I would recommend you read up on the word discrimination: Discrimination is a sociological term referring to the treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group in consideration based solely on class or category
Here is a class of people defined by "Want to marry a same-gender person". Simple definition. That group is being discriminated against. Simple.
Any man has the same right to marry a woman as any man does
Sigh. The group of people who fall under the category "would like to marry a same-gender person", and this is a well-defined group, are not allowed to marry whomever they like (consenting adults apply). SCOTUS has long since stated that marriage to the person you want to marry is an inalienable right.
It's not discrimination simply because the law doesn't allow you to do something you want to do
It is once that is directed at a group or category of people.
Why does the law need to be involved in me setting off fireworks?
The law forbids you from doing that for the same reason it forbids you from driving drunk or at 200mph. Your behavior is a danger to others and statistically such behavior will harm innocents. Don't be obtuse. You are not denied this right because it seems offensive to some superstitious idiot.
explain how the constitution prevents the government from doing so?
That is actually quite easy. Again, we define a group of people by the property "want to marry a same-gender person". This is a very straightforward definition and easy to understand. The state of California has approximately 1,100 legal and economic benefits that are only given to married couples. A group defined as above are denied those benefits based on nothing but the definition of the group.
Now, it can actually be even easier than that. If you ask any person in the US they would most likely agree that attempting and succeeding at marriage of a person one loves is part of "the pursuit of happiness". Such pursuit of happiness harms nobody, as opposed to the pursuit of happiness based on, for example, killing people (if that makes one happy). What was it those words said again: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Now, the statement above was later expanded upon in the 14th amendment. Since California gives people who marry an opposite-gender person 1,100 specific rights and protections, those are denied to any person defined as "would like to marry a same-gender person". no state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws
Legally then, the only thing that needs to be clarified is whether the exclusion of the group defined as "would like to marry a same-gender person" from the law is rational. This is why, for example, the group of people defined as "would like to kill lots of people" are denied their basic rights of pursuit of happiness. Nobody has ever been able to put forward a rational claim that the group as defined above should be denied their basic rights under the US constitution.
For all of these reasons Prop 8 is unconstitutional. Interestingly if the ruling stands it will be possible to use it as an argument that all state law must pass the rational basis test. I am not sure the current SCOTUS is willing to go that far, several of them are utterly irrational.
try to read outside of the liberal/progressive "preferred reading list"
Sigh. Why is it that the new Repugnicans are so fucking retarded? What on earth makes you think I am a liberal/progressive in the way you normally define those? I argue for limitations to the power of the government. I argue for following the constitution of the USofA. Since when was that arguments you heard from the left? Retard!
I am one of those very, very few people in the world who would normally vote Republican but are now refraining to do so since the new crowd took over. The crowd that grew the federal government at a pace this country has hardly ever seen before. Given the pace the federal government grew with during the Bush era, there is only one way to describe his government: Pure socialist.
The difference between a socialist state and a capitalist state is in economics. The doubling of the federal government, and that is what we would have gotten if the Bush growth had continued for another four years, is a socialist move. Obama is not any better nor is he any worse. Sadly he does not have the ability to fix the problems he inherited, and he is going to continue to do harm.
To the subject: The constitution limits the powers of the government. Among other things it limits its ability to discriminate. Two consenting adults can not be discriminated against for any reason whatsoever. The constitution gives gays the right to marry. Sadly socialists like you and your pal G. W. Bush wants to seriously expand the powers and size of the federal government.
If you are still an avid reader, try to learn what the constitution is. Then try to learn why it limits the power of government. After that you can try to learn why a huge federal growth is socialism. After that you can try to find out which presidents in our history grew the federal government the most. Finally you can try to explain why it took a Democrat (that I did not vote for) to actually shrink the federal government and balance a horrendously unbalanced federal budget he inherited from a Republican.
Is it the business of the government who marries as long as they are consenting adults? Why? Marriage is a legal contract, nothing else. It has nothing to do with religion. As long as the government allows one person to marry whomever they please and deny someone else in a systematic manner, that is - per definition - discrimination based on the background of that systematic manner. Is the government allowed to discriminate based on gender?
turning to insults
When someone wants to turn the power over the individual to the federal government they are most often a communist. More rarely a fascist. You want to turn power over the individual to the government and I therefore assumed you were a communist. I don't like communists. If I was wrong and you are a fascist, I am slightly sorry - though the slightly is only as slightly as the difference between fascism and communism is.
It's called what society thinks is normal
Yes, and society thought that slavery was normal. Society thought that women not voting was normal. Society thought that women preaching that birth control should be legal belonged in jail, and society jailed a lot of these people. Thankfully we have a constitution that keeps the morons in society in check to the degree it is possible. The constitution prevents discrimination as codified in proposition 8. For those of us who thinks that the constitution is a worth-while document, it is therefore good that the moron activists in California were put in their place by someone with a functioning brain and the ability to read the constitution.
if you are stopping a black man and a white women from marrying because of their race, then you are discriminating based on race
and if you stop a man from marrying a man then you discriminate both on arbitrary moral superstition and also based on gender.
