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11/06/2004 05:14:58 AM · #201 |
Originally posted by Anachronite:
I am simply stating fact. Check the statistics and polls. A vast majority find the lifestyle offensive. Why do you think the marraige ban was just passed in all 11 states where it was on the ballot? Because the majority was offended by it. |
Isn't the whole point of the US Constitution to prevent oppression of minorities at the hands of the majority?
Originally posted by Anachronite:
As for the signature, It is offensive. I doubt I am the only one who thinks so. As for research, yes I do.
4.2 ...(iv) contains explicitly sexual content.
I guess explicit is subjective. But I find the depiction of any deviant behavior to be explicit. |
Kissing is not sex.
Originally posted by Anachronite:
(viii) encourages the use of drugs...
Your painting definately encourages the use of drugs. This is clearly a TOS violation. |
Merely depicting is not encouraging. The ToS used to state "depicts or encourages..." but we felt that was overly restrictive, so we removed it.
Originally posted by Anachronite:
(ix) is generally offensive or in bad taste.
I'd bet money many people on DPC find the entire signature offensive and in bad taste. Simply because before posting it you already know people are offended by images like this yet you chose to post it anyway.
It may not be offensive to everyone but it is to some of us, and knowing this makes posting it bad taste. |
Given that Mousie has had this signature since at least April, and you are the first person to complain about it, "generally offensive" is a pretty difficult argument to sell.
-Terry
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11/06/2004 09:35:21 AM · #202 |
Originally posted by Anachronite:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
Hate has nothing to do with it. The VAST majority doesn't agree with you. They see this lifestyle as deviant behavior. If they have a right to live that way, then a business owner has a right not be forced to hire people their customers might be offended by. True, not all customers would be offended as many people are not bothered by it. But most people are.
An example to show you how those offended by it feel: Many people concider drug use a deviant behavior. Would you want a drug user working for you? No you would not. Now don't go thinking I am saying being gay is akin to using drugs. I'm not. But it is an example of a behavior people find offensive. People are offended by the gay lifestyle. They see it as anti-social and deviant. Forcing it on them is not fair. Your free to be gay. I don't care. Just don't force me to accept your lifestyle choice by having to hire you and provide insurance for your gay lover. It's my business and I can hire who I want to, just as you have the right to go work somewhere else if you don't like where your at. For the record, there are gay people working in our company. However because of the way they chose to live, it's 100% completely obvious that they are gay. Because of this we don't put them in positions where they have contact with the customers, as we have customers that find their lifestyle offensive. |
Maybe you are offended, maybe the VAST majority of people you know are offended, that by no means makes them right. Exclusion and bias are ALWAYS hateful.
Personally, I don't care if a drug user works for me. As long as they are responsible and they perform their job.
Maybe we shouldn't force companies to hire anyone they don't agree with. Maybe they should not have to hire qualified women because some customers might feel threatened by a woman in a position of power or not want to do business with a woman. What about hiring African-Americans, hispanics, Indians, any immigrants? I'm sure some companies have racist and sexist customers, so maybe they should be allowed to only hire caucasians males. How about the handicapped? Maybe some customers would feel offended by dealing with a person in a wheelchair, who is blind or walks with crutches, so should we exclude the handicapped as well?
At one time, not too long ago, in the south, the VAST majority of people were offended by the thought of integrated schools, not having separate drinking fountains, entrances, or even being in the same room with African-Americans. The fact that they were in the majority hardly made them right. |
It's obvious you can't understand anything I have said. Please stop comparing race and or gender to a persons individual lifestyle choice. Your comparing two subjects that can't be compared fairly. Until you can get that straight man, there's no reason to continue talking to you spazmo. |
I understand what you are saying perfectly, it is you who lack understanding. Also in seemingly short supply over your way are compassion, acceptance and tolerance. The plain fact is that being homosexual is NOT a choice anymore than being a woman or a man is a choice, being African American, Hispanic, Jewish etc. Did you choose to be a white male?
