The fact is that the question you mentioned is precisely the kind of things that the average voter can understand and, therefore, directly vote on. You don't need any special knowledge or expertise to have an opinion on gay marriage. In the end, it all comes down to your political philosophy and whether marriage is a right or a privilege.
In most other cases, especially when we leave the area of ethics, the average voter is not adequately equipped to decide which policies should be implemented. The most he can say is what outcome he favors. If you simply ask people whether rent control laws ought to be enacted, it is likely that they will answer affirmatively. After all, who wouldn't want housing to be more affordable? Yet, most economists would argue that rent control is bad, because although it makes housing cheaper for some, it also creates shortages and negatively affects the quality of housing. If people were asked whether they wanted cheap housing, but shortages and lower quality apartments, or more expensive (but plentiful and high quality) apartments, it is not clear that they would favor rent control laws as much.
The key: ask people what outcomes they favor, and leave the process to experts.
I've just read the amendments in question and I think La Quadrature is overreacting. In and of themselves, these amendments do not threaten the survival of bittorrent and other P2P protocols. La Quadrature appears to start with the assumption that there is something sinister going on and reads potential threats to the internet into the Directive.
Amendment H1 provides, first, that
a national regulatory authority may issue guidelines setting minimum quality of service
requirements
. Nothing strange about it, it might even allow regulatory agencies to mandate ISPs to advertise more truthfully.
if
appropriate, take other measures, in order to prevent degradation
of services and slowing of traffic over networks,
Traffic shaping is not necessarily bad. Why should I have to wait 5+ seconds for a webpage to load just because the guy next door is downloading 24/7?
and to ensure
that the ability of users to access or distribute lawful content or
to run lawful applications and services of their choice is not
unreasonably restricted.
This is where there can be disagreement on what this amendment is trying to accomplish. On the one hand, it might be used to restrict P2P sharing. This is La Quadrature's interpretation. On the other hand, however, this passage can also be construed as protecting our right to use our internet connection as we see fit, provided we are not engaging in illegal activities. For instance, should ISPs block or throttle all P2P traffic, a user might file a complaint with the regulatory authorities, which could judge that, since it unreasonably restricts the ability of users to access lawful content, such a measure is illegal.
Their analysis of Article 21 (4a) is not much more accurate. What is says is that, "when appropriate", ISPs may be forced to send "public interest information" to subscribers. The inclusions of
(c) means of protection against risks to personal security, privacy and personal data in
using electronic communications services
argues against La Quadrature's (confused and barely understandable) analysis that this article refers to mandatory takedown notices. A more charitable -- and plain -- reading suggests that ISPs would be required to send a brochure to their customers to tell them that copyright infrigement in really bad. This is why both existing and new subscribers (who, obviously, haven't downloaded anything illegal yet), are mentioned. In all likelihood, the only thing this amendment will accomplish is that all subscribers will get a leaflet that explains why they should install a firewall and an anti-virus program.
It's FUD, pure and simple. Most of the arguments on La Quadrature's pages are either non sequiturs or slippery slope arguments ("may" does not equal "shall").
From a purely utilitarian standpoint, all these books can be burned. There are many copies (which are known to be genuine) and, besides the cool-factor of owning a piece of history, these books are rather useless. The text they contain, which is available elsewhere, may be valuable in that it preservers ideas that impacted the world tremendously, but that's about it.
Why exactly would we want to fund (read 'have to pay taxes for') a "Library of humanity". How many people are interested in traveling hundreds of miles to see an old book whose contents they cannot even understand?
Time shifting is not a right, it's a defense. It means that you cannot be found guilty of copyright infringement if you time-shift some TV shows. However, it does *NOT* mean that networks cannot implement measures, such as the Broadcast Flag, that prevent you from time-shifting. The law does not require copyright holders to allow users to exercise their fair use `privileges', it simply says that fair use is not copyright infringement.
A EULA need not be a shrink-wrap contract. If you are shown the EULA before you download the software, it's not invalid. It may also be valid if you have the option to send the software back to the publisher for a full refund (cf ProCD v. Zeidenberg). So-called "clickwrap" licenses are also okay in many cases.
To put it another way:
Imagine if bricklayers had to be paid by every person who visited a house they built several years ago.
That would be almost impossible to police.
But it is even more difficult to keep track of people who listen to music or watch video. That's even more difficult to police.
Instead, bricklayers get paid for making new buildings, and not for buildings they've already finished. Equally, artists should get paid for making new art, not art they've already finished.
Those analogies are usually unhelpful. Bricklayers don't need to be paid by everyone who visits the house because a) they have never been granted ownership of any part of the house b) they agreed to be paid a finite sum of money upon completion of the job.
However, if I *own* the house, I am entitled to charge everyone who wants to visit it.
