I am not questioning that any right may have reasonable limitations. I'm not even commenting on the appropriateness of this specific case.
All right then. It seems we have no disagreement with the issues of this case. I don't feel like arguing about the larger issue, even though I don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be.
Then you truly do not believe in the right to anonymous speech.
This is like saying I don't believe in the right to private property because the government can get a search warrant or seize my property under limited circumstances.
Your examples about investigating a crime speak to limits on the right of anonymous speech, whether the right should be absolute or are their reasonable limits. That, however, is outside our discussion of whether or not the right exists at all.
It's the fundamental point of our discussion. The government, in this case, is investigating if judicial procedure was followed. In particular, somebody convicted of guilt may be entitled to a retrial depending on the results. Yet you ignore the context and pretend some absolute right is being violated, one that is not even explicitly given in the US Constitution, while ignoring the grants for search within the US Constitution.
You also downplay the fundamental importance of being allowed to post things anonymously, as opposed to a legal requirement for registering your speech, which is what the Supreme Court ruled on that you're using for your constitutional right. There is a world of difference between limited criminal investigation versus requiring every ISP, website, Wi-Fi access point, Internet cafe, etc to require identification before somebody can post a message.
It is untrue that they sell your information. Their business model does not allow that. The whole point is they will *never* sell your information...they sell targeted AD space.
Where "targeted AD space" is based on information all about you. Maybe they aren't reselling your name + information, but they sure are collecting it. Facebook requires real names, and Google has gone chasing after that policy, starting with Google+. Just the other day YouTube oh so helpfully wanted me to upgrade my account to my real name. I was able to decline it... for now.
So your argument is that as long as there remain theoretical means to protect your anonymity via technology, nothing the government does should be construed as stepping upon the right to anonymous speech?
Within reason. If I wrote an anonymous letter threatening your life, would you castigate the government for investigating it and trying to determine the author?
I suppose the freedom of religion isn't abridged if the government shuts down every church in the nation, since worshippers could meet in secret in someone's basement?
A better analogy would be if an organization worshipped in secret, and the government tried to break that secrecy to investigate a crime.
Are you saying it is a problem if the ISP was required by law to keep the data and then the government asked for it, but would not be a problem if the ISP kept it for their own reasons and the government asked for it?
Yes, that is what I'm saying. The government has a legitimate interest to uncover the author, and is using their judicial power to do so.
Perhaps, but in practice the line is so fine as to be invisible.
I don't agree. This poster wasn't required to identify themselves, and that means a lot. They could have used a proxy, or used an open Wi-Fi spot.
For example, if the government doesn't have a law prohibiting anonymous speech but in practice requires ISPs to log identifying information of all users and then requires the ISP to provide this data upon request so that they can unmask the anonymous speaker, where's the difference?
If ISPs and websites were actually required to log the information you say, then that would be an issue. But that's not the case now. Hopefully it remains that way.
If the US Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects the right to anonymous speech and this individual was trying to remain anonymous and had reasonable belief that he was, then the government violation of this anonymity would be in conflict with his constitutional rights.
There's a difference between disallowing anonymous speech versus trying to uncover the source. The case where the quote is from is McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, "the Court held that an Ohio statute that prohibits anonymous political or campaign literature is unconstitutional". [bold mine]
In this case, the court is trying to investigate a violation of judicial procedure. To claim that anonymous speech prevents them from investigating isn't substantiated by the Supreme Court.
Except that Dawkins doesn't just attack the biblical literalists, does he? The catholic church, for example, does not take the bible literally, but they are attacked by Dawkins (among others).
Some things they take literally, others they don't. The fundamental flaw remains, that of using mythology and dogma of supposedly divine origin as a basis for truth and morality.
Rome established the early universities to try to better understand the "mechanics of God's creation".
That religion was in power and did some scientific work doesn't give a free pass to all the unscientific aspects of religion.
In fact, I recall one particular incident where Dawkins really showed his true colours. Talking about the catholic church's views on abortion, he stated quite baldly that the church's true wasn't even based on a "real morality" (or maybe "false morality"), and rather a "false morality". What the hell does that mean?