There is no point in you trying to convince me that you are right, because exclusion and bias are simply wrong, as are you.
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11/06/2004 09:47:57 AM · #203 |
This is from one of your posts on being gay:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
One option is that it is a psychological problem shaped by one̢۪s personal life experiences. If so, one can seek therapy and hopefully be cured. Another option is that you are indeed born that way. If this is true, then when you consider nature and they way our bodies are designed to reproduce, it would most certainly have to be some sort of birth defect. If this is ever proven, then we as a society should spend some money to research a cure for it just like any other childhood disease. |
There is no point in you trying to convince me that you are right.
Because in this, you are wrong.
(bold emphasis placed by me)
GAY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIC LIMON CLICK HERE!!!
Message edited by author 2004-11-06 09:50:30. |
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11/06/2004 10:00:54 AM · #204 |
Originally posted by cbeller:
Slavery used to be approved of by the "vast majority", yet that's not the case anymore, is it?
What about Blacks rights? Women's rights? The "vast majority" used to think they weren't entitled to equal rights.
It's called discrimination.
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I simply disagree with these statements. The 'vast majority' never apporoved of slavery, even in the slave states themselves. Many people risked their own freedom, their property, and even their lives in order to help slaves hide out or escape. |
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11/06/2004 12:09:45 PM · #205 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by RonB:
And that, my friend, is the big problem. No uniform standards. No moral compass. No foundation. If some group can convince enough people, they can get their pet perversion put on the "accepted" list. |
Are you making the argument that without being religious, a person cannot be moral or ethical? |
Well, first of all, no one can BE moral or ethical. They can, and do, exhibit moral and ethical behaviour some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, but never all of the time. That being said, just as someone can be driving under the speed limit without knowing what the limit actually is, someone can exhibit moral or ethical behaviour without knowing what the limits of "moral" or "ethical" are, whether they are religious or not.
However, my point was that if you base your own personal morals and ethics on what society says, then you leave yourself vulnerable to confusion in how you ought to behave. |
But society doesn't "say" any one thing. Society has a pluralistic ethos and moral codes. It comes down to the individual to take responsibility for leading a moral and ethical life.
The question is if you make your decisions rationally, or simply give your brain over to a "higher authority".
Given that these decisions are among the most important in our lives, I think they deserve attention and discrimination, not a blind adherence based on faith - basically the willful suspension of reason.
You spoke of the word of god being expressed in the Christian Bible, yet IMO, any honest scholar of the history of religion would tell you that the more you learn about the origins of the words of that book, the more incredible is the idea that they are the word of god, much less those of Jesus Christ himself.
No, IMO, the self-examined life free of the mystic superstitions, contradictions, and downright brutality of a 1700-year old book, is the best way to lead an intelligently ethical and spiritual life. |
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11/06/2004 12:26:47 PM · #206 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
...society doesn't "say" any one thing. Society has a pluralistic ethos and moral codes. It comes down to the individual to take responsibility for leading a moral and ethical life.
The question is if you make your decisions rationally, or simply give your brain over to a "higher authority".
Given that these decisions are among the most important in our lives, I think they deserve attention and discrimination, not a blind adherence based on faith - basically the willful suspension of reason....
IMO, the self-examined life free of the mystic superstitions, contradictions..., is the best way to lead an intelligently ethical and spiritual life. |
A life free of 'contradictions' is, I believe, asking for too much. Really, contradictions affirm the phenomonoligical. A life free of them, I'm afraid, would be strangely dull and unchallenging.
The remainder of your post though strikes me as very lucid and sound. If it were a just a little infectious too, there would be, I'm sure, less strife and suffering in the world.
Message edited by author 2004-11-06 12:27:38.
