Darwin Day is a celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday, the theory of evolution and science in general. This year marks his 210th birthday and 160 years since the publication of The Origin of Species. Those looking to celebrate or learn more about Darwin and evolution will find a wealth of events going on, or if you'd rather not leave the house, try a Darwin Day card with designs generated by simulated evolution.
Recently, an important finding in man's evolution was announced; the so-called Missing Link was confirmed. Australopithecus Sediba fossils were found in 2010 but it took a decade of research and debate for scientists to confirm that this was indeed the missing link that connects man's evolution in an unbroken chain back to primate ancestors.
Not everyone is down with Darwin. The Pew Research Center reports, "In spite of the fact that evolutionary theory is accepted by all but a small number of scientists, it continues to be rejected by many Americans. In fact, about one-in-five U.S. adults reject the basic idea that life on Earth has evolved at all." In Indiana, senator Dennis Kruse introduced a bill that would, among other things, "require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @03:40PM (173 children)
No, I mean, really, so what? The truth doesn't need you to believe it to remain true. As long as information isn't being suppressed, what business is it or mine, yours, or whoever's what someone wants to believe? I mean, you don't see me going around advocating for suppression of the blatantly contradictory positions modern intersectional feminists hold (Like LGBT rights and supporting Islamists that murder gay people or like claiming men and women are no different mentally for feminism's sake but that we're utterly different mentally for the sake of trans folks). Just let people live their lives, even if they want to do it in a way you think is silly. Don't be any bigger an asshole than you need to be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @03:52PM (49 children)
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse [siderus.io]
It has blood on it! [siderus.io]
ABCNews: Eclipse makes pendulum wander [archive.org]
Losing my religion [siderus.io]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @04:44PM (48 children)
And? It's not hurting anyone for them to believe something silly unless you consider exposure to things you disagree with as harm, which would be pretty fucked up of you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:25PM (32 children)
You mean other than the fact that these are the same mouth breathers that fight tooth and nail against doing the research necessary to solve our problems, right? These are the same people that constantly fight against doing research because they're not secure in their beliefs. If they were so secure in their beliefs then they should want the research to be done, so that it proves their views.
Thankfully, every year, more of them convert away from such crazy superstitions than are brought into it, meaning that eventually they'll just die out. Most mainstream religions, including Catholicism, accept evolution.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:35PM (31 children)
If you are referring to the Catholic Church based in the Vatican, I would say you need to provide a citation. The Catholic Church officially still holds geocentrism to be true, and Galileo to be incorrect. The Church has the Bible and lack of demonstrable proof of Earth motion on its side.
If the Church has concluded we are all space monkeys, that is news to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:56PM (3 children)
Geocentrism is true, and Gallileo was incorrect. So good. Now we know that geocentrism and heliocentrism are both equally correct, it is just a personal choice of reference frame.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:38PM
Very astute. One choice; that given by God. The other, wandering to condemnation.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:15AM (1 child)
Position laid out, and summarily refuted, Here! [discovermagazine.com].
Thank Godness that the Flat Earth Society [theflatearthsociety.org] has no truck with such nonsense.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday February 13 2019, @06:38PM
You've been around a while. Back in the day when the Christians were writing their bible, there were already philosophers who realised that the Earth was a ball and orbited the Sun and had indeed attempted to measure things like the circumference of the Earth. So why did the Christians and their church (the original one, Roman Catholic, not these Johnny-come-latelys) adopt the ludicrous flat Earth/Earth at the centre "model?"
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @06:27PM (25 children)
Citation: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/28/pope-francis-comments-on-evolution-and-the-catholic-church [usnews.com]
Pope Francis good enough for you? Ex cathedra, and all that.
Or John Paul II, on Gallileo Gallilei: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13618460-600-vatican-admits-galileo-was-right/ [newscientist.com]
I hope these are enough citations to remedy your grevious ignorance. Your opinions seem almost Medieval, like a wall or a wheel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:31PM (24 children)
No, neither of those are good enough. Were the declarations of 500 years ago rescinded? Answer: No.
Francis is also wrong. He is a practicer of Lawlessness.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @06:43PM (23 children)
Can't read, huh? Must be a "Christian, not Catholic" sort of Christian. A Moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:28PM (10 children)
But they did not repeal the original findings. Geocentrism is still on the books.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @08:02PM
Citation lacking. What "books"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @08:05PM (6 children)
What about the In praeclara summorum? In it, Pope Benedict XV stated, "though this Earth on which we live may not be the center of the universe as at one time was thought, it was the scene of the original happiness of our first ancestors, witness of their unhappy fall, as too of the Redemption of mankind through the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ".
That is why people get confused. The official position of the Catholic Church is that the Earth goes around the Sun (well, they go around each other at the barycenter), but the Earth is the Center of the Universe.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @11:44PM (5 children)
The encyclical on Dante? The does not contain the quote given? Very bad citation, bad, AC!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:24AM (4 children)
What are you smoking? I'll quote the pertinent part from paragraph 4 as translated at http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_30041921_in-praeclara-summorum.html [vatican.va]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:09AM (2 children)
Are you sure? I did a "find in page" and it returned negative on "center of the universe". Are you sure this is the proper encyclical, and that you did not mean to reference the one on Charles Chaplin?
And besides, why the obsession with Dante? Tom Hanks? Latest Dan Brown movie? Am I correct?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:29AM (1 child)
Ah, got it. Your fabled intellegence is a myth. Your just an asshat that can't read for information, such as other terms to search for or paragraph citations, or is unable to distinguish bold highlighting to determine context.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:48AM
Are you suggesting that Pope, the Pontifex Maximus, Benedict the XV, did not know how to spell "center" properly? Oh, now I see, oh squirrelly AC, that you have never been serious in this accusation from the beginning. You are just attacking the Church Universal and Triumphant, which while I disagree with that charaterization, I can see how it would be off-putting to various heresies like Donatists, Pricillianists, Arians, Lutherns, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Copts, Cavalry Chapel, Branch Davidian, Identity Christians (white), and Mormons. So which are you, hmm? Is it the "Whore upon the Earth" of which Joe Smith, "Seer, with Stone" wrote? Or just the old, "Here I stand, I am too stupid to to other and have to rely on the Grace of God to make me not be an incel? Could you be a Southern Baptizer of recent news in Tejas? Actually, the possilities are too vast, and you have not answered the question, What "books"? And what "findings"? What the heck are you talking about? You are destroying the reputation of all the other fine ACs on SoylentNews but such substandard trolling. Do better, "be best", as someone also illiterate has said.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:52PM
What are YOU smoking? Or can you not read? From your quotation (the part you bolded):
Yes, at one time it WAS thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. It is no longer thought to be thus, and there's nothing in your quotation that implies that. And the passage you quote basically says in paraphrase, "Although it's no longer thought to be the center of the universe (as it once was), Earth is still where Jesus Christ did his thing," etc.
And really, if you're going to cite Catholic doctrine, you should consult the official Latin [vatican.va], which makes this all even clearer. Roughly, the Latin version says explicitly that "the Earth is no longer like the center of the universe, as WAS the opinion" [in the past]. And I assume the original (if modern Vatican practice is maintained) was probably first drafted in the Italian version [vatican.va], which explicitly states, "this Earth which we inhabit, although it is no longer the center of the universe, as was once believed..."
