I guess that I question that I am actually being "controlled". If I am, I'd like to know towards what end.
Probably many ends as most religious scriptures were written by many people each with their own motivations. I don’t know what each of their motivations were. I believe most of them simply put their own views into scripture, though I don’t doubt all of them felt they were divinely inspired by a higher power. I think nearly everyone who has written any sort of religious script, or told people messages from god (or gods, the universe or what have you.) did so with the intention that their rules or message would make the world a better place.
Then again, some people have a messed up idea of what ‘a better place’ constitutes and when these people get the masses to believe their message it can get very scary.
good stuffThe post monster seems to have devoured my first response. Dammit.
Anyway, thank you for sharing the story. I liked it.
So far as the group of people who consider themselves family goes, I don't have to imagine. I'm one of those weird dudes. :) I disowned most of my blood relations years ago and have adopted two non-relatives as family members. My mother calls one Son Number Two. Family is too precious to be left to chance.
For many years, I didn't get a long with members of my family either (except my twin sister, we've always been extremely close). My entier extended family is the same religion, and it caused a bit of a rift that I said it wasn't what I believed, however we have worked it out since then, as we just agree to disagree.
There are a lot of things that could have been thought to push me away, but it never really wasn't like that.
If you have any more questions (or anyone else does), I'd be happy to answer any honest or sincere queries.
Classification is a response to stimulus. My response to Leda and the Swan is to appreciate it and consider it beautiful, at least as a use of language. My response to accounts of the Holocaust is to classify it as bad, as it engenders horror, loathing, and outrage in me. If Bad works that way, why would Good be any different?I do disagree that something is either good or it is not, by the way. Many things are morally neutral, or have good and bad aspects.
I supppose I'm showing my Aristotelian side again. I'm thinking more in the terms of Aristotle's idea of arete. A mountain, for example may be morally neutral, but ask a person what their idea of a good mountain is, and it will depend on their concept of what makes a mountain good (is it good to ski? climb? is it beautiful?).
Love is a descriptor that a person applies to a particular emotional state which they experience. It's no more subjective than taking someone's temperature is. Individual temperatures may differ, but that doesn't make them subjective.
Can you provide me with a clear definition of the emotional state of love? For sake of argument, let's say romantic love, to avoid confusion with platonic or familial love...unless you'd group them as one emotional state.
For many years, I didn't get a long with members of my family either (except my twin sister, we've always been extremely close). My entier extended family is the same religion, and it caused a bit of a rift that I said it wasn't what I believed, however we have worked it out since then, as we just agree to disagree.There are a lot of things that could have been thought to push me away, but it never really wasn't like that. ** spoiler omitted ** I chose my faith because it just feels like I belong and it gave me strength during some hard times.
If you have any more questions (or anyone else does), I'd be happy to answer any honest or sincere queries.
I was also told (not by anyone in my family church, thankfully) that I was giving my soul to Satan by playing D&D. I'd lay dollars to donuts that you'll find many similar stories among gamers, fantasy fiction fans, and others. The common cry is that religion is all about control. I'd say that for many it is about comfort and belonging. Unfortunately, groups are nearly always identified with their most radical and visible members. I'm sure the vast majority of Christians would not identify themselves with the likes of Fred Phelps and his church, or fundamentalists that tout creationism as an acceptable alternative to evolution. Yet I've met people whose minds immediately turn there when the word "Christian" is uttered. I think you're right to cite ignorance and fear, rather than religious tenet, as the culprits.
Heh, I have a friend who's mother exorcised his D&D books. Glad the worst my mother ever did is shake her head and say “I don’t get it.”
As for Phelps I have fond memories of calling his daughter a… well, names I can’t say and keep this a ‘civil’ thread, to her face when she came to town. Shame her old man couldn’t make it. Regardless, I sure as hell don’t think all Christians are like that idiot. Hell, most of the counter protestors at our school were some kind of Christian denomination I believe. The whole thing was real classy, dressed up like angels and turned their backs on the Westboro people. I wasn’t a part of it I was on the school’s film crew, and yelled obscenities at them when I finished (what can I say? I’m not a turn the other cheek kind of guy, though I respect the protestors for being able to.)
I think Christians would be able to distance themselves from people like the Westboro Church and Jack T. Chick if they could actually get their churches to publicly denounce these people. It’s supposed to be an organized religion after all, and if there are enough of you sane people out there you should be able to come together and denounce these idiots just like these idiots are able to come together to spread their message.