I'm wary of taking your recollections as precise statements made. I did some quick searching and could not find the incident you describe, but I found two relevant references:
1. "Most thoughtful people would agree that morality in the absence of policing is somehow more truly moral than the kind of false morality that vanishes as soon as the police go on strike or the spy camera is switched off, whether the spy camera is a real one monitored in the police station or an imaginary one in heaven. "
That's from his book, "The God Delusion", but then he goes on to discuss a different religious position of God as being the only source of absolute morals.
2. "The core reason that antiabortion Catholics as well as evangelicals wish to force women to bear their babies to the point they die is not morality, which their faiths don't have all that much of. Nor is God truly central to the effort. It is about control. The control includes domination of woman by misogynist, authority-obsessed men. But also control of society by brute intimidation. That is why the anti-abortion cause is almost entirely religious in nature, atheists who are impractical enough to oppose the procedure being a rare species. The religious goal is a global culture where sex is limited to married heterosexuals who are not using contraceptives. It's a crass power play dressed up in false morality. And if there is one thing the Roman Church is really about it is Earthly power."
But that's not even by Dawkins. It's from an article by Gregory S. Paul hosted on a Dawkins site.
Science cannot define morality.
It can inform it, or in other words be used as a tool for making moral decisions. Sam Harris is a good proponent of the secular humanist view.
I've given my argument based on an informed reading of the principles of manipulation of public opinion that underlie terrorism.
The root meaning of terrorism is an attack to instill terror. Ridiculing somebody's belief in mythology is not terrorism, verbal or otherwise.
terrorist philosophy is one of the key sociological factors defining our modern world, and if we refuse to recognise it as such, and instead paint it as a bogeyman word, then we're all going to fall into the trap of being unable to properly handle it.
If you want to write a treatise on terrorism, go ahead, but do it elsewhere. Your use here in the middle of a debate can only be interpreted as ad hominem. And even your intended meaning is unjustified, because religion has been a dominant force attacking secular values for a very long time.
Ridiculing someone does not educate them.
Sure it can. Somebody being laughed at for ludicrous beliefs can be motivated to re-examine their beliefs, and it serves as notice to others. I'm not saying it is the right way, but it can work and is an option.
I could build a (very expensive) field generator with some funky shaped field with much of the flux passing through some point six feet away. Only problem is, you'd have to stand in that exact spot.
Dawkins does literally admit to the possibility, but his admission is hedged, bounded, supported, surrounded and smothered by so many patronising put-downs and statements of personal opinion that it's difficult to kid yourself on he's being sincere.
Because the "God" generally under debate is some variation of the Hebrew god from ancient mythology, one that dabbles in human affairs and has an associated creation myth that fundamentally conflicts with modern science. It's the product of primitive people with little understanding of the world, let alone the universe.
If all people did was speak philosophically about the possibility of an intelligent designer(s) for the universe, instead of taking mythology seriously to the point of battling evolution in schools or using it as a dogmatic basis for morality, then atheists like Dawkins wouldn't be so divisive in their ridicule.
I might even go as far as accusing Dawkins of verbal terrorism.
So, you trot out the "terrorism" word, and accuse Dawkins of being divisive and using put-downs?
Terrorists seek to provoke a reaction from their enemies that they can point to and say "see? they're oppressing us!"
Except in this case there is a long history of religion seeking to oppress views dogmatically. When people push back, now all of a sudden they are being unfairly attacked, when they are merely being ridiculed for their dogmatic belief in mythology.
I'll call him a bitter, repulsive little man on a crusade for self-publicity and with an irrational hatred of anyone who does not agree with him wholeheartedly (which he showed quite aptly even in his dealings with other scientists before he got this bee in his bonnet about religion).
That's your claim. Maybe you can back it up. You sound pretty bitter yourself.
From the Wikipedia page: "A beta version of Hyper-V shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, prior to Microsoft's release of the final version of Hyper-V on 26 June 2008 as a free download. [..] Announced on October 24, 2008, this service pack contains the same changes and improvements as the Windows Vista Service Pack 2, as well as the final release of Hyper-V 1.0 [..]" [bold mine]
i think at this point i am arguing just to argue:)
Clearly. Please stop. It's ok to admit you were wrong.
"Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. [Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead.] But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. [..] you are still in your sins. [..] Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
I agree with you, and yet your viewpoint will be forever ignored or relegated to the sidelines because the philosophy you espouse embraces ambiguity, whereas most believers (theist and atheist alike) crave certainty.
The agnostic view is quite common, even though it has as much intellectual integrity as soft pudding. He also attacks a strawman version of atheism, as even Dawkins or Hitchens would admit to the possibility of there being a god. Finally, the position he describes as agnostic is the atheist one:
"There is no evidence to suggest that any deity exists in our universe. The theoretical existence of any deities outside of our universe has no functional bearing to beings living within our universe (because such beings do not interact with us; such interaction being subject to documentation and scrutiny such that any such meaningful interaction would necessitate leaving testable evidence, which has yet to be detected), so while they might exist, that theoretical existence is moot and not worthy of contemplation. (unless of course, you can find documented and repeatable evidence of such external manipulation of our universe.)"
So basically, if the OP was talking about Christians in general, he wasn't doing a good job, because the appropriate generalization of Christians is that they do not hold to sola Scriptura. That belief is limited to a minority of Christians both globally and in the United States.
Just because there is a tradition doesn't mean you can completely ignore the scripture. As far as I know, all major branches of Christianity hold the Bible as divine truth. Where they differ is in interpretation. It's perfectly valid to question somebody on the scripture of their religion, unlike your "strawman" characterization.
See, this is where the apologists want to have it both ways. The Bible is divine scripture, except when you want to question it, it isn't and the tradition is what counts. I find it much simpler to label the whole thing mythology and be done with it.
No, I'm not familiar with 2008, as I don't admin their server line. Instead of giving me a list and hoping something sticks, I'm asking for specifics, something to bolster your claim. I've already gone into detail on XP SP3, and shown it doesn't support your case.
or are completely ignorant of the fact that the os changed...
But OK, I looked it up on Wikipedia. R2 was not a service pack, it was a separate release. Win2K8 did have a separate service pack that was different from the R2 release.
Neither of those claim to be of divine origin offering divine rewards and punishments. Your claim that the Bible doesn't contain a belief system or morality is absurd.
[authoritarian bullshit] So is any legal/moral system in practical application . What's your point?
As a secular humanist, I completely disagree. One moral system is based on a shitty story book full of dogma of supposedly divine origins and interpreted by the authorities. The other is based on thinking for yourself and trying to come to a consensus through a rational approach to morals.
Sam Harris gives a good argument for this position under the heading of "The Moral Landscape". That's the title of his book, which I have not read, but I have seen his lectures on.
Even if there isn't a formal catechism the point is that people need to realize that religion comes with a canonical set of interpretations much like our law comes with precedents.
But are still dogma nonetheless, no better than the book. It's actually worse, because the book is both venerated as divine truth on the one hand, and then loosely interpreted into silly putty on the other.
Of course it is, except Christians believe it is divinely inspired truth.
It doesn't contain belief system or a morality
You've got to be kidding me. It's full of moral lessons and commandments.
And that's not even to go into the fact that the bible only contains a subset of the available material.
Christians aren't generally educated on the dubious origins of their holy book.
What you're suggesting is literally trolling: presenting people with things you know are wrong for the sole purpose of harassing them. So yeah, have fun nitpicking an old, poorly translated storybook I guess.
If only they believed it was as you said. They don't. The rational alternative is to not take mythology seriously, hence they wouldn't be religious in the first place.
If that's not actually your goal, you can educate yourself: "Catholics believe that sacred scripture and sacred tradition preserved and interpreted by the Magisterium are both necessary for attaining to the fullest understanding of all of God's revelation."
Uh huh. So what makes the dogma of Catholic catechism any better than the story book? It's all authoritarian bullshit. Also, you mention Catholics, but the parent was talking about Christians in general.
Perhaps if you did put some thought into your postings, you wouldn't be in this mess.
If you mean a mess by wrestling with a pig in the mud, I'd agree. This will be my last post.
So you knew my comments were about American policy and political activity, that I was discussing something completely about America and Americans, and you had to remind me in my place because I didn't focus enough on you?