There is nothing in the English translation you quote which implies that geocentrism is "still on the books" as you claim, and the Latin and Italian versions don't have the slightly awkward grammatical element ("may") in the English that I think you're trying to exploit (which comes out of a translator trying to get the gist of the sentence in fluid English) -- they explicitly note the Earth is NOT the center of the universe. Only that it "was believed" to be such IN THE PAST.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday February 11 2019, @08:06PM (1 child)
What "findings"? The Catholic Church is not a scientific body. After the Galileo affair, primarily for political reasons, it put a ban on books teaching heliocentrism as proven fact, as well as on strong advocacy of the Copernican theory.
Which, to be clear, it was NOT proven fact at the time of Galileo, despite the fact that Galileo wanted to teach it as if it were true. It wasn't until nearly a century later with Bradley's observation of stellar aberration that we had the first empirical evidence that heliocentrism was correct. Within a decade his findings had been translated into Italian, and a few years later Copernicus was removed from the banned books list. In the early 19th century, after the final major arguments against heliocentrism were finally debunked (stellar parallax was finally explained and measured, Coriolis forces were observed), the Church raised no further objections against books that claimed heliocentrism to be fact. (See here [wikipedia.org] for the timeline; I can give citations for the rest if needed, though I've discussed this matter before here.)
I'm not defending the church's censorship actions, but once there was actual empirical evidence for heliocentrism, the church dropped its censorship soon after. And after there was clear resolution of the major (empirical) objections against heliocentrism that had been puzzled over by scientists for centuries, the church raised no further objection to teaching it as proven fact. The ruling there (over 150 years ago) clearly indicated that the church recognized the proven fact of heliocentrism, which can't be true if geocentrism is also true. I haven't looked at the detailed ruling from the 1800s, but I'm pretty sure it's no longer keeping "geocentrism on the books."
What more do you need?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:58PM
From the Wiki page: "It did not, however, explicitly rescind the decisions issued by the Inquisition in its judgement of 1633 against Galileo, or lift the prohibition of uncensored versions of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus or Galileo's Dialogue. "
Later: "Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and Galileo's Dialogue were then subsequently omitted from the next edition of the Index when it appeared in 1835."
Note no rescinding of the original judgments.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 11 2019, @07:44PM (11 children)
Don't bother. The A/C is probably khallow, who looks at the evidence you provide that prove him incorrect in his weird, tiny little world view, and and then sticks his fingers in his ears and screams "I CAN'T HEAR YOU"!!!!!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 11 2019, @11:23PM (10 children)
More likely Freeman, who thinks Gish Galloping link-spam to JW propaganda outfits is an argument...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:15AM (9 children)
Really? A JW?
Goodness, there are some odd people on this site some days.
I wonder if his upline* knows he's associating with "worldly" people. Usually the JW leaders like to keep the rank-and-file away from anyone who might introduce them to new ideas.
* I'm pretty sure that's the name they use for the leaders the average JW's have to report to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:17AM
What about the Social Jehovah's Witnesses (SJWs)I keep seeing reference to here on SN? Are they a splinter group?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:26AM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:34AM (2 children)
Would it? Really?
Thanks for the good advice.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:28AM
Thinking about why you don't have to pay attention to an idiotic opinion is a rational argument! It is like, "Wow, this is a Nine Khallow load! Best to ignore it. Even an oblivious rebuttal is not in order."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:16PM
You're welcome. Of course, good advice is best followed, but I get we're not to that stage yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:49PM (1 child)
You are a prime example of why people need to "walk the walk" if they want to tell other people how to act. You are one of the worst offenders. Doctor heal thyself! And no, it ain't lupus.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:12PM
Then you should be able to think of an example of that, right? I can't fix behavior (or be shamed), if one merely says things and never backs them up.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:32PM (1 child)
I'm actually not sure if he's an orthodox JW or just something similar, but he keeps linking to this "amazing facts" website that sounds very JW-ish. I will give him credit for having done enough research to understand that the proper reading of the Bible specifies Annihilationism rather than endless torment in Hell for the "unsaved," but it's likely he didn't even come to THAT on his own, just parroted from that site or whatever.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:04PM
Yeah, well, reading the bible to try to figure out what to believe seems like a bit of a fool's errand to me, but people have seemed to spend a lot of time and effort on it over the years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:53PM
Poop Pius XII, ENCYCLICAL: HUMANI GENERIS [vatican.va]
, Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, 12 August 1950,
"You never see a commie drink water, right Mandrake?" Darn Dialectical Materialism!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:59PM (14 children)
It is when their misinformation is forming their voting pattern. We have 3 choices - work to get voters to deal with reality, suppress their vote, or have them elect idiots. We are currently mostly going with option 3 and it's failing spectacularly. I find option 2 repugnant. That leaves me with option 1.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:34AM (13 children)
You're missing the point. They have the absolute right to be as wrong as they care to be. Including in their voting patterns.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:33AM (4 children)
Perhaps. Only if they never, ever, tell anyone else about it. If they open their yapper, they are harming their family, their children, future generations, the Choctow Nation, residents of the greater Phillidelphia area, the world, and the progress of the sciences. So we are right to mock them, punch them in the face, ban them from twitter and peer-reviewed academic journals, commit them to instituions for the criminally insane, and if all else fails, make them watch Fox News until they die.
You are so wrong, Buzzy, so wrong that you would not recognize right if it bit right on the end of your line.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:54AM (3 children)
You're right, ari. Now where do you hang your sandals so we can come execute you for wrongthink again?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:33PM (2 children)
Silly Buzzard! This is what philosophers do! Get executed by idiots with stupid beliefs! Are you not aware that my pregenitor Pythagoras was forced to flee and live for years in a cave, because of the beliefs of Polycrates, the Tyrant of Samos? Ultimately he left for Italy, but then was murdered by townsfolk with stupid beliefs. And then there was Socrates, whom I assume you have heard of. Zeno? Soranus? Seneca the Younger, forced to commit suicide by the God-emperor, Nero, another with incorrect beliefs. Justin Martyr? Sopater, put to death by Constantine? Boethius? Ayn-al-Qużāt Hamadānī, "Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardī and others killed by alleged Muslims with wrong views. Algernon Sidney, executed by Charles II, another king with silly beliefs. Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake by persons with very small beliefs. Antonio Gramsci, killed by the idiot Mussolini with his fascist beliefs.
Almost all these philosophers were killed by egoistic rulers, or conservative religious establishments, or in general the right-wing of historical politics. Not surprising that now the alt-right seeks to continue the fine tradition, having to as it were, "destroy western civilization in order to save it." (Ben Tre [wikipedia.org] strategy, from America's victory in Vietnam, engineered and operated by people with erroneous beliefs.)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:19AM (1 child)
Pythagoras, he invented triangles, right? Big fan. You're going to need to leave western civilization if you want to get executed though. Might I suggest China, Russia, or the Middle East?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday February 14 2019, @04:18PM
You are belying your sig, Oh Micturating Buzzard!