You don't want equal rights, you want extra rights
The only right requested is the right to marry whatever consenting adult one pleases without the interference from the government. Since when was the government allowed to determine whom someone can marry? Please explain how that fits into the constitution. Remember, the constitution strongly limits the governments right to interfere in private lives.
to presume gays never force their beliefs on people, unlike all other people, is somehow, magically insane
That is not the assumption made. The statement is that by demanding equal rights gays are forcing their view on others. They are not. Demanding equal rights is not forcing anything on anyone. Denying someone equal rights based on some arbitrary nutcase superstition on the other hand is forcing the nutcase superstitious lifestyle on said individual.
You are right that a gay person can be as much of a zealot as anyone else, but living according to your sexual orientation is not zealotry.
The simplest answer to the Fermi Paradox is that faster-than-light travel is not possible
No, it is not. We don't need FTL to colonize the Galaxy. Not even a significant fraction of the speed of light is needed.
If it's going to take a century to go ten light years, galactic colonization is just not going to happen.
There are several ways this can be done without FTL travel. One is the Ark scenario, and yes, it would be expanding since it is unlikely one civilization will fit into one ark and all go at one point in time. Several different arks going off in different directions is plenty. Two is enough to colonize.
then the insurance company should pay for crimes against nature
Proof positive what kind of a superstitious nutcase you are. Get an education, read a book (not the Bible please) and learn something. It will make you less of a lunatic. I hope.
This is why they have gay parades all over the nation
No, they have gay parades all over the nation for the same reason that African Americans had to march on Washington. Do you really think it is OK for states to stop Negroes from sitting on the same bench as you and I?
They act abnormally so that thy can be normal
Any oppressed part of the population will try to get out from under that oppression. That is normal. What is not normal is to let petty insecurities about your own sexuality demand that all people who are what you fear you are have less rights that "normal" people.
Perhaps we should take you at your word and demand all people in the nation wear "normal" clothes. Perhaps the government can make a standard piece of clothing that fits everybody and then demand we all wear that.
Gays do have all the same rights as regular people. They can marry someone of the opposite sex just like everyone else
Rubbish. The government prevents gays from marrying the people they love, while you and I are free to marry.
Oh and please show me the marriage law that says you have to love someone or be sexually attracted to them in order to get married
Why do you think I think there is such a law?
So out side of history paralleling religious beliefs in how society was set up, there is really nothing about marriage being between a man and a woman that is discriminatory
The fact that you don't see that when you say "marriage being between a man and a woman" that is discriminatory by definition.
This is why this activist judge
Yeah, all judges who limit the powers of the government are activist judges. And you are a fucking communist for demanding the government decide who I can and can not marry as a consenting adult. I hate communists like you who want to give the government unlimited powers.
Marriage is simply a legal maneuver and that it.
Correct, and it is a legal maneuver that California tried to arbitrarily limit. Why do we not just ban white men from marrying black women or vice versa. There is no difference right? There would be no discrimination, right? Moron.
Continuing the thought, will med-care and insurance pay up for letting gay couple procreate
Procreation is a privilege, not a right. Med care should not pay for letting anyone procreate. On the other hand, if it is possible, and med care decides to pay for the artificial procreation of infertile straight couples, they can obviously not discriminate against gays.
It comes down to equal rights. Gays should have all the same rights as straight people in the same way that blacks should have all the same rights as whites. In fact, it is a lot easier to argue that blacks should have their rights limited significantly compared to whites than it is to argue that gay peoples rights should be limited.
At the same time we have the Fermi Paradox. Where are they? At our current rate of expansion and technological development we will have colonized the galaxy shortly (universe time-scale).
If there is intelligent life on only a handful of the viable planets, given that some of that life necessarily have several millions years of a head start on us, the first thing that Galileo should have seen when looking up was "Welcome to the Galaxy humans. This message sponsored by MickyD's, 25 trillion served each galactic standard day".
Evolution would be more indicated if your son had traits that were present in neither of his parents.
He does. And no, mutation is not the only way to dramatically alter genetic material. Your understanding of the process of evolution is about 150 years old and needs updating.
The really short: The difficult point is speciation. Can evolution through regular mating lead to speciation? What is speciation? Assuming you start with one mating pair and you track all their offspring as if they were the root in a tree with a lot of branches, speciation is what you get if some time in that evolutionary tree, one of the descendants of the original pair can no longer mate with another descendant. Does speciation happen? Yes, even in the lab. The theory of common decent has not been in question in the scientific community since it was observed quite a while ago. The latest findings in the newer genetic mapping studies only confirmed what was already known while still adding more specific knowledge.
Get over it guys, the theory of common decent has more supporting evidence and scientific backing than does the theory of gravity.
The theory of evolution is not actually in dispute, nor is it a theory - we all know that evolution happens. What is in dispute is the theory of common decent. More specifically, the theory that evolution can lead to speciation. What nutjobs deny is not that things evolve, mate two different dogs and watch the offspring and you will observe that things evolve. What the nutjobs question is if this process can lead to new species. Things that will no longer be able to mate with the dogs.
Thanks to the genome project, speciation and common decent is now basically proven scientific fact, and it has significantly better documentation than does the theory of gravity. Do you not believe in gravity? You know that it is a very poorly documented theory, right?
