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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0
WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us.
O.K., that's a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."
I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.
"Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false," said Carmi. "The truth has a liberal slant," wrote Michelle. "Why stop there?" asked Steven. "How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?"
To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don't have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.
The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren't at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Leebert on Monday August 29 2016, @01:52AM
Like Mr. Yancey, I am what most would describe as an "evangelical Christian". It surprises me that any one of us would expect anything other than antagonism. The Bible tells us to expect it (for example, 2 Timothy 3:12).
It's nice when people are nice to you in spite of their dislike of your belief, but I generally don't expect it. I think we get treated pretty well in present day society, honestly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:57AM
Then you've lost your saltiness. If you were on your own side you'd be fighting harder for what you believe in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:03AM
That's what causes the filter event. Probability of survival (per 100 years) < 40%, those aren't very good odds.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @04:54AM
Probability of survival (per 100 years) Who's giving those odds?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:23AM
The problem for many Christians they have a habit of being Salt when they should be Light and Light when they should be Salt. But it's often not so simple to know whether you are supposed to try to change stuff from within or stand out and make a difference. ;)
Back to the topic of academia and intolerance, I remember Michael Reiss lost his job as the Director of Education at the Royal Society in the UK because the media misrepresented what he had to say and then a mob gathered to "lynch" him.
Compare what he said:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2008/sep/11/michael.reiss.creationism [theguardian.com]
(ignore the biased paragraph at the start which is from the Guardian and not from him!)
Compare the media's spin: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/sep/11/creationism.education [theguardian.com]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7612152.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.americanscientist.org/science/pub/leading-scientist-urges-teaching-of-creationism-in-schools [americanscientist.org]
See also: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/nov/28/academicexperts.highereducationprofile [theguardian.com]
This sort of deception and bigotry is not very "academic" nor scientific. There were plenty of Christian scientists. Galileo himself was a Christian, he even had help from the Pope till he mocked the Pope in a publication.
Even elsewhere on Soylentnews you can see the bigotry:
I'm personally shocked that somebody who believes in magical fairy tales isn't being taken seriously in academia. It's almost like these are institutions of higher _learning_ and that ignorant bronze-aged beliefs have no place.
The truth is people can be wrong about all sorts of stuff but more correct than everyone else within their fields of expertise. To throw them out merely because they are wrong about unrelated stuff is bigotry and can be counterproductive for Academia and Science. There are mathematicians who are geniuses in math but fools in many other things. Should we throw them out too?
As for arrogance and even hubris, I wouldn't want to be as silly as Pacman saying based on the known rules and information of the Pacman Universe there's definitely no Creator of the Pacman Universe. Mysterious writings (copyright message etc) somewhere in the Pacman universe don't prove anything- in other games mysterious writings may talk about gods but those gods aren't the actual creators ;).
Physicists already have plenty of _scientific_evidence_ that our universe is rather weird:
https://source.wustl.edu/2015/03/in-the-quantum-world-the-future-affects-the-past/ [wustl.edu]
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n7/full/nphys3343.html [nature.com]
So it's genuine arrogance and hubris to be so sure that if there's a Creator the Creator and motives of the Creator would be so simple. Of course it could turn out to be very simple - e.g. make enough money to buy more beer ;).
There are arrogant/extremist Christians, Muslims,etc but I see the same arrogance from Atheists too. The rest of us just don't have as much faith that we are 100% right :).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:31AM
I'm pretty sure the Creator wrote a brilliant little perl script which turned out to be me and the rest of you are just what happens when too much input is taken from /dev/random.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:38PM
Perls before swine?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @02:00PM
I cpan what you did there.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:45PM
So you think that you're the only real person and that nobody else is a real person, with real consciousness and feelings? Congrats, you just admitted to being a sociopath.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DECbot on Monday August 29 2016, @04:30PM
If I were I perl script, I would call any output from java as garbage from /dev/random.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:18PM
I admitted to being a perl script, which is not subject to human shrinkery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:41AM
Bah.
First, sociopathy is a personality disorder, not a philosophy.
Second, while some elements of the latter could _hint_ at former, in this case it's pointing towards narcissism instead.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Francis on Monday August 29 2016, @02:14AM
I'm personally shocked that somebody who believes in magical fairy tales isn't being taken seriously in academia. It's almost like these are institutions of higher _learning_ and that ignorant bronze-aged beliefs have no place.
