any other apologist for any organization that has anything like "excommunication".
Bizarre comparison. "Excommmunication" simply means "everyone take note: this person is not inside the Church". Church members routinely read books written by excommunicated persons, and of course talk to them.
The Catholic Church is a teaching organization. The Catholic Church excommunicating a priest who starts to promote abortion is analogous to (hypothetically) Greenpeace firing its spokesperson because he started promoting mass deforestation. And I am sure Greenpeace would do this without thinking twice.
I'll just pose the question: Do you really think a US presidential candidate could claim to be anything but Christian and still win the election?
Except you omitted a critical information - this goes the other way around too. Look at the attacks against Santorum because he read verboten books written by Josemaria Escrivá.
Prejudice and closed-mindedness are human traits. The anti-theists (also called "neoatheists") simply put every bad action in history in two big lists: 1) Evil among members of big traditional religions 2) Evil from anywhere else.
Then they omit list number 2, and present list 1 in isolation as evidence that "religion is evil".
Oh, by the way: neoatheists who say that "religion is evil", but then scream of human rights violations because someone said "atheism is bad" are enormously inconsistent to say the least.
Sounds like they're doing it wrong. You want the followers of your religion to raise kids, as many as possible. First of all, because they'll also tithe when they grow up. And second, because they will vote.
At least, that's what Christians do in my country. And, sadly, it's working.
How would that work? These children would only start tithing and voting by age 18, when you (the priest/pastor) would be dead or retired. So you would not benefit.
Also, Christianity says that *everyone* should be generous in child-rearing, not just Christians. If Christians were only trying to grow themselves, they wouldn't try to legally restrict abortion. They would just prohibit abortion among their members.
But then again, I am probably responding to another Dawkins parrot.
It's pretty obvious when someone is using a wheel or fire.
But the wheel and the fire share the fundamental danger that people see in GMOs: they are a "pandora box", and "unforeseen consequences" could happen because of the "butterfly effect". People are afraid of what would happen if "artificial genes mix with the natural ecosystem". Well, I say: what would happen to a small tribe if it invents the wheel? The effects are unpredictable. It could - for one example - set in motion a chain of events that ultimately results in an industrial revolution, then the invention of atom bombs, then a nuclear catastrophe. In fact, the impact of inventing the wheel is _immensely_ greater than the impact of using GMOs. In fact, if you are so scared of the butterfly effect, there is only one solution: advocate mass suicide, then set an example by killing yourself.
Their benefits are obvious.
The benefits of GMOs are obvious too: 1) Making plants that produce far more 2) Making plants that produce in soil and climate conditions where it was previously impossible 3) Making more nutritious plants (such as vitamin-enriched rice) 4) Making disease-resistant plants 5) etc.
You have presented a fallacy of your own. It is not "Monsanto or organic". If you hate Monsanto, then you should try to get their patents revoked, not to ban GMOs.
Banning GMOs because you hate Monsanto is like banning computers because you hate Microsoft.
Here's a thought, reduce population growth instead.
This "original thought" exists at least since 1798 (when Malthus published his bullshit). And the elites have bought it. Anyway, I don't think it is wise the castrate humanity's flourishing because some Luddites are scared of GMOs.
Sure. You can always take an extreme position to prove your point. Who can argue against that?
The GP does make an excellent point. The domestication of animals, the invention of agriculture, the discovery of the wheel and of planned fire have made an _immensely_ greater impact on the ecosystem than GMOs. If you were there when the first man decided to make fire on purpose, would you scourge him?
The GP definitely makes a good point. Just like "haunted food must be labeled", forcing GMO labels would 1) Add costs - a farmer would have to cerfity his crop to be "natural" and that no GM pollen has fertilized his plants by accident. 2) Create unnecessary fear - "if the government mandates this stuff to be labeled, it must be dangerous" 3) Be motivated by unreasonable fear - in this case, "everything must be natural" Luddism
Its also funny to note that install base of Ubuntu has taken a nose dive in the last year(two?). with mint taking up the slack.
