are, at least as best as I can manage, based upon facts. If you can't meet that standard, you'll fail to make your point every time. Name-calling will not advance your position.
Here's the distinction, and it's quite the heavy issue:
Religion orders, demands, ordains and directs atrocities. Witch burnings were _specifically_ religious. The inquisitions (papal and Spanish) were _specifically_ religious. The arrest of Galileo and the burning of Filippo (Giordano) Bruno at the stake were _specifically_ religious. The atrocities of the crusades were _specifically_ religious. The list goes on, and it is monotonously consistent.
Now these people were motivated / told / ordered by religion to do what they did. That's the nature of the acts -- they were religious acts. They may also have all liked bread, and sex, but those were not their motivations. So we don't blame the "sexers" or the "breadeaters" for the witch burnings, etc. When you blame a system for acts, you need to positively associate the system's dictates with the acts, otherwise you're just spouting bullshit. Correlation is not causation.
Stalin did not kill people because atheism told him to, hinted that he should, or even led him in that direction. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or gods. That's all it is. There is no dogma; no instruction; no direction. It is *entirely* disingenuous to try to blame motivation - Stalin's or anyone else's - on atheism. Likewise, the blowtards of Columbine were not taking direction from Atheism; their pathology was something else entirely (and we would probably find it had something to do with religion, if we actually thought it through... after all, it is religion that dictates behavior, not atheism, and those broken individuals were clearly reacting against something, not for something.)
Theism is a set of active belief systems with rules, directions, leaders, and so forth. Atheism is not.
The main reason for the Crusades, for example, was to stop the expansion of the Seljuk Empire into Europe. There is always an underlying social or economic reason beyond religion. This is some damn shallow logic.
Every society has a right to defend itself. The *manner* in which it defends itself is the issue. And if you look at the manner in which the crusades were prosecuted, you will then understand why they are considered atrocity, not legitimate. To say that state-sponsored rape, directed infanticide, torture, and pillage are ok based upon the fact that the initial motivation is defensive is disingenuous. The crusades were not ok. They will never be ok. End of story, and your feeble attempt at justification is reduced to ashes.
Next time you try to defend the evil acts in history, study them first. It'll shorten the distance you have to pull your foot out of your mouth.
He didn't say anything about why the wars were prosecuted; he pointed out that they were the vehicle for Christian atrocities, which is straight up truth. Certainly a culture has the right to defend itself against violence; but the manner in which that is done is still relevant.
Once upon a time I had lots of close friends who are now Scientologists. They actively, passionately, and publicly hate me and consider me to be a deeply immoral person.
Don't worry. The Christians all think you're immoral. So do the Islamists. As for who hates whom, aren't you glad you weren't in the twin towers on 9/11? Aren't you glad you weren't around during these Christian acts of violence? Aren't you glad you were elsewhere when the Hindus got up and into the faces of the Christians, here? Or when they did the same for Islamists, here? Aren't you glad you can still draw a cartoon of Mohammad here in the US? I'm speaking legally, of course... that doesn't mean some moron Islamist won't come and clobber you for it anyway. Or, try wearing one of my atheist themed tee-shirts (right column) on the street, and see what happens. Better yet, try it in the American south. Oh yeah, you'll feel the love, all right.:)
The gulf between your 'typical' Scientologist and how they view the world and other mainstream faiths is in my own very direct experience, is an extra-ordinary gulf.
No. Your experience is in the day to day "get along" strategies of the various religions. It has nothing to do with their world view, and doesn't exempt you from hidden disrespect and hate, or eventual violence. Eventually, an issue divisive enough will rear its head, and you'll see the strength of the relationships you have across these religious boundaries is to some degree imaginary. As an atheist, you are the lowest of the low to all religionists. For your own safety and the security of your family, you should keep that firmly in mind.
Finally, there are a few reasons why Scientology is far more dangerous than today's mainstream Abrahamic religions, Hinduism or any other organized religion.
Really?
There is the US vs Them mentality that pervades the organization
You don't think Islamic suicide bombers are carrying an "us vs. them mentality? Or the 9/11 flight teams? Or the pope/catholics vs. anyone else? Or the sides in the conflict in Northern Ireland? Or the Jehovah's Witnesses, who *do* excommunicate (probably who the previous poster was thinking of when they said Mormons) Or the Mormons, with their tons of stashed-in-basement goodies, meant *only* for Mormons? Or Christians, constantly trying trying (and often succeeding) to get their religious agenda coded into US law? Methinks you are bewildered, or simply not paying attention.