The problem here is that reality has a liberal bias to it. Just because there are two sides does not mean that they're both equally valid. Conservatives are mostly fighting for a bygone era and the people going to college are being trained to advance society.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 29 2016, @02:33AM
It's not nearly as black-and-white as you suggest. It's pretty much like everything else in politics, you gather as much information as you can about all sides and assign weights to them.
When I was on Slashdot (despite my bigoted comments) I was an honest pro-Israel liberal Democrat, had voted for Obama's first term, and repeatedly lambasted the senior Slashdot staff for having attended a Christian college because I was an edgy super-atheist.
I'm still an atheist and consider believing in an imaginary sky-daddy a flaw, but besides that I've had many positive impressions of Christians who strive to do the right thing and yet have the honest barbarism to admit when shit is fucked up. I prefer women who have had some religion in their upbringing because they make great girlfriends. More often than not modern Christians will gladly discuss religion but listen to your viewpoint if you have non-Christian leanings. Early Christianity had a strong intellectual tradition, and we owe many of our groundbreaking scientific developments to them. Even if you aren't a Christian you can still appreciate their contributions to art, history, music; and the religion itself is rich with symbolism. Many Christians are cultural only, that is, they are steeped in the tradition but don't believe in a literal sky-daddy. The bible itself says that the kingdom of heaven is already in your midst, not some sky-palace up in the clouds.
I've met some pretty awesome Christians, Whites, Asians, Blacks and Latinos. Jews and Muslims, however, are scum and I've never met a single instance of either who wasn't a rude and malignant asshole. Nuke 'em!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Absolutely.Geek on Monday August 29 2016, @03:06AM
That was close I almost had to give a positive mod to Eth; but luckily he finished as we have come to know and love.
Jews and Muslims, however, are scum and I've never met a single instance of either who wasn't a rude and malignant asshole. Nuke 'em!
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:33AM
Yeah, at least he dares to say it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:33AM
No worries, Flamebait plus Underrated covers situations like this.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:54PM
Isn't that called Projection.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 29 2016, @02:16PM
Hey, he's got a reputation to maintain, man!
(moderated as if the last line didn't exist)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by shrewdsheep on Monday August 29 2016, @08:42AM
I've met some pretty awesome Christians, Whites, Asians, Blacks and Latinos. Jews and Muslims, however, are scum and I've never met a single instance of either who wasn't a rude and malignant asshole. Nuke 'em!
I have.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday August 29 2016, @02:27PM
"Early Christianity" was sort of Jewish. Jesus, the original disciples, the writers of the original gospels . . . all Jewish. Are you categorizing them too?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @04:19AM
The problem here is that reality has a liberal bias to it.
Typical defensive bronze-age rhetoric, without evidence of course. Look just how primitive these arguments are for would-be progressive beliefs.
Conservatives are mostly fighting for a bygone era and the people going to college are being trained to advance society.
Except when that's not happening, of course. A classic example is libertarianism. Libertarianism tends to have some relatively novel economic and political beliefs, but they tend to be considered conservative on these very subjects (with phony beliefs often attributed to them to confirm the assertion).
Meanwhile what is often considered liberalism on these very subjects tends to have a lot of bronze-age mythology, such as zero sum thinking (if rich people are getting richer, it's because the rest of us are getting poorer), magic thinking (if we do this ritual then free stuff!), one sour note ruins the whole song (the people who disagree, no matter how few or how quietly, hold us back), our presentation of our motives equals the outcome of our actions, appearance equals reality (GDP - genuine economic improvement in societies tends to come with increased activity therefore the converse must also be true), and defensive rhetoric such as the above "reality has a liberal bias".
Genuine liberalism isn't tribal. It would incorporate the best of supposedly conservative beliefs and lessons rather than hostilely ostracize such beliefs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:29AM
Libertarians? You mean Republicans who say keep your dirty hands off my money, but smoke pot and are bi-curious? These are exactly the practitioners of cognitive dissonance that academia must weed out, lest we all end up more stupid as a result.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:43PM
You couldn't get much more stupid. You're right at base level now, dude.