I usually like to add something to my posts to make sure people know I’m not trying to offend them. However if there are any members of the Westboro church reading this I mean every possible offence.
I supppose I'm showing my Aristotelian side again. I'm thinking more in the terms of Aristotle's idea of arete. A mountain, for example may be morally neutral, but ask a person what their idea of a good mountain is, and it will depend on their concept of what makes a mountain good (is it good to ski? climb? is it beautiful?).
For an undefined Good, one would certainly end up with the varying definitions. We have, after all, left people at their own devices to make up whatever the like and call it Good. To expect that they would come up with precisely the same Good concept we would come up with is to expect them to be our clones, both physically and in their personal histories that shaped their attitudes on the question. But if one defined Good as being that its major slopes formed something close to certain angles with a margin of degrees or had ample open slopes suitable for skiing at those same degrees, we could certainly come up with some kind of consensus.
Likewise we could ask a question like:
"Does viewing this mountain evoke in you feelings of awe, happiness, pleasure, and interest?" Or so forth.
That leaves the question entirely with their inner worlds but would still, at least unless our respondents were lying, tell us something about the universe. Specifically, it would tell us about how they respond to said a mountain. This makes it not that much different from asking the slope. Our inner worlds are still a part of the universe, and in fact intimately bound up in it. Or at least that's where I keep mine. :)
Can you provide me with a clear definition of the emotional state of love? For sake of argument, let's say romantic love, to avoid confusion with platonic or familial love...unless you'd group them as one emotional state.
Ok. Romantic love is the aggregate of lust, attraction, and attachment. The lust is the initial rush, a very pleasant sort of desire one usually associates with mating. This lust may develop into attraction where the fixation has gone from merely sexual to include more interpersonal connections. Whereas lust may arise from anyone that seems a suitable mate, attraction is an individualized response to a particular potential (or past, or current) mate. If things progress along normally, the prior two generally give way to attachment, which is the bonding and desire to remain together based on mutual interests, characteristics, and so forth over the long term and thus tends to intertwine with friendship and various commitments. Of course, every relationship is a bit different and for some couples (or larger groups) lust and attraction may continue to be important parts of the relationship for decades.
Platonic and familial love share obvious similarities.
Now all of those things I just listed are brain states. Neurology is a relatively young science, but we've determined that these emotions are strongly associated with the production and release of particular chemicals in the brain. However even without that knowledge, and without monitoring our brains constantly for the chemicals in question, we can readily observe their effects in ourselves.
I can't say that my testosterone is up 5% and therefore I'm in love. But I can say that I'm darn well feeling horny! Since we are a part of the universe, so are our brain states. We can observe them (Even as we experience them, which is itself an experience and thus experiencing the experience can be its own brain state. Recursion is weird.) Reporting on them is reporting on a part of the universe, just like taking a person's temperature or observing the wavelengths of light. We take these stimuli and consult our language faculties, matching them up as best we can with what we have observed in others with the same sounds attached, and call the whole sparking soup by the noises that match the associations: love.
We may, of course, consider different levels of a stimulus necessary to invoke love. Many people, especially adolescents, feel lust and hop right ahead. Others might have very high benchmarks. This is a bit like saying it's hot or cold outside. I'm from Northern Michigan. When it gets to 80 it's usually hot. My friend moved to Hawaii and now I hate him forever because after being there a few years 70 is cold to him.
You might be saying well, there's subjectivity! I'd say not quite. It looks subjective, but what to "hot" and "cold" really mean? We might agree on the basics of temperature and still disagree on where one turns into the other. But those are differences bound up in our own experiences of the world. When we're saying it's hot or cold outside, we're speaking not to the exact temperature itself (the sun is far hotter than any hot we feel, and makes the whole earth seem damned cold by comparison) but rather to our comparison between it and our normal experience. Both of those are empirical measures. We could even take the means, construct a survey, and then make all kinds of graphs as to what people in particular areas consider hot and cold. It turns out that "Seventy is cold" and "Eighty is hot" are empirical statements. They're declarations as to our feelings, which are themselves based on experiences and our comparisons of new stimuli with them.
I feel like I'm starting to get a bit wrapped up in my own verbiage, so let me try to sum up.
