If the transmitter only transmits to a space the size of your car and you're listening to the music privately, you're not infringing copyright laws. Copyright covers "public" performance, not private.
If you leave your keys in your car in an area where you know 4th graders regularly play without supervision, and one of them gets in your car and gets into a car accident, the parents may have a cause of action against you. "Illegal" is not the issue. Worry about the tort.
The Libertarian Party is asking for conquest by Mexico, but Ron Paul isn't. He's against open borders, and that makes sense. The point of libertarianism is to protect the liberty of the American people. You can't do that by allowing foreign invasion.
Where's Lawrence Lessig to save the day? Oh yeah, Stanford's his boss. Too bad Stanford has to play the economics game rather than using its philosophical resources.
I'm no fan of Andrew Cuomo, but it's good to see Dell get what they deserve, isn't it? A lawsuit like this could make Dell improve its services for those other home users you speak of.
"There you go again: asking for evidence is not "shutting out all other possibilities". Dogma is blind to evidence; science is not. Physical theory is there because people listened to evidence and possibilities.
Well, the only provable fact about reality is experience, and not the material world. Thus, since the mind affects one's own experience, the provable reality is subjective and the objective reality is merely theoretical.
Otherwise we'd all still be worshipping lightning and calling 40-year-olds "elders".
Yeah, that's almost as bad as worshipping Sanjaya (an American "idol") and calling the Bush Administration "leaders."
"There is no reason whatsoever to believe in god. Therefore Atheism is the default position."
Wrong.
The default position is agnosticism, which is not having an opinion about whether or not there is anything godly and/or spiritual in existence. Once you claim to be an atheist, you're stating that you believe there is nothing beyond the material and physical. But there is no reason whatsoever to believe in substance, only in experience.
"in fact, the entire idea and indeed the definition of atheism is diametrically opposed to a belief system. Would you like to continue flaunting your ignorance, or are we done here?"
According to Merriam Webster, the definition of atheism is:
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
The definition is NOT opposed to a belief system. The definition is a specific belief that there is no deity. That IS a belief system, because it contains very specific conception of the world with many deductive implications. Agnosticism is what is opposed to the belief system, because it does not take a stance on the issue. Try taking a first year course in metaphysics before you accuse anyone of "ignorance".
Your business is failing because you sell obsolete merchandise, not because people refuse to abide by a system that doesn't make sense anymore. Compact discs often neither the best quality (vinyl) nor the best convenience (digital audio files), and therefore there's no reason to buy them.
If you owned a horse and buggy business in the early 20th century, you'd probably have lost business to the rise of the auto industry. The government doesn't exist to keep obsolete business models perpetually in business.
I'll not get into detail about how the music of this decade is trash and not worth buying.
"Theists make an extraordinary claim about the world. Atheists do not make that claim; it is not their responsibility to demonstrate it to be true, in exactly the same way that the Trekie who wants to claim that Kirk is real has the responsibility to demonstrate evidence for such an amazing claim before any reasonable person accepts it."
Of course athiests make a claim. Atheists claim the non-existence of anything but the mundane, physical world. If you're not making any claim, you're not atheist, you're agnostic.
And how is claiming that the existence of the universe is completely random not as extraordinary of a claim than claiming that certain things exist that are not part of the mundane, physical world? The atheist perspective answers the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing," with the response, "It just happened randomly." THAT is pretty extraordinary to believe, considering the level of order and sophistication attached to the physical world.
But why would you limit yourself to the Hebrew god? Isn't he the angry, jealous god that tried to kill humanity with the Flood? I prefer hero gods, personally.
But as for belief in existence, the question isn't whether any one particular god exists, its whether such a thing as a god or spirit or any such thing incorporeal exists. Belief in anything beyond the mundane, material world would be considered theism, and disbelief of the same is atheism (and hiding your head in the sand would be agnosticism). I think the question is very interesting and important, without having to bring in the Bible.
"Actually, I wouldn't because of my knowledge, experience, and special privilege of being outside of Mario's world. None of these apply to the question of the existance of God, at least they don't for me. You want me to imagine a fantasy world where all conjectures are treated equally. Well, screw that. They are not and can not be. I am not going to accept random assertions with no evidence and nor should you. If someone comes to the door and says you have won $1,000,000,000 put you need to give him $1,000 before he can release the funds you will tell them to prove it or fuck off. Quite rightly. No amount of logic can be applied to that situation which would prove whether they are telling the truth or not. Probability and experience suggest that the wisest course is to ask them to provide the proof since logic is unable to. The athiest is in the same situation. A wildly astounding claim, worth far more than $1,000,000,000 has been made but nothing has been produced to back it up. Logic is mute as to the truth or falsity of the claim, so the athiest asks the theist to demonstrate it. When the proof is not forthcoming the rational response is "I don't believe you; stop wastng my time."