It wasn't about not enough focus on me, it was the presumption and self-centered, ignorant statement: "This is America, you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want. " Note the word "you" in there.
I bet you thought long and hard on that and actually think you have a point.
No, it was quite obvious. If you weren't such a self-centered prick, it wouldn't be seem like such a leap.
The thread is about a situation that happened in the US with a response the US mad and was correcting the interpretations over these US (not centric) actions.
And my point was that the US sub-thread started about a Canadian topic, a relevant example that the discussion is international, and a claims of "This is America, you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want" is self-centered ignorance.
I'm sorry, what is your point? That you can be a dick and I can't?
If you act like a dick and somebody calls you a dick, it's a poor excuse to claim the other person is being a dick for calling you out on it.
That's not the real scandal, or should I say is part of it. The real scandal is that the list has been in the government's hands for a couple of years and it has done nothing about it
In other words, the second and third sentences in the summary:
"While more and more austerity measures are being taken against the people of Greece, there is still no investigation of tax evasion for the people on this list by the government. The list has been in the possession of the Greek government since 2010."
So? I've had numerous discussions about American politics on Slashdot with non-Americans. You also might note you're commenting in a story about Canadians. Your "This is America, you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want" comment is a demonstration of self-centered ignorance.
Yes, This was as intended because in this day and age, the necessity to address ignorant people who seem to follow highlights of politicians attempting to swing things in their favor is tiresome.
Instead of acting like a know-it-all dick, you could just state your argument. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. That's the point of discussion.
I'd rather somebody tell me why they were ignoring me than to just ignore me completely. It's also to publicly shame, to discourage others from engaging in the same behavior.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not questioning that any right may have reasonable limitations. I'm not even commenting on the appropriateness of this specific case.
All right then. It seems we have no disagreement with the issues of this case. I don't feel like arguing about the larger issue, even though I don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be.
Then you truly do not believe in the right to anonymous speech.
This is like saying I don't believe in the right to private property because the government can get a search warrant or seize my property under limited circumstances.
Your examples about investigating a crime speak to limits on the right of anonymous speech, whether the right should be absolute or are their reasonable limits. That, however, is outside our discussion of whether or not the right exists at all.
It's the fundamental point of our discussion. The government, in this case, is investigating if judicial procedure was followed. In particular, somebody convicted of guilt may be entitled to a retrial depending on the results. Yet you ignore the context and pretend some absolute right is being violated, one that is not even explicitly given in the US Constitution, while ignoring the grants for search within the US Constitution.
You also downplay the fundamental importance of being allowed to post things anonymously, as opposed to a legal requirement for registering your speech, which is what the Supreme Court ruled on that you're using for your constitutional right. There is a world of difference between limited criminal investigation versus requiring every ISP, website, Wi-Fi access point, Internet cafe, etc to require identification before somebody can post a message.
What useful arts and sciences does it promote?
The art of getting your rocks off. Judging by the prevalence of porn, lots of people find it useful.
It is untrue that they sell your information. Their business model does not allow that. The whole point is they will *never* sell your information...they sell targeted AD space.
Where "targeted AD space" is based on information all about you. Maybe they aren't reselling your name + information, but they sure are collecting it. Facebook requires real names, and Google has gone chasing after that policy, starting with Google+. Just the other day YouTube oh so helpfully wanted me to upgrade my account to my real name. I was able to decline it... for now.
So your argument is that as long as there remain theoretical means to protect your anonymity via technology, nothing the government does should be construed as stepping upon the right to anonymous speech?
Within reason. If I wrote an anonymous letter threatening your life, would you castigate the government for investigating it and trying to determine the author?
I suppose the freedom of religion isn't abridged if the government shuts down every church in the nation, since worshippers could meet in secret in someone's basement?
A better analogy would be if an organization worshipped in secret, and the government tried to break that secrecy to investigate a crime.
Are you saying it is a problem if the ISP was required by law to keep the data and then the government asked for it, but would not be a problem if the ISP kept it for their own reasons and the government asked for it?
Yes, that is what I'm saying. The government has a legitimate interest to uncover the author, and is using their judicial power to do so.
Perhaps, but in practice the line is so fine as to be invisible.
