meatrace's page

Side note: It entertains me that when talking about anything religion in GENERAL is allowed to bag and attack with impunity. When it is attacked in turn, people cry foul, and ask for decency.

So i would ask, at what point do we stop, and realize there are more important things then worshiping something? anything really? Shouldn't we be focused on helping people, Fixing what things we've broken?

it just seems ludicrous that people use things LIKE religion as a means to defame and deface their fellow man. Why? why does it matter? and please dont say "Because the Bible says so!" [for those of you who do], because i dont care, I want people to fight for people, to look to each other for strength.

I could care less if Your gay or straight, or anything else as long as you live your life and do not cause harm. [Principles i live by, by the way]. Know what i would like? A world were we can reach the stars, cure diseases, feed people, and Make humanity Stronger: Physically, mentally, and spiritually.

I dont think you have to go to a building every Sunday, listen to someone tell you what you should think (in effect that is what their doing) Or anything else like that. People should be able to have their beliefs, but keep them YOUR beliefs and dont patronize people who do not share them (And i have met and known a lot of people, socially i try to experience a wide variety of people, sometimes to my chagrin).

Yes this was a long rant, but neither side here is really accomplishing anything (Like everything else, people just stick to their side of the mountain not seeing the valley below {republicans and Democrats anyone? [im aware that was snarky, elections are coming up and as a server at a highly popular local and tourist resteraunt... you hear a lot :) })

I personally am not religious, because i see it as a falacy, Because god is considered to be all powerful, all knowing. Hence he needs no worshipers because he wants for nothing, and to be everywhere at once requires him to be non-linear which means he can not exist in the reality as it is percieved. Which means he can do nothing, IF he does exist i imagine he would more want us to try and become like him, because he just might be lonely. Its always been true its lonely at the top.

Finally i have gay friends, the're not monsters, the're not sinner's. Many of them are better people then a lot of people i've met, and ya know what even if the church that screams anti-gay, anti-science, creationism, self loathing, god fearing, anti abortion, anti choice, and anti intellectualism is a minority... It is the loudest. So if the majority wants it to change then you need to do something... Remeber it only takes a pebble to start an avalanche, and it only takes one voice to start a revolution.

and im done, as always happy gaming!

"Looks like the attacker was...

*puts on shades*

trying to get ahead."

YAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOW!

I live in the ghetto,i can tell a lot of people here do not, and have not. I know how these little hoods act, and have seen it first hand. Your sympathy is misguided, misplaced and rather puzzling.

I have. And any number of kids dressed and acted like "little hoods" to fit in, but weren't bad kids overall if you actually, you know, interacted with them as people.

But that's beside the point -- because a gated community is in no way a ghetto, so your assertion that it's crawling with "little hoods" who need to be gunned down before they assault or murder someone seems a bit paranoid.

Ok, showing photos of the crime scene= a lack of source? I've had enough being trolled.

I'm not a fan of "guilty until proven innocent".

Except with regards to Martin, that is?

How do you know where Zimmerman's car was?

Already answered. Come on, you're not even pretending to be genuinely asking anymore.

How do you know that Martin escaped twice?

Already answered. Zimmerman says he's running, zimmerman starts running, then Zimmerman says he got away (so Martin escaped at least once)

How do you know that this path on the map is the one that Zimmerman took?

Because he walked through it with the police.

How do you know where the body was found?

Oh come on.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/More-details-emerge-in-Trayvon-Martin-inv estigation/-/1735978/13477984/-/xidvb9/-/index.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78797434@N03

put the bottle down, goblin.

Okay. [Picks up the pipe.]

The jeff wrote:

That, fundamentally, is the problem with SYG laws. Especially if they're based on "reasonable perception of harm", rather than actual crimes.

Well what's the other option?

People shouldn't be more afraid of the government protecting muggers than the muggers. Criminals shouldn't be able to count on a populace that's been pre cowed into compliance by a legal system that protects the bad guys.

I don't know, but setting up a situation where you can incite a fight and then use that fight as justification to kill someone is really not a good place to be.

My answer is "no". Nor should it. Because a society where escalation of force is legal is not a society which can be maintained over the long term.

.....?!? so how does that work for zimmerman?

You can argue about what you want to be true, but any reasonable self defense statute is going to allow you to act on reasonable belief that someone is trying to harm you.