the complete disregard for laws in their pursuit of their enemies and the practical enslavement of the low-rung members
...you know the pope's words are "god's word", right? Also, if you don't think enlisting some person as a suicide bomber by feeding them superstitious drivel is practical enslavement... or that coercing people into any kind of behavior upon the promise of supernatural reward/punishment isn't practical enslavement... or that using little boys to relieve the sexual urges of the Catholic priesthood isn't practical enslavement... or that making the non-religious pay the portion of the taxes that the churches have wiggled out of isn't practical enslavement... or that the Hindu caste system isn't *very* practical enslavement...
well, I dunno. Perhaps you think that making people slaves because they are black isn't practical enslavement, either. No? Well, isn't enslavement the arbitrary forcing/coercion/deception of people to do your will? If so, how can you give Hinduism, Islam and Christianity a free pass here? What's the practical difference between a committed Scientology member and a committed low caste Hindu, or rank and file Islamist or Christian? They're all doing what the dogma of choice says, so where's the actual distinction?
In other words, the reason that Scientology is dangerous is that it is as loony as the fringe suicide cults that have always existed
Oh. You mean Islam and Christianity, right?
and it is as large as many respectable religious organizations
Which ones are they? The ones who burn witches, do "exorcisms", subjugate women? Or the ones who fly aircraft into buildings, walk into crowded public spaces with bombs strapped to their asses, and make women wear silly hats (or stone them to death)?
There are very few instances in human action where hypocrisy rises to such a level as when one religion, or an advocate thereof, points the finger at another and cries "evil!"
That's what they get for making testable predictions.
...you mean, like the Mormons saying that god would come by 1891? Or the Christians saying that Armageddon would occur in 1000, 2000 (and also during the reformation, because, they reasoned, surely everything that could be known, already was.) Or the Islamics? They've made some failed, testable predictions as well.
That's also why they're not a religion.
Well, then both Christianity and Islam are not religions, either.
So we should deal harshly with all of them. Is that your position?
Anyway, I'd whole heartedly agree with banning Scientology; not because of their ridiculous 'beliefs', but because they're a dangerous cult
Christianity, with its history of inquisitions, crusades, witch burnings, pogroms, blood libel, financial parasitism, subjugation of women, repression of science, burning of scientists at the stake, abandonment of adherents, and general pillage... isn't a dangerous cult? Really?
Islam, with its similar history, including jihads, flying aircraft into buildings, suicide bombers... not a dangerous cult? Really?
Methinks you're not paying attention. And as the wag said, those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it.
a long history of fraud, conspiracy, and extortion, as well as abuse, neglect, and mistreatment of members, with no indication of stopping
Sounds just like Christianity and Islam to me. Ever see the knees of the Christian "penitent" after they crawl on sharp rocks? Tried to collect the chunks of an Islamic suicide bomber? Know what an "indulgence" is? Familiar with the celibate Christian priesthood's historical use of young boys? Know what the wall behind the nunnery often contains? How do you feel about the Christians who tell their kids they can't have medical treatment because god will handle things? You know you are forced by religious law to pay the portion of taxes that the churches have wiggled out of, don't you? Not defending Scientology here, it's as much bunk as the rest of them, but I sure don't think that the "mainstream" religions have earned your support.
Scientology is not actually a religion; its a criminal organization, and such deserves none of the protection given to religion, nor any of the respect.
Ok, I'll bite. What's an "actual" religion? Is it belief you're talking about? Would you really claim that there aren't honest believers in Scientology? Is it truth? No religion has demonstrated any grasp upon "truth" at all. Is is bad behavior? Heck, the mainstream religions are *far* more steeped in that. So what draws this clear line for you between Scientology and "actual religion"? I'd really like to know. They all look the same to me, just some are older and have longer, darker, and consequently more evil histories. Scientology, being a young religion, is just barely stretching its legs. So far. Fire away.
...some country has the consistency to convict the churches of Christianity *and* Islam of fraud. Not to mention those selling crystals as "healing" devices, astrologers, palm "readers", and so on. Or to protect them all equally.
Scientology is no worse or better than either of them. At least it hasn't (yet) marched a bunch of its adherents into other countries, slaughtering "infidels", or set up any 800-year long inquisitions, or flown any aircraft into buildings, or burned any "witches." Though no doubt, give it time -- fanatics who base their thinking on superstitious bullshit almost always get around to such idiocy.
Societies should treat all superstitious nonsense the same way. So either prosecute 'em all, or leave em all alone. This "attack Scientology" business is inconsistent and hypocritical. Unless it leads to attacking the rest of them the same way... which trend isn't apparent at the moment.
This is the premise behind coherent raman scattering
Well, thank goodness. I can never keep that stuff in the bowl; maybe now that the scattering mechanism is understood, I can get a full serving of noodles.
