To be fair, certain branches of Christianity have been long associated with democracy, Presbyterianism for example. I agree with you, though, that if you can't think critically, you can't effectively elect your government.
> Science has elevated man from being little better than particularly clever animals to being something that > can justifiably be said to have been made in God's image.
I would argue that it is our capability for moral action that shows we are made in God's image. For example, the invention of the atomic bomb shows that science, no matter however powerful, does not equal freedom. Instead, for fifty years we lived in fear annihilation by our own creation and by each other.
What you refer to as "Christian science" is, of course, well, wrong, I think by its own standard, and definitely by the scientist's. But science is not all powerful. It is only a tool that reflects the nature of those who use it, divine or otherwise.
Pure mathematics also cannot be be tested/falsified, and I think we both agree that it has a place in rational thought, so simply because something isn't testable/falsifiable in the same sense as, say, Newton's physics is not enough to exclude it from rational (a vague term of course) thought.
> one can hardly argue that it has been a positive thing for much other than keeping people from killing themselves > as a result of the hopelessness
Its hard to evaluate this because as long as there has been modern (anthropologically speaking) man, there has been religion. If you want to evaluate, say, Christanity, this is still difficult, because while people did terrible things in the name of Christ, they did equally terrible things before Christ. At the very least, if Christianity ultimately convinces people there is no God, this is a tremendous contribution to mankind, because if there is no God then the Egyptian Pharoah isn't God, Emporer Augustus isn't God, etc.
I have heard, though, that there are a significant number of fundamentalist Christians who do believe in a literal "Mark of the Beast". (Heck, the left behind series has a literal mark.) This issue could make some strange bedfellows, eh...
He seems to "simply" give some sort of relativistic version of the method we use to slingshot around planets for more speed. The bottom of the article makes reference to his equations "making it possible to test Einstien's equations at low cost in the laboratory." If indeed his equations can be tested easily, I suppose it could be very interesting. If its not easily testable, then, my guess is that its, well, less interesting.
Yes, that's true, from reading both our posts, we don't know whether his statement is true. That's why I said that as a matter of LOGIC his statement was flawed. Notice that I didn't say the point was necessarily false. However, if he makes the statement, I consider the burden of proof to be on him to back it up.
Can you imagine how this poor guy must feel? You try to publish some paper (I don't know how important it is), the popular press picks up on it and headlines it with "Professor challenges evolution." I for one know that if this happened to a friend of mine, I would tease them about it for YEARS.
My guess is they would agree with you that their results support this. However, (1) this doesn't disprove global warming at all, and (2) this is a pretty boring conclusion to draw.
I guess it all depends on what sort of time scale you live in. Coral reefs take thousands of years to grow. Similarly, I suspect it is difficult to imagine what other sorts of terrible TEMPORARY problems rapid temperature change would cause (rising coastlines from the ice caps, messed up ocean currents, etc.) In the long run, it might fix itself, but, as I believe John Maynard Keyes said, in the long run we are all dead.
While I haven't read "State of Fear", I read a speech by Michael Crichton on this. It did not particularly impress me. First, he claimed that man-made disasters are never as bad as people fear (I guess he doesn't consider wars to be man-made disasters, fine.) Then, he talked about how some of our species conservation issues were originally handled poorly. Then he said that oil put out less C02 than coal and wood. Finally, he seemed to say something along the lines of "atmosphere, complex system, what can we do, why worry..." Almost like all this would be like the end of "Andromeda Strain", where the problem in the complex system fixes itself, so we shouldn't have to worry anyway. I didn't see anything in there that remotely addressed that we are significantly affecting our atmosphere with CO2. Yes, maybe we don't completely understand whether we will end up in another ice age (I think he also referenced that fear from the 70's) or in a desert, and maybe by the grace of God we will be OK, but I don't see how that is any reason not to aggressively reduce our dependence on oil (domestic and foreign), and not replace it with coal. Also, its not like he has any credentials to talk about this stuff. He is a science fiction write who, I believe, did a year or two of med school.
> And again, unless we can figure out how to throw as much pollution into the air EVERY DAY as Krakatoa did, then we > don't have much of a chance of creating global warming.
The earth also naturally absorbs the chemicals that you are talking about. Assuming that the earth's balance of these things remains roughly the same, at least on time scales that we care about, then the question is rather (1) how much of this extra pollution can the earth absorb,and (2) how sensitive is the environment the extra pollutant that is not absorbed. So as a matter of logic, your argument is false, and you also present no scientific data to back it up.
The issue is that we are dumping enough CO2 into the air to significantly affect our atmosphere. As I understand it, whether this will result in, say, a net increase or decrease in temperature is still not completely clear (which is of course a ridiculous oversimplification of all the bad things that could happen)m nor is whether the change in our atmosphere is a significant cause of the current rises in temperature. It is this uncertainty that, eg, the Bush administration loves to latch on to. There is, however, consensus that we are significantly affecting our atmosphere. We just need to come up with a buzz word for that as cool (hot?) as "Global Warming."
you are all missing the best part of the web site
on
No Time Travel, Sorry
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· Score: 2, Interesting
(S)He writes: "I started working on Animal (around 1995; see history) years before I formulated my biblical hypothesis. As I get more and more confident about the accuracy of my interpretation of the biblical metaphors, I will incorporate my findings into it. I hope to have it learn the game of chess on its own, including the rules of play. If my hypothesis is correct, there is no limit to how competent the program can be at playing chess. "
Do I really need to give a context?;-) (I hope I don't somehow offend any Christians out there- I've never heard of a denomination that believe's Jesus' real message was how to win at chess...)