The law from florida says...

A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force

If Martin can reasonably reach the conclusion that Zimmerman was after him to rob him, kill him, or abduct him (he can) then he can use his fists against him.

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

meatrace wrote:

Sanakht Inaros wrote:

Boy, was I wrong. I would have done the very thing that Martin did. Cops are S^%%. And I'm white.

Oh man, now you've done it. INB4 some guy who claims to be a cop tells you how hard he works.

I'll say nothing about police officers in general, but it bears repeating that in Sanford they appear to work very hard at covering up the killing and beating of black people by friends and family of the Sanford PD.

I have read, but not been able to confirm, that the officer in charge at the scene was the same one in charge of the Collison case.

I've seen the same thing.

I've rarely had a good run in with cops but that's for a different thread.

I will not go into my experiences with cops here, but I will say when you gave been robbed it's hard to find one who cares.

Well before stories were changed,witnesses placed Martin on top of Zimmerman pounding his face in. Sounds like a good reason to shoot to me. Nothing anybody can say will convince me that Martin couldn't have possibly escaped from Zimmerman, if he was even accosted by him.

Race isn't an issue as far as i am concerned, as hard as the media tried to distort the facts and make it one. It was self defense in my opinion.
Assault and battery=crime
Asking someone what they are up to=not crime
Following someone and observing their activities in public= also not crime
When you attack someone and get the upper hand, if that person happens to be armed expect to get force applied to you. If Martin was so worried about GZ why didn't he call police himself? Because criminals don't call the police.

You and reality don't get along, do you?

1. Nobody is saying never ever heal your buddy and/or let them die. That is ridiculous.
2. Nobody is saying you will never ever have to heal.
3. What is being said is that the bad guys can put out damage faster than you can heal so the best thing to do is kill bad guys. The less bad guys there are the less damage output there is.
4. Most of the time if you have decent characters and use good tactics you will not have to heal in combat.
5. Once again, most of the time does not mean never.
6. Bookmark this thread if you have too.

There's only so many ways you can call the Arizona Secretary of State a dumb@$$. There's also the conflict of interest thing he has going, being the co-chair of Romney's campaign in the state.

Which form of government is it where you line up every couple of years, poke at a lighted screen for a few minutes, and then later that night the TV tells you what happened? That's the one I do.

The Oppression of Women in the Third World: The Musical Interlude

I just hope that the investigation is thorough and the prosecution and defense are vigorous, and we can feel some peace that everything in this trial is above board.

So in any case where you've been injured in a fight, even if it's relatively minor and regardless of how the fight started, it's ok to shoot the person you're fighting?

Of course, it helps if the other person dies and can't tell their side of the story.

If your kid is sick and vomiting, they're gonna send him home. That was the same when I was in elementary and jhs, 25 years ago.

If you're gonna say that you're not a bigot but you have no problem taking away someone's right to make a medical decision

If your house is mobile and your car isn't you might be a redne...

wait what thread are we in?

I was just wondering, Doug's Workshop, which "gimme class" you were referring to: the one that lines up, a million strong, for shiznitty jobs at McDonald's? Or the ones who tank the economy, get bailed out by the gov't and give themselves million dollar bonuses?

Most of you probably already know, but for those who don't: I work part-time loading trucks at UPS which, historically, has been the quintessential job for college students. Except that I'd wager less than 10% of the new hires we get are college students. Most of them are men and women in their 40s+. Life sucks, I know, but there is nothing more depressing than schlepping 70+ lb. packages with a 50-year-old man who got laid off from a lucrative gig in electronics, or whatever, spent a year and a half looking for a job and then ended up working with us lazy, shiftless Teamsters for a fraction of what they used to make. EDIT: Hyperbole alert! There are more depressing things.

The welfare state is a poor substitute for full employment, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any capitalist society that has ever achieved full employment. If you'd like everybody to labor for their livelihood, perhaps you'd consider joining me in international proletarian socialist revolution? (Hee hee! I can't believe this thread has gone 275+ posts without me saying that! In yo' face, Citizen Meatrace!)

Also, I hate to be pedantic, but Cain didn't use being his brother's keeper as an excuse. When God asked him where Abel was he replied "Am I my brother's keeper?" which is Biblical for "how the f&$% should I know?"

And, finally, before I forget: Obama sucks.

