sorry, the socratic problem is besides the point. it doesn't matter who socrates was, it matters that he was, which is more difficult to establish with jesus. the task was to show anything about anyone using ancient sources, and I showed that the existence of the historical socrates is supported by his contemporaries. either that, or we have an elaborate conspiracy between plato, aristophanes and xenophon, among others. of the three, xenophon even claims to have been present in some of the things he recorded. with jesus, what we have is more like diogenes laertius, because it's all hearsay. including the bible, because of the dating of the books. all of them come decades after jesus' supposed life, and paul doesn't even claim to have met jesus while he was still on earth. if we assume that jesus is fictional, there's also no need for assuming a conspiracy, because paul alone would have been enough to bootstrap that myth
mind you, all this isn't even touching the other two figures I named, alexander of macedonia and julius caesar. with the second guy, we actually have his own writings remaining, etc.
If you can prove from 2 sources anything about anyone else 2000 years ago I'd be interested to hear it!
I know it's not me who the question was addressed to, but a silly yet valid example from the top of my head and more than 2 millenia ago: Socrates. if we're talking about the existence of the historical person, there are three contemporaries that have left sources supporting his: xenophon, plato and aristophanes, and there are probably more sources that I don't remember. some more serious examples would be alexander of macedonia and gaius julius caesar. unlike jesus, these guys actually have contemporary eyewitness accounts of their existence. so, there -- any other challanges?
quick note: kuhn's "structure" isn't anything like a be-all and end-all of philosophy of science, and the field has moved on since his time./end of note
In my opinion, making everyone change their ways for a few who have an issue isn't ethical,
so, let's test this criterion of morality with a thought experiment. let's assume that there is a country of nazis with a tiny minority of jews that the nazis are in the habit of killing. according to you, it would be unethical to make them stop, because there are only a few who have an issue. is this acceptable or not?
I wonder if I'm the only one who's a bit put off by the mentions of supernatural beings in a sci-fi novel. well, probably not, but I guess I'll read the book anyway, if only to have an informed opinion. it's been a popular theme lately that the world is driven or almost driven to collapse by the irreligious, with the implication that believers would've done differently. bioshock and I am legend come to mind immediately, but there's more, I just can't remember them. the seeming supernaturalism (or just bullshit) of "cell" also prevented me from getting to the end, because I seem to be sensitive against that kind of thing in certain environments (but not others, rushdi's supernatural realism is fine), like sci-fi. in any case, I hope I'll find anathem enjoyable
eyewitness accounts written many decades after the event, some even so late that it's unfeasible or impossible that they could have been written by contemporaries of jesus? eyewitness accounts that aren't supported by any independent sources from the lifetime of the person they're about? eyewitness accounts that are stock full of freaking miracles? I wish I could say that you've got to be kidding, but, sadly, I know you're not. your attempts to place an unfair burden on the other side are pretty transparent too. in any case, it would only take a kid to see that the bible is no evidence for anything, and what you're doing is simple obfuscation
please, speak for yourself, there's a myriad of biologists that'd like to disagree with this assessment. we have a pretty good idea about what exactly life is, unless you're still stuck in the days of vitalism or whatever
This isn't discrimination. It's facts and statistics, common sense from a business perspective.
you must be using a different definition of discrimination than the rest of us, because ours doesn't include "unless it's bad for business". discrimination is just not treating people equally, and just that. I think responses like yours stem from the fact that it carries some negative connotations, and that there are situations where most of us would agree that it's better to discriminate than not to. I'm not sure the one discussed here is among them, though
The irony here is that determinism grew out of theological notions of Natural Law but is now so much a part of the scientific culture that anything else is treated as heresy!
that's weird, isn't the Copenhagen interpretation almost universally accepted? you know, the one that did away with determinism and showed that the universe is fundamentally stochastic
your proposal is bad, the education is not neutral and you could use some more of it yourself. you don't understand the difference between ethics and morality. the first is what can be taught and the second is what's practiced. you can't spell "tendency", and risk analysis falls under statistics and probability, not philosophy (unless you mean utilitarianism) and especially not "morality". you suggest spinning history to make selfishness seem bad, but that's completely biased. you omit biology's cornerstone -- evolution, the understanding of which directly pertains to our health, epidemiology, agriculture etc. the importance of species like bears or whatnot is nonsense too, because the definition of what constitutes a species is very problematic, and there are enough people that think that what we call species only have a sentimental value for us anyway. the inclusion of recycling also seems arbitrary, and should fall under some more general topic. the rest of what you mention is being taught in most places of the world anyway, but the stupidest thing you include is teaching about Noah's ark as if it was a real story, and the "true" definition of faith being that it's things you believe even if they're contradicted by "truth" (your words) and evidence. I completely agree with that, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
1. There are other games besides the Orange box one might want to play 2. It doesn't matter what Adobe software he was talking about (although it was probably Photoshop), because almost none of it works under Linux 3. Some people, like me, just prefer MS Office and don't like OOo, and running anything under Wine is suboptimal
what is so hypocritical about using completely freely licensed code in a product like windows? more and more I get the feeling that the bsd license people just want to claim superiority over gpl while still expecting to be treated like they were using copyleft. not saying that the parent is one of them or that gpl is better than bsd-style licenses, just making a note for myself
Slashdot Mirror
epic fail.