That is in fact not entirely true, and one of my pet peeves. Evolution is a mechanism, and nobody actually thinks that Evolution is bunk. We can witness evolution every day around us. All the time. Everywhere. Have two dogs make puppies, and none of then come out identical to their parents. They have evolved.
What is debated however is the theory of common decent. Do we all come from "simpler" organisms? The theory of common decent is controversial in some circles. For some reason the theory of gravity is not. I find this odd. Why is it odd? Well, the theory of common decent is well explained and well documented. We can observe in the genetic material that it has happened. We also know the mechanics of how it happened. What about gravity? Well, we can, as with common decent, see that it happens, but with gravity we can not explain how. The theory if common decent can easily be said to have better and more supporting evidence than does the theory of gravity. Why do these nutcases not attack the theory of gravity? Because it is an older theory and they would look even dumber than they do today?
Well, we all suffer from a lack of "spirituality" because there is no such thing as a spirit.
We are animals. We do not have souls or spirits. What you call "spirituality", I call childish superstition.
You can not prove this assertion. Your belief about such things is just that; belief.
Ah, but you got it all wrong. Let me try to explain. You are right that he can not prove that there is no spirit or soul. That is impossible. You can in fact not prove a negative. I can not prove that there are not invisible pink unicorns in the forest. I can not prove that there is not little blue men living in my carpet and every time I try to look at one he hides behind something. I can not even (practically) prove that there is not a tiny china tea pot circling our solar system in the Oort Cloud.
The one thing I can do is to be rational though. You see, all the things I can not prove the non-existence of is exactly an infinite number. In other words, you can come up with an infinite number of things I can not prove do not exist. Believing in that infinite number of things is irrational though. As is the belief in a soul or a spirit. As is the belief in God. In Santa Claus (though I have seen some compelling documentation for his existence).
So, until someone shows that there is a soul or a spirit, or at least some compelling arguments that point in that direction, he is right. We do not possess such things any more than there is invisible pink unicorns or tiny china tea pots in the Oort Cloud.
No thinking person believes in the infinite number of things that may exist. So, for any given value of "something" we are all atheists. Even you. So, your quote is not only bad, it is provably wrong. Every single individual in the world, thinking or not, is an atheist.
Sigh. This comes up every now and then and it is, as what most religious nuts say, pure and utter rubbish. Atheism is religion in exactly the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. An atheist doesn't deny the existence of God, he simply refuses to generate a belief system around random ideas. The number of things that are unlikely to exist is exactly infinite. An atheist fails to believe in all of them, God has no special place in that lack of belief. I do not believe in blue midgets that go invisible if you try to look at them. I assume you do not believe in them either. Is that lack of belief of yours a religion?
Now, to what is often named "strong" atheism, the active denial of the existence of a particular God with a particular set of properties. Once someone gives me a testable hypothesis of "God" and I have falsified it, I will of course know that this particular form of "God" doesn't exist. I do, for example, know that "The God who created the world 6000 years or so ago" does not exist simply because the property "who created the world 6000 years or so ago" has been falsified, the earth is significantly older and the proof is incontrovertible. That particular God I know for sure does not exist. U can't say that about the little blue men in the forest who go invisible when you look at them. I can not say that they do not exist, I just fail to believe in them. As I fail to collect stamps.
These are the kinds of people that absolutely won't believe in the medicinal properties of herbs
Please stop making stuff up. Lying just isn't a good way to conduct a debate. There is not a single atheist in the world who won't believe in something that has well documented effects. Honestly, you are just being childish.
Thus these people are ignorant to the portion of the world that has not yet been explained.
Pure and utter rubbish. You really do not know anything at all about science. Anything where there is a viable hypothesis is debated within science, and if you can postulate a theory on it you are golden. The problem is that some people insist on believing stuff that has been proven wrong. Lots of herbs have very good medicinal value, and science makes use of this by detecting what in the specific herb has the actual effect, and then scientists will try to isolate said substance and improve upon it.
Example - a scientist finds a plant that in some cases prevents the body from rejecting implants (found while walking in the mountains of Norway). He doesn't discover this fact until he gets back to the lab of course, but decades later, hundreds of thousands of implants have succeeded where they would otherwise fail. The plant as such had a moderate effect, when the drug was refined from the plant it had a significantly higher success rate. The scientist would have been an idiot to ignore the real result, and he would have been an even bigger idiot if he had not refined the active ingredient and made it into a pill.
Because these people have no tolerance for anything that isn't physical, proven, and accepted by hard reasoning, they have no spirituality.
Ignorant rubbish. Thanks to the people you apparently despise so you are alive and you will grow old. If it wasn't for them you would be dying in your cave waiting for someone to come back with some fire harvested from a lightening strike.
I wonder what the Christian nutcases would say if, for example, Hindus started demanding that the federal government protected their particular superstition. I would love to see the proposition in California that banned the eating of beef.
I'm confronted with people who try and force their beliefs down my throat all the time. Vegetarians, vegans, gays, straights, liberals, libertarians, conservatives, and many others are far more guilty of it than Christians.
Really? How so? I can't see how this can be possible. Gays, for example, just want to live normal lives like you and me. Christians wants to force their superstition on gay people by forcing them to live along those superstitious lines. Thankfully people a lot smarter than you have understood that you are not allowed to force your religious views on anybody, and have now told the nutcases in California that everybody is equal, and that consenting adults can marry anybody they wish.