Yes, you would, but you'd also take a hit to simulation throughput, I'm guessing a pretty significant one, too. I'm not sure you'd gain anything specifically more useful than you would in a pure digital approach without this kind of low level detail, either. More interesting to add something a bit more "macro" in the sense that it's a high level behavior / feature you can see and evaluate by simple observation.
My qualifications to guess? I'm the author of "Digital Soup", a system that uses genetic algorithms to drive robotic actors ("crits") in a world where simulated food gives them energy, they can trip over simulated rocks which takes energy from them, they can bump into each other -- similar to tripping on a rock -- they lose energy in the search for food, they can mate, breed, and so forth.
You have control over breeding selection criteria, in that they (the crits) can pick from other crits that are high performing, or one of them can be, or neither, or it can be random. You can also fiddle with how the genomes of the breeders mix. You can hand-write the genomes, or preload from saved before you start, or you can generate them randomly.
Once they're let go, performance is evaluated on a per-crit basis using a histogram for the currently living crits that evaluates their energy state. You have control over the size of the living space, the number of crits... and more. You can actually watch them run around, chase food and each other, avoid rocks, etc. Generation times can be exceedingly fast. Built-in hypertext docs/help. It is really a pretty cool program.
Also... if you write a genome yourself, one you think will do well, the result is very rarely what you expect. It's fascinating to mess with.
You can get the software for free here, but there is a pretty big catch for most people: It's Amiga software. I wrote all this over a decade ago. It probably would run fine on any decent Amiga emulation, though, as there's nothing "funny" about the code or the resources used.
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No. Atheism is not "a belief there are no gods", it is a lack of belief in a god or gods.
Belief is the presence of conviction without the presence of correlating objective fact. This is what makes it distinct from knowledge. It is also what makes the claimed agnostic position untenable - either you believe in a god or gods, or you don't. There's no middle ground between those two positions that is sectioned off by knowledge (objective fact.) So every self-proclaimed agnostic is actually a theist or an atheist.
Quite aside from your incorrect understanding of atheism, the point still stands that atheism carries no instructions, tenets, rules, etc. Stalin didn't do what he did because he was atheist, following "atheist dogma." There is no such dogma. He did what he did because he was a sociopath.
Religion, on the other hand, has directly instructed such acts, and contains numerous rationalizations based on the various religion's dogmas that lead directly to such acts.
Pelosi's argument is based entirely on the blatent misinterpretation of the commerce clause, which authorizes the government to regulate interstate commerce. SCOTUS has, in a fit of abject stupidity, generalized this into intrastate commerce with the "reasoning" that if an issue "affects" interstate commerce at any remove, they can regulate it.
This is clearly not the intent of the clause; if the founders had meant to authorize regulation of interstate and intrastate commerce, the commerce clause would read "To regulate Commerce... anywhere within the nation", but it doesn't. It reads "To regulate Commerce... among the several States." The meaning of "among" has not changed; it means between. Not within.
This is another case of the judiciary gone insane, handing the government virtually unlimited power on the basis of reasoning that is outright stupid. No such authority can be found anywhere in the constitution; therefore, the government doesn't have any. It just has power, based upon coercion. That's why this is no longer a constitutional republic.
Actually, this has been to the supreme court, and so isn't going to change.
You see, when the public backed the idea that people convicted of certain crimes (sexual, violent) should be publicly listed (on web sites, etc.), the courts decided to find a way to pretend that wasn't an ex post facto violation for the previously convicted (and those not convicted, because they put them on there as well, for instance those with adjudication withheld judgments.)
In order to pull that bit of conceptual legerdemain off, they said that the government has the right to list the citizens, because such listing is (get ready now) "not punitive" because the government isn't the agent causing the listee problems. It's the other citizens, businesses, etc. doing it, you see. That whole... can't get a job, a place to live, credit, being the targets of posters on telephone poles, the occasional outright mugging or murder, and of course, being driven to suicide. Not the government's problem or responsibility.
Since, the justices said, while giving each other dancing hip shots on the head of this particular pin, such listing (cough) isn't punitive, it doesn't violate ex post facto, which explicitly forbids either the states or the feds from changing a punishment by adding to it after it has already been set at sentencing (among other things.)
Of course this concept -- the idea that such listing isn't punitive -- is utterly nonsensical, but the thing is, it is nonsensical at the level of the supreme court, which makes it a formidable thing to overturn (practically, it makes it almost impossible, actually.)
What falls out of it, though, is a magical government right to put citizens on all kinds of lists without their consent, and without any judicial process whatsoever, regardless of the consequences that fall out of such listing in trying to pursue one's life.
