OT: Will non net-neutrality kill the internet?

[Robert Redelmeier]

No, his district is filled with classical liberals (aka libertarians)
who feel the Republicans are the lesser evil of the two viable
parties, and Ron Paul in particular makes voting Republican palatable
to them. People _love_ him there; if they merely tolerated him,
he wouldn't win primaries with 60-80% of the vote.

I live in Ron Paul's district TX14 -- south & mostly west of Houston,
biggest cities Galveston & Victoria TX. Mostly rural with a bit of suburbs.

I wouldn't describe the people here as classical liberals.
But nor are we staunch Republicans (remember Lincoln was
the First Republican). Up until the late 1980s/early 1990s,
this was a solid "yellow dog" Democrat state (if a yellow
dog won the Demcrat primary, they'd win in November).

Why did Texas flip Republican? Probably because we didn't like
Democrat social liberalism and business controls. Texas is a non-union
state with fluid markets. [State] income tax is unconstitutional.
Nobody much likes government (with the exception of the scr3wballs in
Austin) : the state legislature only meets for 100 days every two years.
During that time, everyone watches their wallets.

So people here really don't expect Ron Paul to bring home the pork.
He doesn't need to curry favor and climb the committee heirarchies
to differential power. He is a bit of an embarrassment to the
Republican power center who usually fund a primary challenger.
We tell'em we're not interested in playing that game.

-- Robert

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

I've read some Soviet-era stuff with similar "freedom from" language:

being told what to think,

As any dogmatic ideology does. Medieval Europe was the similar with Catholicism.

what to buy,

Not so. In the USSR, there was a rather poor consumer market, but there was no governemental dictate of "what to buy".

what job to take,

Not so again. In the USSR, there was no such dictate (prison inmates and the similar punished people aside).

for, etc. "frees" you from having to make confusing choices.

Yes, in the USSR, if you are "aligned with the system", then you're free (from these pesky choices). You will be given everything you deserve, and so on.

 

[Nick Keighley]

In message <[email protected]



Some have such as Islam.

Christianity on the other hand Destroyed vast amounts of knowledge in
libraries and suppressed learning for centuaries.

even this isn't as black and white as you imply. The monasteries
*were* the medieval centres of learnign and knowledge. Yes much
(particularly ancient greek) was lost. But Islam though having a much
better record than christianity in this period has done its own share
of knowledge destruction. It's hardly a shining beacon these days.

It's never a case of relion X bad, religion Y good
Just as it isn't atheism good/bad, religion good/bad
capitalism goos, communism bad
this is playground thinking

they're all human institutions and have their triumphs and failings
(apart from obvious complete FUs such as national socialism and year
zero)

 

[Nick Keighley]

how did you calculate that probability?

Somewhere there must be a pithy quote to apply to people who have such
a misconception of probability.

what is the probability that such a quote exists?

 

[Chris H]

Your dictionary was authored by men. The Bible was authored by God.

It was most certainly authored by and messed around by men. For about
500 years books were added and dropped to the Bible and the words
changed.

Even now there are several versions of the Bible around in common usage
that differ.

What evidence do you have that it was authored by God? That is evidence
excluding the Bible because the Koran has equally solid evidence that
the Jews and the Christians perverted the scriptures which is why God
sent Mohammed. SO if you use the Bible as the sole evidence them the
Koran is admissible as evidence too... (it contains several books from
the Bible for obvious reasons)

What evidence is there, external to the Bible, that God authored the
Bible?

 

[Chris H]

What you don't realize is that Earth's geography was different before
the flood. There was no Mt. Everest standing 29,029 feet.

Tectonic plate shift is not hard for God.

When and where was the flood?

The problem is there is unbroken history going back thousands of years
for the middle east where the flood is supposed to have happened.

On your current arguing you can also prove Atlantis.

 

[Chris H]

What you don't realize is that Earth's geography was different before
the flood. There was no Mt. Everest standing 29,029 feet.

Tectonic plate shift is not hard for God.

The Bible provides adequate chronology to count backwards and determine
that Adam was created 6035 years ago (as of 2010).

There are several independent but inter-linked histories across the
world (not mention artefacts) that go back way past 6035....

Rome for example has an unbroken history (and matching archaeology)
going back 3000 years on it's own. The Chinese can go back about 10,000
years and others can do similar.

So the basic tenant of Adam and Eve is suspect. Your dates are wrong.

And we still don't have a date for the Flood.... as it is within 6,000
years and apparently Noah was 600 it happened less than 5000 years ago
there has been no major tectonic shift in that time to move the
Anatolian plateau so there is no way a ship could have got to the top of
arrarat.