What I profoundly dislike about anti-copyright activists is their desire to force their views upon everyone else. At present, nothing prevents artists from doing what you have suggested above. It's up to the artists to decide whether they want to charge everyone who listens to what they have created, or simply want to give their work away for free.
You should never forget that copyright has tremendous benefits and, in many cases, protects the "little man" too. Do you think that a struggling artist would be happy to learn that a big-name band has "stolen" one of his songs, but he has no recourse against them?
I personally think that there is value in what was written 20 years ago! I enjoy listening to the artist's performance, and I believe that he should be compensated for his work. Do you think that all artists are immediately catapulted to stardom and have a fan-base that is large enough to make your proposal practicable? It might work, but only for well-known artists or bands.
For the specific case of copyright, it is the only business model on the face of the planet where employees (read: distributors+"Artists") are expecting to be paid decades or even centuries after they are finished the job. Where this idea that a person can make a one-hit-wonder and be paid perpetually for it is so wrong it is laughable. In no other industry do you find employees being paid beyond what they actually worked much less having that paycheck go to their heirs well after their death. Imagine if every business had to continue to pay all their employees+heirs for 90+ years after they quit.
I think these two situations are completely different. In the case of a company, employees are hired to do a specific task in exchange for a specific amount of money. It's purely `work-for-hire' and employees will usually be asked to assign copyright of anything they create during business hours or for their employers to the company. Therefore, it would indeed be ridiculous for companies to pay their employees after they've quit, since they've already been fairly compensated.
Copyright is quite different. First, you need to think about how you know how much someone's work is worth. It's clear that it doesn't have much to do with the time they work: even if a lawyer and a janitor both work an hour, they won't get paid the same amount of money. In the case of literary or musical works, the only way to tell how much an artist's work is worth is to see how well it will sell/be downloaded.
Copyight is, on the whole, beneficial. It ensures, for instance, that all artists will be fairly compensated for what they have created. If you think that contemporary artists are all sell-outs who care about nothing but money, rest assured that the "good old days" were not any better. The only difference was that it was not the market, but powerful, wealthy patrons, who got to decide what music/books would be published.
Additionally, if you're currently benefiting from what an artist did ten years ago, for instance by listening to a song he performed, why would it be unfair for him to be compensated for it?
No true. I'd say that the RCC is the exception, not the rule here. If I remember correctly, there is no eccleasiastical hierarchy in Islam, which already accounts for about 1.5 billion people. There is no formal hierarchy in Judaism either, and many Protestant denominations are also made up of autonomous local congregations that associate on a voluntary basis (e.g. the SBC in the US). Even those denominations that are more organized do not usually have a "central point of authority" as the Pope to Roman Catholics.
Once again, correlation does not equal causation. There are many factors that might explain why marginally brighter people are less likely to be religious, such as greater exposure to theories that conflict with religious beliefs (regardless of whether those theories do or do not make sense). In addition, it seems likely that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to question what you have been taught from an early age which, in the US, would translate into a greater likelihood to reject Christianity, especially if an alternative if readily available.
The problem is that it would be a mistake to compare the average atheist and the average believer and assume that it gives you a reliable indication of the validity of those belief systems. `Dumb' people might be more easily convinced, but it is hardly newsworthy. What needs to be done is a comparasion between the best case that can be made in favor of theism (think Craig or Swinburne), and the best case in favor of atheism.
In Western Europe, 90% of people are atheists. Not because they are somehow smarter, but because they have been exposed to nothing but atheism. Every time I meet a professed atheist, I am appalled at the lack of sophistication of their arguments. This is also a factor that must be taken into account: high IQ does not mean being knowledgeable about religion or philosophy. If your rejection of theism is based on God not being able to create a stone too heavy for Him to lift, it doesn't matter if you have high IQ, it's still a dumb objection.
Good. Now you can apply the same criteria to *all* beliefs. Ask people what they think of the idea that everyone in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat. If they don't know that it's a myth, don't hire them. You might also want to ask them about "let them each cake", Napoleon's height, etc.
By your logic, someone who has been an atheist since 2nd grade when he threw a fit because he couldn't understand why God would let his dog die, and who doesn't know Leibniz from Anselm of Canterbury would somehow have better critical thinking skills than a theist who actually bothered to examine the evidence.
I also suggest that you stop using all those flawed scientific theories that theists surreptitiously introduced into science. No more calculus (Leibniz and Newton) for instance -- are you sure you still want to be an "ObsessiveMathsFreak"?
We should follow you for a whole day and see if you practice what you preach. I hope, for your sake and that of your loved ones, that you don't.