What is "in plain view" changes. An extreme example would be if the government invented some device that could look through walls. What was not in "plain view" is now "in plain view." I don't know what the legal arguments would be in such a case, but I know that in practice, if the government didn't have to get search warrants to use this new technology, it would have far more power than I trust it with. This data mining is potentially the same situation. Much like any sort of device to look through walls might somehow amplify and organize the microscopic light escaping the walls of your house in such a way it communicates fundamentally new and novel information, so this data mining appears to be designed to organize and amplify bits of information all over the country to also create fundamentally novel information. I could imagine the government having more power to know and potentially control peoples habits and opinions than I trust it to have. Power tends to corrupt, so we must be very careful whenever giving our government more of it. As for whether this violates some sort of constitutional "right to privacy"- that is a matter of law, and since right to privacy seems more subtle and complicated than something like freedom of speech, my guess is that it takes a constitutional lawyer, or maybe even the Supreme Court Justices, to know. Frankly, I don't really care whether this one principle of law applies nearly so much as I care about whether it will be used to force some sort of oversight on my government.
What really scares the hell out of me with all this is how little discussion there seems to be. A priori, I don't think you can say something like this is bad, but I don't think you an say it is good either. However, I certainly don't trust any one man (including, err especially actually, Bush) to make this decision for us.
> Emails are (by default, anyway) sent in the clear so that anybody can sniff it. So, there is no invasion > of privacy, AFAIK. Don't complain about loss of privacy when you're not being private. Are phone calls private by your standard? Phone calls are not encrypted in any way, and I'm sure that it is very easy for the phone company to let the government listen in. But all the same, we don't let the government do this whenever it wants.
> Besides, what if the terrorist attack thwarted is the one directed at you and yourn? If the government > fails to detect an attack and people die, wouldn't you complain about the ineffectiveness of the government > and how they should have known? Wait, people did when 9-11 happened... It is not clear that this sort of information would significantly help the administration stop another terrorist attack. For example, the failure of 9-11 was not simply one of not having enough data. With hindsight, we can deduce from the evidence that an attack was imminent. I suppose what the problem was is quite controversial- lack of priority, organization, or imaginiation, perhaps- but it is not clear to me at least that this system would have helped.
> The issue is not that Evolution should not be taught in school.. it is that it should not be taught as a fact. > You can't prove it.
This is absolutely correct. Evolution cannot be proven. No scientific theory can be. When we say that evolution is "proven" (an unfortunate word choice) really we man that we have performed many scientific experiments that could have proved evolution false, but, in the judegments of experts in the same community that develops your vaccinations, antibiotics, etc., did not disprove evolution. This is a key insight of the scientific method.
Now science science as taught in grade school is often, as a practical matter, dogmatic. But science as a practical matter is dogmatic. I am guessing that you never read the many papers showing that your vaccinations and antibiotics work (I know I haven't), and if we did read them we probably would not understand them, not because we are stupid, but because it generally takes a specialist to be able to critically read a scientific study. I would guess that your doctor has never read the papers justifying most of your treatements, and even those he/she has read, he/she is probably not qualified to read them critically. Same for jet engines, computer CPU's, etc. But, clearly in some cases, and not so clearly in other cases, these work. The whole idea of peer review is that if you were an expert, you could judge these studies critically, but since you are not, you have to rely on those who are.
So the people who tell you that evolution is a valid (meaning not disproven) scientific theory are the same people peer reviewing these other things for you. They go to the same schools, take the same classes, switch disciplines in some cases.
So if we teach children to not trust the scientific community on evolution, how can we tell them to take, say, their tetanus shots when they turn 15, which hurt like heck. How can we expect them to trust physicists on the danger of high speed crashes? To me, this is the problem with teaching them that evolution is "just a theory." It teaches them to distrust the scientific community on issues of scientific truth, when really we should distrust the entire community on issues of scientific "application"(eg, new weapons, perhaps genetically engineered crops and stem cells, etc.)
>As far as your final points I've NEVER said that marriage is just for raising kids. The ONLY thing I'm saying is that it's that >aspect of marriage that causes the gov't to have a vested interest in marriage. For all I care - marriage is 90% about having sex >and 10% about making babies. But the gov't has no business offering people a license to have sex, so from the gov't point-of- >view marriage is about making babies.
I did misuderstand you, then. I also think this is an interesting statement, however. Doesn't the government also have a vested interest in monogamy, for public health reasons if for nothing else. As I understand it, this is major part of why prostitution was ultimately made illegal (most places.) What is more, the government definitely spends lots of money encouraging safe sex practice. No safe sex practice is safer than monogamy. And marriage definitely promotes monogamy (even with the 50% divorce rate.) There are also many laws which levy a financial penalty if a spouse breaks monogamy and the other sues for divorce, which shows that one aspect of marriage is to encourage monogamy. Finally, historically I do think that one purpose of marriage has been an idea that has evolved into our 21st century notion of "monogamy" and "fidelity", although throughout much of history I'm sure it would have been worded in much less, uh, womens-rights-friendly terms.