Obama has done a mediocre job applying 'democrat' economic principles and been further hampered by the fact that a majority of the states have Republican governors and/or legislatures applying reverse principals.

However, the fact that the US government went with stimulus (i.e. increased spending) and their economy improved while Europe went with austerity (i.e. spending cuts) and their economy worsened should really be all anybody needs to know.

You do not cut government spending in a recession. Individuals and businesses typically cut back on spending during recessions because they are concerned about their economic prospects. This is a logical decision for EACH of them, but exactly the wrong thing to do en masse. If everyone is cutting back on spending then earnings go down commensurately... people cannot earn more money than other people spend. Most people won't accept a pay cut, especially during a recession, so the usual way to respond to decreased income is... layoffs. Which means people are out of work and therefor spending less... which means less earnings for others. Et cetera. Basically, when everyone cuts back out of concern that the economy may get worse... they make the economy worse. Unfortunately, there is no magical way to get a majority of individuals and businesses to stop being concerned about the economy and start spending again all at the same time. They will generally only do so when they believe the economy is healthy. However, there is the federal government... a single 'entity' with massive financial power which CAN decide to spend to offset the caution being displayed by everyone else.

It is basic logic... less spending = less earning = higher unemployment. All inescapably true... and yet directly at odds with 'republican' economic policy / European 'austerity'. I find it maddening that so many political 'leaders' argue for economic policies which defy logic... even as history proves them wrong over and over and over again. The Europeans are starting to get the message and voting the austerity parties out, but in the US there is a real danger of a GOP win and changeover to economic insanity.

I think the only marriages that should be legal are the ones that are in the bible.

Between a virgin and her rapist.
Between a man and his brother's widow.
Between a man and his wife and his concubines.
Between a man, a woman and her slaves.
Between a soldier and his prisoners of war.
Between a man and many women.
Between a man and a woman (where the man has not had the good fortune to be involved in a war for the promised land, and where the woman had an intact hymen.)

Enough with this modern perversion of the Lord's will. We need to get back to the fundamentals.

I'll stick to polyamory. All of the fun, none of the paperwork.

Mixed feeling about accepting your premise, but does that then mean that sex between a married couple past menopause is against natural law?

The "thinking part" of religion is theology. Most religions are set up so that while theology is accessible to nearly anyone, there are some people who make special study of it.

But here's the HUGE difference.

Theoligian thinks something is true. ------Complicated philosophical argument----> That thing is true

Theologian thinks something is false----->Complicated philosophical argument----> that thing is false.

And there's no way to ever resolve it.

Scientist 1 thinks something is true. Scientist 2 thinks its false-----> experiment------> We get an actual objective answer. Yay. Knowledge.

The point I was asserting is that many non-scientific ways of thinking have value. For some posters on these boards, that's a heretical statement.

[citation needed]

Samnell wrote:

Nope. First it's a category error to describe methods as dogmas when dogmas are beliefs rather than practices. But let's set that aside for a moment.

Yep, it's still a dogma. The belief is the practice.

Do you intend to milk your equivocation fallacy much further? We've been pretty clear about what we mean by dogma, repeatedly. Your attempts to ignore those statements and tar us with the brush of dogma for behaviors which do not contain the distinguishing traits we have laid out are, well, really transparent.

You can possibly get true (or increasingly accurate) knowledge from other methods, so it's not the one true way.

You infact can, BUT, science does not accept those methods because it leaves to much room for error, unaccounted variables, etc. . . Hence, right back at scientific dogma.

In other words, those methods aren't as good as science. You said it yourself: they are more prone to error. Thanks for agreeing. Pass Go, collect $200, and deposit your faith in this circular receptacle. We'll send you your Secular Humanist card in the mail. Don't worry about addresses, the Evil Atheist Conspiracy already knows where everyone lives.

You know, I think I'll flip this around for the sake of argument. Let's say science is a dogma. In fact, let's say it's a religion. That's right, a full-blown religion. If science is a religion, it's the religion that heals the sick (right here and now, not just in miracle stories, and of real observable maladies instead of invisible plagues) and reveals the secrets of the heavens. The priests of science can, quite blatantly and without any hemming and hawing about metaphors, verifiably in front of everyone whether they believe in it or not, produce a genuine faith-based miracle. Using the principles of their religion they have literally gotten people to fly and even walk on the Moon.