From this, we get no-fly lists, where the government isn't stopping you from flying, it's the airline; the no-buy lists, where the government isn't stopping you from buying, it's the car dealer or other dealer; the terrorist list, where the government isn't stopping you from getting a job, it's the employer, and so forth.
This is just one of many fine examples of why we should not tolerate the "re-interpretation" of constitutional issues by the people in the courts. The constitution obviously means exactly what it says; it is the literally the constituting authority for the government; therefore, the government does not have the authority to do anything that is outright forbidden in the constitution, not directly, and not by invoking this kind of legalistic bullshittery. If the people want to change something in the constitution, that's what article five is for.
So while the argument that the government "should" go through judicial process to commit these harms to the citizens and others within our borders is sound, sensible, and constitutionally obvious, the supreme court has made it a non-starter.
Not even close. Speaking as an ex-CB'er, an extra class ham operator, and an EE with oodles of RF experience I can tell you that in both CB and ham operation, the things you can say, never mind broadcast, are strictly limited by FCC rules.
For instance, the closest a ham can normally come to a voice-mode broadcast is when calling CQ, which is looking for another ham to talk to. You can't (just as one example) fire up at 10pm every night on 7.175 MHz and present a program about quasars, current events, sex toys - or even ham radio. It's strictly forbidden. There are a few exceptions that have been made, for instance, W1AW in the northeast broadcast the band conditions for many years, might still be doing it for all I know (the ham bands basically don't work very well in times of low sunspot conditions, as now.) But I can't broadcast anything on any band, licensed to operate there or not - even though I hold both the highest class ham license and a broadcast engineer's license. As a musician, I can't even broadcast my own original compositions. Political discussion is actually forbidden.
CB is the same. No broadcasting.
Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. The act of speaking to another ham about the weather and the propagation conditions and perhaps the relative merits of ham gear is one thing; putting on a show that educates about rare jazz, local mineral clubs, entertains with the local garage band, or speaks to political issues at any remove... that's something else entirely, and that is what I'm talking about when I say we have been disenfranchised.
No, not really. It's been trivially easy to set up an AM band station that is spectral rules compliant since, oh, about 1950. Today, an FM or AM broadcaster, with antenna, costs a hundred bucks and up. You could easily cover your entire neighborhood for that kind of money, or a small town (like the one I live in - a mile in every direction and you're golden, here.) There are kits and there are ready made units - a few minutes visit to ramseyelectronics.com will bring you up to speed you on that subject.
It's never been a technology problem. It's strictly a regulatory problem. A serious one.
Get an iPod Touch (or an iPhone, if you need a phone); install any one of the drawing programs on it from a whiteboard to AutoCAD's awesome layer-based drawing system, and use that.
The touchscreen interface allows unrestricted freedom of drawing and 1:1 relationship between your drawing motion and the drawing that you can't get with a tablet; the work-spaces of some of the software are quite large (and layers are useful here); and the software is inexpensive. The icing on the cake is that there are tons of other useful apps as well.
The downside, of course, is the cost of the iPod. But other than that, it's the perfect solution. If you already have one, then it's a slam-dunk: a few bucks (like, one or two... or maybe $20 for the autoCAD one if I recall, not sure), and you're golden.
The FCC's tasking is to maintain orderly control of a supposedly scarce resource, parceling out that resource fairly for the good of our society, and ensuring that users of the resource do not interfere with each others broadcasts so that its utilization is not compromised.
How this turned into a game of censorship is a story of failure of government, and failure of the citizens. Not to mention downright unconstitutional. There is no authority given to the government that allows it to implement censorship; and there is an explicit legal wall against it that can only be misinterpreted by idiots in the form of the first amendment to the US constitution:
Sadly, they never did a decent job of seeing to the good of our society, preferring to service the demands of corporations over any recognition that the citizens might have something to say as well. What do I mean? Well, where are the citizen's broadcast bands? Nowhere, that's where. This is not a technological problem, or a scarcity problem. We've simply been disenfranchised.
The Internet is not a scarce resource. We can make "more of it" simply by laying cable and deploying devices. It won't interfere with the rest of the Internet. It doesn't require parceling out; its nature is that the more entities connect to it, the more pipe we lay, the better it gets.
So what, we should be asking, is the FCC doing anywhere near it? Doesn't someone need their hand slapped about now?
Yeah, religions are definitely cults. I totally agree.
I have studied them. I portray them as multiple wars specifically characterized by horrific and specifically religious atrocities. If you think they were other, by all means, make your case. I didn't say who started them, or make any claims about justification for keeping them going. My key problem with them is the acts of religious evil that saturate the reporting of the events.