To sum it up, you're the worst kind of atheist: the arrogant one who thinks that he's so smart that he knows everything, but usually ends up making an utter fool of himself when he encounters a knowledgeable theist. Scientists are good at what they do, i.e. science. When it comes to philosophy (even philosophy of science), theology, or history, they don't fare much better than the average person, and might even do worse, since they tend to transfer, as you did, their attitudes to areas where they are irrelevant. If you don't understand why science cannot tell you whether, say, a resurrection is possible or not, then you're a hopeless case and, were I to evaluate *your* job application, I'd propably put you at the bottow of the stack. Who would want an obnoxious self-proclaimed "skeptic" telling everyone how irrational they are because they don't happen to subscribe to his scientism? "Skepticism" and scientism, with the close-mindedness that usually accompanies it, are not one and the same.
You seem to assume that, since you cannot access those articles, nobody else can. I'm sorry to disappoint you but when I go on Google Scholar, I have access to 90% of the articles I can find, and so do many other people. The two key words are *library* and *institutions*. 15 years ago, needed a library card, today you need access to their intranet. 15 years ago, you went to the library to photocopy articles, today you go there and download PDFs.
This article confuses being smart with being culture, which are two widely different things. Knowing lots of trivia about Shakespeare and Milton means you're cultivated (not smart). Knowing a lot about, say, nanotechs (as in: you're making valuable contributions to the field) means you're intelligent/competent in your field of expertise, but doesn't mean that you're cultivated. We can certainly lament that many Americans don't know much about history or geography, but it doesn't follow that they're less intelligent.
I also dislike how she labels everyone who disagrees with her an `anti-rationalist'. There is nothing irrational or anti-rational about claiming that the average American doesn't need to know foreign languages. Why would not knowing a foreign language be `a manifestation of ignorance'? Sure, if you're a businessman, a diplomat or a show-off, being multilingual is beneficial. If you're a mechanic, a bank teller or a steel-mill worker, I don't see the point.
No difference to all those fake rolex watches etc., should it be a criminal offence to buy one or to have it in your possession.
Yes it should, if it can be established that a reasonable person would have thought that the watch was counterfeit (i.e. `replica' in the title of the auction, suspiciously low price,etc.), they should be prosecuted. This is no different from `possession of stolen goods' or `handling' in the UK: you cannot simply claim that you had absolutely no knowledge that the goods were stolen if it would have been obvious to a reasonable person that they could not be legitimate. The same rule could easily be applied to copyright infringement: nobody will ever prosecute you because someone posted an infringing picture on his website. However, if you download songs and movies from other users using P2P software, it is almost certainly copyright infringement.
It won't work: PETC (People for the Ethical Treatment of Computers) will argue that a cognizant computer cannot be turned off, and people like Peter Singer will back them up.
I concur. The problem with piracy is not that works are copied, but that they are without the author's permission. It is really rooted in a false sense of entitlement, the idea that there is a "right" to read/listen to a particular work, regardless of what the author's views on the matter are. I, for one, remain convinced that someone who spends countless days working on something deserves to be compensated for his labor *if he so chooses*. I have no right to demand that he give it away for free or cheaper than he intends. I do, however, have to ability not to buy said work, thereby expressing my discontent, and, if enough potential customers do likewise, prices will go down.
"UN observers won't certify them".
UN observers are usually sent to third-world nations and "flawed democracy", not countries like the US or any other Western country for the matter. So, as a matter of mact, UN observers won't certify US elections because nobody asked them to, not because they were there and refused to do it in light of widespread fraud, as your message implied.
Well, considering that God never promised that Christians would be healed, that he's not a circus animal, that it's basically impossible to make sure that only 'genuine' Christians are part of the experimental group (how to you *know* if someone is sincere or not? Maybe he's just a hypocrite and not a Christian a all).
There are so many confounding variables that it's impossible to conduct such a statistical analysis and have it yield valuable results.
While I'm at it, most studies on intercessory prayer are also deeply flawed for the exact same reasons. How do you control for variables such as sincerity of belief, God's sovereign will, the non-mechanistic nature of prayer,etc.?
The problem is that it confuses the reasons why someone might believe in God and the consequences of this belief. This 'God-of-the-gaps' way of looking at the world is a consequence of believing that there is a God in the first place, which is or isn't reasonable depending on why you have formed this particular belief. For instance, if you are an apostle and have seen the resurrected Jesus (or think you have), it is in my opinion perfectly reasonable to believe that God exists, regardless of what you think about God's role in causing the rain to fall (none/sometimes/always).
Another problem is that most pieces of evidence cannot be neatly put in one basket or the other, since most what you would move from the God basket to the science basket shouldn't have been in the former at all. Saying 'I don't know why this happened, therefore God did it' is foolish and unreasonable. Unless you have good reasons to attribute an event to God's intervention, don't do it.