You say this based on what? Out of all my colleagues using Linux, one uses Debian, one uses Fedora, and all the rest use Ubuntu. What makes you think Ubuntu's install base has "taken a nose dive"? Distrowatch click rates? Those are just interesting numbers, with poor correlation with actual install base.
Okay, then "marriage is between one man and one woman" based on what? If you say the Bible, you're not only wrong, you're injecting your beliefs into law.
Based on moral philosophy. Also, even if we have religion-based opinions on law, it does not remotely mean that we are "forcing our religion on others". By your logic, whenever a DEM politican makes a law enforcing an environmental rule, he is "forcing environmental progressivism on others". We have the same right to make judgements based on religion that other people have to make judgements based on progressivism, feminism, etc.
Good for you, not for gays. Just for you, not for gays. You should really practice the Golden Rule and visit someplace where you're denied your rights to see what oppression feels like.
You unilaterally decreed that "redefining marriage" is a human right. If you support that false "human right" for homosexuals but not for the practicers of incest or group marriage, then you are enormously inconsistent.
> "Like I said, I don't have time to pursue this, but rest assured I will fight tooth and nail against people like you who think government is a tool for enforcing your religious beliefs on everyone."
This was simply an empty ad hominem attack. No one is forcing other people in America to follow a religion they don't want.
> "Marriage as a civil institution crosses religious boundaries and you are on the losing side of history."
Ridiculous. I don't care one bit about the "losing side of history". I fight for what is good and just, instead of cheerleading for whatever is popular and politically correct.
Will you please stop ad hominem attacks and actually respect logic?
I repeat: equating normal couples with same-sex pairs because the normal couple MAY practice buggery is like equating cow meat with poison because the meat MAY be poisonous.
Another example: by your logic, we should allow children to have driver licenses, because some adults MAY behave like children.
> "When you deny someone something that would make them happy, and doesn't affect your life at all" Wrong premise. See below.
> "for no reason except that you don't want them to have it for your own personal religious reasons" It is not just about religion. It is also about natural law.
> "then yes, you are. It's disgustingly selfish." Oh, the people who lost their jobs in California to defend traditional marriage are "selfish"?
> "There is incest and group marriage in the bible. At some point, someone (in "your tradition") decided to "redefine" marriage at least before."
Can you possibly be serious? The bible also features a man killing his brother, yet no one says that the Bible supports fratricide. Please learn the difference between "describe" and "command".
> "There is absolutely no evidence that same-sex marriages are any more or less damaging to "society" than opposite-sex ones" It gives tax benefits without any good reason; therefore it makes other people pay more taxes. It forces people (health insurance companies, bead&breakfast owners, etc.) to recognize the "marriage" and have their sheets stained with blood and feces (in the case of the bed&breakfast owners). It promotes a behavior which is intrinsically disordered and is associated with mental problems and lower life expectancy. It forces orphanages to give children to same-sex pairs.
> I don't have time to pursue the finer points of this argument, but I strongly recommend you read this book [archive.org]
Absolutely irrelevant. Very few people defend punishing people who practice buggery. It is _precisely the opposite_. We are simply asking the State to refrain from forcing same-sex "marriage" on us (see above).
> "This might come as a shock to you, but straight couples have anal sex too"
Because SOME straight couples do this thing, we should equante straight couples with same-sex pairs? By that logic, we should equate cow meat with poison, because SOME meat may be poisonous (if it is rotten, for example).
> "Why don't you actually "defend" marriage against its real threat: divorce? Jesus had a lot more to say against divorce than he did against homosexuality,"
Because divorce was imensely more common among Jews than homosexualism. By your logic, nuclear bombings are perfectly Christian, because Jesus said nothing about nuclear weapons.
I won't respond to everything because you are trying to perform a "war of attrition". I will respond to only two.
* Your tradition is more important than someone else's right to pursuit of happiness
No one is denying other people the right to pursue happiness. If redefining marriage was the "right to pursue happiness", then it would also apply to incestuous copules, to group marriage, etc.