1) Our inner worlds are a part of the universe, amenable to the same kinds of investigations and measurement as the outer world is even if science hasn't quite advanced to the point where we can do it with the same accuracy as of yet.
2) Apparently subjective statements about things are actually objective reports of our responses to those things, which are not necessarily intrinsic in the things themselves but may arise from our encounters with past and present stimuli.
3) So when viewed properly (or at least what I think of as properly :) ) these statements are in fact objective, if not in the readily apparent way.
4) Therefore the opinion "Elijah Wood is the sexiest man alive" is objective not in the sense that all people would immediately agree that he was but in that it is a truthful and genuine report of my perception of my own emotional state on looking at him.
5) And people who disagree with the above statement are not empirically wrong. Rather both parties are empirically correct at least insofar as they are honestly reporting on their own emotional states.
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Please understand my quip was not meant to be offensive.I did not take it offensively. It seems a perfectly reasonable response. My position remains,
"Prove there are fairies. No, you prove there are not fairies."
The lack of evidence does not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it does seem an excellent indicator. Afterall, we discount all manner of things which can not be proven one way or the other. Why does god get special treatment?
There is no empirical evidence that Faeries exist or do not exist.
We merely have stories and legends that they were around. Giants and vampires have much the same legends. While we have over the years found evidence that the legends of say giants were bones of a mastodon laid out to look vaguely humanoid. we have no evidence thereof for faeries. Some have commented that the stories of faeries match up with our much hyped encounters with UFO's. Are faeries just alien encounters? maybe. Maybe we just don't know and we have to take a few things on faith? Do I believe in faeries not really. But I am not so jaded that I think I know everything and if you happen to know a fairy you could introduce me to I would change my mind.Your main concept here though is why does God get special treatment. Circumstantial evidence perhaps? The Bible and its message? Maybe Billions of faithful around the world. The presence of those on this earth that we sometimes call saints who hold up an example of what your life could be?
Maybe it is just a hidden reflex in all of us as Dawkins observed. Of course if that is true then he does not have this reflex and is either a new evolution or has severe brain damage, who knows.
For many years, I didn't get a long with members of my family either (except my twin sister, we've always been extremely close). My entier extended family is the same religion, and it caused a bit of a rift that I said it wasn't what I believed, however we have worked it out since then, as we just agree to disagree.
I don't want to go into specifics (the details are very ugly and some of my relatives are very bad people) but I came to realize that there are a couple of different ideas we put under the same word. My family is the collection of my blood relations (at least out to a certain degree of cosanguinity). My family are the people I love, am loyal to, and feel I belong with more than anybody else. The social assumption is that these two ideas are fairly coterminous. Thus one might not much like a blood relation at present, but that person is still family and the same kinds of obligations are entailed. You're supposed to get along too and help them out, etc. Or at least not hate every atom that composes their bodies.
I realized that I didn't in fact feel all that stuff for most of my blood relations. I don't feel any special commonality with them. I don't feel that I belong with them. I don't feel obligated towards them and nor do I feel they are obligated towards me. Well that's nothing wrong with me, really. I don't feel the same things towards a random stranger either and that doesn't make me any stranger than anybody else. If you think about it, being related to someone by blood is a roll of the dice. Sometimes you get a natural 20 and others it's a 1. It's asking too much, and flat-out unrealistic, to expect all those emotions to line up for all the people in question. In my case there's a lot of general indifference (These people aren't quite total strangers, but we really have nothing to do with each other. It's a big family and I'm more often than not introduced as though I should know someone that I haven't seen since I was an infant.) and more than a smidge of true revulsion (These are vile specimens of humanity which I do not want to be associated with at all.)
So I decided I wanted to privilege the affection- and emotion-driven concept of family over simple blood kinship, which I discarded. I mean if you get right down to it, we're all blood relations. Anyway, my blood isn't great shakes. If I listed the things that run in the family we might still be here next week. It's just not enough to me to get worked up over. Instead I award family status to those who I do feel all that pile of emotions for. After doing this for a few years I discovered, rather by accident, that my parents had been doing the same thing for decades.
** spoiler omitted **
Eesh. I can't say that any of my familial bonds were strained over religious lines or objections to my hobbies. I did have a moment of genuine, unreasoning terror when my parents discovered I was gay, just because the subject had literally never come up. It never entered my mind that they'd kick me out or be enraged, but the plain old not knowing what the reaction would be excluding those things was enough to overpopulate my shorts, as it were.