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11/06/2004 01:03:53 PM · #207 |
Originally posted by Mousie:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
An example to show you how those offended by it feel: Many people concider drug use a deviant behavior. Would you want a drug user working for you? No you would not. |
Sorry, I just had to chime in one more time, because drug use is another topic I just looooove to talk about!
"No you would not." How presumptuous! I've smoked pot with three of my last four EMPLOYERS. You know... while sucessfully coding and publishing multimillion-selling products that have made my employers lots and lots of money.
Granted, I don't get high and drive, or get high on the job, or let my drug use impact my work performance. That's because I'm responsible. The same sort of responsibility, performace, and contribution I would expect from my own employees if I ran a company, as I stated earlier. New example from you, same response from me.
When are you going to stop speaking for the masses and speak for yourself? Been to California lately?
P.S. Didn't your God give us all the seed bearing herbs and plants to use? I just love that line. :) |
A Silicon Valley survey found employee productivity higher (pun intended) at firms which did not have a drug-testing program. |
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11/06/2004 02:02:48 PM · #208 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by RonB:
And that, my friend, is the big problem. No uniform standards. No moral compass. No foundation. If some group can convince enough people, they can get their pet perversion put on the "accepted" list. |
Are you making the argument that without being religious, a person cannot be moral or ethical? |
Well, first of all, no one can BE moral or ethical. They can, and do, exhibit moral and ethical behaviour some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, but never all of the time. That being said, just as someone can be driving under the speed limit without knowing what the limit actually is, someone can exhibit moral or ethical behaviour without knowing what the limits of "moral" or "ethical" are, whether they are religious or not.
However, my point was that if you base your own personal morals and ethics on what society says, then you leave yourself vulnerable to confusion in how you ought to behave. |
But society doesn't "say" any one thing. Society has a pluralistic ethos and moral codes. It comes down to the individual to take responsibility for leading a moral and ethical life. |
How can an individual take responsibility for leading a moral life if "moral" is based on the codes defined in a pluralistic ethos? Is it moral to not wear the burka? Is it moral to go bare-breasted on the beach? Is it moral to eat beef? One society says yes, another no.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
The question is if you make your decisions rationally, or simply give your brain over to a "higher authority". |
Though He could very easily have "forced" us to give our brain over to His authority, God intended that we exercise free will. If I do what I believe is plesing to God, it is not because I am "forced" to, it is because I choose to.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Given that these decisions are among the most important in our lives, I think they deserve attention and discrimination, not a blind adherence based on faith - basically the willful suspension of reason. |
I agree, and so does God. The Bible, in fact, tells us that we should examine all teachings to see whether they conflict with scripture and to reject them if they do. It is obviouse that this is not "blind adherence" but careful examination, or as you put it "attention and discrimination". Absolutely no suspension of reason.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
You spoke of the word of god being expressed in the Christian Bible, yet IMO, any honest scholar of the history of religion would tell you that the more you learn about the origins of the words of that book, the more incredible is the idea that they are the word of god, much less those of Jesus Christ himself. |
No more incredible than believing that something as complex as a strand of DNA occurred by chance in a primordial soup. And that that DNA could evolve in just few years to something so complex that it could exhibit independent thought and action - action so complex that it, itself, could design and build a 747 aircraft.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
No, IMO, the self-examined life free of the mystic superstitions, contradictions, and downright brutality of a 1700-year old book, is the best way to lead an intelligently ethical and spiritual life. |
The self-examined life needs to have something upon which to base the examination. For the Christian, the teachings of the Bible form that base. Other religions have other teachings, but all of them base the examination on other than self or society.
On the other hand, what forms the basis of examination for the atheist? What defines that which is or is not moral or ethical? And how can an atheist lead an intelligently spiritual life, anyway?
No, IMO, the life examined in light of scripture is the best way to lead a moral and ethical and spiritual life. |
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11/06/2004 02:12:27 PM · #209 |
did you all know that there is a thread going right now all about god and religion here
it's titled "christians"
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11/06/2004 02:42:26 PM · #210 |
Would you want to fly on an airplane if the pilot had just finished a joint?