* It's any of your business who marries anyone but you
Ridiculously wrong. Marriage has plently of legal cosnequences on society - tax benefits, forcing health insurance companies to treat the spouses as a family, allowing the spouses to adopt children together (and forcing orphanages to cooperate with it), etc. It also gives a state stamp of approval to the marriage. For this reason, we prohibit unhealthy and unnatural "marriages" such as group marriage, incestuous "marriage", bestiality and same-sex "marriage".
Forcing phtographers to take pictures of same-sex weddings. Forcing elderly berad&breakfest owners to allow two men have buggery on their own house (making them wash sheets with blood and feces). Making churches that rent their property for weddings accept same-sex weddings. Making traditional marriage supporters lose their jobs (see for example the infamous persecution in California).
Funny that a social "liberal" often defends forcing people to cooperate with things they don't want to. See FOCA, see authoritarian "anti-discrimination" laws that force people to cooperate with same-sex weddings.
That's not me saying it, that's Robert H. Jackson - US Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice, and chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and the quote is from one of his cases in the mid-40's. So the "modern" politicians have been around for nearly 100 years.
Or maybe he used the expression in a different sense than that of modern aggressive secularist politicians.
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.
Makes sense.
One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
Why do you still use the very limited concept of "freedom of worship"? Freedom of religion goes much farther then "freedom of worship". Freedom of religion means freedom of worship, _plus_ the right to express one's religious ideas in public, to proselitize, to change religion, to act according to one's religion/conscience (such as allowing conscientious objectors to refuse to kill, and allowing pro-life doctors to refuse to cooperate with abortion) as long as it does not gravely harm the common good (child sacrifices, honor killings, stonings, etc.).
The 1st Amendment says "free exercise of religion". Those modern politicians who promote the concept of "freedom of worship" are atempting to deconstruct the religious liberty protected by the 1st amendment. This is extremely dangerous and evil.
Steve Jobs was a seriously overrated salesman. If you want to admire computer people, then admire people who advanced the state of the art, such as John Bardeen/William Shockley/Walter Houser Brattain, John von Neumann, Alan Turing, Alonzo Church, Edsger W. Dijkstra, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie. Maybe Linus Torvalds.
Slashdot Mirror
Bizarre comparison. "Excommmunication" simply means "everyone take note: this person is not inside the Church". Church members routinely read books written by excommunicated persons, and of course talk to them.
The Catholic Church is a teaching organization. The Catholic Church excommunicating a priest who starts to promote abortion is analogous to (hypothetically) Greenpeace firing its spokesperson because he started promoting mass deforestation. And I am sure Greenpeace would do this without thinking twice.
Except you omitted a critical information - this goes the other way around too. Look at the attacks against Santorum because he read verboten books written by Josemaria Escrivá.
Prejudice and closed-mindedness are human traits. The anti-theists (also called "neoatheists") simply put every bad action in history in two big lists:
1) Evil among members of big traditional religions
2) Evil from anywhere else.
Then they omit list number 2, and present list 1 in isolation as evidence that "religion is evil".
Oh, by the way: neoatheists who say that "religion is evil", but then scream of human rights violations because someone said "atheism is bad" are enormously inconsistent to say the least.
How would that work? These children would only start tithing and voting by age 18, when you (the priest/pastor) would be dead or retired.
So you would not benefit.
Also, Christianity says that *everyone* should be generous in child-rearing, not just Christians.
If Christians were only trying to grow themselves, they wouldn't try to legally restrict abortion. They would just prohibit abortion among their members.
But then again, I am probably responding to another Dawkins parrot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_the_release_of_genetic_modified_organisms
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_the_release_of_genetic_modified_organisms#North_America
It seems they are tested.
But the wheel and the fire share the fundamental danger that people see in GMOs: they are a "pandora box", and "unforeseen consequences" could happen because of the "butterfly effect". People are afraid of what would happen if "artificial genes mix with the natural ecosystem". Well, I say: what would happen to a small tribe if it invents the wheel? The effects are unpredictable. It could - for one example - set in motion a chain of events that ultimately results in an industrial revolution, then the invention of atom bombs, then a nuclear catastrophe. In fact, the impact of inventing the wheel is _immensely_ greater than the impact of using GMOs.