Unlike what the basket analogy suggests, knowledge is not a zero-sum game in which you simply move eggs from one basket to another. Some scientific discoveries have absolutely no bearing on whether God exists or not (and therefore do not count as evidence that God does not exist), and many arguments in favor of God's existence have nothing to do with science per se (i.e. even if they were discarded, they would not be added to science's basket). Similarly, you cannot assume that all 'eggs' are equal: some scientific theories might make the existence of God less probable, but be dwarfed by the overwhelming evidence that he exists that other theories or arguments provide.
If you are looking for things which have indeed been moved from the 'science' basket to the 'God' one, I'd suggest learning more about the archeological discoveries that vindicated Luke's writings against what skeptical scholars believed had been established beyond a reasonable doubt. As for examples in the hard sciences, I have no idea but, quite frankly, I don't see why we would need to find such things happening. You just have to understand that most of the things that were put in the 'science' basket did not disprove religion in any way because it did not affect any of its tenets.
Think about what you have just written (I know, it's hard and likely to give you a headache - don't worry, you'll get used to using your brain). Let's see
Any religious claims for a god that has even the tiniest power over or interaction with the physical world are demonstrably wrong. Now, explain to me how you intend to prove this negative. At best, you might be able to show me that never in history has the action of a supernatural agent been witnessed or recorded. That's still a far cry from proving that God has no power over the physical world (which would require you to exclude any supernatural intervention in every single thing that's ever happened in the universe).
Every time an apple falls off a tree and hits the ground, or heated water boils, or anything keeps on happening (without exception) according to the laws of nature discovered by science, it continues to confirm that any predictions contrary to the predictions of science are wrong. Wait... I can make an apple fall off a tree but God cannot? Maybe you could try to turn your argument into a valid syllogism. I'd be interested to know how you go from 'the laws of nature accurately describe the way the world works' to 'God cannot intervene in the world'. I really don't see (probably because it's simply not there) what falling apples and boiling water tell you about the existence (or lack thereof) of God.
never in the history of the world has even a single atom of matter or molecule of neurotransmitter ever been seen to behave counter to the laws of science. Never in the history of the world has a man written 'XDDGFDFEGERDND' on Slashdot. Therefore, it will never happen. Wait... I just did it. Guess my message will vanish in a puff of logic. In addition, you're confused as to what the laws of science really are. They are descriptive and not prescriptive. By definition, a miracle *is* a departure from the way the world usually works (but not a violation of the laws of nature, which describe how the world works in the absence of any supernatural intervention).
but frankly I think most aethiests are more moral than most religious folk Define 'moral' and, if you think morality is absolute (which apparently you do ), explain to me how science studies it and where moral values come from.
Maybe you should pick up a dictionary or a thesaurus and learn that, lo and behold, you don't have to use the F-word every two sentences to get your point across. It just makes you sound like a 15-year old kid who's never bothered to pick up a social-science book but think he can reduce something as complex as the concept of 'honor' to merely 'being willing to kill/die/commit atrocities for your king'.
Less ethnocentrism and more scholarship is what we need.
A person's honor, in the Ancient world, was his worth, his value both in his eyes and in the eyes of his community. No honor = you're a nobody, a loser, you might just as well keel over and die since you're worthless. Because most of these cultures were also collectivist cultures, remaining 'honorable' might have required you to do what the community/king asked of you. But you cannot simple conflate these two things and claim that honor is *really* nothing but blind obedience.
I have a problem with Privacy International's Index. How credible is it when the UK and China are both described as "endemic surveillance societies"? Hello: one is a democracy, the other a totalitarian state where people get jailed for their beliefs and voicing their political opinions too openly. Is there a "great Hadrian Firewall" in England? I don't think so.
The major flaw in their study is that they seem to focus on one very limited aspect of "privacy", i.e. wiretapping,etc. What they should also take into account is whether there are clear rules governing admissibility of those materials in court. After all, if the government can listen to what you say or watch what you do but cannot use it in court, why should you be too worried?
And don't forget that most European countries are now restricting freedom of speech in unacceptable ways. Take a look at this EU directive: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=216962. Someone who criticizes Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other religion might be charged under this statute, since it might be argued that he is inciting hatred against members of this religion.
All in all, I think the US is still 'freer' than most countries in Europe: can you be a holocaust denier in Europe? Can you reveal a politician's dirty secrets without being charged for slander or libel (in many European countries, if it is a 'private matter', you're not even allowed to prove in court that what you wrote or said is true).