If that's the maximum scope of your analysis, then your intellectual capacity is sorely limited. If you can't move beyond thinking like a robot, and start reaching towards wisdom with intuition, then you'll never be anything more than meat and bones. Descartes realized that. Why can't you? Mathematics is not the end-all approach to understanding. It only helps in comparisons and relationships. Once you gain the ability of intuition (i.e. common sense), you won't need probabilities to guide you. In the example you used, you'll know not to give up your $1,000 before justifying it by measuring the probability that his offer is sincere. You also don't need to base this on experience, as you say. Otherwise you would always be suckered the first time someone attempted to trick you in a particular way, and you'll have to wait until the second time so that you can say, "Wait, I was tricked the first time. This time I know better." The first time around, your common sense can tell you otherwise. Limiting yourself to what you've read, studied, or otherwise experienced, rather than using intuition or a creative understanding of the cirucmstances will always keep you far behind the ball.
The only provable truth about reality is that we experience. Therefore, the rational approach to improving reality is to alter your experience by altering your conception of reality to a form idealized to the deepest aspect of yourself. Believing exclusively in the current system of physical theory and shutting out all other possibilities is the worst kind of religious fundamentalism.
"And experience tells us that there is no reason to invoke giant beardy men in the sky to explain the world around us. This is nothing to do with logic and everything to do with reason. Logic would in fact support your position that athiesm is no "better" than theism. Reasonableness, however takes account of probability. Is it a logical possibility that there are 10 purple crows in my garden as I type this? Yes. Is it reasonable to believe you if you tell me that was in fact the case, but they've all flown off now? No."
Who said anything about any beardy guys in the sky? By theism, I'm merely talking about existence outside of the physical, mundane world. And furthermore, you make the common mistake of putting your faith in probability, when neither reason nor logic can provide any basis for believing that probability is ever a proper basis for justifying anything. All probability says is that what has happened before will happen again, with the ASSUMPTION that the universe will always continue in cycles, even though change appears to be the rule.
As for purple crows in your garden, any probability applied is completely made up. Either your garden exists or it doesn't. The probability could only tell you, X is true, unless it's false. Which isn't really telling you anything. You perceive your garden, so the experience of your garden is true, but there's no reason to believe that phenomena equals substance, or that the existene of substance is significant in any way. It's like playing a game of Super Mario Brothers, wherein Mario stands still without any reason to proceed, because he cannot prove the existence of you, holding the controller. No matter how many boxes he breaks or Goombas he stomps on, he has no proof that there is anything outside of the Mushroom Kingdom. Would you argue that on that basis there's no probability of anything existence outside of Mario's world? No, you wouldn't, because your reason applied to intuition tells you otherwise.
"Atheism isn't a belief system. Nice try, though."
Of course it is. Atheism is the belief that there is nothing in existence but the material (i.e. gods, spirits, etc. do not exist according to atheism). You must be thinking of agnosticism, which simply refuses to have an opinion on the matter. Nice try, though.
Okay, I'll give you that. But Constantine was no Clash of the Titans. See? Paganism has the best movies. Yes, I'm saying Clash of the Titans is one of the best movies. Ever. I say that, and I confess my belief in that statement. But, putting aside the comically primitive special effects, you can't deny it.
There's absolutely no logical reason to believe atheism over theism. Therefore, such choices can be made based on aesthetics and intuition, both of which favor the world of Spirit.
What logic CAN prove is that there's such a thing as experience. That being the most provable thing, the transcendental take on existence makes the most sense.
Sorry, material guy, but your physical world isn't very real, much less the only thing in existence.
Yes, no truth about the physical world can be proven logically, and thus there's no logical proof of theism or of atheism. However, that is not the end of the inquiry, since the analytical mind is not the only resource we have. As Spock used to say, "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."
There's too much criticism of Scientology. It may seem weird and wacky, but then so does Judaism. Or Islam. Or Christianity. Why should the mainstream semitic religions get the monopoly on wacky beliefs? Let Scientologists worship whatever aliens they want to.