In fact, if you are so scared of the butterfly effect, there is only one solution: advocate mass suicide, then set an example by killing yourself.
The benefits of GMOs are obvious too:
1) Making plants that produce far more
2) Making plants that produce in soil and climate conditions where it was previously impossible
3) Making more nutritious plants (such as vitamin-enriched rice)
4) Making disease-resistant plants
5) etc.
The sky is the limit.
You have presented a fallacy of your own. It is not "Monsanto or organic". If you hate Monsanto, then you should try to get their patents revoked, not to ban GMOs.
Banning GMOs because you hate Monsanto is like banning computers because you hate Microsoft.
This "original thought" exists at least since 1798 (when Malthus published his bullshit). And the elites have bought it.
Anyway, I don't think it is wise the castrate humanity's flourishing because some Luddites are scared of GMOs.
Oh, and vaccines. If you believe in this "butterfly effect" phobia, then you should absolutely freak out at the idea of mass vaccination.
The GP does make an excellent point. The domestication of animals, the invention of agriculture, the discovery of the wheel and of planned fire have made an _immensely_ greater impact on the ecosystem than GMOs. If you were there when the first man decided to make fire on purpose, would you scourge him?
Fear. You mean like asbestos? Cigarettes? Global warming?
No. Like "it is not natural so it must be EVIL!". You know, like those wackos who take herbs instead of industrialized pills.
Developed countries demand testing and research before a GMO can be sold as food.
The GP definitely makes a good point. Just like "haunted food must be labeled", forcing GMO labels would
1) Add costs - a farmer would have to cerfity his crop to be "natural" and that no GM pollen has fertilized his plants by accident.
2) Create unnecessary fear - "if the government mandates this stuff to be labeled, it must be dangerous"
3) Be motivated by unreasonable fear - in this case, "everything must be natural" Luddism
These new online Ubunt ufeatures don't help me, but they do not harm me either.
I wish Ubuntu success. I am a loyal fan.
You say this based on what?
Out of all my colleagues using Linux, one uses Debian, one uses Fedora, and all the rest use Ubuntu.
What makes you think Ubuntu's install base has "taken a nose dive"? Distrowatch click rates? Those are just interesting numbers, with poor correlation with actual install base.
Based on moral philosophy.
Also, even if we have religion-based opinions on law, it does not remotely mean that we are "forcing our religion on others". By your logic, whenever a DEM politican makes a law enforcing an environmental rule, he is "forcing environmental progressivism on others". We have the same right to make judgements based on religion that other people have to make judgements based on progressivism, feminism, etc.
You unilaterally decreed that "redefining marriage" is a human right.
If you support that false "human right" for homosexuals but not for the practicers of incest or group marriage, then you are enormously inconsistent.
> "Like I said, I don't have time to pursue this, but rest assured I will fight tooth and nail against people like you who think government is a tool for enforcing your religious beliefs on everyone."
This was simply an empty ad hominem attack. No one is forcing other people in America to follow a religion they don't want.
> "Marriage as a civil institution crosses religious boundaries and you are on the losing side of history."
Ridiculous. I don't care one bit about the "losing side of history". I fight for what is good and just, instead of cheerleading for whatever is popular and politically correct.
So the best you got is ad hominem, sarcasm, and no logical arguments?
Will you please stop ad hominem attacks and actually respect logic?
I repeat: equating normal couples with same-sex pairs because the normal couple MAY practice buggery is like equating cow meat with poison because the meat MAY be poisonous.
Another example: by your logic, we should allow children to have driver licenses, because some adults MAY behave like children.
Etc, etc.
> "When you deny someone something that would make them happy, and doesn't affect your life at all"
Wrong premise. See below.
> "for no reason except that you don't want them to have it for your own personal religious reasons"
It is not just about religion. It is also about natural law.
> "then yes, you are. It's disgustingly selfish."
Oh, the people who lost their jobs in California to defend traditional marriage are "selfish"?
> "There is incest and group marriage in the bible. At some point, someone (in "your tradition") decided to "redefine" marriage at least before."