That wasn't my characterization. So your whole argument is trashed. The crusades are a religious problem because they are a mass of religion-justified atrocities. As I have said elsewhere, justifying self defense is no problem. Justifying rape, pillage, infanticide... can't be done. When - as is the case with the crusades - the permission, and not just that, but the instructions, to commit those acts comes from religion... then we have our master criminal identified. Its name is religion.
You should have read the thread.
Atheism contains no dogma, no instructions, no justifications, no tenets, no belief. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. So it isn't in any way responsible for Stalin (or anyone else's) descent into evil sociopathic blundering.
Religion, on the other hand, uniformly contains instructions, dogma, tenets, and so forth. People do things specifically in the name of religious instruction. History is replete with examples. An astonishing number of those examples are evil. Even the written mythos of religion - the bible, the koran - contain extreme examples of religiously inspired evil. Mohammad humping his 9 year old "wife". Lot offering his daughters to the crowd. Jesus assaulting merchants. God turning people into pillars of salt. It's like reading about psychotic children.
Consequently, your attempt to tar the atheist lack of belief fails simply because that idea, the lack of belief in a god or gods, is so insubstantial and dogma free that no tar can possibly stick to it. If I say absolutely nothing to you about your life, you cannot blame me for influencing your life choices. And that's atheism in a nutshell. It says nothing about anything but that there is no belief in a god or gods. End of story.
Sure. It's always convenient to have slaves. So tell me, this makes it OK that religion still does so? That it codifies it? That it's written down for all to see and stick to in the bible, in the koran? Oh. Guess not. That's what I thought. So you fail. Looks like it is correct to castigate religion for propagating that retarded old nonsense, isn't it? Thought so. :)
Sure. Giordano Bruno. Google him. He's not the only one, either. Maybe your history needs a little brushing up.
I'm talking about excommunication. A very powerful religious tool in the past, and to some degree, still today (see the Jehovah's Witnesses modern "dis-fellowship" practice, for instance. Again, study your history. Find out what happened to those who were excommunicated.
Respect is an earned quality. Not a given one. Religion has not earned my respect. I am not anti-religious people; or at least, I am only "anti" those religionists who do evil under the guidance of religion or otherwise.
I have no gripe whatsoever with those religious people who manage to not follow the guidance of their religion into doing harm such as clinic bombing, gay hating, marriage classing, blue law creation, suicide bombing, exorcism, withholding of medical care, telling people they're "going to hell", the "earth is 6000 years old" and so on and so forth.
And sure, some of those very people deserve, and have, my respect. Religion, however, does not. Your assertion of tribalism is (people) class based, and it does not apply to me.
I'm not tarring people. I'm tarring religion. Religion causes people to do harm. Lots of harm. Varied harm. Extensive harm. Harm over century after century. This century. Previous centuries. So religion is bad. Not people who manage not to do harm who are religious; religion. Get it now?
As I have said elsewhere in the thread, Stalin (and anyone else you care to name) wasn't directed to do what he did by atheism, because atheism has no dogma, no instruction, no goals, no tenets. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. No more. So to attribute any action to "atheism" as if it were a driving force is clueless. Stalin did what he did because he was a power-maddened sociopath. Atheism provided no more guidance to his actions than did the fact that he worked at an observatory at one point, or that he (probably) liked black bread. Correlation is not causation.
Also as mentioned elsewhere, any particular religion is still the same entity. It isn't people that are being pointed at here with a broad brush - it is religion. It is religion that carries the dogma, the precepts, the tenets, the goals, the instruction, the rationales... it is religion that brings these things forward and hands the people of today the same bloody stupidity as the people of Galileo's time. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to point the finger, broadly, at religion.
No. But any attempt at colonialism, slavery, pillage, torture, misogyny, class-ism, caste, and rape needs to be stepped upon. More directly, any organization that espouses these ideals needs to be stepped upon. The flaw in your idea there is that people, white or otherwise, are not the same as religion. Religion equates to things like the KKK; long-extant organizations that have formalized goals which have not changed in any significant manner, and a history of doing profound evil to pursue those goals (and sometimes, as with the KKK, goals that are themselves evil.)
You'll note that the KKK is not a reason to pillory current white people, and likewise, the tenets of religion are not a reason to pillory current people, even if religious - they are reason to pillory *religion*. The organization is responsible for the evil done at its behest and encouragement. You don't take that responsibility away by saying "well, they did that *yesterday*, so it doesn't matter any longer." It bloody well does. Because the organization isn't its own descendant: It's the *same entity*.