(Score: 5, Touché) by tibman on Monday August 29 2016, @06:30AM
I think most institutions of higher learning have a class for teaching bronze-age stuff. They even charge you hundreds (maybe thousands) just for the privilege to hear someone read it aloud from a dead-tree book so that you can "advance society".
I've seen plenty of religious people ace biology and chemistry. You just sound like a bigot.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @08:21AM
..ignorant bronze-aged beliefs have no place.
Apparently it is far better that an ignorant 19th Century religion be taught in the place of traditional ones. I double dog dare you to actually read some Marx and tell me that crazy son of a bitch isn't just as irrational as any boy buggering pope or goat raping imam. And pretty much everything in the intellectual tradition along the fork from Western Civ to Marx was equally daft, starting with the leaders of the French Revolution. If you wanna puke, read a bit about that little fiasco. Those clowns pretty much did everything wrong and France still hasn't thrown off most of the defective mental baggage.
Your problem is you are so blind you can't even see that your belief system meets every qualification for the word "Religion." Science, properly understood, can't answer any of the Big Questions required to produce a civilization. At anything like our current level of understanding of Science it can't even really try to tackle any of the big questions. Science can't even get close to answering What the Universe is, and only then would it be possible to tackle Why? And only then could we imagine a Science that could try to say what sort of moral code we should adopt and what sort of governing system would be optimal to implement it.
Brutal example: The Poor. Science could probably tell us how to identify the least likely to succeed in the current social order. It can't say whether we should, it also can't say whether we should kill/abort them as soon as they are identified, whether we should instead research some treatment to 'correct them', whether to simply warehouse them in ghettos, drive them out of our society, do nothing and let them survive as best they can or even place them in positions of authority. Those are questions entirely out of scope for Science, for answers to those questions one must exit the Sciences and head over to the Religion and Philosophy Departments.
So like all Progs you are picking a set of core values and building a religion / philosophy around it and claiming the mantle of Science believing that makes you immune from criticism. It doesn't, it just makes you deluded or a liar. Considering the track record of every time your ideas have been given free reign it is certainly defective. Which isn't really surprising considering how many obvious logical flaws are in it.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:12AM
dare you to actually read some Marx and tell me that crazy son of a bitch isn't just as irrational
I have, and he's not. What part of Dialectical Materialism did you not understand? It is an economic theory, just as testable as any and all economic theories.
What Big Questions are you saying have to be solved to produce a civilization? I don't see that as being crucial at all, and if you read your Marx you would know that ideological superstructure like religion is a side-effect of civilization, not a cause of it. Really, it is the little questions, like division of labor, sanitation, government granaries, and educating very recondite alt-right people, that produce civilizations. Marx called these the relations of production, and capital. Knowledge is capital. Tech is capital. Money is dumb.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:48PM
Yet another half-wit ^ This one thinks he understands civilization. He doesn't even understand his own, but he presumes to know what makes any civilization.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DECbot on Monday August 29 2016, @04:42PM
DECbot's definition of a civilization: a group of people able to economically support and socially tolerate a village idiot.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:07AM
It is an economic theory, just as testable as any and all economic theories.
Except of course, when it's not. Labor theory of value is pretty notorious for begging the question. Just about everything has some labor attached to it, so it's trivial to claim that the value of everything came purely from the labor. Nothing to test there.
Then there's the gobbledygook such as "commodity fetishism" which is a derogatory way to describe the market interface (which among other things, separates buyers from irrelevant details like having to consider the labor value of goods they purchase via a market). Putting emotional labels on things isn't a sign of a scientific theory.
The asymptotic march of humanity to a state of pure communism is a fantasy based on ignoring both human nature and various forces in society (which are merely asserted to wither away). This asymptotic stuff is also a great way to deliver unfalsifiable stuff. If you don't measure certain events happening (like the withering away of the state), it's merely because it hasn't happened yet.
What part of Dialectical Materialism did you not understand?