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 13 2019, @04:38AM (7 children)
And others have the absolute right to attempt to change their voting patterns, including by pointing out how wrong they are.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:23AM (6 children)
Absolutely. That's the entire purpose behind the first amendment. Our founders thought it was exceedingly less shitty to convince others by reasoned or even heated argument than by seeking to impose your will upon others. Check again which is being called for here by the anti-theists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:41PM (5 children)
The first amendment was just about the Federal government overriding the States rights to impose their wills on others. It was pretty pointed that only Congress was limited by the 1st. We're talking about a country that embraced slavery and theft of land.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 15 2019, @03:09AM (4 children)
Get some context on your butthurt. Europe gave the Americas over a hundred and fifty years before there even was a United States. Less than a hundred years after freeing ourselves, we also freed the slaves. Now we give preferential treatment to descendants of slaves so far removed from it that their grandparents never met anyone who was previously a slave.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 15 2019, @04:07AM (3 children)
The Colonists reacted pretty strongly about the Royal Proclamation of 1763, between it allowing Catholics to participate in government and the King stating that all his subjects were equal, so don't steal or otherwise settle land east of I forget exactly where, one of the seeds of revolution were planted.
What happened in the middle of the 19th century doesn't take away the fact that while your Constitution said everyone was equal, it also valued a slave as 3/5ths of a free man and those rights in the Bill of Rights that referred to persons didn't include slaves. Basically right from the beginning, the founding principles were ignored when convenient and today, Congress passes laws limiting speech, laws infringing on the right to bear arms and Congress people push for religious laws and appoint Justices based on religion rather then capability.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 15 2019, @11:57AM (2 children)
So you're objecting to people hundreds of years ago not having culturally evolved to modern ethical standards, yes? Guilt is not hereditary and you'd be extremely hard pressed to find any civilization in history that didn't come from one far more barbaric and less ethically sound by today's standards. You should probably back up and punt on this particular line of argument.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:31AM (1 child)
I was objecting to this statement,
and the fact that their actions were in disagreement of their words.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:18AM
Oh, you're demanding absolute perfection of anyone to see the merit in them then. Roger.
Dude, nobody's perfect. Don't even look for it because you will always be disappointed. Especially don't look for perfection by today's standards in men who lived over two hundred years ago. Societal values and mores were nothing like they are now. It's perfectly acceptable to consider someone a great human being without approving of their every thought and deed (especially in massive hindsight); they need only have done something worthy of calling great.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @04:01PM (26 children)
A theoretical model with remarkable prediction capabilities that might enhance your interpretation would be leftism as a religion.
Screeching about how we must all be converted to believe in evolution is literally the same mindset as preaching about Jesus to the choir or to the heathens, its about being perceived as a holier better person not about actually converting anyone (although they do see it as a nice side effect). With a side dish of I'm a better person because I upvote that even better person who preaches in public.
Complete with insane fire and brimstone preaching about how the world will end unless we all accept Jesus in our hearts ... oh wait I meant to type "accept global warming" and so forth.
As I've aged my attitudes toward libertarianism have ... evolved (pun intended). It seems we have vast historical documentation that having Jesus in our religion sucks complete with burning witches and heretics at the stake and religious crusades and wars. However, it seems in the contemporary social experiment, that the only thing that sucks pragmatically more than having Jesus in religion, seems to be taking Jesus out of religion while keeping the insane devout virtue signalling and prayers (tweets?) and generally anti-social behavior. In that semi-ironic sense I'm much more tolerant of Christianity than I used to be.
Sure, the inquisition sucked, but unfortunately experimental observation shows political correctness and resurrecting the USSR and Mao's cultural revolution and French revolution re-enactment sucks even worse. So maybe putting Jesus back into religious life might not be such an awful idea, given that yanking him out seems to result in suckage pragmatically and observationally.
It seems the root of a lot of human misery lies in virtue signalling. Don't matter if its Christian preachers, Islamic Imans, American leftists, Soviet political police, all the same thought process and outcomes.
If you know the awful history of Christianity, you might be surprised or shocked to read some biblical quotes where Jesus himself blew the fuck out of public virtue signalling as a magic carpet straight to hell, uh, slightly paraphrasing. The book of Matthew has some based quotes by Jesus on how much virtue signalling hypocrites suck. Essentially biblical proof that a blue checkmark on twitter means a trip straight to hell after death. Jesus... not as bad of a guy as I was led to think...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday February 11 2019, @04:29PM (14 children)
Yeah, pretty much the entire gospel is about how contemporary Judaism had been contorted by self-righteous hypocrites (the Pharisees) in order to fit into the Roman system. Those hypocrites were experts at playing everybody for status.
They set themselves up as the most righteous Jews, heirs of the ancient theocratic system and therefore administrators of the temple's wealth (provided by tithes). They set themselves up as the best way for Rome to maintain control over the rest of Israel, entitling them to all kinds of Roman status as long as they kept up their end of the bargain.
Funny how many people, Christian and not, have always failed utterly to see the obvious successors to the Pharisees. I guarantee you that if Jesus Christ came to Earth today, he would be murdered by the Westboro Baptists and other extremist Christians.
As for the leftist virtue-signallers, I doubt they would much notice the second coming. Christianity has become such a farce in their eyes that they barely pay any attention anymore. It's a real shame, because if it weren't for all the televangelists and politicians out there corrupting religious themes for personal profit, not to mention the Catholic church's evils carried out in the name of tradition, the Prius-driving Whole-Foods-shopping capital-L Liberals could learn a lot from the truly radical biblical messages hidden under the stale dogma of most churches today.
If you're interested in an historical take on the gospel, stripping away its traditional religious trappings and incorporating what records we have from Rome about some (but not all) of its characters, I highly recommend Zealot by Reza Aslan [wikipedia.org]. It is not shy about uncovering not just ways that tradition has eclipsed biblical teachings, but ways that the Bible itself was shaped by Paul's evangelism into something that the first few decades of Christians would find unrecognizable, even heretical.
P.S. A story doesn't have to be historically accurate to be true to human nature. Remember that before you criticize biblical stories and those who share them for their supernatural elements.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @05:03PM (9 children)
They would have had blue checkmarks on "clay tablet twitter" for sure. People treating "Learn to invent steam engines" at them when they're unemployed would get crucified for sure.
More seriously:
Yeah for sure, an interesting example would be a shared cultural experience of Aesops fable of "the goose who laid the golden egg" is useful regardless if geese lay gold eggs or not.
Another classical argument is Herodotus is worth reading regardless of all the weird nonsense in his book about giant ants and gold badgers and stuff I've forgotten.
In that "glass half full glass half empty" over the years I've always thought the Bible was a somewhat inferior astrophysics or geology or biology textbook, yet it seems to be a more valuable civilization foundational document every year I get older. Which I suppose is part of the trolling, "yer foundational document sux" will often get a rote learned response from trollier people similar to "LOL no, its also my favorite geology textbook so KMA".
I mean, if your cultural opponent freaks out, it was the correct response, wasn't it? Fighting your opponent the best way possible is almost ... evolutionary... in action (not sure if insightful or bad pun or both?)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday February 11 2019, @06:57PM (8 children)
I see it didn't take any time at all for this thread to swerve into religion. Evolution, and science, is not about belief, hasn't anything to do with belief and faith.
The core tenets of Christianity are Christian charity, turn the other cheek, love your neighbor as yourself. It's love, peace, charity, and forgiveness. It's rules to live by. It's a moral code, and wisdom. Nowhere in the Christian morals is there anything about Creationism, Geocentrism, or any of the other pseudoscientific trash that fake Christians push with such zeal.