You think modern science is any less weird and wacky? Physics is all theoretical, which is why it keeps changing every generation. Nothing is "proven" except what is observed, and then some physicist comes along with an arbitrary explanation that fits the observations. But modern science takes as much faith as Scientology or semitic religion or Buddhism or Hinduism or paganism. And atheism is dry and meaningless and unfulfilling. Scientology could lead to some bad science fiction stories like Battlefield Earth, but then how many Catholic stories have been all that great? Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves? Please.
You need to have a vision to have cult worship. Microsoft has no vision. All they do is buy competitors out and sell unnecessary upgrades that aren't backwards compatible. Who would worship that?
WRONG.
Conservatives describe neocons as neocons, because they betray the conservative platform. Neocon is someone who claims to be a conservative, but supports the liberal agenda of globalism, massive spending (e.g. the Bush Administration), massive borrowing, and internationalism. If you want to see a real conservative, check out Congressman Ron Paul, who supports libertarianism, small government, state's rights, non-intervention in foreign affairs and domestic affairs (i.e. people's lives), and an end to the Federal Reserve and income tax.
As far support goes, Apple has always been far, far, far superior to Dell, from my experience. Dell "support" means you talk to some person in India that doesn't listen to what you're saying, but listens for keywords in what you say so that they can look up a pre-written response to the problem (though its never the actual problem that you have, rather its the problem that would be more efficient for Dell to resolve, and it's your fault for not having the problem that matches their knowledge base). Dell doesn't care about resolving anyone's problems or selling a product that works like its supposed to and doesn't have exploding batteries. Steve Jobs (or his assistant) helping out a guy is nice, but Apple's support is already superior to the competition.
The other reason Apple's support is better is because they probably waste much less time fixing stupid bugs that shouldn't have been in their software to begin with. I used Dell computers all my life until 2004, and then switched to Mac. Since the switch, I have never once had to close a window because of an "illegal operation". I hate you so much, Microsoft and Dell. You don't care about your customers, and we don't care about you.
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If the transmitter only transmits to a space the size of your car and you're listening to the music privately, you're not infringing copyright laws. Copyright covers "public" performance, not private.
If you leave your keys in your car in an area where you know 4th graders regularly play without supervision, and one of them gets in your car and gets into a car accident, the parents may have a cause of action against you. "Illegal" is not the issue. Worry about the tort.
Section 108 of the Copyright Act has certain exceptions for libraries.
The Libertarian Party is asking for conquest by Mexico, but Ron Paul isn't. He's against open borders, and that makes sense. The point of libertarianism is to protect the liberty of the American people. You can't do that by allowing foreign invasion.
This is exactly the sort of thing that is turning our government into a Communist entity. Stop big government control! Vote for Ron Paul in 2008!
Where's Lawrence Lessig to save the day? Oh yeah, Stanford's his boss. Too bad Stanford has to play the economics game rather than using its philosophical resources.
I'm no fan of Andrew Cuomo, but it's good to see Dell get what they deserve, isn't it? A lawsuit like this could make Dell improve its services for those other home users you speak of.
"There you go again: asking for evidence is not "shutting out all other possibilities". Dogma is blind to evidence; science is not. Physical theory is there because people listened to evidence and possibilities.
Well, the only provable fact about reality is experience, and not the material world. Thus, since the mind affects one's own experience, the provable reality is subjective and the objective reality is merely theoretical.
Otherwise we'd all still be worshipping lightning and calling 40-year-olds "elders".
Yeah, that's almost as bad as worshipping Sanjaya (an American "idol") and calling the Bush Administration "leaders."
"There is no reason whatsoever to believe in god. Therefore Atheism is the default position." Wrong. The default position is agnosticism, which is not having an opinion about whether or not there is anything godly and/or spiritual in existence. Once you claim to be an atheist, you're stating that you believe there is nothing beyond the material and physical. But there is no reason whatsoever to believe in substance, only in experience.
"in fact, the entire idea and indeed the definition of atheism is diametrically opposed to a belief system. Would you like to continue flaunting your ignorance, or are we done here?"
According to Merriam Webster, the definition of atheism is: a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity The definition is NOT opposed to a belief system. The definition is a specific belief that there is no deity. That IS a belief system, because it contains very specific conception of the world with many deductive implications. Agnosticism is what is opposed to the belief system, because it does not take a stance on the issue. Try taking a first year course in metaphysics before you accuse anyone of "ignorance".