Can you possibly be serious? The bible also features a man killing his brother, yet no one says that the Bible supports fratricide. Please learn the difference between "describe" and "command".
> "There is absolutely no evidence that same-sex marriages are any more or less damaging to "society" than opposite-sex ones"
It gives tax benefits without any good reason; therefore it makes other people pay more taxes.
It forces people (health insurance companies, bead&breakfast owners, etc.) to recognize the "marriage" and have their sheets stained with blood and feces (in the case of the bed&breakfast owners).
It promotes a behavior which is intrinsically disordered and is associated with mental problems and lower life expectancy.
It forces orphanages to give children to same-sex pairs.
> I don't have time to pursue the finer points of this argument, but I strongly recommend you read this book [archive.org]
Absolutely irrelevant. Very few people defend punishing people who practice buggery. It is _precisely the opposite_. We are simply asking the State to refrain from forcing same-sex "marriage" on us (see above).
> "This might come as a shock to you, but straight couples have anal sex too"
Because SOME straight couples do this thing, we should equante straight couples with same-sex pairs? By that logic, we should equate cow meat with poison, because SOME meat may be poisonous (if it is rotten, for example).
> "Why don't you actually "defend" marriage against its real threat: divorce? Jesus had a lot more to say against divorce than he did against homosexuality,"
Because divorce was imensely more common among Jews than homosexualism. By your logic, nuclear bombings are perfectly Christian, because Jesus said nothing about nuclear weapons.
I won't respond to everything because you are trying to perform a "war of attrition". I will respond to only two.
No one is denying other people the right to pursue happiness. If redefining marriage was the "right to pursue happiness", then it would also apply to incestuous copules, to group marriage, etc.
Ridiculously wrong. Marriage has plently of legal cosnequences on society - tax benefits, forcing health insurance companies to treat the spouses as a family, allowing the spouses to adopt children together (and forcing orphanages to cooperate with it), etc. It also gives a state stamp of approval to the marriage. For this reason, we prohibit unhealthy and unnatural "marriages" such as group marriage, incestuous "marriage", bestiality and same-sex "marriage".
Forcing phtographers to take pictures of same-sex weddings.
Forcing elderly berad&breakfest owners to allow two men have buggery on their own house (making them wash sheets with blood and feces).
Making churches that rent their property for weddings accept same-sex weddings.
Making traditional marriage supporters lose their jobs (see for example the infamous persecution in California).
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/06/photographer-refuses-to-shoot-same-sex-thingy-bullying-ligation-ensues/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8283651/Second-BandB-owner-sued-for-turning-gay-couple-away.htmld
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge-rules-christian-facility-cannot-ban-same-sex-civil-union-ceremony-on
Funny that a social "liberal" often defends forcing people to cooperate with things they don't want to.
See FOCA, see authoritarian "anti-discrimination" laws that force people to cooperate with same-sex weddings.
What is loony about defending traditional marriage?
Or maybe he used the expression in a different sense than that of modern aggressive secularist politicians.
I honestly do not know him. Wikipedia does not help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jackson
Makes sense.
Why do you still use the very limited concept of "freedom of worship"? Freedom of religion goes much farther then "freedom of worship". Freedom of religion means freedom of worship, _plus_ the right to express one's religious ideas in public, to proselitize, to change religion, to act according to one's religion/conscience (such as allowing conscientious objectors to refuse to kill, and allowing pro-life doctors to refuse to cooperate with abortion) as long as it does not gravely harm the common good (child sacrifices, honor killings, stonings, etc.).
The 1st Amendment says "free exercise of religion". Those modern politicians who promote the concept of "freedom of worship" are atempting to deconstruct the religious liberty protected by the 1st amendment. This is extremely dangerous and evil.
Steve Jobs was a seriously overrated salesman.
If you want to admire computer people, then admire people who advanced the state of the art, such as John Bardeen/William Shockley/Walter Houser Brattain, John von Neumann, Alan Turing, Alonzo Church, Edsger W. Dijkstra, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie. Maybe Linus Torvalds.