I suppose one could argue that you are responsible for what you do *AND* let other people do with your connection. It's either that, or any person who wants to trade child porn or any illegal material only has to leave his wireless network open to be able to claim that it wasn't him but a random person using Wifi. In this particular case, it is unreasonable to ask the state or the plaintiff to show that it was you who downloaded/uploaded illegal things, since there is absolutely no way they could make such a case. At the very least, you should have to produce reliable logs showing that a third-party was logged on your network at the time the infringing material was downloaded. If someone claims it's not him despite convincing evidence (i.e. that his connection was used), *he* has to prove it.
There are quite a few faulty assumptions regarding human rights and whether animals should have them:
first, there seems to be a confusion between what it means to be a human being as opposed to animal (as a general rule), and what makes humans valuable. It is not because humans can laugh, think, etc. that they are valuable. Else, as soon as you are sedated, you'd stop being human because you wouldn't have those characteristics anymore. Humans are intrinsically valuable (their rights come from natural law), and an animal can never be biologically human.
Second, it is always quite dangerous to start defining what you 'need' to be a human being. Think about slavery, most genocides,etc. What happened is that some people decided to use arbitrarily defined criteria to strip people from their human status. Who says the criteria animal rights activists use are correct?
Third, why do they believe that chimps should have the same rights as humans. It is as logical to say that human beings should have the same rights chimps enjoy presently (i.e. none). The very idea of human rights is based on the premise that there is something intrinsically valuable in human beings, regardless of their mental capacities or physical abilities.
I remember a time when VB was what every aspiring coder used, thinking (erroneously if you ask me) that it'd help them learn how to program. They all wrote little, yet buggy, apps that mostly worked but were coded without any talent and probably very insecure. Now, those people have abandonned VB altogether and moved on to PHP, whose greatest strengths and weaknesses are its ease of use and gradual learning curve.
More to the point, why should we bother use VB in Linux? It's main advantage was that it integrated almost seamlessly with Windows (it was very easy to create forms, dialog boxes, and even Word and Excell documents), which is clearly useless in Linux. And there are already so many languages in Linux that integrate with it so much better (Python, Perl, or even C#) that I doubt anyone would want to use VB.
Slashdot Mirror
In most other cases, especially when we leave the area of ethics, the average voter is not adequately equipped to decide which policies should be implemented. The most he can say is what outcome he favors. If you simply ask people whether rent control laws ought to be enacted, it is likely that they will answer affirmatively. After all, who wouldn't want housing to be more affordable? Yet, most economists would argue that rent control is bad, because although it makes housing cheaper for some, it also creates shortages and negatively affects the quality of housing. If people were asked whether they wanted cheap housing, but shortages and lower quality apartments, or more expensive (but plentiful and high quality) apartments, it is not clear that they would favor rent control laws as much.
The key: ask people what outcomes they favor, and leave the process to experts.
a national regulatory authority may issue guidelines setting minimum quality of service requirements
. Nothing strange about it, it might even allow regulatory agencies to mandate ISPs to advertise more truthfully.
if appropriate, take other measures, in order to prevent degradation of services and slowing of traffic over networks,
Traffic shaping is not necessarily bad. Why should I have to wait 5+ seconds for a webpage to load just because the guy next door is downloading 24/7?
and to ensure that the ability of users to access or distribute lawful content or to run lawful applications and services of their choice is not unreasonably restricted.
This is where there can be disagreement on what this amendment is trying to accomplish. On the one hand, it might be used to restrict P2P sharing. This is La Quadrature's interpretation. On the other hand, however, this passage can also be construed as protecting our right to use our internet connection as we see fit, provided we are not engaging in illegal activities. For instance, should ISPs block or throttle all P2P traffic, a user might file a complaint with the regulatory authorities, which could judge that, since it unreasonably restricts the ability of users to access lawful content, such a measure is illegal.
Their analysis of Article 21 (4a) is not much more accurate. What is says is that, "when appropriate", ISPs may be forced to send "public interest information" to subscribers. The inclusions of
(c) means of protection against risks to personal security, privacy and personal data in using electronic communications services
argues against La Quadrature's (confused and barely understandable) analysis that this article refers to mandatory takedown notices. A more charitable -- and plain -- reading suggests that ISPs would be required to send a brochure to their customers to tell them that copyright infrigement in really bad. This is why both existing and new subscribers (who, obviously, haven't downloaded anything illegal yet), are mentioned. In all likelihood, the only thing this amendment will accomplish is that all subscribers will get a leaflet that explains why they should install a firewall and an anti-virus program.
It's FUD, pure and simple. Most of the arguments on La Quadrature's pages are either non sequiturs or slippery slope arguments ("may" does not equal "shall").
Why exactly would we want to fund (read 'have to pay taxes for') a "Library of humanity". How many people are interested in traveling hundreds of miles to see an old book whose contents they cannot even understand?