Your business is failing because you sell obsolete merchandise, not because people refuse to abide by a system that doesn't make sense anymore. Compact discs often neither the best quality (vinyl) nor the best convenience (digital audio files), and therefore there's no reason to buy them. If you owned a horse and buggy business in the early 20th century, you'd probably have lost business to the rise of the auto industry. The government doesn't exist to keep obsolete business models perpetually in business. I'll not get into detail about how the music of this decade is trash and not worth buying.
"Theists make an extraordinary claim about the world. Atheists do not make that claim; it is not their responsibility to demonstrate it to be true, in exactly the same way that the Trekie who wants to claim that Kirk is real has the responsibility to demonstrate evidence for such an amazing claim before any reasonable person accepts it." Of course athiests make a claim. Atheists claim the non-existence of anything but the mundane, physical world. If you're not making any claim, you're not atheist, you're agnostic. And how is claiming that the existence of the universe is completely random not as extraordinary of a claim than claiming that certain things exist that are not part of the mundane, physical world? The atheist perspective answers the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing," with the response, "It just happened randomly." THAT is pretty extraordinary to believe, considering the level of order and sophistication attached to the physical world.
I agree that agnosticism is probably the best place to begin the analysis of theism versus atheism.
But why would you limit yourself to the Hebrew god? Isn't he the angry, jealous god that tried to kill humanity with the Flood? I prefer hero gods, personally. But as for belief in existence, the question isn't whether any one particular god exists, its whether such a thing as a god or spirit or any such thing incorporeal exists. Belief in anything beyond the mundane, material world would be considered theism, and disbelief of the same is atheism (and hiding your head in the sand would be agnosticism). I think the question is very interesting and important, without having to bring in the Bible.
"Actually, I wouldn't because of my knowledge, experience, and special privilege of being outside of Mario's world. None of these apply to the question of the existance of God, at least they don't for me. You want me to imagine a fantasy world where all conjectures are treated equally. Well, screw that. They are not and can not be. I am not going to accept random assertions with no evidence and nor should you. If someone comes to the door and says you have won $1,000,000,000 put you need to give him $1,000 before he can release the funds you will tell them to prove it or fuck off. Quite rightly. No amount of logic can be applied to that situation which would prove whether they are telling the truth or not. Probability and experience suggest that the wisest course is to ask them to provide the proof since logic is unable to. The athiest is in the same situation. A wildly astounding claim, worth far more than $1,000,000,000 has been made but nothing has been produced to back it up. Logic is mute as to the truth or falsity of the claim, so the athiest asks the theist to demonstrate it. When the proof is not forthcoming the rational response is "I don't believe you; stop wastng my time." If that's the maximum scope of your analysis, then your intellectual capacity is sorely limited. If you can't move beyond thinking like a robot, and start reaching towards wisdom with intuition, then you'll never be anything more than meat and bones. Descartes realized that. Why can't you? Mathematics is not the end-all approach to understanding. It only helps in comparisons and relationships. Once you gain the ability of intuition (i.e. common sense), you won't need probabilities to guide you. In the example you used, you'll know not to give up your $1,000 before justifying it by measuring the probability that his offer is sincere. You also don't need to base this on experience, as you say. Otherwise you would always be suckered the first time someone attempted to trick you in a particular way, and you'll have to wait until the second time so that you can say, "Wait, I was tricked the first time. This time I know better." The first time around, your common sense can tell you otherwise. Limiting yourself to what you've read, studied, or otherwise experienced, rather than using intuition or a creative understanding of the cirucmstances will always keep you far behind the ball. The only provable truth about reality is that we experience. Therefore, the rational approach to improving reality is to alter your experience by altering your conception of reality to a form idealized to the deepest aspect of yourself. Believing exclusively in the current system of physical theory and shutting out all other possibilities is the worst kind of religious fundamentalism.