So we could toss out all the verbiage. We could agree completely with your claims about science and you know what? Our would dogmas still beat yours hands-down. When's the last time one of your miracles didn't run away and hide when we applied critical scrutiny to it? Our gods must be greater than your god to be able to work such wonders.

Its heavily criticized by people who have never, or rarely, participated. Most of the people who do participate stress the importance of having a good time. Its value has nothing to do with science. Many participants get judged by the actions of a psychologically maladjusted fringe group. In those regards, its like a religion.

Most D&D participants don't believe that their characters are real people, however.

Samnell wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

Of course music is patterns of sound, but is its ability to motivate us testable and replicable?

Yes and trivially so.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

If I put 10 people in a room and play the same sheet of music, how do I independently test each of them to prove that they responded to the music in the exact same way?

You observe their responses. If they all had the same responses, we're done. If not we investigate how they differed, which will all come down to personal histories and present circumstances.

Using that approach, religion is as testable and replicable as music.

I'm delighted that you agree. Religious claims, to the degree they're intelligible at all (many are pretty much gibberish) and make claims about the universe, are science claims. There thus can be no grounds for objecting to putting them under scientific scrutiny and assessing their veracity on the basis of this investigations.

This isn't picking on religion in particular, mind. We'd do the same thing for a fellow who insisted he had a dragon in his garage or that he had five testicles arranged equidistant around his penis. Claims about the universe are claims about the universe.

What does spiritual openness have to do with church?

thejeff wrote:

When most people in America talk about Christianity, belief in God is most definitely included.

But what does 'God' mean? What does it mean to have 'belief in God'? I believe (notice how I said 'I believe' rather than made an unfounded assertion like you did?) that if you really investigate, most Christians in America will mean different things by those words. Some believe that God is an actual old man sitting on a throne with a long beard and maybe a small boy next to him. Some believe that God is a mystery which is beyond definition and, so, is just a place holder as it were for something beyond our imaginations. Some people believe that God is a symbol. Some people believe that God is our personification of some 'still small wind'. Some believe its all of these things.

And here we go again.

Some of the Christians believe in God. Some of them don't.
Some of the atheists are the real atheists that you've been talking about all along. Some are just people who don't believe in God.

Atheism is a religion. Except maybe for the type of atheist who you weren't talking about.

Anyone making any generalization about Christians or other religious people must hedge their statements around with all sorts of qualifications to make sure there isn't some tiny minority not covered. Except of course, some who call themselves Christians aren't really.

And Darkwing Duck can casually drop, 16 pages into this thread and after how many others,

Theism isn't a religion. In that sense, neither is atheism.

But, when most people in America are talking about atheism, I don't think they are using it in contrast to theism. They are contrasting it to Christianity. So, they are talking about a different kind of atheism then one would use when contrasting it to theism.

WTB "Real Christian" decoder ring.

Zombieneighbours wrote:

It's the fact that atheism isn't anything other than a single absence of a belief.

Its cool that you believe that, but there are a lot of atheists who believe that there is a lot more involved in atheism - which is why they are pushing for atheist chaplains. These other atheists face a number of life's problems and seek an atheistic perspective/guidance in dealing with those problems.

For example, "in the absence of a God, how does one answer the question, 'how should I live my life?'"

No, perhaps actually reading about why non-theists and humanist are after chaplains would help. such chaplains will almost certainly be humanist.

Atheism has nothing to say about any of those things, humanism does, rationalism does, science does, but atheism doesn't. I am sorry you don't understand the difference.

I just looked it up, your Sea of Faith movement is estimated to have about 2,000 members as of 2004.

There are about 2.1 billion Christians in the world.

Your example accounts for less than 0.00001% of the christian population.

I will counter with the Catholic Church. It has 1.1 billion members. That accounts for 52.3%.

Plutonium is used in weapon making, uranium in reactors. And I think it is hilarious that a discussion of Atheism was sidetracked to a discussion of energy, which is being sidetracked to population control, which only naturally should derailed to a discussion of cakes versus pies, don't you think? because cakes are so much better.

I work at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project,we are a Class II nuclear facility. Believe me, I know about Plutonium contaminated waste.

Pie is a meal, cake is a pastry; ANYONE WHO EATS CAKE IS A SUCKER!!

Edit: yes, Meatrace got there like an hour ago, teach me to post before finishing the thread.