What does dialectical materialism have to do with Marxism? Any economic theory can be expressed in terms of the philosophy. It's just a language for describing dynamical systems. And it's a bad choice at that due to the clunky, cultish jargon, unquantifiable nature, and ignoring key principles like relativity or conservation of material invariants.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:16PM
It's interesting, because the labor theory of value really is a very capitalist idea. After all, what claim do you have to the land your home is on? Usually it traces back through voluntary exchanges to the guy who got the land in return for investing labor in improving it. If you don't believe human labor is the ultimate reason, what right do you have to any land or commodity good?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM
If you don't believe human labor is the ultimate reason, what right do you have to any land or commodity good?
Because creation of such ownership rights enables better and more responsible use of land or good. It's not about having an ultimate reason (which can be blatantly ignored), but a sensible way to structure a society's economy.
For an extreme example, Russia is on the second or third cycle of oligarch ownership of former Soviet assets. There is no way that such ownership has anything to do with valid property rights. It was stolen from a thief. But if modern Russia were to nail down the laws concerning such things, then it would greatly improve economic conditions since the oligarchs would now have a choice other than "ruthlessly exploit your asset before you lose it". Obviously, a fairer distribution of such assets would be far better, but my point is that even in the complete absence of fairness, we still have a better outcome than the present iterative theft of assets from the prior generation of thieves since things aren't truly owned and hence, the parties which control such assets have a weakened interest in improving (or at least not diminishing) the value of such assets.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:14PM
So you're fine with wealth redistribution?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:54AM
So you're fine with wealth redistribution?
Depends on the method. Voluntary trade is just fine. Taking stuff from other people and delivering it to your cronies is not.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:40PM
Ah, why would you object to this. I mean, the cronies have the same moral right to it as the original owner, since we agreed that the "owner" was something invented by society, and society can reorganize (ala your Russian example).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 31 2016, @07:29PM
Ah, why would you object to this. I mean, the cronies have the same moral right to it as the original owner, since we agreed that the "owner" was something invented by society, and society can reorganize (ala your Russian example).
Because we haven't actually agreed as demonstrated with the next "reorganization". When the balance of power shifts, who owns what gets shuffled around again. It doesn't take morality to realize that cooperative behavior which has some degree of long term planning and long term stability to it, is more effective. Ownership which survives the vagaries of political whims is one way to generate a considerable degree of long term cooperative behavior.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:55PM
Granted. That's why I shall propose a one-time only reset, to address wealth inequality. I bet I could get a super majority to vote for it. So, would that be okay? Maybe as a constitutional amendment that says that such an action may be initiated one time?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:14PM
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @02:20AM
Alternatively, if it resets whenever the supermajority of people (enough to pass an amendment) think it's too out of wack, it could encourage the richest people not to try to concentrate wealth so much. Can you imagine what it would do to the pharmaceutical prices if they knew raising the price of drugs by 700x overnight would likely result in confiscation of the factory/IP?
You're right that chaos is bad for the economy, and it would be necessary to teach people that such power must be used super-rarely, but I see no reason why a nuclear-option like check would be horrible.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @02:58AM
Alternatively, if it resets whenever the supermajority of people (enough to pass an amendment) think it's too out of wack, it could encourage the richest people not to try to concentrate wealth so much.
Or it could encourage concentration of wealth via demagoguery which I think has already happened in Russia. Personally, I don't see the point of making a permanent failure mode because of a temporary wealth concentration. A society with economic mobility is preferable to repeated seizure of wealth without addressing the causes of the wealth inequalities that create the pretext for the seizures.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @06:06PM
Hey, I think you're right. I just don't know how possible addressing the underlying causes is. Also, I don't know if mobility is terribly important. I don't really care who the richest 1% are, so much as if they control 99% of the wealth or 5% of the wealth.
But I tend to think that most "underlying causes" deal with more regular confiscation/taxes. The primary ways I can think of off the top of my head to prevent wealth inequalities are: higher capital gains taxes, financial transaction taxes, property taxes, estate taxes, more progressive income taxes. Oh, and regulations of various sorts.
That said, I think the idea of a nuclear option in the hands of the majority helps bring those changes into effect. Russia is not so much a democracy under demagoguery as under the control of a strongman. So it seems a bad choice. France or Sweden seem to be far more democratic, and able to achieve things. Or look at Iceland's recent (post-2009) government control over various economic levers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @07:11PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:07PM
Your problem is you are so blind you can't even see that your belief system meets every qualification for the word "Religion." Science, properly understood, can't answer any of the Big Questions required to produce a civilization.