"And experience tells us that there is no reason to invoke giant beardy men in the sky to explain the world around us. This is nothing to do with logic and everything to do with reason. Logic would in fact support your position that athiesm is no "better" than theism. Reasonableness, however takes account of probability. Is it a logical possibility that there are 10 purple crows in my garden as I type this? Yes. Is it reasonable to believe you if you tell me that was in fact the case, but they've all flown off now? No." Who said anything about any beardy guys in the sky? By theism, I'm merely talking about existence outside of the physical, mundane world. And furthermore, you make the common mistake of putting your faith in probability, when neither reason nor logic can provide any basis for believing that probability is ever a proper basis for justifying anything. All probability says is that what has happened before will happen again, with the ASSUMPTION that the universe will always continue in cycles, even though change appears to be the rule. As for purple crows in your garden, any probability applied is completely made up. Either your garden exists or it doesn't. The probability could only tell you, X is true, unless it's false. Which isn't really telling you anything. You perceive your garden, so the experience of your garden is true, but there's no reason to believe that phenomena equals substance, or that the existene of substance is significant in any way. It's like playing a game of Super Mario Brothers, wherein Mario stands still without any reason to proceed, because he cannot prove the existence of you, holding the controller. No matter how many boxes he breaks or Goombas he stomps on, he has no proof that there is anything outside of the Mushroom Kingdom. Would you argue that on that basis there's no probability of anything existence outside of Mario's world? No, you wouldn't, because your reason applied to intuition tells you otherwise.
"Atheism isn't a belief system. Nice try, though." Of course it is. Atheism is the belief that there is nothing in existence but the material (i.e. gods, spirits, etc. do not exist according to atheism). You must be thinking of agnosticism, which simply refuses to have an opinion on the matter. Nice try, though.
Okay, I'll give you that. But Constantine was no Clash of the Titans. See? Paganism has the best movies. Yes, I'm saying Clash of the Titans is one of the best movies. Ever. I say that, and I confess my belief in that statement. But, putting aside the comically primitive special effects, you can't deny it.
There's absolutely no logical reason to believe atheism over theism. Therefore, such choices can be made based on aesthetics and intuition, both of which favor the world of Spirit. What logic CAN prove is that there's such a thing as experience. That being the most provable thing, the transcendental take on existence makes the most sense. Sorry, material guy, but your physical world isn't very real, much less the only thing in existence.
Yes, no truth about the physical world can be proven logically, and thus there's no logical proof of theism or of atheism. However, that is not the end of the inquiry, since the analytical mind is not the only resource we have. As Spock used to say, "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."
There's too much criticism of Scientology. It may seem weird and wacky, but then so does Judaism. Or Islam. Or Christianity. Why should the mainstream semitic religions get the monopoly on wacky beliefs? Let Scientologists worship whatever aliens they want to. You think modern science is any less weird and wacky? Physics is all theoretical, which is why it keeps changing every generation. Nothing is "proven" except what is observed, and then some physicist comes along with an arbitrary explanation that fits the observations. But modern science takes as much faith as Scientology or semitic religion or Buddhism or Hinduism or paganism. And atheism is dry and meaningless and unfulfilling. Scientology could lead to some bad science fiction stories like Battlefield Earth, but then how many Catholic stories have been all that great? Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves? Please.
You need to have a vision to have cult worship. Microsoft has no vision. All they do is buy competitors out and sell unnecessary upgrades that aren't backwards compatible. Who would worship that?
WRONG. Conservatives describe neocons as neocons, because they betray the conservative platform. Neocon is someone who claims to be a conservative, but supports the liberal agenda of globalism, massive spending (e.g. the Bush Administration), massive borrowing, and internationalism. If you want to see a real conservative, check out Congressman Ron Paul, who supports libertarianism, small government, state's rights, non-intervention in foreign affairs and domestic affairs (i.e. people's lives), and an end to the Federal Reserve and income tax.
Who cares? Microsoft and Yahoo are both decadent. When's the last time either company innovated? Maybe some time in the mid 1990's?
As far support goes, Apple has always been far, far, far superior to Dell, from my experience. Dell "support" means you talk to some person in India that doesn't listen to what you're saying, but listens for keywords in what you say so that they can look up a pre-written response to the problem (though its never the actual problem that you have, rather its the problem that would be more efficient for Dell to resolve, and it's your fault for not having the problem that matches their knowledge base). Dell doesn't care about resolving anyone's problems or selling a product that works like its supposed to and doesn't have exploding batteries. Steve Jobs (or his assistant) helping out a guy is nice, but Apple's support is already superior to the competition. The other reason Apple's support is better is because they probably waste much less time fixing stupid bugs that shouldn't have been in their software to begin with. I used Dell computers all my life until 2004, and then switched to Mac. Since the switch, I have never once had to close a window because of an "illegal operation". I hate you so much, Microsoft and Dell. You don't care about your customers, and we don't care about you.