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Eesh. I can't say that any of my familial bonds were strained over religious lines or objections to my hobbies. I did have a moment of genuine, unreasoning terror when my parents discovered I was gay, just because the subject had literally never come up. It never entered my mind that they'd kick me out or be enraged, but the plain old not knowing what the reaction would be excluding those things was enough to overpopulate my shorts, as it were.
I bet that would be kind of rough. I don't know how I would react if either of my boys "came out" to me. Their birth mother who has waffled back and forth on her sexuality would be very supportive. I just hope they understand that even if I would not agree with it, or anything else that I would find shall we say "outside my comfort zone" I would still love them.
...I suppose since I don't believe in free will...Samnell, could you, or someone, point me to your argument against Free Will. I'm just curious. Thanks.
Ok. I'm a determinist to start. The universe has been kicking out causes that kick out effects which are themselves causes for the next sequence of effects literally forever. It may be true that on the quantum level we observe what appear to be uncaused events, but it's the case that we simply do not observe these things on a larger scale. Quarks might pop out of nowhere (I'm not making a physics claim here since I'm not quite up on the relevant details. It's just an example of convenience.), but galaxies do not. Nor do we appear to teleport from place to place or exhibit any other quantum weirdness on the mundane, human scale. So even if such events are genuinely acausal (the Big Bang looks to my eyes to be such a quantum event) to all appearances such things cancel one another out on larger scales.
Since acausal events would be definition be random and human behavior does not appear to be random we can rule out such quantum events mucking about substantially with our brains too. Our decisions are certainly brain events, so we must include them in the causal chain.
Free will to me entails that one can choose entirely unburdened by any influences, past or present, experiences, inclinations, or the like even aside any kind of direct external compulsion. Since I view those things as in fact a species of compulsion, they impinge on the free part of the equation.
To be totally free from such things, one would have to be able to not care at all about that choice (in which case free will is meaningless) or somehow be able to perfectly and totally segregate one's load of casual baggage from the decision. I think human beings can be pretty rational, but I don't think anybody's up to doing that. We would have to exclude even basic knowledge, since that has casual influences on decision-making. This leaves us with either a purely random choice which is meaningless, or a non-random choice which is in effect determined by past events.
That said, due to incomplete knowledge of all possibilities and all our own capabilities, being we are not omniscient, our actions can often have the illusion of free will. It appears to us that we are consciously choosing to do one thing or the other. Our brains don't keep a genealogy of every single influence and event on tap for our casual perusal. Free will is an expression of our limits, not our capabilities.
I guess you could say that I see the concept of free will as incoherent (If it's truly free, then it's not will. If it's will, it's not truly free.) but even granting it coherence it would still run afoul of the fact that we cannot escape from the laws of nature, our own pasts, and the limits and inclinations those things bake into us. In fact to do so would effectively mean ceasing to be ourselves, since we are the aggregate of those things. If one ceased to be oneself in order to make a free will decision, then one can't say that it's the same one would have made otherwise and then again where does the will come from?
Eesh. I can't say that any of my familial bonds were strained over religious lines or objections to my hobbies. I did have a moment of genuine, unreasoning terror when my parents discovered I was gay, just because the subject had literally never come up. It never entered my mind that they'd kick me out or be enraged, but the plain old not knowing what the reaction would be excluding those things was enough to overpopulate my shorts, as it were.
Actually one of the people I'd consider part of my non-blood family has had something awful happen to him. My friend Mikee and I had been friends since middle school. He intoduced me to the more serious and reverent side of paganism. When he came out of the closet in high school it didn't matter at all to me because I thought of him as a brother.
My roommate Chris and I, were renting a house along with my ex (my gf back then). We had an unused extra bedroom and basement, so we told him he could move in, no bills, and try to rebuild. He moved in after telling Barry it was over with everything he could fit into his car. Barry was seemingly fine with it for a day, thinking this was a drama prank, but when he realized Mikee wasn't coming back, he started showing up at Mikee's job and stalking him shouting threats. The third day of the harassment, I found out. Barry showed up at the house and was demanding to see Mikee to Chris and my ex. Mikee was inside sleeping. I walked out and told him just how badly I would beat him if he didn't leave and that I had already called the police (I'm 6'5" and athleticly built with a background in karate).