We have a pretty good idea why Creationist zealots continue to defy all reason, evidence, and logic. Their faith is weak, and to bolster it, they hang it all on the testable things in the Bible. They even invent testable stuff. But they want test results to confirm what they already think, what they want to believe, and refuse to be honest about it. They rig tests, and they deny it when an honest test goes against them. They resort to censorship and propaganda, and have a hard time understanding why that's lying, why that's wrong. It's no good trying to bury them under evidence, data, and test results, that's not addressing their real problem.
Just why the idea of humans evolving from apes, and being closely related to monkeys is so awful is a question. I rather think pride has a lot to do with it. Well, we're in for a lot more humbling. We've discovered that the Earth is not the center of the Universe after all, and is in fact a very, very, very tiny and insignificant speck of matter in a Universe that is far vaster and older than most people ever imagined. And it's no big deal. Most of the zealots eventually got over it.
The creation story in Genesis is obviously made up by people who had no clue how the Earth really came to be. They may have thought no one would ever really know. For whatever reason, they felt free to make up something they thought would appeal to the masses, and help cement their position as authorities. The Bible serves various other needs, like recording history and keeping the peace within the tribe as well as ginning up war fever against rival tribes. The Old Testament, while generally agreed as harsh by today's standards, with a wrathful God frequently meting out punishments for sins, proved to be a successful formula for Iron Age life. It certainly was an improvement over the even wackier Bronze Age religions such as Egyptian mythology.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 11 2019, @11:31PM (4 children)
Um...there is a *lot* about the first couple and the origin of sin (though Original Sin as we have it appears to be an Augustinian invention, like so much else wrong with Christianity). The Creation and Flood narratives are cribbed wholesale from Sumerian/Akkadian sources, with Ut-Napishtim (or Atrahasis if you prefer) being the, pardon me, antediluvian Noah.
Evolution destroys Christianity at the root, which is the reason the Catholics' supposed acceptance of the theory comes with a big frickin' asterisk that carves out a "special creation" exemption for Adam and Eve and *completely* ignores the actual molecular-genetic nuts and bolts of how evolution actually works.
There was no Fall of the single ancestral couple of humanity. Therefore, there was no need for a savior--and when the guy doing the saving is the guy whose eternal flaming temper tantrum you're being saved from, what we have here is not redemption but blackmail. Not, of course, that you need to point to anything outside the narrative to show how absurd it is for God to sacrifice (an aspect of) himself *to* himself to get himself to make an exception to the rules he arbitrarily made up (but never mentioned to anyone when it would have been relevant) for a couple who did something they literally could not have understood it was wrong to do, since they by definition had no knowledge of good and evil before they did it.
None of this matters to the zealots. They will act like you didn't say any of it if you say it to them. There is something diseased about this mindset, and unfortunately for us, it appears to be a majority.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:45PM (2 children)
I would interpret that as you both are talking about different yet related things.
Clearly OP is talking about the new testament deal and you're talking about the "legacy" old testament deal. May as well be separate holy books. Of course the fans of the new testament REALLY like how the old testament prophesied events in the new testament so they're often fans of the old as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:51PM
Riiiight, because the WORD OF GOD can be easily tossed aside for the more palatable NEW WORD OF GOD??
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:52AM
It's hilarious whenever a Christian tells me that Jesus abolished the Mosaic Law. That was another Pauline invention, not something Yeshua bar Yousef ever said. This is the main reason I refer to Paul as the original heretic, the one who made a spirited and arguably successful attempt to strangle the new religion in its bassinet.
Matthew 5:17-20 King James Version (KJV)
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:20AM
but the take away is women corrupted men! who doesn't love a good scapegoat story?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:43PM (1 child)
This is where I am with regards to religion.
I feel that I don't need proof that my house was built by carpenters. The house itself is proof, but the best way I have to learn about those carpenters is to inspect the house.
I also feel that this Jesus guy had some good ideas as to how to treat each other, regardless of his parentage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:34AM
Most people agree with you, but the bible has a LOT of other stuff that is not-so-nice.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday February 13 2019, @06:40PM
Could someone please let the members of the Conservative and Unionist Party please know, in particular Theresa May? And then you could educate the DUP./p?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @05:09PM
Hmm I'll put that on my list. First impression: longer format newer more serious "Jefferson's bible".
I can't keep up with the SN book discussion group, but if I could, maybe that would be an interesting book.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:21AM (2 children)
Ummmm, yeah. About Aslan [wikipedia.org], this wiki page says he is a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside. Sure, he's got opinions, but I'm not sure they are much better informed than those of us in the peanut gallery. I would be more interested to hear from an actual historian about the ways that "tradition has eclipsed biblical teachings". Just sayin'.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:46PM
Given higher ed political problems, I'm not sure you can find "actual" by using academia as an appeal to authority.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:51PM
It references its sources like any proper academic work. Judge it on its own merits. Credentials do not equal truth.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 11 2019, @04:56PM (8 children)
...is literally the same mindset as preaching about Jesus to the choir or to the heathens...
Not really, we have evidence for our theory.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @05:16PM (7 children)
Unfortunately, the preachers think the same thing. Thats kinda my point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:29PM (6 children)
That's a false equivalency, there's literally no evidence to hold any of that up. Which is a large part of why religion is on a decline more or less globally. People are just increasingly tired of something that contributes so little to society in the current time and causes so many problems.
Anybody who cares to learn about evolution has ample resources to do so and there's plenty of experts willing to explain what's going on and how we know what we know to anybody that will listen with an open mind.
This whole business about just because a bunch of delusional preachers and followers believe something that the belief is equally founded is ridiculous. They don't do any experiments, they cite a book that has changed over the years as scribes misrecord things and the actual version that we use now is only from the 16th century, or thereabouts, more than a thousand years after the most recent events in the book. The inclusion and exclusion of various books was arbitrary at the time, why include Revelations, but not the Gnostic books?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:20PM (1 child)
No, you're rejecting both their evidence and their definition of evidence. And with good reason, but claiming "there is no evidence" repeatedly when both sides clearly have a different definition of that word is not going to solve anything.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 11 2019, @09:24PM
One side provides evidence which is testable, and the other side doesn't. That's the real difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:36AM (3 children)
I'll just leave this [wikipedia.org] here for anyone wanting some background info. I would have thought that by now any semi-literate person would have at least heard of the Dead Sea scrolls. And I can't find the reference but I seem to recall that there are some who think that one of the earliest papyri scrolls of the Gospel of John could date from as early as around 90-something AD! Rather a far stretch from the 16th century, wouldn't you say?
Well, that's a whole 'nother discussion I suppose.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:21AM (2 children)
Are the dead sea scrolls included in the New Testament? (King James is the most common I think?)
There's plenty of older manuscripts to reference, but in general what we can translate doesn't really agree with the modern manuscripts at the center of modern Christian religions, at points diverging into what modern clergy are likely to consider downright heretical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
Maybe you should actually read the link I posted? It will almost certainly help.
Older than the Dead Sea scrolls? I think not! Seriously, you should read the wiki page!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:21PM
Sorry, I can see how you'd think that: I meant older than the bible sitting on a believer's nightstand.
The rest of my comment stands
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:23PM (1 child)
I think it is more that a certain type of person is always going to turn to some father figure and if it isn't a religious organization it will be the state.