For instance, the US government is still responsible for jailing US citizens of Japanese ethnicity during WWII. Because it's the same organization. The responsibility doesn't go away when the legislators change seats. Sure, those original legislators are guilty too, and sure, modern legislators didn't cause the problem, but they are *still* responsible for the consequences, because they represent the organization, and the responsibility accrues to the organization. If they don't want to deal with the acts of the government, they shouldn't be in government. Any religion is exactly the same. So the atrocities of the crusades matter. The witch burnings matter. Galileo's imprisonment matters. Also, these things tell us what the religion will do if it has the freedom to do so. In the US, at least, we've managed to trim back access to such powers by separating church from state. Somewhat. Although lately, they've been making some very unfortunate gains back.
In any case, it isn't the sins of the ancestors that are the concern here: It is the fact that the religion instructed them to commit those sins, and that the religions have not changed a great deal from those days. Society has changed around them -- religion no longer officially serves as high level political authority right in the middle of the power structure -- but that doesn't mean that they aren't responsible when aircraft are flown into buildings, clinics are blown up, suicide bombers walk into crowds, or laws are made restricting the actions of the general public to those the religions think are "ok." Your assertion that religions of today are innocent of the kinds of motivations and acts we have seen in the past is simply unsustainable, no matter if made directly, or with a failed analogy, as above.
Your analogy breaks down immediately because an ancestor is a unique individual acting on their own; a religion is a still-extant entity that was, and is, acting on its own, using the same precepts it always has, and so is still culpable. They know it, too... just look at the apology for Galileo's imprisonment. Centuries later. Why? Because it's still the same Catholic church. The pope wasn't apologizing for the sins of an ancestor; he was apologizing for the sins of his organization. He's saying "we screwed up based on our beliefs", and I'm saying, "keep watching those idiots, they still believe the same stupid things and are the same stupid organization."
Oh, I agree completely. Except for Scientology. Thus far. They're young, I'm pretty sure they'll find a way. Look how quickly the Heaven's Gate saucer religion managed to get people killed. Scientology's just a little retarded, that's all. They'll probably find a reason. Xenu and all.
Ok. And Christianity tells you up front, as does Islam. Though both say you won't "get it" until you drop your logic and sense of reality and "just believe", which can, and often does, take quite some time. And time, as the wise man tells us, is money. I guess the order of the revelation of the superstitious dogma seems like a pretty minor point to me. There are differences in the order of teaching, and who you get to talk to, in every religion. Your average Catholic doesn't get to converse with, or receive the pope's specific advice; your average Islamist doesn't get to speak to, or receive guidance from, the Ayatollah, either. But in both cases, apply enough money, and bingo, you have an audience. And the Vatican basement is renowned for the squirreling away of large amounts of art and writings. Just try and get to those. Money (first) will definitely be involved. Scientology's flaw here, if I understand you, is that they seem to have formalized the process. I don't see that as disqualifying them from being essentially the same as the others: Marketers of superstition to the weak-minded, the gullible and the non-critical thinkers (in various combinations.) Another thing is that Scientology certainly does give you starter dogma, just like the others do. The ratio of starter to "you'll get that later" is different, that's all. You'll be paying, in money and time and lost opportunities to be a sensible human being, no matter which one you go with.
Agreed, that's the general case. But how does it make one vendor of superstition different from another? Money up front, or money later? They both will happily take your money insofar as you let them and spend that money as they see fit (if you ever visit the Vatican, this point will be made resoundingly clear. Or the basement of your local Mormon church. Or the headquarters of Scientology. Etc.) They both will sell you nonsense as if it were truth. They both will take advantage of the political system to make you pay the taxes they should be paying.
And again, "mainstream" religions have a long, consistent history of imprisoning, torturing and/or killing those who don't believe or even just don't quite believe the same. Scientology is just barely a beginner here. So far. So I really have a difficult time with any argument that they are worse than the others.
Personally, I see one vendor of superstitious nonsense as in the same industry and carrying the essential same goal set as any of the others. They peddle imaginary hucksterism, they want your money so they can do more of that, and they also want your money so they can spread the system far and wide by whatever means are affordable. Some of them do good in process; some do evil; some do both. "Feed a child and warp their mind" is a pretty good summary of most religious outreach. You find very few anonymous religious outreach programs. In other words, soup kitchens where no one says anything but "good morning, have some soup" and in answer to "who are you people", answer "just people concerned about your well being." It's largely a shell game with goals that are generations wide; convert and prosper, fail to convert and fail entirely.
The Scientologists, being new at this, have a more "now" approach to income and conversion, but I think it will boil down to the same thing in the long run.
Noted.