Remember, when gays demand equal rights, they are not forcing anything at all on you. They are only trying to stop you forcing your superstition on them.
Please note, when I call your religious views superstition it is not to be mean. They are superstition. All religious views are. By definition.
Well, that would be wrong actually. If you look at the entire universe, the amount of mass is statistically insignificant compared to the amount of empty space. It could easily be said to be approximately zero.
Then you probably should not have started at all. As the quote more or less goes (attributed to anyone from G. B. Shaw to Churchill) "if you are not a socialist at 20 you have no heart, if you are still a socialist at 40 you have no brains". I have to assume you are younger than 40. Doing otherwise would be cruel.
Nothing says that you can't oppress the hell out of minority, forbid free speech and still not have a complete and total democracy
This is the first ridiculous statement in your post. Yes, a democratic rule may oppress a minority and still be democratic, it can not forbid free speech on the other hand since the prevention of free speech would make participation in the democracy for the affected party impossible. Free speech is integral to a democratic society and one does not exist where the other is oppressed.
Hitler was democratically elected
This is correct, but Germany also seized to be a democracy once he took power and held onto it by non-democratic means. This is where provisions for the prevention of totalitarian power comes into play. Read, for example, on the US Constitution second amendment. Nothing like that would ever be instituted in Europe. There isn't a single politician in Europe that would mandate that the government organizes a militia that will decapitate that same government if it becomes totalitarian. That is the purpose of the second amendment.
equate socialism (social system) to democracy as its opposite
Not quite, but almost. I use them some times interchangeably. Socialism can not exist in a free democracy. More when I explain where you get socialism wrong.
Socialism is not a political system - it's a social system that takes as idea that stronger members of society have an obligation to support weaker ones
What utter rubbish. How old are you? 15? Socialism is a political system based on collective ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of same. If you don't even know the very basics of what you are talking, how do you expect to be taken seriously? Sadly it gets worse.
capitalism where weak are losers who should be allowed to perish to make room for those who succeeded
If you ever went to school somewhere and you had to pay for it, please go back to your school and demand your money back. They failed in their most basic of tasks. Capitalism is, as opposed to socialism, a system where the means of production are privately held and the management of same are done by private citizens, not by committee.
It is generally held that in a capitalist society the individual will seek to use the means of production to gather personal wealth while in a socialist society the means of production are used for common good. This is not necessarily the case in a capitalist society however, since the individual might dispose of his gains in any way he pleases - see for example the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
socialism on societal level is one of the most if not the most important reason why humans evolved from cavemen into what they are today
That is ridiculous at a profound and rather comical level. Technological and societal development has always been attached to individuals and small groups. The greater groups (society as such one could say) have always resisted profound change. If cavemen were socialists they would still be cave men.
The most interesting modern example of this is the workings of the likes of Adidas and Nike, two companies who have exploited poor people around the world extensively. These exploitations have saved millions and millions of people from starvation. Compare this to the "socialist" dealings that is third world aid. Newer research into government aid more and more identifies this as the major cause of pov
1: To explain the change, can we consider the changing thing alone, or must other things also be involved? Obviously, other things must be involved... Nothing changes itself...
I love that argument. It has to be so because PK says so. This dude is a professor? How did that happen? There isn't an ounce of logic in this drivel.
2: suppose there is no Uncaused Being, no God. Then nothing could exist right now
Oh my Pink Unicorn. Really? A "professor" uses an argument that has been utterly refuted for centuries? Please. This is just sad.
3: From nothing nothing comes. So...
The universe could not have begun
I am slowly starting to get nauseous now.
In other words, we all recognize that
Sigh. Using a sentence like this at my philosophy introductory course at University would probably result in an automatic fail grade. This guy is really a professor of Philosophy? Who on earth hired this retard for such a job? The guys is a danger to his students.
I am unable to read further. I have a nephew and a niece who are at Confirmation age right now, and they are opting out of the religious ritual even though most kids opt in. Both of them, in their early teens, have been able to put together more rational arguments for staying up late watching movies they are not supposed to see than Kreeft is able to put together for the existence of a deity.
But anything other than "agnostic" view, is not any more reasonable than the other
Actually, this is incorrect. You are taking the "side" of the theists who claim that atheists deny the existence of God, they do not. An atheist is not someone who says: "I know there is no God", an atheist is someone who says "Huh? That is a stupid question!" when approached about the subject.
An atheist denies the existence of God in the same way he denies the existence of a tiny pink tea pot in orbit around a rock in the Oort cloud that comes into existence only when not looked at. An "Agnostic" is someone who has too little to do and who occasionally engages his tiny brain in silly mind games like "maybe there is a God". It is just childish. Why don't he sit down and ponder whether there are naked wild mermaids living in the core of the moon? That would make more sense.
Atheism is a belief system in the same way that "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no discrimination going on at all.
I would recommend you read up on the word discrimination:
Discrimination is a sociological term referring to the treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group in consideration based solely on class or category
Here is a class of people defined by "Want to marry a same-gender person". Simple definition. That group is being discriminated against. Simple.