There is some argument that "Science" is a form of "Religion." There are two key differences between it and most religions, though.
1) They openly acknowledge what they don't know, and work to try to answer those questions. For example, there is a huge open question of "dark matter" and "dark energy." Physicists know it is a problem, they are working to solve it, and they are letting the public know what they are trying to do to solve it (albeit maybe with a time delay to be "first to publish"). They don't just dismiss things with platitudes like, "God works in mysterious ways."
2) Science produces things which are testable and reproducible. For example, they say "gravity work like this," and you can disprove it by dropping something and timing it. They say "light waves bend like that," and you can disprove it by shining light through a prism. In contrast, religions are an end unto themselves and untestable. For example, let's say somebody says "everything you think is wrong, the only way to get to Heaven is to murder somebody," (and you would possibly be rewarded with numerous virgins there)... how could you disprove this?
Those are questions entirely out of scope for Science, for answers to those questions one must exit the Sciences and head over to the Religion and Philosophy Departments.
This seems like something of a Red Herring. As you note, Science is amoral (not immoral, amoral). It is a mechanism to determine the "rules" of how things work. I've not heard a single scientist ever say "the Science says we must do XYZ."
The much more common (and easy to mistake) thing I've heard is, "the Science says we must do XYZ to avoid ABC, which is bad." So for example, Anthropogenic Global Warming. I've never heard somebody say, "Science says we need to cut carbon emissions just because Science (like 'God says it is a sin' a.k.a. Sharia Law)." I've always heard "Science says if we don't cut carbon emissions we could end up with run-away greenhouse effect which will raise sea-levels, reduce crops, and other effects. As having all those things happen would be bad (judgment call, not a Science assertion), we must cut carbon emissions."
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday August 29 2016, @07:46PM
I've read Marx, apparently you haven't.
Also, you make it sound like I was born with these beliefs and haven't changed them over time. I hold the views I have because they're significantly better at describing the world than the alternatives. I regularly reevaluate my views.
You can't say that about the typical conservative. Their party still believes that Iraq was a great idea and that fetuses are the same thing as babies and that tax cuts to the rich will benefit the poor.
The notion that they're on equal ground is absolutely ridiculous.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @10:12PM
I've read Marx, apparently you haven't.
I am still reading him. But if you didn't spot the fundamental flaw right up front you are either dumb or so emotionaly invested in the outcome you engaged in a leap of faith over it. I.e. it is a religion for you. I will give you a hint: The Labor Theory of Value. Take that out and the entire edifice falls over, kinda like Christianity without the immaculate conception. And it is so obviously false you should not have to think very long to see through it. Christians freely admit they must accept the immaculate conception purely as an article of faith, but if Marxism is "Scientific" then you are not allowed to.
Their party still believes that Iraq was a great idea and that fetuses are the same thing as babies and that tax cuts to the rich will benefit the poor.
Do you even get CNN on your planet? Did you happen to notice how the one candidate who smoked the rest of the field said Iraq was a bad idea? The Neocons still like the idea of nation building but they are the ones raging at being written out of the Republican Party.
Since you went there lets go. When does a fetus become a baby? Science certainly can't answer that question. A strict reading of the U.S. Constitution says one thing but Science makes that position problematic. What magic happens in the birth canal that transforms a fetus into a baby? So is it a baby an hour earlier? Is it still a fetus an hour after? Abortion is an issue where both extremes are sign of our moral understanding hitting a limiting case and becoming silly or evil. On one end you have "Every sperm is sacred" and on the other infanticide. We should apply the most recent information Science provides and put the line around a point where it is more baby like, certainly at or before the point where premies are routinely delivered and survive to adulthood.
And while it isn't true that ALL tax cuts benefit all, the ones Conservative economists propose have proven to increase general GDP and even increase revenue to the Treasury every time they have been tried. Every single time. Not a theory, not a belief, math backed by historical evidence. Meanwhile your economic theories lead to human misery and hardship every time they are tried in direct proportion to the extent they are implmented. Every time. Who is science based and who is practicing the politics of envy?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:39PM
Wow - you trotted that line out right quick. It's good to see that you know your playbook so well!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:36PM
The problem here is that reality has a liberal bias to it.