There are far more Muslims. As for how many scientologists believe Hubbard dances on the head of a pin with aliens, I don't know, and you don't know -- what we both know is that there are plenty of them. Regardless, it isn't a matter of quantity that validates or invalidates their position, so the point you're trying to make is moot. The issue is, those "mainstream" religions have a history of very recent extreme violence, extreme violence that is at the direction of the religion itself. They are not clean of hand here.
The Pope has plenty of authority where it matters: With Catholics. He tells them what to do, and a very large number of them do it. He is anything but "emasculated." Likewise the Mormons are effective politically, the Islamists, and so on. To the degree that they aren't, it isn't generally a credit to their religion.
Really? Personal attacks? This is how you think you'll make a telling point?
My arguments are, at least as best as I can manage, based upon facts. If you can't meet that standard, you'll fail to make your point every time. Name-calling will not advance your position.
Here's the distinction, and it's quite the heavy issue:
Religion orders, demands, ordains and directs atrocities. Witch burnings were _specifically_ religious. The inquisitions (papal and Spanish) were _specifically_ religious. The arrest of Galileo and the burning of Filippo (Giordano) Bruno at the stake were _specifically_ religious. The atrocities of the crusades were _specifically_ religious. The list goes on, and it is monotonously consistent.
Now these people were motivated / told / ordered by religion to do what they did. That's the nature of the acts -- they were religious acts. They may also have all liked bread, and sex, but those were not their motivations. So we don't blame the "sexers" or the "breadeaters" for the witch burnings, etc. When you blame a system for acts, you need to positively associate the system's dictates with the acts, otherwise you're just spouting bullshit. Correlation is not causation.
Stalin did not kill people because atheism told him to, hinted that he should, or even led him in that direction. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or gods. That's all it is. There is no dogma; no instruction; no direction. It is *entirely* disingenuous to try to blame motivation - Stalin's or anyone else's - on atheism. Likewise, the blowtards of Columbine were not taking direction from Atheism; their pathology was something else entirely (and we would probably find it had something to do with religion, if we actually thought it through... after all, it is religion that dictates behavior, not atheism, and those broken individuals were clearly reacting against something, not for something.)
Theism is a set of active belief systems with rules, directions, leaders, and so forth. Atheism is not.
Every society has a right to defend itself. The *manner* in which it defends itself is the issue. And if you look at the manner in which the crusades were prosecuted, you will then understand why they are considered atrocity, not legitimate. To say that state-sponsored rape, directed infanticide, torture, and pillage are ok based upon the fact that the initial motivation is defensive is disingenuous. The crusades were not ok. They will never be ok. End of story, and your feeble attempt at justification is reduced to ashes.
Next time you try to defend the evil acts in history, study them first. It'll shorten the distance you have to pull your foot out of your mouth.
He didn't say anything about why the wars were prosecuted; he pointed out that they were the vehicle for Christian atrocities, which is straight up truth. Certainly a culture has the right to defend itself against violence; but the manner in which that is done is still relevant.
Don't worry. The Christians all think you're immoral. So do the Islamists. As for who hates whom, aren't you glad you weren't in the twin towers on 9/11? Aren't you glad you weren't around during these Christian acts of violence? Aren't you glad you were elsewhere when the Hindus got up and into the faces of the Christians, here? Or when they did the same for Islamists, here? Aren't you glad you can still draw a cartoon of Mohammad here in the US? I'm speaking legally, of course... that doesn't mean some moron Islamist won't come and clobber you for it anyway. Or, try wearing one of my atheist themed tee-shirts (right column) on the street, and see what happens. Better yet, try it in the American south. Oh yeah, you'll feel the love, all right. :)
No. Your experience is in the day to day "get along" strategies of the various religions. It has nothing to do with their world view, and doesn't exempt you from hidden disrespect and hate, or eventual violence. Eventually, an issue divisive enough will rear its head, and you'll see the strength of the relationships you have across these religious boundaries is to some degree imaginary. As an atheist, you are the lowest of the low to all religionists. For your own safety and the security of your family, you should keep that firmly in mind.
Really?
You don't think Islamic suicide bombers are carrying an "us vs. them mentality? Or the 9/11 flight teams? Or the pope/catholics vs. anyone else? Or the sides in the conflict in Northern Ireland? Or the Jehovah's Witnesses, who *do* excommunicate (probably who the previous poster was thinking of when they said Mormons) Or the Mormons, with their tons of stashed-in-basement goodies, meant *only* for Mormons? Or Christians, constantly trying trying (and often succeeding) to get their religious agenda coded into US law? Methinks you are bewildered, or simply not paying attention.
well, I dunno. Perhaps you think that making people slaves because they are black isn't practical enslavement, either. No? Well, isn't enslavement the arbitrary forcing/coercion/deception of people to do your will? If so, how can you give Hinduism, Islam and Christianity a free pass here? What's the practical difference between a committed Scientology member and a committed low caste Hindu, or rank and file Islamist or Christian? They're all doing what the dogma of choice says, so where's the actual distinction?