How about your surgon? Want him operating on you after doin a bit of dope?
Ya want those in charge of nuclear arms to have a brain clouded by drugs?
If you ansered positively to any of these you likely have used illegal drugs.
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Mousie:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
An example to show you how those offended by it feel: Many people concider drug use a deviant behavior. Would you want a drug user working for you? No you would not. |
Sorry, I just had to chime in one more time, because drug use is another topic I just looooove to talk about!
"No you would not." How presumptuous! I've smoked pot with three of my last four EMPLOYERS. You know... while sucessfully coding and publishing multimillion-selling products that have made my employers lots and lots of money.
Granted, I don't get high and drive, or get high on the job, or let my drug use impact my work performance. That's because I'm responsible. The same sort of responsibility, performace, and contribution I would expect from my own employees if I ran a company, as I stated earlier. New example from you, same response from me.
When are you going to stop speaking for the masses and speak for yourself? Been to California lately?
P.S. Didn't your God give us all the seed bearing herbs and plants to use? I just love that line. :) |
A Silicon Valley survey found employee productivity higher (pun intended) at firms which did not have a drug-testing program. |
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11/06/2004 03:05:46 PM · #211 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
did you all know that there is a thread going right now all about god and religion here
it's titled "christians" |
That thread is, or was at least was started, to discuss Christians, specifically, not Religion in general. Currently, that thread is discussing the fall of man. This thread, though originally started about Freedom of Speech, is, at least for the moment, somewhat off-topic and discussing morals and ethics. God and Religion are relevant to such a discussion, as they are basic to how some individuals, and not just Christians, arrive at their understanding of those precepts. Unless one of the Administrators decides that the discussion has strayed too far off-topic, I don't see what the problem is in continuing the discussion in this thread. |
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11/06/2004 03:15:09 PM · #212 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
Would you want to fly on an airplane if the pilot had just finished a joint?
How about your surgon? Want him operating on you after doin a bit of dope?
Ya want those in charge of nuclear arms to have a brain clouded by drugs?
If you ansered positively to any of these you likely have used illegal drugs.
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Mousie:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
An example to show you how those offended by it feel: Many people concider drug use a deviant behavior. Would you want a drug user working for you? No you would not. |
Sorry, I just had to chime in one more time, because drug use is another topic I just looooove to talk about!
"No you would not." How presumptuous! I've smoked pot with three of my last four EMPLOYERS. You know... while sucessfully coding and publishing multimillion-selling products that have made my employers lots and lots of money.
Granted, I don't get high and drive, or get high on the job, or let my drug use impact my work performance. That's because I'm responsible. The same sort of responsibility, performace, and contribution I would expect from my own employees if I ran a company, as I stated earlier. New example from you, same response from me.
When are you going to stop speaking for the masses and speak for yourself? Been to California lately?
P.S. Didn't your God give us all the seed bearing herbs and plants to use? I just love that line. :) |
A Silicon Valley survey found employee productivity higher (pun intended) at firms which did not have a drug-testing program. |
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The answer to all of those ridiculous questions is of course, NO.
The point is that casual drug use is possible in some cases without a negative effect on job performance. Replace the word "joint" in your argument with cocktail and the results are the same, but the substance used to get high is legal.
If alchohol affects job performance, especially with pilots, surgeons, doomsday button-pushers and anyone in a similar position with responsibility to the safety and well being the public, shouldn't alchohol be banned as well?