Did you fail history? It has a decidedly non liberal bias to it. The natural reaction to most humans is to build dictatorships. We have several of them going on right now in our world.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:17AM
Things like this make me think it might be right to force those who hold bronze age beliefs to live like the people in the bronze age.
Your out dated book, which says itself you have to take it all or you are not a christian. Among other crazy and contradictory passages, in it does not have a place at the table in modern times where a few button presses can kill hundreds of millions of people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday August 29 2016, @09:23AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @09:34AM
It's perhaps worth remembering that it was a Bronze Age civilisation that invented democracy and republics.
Um, just for the Bronze-Age-challenged about history and sky-fairies here on SoylentNews: Greece in the Bronze age was pretty much monarchies, think Iliad and Odyssey. By the time Athens established a democratic form of government, Greeks were well into the Iron Age. Same with the Romans, and their Republic.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:50PM
So, here we are in the "Information Age", and you're taking some kind of pride in your Iron Age beliefs, while casting aspersions at someone you believe has Bronze Age beliefs?
That shit is pretty unbelievable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @04:53PM
Reading comprehension, my dear Runaway!
That shit is pretty unbelievable.
Yes, it is like alleged "liberals" confessing to their own intolerance. You fell for it hook, line and sinker, eh?
No, I was just correcting the metal-age references. Religion belongs to the Bronze age (Blessings upon Zarathustra!) in not before, and philosophy did not begin before the Iron age. I offered no judgment on the implications for the status of either.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:21AM
It surprises me that any one of us would expect anything other than antagonism.
The Bible tells us to expect it (for example, 2 Timothy 3:12).
2 Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
That verse is a favorite of the wrong kind of christian, because to the self-righteous, all criticism becomes proof of righteousness.
It is carte blanche for acting like an asshole and shifting personal responsibility for bad behavior on to scripture and God instead. Jesus said a lot of things about compassion for others, [biblehub.com] not wearing one's religion like a badge, [biblehub.com] and not being self-righteous. [biblehub.com] The bible is packed with verses like that.
But the wrong kind of christian ignores those verses and is quick to cite 2 Timothy 3:12 to avoid self-examination. In my experience, citation of that verse is so strongly correlated with un-christian behavior that it should be avoided at all costs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @07:36AM
We try, anyway. Despite knowing that you worship a genocidal, narcissistic devil who runs an eternal concentration camp full of fire and fear and pain and misery and torture for people who don't kiss his ass (read; most of the human race). I like to think this is because I have actual morals, with an objective basis in reality, rather than marching orders handed down from the Big Angry Jew In The Sky :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:33AM
The Bible has a lot of contradictory shit in it.
Why do you favor the worst of it instead of the best of it?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:41AM
Because she's a nasty cunt. Check her past posts if you care to see the pattern of behavior.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:40PM
> Because she's a nasty cunt. Check her past posts if you care to see the pattern of behavior.
That's rich coming from you, someone who fetishizes being an asshole.
BTW, I'm the AC who asked that question of her.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:11PM
You can't see the difference between my not caring if I hurt someone's fee-fees and her intentionally seeking such? Interesting.
Posting from another location then? My sooper adminy powahs tell me the hashes of the IP address don't match. (The first five characters of the hash are printed in the gray bar on every comment for adminy types, no actual work was required to check.)
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:52AM
See, Uzzard, this is another prime example of what I mean by "you make my point for me with your own hand" :) This may surprise you, but I'm only nasty to the people who deserve it.
P.S.: guys who use "cunt" as an insult probably don't like ladybits very much. Probably they like huge throbbing dicks. Given how you talk, I can only assume you swallow more sausage than the clientele of a bratwurst restaurant. You sure do seem to love your long, hard, stiff point-and-shooty things...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:47AM
And you have a problem if I do prefer the cock? There went your virtue signaling participation trophy...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:48AM
Oh no, not at all. I'd be incredibly hypocritical to have a problem with gay men, as a gay woman, simply for BEING gay. Suck all the wang you want, so long as you're honest with all your partners and, if married or otherwise in a committed relationship, have permission from your SO. Just use protection and don't do anything stupid. I've seen some frightening statistics about men who have sex with men...