Any man has the same right to marry a woman as any man does
Sigh. The group of people who fall under the category "would like to marry a same-gender person", and this is a well-defined group, are not allowed to marry whomever they like (consenting adults apply). SCOTUS has long since stated that marriage to the person you want to marry is an inalienable right.
It's not discrimination simply because the law doesn't allow you to do something you want to do
It is once that is directed at a group or category of people.
Why does the law need to be involved in me setting off fireworks?
The law forbids you from doing that for the same reason it forbids you from driving drunk or at 200mph. Your behavior is a danger to others and statistically such behavior will harm innocents. Don't be obtuse. You are not denied this right because it seems offensive to some superstitious idiot.
explain how the constitution prevents the government from doing so?
That is actually quite easy. Again, we define a group of people by the property "want to marry a same-gender person". This is a very straightforward definition and easy to understand. The state of California has approximately 1,100 legal and economic benefits that are only given to married couples. A group defined as above are denied those benefits based on nothing but the definition of the group.
Now, it can actually be even easier than that. If you ask any person in the US they would most likely agree that attempting and succeeding at marriage of a person one loves is part of "the pursuit of happiness". Such pursuit of happiness harms nobody, as opposed to the pursuit of happiness based on, for example, killing people (if that makes one happy). What was it those words said again:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Now, the statement above was later expanded upon in the 14th amendment. Since California gives people who marry an opposite-gender person 1,100 specific rights and protections, those are denied to any person defined as "would like to marry a same-gender person". no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws
Legally then, the only thing that needs to be clarified is whether the exclusion of the group defined as "would like to marry a same-gender person" from the law is rational. This is why, for example, the group of people defined as "would like to kill lots of people" are denied their basic rights of pursuit of happiness. Nobody has ever been able to put forward a rational claim that the group as defined above should be denied their basic rights under the US constitution.
For all of these reasons Prop 8 is unconstitutional. Interestingly if the ruling stands it will be possible to use it as an argument that all state law must pass the rational basis test. I am not sure the current SCOTUS is willing to go that far, several of them are utterly irrational.
If it walks like... and talks like...
try to read outside of the liberal/progressive "preferred reading list"
Sigh. Why is it that the new Repugnicans are so fucking retarded? What on earth makes you think I am a liberal/progressive in the way you normally define those? I argue for limitations to the power of the government. I argue for following the constitution of the USofA. Since when was that arguments you heard from the left? Retard!
I am one of those very, very few people in the world who would normally vote Republican but are now refraining to do so since the new crowd took over. The crowd that grew the federal government at a pace this country has hardly ever seen before. Given the pace the federal government grew with during the Bush era, there is only one way to describe his government: Pure socialist.
The difference between a socialist state and a capitalist state is in economics. The doubling of the federal government, and that is what we would have gotten if the Bush growth had continued for another four years, is a socialist move. Obama is not any better nor is he any worse. Sadly he does not have the ability to fix the problems he inherited, and he is going to continue to do harm.
To the subject: The constitution limits the powers of the government. Among other things it limits its ability to discriminate. Two consenting adults can not be discriminated against for any reason whatsoever. The constitution gives gays the right to marry. Sadly socialists like you and your pal G. W. Bush wants to seriously expand the powers and size of the federal government.
If you are still an avid reader, try to learn what the constitution is. Then try to learn why it limits the power of government. After that you can try to learn why a huge federal growth is socialism. After that you can try to find out which presidents in our history grew the federal government the most. Finally you can try to explain why it took a Democrat (that I did not vote for) to actually shrink the federal government and balance a horrendously unbalanced federal budget he inherited from a Republican.
The law is completely void about love...
Sigh...
Is it the business of the government who marries as long as they are consenting adults? Why? Marriage is a legal contract, nothing else. It has nothing to do with religion. As long as the government allows one person to marry whomever they please and deny someone else in a systematic manner, that is - per definition - discrimination based on the background of that systematic manner. Is the government allowed to discriminate based on gender?
turning to insults
When someone wants to turn the power over the individual to the federal government they are most often a communist. More rarely a fascist. You want to turn power over the individual to the government and I therefore assumed you were a communist. I don't like communists. If I was wrong and you are a fascist, I am slightly sorry - though the slightly is only as slightly as the difference between fascism and communism is.
It's called what society thinks is normal
Yes, and society thought that slavery was normal. Society thought that women not voting was normal. Society thought that women preaching that birth control should be legal belonged in jail, and society jailed a lot of these people. Thankfully we have a constitution that keeps the morons in society in check to the degree it is possible. The constitution prevents discrimination as codified in proposition 8. For those of us who thinks that the constitution is a worth-while document, it is therefore good that the moron activists in California were put in their place by someone with a functioning brain and the ability to read the constitution.
if you are stopping a black man and a white women from marrying because of their race, then you are discriminating based on race
and if you stop a man from marrying a man then you discriminate both on arbitrary moral superstition and also based on gender.
You don't want equal rights, you want extra rights
The only right requested is the right to marry whatever consenting adult one pleases without the interference from the government. Since when was the government allowed to determine whom someone can marry? Please explain how that fits into the constitution. Remember, the constitution strongly limits the governments right to interfere in private lives.
to presume gays never force their beliefs on people, unlike all other people, is somehow, magically insane
That is not the assumption made. The statement is that by demanding equal rights gays are forcing their view on others. They are not. Demanding equal rights is not forcing anything on anyone. Denying someone equal rights based on some arbitrary nutcase superstition on the other hand is forcing the nutcase superstitious lifestyle on said individual.