Time shifting is not a right, it's a defense. It means that you cannot be found guilty of copyright infringement if you time-shift some TV shows. However, it does *NOT* mean that networks cannot implement measures, such as the Broadcast Flag, that prevent you from time-shifting. The law does not require copyright holders to allow users to exercise their fair use `privileges', it simply says that fair use is not copyright infringement.
A EULA need not be a shrink-wrap contract. If you are shown the EULA before you download the software, it's not invalid. It may also be valid if you have the option to send the software back to the publisher for a full refund (cf ProCD v. Zeidenberg). So-called "clickwrap" licenses are also okay in many cases.
Those analogies are usually unhelpful. Bricklayers don't need to be paid by everyone who visits the house because a) they have never been granted ownership of any part of the house b) they agreed to be paid a finite sum of money upon completion of the job.
However, if I *own* the house, I am entitled to charge everyone who wants to visit it.
What I profoundly dislike about anti-copyright activists is their desire to force their views upon everyone else. At present, nothing prevents artists from doing what you have suggested above. It's up to the artists to decide whether they want to charge everyone who listens to what they have created, or simply want to give their work away for free.
You should never forget that copyright has tremendous benefits and, in many cases, protects the "little man" too. Do you think that a struggling artist would be happy to learn that a big-name band has "stolen" one of his songs, but he has no recourse against them?
I personally think that there is value in what was written 20 years ago! I enjoy listening to the artist's performance, and I believe that he should be compensated for his work. Do you think that all artists are immediately catapulted to stardom and have a fan-base that is large enough to make your proposal practicable? It might work, but only for well-known artists or bands.
Copyright is quite different. First, you need to think about how you know how much someone's work is worth. It's clear that it doesn't have much to do with the time they work: even if a lawyer and a janitor both work an hour, they won't get paid the same amount of money. In the case of literary or musical works, the only way to tell how much an artist's work is worth is to see how well it will sell/be downloaded.
Copyight is, on the whole, beneficial. It ensures, for instance, that all artists will be fairly compensated for what they have created. If you think that contemporary artists are all sell-outs who care about nothing but money, rest assured that the "good old days" were not any better. The only difference was that it was not the market, but powerful, wealthy patrons, who got to decide what music/books would be published.
Additionally, if you're currently benefiting from what an artist did ten years ago, for instance by listening to a song he performed, why would it be unfair for him to be compensated for it?
No true. I'd say that the RCC is the exception, not the rule here. If I remember correctly, there is no eccleasiastical hierarchy in Islam, which already accounts for about 1.5 billion people. There is no formal hierarchy in Judaism either, and many Protestant denominations are also made up of autonomous local congregations that associate on a voluntary basis (e.g. the SBC in the US). Even those denominations that are more organized do not usually have a "central point of authority" as the Pope to Roman Catholics.
The problem is that it would be a mistake to compare the average atheist and the average believer and assume that it gives you a reliable indication of the validity of those belief systems. `Dumb' people might be more easily convinced, but it is hardly newsworthy. What needs to be done is a comparasion between the best case that can be made in favor of theism (think Craig or Swinburne), and the best case in favor of atheism.
In Western Europe, 90% of people are atheists. Not because they are somehow smarter, but because they have been exposed to nothing but atheism. Every time I meet a professed atheist, I am appalled at the lack of sophistication of their arguments. This is also a factor that must be taken into account: high IQ does not mean being knowledgeable about religion or philosophy. If your rejection of theism is based on God not being able to create a stone too heavy for Him to lift, it doesn't matter if you have high IQ, it's still a dumb objection.
By your logic, someone who has been an atheist since 2nd grade when he threw a fit because he couldn't understand why God would let his dog die, and who doesn't know Leibniz from Anselm of Canterbury would somehow have better critical thinking skills than a theist who actually bothered to examine the evidence.
I also suggest that you stop using all those flawed scientific theories that theists surreptitiously introduced into science. No more calculus (Leibniz and Newton) for instance -- are you sure you still want to be an "ObsessiveMathsFreak"?
We should follow you for a whole day and see if you practice what you preach. I hope, for your sake and that of your loved ones, that you don't.
To sum it up, you're the worst kind of atheist: the arrogant one who thinks that he's so smart that he knows everything, but usually ends up making an utter fool of himself when he encounters a knowledgeable theist. Scientists are good at what they do, i.e. science. When it comes to philosophy (even philosophy of science), theology, or history, they don't fare much better than the average person, and might even do worse, since they tend to transfer, as you did, their attitudes to areas where they are irrelevant. If you don't understand why science cannot tell you whether, say, a resurrection is possible or not, then you're a hopeless case and, were I to evaluate *your* job application, I'd propably put you at the bottow of the stack. Who would want an obnoxious self-proclaimed "skeptic" telling everyone how irrational they are because they don't happen to subscribe to his scientism? "Skepticism" and scientism, with the close-mindedness that usually accompanies it, are not one and the same.