While I think that public health is the most concrete example of why it is in a sense in the government's interest to promote marriage of people regardless of whether they have children, because being in a family is good for general well being, and having society sanction that family in the form of a government issued marriage contract make that family seem more real, and indeed because of this makes the family more real. I don't know if you are married, but I know that for me, that has been my experience. So I think this is where those who talk about marriage being about a right to commit to each other, or however they want to word it, this is where they are coming from, and while it is perhaps a little bit of a stretch, I don't think it is much of one.
Hey, no lawyers allowed around here. Slashdot perfers its legal "opinions" one part layman's interpretation of technical law terms, one part good old fashion common sense, and sometimes a dash of case law (see, it sometimes goes very well with the other two ingredients), shaken, not stirred.
> The reasoning behind the gov't granting marriage licenses is to provide for families which will raise children. > However there is no way to tell which couples are going to be fertile and which ones aren't. Even if you did > take a medical test the fact is that infertility can be overcome by science. And I think the tests themselves > would be an unwelcome invasion of privacy.
I don't think the practical laws of marriage really conform with this description. For example, practially speaking (with maybe a one-in-a-billion, literally, exception) no women can have children after 65. The government already has your age. Yet we don't invalidate marriages of childless couples then. For that matter, many of the major advantages of marriage kick in AFTER your children have probably already grown up and "left the nest" so-to-speak. Near the end of your life, a major benefit is that your spouse gets automatic power-of-attorney. While I'm sure we could both devise some twisted line of reasoning to connect this with "a better family unit", I think this would be ad-hoc at best.
Also, historically, I don't think you can say that marriage was always around with the chief purpose of "raising better children." For example, I think that for the nobility in midievil europe had marriage primarily to have better adjusted children, I think it was secure orderly succession and prevent war. And I, at least, always got the sense that marriage in the Old Testatment was primarily about, well, men establishing ownership of their wives (thou shall not steal, thou shall not sleep with another man's wife, because, well, men don't like other men to take their stuff...)
Certainly family, including children, is integral to the historical concept of marriage, but I think that to say: 1) Marriage is only to help children raise families. History supports this. 2) Homosexuals won't raise families (of course you neglect adoption, but that is another issue.) Therefore, there is no reason to let them marry. 3) Infertile couples happen to be along for the ride as a practical necessity, but that doesn't mean we need to include gays.
oversimplifies at (1) because marriage has always had a whole host of purposes, some of which may apply to homosexuals.
>Compassion? Sure for those that turn from the sin. Compassion for those that know sin and continue in it and refuse the >truth of Gods word...never! Only the fires of hell await those that reject truth.
These are your words. We all know sin. We all continue in sin. Even those of us who hear the truth of God's words refuse it. It is the sinful nature of Man. This is one of Christianity's central messages. You would deny us all your or any one else's compassion. Perhaps this is not what you wanted to say, or wanted to think, but I think it is the central danger of the kind of attitude towards homosexuals (notice I did not write homosexuality) that you seem to preach.
> It doesn't say by Gods grace alone... Yes, I know. I'm Presbyterian, and have an inclination towards predistination (although I certainly don't feel like I have that figured out), so I wrote "By God's grace alone" when I should have written something like "By at least God's grace," but I think that my point remains correct. Perhaps you think homosexuals your prodigal brothers not yet returned home, but they are your brothers all the same.
>...when the message is passed and refused Christians are to separate themselves from those that chose sin over Gods > ways. That doesn't mean not to help someone in need. That doesn't mean not to care for a person but it does mean not to > be part of that person's sin and sinful ways. Come on now, I don't think anyone is suggesting you go to a San Francisco bath house or anything. There are many ways to "separate yourself from sinners."
> you are off track and by your referral to your wife's parents instead of your own faith... Actually, they were my grandparents; the conversation was with my wife. But that doesn't matter. Religion is the word of God; you "hear" it in part from others' examples. I was using their behavior as an example for me, and for you. For the record though, while sexuality of any kind was the last thing I ever wanted to discuss with my grandparents, I am fairly certain they would have agreed with you that the Bible is against homosexuality.
> This isn't a ritual. This is sin and one that can't be clouded... Look, I think it is reasonable, especially for a non expert, to think that the Bible is against homosexuality. I also think it is reasonable to think it is not. There are experts, I believe, on both sides. But my understanding is that there is some amount of concensus among experts that there is a good chance that the Leviticus passage was part of ritual, and no longer applies. I don't know this from first hand knowledge, but this issue seems very important to you, and you might want to check with experts that you trust on it. You still have, eg, Paul's statements to support your position.
> You either practice and accept sin or you fight it. That's why this is war on sin. I think, respectfully, that life is much more complicated than this. Look at, for example, the war in Afghanistan. I don't know how many innocent people were killed there in our (assuming you are from the US) name; their blood is on our hands. But I think the war was necessary. Here is a very good example where it is not clear whether one is fighting sin, or commiting it. You have to choose your battles and priorities, so to speak. Perhaps in the next world your statement will be correct, but not now.
Also, the alternative is not between "practicing and accepting sin" or "fighting sin." It is at best between "practicing and accepting sin" or "practicing and fighting sin."
Let me say one more thing. I also have an uncle who is a Baptist minister who has a congregation with some very conservative members. He told me one such member told him once he believed in homosexual marriage. This really surprised me, since I consider a Church-sanctioned homosexual marriage to be rather radical; I'm sure you agree, to put it mildly. And yet, this person was fairly conservative, I was told. So I asked why he could possibly say this; my un
Yes, and on the 8 million children without health care- you are silent. On the large population of our world that is starving- you are silent. I'm sure you don't approve of these things. But still, you are silent. Your attention is elsewhere.