You can't look at history honestly and not realize how many wars were fought over religion. Protestants vs Catholics, Christians vs Muslims, genocides and ethnic cleansing...

Religion as justification certainly made it easier to mobilise soldiers (and still does), but that doesn't mean religion is the real or main reason.

Xenophobia and greed typically are the ultimate causes, but differeces in religion, ethnicity, language and culture increase the xenophobia and also give easily defined boundaries for "us" vs "them".

It makes me frustrated when people do not distinguish between faith and church, ideas and institutions. The crusades have as much to do with the christian faith as Stalin's cleansings have to do with Das Kapital. The problem is not the -isms themselves, but rather that power corrupts, or at least makes it easier to be evil, and that (quote ciretose)" -ism make people shut their mind off and follow".

[nitpicking]
- Protestants vs Catholics:
The 30 years war can as easily be seen as being about political control of germany, or even about weakening the Habsburgs power over Europe.
The reformation certainly was religiously motivated but much of the fighting was over economic control of church lands and taxes.
Expelling hugenots from France I see as being about protecting the political and economic power of the catholic church. Regarding modern Northern Ireland, I view that as a political conflict of sovereignty.

-i started doing the same for the rest of you list, but wall of text was intimidating even to myself...
[/nitpicking]

pres man wrote:

I have to give it up to Zimmerman. He never made any attempt to flee the authorities and when informed he was going to be arrest, he returned to Florida willingly and gave himself up. He did go in hiding, but that was due to death threats on his life and he was not hiding from the authorities at any time. No matter how this falls out, you have to give some respect to that type of behavior.

He still stands a good chance to beat this thing and be acquitted. Fleeing would have been detrimental to his case. I think it was just common sense.

Yeah, but common sense hasn't really been this guys forte.

much verbiage

You jumped so many trains here, I won't bother to go into where you are totally wrong. Rest easy in knowing that atheists are not planning to outlaw your personal thoughts about the universe.

I would call that agnosticism.

By your standards, those of us who adhere to an evidence-based world view are "agnostic" about everything. Human knowledge is imperfect. 99-point-whatever per cent certainty is the very best that can be achieved. We're OK with that, and at a certain point, describe it as "more or less definite."

We leave absolute claims, and the idea of "The Truth(TM)," to you religiously-minded people.

Calling science "only a useful approximation" is a compliment, inasfar as the contrast is "a lousy approximation." There's no such thing as a perfect one!

This also ties in with the speed of light thing you mentioned earlier. Say it does vary slightly, and the universe is 14 million years younger than the 13.75 billion we estimate (note the term: "estimate," not "believe"). That's an error of approximately 1/10 of 1%. That's amazingly awesome. It's well within the +/- 0.11 billion years that astrophysists commonly estimate as the margin of error for the age of the universe.

As a scientist, I don't look for absolute certainty. I don't believe in it.

Scientology is a well documented fraud by government standards. I still can't figure out why they just simple pull their tax exempt status away from them and shut them down completely. I mean they were doing it back in 1986.

:::Shrugs:::

Steps into TARDIS and disappears.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

meatrace wrote:

Yeah, everyone in here (or the other thread) that equates religion with monotheism makes me sort of cry inside. I mean, you're MY team and I KNOW we're right, but this sort of mischaracterization of religion as a whole does no one any good.

At least you got to pick your team first and didn't get stuck with that Pat Robertson kid.

Oh God, that's the truth!

Of course, you got stuck with people like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins, so I'll consider it an even trade.

I'd take Dawkins and Maher over Robertson every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

And of course, we had Hitch...

"Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.

"Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there.

"This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person."

Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so."

"Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too.

"If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy. And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true."

I think that atheism is a religion because it is, despite what many claim, it is an active belief, not a passive one or a "lack" of one.

I don't see how this makes it a religion. I believe a lot of things: that i am sitting in a chair, heliocentrism, that being hit in the head with a rock hurts, that the sun will rise in the east, that Pennsylvania grows a lot of corn, and that penguins live in Antarctica.

A also think that alot of atheists want to define themselves more like agnostics, as that is more open-minded.

Heretical fence sitters! May they get splinters in the obvious locations!

As long as the burden of proof is one the other side, atheism can seem valid, or more valid than any other options.