You mean like that famous über-Republican Bill Clinton in 1998? Or Kennedy with the war in Vietnam? Yeah, Democrats are *really* better!
You seem to assume that, since you cannot access those articles, nobody else can. I'm sorry to disappoint you but when I go on Google Scholar, I have access to 90% of the articles I can find, and so do many other people. The two key words are *library* and *institutions*. 15 years ago, needed a library card, today you need access to their intranet. 15 years ago, you went to the library to photocopy articles, today you go there and download PDFs.
This article confuses being smart with being culture, which are two widely different things. Knowing lots of trivia about Shakespeare and Milton means you're cultivated (not smart). Knowing a lot about, say, nanotechs (as in: you're making valuable contributions to the field) means you're intelligent/competent in your field of expertise, but doesn't mean that you're cultivated. We can certainly lament that many Americans don't know much about history or geography, but it doesn't follow that they're less intelligent.
I also dislike how she labels everyone who disagrees with her an `anti-rationalist'. There is nothing irrational or anti-rational about claiming that the average American doesn't need to know foreign languages. Why would not knowing a foreign language be `a manifestation of ignorance'? Sure, if you're a businessman, a diplomat or a show-off, being multilingual is beneficial. If you're a mechanic, a bank teller or a steel-mill worker, I don't see the point.
Yes it should, if it can be established that a reasonable person would have thought that the watch was counterfeit (i.e. `replica' in the title of the auction, suspiciously low price,etc.), they should be prosecuted. This is no different from `possession of stolen goods' or `handling' in the UK: you cannot simply claim that you had absolutely no knowledge that the goods were stolen if it would have been obvious to a reasonable person that they could not be legitimate. The same rule could easily be applied to copyright infringement: nobody will ever prosecute you because someone posted an infringing picture on his website. However, if you download songs and movies from other users using P2P software, it is almost certainly copyright infringement.
It won't work: PETC (People for the Ethical Treatment of Computers) will argue that a cognizant computer cannot be turned off, and people like Peter Singer will back them up.
I concur. The problem with piracy is not that works are copied, but that they are without the author's permission. It is really rooted in a false sense of entitlement, the idea that there is a "right" to read/listen to a particular work, regardless of what the author's views on the matter are. I, for one, remain convinced that someone who spends countless days working on something deserves to be compensated for his labor *if he so chooses*. I have no right to demand that he give it away for free or cheaper than he intends. I do, however, have to ability not to buy said work, thereby expressing my discontent, and, if enough potential customers do likewise, prices will go down.
"UN observers won't certify them". UN observers are usually sent to third-world nations and "flawed democracy", not countries like the US or any other Western country for the matter. So, as a matter of mact, UN observers won't certify US elections because nobody asked them to, not because they were there and refused to do it in light of widespread fraud, as your message implied.
Well, considering that God never promised that Christians would be healed, that he's not a circus animal, that it's basically impossible to make sure that only 'genuine' Christians are part of the experimental group (how to you *know* if someone is sincere or not? Maybe he's just a hypocrite and not a Christian a all). There are so many confounding variables that it's impossible to conduct such a statistical analysis and have it yield valuable results.
While I'm at it, most studies on intercessory prayer are also deeply flawed for the exact same reasons. How do you control for variables such as sincerity of belief, God's sovereign will, the non-mechanistic nature of prayer,etc.?
The problem is that it confuses the reasons why someone might believe in God and the consequences of this belief. This 'God-of-the-gaps' way of looking at the world is a consequence of believing that there is a God in the first place, which is or isn't reasonable depending on why you have formed this particular belief. For instance, if you are an apostle and have seen the resurrected Jesus (or think you have), it is in my opinion perfectly reasonable to believe that God exists, regardless of what you think about God's role in causing the rain to fall (none/sometimes/always).
Another problem is that most pieces of evidence cannot be neatly put in one basket or the other, since most what you would move from the God basket to the science basket shouldn't have been in the former at all. Saying 'I don't know why this happened, therefore God did it' is foolish and unreasonable. Unless you have good reasons to attribute an event to God's intervention, don't do it.
Unlike what the basket analogy suggests, knowledge is not a zero-sum game in which you simply move eggs from one basket to another. Some scientific discoveries have absolutely no bearing on whether God exists or not (and therefore do not count as evidence that God does not exist), and many arguments in favor of God's existence have nothing to do with science per se (i.e. even if they were discarded, they would not be added to science's basket). Similarly, you cannot assume that all 'eggs' are equal: some scientific theories might make the existence of God less probable, but be dwarfed by the overwhelming evidence that he exists that other theories or arguments provide.