> Do as I have commanded you, By my words live and live more abundantly, Forsake sin in all its forms, > Sheep don't lay down with the wolves.
I know what this looks like. It doesn't involve demonizing human beings. I told you my grandparents were very conservative Southern Baptists. My wife asked them once why they didn't drink, why they didn't play cards, or dance. They didn't tell her it was part of a war on sinful men and women. They never talked about "fighting a war on sinners." (These are human being you are talking about here!) I never heard my grandparents use your kind of language in my life. They told my wife their behavior was a symbol of solidarity and support for the alcoholics and gamblers who had destroyed their families and their lives. They did not separate themselves from the sinners and "war on them." Instead, they shared in their suffering. This is Christ-like. Jesus tells us that the most important commandments are to love God and each other. Acknowledging the divine breath in every human being is inherent to Christian ministry.
> Compassion for those that know sin and continue in it and refuse the truth of Gods word...never! I reread this over and over because I thought I had misunderstood you. By God's grace alone we are saved. If you believe you no longer know sin, well, you are lost. I am just glad that God does not think as you do. Honestly, if you think you do not sin, you need to go talk to your minister. It is such an outrageous statement it makes me wonder if you have simply been playing a devil's advocate with me (no pun intended.) I don't know what church you go to, but doesn't your service involve everyone asking for forgiveness every week? They are not just talking about things you did before baptism.
> he stated that he didn't come to do away with the old laws but only to free us from the chains of death > through forgiveness for those that turn from the wicked ways. Yes, but many rituals were ended. That's why you (probably) eat pork and shellfish. The statement about men laying with men is a statement of ritual, as I understand it. In any case, I am not an expert. There are plenty of experts who do believe the Bible is silent on modern, homosexual relationships. Otherwise, homosexuality would not be such a divisive issue in so many churches.
> How could you rationaly separate "God's design" from "bilogical basis". If the universe is the creation of God then how > can any aspect of it be "against" God's design? Well, first you are implicitly assuming that homosexuality has a biological basis, or perhaps more accurately to what extent homosexuality has a biological basis. I do not believe that biologists have a good understanding of this yet, althought I'm not an expert. Certainly, most conservative Christians do not believe this to be the case, and I'm sure the poster to whom I was responding is in that camp. If we assume a creator, then our immediate (naive, if you like) conclusion is naturally going to be that, well, a penis is designed to go in a vagina. To say otherwise is dishonest, and sets back constructive discussion.
In any case, the existence of apparently malevolent forces in nature and in human beings is, of course, hard to reconcile with the will of a benevolent, all powerful God. Latin Christianity's answer generally has been the idea of originial sin and, sometimes, free will. I don't think that homosexuality qualifies as "malevolent", but just because something happens in nature doesn't mean that it must conform with what God (or is Morals and Ethiccs if you want to be a secular humanist) intends for us to do.
> Avoiding eating pork may well have been perfectly rational in Bronze age "Arabia". > There is something rather ironic about "Christians" quoting the Torah (out of context) whilst failing to even > mention Jesus.
I think that for Jew's, avoiding eating pork is probably still rational. They have existed as a people for millenia, and continue to exist, and I think dietary restrictions contribute to that remarkable cultural survival. And the Torah is part of the Christian Bible. And I did explicity mention Jesus- you quote me as mentioning Jesus, in fact. The Christian belief is that Jesus, at least, offered a new covenant in addition to (or many would say to replace) the covenant offered by Moses. As I understand it, this is how the Christian churches justifies, eg, lack of dietary restrictions. It also means that a lot of the ritual described in the Old Testament is no longer relevant FOR CHRISTIANS (perhaps I should not have left off the "for christians.")
> What you fail to understand is this is war between good and evil. It's the oldest war in world and has been going on > before there was a world. It began in heaven when Satan was thrown out.
I think what we disagree on is how to win it. The Jesus that I know teaches that the way to God is through self-sacrifice and love. As I'm sure you know, he reached out to those segregated from his society, namely the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the lepers. He famously shows his anger to the religious leaders, who had become too focused on financial and political gain. He also tells us to know the false prophets by the rotten fruits that they bear. I think we can say the same about ideas. What fruits have come from this fixation on homosexuality? A country that in the media and in the voting booth seems more concerned with the 2% of its population that wants civil marriage than with the 15 percent of its population without health insurance, including 8 million children, or with the large population of its world that is starving. I don't expect everyone to approve of homosexuality, but a people have only so much energy and time to devote to social consciousness. I wish less of ours was spent condemning certain consenting adults for not hiding with whom they share their bedroom, so that more could champion the powerless and the suffering. Personally, I think that big business uses homosexuality to scare and distract conservative america, which would naturally be much more inclined translate their tendency for tithing and charity into government action, because passing amendments againts homosexual marriage doesn't cost big business any money. I do know that Jesus doesn't explicitly mention homosexuals. He doesn't "heal" people of homosexuality. He heals the sick, and feeds the starving. Our country can do the same if only it has the will. Incidentally, fashionfirst, thank you for reading and responding to my posts.
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To be fair, certain branches of Christianity have been long associated with democracy, Presbyterianism for example. I agree with you, though, that if you can't think critically, you can't effectively elect your government.