Barry left the house cursing and complaining before the cops showed. Mikee was so scared of Barry at that point he moved out while everyone was at work. Barry was supposedly nice for a couple day, but Mikee was scared senseless. He told me Barry claimed he would destroy him if he tried to leave again. The next evening, in the middle of the night Mikee fleed to Alabama (this all happened in Georgia).
Two days after this charges were served against Mikee and the police were looking for him. It seemed really fishy. I found out later he was pulled over in his car and sent back to Georgia to wait until trial. I got a call from him in jail, and he explained how Barry and his Barry's drug dealer's wife had filed an accusation that Mikee had done something inappropriate to the woman's teen son (who was at the time in state enforced boot camp). Mikee had used up all his resources moving, but we were all sure Barry didn't have a leg to stand on. I was supporting my non-working ex at the time (the things we do for hot girls), so I didn't have the funds to help him. His public defender had too many cases to care and Mikee lost. The boy never even made a statement or testified, his mom did.
I admit for a moment I wondered if he could have somehow beenn guilty, but I knew he wasn't like that. Fastforward to a year later. Barry in his infinite stupidity had bragged about what he had done. The people (mutual friends of Mikee and Barry) passed this to police and warned Barry he needed to come clean. So what does Barry do? He flees to the mountains and lives like a wild crazy man going from campground to campground like a drifter until the police catch him a year later.
Barry admitted in court to the whole thing (guilt had been eating away at him). I heard the mother had overdosed, but I'm not sure why they didn't bring her into the court. They sentenced Barry to jail for perjury for a couple years, but dispite the court knowing fully well Mikee was innocent and that the charges proven false, he is STILL in jail serving on a 10 year sentence with a permanent brand that will follow him for the rest of his life. I usually agree that the criminal saying they didn't do it is a load of crap, but in this case there is so much undeniable proof that I can't doubt. To make it worse, the state has burried him in red tape and wants a ton of money to reverse their ruling.
This is simply the WORST thing to ever happen to anyone I have personally known. I quoted the background since the post was so long, but it I had to include how it got from then to now.
Messed up story.
...Holy f$#@ing s@#t dude. That sucks.
Messed up story....Holy f$#@ing s@#t dude. That sucks.
It tears me apart. Most people have said they think it's because if they release him then he could sue the state. Furthermore, he's not allowed to discuss in the letters anything about the trial, the only way I find out what's up on many things is to visit. They really censor stuff going in and out. I've even gotten a letter with pages missing (numbered).
As it was in the Count of Monte Cristo, Mikee signs his letter God will give me justice. I truly hope so.
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East Anglia is a particular case ...Where'd this come from? Am I missing a post?
CourtFool posted something about the round and round about "prove that God exists," and "No, you prove he doesn't exist." Then I pointed out an example I had heard where an otherwise educated man used the sime logic in a scientific debat. Kirth was responding to that.
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Messed up story....Holy f$#@ing s@#t dude. That sucks.It tears me apart. Most people have said they think it's because if they release him then he could sue the state. Furthermore, he's not allowed to discuss in the letters anything about the trial, the only way I find out what's up on many things is to visit. They really censor stuff going in and out. I've even gotten a letter with pages missing (numbered).
As it was in the Count of Monte Cristo, Mikee signs his letter God will give me justice. I truly hope so.
That is some seriously messed up stuff man. However, as I'm sure you know, Georgia has a history of doing similarly stupid things.
Messed up story....Holy f$#@ing s@#t dude. That sucks.It tears me apart. Most people have said they think it's because if they release him then he could sue the state. Furthermore, he's not allowed to discuss in the letters anything about the trial, the only way I find out what's up on many things is to visit. They really censor stuff going in and out. I've even gotten a letter with pages missing (numbered).
As it was in the Count of Monte Cristo, Mikee signs his letter God will give me justice. I truly hope so.
Well yeah, of course he might sue. By every right he should. But the longer they keep him there the more tax payer money they waste on him, and the more lost wages he should be able to sue for.
I still snoop in from time to time, but Samnell and CourtFool do a better job representing the atheist side of the debate, so I don't participate much.
Dear lord, no! I do not want to be the champion for atheism.
I don't know how I would react if either of my boys "came out" to me. Their birth mother who has waffled back and forth on her sexuality would be very supportive. I just hope they understand that even if I would not agree with it, or anything else that I would find shall we say "outside my comfort zone" I would still love them.