No, it's all the *other* bullshit that goes along with your slow-motion 50-car-pileup of a worldview that I've got an issue with. Specifically, your constant macho attitude and your right-wing politics are rather anti-gay in the collective even if you yourself aren't, and by contributing to that you're being very hypocritical if you're actually anywhere in the LGBTQ bowl of alphabet soup.
Oh, and anyone who uses the term "virtue signalling" or "cuck" automatically loses; it's Godwin's Law for the mid-to-late 2010s.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:35PM
*cough*
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:51PM
*siiiigh*
Look, dipshit, "virtue signalling" is a snarl word. It's what jackasses like you use when you have no argument. My pointing this out, and then turning it back on you and showing you how you're doing an even worse version of the same thing, is not only not losing, it's a coup de grace. Not only was your complete lack of argument exposed, it was shown to you that you're attempting to do the same thing you accuse others of, *and failing miserably at even that.*
Am I just expecting too much from the average poster here? Have I been ruined by all that study in logic and argumentation I did?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:33AM
One plausible reason would be because, on a per incident basis, the Bible is more given to promoting atrocities than to promoting compassion. It also has a lot about self-defense being good, of course, but almost nobody disagrees with that. An occasional Christian will, and there are places that back their stance, also.
There's also the translation problem, and that has lead to many persecutions of this group or that. What, e.g., was the sin of Jezebel? The Bible would lead you to believe that it was that she wore cosmetics, but actually it was that she represented a foreign political power. (And let's not get into Lot.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:27PM
What are your morals (perhaps a single example for sake of debate) and how do they have a basis in objective reality, a reality that is unaffected by culture, human fiat, etc.?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:49AM
I am SO glad you asked! Far too few people ever take any interest in examining themselves or their supposed morals. Basically it goes like this: morality itself, moral machinery you might say, is older than humanity. Much older. I suspect that not only do most or all of the great apes have it, but so do most cetaceans and probably elephants too.
Now, the output of that machinery is going to differ somewhat with environmental factors--take, for example, ideas about hospitality in the scorching desert compared to, say, a tropical island--but because of our evolutionary heritage and the sort of animals we are, you're going to see some universals. You'll see, for instance, near-universal prohibitions on murder of members of the in-group (however that's defined). In a thinking species like us, with our freakish memories and ability to think and plan ahead, it's also going to involve more abstract things like "the good of the human race" or "the seventh generation of us."
The take-home point here is that morals are neither arbitrary constructions nor Platonic ideal forms floating in the mind of some God somewhere; rather they emerge from who and what we are as a species. The ultimate judge of these seems to be the environment itself and our interactions with the same; we find, for example, that murderous pedophiles don't get very far, while cooperation is generally a better strategy than deciding to take on the world alone.
And yes, ALL of this is suspectible to a million and one different twists and perversions. Convince someone that "the good of the human race" depends on eliminating a certain group of it, for example, and you have not only genocide but a group of people happy to commit it. Convince enough people that it's for "the good of society" for a few to be very rich and most to be poor, and you'll end up with today's crony capitalism. And of course there are some people who become aware of all this and decide to piss into the abyss on purpose.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:26PM
Apologies for my delayed response.
Since I'm not happy with the fundamentals of moral relativism, I'm most interested in morals of the objective sort. These morals would by necessity exist without support from humans' existence, as you've already noted.
However, you went on to define objective morals as things that "emerge from who and what we are as a species". If human morality is based on who and what we are as a species, then I don't see how such morals can simultaneously be objective (i.e. uninfluenced by personal/cultural prejudice; existing outside of the human mind; empircally observable). My simplistic comparison for an objective law is the law of gravity: it existed before humans, it functions regardless of history's humans' opinion of it, and will likely continue to exist after humans, remaining consistent throughout all that time.
I assume I may have overlooked some implication in objecting to your description of your moral examples as "objective"; if you would, please cover the basics of that for me with, say, an example of morality based on something that exists outside of humanity.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:58PM
You mostly got it actually :) By "objective" this means "we don't sit around like a constipated-looking Greek statue trying to invent our moral machinery; it's built-in."
Now, yes, the output of that machinery is going to be somewhat subjective, but even there, you can see universals that go all the way back to the great apes. A sentient being's shape and physical makeup are going to have a lot of input into the results of running its morality machine.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...