> Science has elevated man from being little better than particularly clever animals to being something that
> can justifiably be said to have been made in God's image.
I would argue that it is our capability for moral action that shows we are made in God's image. For example, the invention of the atomic bomb shows that science, no matter however powerful, does not equal freedom. Instead, for fifty years we lived in fear annihilation by our own creation and by each other.
What you refer to as "Christian science" is, of course, well, wrong, I think by its own standard, and definitely by the scientist's. But science is not all powerful. It is only a tool that reflects the nature of those who use it, divine or otherwise.
Pure mathematics also cannot be be tested/falsified, and I think we both agree that it has a place in rational thought, so simply because something isn't testable/falsifiable in the same sense as, say, Newton's physics is not enough to exclude it from rational (a vague term of course) thought.
> one can hardly argue that it has been a positive thing for much other than keeping people from killing themselves
> as a result of the hopelessness
Its hard to evaluate this because as long as there has been modern (anthropologically speaking) man, there has been religion. If you want to evaluate, say, Christanity, this is still difficult, because while people did terrible things in the name of Christ, they did equally terrible things before Christ. At the very least, if Christianity ultimately convinces people there is no God, this is a tremendous contribution to mankind, because if there is no God then the Egyptian Pharoah isn't God, Emporer Augustus isn't God, etc.
I have heard, though, that there are a significant number of fundamentalist Christians who do believe in a literal "Mark of the Beast". (Heck, the left behind series has a literal mark.) This issue could make some strange bedfellows, eh...
He seems to "simply" give some sort of relativistic version of the method we use to slingshot around planets for more speed. The bottom of the article makes reference to his equations "making it possible to test Einstien's equations at low cost in the laboratory." If indeed his equations can be tested easily, I suppose it could be very interesting. If its not easily testable, then, my guess is that its, well, less interesting.
Yes, that's true, from reading both our posts, we don't know whether his statement is true. That's why I said that as a matter of LOGIC his statement was flawed. Notice that I didn't say the point was necessarily false. However, if he makes the statement, I consider the burden of proof to be on him to back it up.
Can you imagine how this poor guy must feel? You try to publish some paper (I don't know how important it is), the popular press picks up on it and headlines it with "Professor challenges evolution." I for one know that if this happened to a friend of mine, I would tease them about it for YEARS.
My guess is they would agree with you that their results support this. However, (1) this doesn't disprove global warming at all, and (2) this is a pretty boring conclusion to draw.
I guess it all depends on what sort of time scale you live in. Coral reefs take thousands of years to grow. Similarly, I suspect it is difficult to imagine what other sorts of terrible TEMPORARY problems rapid temperature change would cause (rising coastlines from the ice caps, messed up ocean currents, etc.) In the long run, it might fix itself, but, as I believe John Maynard Keyes said, in the long run we are all dead.
well, calculus used to use infintesimals, which are 0 except that you can divide by them, which you could say were smaller than a fraction. :-)
While I haven't read "State of Fear", I read a speech by Michael Crichton on this. It did not particularly impress me. First, he claimed that man-made disasters are never as bad as people fear (I guess he doesn't consider wars to be man-made disasters, fine.) Then, he talked about how some of our species conservation issues were originally handled poorly. Then he said that oil put out less C02 than coal and wood. Finally, he seemed to say something along the lines of "atmosphere, complex system, what can we do, why worry..." Almost like all this would be like the end of "Andromeda Strain", where the problem in the complex system fixes itself, so we shouldn't have to worry anyway. I didn't see anything in there that remotely addressed that we are significantly affecting our atmosphere with CO2. Yes, maybe we don't completely understand whether we will end up in another ice age (I think he also referenced that fear from the 70's) or in a desert, and maybe by the grace of God we will be OK, but I don't see how that is any reason not to aggressively reduce our dependence on oil (domestic and foreign), and not replace it with coal. Also, its not like he has any credentials to talk about this stuff. He is a science fiction write who, I believe, did a year or two of med school.
> And again, unless we can figure out how to throw as much pollution into the air EVERY DAY as Krakatoa did, then we
,and (2) how sensitive is the environment the extra pollutant that is not absorbed. So as a matter of logic, your argument is false, and you also present no scientific data to back it up.
> don't have much of a chance of creating global warming.
The earth also naturally absorbs the chemicals that you are talking about. Assuming that the earth's balance of these things remains roughly the same, at least on time scales that we care about, then the question is rather (1) how much of this extra pollution can the earth absorb
The issue is that we are dumping enough CO2 into the air to significantly affect our atmosphere. As I understand it, whether this will result in, say, a net increase or decrease in temperature is still not completely clear (which is of course a ridiculous oversimplification of all the bad things that could happen)m nor is whether the change in our atmosphere is a significant cause of the current rises in temperature. It is this uncertainty that, eg, the Bush administration loves to latch on to. There is, however, consensus that we are significantly affecting our atmosphere. We just need to come up with a buzz word for that as cool (hot?) as "Global Warming."
From http://www.rebelscience.org/Seven/bible.html:
;-)
(S)He writes:
"I started working on Animal (around 1995; see history) years before I formulated my biblical hypothesis. As I get more and more confident about the accuracy of my interpretation of the biblical metaphors, I will incorporate my findings into it. I hope to have it learn the game of chess on its own, including the rules of play. If my hypothesis is correct, there is no limit to how competent the program can be at playing chess. "
Do I really need to give a context?