I applaud you for your desire to 'still' love them, but why do you need to 'react'? How could their sexual preference change them so drastically that you would need to see them in a new light? They are your boys. That would not change.
That is some seriously messed up stuff man. However, as I'm sure you know, Georgia has a history of doing similarly stupid things.Messed up story....Holy f$#@ing s@#t dude. That sucks.It tears me apart. Most people have said they think it's because if they release him then he could sue the state. Furthermore, he's not allowed to discuss in the letters anything about the trial, the only way I find out what's up on many things is to visit. They really censor stuff going in and out. I've even gotten a letter with pages missing (numbered).
As it was in the Count of Monte Cristo, Mikee signs his letter God will give me justice. I truly hope so.
Yep... and now I live in Texas. :)
That only encourages her and makes you look bad.
Agreed. People like that LOVE it when you lose your cool.
That only encourages her and makes you look bad.As for Phelps I have fond memories of calling his daughter a… well, names I can’t say and keep this a ‘civil’ thread, to her face when she came to town.
No, the cameras and media attention are what encourage her. I could give two s**ts about how it makes me look.
I could give two s**ts about how it makes me look.Obviously.
Wait, I'm confused... Oh, he means "couldn't," not "could." Now I get it.
Yes, I made a typo. It happens. That phrase is also a very commonly said wrong as well, sue me.
awful story
Saying that sucks is laughably insufficient. Sadly, it's not the only case I've heard of where courts came down on the side that proof of innocence is no reason to overturn a conviction. F~!!headed courts.
I still snoop in from time to time, but Samnell and CourtFool do a better job representing the atheist side of the debate, so I don't participate much.Dear lord, no! I do not want to be the champion for atheism.
No! Don't leave me all on my own. Everyone will notice that I don't keep my codpiece polished to a mirror finish...for Justice!
I applaud you for your desire to 'still' love them, but why do you need to 'react'? How could their sexual preference change them so drastically that you would need to see them in a new light? They are your boys. That would not change.
+1
Sadly, it's not the only case I've heard of where courts came down on the side that proof of innocence is no reason to overturn a conviction. f#*@headed courts.
My old office mate was an attorney, who explained that the U.S. prison industry keeps more people employed than I could possibly imagine, and that they need to keep convicting more and more people to keep it going. Which is why you can get a life sentence for possession of a joint, or for having a 16-year-old girlfriend when you're seventeen -- and why 1% of the adult population of the U.S. is in prison -- something like 10 to 100 times the incarceration rate of any other developed nation. She told me about people actually sent to prison for peeing in their own backyard, for having their kid download a song from the internet, for having their kids send an inappropriate picture over their cel phones, for just about anything you can imagine. "Anyone in America can be given a prison sentence at any time," she said. Scared the hell out of me.
My old office mate was an attorney, who explained that the U.S. prison industry keeps more people employed than I could possibly imagine, and that they need to keep convicting more and more people to keep it going. Which is why you can get a life sentence for possession of a joint, or for having a 16-year-old girlfriend when you're seventeen -- and why 1% of the adult population of the U.S. is in prison -- something like 10 to 100 times the incarceration rate of any other developed nation. She told me about people actually sent to prison for peeing in their own backyard, for having their kid download a song from the internet, for having their kids send an inappropriate picture over their cel phones, for just about anything you can imagine. "Anyone in America can be given a prison sentence at any time," she said. Scared the hell out of me.
Yeah. I've followed the issue on and off for years. We imprison a greater portion of our population than just about any country will admit to. (China probably has more, but doesn't own up to it.) The incentives are perverse enough with just state-run prisons, but the private ones (We have those.) make it even worse. I'm all for capitalism in some areas, but the profit motive is making a huge moral hazard here...which is exactly the kind of thing Adam Smith was worried about.
Sadly, it's not the only case I've heard of where courts came down on the side that proof of innocence is no reason to overturn a conviction. f#*@headed courts.My old office mate was an attorney, who explained that the U.S. prison industry keeps more people employed than I could possibly imagine, and that they need to keep convicting more and more people to keep it going. Which is why you can get a life sentence for possession of a joint, or for having a 16-year-old girlfriend when you're seventeen -- and why 1% of the adult population of the U.S. is in prison -- something like 10 to 100 times the incarceration rate of any other developed nation. She told me about people actually sent to prison for peeing in their own backyard, for having their kid download a song from the internet, for having their kids send an inappropriate picture over their cel phones, for just about anything you can imagine. "Anyone in America can be given a prison sentence at any time," she said. Scared the hell out of me.