Oh. You mean Islam and Christianity, right?
Which ones are they? The ones who burn witches, do "exorcisms", subjugate women? Or the ones who fly aircraft into buildings, walk into crowded public spaces with bombs strapped to their asses, and make women wear silly hats (or stone them to death)?
There are very few instances in human action where hypocrisy rises to such a level as when one religion, or an advocate thereof, points the finger at another and cries "evil!"
Well, then both Christianity and Islam are not religions, either.
So we should deal harshly with all of them. Is that your position?
Christianity, with its history of inquisitions, crusades, witch burnings, pogroms, blood libel, financial parasitism, subjugation of women, repression of science, burning of scientists at the stake, abandonment of adherents, and general pillage... isn't a dangerous cult? Really?
Islam, with its similar history, including jihads, flying aircraft into buildings, suicide bombers... not a dangerous cult? Really?
Methinks you're not paying attention. And as the wag said, those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it.
Sounds just like Christianity and Islam to me. Ever see the knees of the Christian "penitent" after they crawl on sharp rocks? Tried to collect the chunks of an Islamic suicide bomber? Know what an "indulgence" is? Familiar with the celibate Christian priesthood's historical use of young boys? Know what the wall behind the nunnery often contains? How do you feel about the Christians who tell their kids they can't have medical treatment because god will handle things? You know you are forced by religious law to pay the portion of taxes that the churches have wiggled out of, don't you? Not defending Scientology here, it's as much bunk as the rest of them, but I sure don't think that the "mainstream" religions have earned your support.
Ok, I'll bite. What's an "actual" religion? Is it belief you're talking about? Would you really claim that there aren't honest believers in Scientology? Is it truth? No religion has demonstrated any grasp upon "truth" at all. Is is bad behavior? Heck, the mainstream religions are *far* more steeped in that. So what draws this clear line for you between Scientology and "actual religion"? I'd really like to know. They all look the same to me, just some are older and have longer, darker, and consequently more evil histories. Scientology, being a young religion, is just barely stretching its legs. So far. Fire away.
They're all fake.
Scientology is no worse or better than either of them. At least it hasn't (yet) marched a bunch of its adherents into other countries, slaughtering "infidels", or set up any 800-year long inquisitions, or flown any aircraft into buildings, or burned any "witches." Though no doubt, give it time -- fanatics who base their thinking on superstitious bullshit almost always get around to such idiocy.
Societies should treat all superstitious nonsense the same way. So either prosecute 'em all, or leave em all alone. This "attack Scientology" business is inconsistent and hypocritical. Unless it leads to attacking the rest of them the same way... which trend isn't apparent at the moment.
Well, thank goodness. I can never keep that stuff in the bowl; maybe now that the scattering mechanism is understood, I can get a full serving of noodles.
Yes, you would, but you'd also take a hit to simulation throughput, I'm guessing a pretty significant one, too. I'm not sure you'd gain anything specifically more useful than you would in a pure digital approach without this kind of low level detail, either. More interesting to add something a bit more "macro" in the sense that it's a high level behavior / feature you can see and evaluate by simple observation.
My qualifications to guess? I'm the author of "Digital Soup", a system that uses genetic algorithms to drive robotic actors ("crits") in a world where simulated food gives them energy, they can trip over simulated rocks which takes energy from them, they can bump into each other -- similar to tripping on a rock -- they lose energy in the search for food, they can mate, breed, and so forth.
You have control over breeding selection criteria, in that they (the crits) can pick from other crits that are high performing, or one of them can be, or neither, or it can be random. You can also fiddle with how the genomes of the breeders mix. You can hand-write the genomes, or preload from saved before you start, or you can generate them randomly.
Once they're let go, performance is evaluated on a per-crit basis using a histogram for the currently living crits that evaluates their energy state. You have control over the size of the living space, the number of crits... and more. You can actually watch them run around, chase food and each other, avoid rocks, etc. Generation times can be exceedingly fast. Built-in hypertext docs/help. It is really a pretty cool program.
Also... if you write a genome yourself, one you think will do well, the result is very rarely what you expect. It's fascinating to mess with.
You can get the software for free here, but there is a pretty big catch for most people: It's Amiga software. I wrote all this over a decade ago. It probably would run fine on any decent Amiga emulation, though, as there's nothing "funny" about the code or the resources used.