(I hope I don't somehow offend any Christians out there- I've never heard of a denomination that believe's Jesus' real message was how to win at chess...)
What is "in plain view" changes. An extreme example would be if the government invented some device that could look through walls. What was not in "plain view" is now "in plain view." I don't know what the legal arguments would be in such a case, but I know that in practice, if the government didn't have to get search warrants to use this new technology, it would have far more power than I trust it with. This data mining is potentially the same situation. Much like any sort of device to look through walls might somehow amplify and organize the microscopic light escaping the walls of your house in such a way it communicates fundamentally new and novel information, so this data mining appears to be designed to organize and amplify bits of information all over the country to also create fundamentally novel information. I could imagine the government having more power to know and potentially control peoples habits and opinions than I trust it to have. Power tends to corrupt, so we must be very careful whenever giving our government more of it. As for whether this violates some sort of constitutional "right to privacy"- that is a matter of law, and since right to privacy seems more subtle and complicated than something like freedom of speech, my guess is that it takes a constitutional lawyer, or maybe even the Supreme Court Justices, to know. Frankly, I don't really care whether this one principle of law applies nearly so much as I care about whether it will be used to force some sort of oversight on my government.
What really scares the hell out of me with all this is how little discussion there seems to be. A priori, I don't think you can say something like this is bad, but I don't think you an say it is good either. However, I certainly don't trust any one man (including, err especially actually, Bush) to make this decision for us.
> Emails are (by default, anyway) sent in the clear so that anybody can sniff it. So, there is no invasion
> of privacy, AFAIK. Don't complain about loss of privacy when you're not being private.
Are phone calls private by your standard? Phone calls are not encrypted in any way, and I'm sure that it is very
easy for the phone company to let the government listen in. But all the same, we don't let the government do this whenever it wants.
> Besides, what if the terrorist attack thwarted is the one directed at you and yourn? If the government
> fails to detect an attack and people die, wouldn't you complain about the ineffectiveness of the government
> and how they should have known? Wait, people did when 9-11 happened...
It is not clear that this sort of information would significantly help the administration stop another terrorist attack. For example, the failure of 9-11 was not simply one of not having enough data. With hindsight, we can deduce from the evidence that an attack was imminent. I suppose what the problem was is quite controversial- lack of priority, organization, or imaginiation, perhaps- but it is not clear to me at least that this system would have helped.
> The issue is not that Evolution should not be taught in school.. it is that it should not be taught as a fact.
> You can't prove it.
This is absolutely correct. Evolution cannot be proven. No scientific theory can be. When we say that evolution is "proven" (an unfortunate word choice) really we man that we have performed many scientific experiments that could have proved evolution false, but, in the judegments of experts in the same community that develops your vaccinations, antibiotics, etc., did not disprove evolution. This is a key insight of the scientific method.
Now science science as taught in grade school is often, as a practical matter, dogmatic. But science as a practical matter is dogmatic. I am guessing that you never read the many papers showing that your vaccinations and antibiotics work (I know I haven't), and if we did read them we probably would not understand them, not because we are stupid, but because it generally takes a specialist to be able to critically read a scientific study. I would guess that your doctor has never read the papers justifying most of your treatements, and even those he/she has read, he/she is probably not qualified to read them critically. Same for jet engines, computer CPU's, etc. But, clearly in some cases, and not so clearly in other cases, these work. The whole idea of peer review is that if you were an expert, you could judge these studies critically, but since you are not, you have to rely on those who are.
So the people who tell you that evolution is a valid (meaning not disproven) scientific theory are the same people peer reviewing these other things for you. They go to the same schools, take the same classes, switch disciplines in some cases.
So if we teach children to not trust the scientific community on evolution, how can we tell them to take, say, their tetanus shots when they turn 15, which hurt like heck. How can we expect them to trust physicists on the danger of high speed crashes? To me, this is the problem with teaching them that evolution is "just a theory." It teaches them to distrust the scientific community on issues of scientific truth, when really we should distrust the entire community on issues of scientific "application"(eg, new weapons, perhaps genetically engineered crops and stem cells, etc.)
Or laugh. Or frown. He only has that one look.
>As far as your final points I've NEVER said that marriage is just for raising kids. The ONLY thing I'm saying is that it's that
>aspect of marriage that causes the gov't to have a vested interest in marriage. For all I care - marriage is 90% about having sex
>and 10% about making babies. But the gov't has no business offering people a license to have sex, so from the gov't point-of-
>view marriage is about making babies.
I did misuderstand you, then. I also think this is an interesting statement, however. Doesn't the government also have a vested interest in monogamy, for public health reasons if for nothing else. As I understand it, this is major part of why prostitution was ultimately made illegal (most places.) What is more, the government definitely spends lots of money encouraging safe sex practice. No safe sex practice is safer than monogamy. And marriage definitely promotes monogamy (even with the 50% divorce rate.) There are also many laws which levy a financial penalty if a spouse breaks monogamy and the other sues for divorce, which shows that one aspect of marriage is to encourage monogamy. Finally, historically I do think that one purpose of marriage has been an idea that has evolved into our 21st century notion of "monogamy" and "fidelity", although throughout much of history I'm sure it would have been worded in much less, uh, womens-rights-friendly terms.