Hasn't that already been tried? If I remember, Prohibition was hardly a success. Unless you happened to be a criminal bringing in Whickey from Canada or brewing up a toxic batch of bathtub gin that made people sick or dead. |
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11/06/2004 05:14:24 PM · #213 |
Originally posted by RonB:
No more incredible than believing that something as complex as a strand of DNA occurred by chance in a primordial soup. And that that DNA could evolve in just few years to something so complex that it could exhibit independent thought and action - action so complex that it, itself, could design and build a 747 aircraft. |
Complexity and stunning beauty regularly derive from the most simple of processes. Have you ever heard of the Logistic Equation?
dx / dr = rx(1 - x)
So simple... yet the spawn of so much intricate beauty that it's mind boggling. Ever seen images of the Mandelbrot or Julia Sets, or it's semi-chaotic, semi-stable, entirely unpredictable bifurcation diagram? Chaos theory, fractals, and even population growth projections are all facets of this function which is small on the surface but practically infinite in it's scope.
To imagine that the same mechanisms work in any number of ways in the world we see around us is no strech, given the evidence of iterative processes and fractals in nature that abound. I deem your assertion that the mere existence of a 747, based on it's elegance and complexity, fails to prove any sort of extra-natural process involved in its creation and willfully ignores that even the most complex systems can naturally spring forth from any system where there's even a slight variation of energy or matter across the fabric of space.
Personally, the idea that there's a extra-natural power that built everything yet made it so painful and ugly, and who can never be proven is substantially more far-fetched than the concrete results I have seen born from simple programs I have written myself.
Should I trust an ancient book written by men, or the results of my own exercises in language and recursion?
Message edited by author 2004-11-06 17:36:00.
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11/06/2004 05:22:09 PM · #214 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
Would you want to fly on an airplane if the pilot had just finished a joint?
How about your surgon? Want him operating on you after doin a bit of dope?
Ya want those in charge of nuclear arms to have a brain clouded by drugs?
If you ansered positively to any of these you likely have used illegal drugs. |
Straw man!
Your question is absurd. The answer is a resounding no.
You'll note that in my previous posts I STRESSED my clear belief that drug use is meant for recreation, and has no place in work or when you need to be responsible... while driving a car for example. Are you willfully ignoring this?
If my doctor wants to smoke a joint to relax after a stressful day cutting people open, more power to him. In my mind it's better than drowning his stress with booze.
However, what makes your straw man particularly specious is that the same could be said about alcohol, cigarettes, hell.. even caffiene makes many people's hands incredibly shaky, as evidenced by one or two chocolate covered espresso beans. Do I want my doctor poking around in my lungs if his hands are trembling?
Seriously, why did you even post this? What was your intent?
I believe it's yet another attempt to discredit the ideas and ideals of people you don't disagree with, by implying that any drug user can't possibly hold a valid opinion... because of their drug use.
Taking another step back, there's the implication that a homosexual can't possibly have a valid opinion on morality, because they are too steeped in gayness, and in the words of Anachronite, 'in denial'.
What a clever little way to preemptively discount any opinions supporting a moral choice made by anyone who behaves in a way you don't like.
Message edited by author 2004-11-06 17:31:44.
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11/06/2004 06:08:37 PM · #215 |
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
If alchohol affects job performance, especially with pilots, surgeons, doomsday button-pushers and anyone in a similar position with responsibility to the safety and well being the public, shouldn't alchohol be banned as well?
Hasn't that already been tried? If I remember, Prohibition was hardly a success. Unless you happened to be a criminal bringing in Whickey from Canada or brewing up a toxic batch of bathtub gin that made people sick or dead. |
It is -- for example, firefighters are fired for drinking in the firehouse. Pilots are fired if they are documented drinking with something like 12 hours of their shift.
What one does one the job is -- of course -- subject to the guidelines of the employer and regulators. What one does in the privacy of one's own home on one's own time is nobody's business -- least of all the government's or that of some church to which one does not subscribe.