You are right that a gay person can be as much of a zealot as anyone else, but living according to your sexual orientation is not zealotry.
The simplest answer to the Fermi Paradox is that faster-than-light travel is not possible
No, it is not. We don't need FTL to colonize the Galaxy. Not even a significant fraction of the speed of light is needed.
If it's going to take a century to go ten light years, galactic colonization is just not going to happen.
There are several ways this can be done without FTL travel. One is the Ark scenario, and yes, it would be expanding since it is unlikely one civilization will fit into one ark and all go at one point in time. Several different arks going off in different directions is plenty. Two is enough to colonize.
then the insurance company should pay for crimes against nature
Proof positive what kind of a superstitious nutcase you are. Get an education, read a book (not the Bible please) and learn something. It will make you less of a lunatic. I hope.
This is why they have gay parades all over the nation
No, they have gay parades all over the nation for the same reason that African Americans had to march on Washington. Do you really think it is OK for states to stop Negroes from sitting on the same bench as you and I?
They act abnormally so that thy can be normal
Any oppressed part of the population will try to get out from under that oppression. That is normal. What is not normal is to let petty insecurities about your own sexuality demand that all people who are what you fear you are have less rights that "normal" people.
Perhaps we should take you at your word and demand all people in the nation wear "normal" clothes. Perhaps the government can make a standard piece of clothing that fits everybody and then demand we all wear that.
I hate communists like you.
Gays do have all the same rights as regular people. They can marry someone of the opposite sex just like everyone else
Rubbish. The government prevents gays from marrying the people they love, while you and I are free to marry.
Oh and please show me the marriage law that says you have to love someone or be sexually attracted to them in order to get married
Why do you think I think there is such a law?
So out side of history paralleling religious beliefs in how society was set up, there is really nothing about marriage being between a man and a woman that is discriminatory
The fact that you don't see that when you say "marriage being between a man and a woman" that is discriminatory by definition.
This is why this activist judge
Yeah, all judges who limit the powers of the government are activist judges. And you are a fucking communist for demanding the government decide who I can and can not marry as a consenting adult. I hate communists like you who want to give the government unlimited powers.
Marriage is simply a legal maneuver and that it.
Correct, and it is a legal maneuver that California tried to arbitrarily limit. Why do we not just ban white men from marrying black women or vice versa. There is no difference right? There would be no discrimination, right? Moron.
Continuing the thought, will med-care and insurance pay up for letting gay couple procreate
Procreation is a privilege, not a right. Med care should not pay for letting anyone procreate. On the other hand, if it is possible, and med care decides to pay for the artificial procreation of infertile straight couples, they can obviously not discriminate against gays.
It comes down to equal rights. Gays should have all the same rights as straight people in the same way that blacks should have all the same rights as whites. In fact, it is a lot easier to argue that blacks should have their rights limited significantly compared to whites than it is to argue that gay peoples rights should be limited.
At the same time we have the Fermi Paradox. Where are they? At our current rate of expansion and technological development we will have colonized the galaxy shortly (universe time-scale).
If there is intelligent life on only a handful of the viable planets, given that some of that life necessarily have several millions years of a head start on us, the first thing that Galileo should have seen when looking up was
"Welcome to the Galaxy humans.
This message sponsored by MickyD's, 25 trillion served each galactic standard day".
it's evidence to them
Before continuing, try to find out what evidence means. There is no such thing as "evidence to them", that would be oxymoronic.
True, but some come to faith by evidence.
Not to religious faith, there is no evidence. Not a single piece. There isn't even a valid hypothesis let alone a theory.
Actually it is just a theory
Not to point out the obvious, so is newtons theory of gravity.
Evolution would be more indicated if your son had traits that were present in neither of his parents.
He does. And no, mutation is not the only way to dramatically alter genetic material. Your understanding of the process of evolution is about 150 years old and needs updating.
The really short: The difficult point is speciation. Can evolution through regular mating lead to speciation? What is speciation? Assuming you start with one mating pair and you track all their offspring as if they were the root in a tree with a lot of branches, speciation is what you get if some time in that evolutionary tree, one of the descendants of the original pair can no longer mate with another descendant. Does speciation happen? Yes, even in the lab. The theory of common decent has not been in question in the scientific community since it was observed quite a while ago. The latest findings in the newer genetic mapping studies only confirmed what was already known while still adding more specific knowledge.
Get over it guys, the theory of common decent has more supporting evidence and scientific backing than does the theory of gravity.
The theory of evolution is not actually in dispute, nor is it a theory - we all know that evolution happens. What is in dispute is the theory of common decent. More specifically, the theory that evolution can lead to speciation. What nutjobs deny is not that things evolve, mate two different dogs and watch the offspring and you will observe that things evolve. What the nutjobs question is if this process can lead to new species. Things that will no longer be able to mate with the dogs.
Thanks to the genome project, speciation and common decent is now basically proven scientific fact, and it has significantly better documentation than does the theory of gravity. Do you not believe in gravity? You know that it is a very poorly documented theory, right?