While I think that public health is the most concrete example of why it is in a sense in the government's interest to promote marriage of people regardless of whether they have children, because being in a family is good for general well being, and having society sanction that family in the form of a government issued marriage contract make that family seem more real, and indeed because of this makes the family more real. I don't know if you are married, but I know that for me, that has been my experience. So I think this is where those who talk about marriage being about a right to commit to each other, or however they want to word it, this is where they are coming from, and while it is perhaps a little bit of a stretch, I don't think it is much of one.
Hey, no lawyers allowed around here. Slashdot perfers its legal "opinions" one part layman's interpretation of technical law terms, one part good old fashion common sense, and sometimes a dash of case law (see, it sometimes goes very well with the other two ingredients), shaken, not stirred.
> The reasoning behind the gov't granting marriage licenses is to provide for families which will raise children.
> However there is no way to tell which couples are going to be fertile and which ones aren't. Even if you did
> take a medical test the fact is that infertility can be overcome by science. And I think the tests themselves
> would be an unwelcome invasion of privacy.
I don't think the practical laws of marriage really conform with this description. For example, practially speaking (with maybe a one-in-a-billion, literally, exception) no women can have children after 65. The government already has your
age. Yet we don't invalidate marriages of childless couples then. For that matter, many of the major advantages of
marriage kick in AFTER your children have probably already grown up and "left the nest" so-to-speak. Near the end
of your life, a major benefit is that your spouse gets automatic power-of-attorney. While I'm sure we could both
devise some twisted line of reasoning to connect this with "a better family unit", I think this would be ad-hoc
at best.
Also, historically, I don't think you can say that marriage was always around with the chief purpose of
"raising better children." For example, I think that for the nobility in midievil europe had marriage primarily
to have better adjusted children, I think it was secure orderly succession and prevent war. And I, at least,
always got the sense that marriage in the Old Testatment was primarily about, well, men establishing ownership
of their wives (thou shall not steal, thou shall not sleep with another man's wife, because, well, men don't like
other men to take their stuff...)
Certainly family, including children, is integral to the historical concept of marriage, but I think that to say:
1) Marriage is only to help children raise families. History supports this.
2) Homosexuals won't raise families (of course you neglect adoption, but that is another issue.)
Therefore, there is no reason to let them marry.
3) Infertile couples happen to be along for the ride as a practical necessity, but that doesn't mean
we need to include gays.
oversimplifies at (1) because marriage has always had a whole host of purposes, some of which
may apply to homosexuals.
>Compassion? Sure for those that turn from the sin. Compassion for those that know sin and continue in it and refuse the
>truth of Gods word...never! Only the fires of hell await those that reject truth.
These are your words. We all know sin. We all continue in sin. Even those of us who hear the truth of God's words refuse it. It is the sinful nature of Man. This is one of Christianity's central messages. You would deny us all your or any one else's compassion. Perhaps this is not what you wanted to say, or wanted to think, but I think it is the central danger of the kind of attitude towards homosexuals (notice I did not write homosexuality) that you seem to preach.
> It doesn't say by Gods grace alone...
Yes, I know. I'm Presbyterian, and have an inclination towards predistination (although I certainly don't feel like I have that figured out), so I wrote "By God's grace alone" when I should have written something like "By at least God's grace," but I think that my point remains correct. Perhaps you think homosexuals your prodigal brothers not yet returned home, but they are your brothers all the same.
>...when the message is passed and refused Christians are to separate themselves from those that chose sin over Gods
> ways. That doesn't mean not to help someone in need. That doesn't mean not to care for a person but it does mean not to
> be part of that person's sin and sinful ways.
Come on now, I don't think anyone is suggesting you go to a San Francisco bath house or anything. There are many ways to "separate yourself from sinners."
> you are off track and by your referral to your wife's parents instead of your own faith...
Actually, they were my grandparents; the conversation was with my wife. But that doesn't matter. Religion is the word of God; you "hear" it in part from others' examples. I was using their behavior as an example for me, and for you. For the record though, while sexuality of any kind was the last thing I ever wanted to discuss with my grandparents, I am fairly certain they would have agreed with you that the Bible is against homosexuality.
> This isn't a ritual. This is sin and one that can't be clouded...
Look, I think it is reasonable, especially for a non expert, to think that the Bible is against homosexuality. I also think it is reasonable to think it is not. There are experts, I believe, on both sides. But my understanding is that there is some amount of concensus among experts that there is a good chance that the Leviticus passage was part of ritual, and no longer applies. I don't know this from first hand knowledge, but this issue seems very important to you, and you might want to check with experts that you trust on it. You still have, eg, Paul's statements to support your position.
> You either practice and accept sin or you fight it. That's why this is war on sin.
I think, respectfully, that life is much more complicated than this. Look at, for example, the war in Afghanistan. I don't know how many innocent people were killed there in our (assuming you are from the US) name; their blood is on our hands. But I think the war was necessary. Here is a very good example where it is not clear whether one is fighting sin, or commiting it. You have to choose your battles and priorities, so to speak. Perhaps in the next world your statement will be correct, but not now.
Also, the alternative is not between "practicing and accepting sin" or "fighting sin." It is at best between "practicing and accepting sin" or "practicing and fighting sin."