Can someone explain how drinking a beer, smoking a joint, or popping Prozac are not equally valid ways of exercising that "inalienable right" to the pursuit of happiness the Founding Fathers declared as a founding principle of their version of democracy? Yet one is ceaslelessly promoted in all media, despite its complicity in some thousands of death each year on the highways alone; one get's you time in Federal prison (cost to taxpayers = about $40,000/year); and one makes a bundle for some investors in the Medical-Industrial-Insurance complex which is bleeding the GNP like gigantic white leeches. |
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11/06/2004 06:16:23 PM · #216 |
Originally posted by Mousie:
Originally posted by RonB:
No more incredible than believing that something as complex as a strand of DNA occurred by chance in a primordial soup. And that that DNA could evolve in just few years to something so complex that it could exhibit independent thought and action - action so complex that it, itself, could design and build a 747 aircraft. |
Complexity and stunning beauty regularly derive from the most simple of processes. Have you ever heard of the Logistic Equation?
dx / dr = rx(1 - x)
So simple... yet the spawn of so much intricate beauty that it's mind boggling. Ever seen images of the Mandelbrot or Julia Sets, or it's semi-chaotic, semi-stable, entirely unpredictable bifurcation diagram? Chaos theory, fractals, and even population growth projections are all facets of this function which is small on the surface but practically infinite in it's scope.
To imagine that the same mechanisms work in any number of ways in the world we see around us is no strech, given the evidence of iterative processes and fractals in nature that abound. |
Oh, I heartily agree. But then, you believe that the way it all works is based on chance mathematics. Sort of like Pi. It's just. . .well, there. I on the other hand, see the "laws" of mathematics and physics as a supremely wondrous gift from God, who "invented" them all just to prove His existence to those who are inclined to believe.
Originally posted by Mousie:
I deem your assertion that the mere existence of a 747, based on it's elegance and complexity, fails to prove any sort of extra-natural process involved in its creation and willfully ignores that even the most complex systems can naturally spring forth from any system where there's even a slight variation of energy or matter across the fabric of space. |
While more complex systems can spring forth, more ordered systems wouldn't. The laws of entrophy don't support the premise. Entropy would indicate that the most ordered forms would have existed at the earliest period of time and would have gotten more disordered over time, not more ordered. Complexity without order is just noise.
Originally posted by Mousie:
Personally, the idea that there's a extra-natural power that built everything yet made it so painful and ugly, and who can never be proven is substantially more far-fetched than the concrete results I have seen born from simple programs I have written myself. |
God didn't make it painful and ugly. He made it painless and beautiful. It was Man, His creation, who brought such into the world by his rebellios action in the Garden of Eden.
Have you written a program that can replicate its own code, and have that code join with the code from a different, though similar, program, and by so doing produce yet a third program, one that bears similarities to both of the original programs - and is capable of running? Has anyone? God has - its called DNA.
Originally posted by Mousie:
Should I trust an ancient book written by men, or the results of my own exercises in language and recursion? |
You should trust an ancient book written by men under, but not just any men - men writing under the inspiration and direction of God. |
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11/06/2004 06:20:08 PM · #217 |
didn't any of you read my earlier post?
Aliens created man.
and till any of you can prove it different, that's just the way it is.
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11/06/2004 06:21:17 PM · #218 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by Mousie:
Should I trust an ancient book written by men, or the results of my own exercises in language and recursion? |
You should trust an ancient book written by men under, but not just any men - men writing under the inspiration and direction of God. |
The Koran? |
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11/06/2004 06:40:02 PM · #219 |
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by Mousie:
Should I trust an ancient book written by men, or the results of my own exercises in language and recursion? |
You should trust an ancient book written by men under, but not just any men - men writing under the inspiration and direction of God. |
The Koran? |
Nowadays when someone says they are acting under the inspiration and direction of God they are given Thorazine or Stelazine IM and committed for 72 hours of observation. What they write in the hospital may eventually be published too ... although I suppose that itself might be taken as proof that miracles can happen. |
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11/06/2004 06:44:55 PM · #220 |
Five major religions are practiced in the world today and each is centuries old. Hinduism developed first, then Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and finally Islam. But they are not more or less important than other religions because they are older or newer. Their importance is that for centuries they have satisfied basic human needs and answered man's basic questions. The chief differences among them have to do with whose needs they satisfy and whose questions they answer.