It is better to have the religious organizations competing with the State for telling them what to do then to let these merge into one (basically ceasaropapism). When there is competition the insanity is kept in check somewhat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:39AM
Yeah! It's definitely working spectacularly in the USA these days!</sarcasm>
(Score: 5, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday February 11 2019, @04:30PM (55 children)
AronRa has just uploaded a talk he gave for Darwin Day Denveran interesting historical perspective which touched on a few pre-Charles-Darwin pieces in the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkV3VYsJPg
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @04:46PM (40 children)
Then vote for people who don't. Problem solved without any jackboots necessary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:32PM (26 children)
That assumes there's somebody to vote for. The US has two rightwing parties. Voting for the Democrats is somewhat better on a small number of issues, but they're every bit as corrupt as the GOP is. They hand out committee positions purely based upon donor contributions, not on which member would be best qualified for a particular post.
You can thank the rightwing for legalizing bribery and declaring corporations to be people for most of that. Not to mention the massive gerrymandering that's gone on to limit the influence of progressives and anybody else not on the take.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday February 11 2019, @07:01PM (3 children)
Declaring corporations to be people is a legal loophole to achieve a financial stability that otherwise won't exist. It is what gives legal basis to a contract between you and a corporation. It is purely a legal technicality.
Your rest of the post stands true. Democrats and Republicans are both beholden to different corporations and different ideas of how to get more funding for themselves. You don't have a say if you are poor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:14AM (2 children)
Not really, it's not something that anybody else has to the extent we do. Allowing corporations into contracts isn't something that required corporate personhood, the US existed for well over a century without corporate personhood.
There's no reason why corporations should be allowed to donate to political campaigns. And there's no reason why they should be permitted to do things that would land actual people in prison.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:20AM (1 child)
> There's no reason why corporations should be allowed to donate to political campaigns.
... which is a different thing that extending personhood to corporations. Legal language is very much like math. Giving personhood to corporations meant that all the laws that apply to a person also apply to corporations which was an incredibly elegant solution when compared to writing the totally different laws to handle corporations.
It simply made more sense to hold corporations responsible for all the things that a person is held for, then eliminating discrepancies on a case-by-case basis, than not holding corporations responsible at all, and add responsibilities on a case-by-case basis.
If you go in detail about all this, you will see why it is this way. Historically, laws were always about holding someone responsible as there was never a question of "rights". State was not as intrusive as it is today (and contrary to leftist ideologies). You could kill, rape, loot and if you were able to hold your own ground the king would most probably recognize your authority and in lieu of tax. So extending personhood to corporations was all about holding corporations responsible and about giving them more rights.
It is just a bad progression, or corruption, that a very good approach has been used to bent natural laws this way. I mean, instead of revoking the rights of corporations SC has chosen to extend rights so much that giving money is considered free-speech, i.e. bribery is legal. I would say SC made a bad judgment. Of course, I haven't read the full judgment so...
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:22AM
> So extending personhood to corporations was all about holding corporations responsible than about giving them more rights.
15 years and I still don't use preview :)
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:37AM (21 children)
Nope. You don't measure one country's political parties against an external scale. We have a right wing and a left wing. We also have plenty of people who think both wings would best serve the nation if they decided to DIAF.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:36PM (20 children)
Of course you do. The idea of left and right wing are external to, distinct from, older than, and supervened on by, any particular country's party structure. The most you can say about any one country in isolation is that party X is further to the left than party Y. That tells you only spaceless, relative information.
I'm kind of surprised you'd say something this clearly wrong. I mean it fits with your agenda, but you're not dumb enough to actually believe that's how things really work.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:40AM (19 children)
Don't be obtuse, context matters. When you're trying to find the center of a board you measure from the ends of that board not from galactic central point. Doing otherwise would mean the entirety of Western civilization could only be classified as far left nutjobs with Europe having moral authority roughly equivalent to that of PETA.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:00PM (18 children)
Context indeed does matter, which is *precisely* why your dishonest attempt to keep left vs right comparisons stuck in vacuum, country by country, is somewhere between meaningless and willfully malicious. If you're going to call Russia or Ukraine or Hungary, to use just *modern* examples, "far left nutjobs," you've got a credibility deficit that rivals Nixon's.
Keep this shit up, Uzzard. Keep posting this self-serving, solipsistic trash for everyone to see and for me and a few others to rip to shreds. You harm yourself and your reputation more than any of us could ever possibly do alone.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 15 2019, @03:13AM (17 children)
And this willful obtuseness, changing of the subject, and ad-hom nonsense would be why I rarely reply to you anymore, yes. If you can't be bothered to put real thought into a response, don't bother speaking to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 15 2019, @04:46AM (16 children)
Uzzard, you would not know real thought if it bit you in the backside while you were busy getting high on your own jenkem supply. Also, ad-hom is when you insult instead of an argument; I insult to supplement my arguments :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 15 2019, @12:04PM (15 children)
If you'd actually refuted a statement I made, what you claim might be accurate but "You're a horrible person" is not sufficient rebuttal in an argument. It's the butthurt screams of a child unable to find a valid one. If you can do better, please do. If not, why are you bothering?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 15 2019, @11:14PM (14 children)
For the third time: your insistence on taking a given country's left and right wing in isolation of the rest of the world is fatally flawed because of its utter lack of context; furthermore, the ideas of left- and right-wing are ontologically prior to and supervened on by any given country's individual left-wing or right-wing parties. You may as well sit on a tree branch and cut it off at the trunk and expect the branch to stay up while the rest of the tree falls over.
Left-wing or right-wing relative to...what, exactly? Take a nation's parties in vacuum and you have no reference. You are, again, deliberately obfuscating in the hopes that no one will pick up on the strawman you're constructing.
That is a refutation, and it's a refutation made three times over. If you refuse to comprehend this, and decide that a thorough rubbishing of your position is "the butthurt screams of a child," that is on YOU, corpse-breath. You're not fooling anyone but yourself, and you are, as you always do, projecting like a mile of movie theaters. And everyone can see it. You fool no one but yourself.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:07AM (13 children)
You do not need external context when discussing internal politics. The wings are universally understood to be relative to the politics and policies of the nation they reside in. It serves no purpose and only confuses the matter to make external reference unless what you really wish to do is condemn/laud an entire nation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:26AM (12 children)
There's really no such thing as "internal politics" on any world where the inhabitants have invented any form of transport equal to or greater than oceangoing ships. And even before that, as soon as you have nation fighting nation--which you will any time two clans get large enough on the same landmass--politics takes on an external dimension by definition. "Internal politics" might not even be possible, like square circles or married bachelors or honest Republicans.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @03:19PM (11 children)
Are you sure you want to go with that as an argument? I'll give you a do-over there if you like.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 17 2019, @11:36PM (10 children)
So you think it's possible for nations to remain utterly isolated from one another once they start having contact? That's...impressively delusional. As soon as any amount of cultural diffusion starts happening, let alone trade or intermarriage, guess what? You ain't got internal politics no mo'. Not really.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @01:02AM (9 children)
No, I was saying that was an exceptionally easy argument to refute but not using that specific argument. If you'd prefer I make the argument, I will. I just wanted to give you a chance to think it through again and produce a better one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 18 2019, @01:14AM (8 children)
It seems like we're talking past one another here...or, more likely, like you just don't want to comprehend what's being said to you :/
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @01:20AM (7 children)
No, I really do get what you're saying. I just also see the flaws in your reasoning. Thus my offer to let you rethink it. If you're content with it though, I've no objection to responding.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 18 2019, @11:59PM (6 children)
So far your responses have been "nuh-uh, you're wrong 'cause I say you're wrong."