Back around again to the David Bowie song... *whistles*
This all happened BTW in the same county, another close friend of mine has to spend the day in jail after court for failing to stop completely at a stop sign, because he didn't have the correct change. As soon as I got off work we paid it for him, he went to the atm and reimbursed us. He had the money the whole time, but IIRC he only had $200 in the correct form of payment(the woman he spoke with before hand quoted him this), and the judge ruled for $400 for running it (no prior convictions, the area there is just like that).
Don't even get me started on the guy who's grandmothers ashes were mistaken for cocaine! He was jailed for a month, lost everything, test results came back, was releases, sued the crap out of the city. Same judge and court building.
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I got a ticket about a year ago for going 55 mph in a 55 mph zone. Cop said, "Well, I'm tellin' you it's forty-five!" -- just daring me to fight it. I told him I'd've felt better about the whole thing if he'd just drawn his weapon and asked for the money. But, really, the "random driving tax" that they call speeding tickets doesn't bother me, because it doesn't maliciously destroy my ability to earn a future living, or to acquire lodging, or to vote, etc. Sending people to federal penitentiaries on felony convictions for petty offenses, destroying their lives; branding them "sex offenders" when they're not -- that stuff bothers me.
Sending people to federal penitentiaries on felony convictions for petty offenses, destroying their lives; branding them "sex offenders" when they're not -- that stuff bothers me.
Too true. Having the indelible stain of "sex offender" on your record for such paltry things as public urination or having consensual sexual relations with a 16 year old partner at the age of 18 is ridiculous. Most people wouldn't take the time to ask or investigate the charge that caused it; they'd simply assume you were a rapist or pedophile.
* Just to clarify, I have had many friends that also worked as police officers or jailers. I'm not saying they're all bad, just that I'm fed up with power tripping courts. I like what my friend said, "I think the judges are supposed to be Lawful Neutral, but some end up moving one step in alignment."
I'm not saying they're all bad, just that I'm fed up with power tripping courts.
If only the problem were that small in scope, I'd feel a lot better about the state of our nation's justice system. My attorney friend tells me that incarcerating minimal offenders for maximum time periods is a multimillion-dollar business; this graph shows what a growth industry it is. With the "war on drugs" peaked out, the next big markets are "pirates" and "sex offenders" -- meaning, respectively, "anyone who downloads just about anything" and "anyone at all, due to lack of clear definitions."
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(LOL)
I was talking to somebody I worked with; this person said they downloaded a buttload on Napster back in college.
I said I NEVER downloaded anything ever.....then I had an idea for a sci fi novel snippet.....the oppressive ocracy gets heavy on people who give the government trouble by.....shaking down their closets for skeletons like.....oh.....illegally downloading "Oops I did it again" 30 years ago.
Tag somebody for a week in the hoozegow per act of piracy for 1,000 downloads and you can make them go away for a long time. With some semblance of legitemacy.
Tag somebody for a week in the hoozegow per act of piracy for 1,000 downloads and you can make them go away for a long time. With some semblance of legitemacy.
Jamie Thomas, Duluth, Minn.: convicted for copyright infringement for sharing music online; fined $9,250 for each of the 24 songs involved in the case. That ain't science fiction, either.
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My attorney friend tells me that incarcerating minimal offenders for maximum time periods is a multimillion-dollar business; this graph shows what a growth industry it is.
And then there's the blatant cases like the recent one in Pennsylvania.
But at least that's still illegal. 90% of the people in jail because of 'tough on crime' / 'war on drugs' crap were probably better people before they got put into prison, since our prison system really doesn't seem terribly focused on 'rehabilitation.'
As for the sex offender registry, there's always tidbits like this one to make one pause before casting stones. [Assuming that pausing before casting stones isn't one's default state.]
I did once work with a guy who was accused by his ex-wife of molesting their daughter during an especially acrimonious divorce. The daughter had died in a car accident the year before, and so it was strictly a case of 'he said / she said.' (I didn't much like the guy, and wasn't about to take sides, but having met him and his wife, she succeeded in convincing me that anything she said was purely out of spite, since she couldn't seem to get her story straight, and said many hateful things, including some I knew to be false, talking to everyone he worked with, almost as if she was desperate to turn his co-workers and friends against him.) Ten years later, he still oouldn't be alone in the same room with a female minor, and was not legally able to live in the same house as his new wife, as she had a teenaged daughter.