The point is:
Practice what you want, and get out of it what you need. Do people who believe in the bible really think that every human being who came before the birth of christ is burning in hell? Well, sorry to say, but the buddhists think we can come back as a slug. Because jews don't think of Jesus as a savior, will every jew burn in a christian hell? It seems like a scare tactic to me.
Because you believe in something, does it make everyone else wrong? And if it does, how? |
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11/06/2004 08:20:18 PM · #221 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
didn't any of you read my earlier post?
Aliens created man.
and till any of you can prove it different, that's just the way it is. |
Preach it brotha!
(Actually, I'm inclined to believe this theory more than any other that has popped up.. although I withold any belief from becoming all-empowering)
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11/06/2004 08:38:39 PM · #222 |
Originally posted by Artyste:
Originally posted by ericlimon:
didn't any of you read my earlier post?
Aliens created man.
and till any of you can prove it different, that's just the way it is. |
Preach it brotha!
(Actually, I'm inclined to believe this theory more than any other that has popped up.. although I withold any belief from becoming all-empowering) |
Its more logical to assume a highly advanced race stopped by Earth a few hundred million years ago and dropped off some seed; than some sort of magical creator there is no proof exists yet people assume he is watching us at all times (and therefore letting innocent people die daily who worship some version of him, and letting selfish gluttons run the world). |
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11/06/2004 08:38:40 PM · #223 |
What the majority of folks think of another group of folks is irrelevent. At least that's the case in the United States. We have a Constitution and the 14th Ammendment says in part that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". This means if marriage is legal for anyone, it's legal for everyone. Pure and simple. You can believe that some people are evil if you want, but if they are citizens, you can not make laws that apply just to them.
If you believe I've taken this out of context, read the Constitution for yourself. You can not make laws that abridge the privileges of someone simply because it creeps you out when they kiss...
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11/06/2004 09:36:16 PM · #224 |
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Its more logical to assume a highly advanced race stopped by Earth a few hundred million years ago and dropped off some seed; than some sort of magical creator there is no proof exists yet people assume he is watching us at all times (and therefore letting innocent people die daily who worship some version of him, and letting selfish gluttons run the world). |
Considering that:
- The importance of the word[i], or languge, of God in many religions
- The widespread belief that we were made in God's image
- Our uncanny ability to use tools that sets us apart from mere 'animals'
- Our uncanny ability to [i]simulate that really sets us apart from mere 'animals'
- That visual or spoken language is often the main tool we use to simulate stuff, like mathematics, design, and programming.
- That we're simulating new stuff all the time, from global weather patterns to interpersonal iteraction to entire online worlds
- That we're getting better at doing it at a geometric pace
- The iterative, recursive, and fractal nature of so many forces around us, patterns everywhere that replicate themselves
There's a lot of stuff that points to us being a simulation created by the previous simulation up the chain, busily working on the next kajillion simulations down the chain.
Prove me wrong! I mean, without using a Bible. :)
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11/06/2004 09:47:09 PM · #225 |
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Its more logical to assume a highly advanced race stopped by Earth a few hundred million years ago and dropped off some seed; than some sort of magical creator there is no proof exists yet people assume he is watching us at all times (and therefore letting innocent people die daily who worship some version of him, and letting selfish gluttons run the world). |
Interesting point... Where did this "highly advanced race" come from? How did they evolve so fast that they could seed a planet while the universe was still just cooling off after the Big Bang?
Originally posted by Mousie:
There's a lot of stuff that points to us being a simulation created by the previous simulation up the chain, busily working on the next kajillion simulations down the chain.
Prove me wrong! I mean, without using a Bible. :)
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Cause the universe, which we have a pretty decent measurement on with these tools you've mentioned, isn't old enough for your theory :)
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