Please consult the reference of your choice for the "fallacy of the stolen concept." This is the informal logical fallacy committed when someone uses a concept to argue against that concept's genetic roots, something like trying to use a derived class in C++ while not including the header with the base or parent class.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 19 2019, @01:09AM (5 children)
No, my responses have been along the lines of "That's a bad argument. Would you care to rethink it?". There's no attempt to dispute your assertion, that's explicitly left up to you if you so choose. Apparently you do not so choose though, so I'll give you my response.
Your entire assertion is nonsense. There are reasons to judge nations and even the political subgroups within them on a global scale but that does not mean they should always be discussed on a global scale. Saying they should is as absurd as saying you shouldn't tell someone to drive on the right side of the road just because there are other roads further to the right. Context and scope obviously matter and it's absurd to even suggest that they don't. You know better, you're just in the mood to argue.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 19 2019, @03:13AM (4 children)
You seem to have been misreading me here. Yes, we can make some small subset of judgments about a given nation within itself, but they are of limited utility and only tell us answers to questions entirely internal to said specific nation in the first place. Which...is to be expected.
If a given nation's policies seem not to be working no matter whether that nation's notional left OR right side is in charge, a wider view is more useful. In the case of the US, it turns out that compared to most of the developed world, even our supposed left wing is barely left of center (Ocasio-Cortes) to center and center-right (Sanders, Warren, Harris, Biden), with a few odd right-wingers (Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton) somehow inveigling themselves into the supposed left. And our notional right wing is quite literally a party of religious wingnuts one step removed from the Ayatollahs (Pompeo, half the Trump cabinet, Mike Pence, etc) along with a few hardcore Mammon-worshipers (so, just a different kind of religious wingnut).
See how that works? In the case of the US, if we limit ourselves strictly to what the US calls left and right, we have to wonder why there's so little positive change no matter who's in charge, and be left mystified. Expand the scope of the discussion to include the civilized world--Canada, most of the EU, the Nordic countries--and the problem suddenly comes into sharp relief.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 19 2019, @04:50AM (3 children)
Ahh, I see your problems then.
First, you don't actually believe it. You may think you do but you do not.
Currently you want the US judged by the standards of and subservient in morality to Western Europe. Not the rest of the world, just Western Europe. So your globalist stance is proven false right there.
Also, if Western Europe's views were more along the lines of let's say Kansas, you would be taking the exact opposite stance. If you fundamentally believed in your false globalist stance, you would believe it even if it meant the US became more conservative.
Second, your false globalist stance is bloody stupid even if it actually were a globalist stance and you genuinely believed it. Much like you do not give your neighbors any say in what goes on in your house, no nation is under any legal, ethical, or moral obligation to consider anything outside its borders when making decisions as to how it should deal with internal matters. And rest assured the vast majority of matters are entirely internal.
The moral and ethical obligations placed upon politicians are to do the will of the voters unless what the voters want is not in their best interest, in which case they are morally and ethically obliged to first convince the voters of this before going contrary to their wishes. Thus, considering the will of the people of Western Europe if you are an elected official in the US is not only incorrect but unethical and immoral.
Considering the will of Western Europe as a voter is equally absurd. Western Europe does not have to uphold US obligations nor do they have to live under US laws; the US voters do. You would not presume to tell France how to handle their work week, minimum wage, immigration policy, or cheese purity laws, so saying we should do things as they do should be equally verboten, were you intellectually consistent.
Further, Western Europe is nothing like the US in resources, population density, or the desires of the people who populate it. Using their standard to compare our politicians or issues only makes sense if you're trying to use it to win an argument that you would otherwise lose due to the unpopularity of your own views.
And that's making things as concise and non-insulting as I'm able. Now do you see why I asked you if you didn't want to rethink that position?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 19 2019, @10:59PM (2 children)
Oh, I see the problem...you think I'm a globalist. Ye gods, you'd think after what, 4 years of me on this site, you'd know better. No, I'm no globalist, but I do hold certain moral standards that transcend national barriers, and judge nations on how well they uphold these standards. That has nothing to do with imposing said standards on another nation by force (though, boy oh boy, does the US ever do a lot of that). You seem to have some sort of bee in your bonnet about [what you think...] globalism is, too.
Incidentally, my neighbors *do* have a certain amount of say as to what goes on in my home, because if I'm making disruptive noise or cooking meth or hoarding cats and not cleaning up after them, everyone's quality of life suffers. And we have community standards and even laws governing these things. So yeah, that analogy blew up in your face like the latest Acme gadget in the about equally-capable hands of Wile E. Coyote.
My God, was *that* your much-vaunted, devastating counterargument? You actually had me anticipating that you'd found an angle I seriously had failed to consider. Instead, nope, it's this misaimed "hurr hurr you're a globalist and you even suck at that" tripe. Somehow, you've managed to disappoint me even further, and that actually *is* a bit of an accomplishment so...er, 2/10 I guess?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:19AM (1 child)
You're not asking we judge nations by your standards though. You're demanding we judge all nations' every issue by what's good for other nations. Square your arguments away before you respond please. Make sure you're saying things consistent with both what you're responding to and what you said before. Despite all my experience arguing with you, I still believe you capable of presenting an argument that makes sense, even if you choose not to. Please tell me I'm not wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 20 2019, @05:39PM
Uh...I *always* ask that we implicitly judge nations, and indeed everything, by my standards. Those standards also happen to be good for other nations, because they are good for the individuals of said nations, and a nation is after all made up of its people.
Why do I feel like an airline pilot who's being told by some kid with a copy of flight sim '95 that I'm flying it wrong...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday February 11 2019, @05:32PM (12 children)
I'm almost expecting the typical capitalistist "but if your neighbour does something stupid, that gives you an advantage over him" comeback, attempting to turn everything into a competition, whereas I believe that everyone does better when everyone does better.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:39AM (11 children)
And you get to decide what's better for them? Thank you but no. That's garden variety bullshit authoritarianism if they're not harming you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:53AM (10 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:08AM (9 children)
If you need more than one degree of indirection to support an argument of harm, your argument is guaranteed bullshit. At one degree it's only probably bullshit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:07AM (8 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:09PM (7 children)
No, my friend, only an exaggeration. Not even hyperbole, only a mild one. The problem is you've bought into too many lines of bullshit over the years and can't allow yourself to consider that you were so thoroughly deceived. Whenever anyone needs even one level of indirection to support their point, you should default to extreme suspicion and reexamine the logic yourself. The odds are very good that you're either being lied to or the person speaking doesn't understand the subject matter well enough to state their position simply.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:36PM (6 children)
And your solution was voting? So you vote for politicians/councils, which appoint education boards, which budget school boards, which employ teachers.
That's 4 levels of indirection.
Fucking big mote in your eye, Buzz, you should get that seen to.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:48PM (5 children)
You're misunderstanding and I have something else I want to properly think out that's clogging up the ole gray matter at the moment, so I'm not going to attempt to disabuse you of your misconceptions today.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:55PM (1 child)
lawl what a toooool
Buzzy my boy, human society by definition requires some degree of authoritarianism. Dismissing every aspect of authoritarianism as bad you end up with pure anarchy.
Obviously you just want to spout your Libertarian R-tardity with "I'm right and you're stupid, here let me just deny your arguments repeatedly so I sound like I know what I'm talking about!"