Never mind that evolution is a theory ...
That is in fact not entirely true, and one of my pet peeves. Evolution is a mechanism, and nobody actually thinks that Evolution is bunk. We can witness evolution every day around us. All the time. Everywhere. Have two dogs make puppies, and none of then come out identical to their parents. They have evolved.
What is debated however is the theory of common decent. Do we all come from "simpler" organisms? The theory of common decent is controversial in some circles. For some reason the theory of gravity is not. I find this odd. Why is it odd? Well, the theory of common decent is well explained and well documented. We can observe in the genetic material that it has happened. We also know the mechanics of how it happened. What about gravity? Well, we can, as with common decent, see that it happens, but with gravity we can not explain how. The theory if common decent can easily be said to have better and more supporting evidence than does the theory of gravity. Why do these nutcases not attack the theory of gravity? Because it is an older theory and they would look even dumber than they do today?
Well, we all suffer from a lack of "spirituality" because there is no such thing as a spirit.
We are animals. We do not have souls or spirits. What you call "spirituality", I call childish superstition.
You can not prove this assertion. Your belief about such things is just that; belief.
Ah, but you got it all wrong. Let me try to explain. You are right that he can not prove that there is no spirit or soul. That is impossible. You can in fact not prove a negative. I can not prove that there are not invisible pink unicorns in the forest. I can not prove that there is not little blue men living in my carpet and every time I try to look at one he hides behind something. I can not even (practically) prove that there is not a tiny china tea pot circling our solar system in the Oort Cloud.
The one thing I can do is to be rational though. You see, all the things I can not prove the non-existence of is exactly an infinite number. In other words, you can come up with an infinite number of things I can not prove do not exist. Believing in that infinite number of things is irrational though. As is the belief in a soul or a spirit. As is the belief in God. In Santa Claus (though I have seen some compelling documentation for his existence).
So, until someone shows that there is a soul or a spirit, or at least some compelling arguments that point in that direction, he is right. We do not possess such things any more than there is invisible pink unicorns or tiny china tea pots in the Oort Cloud.
No thinking person believes in the infinite number of things that may exist. So, for any given value of "something" we are all atheists. Even you. So, your quote is not only bad, it is provably wrong. Every single individual in the world, thinking or not, is an atheist.
"Atheists" are highly religious--
Sigh. This comes up every now and then and it is, as what most religious nuts say, pure and utter rubbish. Atheism is religion in exactly the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. An atheist doesn't deny the existence of God, he simply refuses to generate a belief system around random ideas. The number of things that are unlikely to exist is exactly infinite. An atheist fails to believe in all of them, God has no special place in that lack of belief. I do not believe in blue midgets that go invisible if you try to look at them. I assume you do not believe in them either. Is that lack of belief of yours a religion?
Now, to what is often named "strong" atheism, the active denial of the existence of a particular God with a particular set of properties. Once someone gives me a testable hypothesis of "God" and I have falsified it, I will of course know that this particular form of "God" doesn't exist. I do, for example, know that "The God who created the world 6000 years or so ago" does not exist simply because the property "who created the world 6000 years or so ago" has been falsified, the earth is significantly older and the proof is incontrovertible. That particular God I know for sure does not exist. U can't say that about the little blue men in the forest who go invisible when you look at them. I can not say that they do not exist, I just fail to believe in them. As I fail to collect stamps.
These are the kinds of people that absolutely won't believe in the medicinal properties of herbs
Please stop making stuff up. Lying just isn't a good way to conduct a debate. There is not a single atheist in the world who won't believe in something that has well documented effects. Honestly, you are just being childish.
Thus these people are ignorant to the portion of the world that has not yet been explained.
Pure and utter rubbish. You really do not know anything at all about science. Anything where there is a viable hypothesis is debated within science, and if you can postulate a theory on it you are golden. The problem is that some people insist on believing stuff that has been proven wrong. Lots of herbs have very good medicinal value, and science makes use of this by detecting what in the specific herb has the actual effect, and then scientists will try to isolate said substance and improve upon it.
Example - a scientist finds a plant that in some cases prevents the body from rejecting implants (found while walking in the mountains of Norway). He doesn't discover this fact until he gets back to the lab of course, but decades later, hundreds of thousands of implants have succeeded where they would otherwise fail. The plant as such had a moderate effect, when the drug was refined from the plant it had a significantly higher success rate. The scientist would have been an idiot to ignore the real result, and he would have been an even bigger idiot if he had not refined the active ingredient and made it into a pill.
Because these people have no tolerance for anything that isn't physical, proven, and accepted by hard reasoning, they have no spirituality.
Ignorant rubbish. Thanks to the people you apparently despise so you are alive and you will grow old. If it wasn't for them you would be dying in your cave waiting for someone to come back with some fire harvested from a lightening strike.
I wonder what the Christian nutcases would say if, for example, Hindus started demanding that the federal government protected their particular superstition. I would love to see the proposition in California that banned the eating of beef.
I'm confronted with people who try and force their beliefs down my throat all the time. Vegetarians, vegans, gays, straights, liberals, libertarians, conservatives, and many others are far more guilty of it than Christians.