What a lovely way to remember her daughter.
'My private opinion trumps all possible evidence or counter-evidence.'
I have a pretty healthy ego, but that's just crazy arrogance. To consider the hypothetical he was asked to entertain from the other end, the following would convince me that the resurrection (or in fact, any resurrection to which the same scrutiny was applied) happened:
1) I must be able to examine myself and have qualified medical experts examine the body of Jesus and verify that it very much is dead to their professional satisfaction and according to all the normal medical tests. Ideally, at least two separate teams do the same stuff. (The redundancy and instrumentation are to limit so far as possible the chance for tampering, wishful thinking, or mass hysteria.)
2a) The body must be kept under constant surveillance and secured against theft, tampering, and so forth for however long it stays dead. This is to verify that it's the same body with no trickery involved when we get to the next step.
2b) If possible, and in the interests of science, keep all the equipment attached to the body and recording its data. If he's going to get up and start walking later on, we'll want to know how it happened!
3) Once the body gets up and starts walking around again, repeat all the measures in the first step independently and with the same team as did the original tests.
4) If all the tests in #3 were positive, I guess we have a resurrection. My mind would be changed.
It still wouldn't convince me of the truth of Christianity (That would take a lot more, since Christianity entails far more than merely the standalone doctrine that Jesus came back from the dead.) but I'd be prepared to say that this guy was dead and now lives again. Any sensible person of integrity with the same information would have to conclude the same. Likewise if the tests came back negative, the reverse is entailed.
Life is good.
I have struggled with Crimson Jester's statement that the truth is.
If it is unobservable, does it have any value to me? If it is incomprehensible to us, how can it be in the Bible and what good can the Bible be if we are unable to comprehend it?
Does Crimson Jester's argument come down to "it's magic"?
I hope you do not feel like I am picking on you, CJ. I am honestly trying to see this from your point of view. Help me out here.
Heh. The ultimate truth. A wizard did it.
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I have struggled with Crimson Jester's statement that the truth is.
If it is unobservable, does it have any value to me? If it is incomprehensible to us, how can it be in the Bible and what good can the Bible be if we are unable to comprehend it?
Does Crimson Jester's argument come down to "it's magic"?
I hope you do not feel like I am picking on you, CJ. I am honestly trying to see this from your point of view. Help me out here.
I will when I am able to. I am at work and have had a much more limited time to respond, as such I have not posted as much as I have wanted to. I also do not feel I am explaining things quite as eloquently as I wish, and with no spell checker here it just makes things that much worse. You have honest questions that deserve honest answers.
I will when I am able to.
Take your time. I am in no rush.
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I have struggled with Crimson Jester's statement that the truth is.
At some point, arguing about what we haven't seen and cannot test becomes fruitless. Either it is or it isn't. What people actually believe becomes irrelevant. If I tell you that I just dropped a pen, what you believe about that is irrelevant -- the pen either dropped or it didn't. It has little to do with what you believe.
If it is unobservable, does it have any value to me?
Depends on what you value. It snowed here last week. If you don't live here, you didn't see it. Does that have value? That may depend on where you live. California values this even though they didn't see it.
If it is incomprehensible to us, how can it be in the Bible and what good can the Bible be if we are unable to comprehend it?
This is a little more complicated. Sometimes I feel like it is like a technical textbook of something you know little about. There is quite a bit about Chemistry and Physics that I know little about. Some specific things could be argued that are "incomprehensible" to me. Why? Because I don't have the foundation to fully "comprehend" it all. But I still have some idea into what is going on.
In a similar respect, the older I get and the more I know, the more I know what I don't know. It's kind of like the child who keeps asking "why?". Initially, the question seems easy to answer. But as you get deeper and learn more about it, things become more difficult to answer and understand.
The Bible may give us some guidance, but I don't feel that it answers everything.
Does Crimson Jester's argument come down to "it's magic"?
I'm not sure what this is referencing directly, but so much of religion seems like "magic". Anything dealing with an "afterlife" regardless of what they believe -- enlightenment, heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc. -- seems a bit like "magic".