sorry, the socratic problem is besides the point. it doesn't matter who socrates was, it matters that he was, which is more difficult to establish with jesus. the task was to show anything about anyone using ancient sources, and I showed that the existence of the historical socrates is supported by his contemporaries. either that, or we have an elaborate conspiracy between plato, aristophanes and xenophon, among others. of the three, xenophon even claims to have been present in some of the things he recorded. with jesus, what we have is more like diogenes laertius, because it's all hearsay. including the bible, because of the dating of the books. all of them come decades after jesus' supposed life, and paul doesn't even claim to have met jesus while he was still on earth. if we assume that jesus is fictional, there's also no need for assuming a conspiracy, because paul alone would have been enough to bootstrap that myth
mind you, all this isn't even touching the other two figures I named, alexander of macedonia and julius caesar. with the second guy, we actually have his own writings remaining, etc.
and your source for this claim is...
I know it's not me who the question was addressed to, but a silly yet valid example from the top of my head and more than 2 millenia ago: Socrates. if we're talking about the existence of the historical person, there are three contemporaries that have left sources supporting his: xenophon, plato and aristophanes, and there are probably more sources that I don't remember. some more serious examples would be alexander of macedonia and gaius julius caesar. unlike jesus, these guys actually have contemporary eyewitness accounts of their existence. so, there -- any other challanges?
quick note: kuhn's "structure" isn't anything like a be-all and end-all of philosophy of science, and the field has moved on since his time. /end of note
right, burger flippers -- because it's not like even your current president would be one of those idiots
so what does it cost then?
meh, this must be the longest post modded +5 funny that I've seen
thanks for giving the guy free publicity for fucking up.
so, let's test this criterion of morality with a thought experiment. let's assume that there is a country of nazis with a tiny minority of jews that the nazis are in the habit of killing. according to you, it would be unethical to make them stop, because there are only a few who have an issue. is this acceptable or not?
and kdawson ir particular. please die in a fire, thanks.
that's "connor"
then you're committing the etymological fallacy, because the literal or historical meaning of a word is basically irrelevant to what it means today
I wonder if I'm the only one who's a bit put off by the mentions of supernatural beings in a sci-fi novel. well, probably not, but I guess I'll read the book anyway, if only to have an informed opinion. it's been a popular theme lately that the world is driven or almost driven to collapse by the irreligious, with the implication that believers would've done differently. bioshock and I am legend come to mind immediately, but there's more, I just can't remember them. the seeming supernaturalism (or just bullshit) of "cell" also prevented me from getting to the end, because I seem to be sensitive against that kind of thing in certain environments (but not others, rushdi's supernatural realism is fine), like sci-fi. in any case, I hope I'll find anathem enjoyable
eyewitness accounts written many decades after the event, some even so late that it's unfeasible or impossible that they could have been written by contemporaries of jesus? eyewitness accounts that aren't supported by any independent sources from the lifetime of the person they're about? eyewitness accounts that are stock full of freaking miracles? I wish I could say that you've got to be kidding, but, sadly, I know you're not. your attempts to place an unfair burden on the other side are pretty transparent too. in any case, it would only take a kid to see that the bible is no evidence for anything, and what you're doing is simple obfuscation
how about this? someone's lying on the internet to make their claims seem more authoritative. yeah, I know, that could never happen
please, speak for yourself, there's a myriad of biologists that'd like to disagree with this assessment. we have a pretty good idea about what exactly life is, unless you're still stuck in the days of vitalism or whatever
my Eee is unpleasantly hot when held on the lap too, though
your proposal is bad, the education is not neutral and you could use some more of it yourself. you don't understand the difference between ethics and morality. the first is what can be taught and the second is what's practiced. you can't spell "tendency", and risk analysis falls under statistics and probability, not philosophy (unless you mean utilitarianism) and especially not "morality". you suggest spinning history to make selfishness seem bad, but that's completely biased. you omit biology's cornerstone -- evolution, the understanding of which directly pertains to our health, epidemiology, agriculture etc. the importance of species like bears or whatnot is nonsense too, because the definition of what constitutes a species is very problematic, and there are enough people that think that what we call species only have a sentimental value for us anyway. the inclusion of recycling also seems arbitrary, and should fall under some more general topic. the rest of what you mention is being taught in most places of the world anyway, but the stupidest thing you include is teaching about Noah's ark as if it was a real story, and the "true" definition of faith being that it's things you believe even if they're contradicted by "truth" (your words) and evidence. I completely agree with that, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
1. There are other games besides the Orange box one might want to play
2. It doesn't matter what Adobe software he was talking about (although it was probably Photoshop), because almost none of it works under Linux
3. Some people, like me, just prefer MS Office and don't like OOo, and running anything under Wine is suboptimal
what is so hypocritical about using completely freely licensed code in a product like windows? more and more I get the feeling that the bsd license people just want to claim superiority over gpl while still expecting to be treated like they were using copyleft. not saying that the parent is one of them or that gpl is better than bsd-style licenses, just making a note for myself