Really? How so? I can't see how this can be possible. Gays, for example, just want to live normal lives like you and me. Christians wants to force their superstition on gay people by forcing them to live along those superstitious lines. Thankfully people a lot smarter than you have understood that you are not allowed to force your religious views on anybody, and have now told the nutcases in California that everybody is equal, and that consenting adults can marry anybody they wish.
Remember, when gays demand equal rights, they are not forcing anything at all on you. They are only trying to stop you forcing your superstition on them.
Please note, when I call your religious views superstition it is not to be mean. They are superstition. All religious views are. By definition.
Well, that would be wrong actually. If you look at the entire universe, the amount of mass is statistically insignificant compared to the amount of empty space. It could easily be said to be approximately zero.
The same could be said for your head. And mine.
I'm not really sure where to start
Then you probably should not have started at all. As the quote more or less goes (attributed to anyone from G. B. Shaw to Churchill) "if you are not a socialist at 20 you have no heart, if you are still a socialist at 40 you have no brains". I have to assume you are younger than 40. Doing otherwise would be cruel.
Nothing says that you can't oppress the hell out of minority, forbid free speech and still not have a complete and total democracy
This is the first ridiculous statement in your post. Yes, a democratic rule may oppress a minority and still be democratic, it can not forbid free speech on the other hand since the prevention of free speech would make participation in the democracy for the affected party impossible. Free speech is integral to a democratic society and one does not exist where the other is oppressed.
Hitler was democratically elected
This is correct, but Germany also seized to be a democracy once he took power and held onto it by non-democratic means. This is where provisions for the prevention of totalitarian power comes into play. Read, for example, on the US Constitution second amendment. Nothing like that would ever be instituted in Europe. There isn't a single politician in Europe that would mandate that the government organizes a militia that will decapitate that same government if it becomes totalitarian. That is the purpose of the second amendment.
equate socialism (social system) to democracy as its opposite
Not quite, but almost. I use them some times interchangeably. Socialism can not exist in a free democracy. More when I explain where you get socialism wrong.
Socialism is not a political system - it's a social system that takes as idea that stronger members of society have an obligation to support weaker ones
What utter rubbish. How old are you? 15? Socialism is a political system based on collective ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of same. If you don't even know the very basics of what you are talking, how do you expect to be taken seriously? Sadly it gets worse.
capitalism where weak are losers who should be allowed to perish to make room for those who succeeded
If you ever went to school somewhere and you had to pay for it, please go back to your school and demand your money back. They failed in their most basic of tasks. Capitalism is, as opposed to socialism, a system where the means of production are privately held and the management of same are done by private citizens, not by committee.
It is generally held that in a capitalist society the individual will seek to use the means of production to gather personal wealth while in a socialist society the means of production are used for common good. This is not necessarily the case in a capitalist society however, since the individual might dispose of his gains in any way he pleases - see for example the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
socialism on societal level is one of the most if not the most important reason why humans evolved from cavemen into what they are today
That is ridiculous at a profound and rather comical level. Technological and societal development has always been attached to individuals and small groups. The greater groups (society as such one could say) have always resisted profound change. If cavemen were socialists they would still be cave men.
The most interesting modern example of this is the workings of the likes of Adidas and Nike, two companies who have exploited poor people around the world extensively. These exploitations have saved millions and millions of people from starvation. Compare this to the "socialist" dealings that is third world aid. Newer research into government aid more and more identifies this as the major cause of pov
Here is some stuff from the drivel that you apparently like so much (from the twenty arguments): http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm
1: To explain the change, can we consider the changing thing alone, or must other things also be involved? Obviously, other things must be involved... Nothing changes itself ...
I love that argument. It has to be so because PK says so. This dude is a professor? How did that happen? There isn't an ounce of logic in this drivel.
2: suppose there is no Uncaused Being, no God. Then nothing could exist right now
Oh my Pink Unicorn. Really? A "professor" uses an argument that has been utterly refuted for centuries? Please. This is just sad.
3: From nothing nothing comes. So ...
The universe could not have begun
I am slowly starting to get nauseous now.
In other words, we all recognize that
Sigh. Using a sentence like this at my philosophy introductory course at University would probably result in an automatic fail grade. This guy is really a professor of Philosophy? Who on earth hired this retard for such a job? The guys is a danger to his students.
I am unable to read further. I have a nephew and a niece who are at Confirmation age right now, and they are opting out of the religious ritual even though most kids opt in. Both of them, in their early teens, have been able to put together more rational arguments for staying up late watching movies they are not supposed to see than Kreeft is able to put together for the existence of a deity.
But anything other than "agnostic" view, is not any more reasonable than the other
Actually, this is incorrect. You are taking the "side" of the theists who claim that atheists deny the existence of God, they do not. An atheist is not someone who says: "I know there is no God", an atheist is someone who says "Huh? That is a stupid question!" when approached about the subject.
An atheist denies the existence of God in the same way he denies the existence of a tiny pink tea pot in orbit around a rock in the Oort cloud that comes into existence only when not looked at. An "Agnostic" is someone who has too little to do and who occasionally engages his tiny brain in silly mind games like "maybe there is a God". It is just childish. Why don't he sit down and ponder whether there are naked wild mermaids living in the core of the moon? That would make more sense.
Atheism is a belief system in the same way that "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.