I don't agree. This poster wasn't required to identify themselves, and that means a lot. They could have used a proxy, or used an open Wi-Fi spot.
For example, if the government doesn't have a law prohibiting anonymous speech but in practice requires ISPs to log identifying information of all users and then requires the ISP to provide this data upon request so that they can unmask the anonymous speaker, where's the difference?
If ISPs and websites were actually required to log the information you say, then that would be an issue. But that's not the case now. Hopefully it remains that way.
If the US Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects the right to anonymous speech and this individual was trying to remain anonymous and had reasonable belief that he was, then the government violation of this anonymity would be in conflict with his constitutional rights.
There's a difference between disallowing anonymous speech versus trying to uncover the source. The case where the quote is from is McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, "the Court held that an Ohio statute that prohibits anonymous political or campaign literature is unconstitutional". [bold mine]
In this case, the court is trying to investigate a violation of judicial procedure. To claim that anonymous speech prevents them from investigating isn't substantiated by the Supreme Court.
Except that Dawkins doesn't just attack the biblical literalists, does he? The catholic church, for example, does not take the bible literally, but they are attacked by Dawkins (among others).
Some things they take literally, others they don't. The fundamental flaw remains, that of using mythology and dogma of supposedly divine origin as a basis for truth and morality.
Rome established the early universities to try to better understand the "mechanics of God's creation".
That religion was in power and did some scientific work doesn't give a free pass to all the unscientific aspects of religion.
In fact, I recall one particular incident where Dawkins really showed his true colours. Talking about the catholic church's views on abortion, he stated quite baldly that the church's true wasn't even based on a "real morality" (or maybe "false morality"), and rather a "false morality". What the hell does that mean?
I'm wary of taking your recollections as precise statements made. I did some quick searching and could not find the incident you describe, but I found two relevant references:
1. "Most thoughtful people would agree that morality in the absence of policing is somehow more truly moral than the kind of false morality that vanishes as soon as the police go on strike or the spy camera is switched off, whether the spy camera is a real one monitored in the police station or an imaginary one in heaven. "
That's from his book, "The God Delusion", but then he goes on to discuss a different religious position of God as being the only source of absolute morals.
2. "The core reason that antiabortion Catholics as well as evangelicals wish to force women to bear their babies to the point they die is not morality, which their faiths don't have all that much of. Nor is God truly central to the effort. It is about control. The control includes domination of woman by misogynist, authority-obsessed men. But also control of society by brute intimidation. That is why the anti-abortion cause is almost entirely religious in nature, atheists who are impractical enough to oppose the procedure being a rare species. The religious goal is a global culture where sex is limited to married heterosexuals who are not using contraceptives. It's a crass power play dressed up in false morality. And if there is one thing the Roman Church is really about it is Earthly power."
But that's not even by Dawkins. It's from an article by Gregory S. Paul hosted on a Dawkins site.
Science cannot define morality.
It can inform it, or in other words be used as a tool for making moral decisions. Sam Harris is a good proponent of the secular humanist view.
I've given my argument based on an informed reading of the principles of manipulation of public opinion that underlie terrorism.
The root meaning of terrorism is an attack to instill terror. Ridiculing somebody's belief in mythology is not terrorism, verbal or otherwise.
terrorist philosophy is one of the key sociological factors defining our modern world, and if we refuse to recognise it as such, and instead paint it as a bogeyman word, then we're all going to fall into the trap of being unable to properly handle it.
If you want to write a treatise on terrorism, go ahead, but do it elsewhere. Your use here in the middle of a debate can only be interpreted as ad hominem. And even your intended meaning is unjustified, because religion has been a dominant force attacking secular values for a very long time.
Ridiculing someone does not educate them.
Sure it can. Somebody being laughed at for ludicrous beliefs can be motivated to re-examine their beliefs, and it serves as notice to others. I'm not saying it is the right way, but it can work and is an option.
And this
I could build a (very expensive) field generator with some funky shaped field with much of the flux passing through some point six feet away. Only problem is, you'd have to stand in that exact spot.
You need a flux capacitor.