Let me say one more thing. I also have an uncle who is a Baptist minister who has a congregation with some very conservative members. He told me one such member told him once he believed in homosexual marriage. This really surprised me, since I consider a Church-sanctioned homosexual marriage to be rather radical; I'm sure you agree, to put it mildly. And yet, this person was fairly conservative, I was told. So I asked why he could possibly say this; my un
Yes, and on the 8 million children without health care- you are silent. On the large population of our world that is starving- you are silent. I'm sure you don't approve of these things. But still, you are silent. Your attention is elsewhere.
> Do as I have commanded you, By my words live and live more abundantly, Forsake sin in all its forms,
> Sheep don't lay down with the wolves.
I know what this looks like. It doesn't involve demonizing human beings. I told you my grandparents were very conservative Southern Baptists. My wife asked them once why they didn't drink, why they didn't play cards, or dance. They didn't tell her it was part of a war on sinful men and women. They never talked about "fighting a war on sinners." (These are human being you are talking about here!) I never heard my grandparents use your kind of language in my life. They told my wife their behavior was a symbol of solidarity and support for the alcoholics and gamblers who had destroyed their families and their lives. They did not separate themselves from the sinners and "war on them." Instead, they shared in their suffering. This is Christ-like. Jesus tells us that the most important commandments are to love God and each other. Acknowledging the divine breath in every human being is inherent to Christian ministry.
> Compassion for those that know sin and continue in it and refuse the truth of Gods word...never!
I reread this over and over because I thought I had misunderstood you. By God's grace alone we are saved.
If you believe you no longer know sin, well, you are lost. I am just glad that God does not think as you do.
Honestly, if you think you do not sin, you need to go talk to your minister. It is such an outrageous statement
it makes me wonder if you have simply been playing a devil's advocate with me (no pun intended.) I don't know
what church you go to, but doesn't your service involve everyone asking for forgiveness every week? They are
not just talking about things you did before baptism.
> he stated that he didn't come to do away with the old laws but only to free us from the chains of death
> through forgiveness for those that turn from the wicked ways.
Yes, but many rituals were ended. That's why you (probably) eat pork and shellfish. The statement about
men laying with men is a statement of ritual, as I understand it. In any case, I am not an expert. There are
plenty of experts who do believe the Bible is silent on modern, homosexual relationships. Otherwise,
homosexuality would not be such a divisive issue in so many churches.
> How could you rationaly separate "God's design" from "bilogical basis". If the universe is the creation of God then how
> can any aspect of it be "against" God's design?
Well, first you are implicitly assuming that homosexuality has a biological basis, or perhaps more accurately to what extent homosexuality has a biological basis. I do not believe that biologists have a good understanding of this yet, althought I'm not an expert. Certainly, most conservative Christians do not believe this to be the case, and I'm sure the poster to whom I was responding is in that camp. If we assume a creator, then our immediate (naive, if you like) conclusion is naturally going to be that, well, a penis is designed to go in a vagina. To say otherwise is dishonest, and sets back constructive discussion.
In any case, the existence of apparently malevolent forces in nature and in human beings is, of course, hard to reconcile with the will of a benevolent, all powerful God. Latin Christianity's answer generally has been the idea of originial sin and, sometimes, free will. I don't think that homosexuality qualifies as "malevolent", but just because something happens in nature doesn't mean that it must conform with what God (or is Morals and Ethiccs if you want to be a secular humanist) intends for us to do.
> Avoiding eating pork may well have been perfectly rational in Bronze age "Arabia".
> There is something rather ironic about "Christians" quoting the Torah (out of context) whilst failing to even
> mention Jesus.
I think that for Jew's, avoiding eating pork is probably still rational. They have existed as a people for millenia, and continue to exist, and I think dietary restrictions contribute to that remarkable cultural survival. And the Torah is part of the Christian Bible. And I did explicity mention Jesus- you quote me as mentioning Jesus, in fact. The Christian belief is that Jesus, at least, offered a new covenant in addition to (or many would say to replace) the covenant offered by Moses. As I understand it, this is how the Christian churches justifies, eg, lack of dietary restrictions. It also means that a lot of the ritual described in the Old Testament is no longer relevant FOR CHRISTIANS (perhaps I should not have left off the "for christians.")
> What you fail to understand is this is war between good and evil. It's the oldest war in world and has been going on
> before there was a world. It began in heaven when Satan was thrown out.
I think what we disagree on is how to win it. The Jesus that I know teaches that the way to God is through self-sacrifice and love. As I'm sure you know, he reached out to those segregated from his society, namely the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the lepers. He famously shows his anger to the religious leaders, who had become too focused on financial and political gain. He also tells us to know the false prophets by the rotten fruits that they bear. I think we can say the same about ideas. What fruits have come from this fixation on homosexuality? A country that in the media and in the voting booth seems more concerned with the 2% of its population that wants civil marriage than with the 15 percent of its population without health insurance, including 8 million children, or with the large population of its world that is starving. I don't expect everyone to approve of homosexuality, but a people have only so much energy and time to devote to social consciousness. I wish less of ours was spent condemning certain consenting adults for not hiding with whom they share their bedroom, so that more could champion the powerless and the suffering. Personally, I think that big business uses homosexuality to scare and distract conservative america, which would naturally be much more inclined translate their tendency for tithing and charity into government action, because passing amendments againts homosexual marriage doesn't cost big business any money. I do know that Jesus doesn't explicitly mention homosexuals. He doesn't "heal" people of homosexuality. He heals the sick, and feeds the starving. Our country can do the same if only it has the will. Incidentally, fashionfirst, thank you for reading and responding to my posts.