Blech, what a toad
(Score: 1, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:47AM
Lying about my positions isn't going to change the absurdity of your own, sorry.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:38PM (2 children)
See? It's not just me calling you out for being an utter nullity who pulls a flatulent Brave Sir Robin impression every time you fuck up and lose. You're full of shit and everyone is starting to see it now. Looks like I was just an early adopter.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:46AM (1 child)
No, darlin, as I already mentioned to FatPhil on IRC, this was not a blow-off. It was a "that made me think of something much more fundamental that I really want to get thought out and written down". Debating FatPhil I actually put some amount of thought and effort into. He's worth it because he does the same in return. You get a reply because you require less than I put into deciding what to have for lunch and aren't really even worth that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 14 2019, @10:56PM
We all know that instead of food you just shove your head all the way up your fat feathered arse and fart a few times, Uzzard. The site's population as a whole has had plenty of time to see how you post, how I post, how we post in opposition, and has rendered judgment several times already. Several people have called you out already on your tendency to do the equivalent of what a panicked squid does when someone traps you in your own bullshit. Posts like this one from you just now not only don't do you any favors, they make you look worse.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday February 11 2019, @04:54PM (7 children)
For those who have never seen it, I encourage you to look over the information page for the Biology program [bju.edu] at Bob Jones University. Here's a college that teaches biology without Darwin. Under "Program Objectives," the first goal given for the Biology curriculum states:
THAT is why the truth matters. Because if a significant number of people reject it, programs like this grow and spread misinformation based on mythology rather than science. People get degrees from programs like this. Then they spread their beliefs elsewhere and use credentials to claim authority.
Truth doesn't always win out logically or rationally among the public. In fact, it's rarely reason or logic that convinces the general public of anything. And since truth isn't guaranteed to win out, it is helpful to have a sense of what people believe (and why) so science outreach programs can do a better job of presenting science.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @05:20PM (3 children)
Aren't people who fall for logical fallacies like credentialism and authoritarianism inherently doomed anyway, the first time they turn on a TV?
In a theoretical sense I could agree with you, but pragmatically I'm not seeing the harm in some radiologist really liking the book of Genesis, for example.
Abstracting the argument to another topic to de-conflict, its kinda like in theory gay teachers should be focusing on teaching calculus when they teach kids, not focusing on inappropriately touching the kids, so gay teachers are OK in the classroom.
Or another abstract theory; if my kids anesthesiologist likes Nickelback, I'm not going to a concert with him, but I'm pretty chill with him medicating my kid when he's at work.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:48PM
You are conflating arguments.
The bit you should be addressing is "I don't want people who are in charge of education being so ill-educated that they reject, and even interfere with the teaching of, hard science" but you seem to be focusing more on "personal opinions are fine stop the wrong-think witch hunts!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:58PM (1 child)
Most people are wired like that and those that aren't aren't necessarily any better at separating superstition from reality.
The only people more obnoxious than the true-believers are the skeptics. The lengths they'll go to in order to debunk things is insane. And often times it gets chalked up to coincidence as if that's a reasonable response. There are a great number of things that we don't know much about, so assuming that there's nothing there even when the arguments to say that there's nothing there are just as bad is hypocritical.
We know there's nothing to homeopathy because we can empirically demonstrate that the mixture contains no active ingredients and lacks any sort of scientific basis for working. We can go a step further and demonstrate that the effect doesn't beat the placebo effect. At which point, any reasonable person should consider that enough.
OTOH, I frequently hear skeptics chalking everything up to coincidence without giving things a thorough look and then wondering why nobody is convinced. And that Randi is probably the biggest douche this side of Musk. What he does does no service to science at all. All it does is help folks dig in. And allows the smug to laugh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:18PM
Lack of belief is not the same as an assertion that something is not true/does not exist. Learn the difference.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by FatPhil on Monday February 11 2019, @07:39PM (2 children)
https://www.thecollegefix.com/more-than-1000-scientists-sign-dissent-from-darwinism-statement/
[* The cynic in me tells me that some of those "scientists" are women's studies scientists or ethnic hair braiding made up history scientists. (No, I've not read it yet, I've only just come across the link myself, and was hooked by the headline.)]
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by NewNic on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:01AM
Most appear to be hard scientists. Here is the list:
https://www.discovery.org/m/2019/02/A-Scientific-Dissent-from-Darwinism-List-020419.pdf [discovery.org]
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:22AM
So let's say you're the sort that incorrectly believes argument from authority, and you read that 1000 people claiming to be some sort of scientist affiliated with some sort of prestigious-sounding institution sign a petition.
You see "1000 Helens agree", and think "Wow, that's a really big number!" But it isn't even close to being a really big number: There are approximately 3,150,000 working biologists in the world. Which means that 1000 people actually represents at most about 0.03% of the population with an educated opinion on the matter.
And a hallmark of people who think this way tend to ignore their ability to go to places like La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles or the Field Museum in Chicago and examine some of the evidence for themselves. In part because they wouldn't know what they were looking at, and in part because it would challenge their worldview in a way that the Ark Encounter doesn't.
If you're going to believe 0.03% of the relevant authorities over 99.97% of the relevant authorities, and you refuse to even glance at evidence, I'm going to conclude that you're rejecting the data and the 99.97% of relevant authorities for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with facts, education, or the truth of the matter.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday February 11 2019, @05:11PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:11PM (4 children)
As a reply, TMB wrote:
I'll note in the real world, this actually works really well. Sure, we get stealth creationists now and then, but last I checked, they never stay in power once they've revealed their true colors. For example, in the US the Kansas Board of Education was taken over by creationists back in 2005. They lost badly [wikipedia.org] in the next election:
Notice they lost badly at the primary level and didn't even get to the general election. This was a common pattern as I recall with other examples of pro-creationist school boards created and then promptly removed in the next election.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:58PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:10PM (2 children)
I think your analogy is that wobbly. If your school board requires real time, skilled driving like a car does, then you're probably doing it wrong. Certainly, there's little point to having school board members as "drivers" in place of the voters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:31AM (1 child)
Gotta agree with Buzzy and khallow here, voting is the best method we've got and it will be impossible to always know who is a "stealth creationist" and who isn't.
People can also vote to put a permanent ban on creationism in the public classroom, that would be Buzzardo's "jackboot" though. Can't say I find it as scary as he does,.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 13 2019, @04:50AM
The problem is that there's no virtuous way to determine which ideas should so treated in the classroom. For example, one could permaban the teaching of evolution with equal facility. My first question with respect to such things is to ask "How can this bite us?"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @04:33PM (6 children)
I wont search these people out to tell them they are wrong but if it comes up in conversation, say like an article like this one, then I wpuld have no problem stating my opinion. Since when does TMB care about not being an asshole anyway?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @04:47PM (5 children)
You're mistaking my hobby (bitchslapping noobs on the Internet) for the entirety of who I am.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:50PM (4 children)
umm ok? here I'll order some Confidence Boosters™ for you
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 11 2019, @11:34PM (3 children)
LOL. Come on, he's gonna rub all the skin off the poor thing if he wanks any more in one day. Guy's like a spider monkey on ecstasy in front of a mirror...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:40AM (2 children)
Nah, I'm getting older. Any more than twice a day and I end up taking too many naps to get anything done.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
Never thought I'd say this. The Mighty Buzzard, would you kindly spank your monkey more often?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:49AM
Nope, sorry. Too much work to be done. I barely even have time for SN at the moment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday February 11 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)
That is right. You have the right and privilege to be wrong as do I.