Dawkins does literally admit to the possibility, but his admission is hedged, bounded, supported, surrounded and smothered by so many patronising put-downs and statements of personal opinion that it's difficult to kid yourself on he's being sincere.
Because the "God" generally under debate is some variation of the Hebrew god from ancient mythology, one that dabbles in human affairs and has an associated creation myth that fundamentally conflicts with modern science. It's the product of primitive people with little understanding of the world, let alone the universe.
If all people did was speak philosophically about the possibility of an intelligent designer(s) for the universe, instead of taking mythology seriously to the point of battling evolution in schools or using it as a dogmatic basis for morality, then atheists like Dawkins wouldn't be so divisive in their ridicule.
I might even go as far as accusing Dawkins of verbal terrorism.
So, you trot out the "terrorism" word, and accuse Dawkins of being divisive and using put-downs?
Terrorists seek to provoke a reaction from their enemies that they can point to and say "see? they're oppressing us!"
Except in this case there is a long history of religion seeking to oppress views dogmatically. When people push back, now all of a sudden they are being unfairly attacked, when they are merely being ridiculed for their dogmatic belief in mythology.
I'll call him a bitter, repulsive little man on a crusade for self-publicity and with an irrational hatred of anyone who does not agree with him wholeheartedly (which he showed quite aptly even in his dealings with other scientists before he got this bee in his bonnet about religion).
That's your claim. Maybe you can back it up. You sound pretty bitter yourself.
I have two WP7 apps that have had payoffs of $690.13 thus far.
Is that via advertising or are they apps that cost money? Also, I assume that's $690 combined, or restated: $345 average per app.
which introduced HyperV
From the Wikipedia page: "A beta version of Hyper-V shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, prior to Microsoft's release of the final version of Hyper-V on 26 June 2008 as a free download. [..] Announced on October 24, 2008, this service pack contains the same changes and improvements as the Windows Vista Service Pack 2, as well as the final release of Hyper-V 1.0 [..]" [bold mine]
i think at this point i am arguing just to argue :)
Clearly. Please stop. It's ok to admit you were wrong.
Please explain then 1 Corinthians 15 :
"Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. [Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead.] But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. [..] you are still in your sins. [..] Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
Believe or else.
They believe the substance of the wine and wafer is transubstantiated into that of the blood and flesh of their god's avatar.
That's quite the wall of text trying to logically make sense out of a pagan ritual.
I agree with you, and yet your viewpoint will be forever ignored or relegated to the sidelines because the philosophy you espouse embraces ambiguity, whereas most believers (theist and atheist alike) crave certainty.
The agnostic view is quite common, even though it has as much intellectual integrity as soft pudding. He also attacks a strawman version of atheism, as even Dawkins or Hitchens would admit to the possibility of there being a god. Finally, the position he describes as agnostic is the atheist one:
"There is no evidence to suggest that any deity exists in our universe. The theoretical existence of any deities outside of our universe has no functional bearing to beings living within our universe (because such beings do not interact with us; such interaction being subject to documentation and scrutiny such that any such meaningful interaction would necessitate leaving testable evidence, which has yet to be detected), so while they might exist, that theoretical existence is moot and not worthy of contemplation. (unless of course, you can find documented and repeatable evidence of such external manipulation of our universe.)"
So basically, if the OP was talking about Christians in general, he wasn't doing a good job, because the appropriate generalization of Christians is that they do not hold to sola Scriptura. That belief is limited to a minority of Christians both globally and in the United States.
Just because there is a tradition doesn't mean you can completely ignore the scripture. As far as I know, all major branches of Christianity hold the Bible as divine truth. Where they differ is in interpretation. It's perfectly valid to question somebody on the scripture of their religion, unlike your "strawman" characterization.
See, this is where the apologists want to have it both ways. The Bible is divine scripture, except when you want to question it, it isn't and the tradition is what counts. I find it much simpler to label the whole thing mythology and be done with it.
wow you either have never used 2008 and r2
No, I'm not familiar with 2008, as I don't admin their server line. Instead of giving me a list and hoping something sticks, I'm asking for specifics, something to bolster your claim. I've already gone into detail on XP SP3, and shown it doesn't support your case.
or are completely ignorant of the fact that the os changed...