If you are looking for things which have indeed been moved from the 'science' basket to the 'God' one, I'd suggest learning more about the archeological discoveries that vindicated Luke's writings against what skeptical scholars believed had been established beyond a reasonable doubt. As for examples in the hard sciences, I have no idea but, quite frankly, I don't see why we would need to find such things happening. You just have to understand that most of the things that were put in the 'science' basket did not disprove religion in any way because it did not affect any of its tenets.
In addition, you're confused as to what the laws of science really are. They are descriptive and not prescriptive. By definition, a miracle *is* a departure from the way the world usually works (but not a violation of the laws of nature, which describe how the world works in the absence of any supernatural intervention). but frankly I think most aethiests are more moral than most religious folk Define 'moral' and, if you think morality is absolute (which apparently you do ), explain to me how science studies it and where moral values come from.
Maybe you should pick up a dictionary or a thesaurus and learn that, lo and behold, you don't have to use the F-word every two sentences to get your point across. It just makes you sound like a 15-year old kid who's never bothered to pick up a social-science book but think he can reduce something as complex as the concept of 'honor' to merely 'being willing to kill/die/commit atrocities for your king'. Less ethnocentrism and more scholarship is what we need.
A person's honor, in the Ancient world, was his worth, his value both in his eyes and in the eyes of his community. No honor = you're a nobody, a loser, you might just as well keel over and die since you're worthless. Because most of these cultures were also collectivist cultures, remaining 'honorable' might have required you to do what the community/king asked of you. But you cannot simple conflate these two things and claim that honor is *really* nothing but blind obedience.
I have a problem with Privacy International's Index. How credible is it when the UK and China are both described as "endemic surveillance societies"? Hello: one is a democracy, the other a totalitarian state where people get jailed for their beliefs and voicing their political opinions too openly. Is there a "great Hadrian Firewall" in England? I don't think so.
The major flaw in their study is that they seem to focus on one very limited aspect of "privacy", i.e. wiretapping,etc. What they should also take into account is whether there are clear rules governing admissibility of those materials in court. After all, if the government can listen to what you say or watch what you do but cannot use it in court, why should you be too worried?
And don't forget that most European countries are now restricting freedom of speech in unacceptable ways. Take a look at this EU directive: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=216962. Someone who criticizes Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other religion might be charged under this statute, since it might be argued that he is inciting hatred against members of this religion.
All in all, I think the US is still 'freer' than most countries in Europe: can you be a holocaust denier in Europe? Can you reveal a politician's dirty secrets without being charged for slander or libel (in many European countries, if it is a 'private matter', you're not even allowed to prove in court that what you wrote or said is true).
I suppose one could argue that you are responsible for what you do *AND* let other people do with your connection. It's either that, or any person who wants to trade child porn or any illegal material only has to leave his wireless network open to be able to claim that it wasn't him but a random person using Wifi. In this particular case, it is unreasonable to ask the state or the plaintiff to show that it was you who downloaded/uploaded illegal things, since there is absolutely no way they could make such a case. At the very least, you should have to produce reliable logs showing that a third-party was logged on your network at the time the infringing material was downloaded. If someone claims it's not him despite convincing evidence (i.e. that his connection was used), *he* has to prove it.
There are quite a few faulty assumptions regarding human rights and whether animals should have them:
first, there seems to be a confusion between what it means to be a human being as opposed to animal (as a general rule), and what makes humans valuable. It is not because humans can laugh, think, etc. that they are valuable. Else, as soon as you are sedated, you'd stop being human because you wouldn't have those characteristics anymore. Humans are intrinsically valuable (their rights come from natural law), and an animal can never be biologically human.
Second, it is always quite dangerous to start defining what you 'need' to be a human being. Think about slavery, most genocides,etc. What happened is that some people decided to use arbitrarily defined criteria to strip people from their human status. Who says the criteria animal rights activists use are correct?
Third, why do they believe that chimps should have the same rights as humans. It is as logical to say that human beings should have the same rights chimps enjoy presently (i.e. none). The very idea of human rights is based on the premise that there is something intrinsically valuable in human beings, regardless of their mental capacities or physical abilities.
I remember a time when VB was what every aspiring coder used, thinking (erroneously if you ask me) that it'd help them learn how to program. They all wrote little, yet buggy, apps that mostly worked but were coded without any talent and probably very insecure. Now, those people have abandonned VB altogether and moved on to PHP, whose greatest strengths and weaknesses are its ease of use and gradual learning curve.
More to the point, why should we bother use VB in Linux? It's main advantage was that it integrated almost seamlessly with Windows (it was very easy to create forms, dialog boxes, and even Word and Excell documents), which is clearly useless in Linux. And there are already so many languages in Linux that integrate with it so much better (Python, Perl, or even C#) that I doubt anyone would want to use VB.