Truth is truth no matter if you believe or understand it it's still true and you cant change it.
However, I am not aware of anything in evolution that says I have to be nice or not eat any other animal.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @04:48PM
If they didn't want to be eaten, they shouldn't have evolved to be delicious.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 11 2019, @04:42PM (7 children)
No, I mean, really, so what?
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” -- Voltaire
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @04:48PM (6 children)
What people can make you believe is on you not them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:02PM (5 children)
Not really. That's why feminists have been winning the last few decades. They decry any actual research that doesn't confirm their beliefs and as a result, it's gotten tougher and tougher to conduct objective research on things like domestic violence because nobody wants to have the consequences of being bullied for not reinforcing the narrative that it's mostly men beating women. The last time a major study was done was in the '80s and it found the numbers of men beating women were roughly the same as the women beating men. But, it's not popular, so nobody is willing to fund that and risk having their reputation ruined.
Given enough one sided research and you put people in a position where they're just going to buy into it as there's no other side to hear from. This is one of the reasons why heresy and blasphemy are commonly punished in regions where the local religious cult controls the government. If nobody hears about other view points, they're not likely to go looking for them either.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:55PM (4 children)
...except you're a lying liar. Deliberately misrepresenting what was found. Because of the ways the original studies were set up, there was no way to tell the difference between someone initiating violence and someone defending themselves. Both showed up as violent contact.
Organizations doing these studies learned from their mistakes and designed better studies.
So now we know that men INITIATE violence significantly more often (women initiating approaches rounding error) and inflict GREATER DAMAGE. Women might inflict a scratch or a bruise defending themselves. Men...dislocate shoulders, damage internal organs, cause concussion or hearing loss, break hands, arms...and necks. So go take your bullshit and your sanctimonious attitude and die in a fire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:00AM (3 children)
Right. And lesbians have the highest rates of domestic violence because?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:33PM (2 children)
My abuser was bisexual, not purely lesbian, for what that's worth. So, about this highest rate of domestic violence...is this quantity or "quality" as it were? Because as much as I feared her hurting me, I never worried she was going to kill me.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:51AM (1 child)
Yeah, men are much stronger and scarier than women, so violence is only a problem in the one direction. I get it. I just think it's bullshit.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:59AM
I don't agree with that line, mostly because I've seen examples of female-on-male domestic violence *and* watched the victims get actually *laughed at,* in one case by the actual fucking police, rather than helped. So you have one lesbian feminist who works to raise awareness that it can happen to anyone, for whatever my tiny voice crying in the wilderness is worth.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Troll) by bradley13 on Monday February 11 2019, @05:04PM (3 children)
Buzzy writes: "Just let people live their lives, even if they want to do it in a way you think is silly. Don't be any bigger an asshole than you need to be."
Words of wisdom. Seriously, the older I get, the more I think that's the best philosophy of life.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:54PM (2 children)
That is a very fine philosophy to live by in your personal life, but maybe you missed the end of TFS.
So religious "theory" is going to be required teaching? That is the problem and it goes against your philosophy. If a school WANTS to teach creationism whatever, but require? No thank you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @08:10PM
From the earlier cited Humani Generis [vatican.va] of Pope Pius XII (Hitler's Pope)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:15PM
You then conclude:
Need I remind you of how legislatures work? Introducing a bill is nothing like the sausage of law that occasionally results, and that law still needs to pass court challenges. Further, this state senator just might not get reelected as a result of this bill. Being a loony creationist is a drawback even in the US.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:40PM (13 children)
In a democracy you need enlightened voters or you end up with Trump. Even in just capitalism you should have perfectly informed participants for the system to work as intended.
So that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:43AM (7 children)
And enlightened means brainwashed until they believe the same things as you? Would you prefer to use electroshock or more traditional forms of torture until they break? Remove the jackboots and take three steps back, please.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:33PM (6 children)
I think simple education and facts would be the best weapon to fight these insidious morons with. But they are not only ignorant but also evil, hence their requirement for the "creation science".
I personally find it incredibly sad to find religious people even in a place like the fucking USA where people theoretically have great access to the latest information. You can't ridicule some poor say Afghan religious bastard compared to a similar yank because they never stood a chance.
Still in 2019 the darkness is great. And as ever it consist of ignorance and malice.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:49PM (5 children)
Hearing words you disagree with is not evil unless you're so much of a sheep that you have no ability to think for yourself. Suppressing the words of others is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:23PM (1 child)
So "stone all gays" is not evil? Advocating "stone all gays" is just, like, an opinion and totally shouldn't be called evil? Or do you mean we shouldn't infringe on someone's freedom to SAY evil shit, just if they DO evil shit? Is there some reason we can not call evil shit evil?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:51AM
Strawman much? There's a massive difference between disagreeing with someone and calling for violence and even your dumb ass knows it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:57PM (2 children)
You think the general population is not lemmings and sheeple? How ... noble. However the facts are not on your side.
Why should we let people spread hate and madness? No reason. There is no need to tolerate intolerance.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @03:02AM
Careful there, most of the "thinkers" on this site are going to tell you that last sentence is a contradiction. They don't seem to have the cognitive tools necessary to grasp that tolerating intolerance is self-destructive and self-contradictory.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:52AM
They must be treated as if they weren't, yes. Doing otherwise makes you a very evil person.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:19PM (4 children)
But not necessarily for the reasons you might think. After all, with enlightened voters, there would have been stronger challengers to Trump in the first place.
Since "perfectly informed participants" are impossible, is there some variant of "just capitalism" that is worth considering?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @03:05AM (3 children)
Very easily: the less elastic the demand for something is, the less your God "The Free Market" should have control over it. This isn't hard. Luxury watches? No one needs those; go total libertarian on them. Health care? The exact opposite.
The heuristic is this: "What is the 'your money or your life factor" for good/service/product X?" The higher it is, the less the "invisible hand of the free market" should have influence over it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Wednesday February 13 2019, @04:47AM (2 children)
The inelasticity of health care has nothing to do with the free market.
It's pretty high for government tyranny too.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:04PM (1 child)
So are you deliberately missing the point again, or have I overestimated your intelligence and you really don't understand what I'm getting at?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:13AM
Or maybe it is not me who is missing the point? You blamed inelasticity of health care on an imaginary "free market". People choose all the time to impair their health for rather low costs. The poorer parts of the world hang an even lower value on life. That indicates to me a great deal of elasticity in the market.
But a key thing that does make such markets inelastic? Paying for peoples' health care. Things like single payer or huge pool insurance means that you pay whether or not you consume health care. So might as well consume it. Demand becomes quite inelastic under the circumstances.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday February 11 2019, @11:51PM (3 children)
I support moslems that *aren't* Islamists and that *don't* murder or advocate murdering gay people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:45AM (1 child)
I support allowing people to practice whatever they want to believe just so long as they aren't harming anyone while doing so.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:44AM
Exactly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:45AM
You don't support a very large percentage of them then but that was an example not the point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday February 13 2019, @06:31PM
The problem comes when sufficient numbers of people disbelieve the same truth, or believe in a superstitious nonsense, and have the democratic means to establish some sort of law or restriction on everyone else as a result of their superstition and ignorance e.g. the anti-vaccination people, people who don't "believe in" climate change, people who believe that there is a god and that god wants women to die having a dangerous pregnancy etc,
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].