This is because its a negative belief. The only way to prove one of these is to try to test it and fail. If for example, one person claims that pathfinder elephants have the grab and constrict special abilities how can this be shown as false EXCEPT by asking the person with the positive position present their evidence?

In US, as last I heard, atheism is legal concidered a religion, and I think this is rightly so.

This is because the government cannot favor one religion over another nor religion in general over non religion.

So, I would venture that, (and I did not read most other posts here), that saying atheism is not a religion just like bleach or whatever is as valaid as saying purple is not a color because it isn't black/white/yellow/etc. . . It just...

Purple is defined as a light beam of a certain wavelength. It would exist and have certain properties.

Black would be the absence of color, and a more apt analogy here.

That being said, I would venture that it is the atheists confusing the issue, not the "christians", which typically is what is meant instead of religion.

Nah, Muslims have pretty much the same arguments, so it might be "monotheists".

Penn said it well

“If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.”

But I do think this is getting way off topic because whether health care is paid by the government or insurgence companies both in effect are very much exerting governance over our person.

I think it is very much on topic. Darkwing's reasoning seems to be that the "evil" government can be trusted less than the free market.

One has a goal of re-election, one has a goal of profit. Neither is altruistic, but at least one is somewhat accountable to those to whom it is providing the service.

Irontruth wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

First off, Martin Luther was not a skeptic.

To elucidate, Martin Luther was skeptical of a specific claim, but skepticism was not the primary method by which he arrived at conclusions for his beliefs. In fact, faith was the primary method by which he arrived at most conclusions, which is why faith is the primary pillar of Protestantism. Faith is the opposite of skepticism.

Skepticism is not the primary method anyone comes to any belief other than the negative (eg "my clapping my hands does not make the sun rise in the morning). You can't reach a positive claim (eg. electrons carry electrical charge) through skepticism.

You keep using the word belief. I don't believe in science. I know science.

I don't believe in 2+2=4. I know 2+2=4.

I don't believe in the process of how your tooth creates enamel every day and how that growth gets partitioned off each day, so the number of partitions can give us a clue as to how old you are. I know that's how a tooth works.

I don't believe that light travels at 299,792.458 m / s. I know that light travels at 299,792.458 m / s.

I simply said that it is not the ultimate authority. There are all kinds of things that are useful, but have nothing to do with science.

But don't kid yourself. Science is based on a couple of things that are taken on faith - repetition of experiments, empiricism, and parsimony being some of them.

You left the biggest element of good science. Skepticism. Skepticism is the opposite of faith.

Also, every debate you participate in eventually becomes about twisting definitions to mean something other than their commonly accepted meaning. You're trying to force words to fit your ideas.

There is no god---->Something happens---> Therefore communism

I endorse this business model.

So, given your starting point of "this is a bit of a distraction", tell me again why you started this post?

(I'm a militant atheist, believe that anyone with a faith is irredeemably stupid, am prepared to be convinced by actual evidence that there is a divine being but even if I am will hold to my philosophical position that if there is they deserve no worship and I will therefore be consigned to whatever creative and unpleasant afterlife they have prepared for the irredeemably stupid who refuse to bow down to the great tyrant in the sky).

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, Ciretose, but you made some kind of similar argument last year in which you referred to the Dark Ages as some kind of example of libertarianism-in-action.

I am no medieval scholar, but feudalism, vassalism, serfdom and all those other wonderful things that capitalism smashed pretty much prevent it from being anything like what libertarianism aspires to.

Not that I am in any way, shape, or form, a libertarian.

EDIT: Or, to put it another way, there were no "free markets" until capitalism, and there haven't really been many of them since it, either.

The dark ages had very little to do with what libertarianism aspires to. Many of us think it has a lot to do with what applied libertarianism would lead to.

the atheism I've seen most common in 21st century America. And THAT is a religion. One of its tenets is claiming that science is the ultimate authority. Though, it takes on faith the concepts of parsimony and repetition of results. One of its rituals is getting on internet message boards and claiming that religion is toxic.

Sure. It's a religion opposed by the followers of Anti-atheist Strawmannism, an equally publicly obnoxious cult with tenets such as (a) science is a giant conspiracy of lies; (b) Hitler's blend of Catholocism, wingbat neopaganism, and personality cult is somehow representative of atheism; and (c) atheists are therefore "militant" and must be opposed, lest they take away all our freedom.