But OK, I looked it up on Wikipedia. R2 was not a service pack, it was a separate release. Win2K8 did have a separate service pack that was different from the R2 release.
You're batting .000.
In the same way that Aesop is. Or maybe Asimov.
Neither of those claim to be of divine origin offering divine rewards and punishments. Your claim that the Bible doesn't contain a belief system or morality is absurd.
[authoritarian bullshit] So is any legal/moral system in practical application . What's your point?
As a secular humanist, I completely disagree. One moral system is based on a shitty story book full of dogma of supposedly divine origins and interpreted by the authorities. The other is based on thinking for yourself and trying to come to a consensus through a rational approach to morals.
Sam Harris gives a good argument for this position under the heading of "The Moral Landscape". That's the title of his book, which I have not read, but I have seen his lectures on.
Even if there isn't a formal catechism the point is that people need to realize that religion comes with a canonical set of interpretations much like our law comes with precedents.
But are still dogma nonetheless, no better than the book. It's actually worse, because the book is both venerated as divine truth on the one hand, and then loosely interpreted into silly putty on the other.
The bible is a story book.
Of course it is, except Christians believe it is divinely inspired truth.
It doesn't contain belief system or a morality
You've got to be kidding me. It's full of moral lessons and commandments.
And that's not even to go into the fact that the bible only contains a subset of the available material.
Christians aren't generally educated on the dubious origins of their holy book.
What you're suggesting is literally trolling: presenting people with things you know are wrong for the sole purpose of harassing them. So yeah, have fun nitpicking an old, poorly translated storybook I guess.
If only they believed it was as you said. They don't. The rational alternative is to not take mythology seriously, hence they wouldn't be religious in the first place.
If that's not actually your goal, you can educate yourself: "Catholics believe that sacred scripture and sacred tradition preserved and interpreted by the Magisterium are both necessary for attaining to the fullest understanding of all of God's revelation."
Uh huh. So what makes the dogma of Catholic catechism any better than the story book? It's all authoritarian bullshit. Also, you mention Catholics, but the parent was talking about Christians in general.
Perhaps if you did put some thought into your postings, you wouldn't be in this mess.
If you mean a mess by wrestling with a pig in the mud, I'd agree. This will be my last post.
So you knew my comments were about American policy and political activity, that I was discussing something completely about America and Americans, and you had to remind me in my place because I didn't focus enough on you?
It wasn't about not enough focus on me, it was the presumption and self-centered, ignorant statement: "This is America, you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want. " Note the word "you" in there.
I bet you thought long and hard on that and actually think you have a point.
No, it was quite obvious. If you weren't such a self-centered prick, it wouldn't be seem like such a leap.
The thread is about a situation that happened in the US with a response the US mad and was correcting the interpretations over these US (not centric) actions.
And my point was that the US sub-thread started about a Canadian topic, a relevant example that the discussion is international, and a claims of "This is America, you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want" is self-centered ignorance.
I'm sorry, what is your point? That you can be a dick and I can't?
If you act like a dick and somebody calls you a dick, it's a poor excuse to claim the other person is being a dick for calling you out on it.
That's not the real scandal, or should I say is part of it. The real scandal is that the list has been in the government's hands for a couple of years and it has done nothing about it
In other words, the second and third sentences in the summary:
"While more and more austerity measures are being taken against the people of Greece, there is still no investigation of tax evasion for the people on this list by the government. The list has been in the possession of the Greek government since 2010."
This is America where I'm at.
So? I've had numerous discussions about American politics on Slashdot with non-Americans. You also might note you're commenting in a story about Canadians. Your "This is America, you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want" comment is a demonstration of self-centered ignorance.
Yes, This was as intended because in this day and age, the necessity to address ignorant people who seem to follow highlights of politicians attempting to swing things in their favor is tiresome.
Instead of acting like a know-it-all dick, you could just state your argument. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. That's the point of discussion.
I'd rather somebody tell me why they were ignoring me than to just ignore me completely. It's also to publicly shame, to discourage others from engaging in the same behavior.
This is America
This is Slashdot, which has an international readership.
you are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you want.
And you're free to not start your posts with "Sigh..", which is pretentious and condescending.