Also the historys of the area of Turkey/Iran goes back way before 6,000
years. There are many inter linked histories with supporting archaeology
that will support this. On the other hand Noah's ark is NOT on Buyuk
Agri

 

[Chris H]

The Bible provides adequate chronology to count backwards and determine
that Adam was created 6035 years ago (as of 2010).

There is are several independent but inter-linked histories across the
world (not mention artefacts) that go back way past 6035....

Rome for example has an unbroken history (and matching archaeology)
going back 3000 years on it's own. The Chinese can go back about 10,000
years and others can do similar.

So the basic tenant of Adam and Eve is suspect. Your dates are wrong.

And we still don't have a date for the Flood.... as it is within 6,000
years and apparently Noah was 600 it happened less than 5000 years ago
there has been no major tectonic shift in that time to move the
Anatolian plateau so there is no way a ship could have got to the top of
arrarat.

Cool, Rambo.

You can't have it both ways.

Noah's. In the six hundreth year of his life, in the second month, on
the seventeenth day of the month.

So no date then.....
and no location....

You don't know where and when it happened.

People lived longer before the flood.

Evidence please?

 

[Nick Keighley]

It depends on how you look at it.  First off, I'll say that how you
perceive the Bible depends on how you *choose* to look at it.  The
existence of choice is a fundamental component of faith.  Let me give
you three possible scenarios.

1.  There is no supernatural creator that exists outside the rules and
laws of the observable universe.

2.  There is a supernatural creator that exists outside of the
observable universe, may have created the universe and possibly life,
but no longer interacts with us in any way.

pretty non-abramic that one

3.  There is a supernatural creator that exists outside of the
observable universe, and while not directly observable, has revealed
himself through interactions at given times within his creation.

4. there is a powerful being that dwells in the universe and
communicates with people from time to time

5. all religions are human constructs. And religious writings are one
aspect of this construction. [PRATCHETT "Small Gods"]

Of course one can take the stance that there are no miracles, only
unexplained natural phenomenon.  Let's say that you witness something
dramatic, like the parting of the Red Sea.  Would you believe that was
of supernatural origin, or not?  

I'd believe something very unusual had happened!

With an attitude where you don't
believe in miracles, it's easy to throw that experience away as an
illusion, a trick of the mind, or maybe some astounding unexplained
interaction of the laws of physics.

advanced technology maybe? I do know people who'll say the area has
enourmous tides (I don't think the Red Sea has enourmous tides) and
that's what really happened. But these are the same people who say
noah's ark is based on a mesopotamiam flood. It's a variance on
Panzoism (the ability to see windmills when there are giants). It
think it's a pretty amazing universe without adding in the
supernatural.

 Other people may take that one
experience and believe that the God of the Jews is real and he is the
"true" God.  The point is that your attitude frames how you view and
experience the world.

at the other end of the scale people will take quite mundane things to
be evidence of miracles. Dreams and such like.

I believe the strongest evidence of a supernatural interaction with
our universe is the existence of life, including ourselves.  This is
in my opinion why evolution vs creation seems to be the recent focal
point of the debate on the existence or non-existence of God.  

creation v. evolution is a false dichotomy. Oranges verses orchards.
Evolution is not about the origin of life but about its
diversification once it existed. In particular it explains why life
follows a certain pattern (a tree or strict nested hierarchy). In
principle evolution is compatible with a supernatural origin (to be
fair no life-scientist would seriously entertain the idea, just as the
people at CERN aren't looking for the Higg's Angel).

We all believe in abiogenesis (that life has an origin) the question
is, is that origin a natural or a supernatural process.

What the creationist are *really* concerned with is the origin of
huamnity. Were we created by god or did we arise by natural means from
the other mammals? Even the RCC blurs this one a bit. The implantation
of the soul is a plain supernatural invention.

The
question of faith goes down to, do you believe that there is a
naturally occurring environment that allows the properties of life to
evolve?  Most of these positions for or against are arguments of
incredulity.  Whether it's complexity, the number of species, or the
huge amount of time needed, the fact remains that the origin of life
has not been observed and continues to be difficult to observe.  (The
best we're doing now to my knowledge is to throw DNA in the proverbial
blender and trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle pieces together.

I think you're confused with the human genome project (and a rather
distorted version of it at that). You have a number of quite serious
misconceptions. If you are intersted then try the news group
talk.origins. Polite, genuinely interested creationist are usually
treated well. Many of the peopel on that news group are *very* well
informed and would be happy to answer questions about the latest
(naturalistic) theories of the origins of life, and probably why they
don't put DNA in the liquidiser.

And the kicker is that as the process to manipulate life becomes
more and more complex, the less likely a "natural" environment can be
found to derive it, hence the reason to append an arbitrary amount of
time as a fudge factor to get evolution to work.)

I don't call 3 billion years "arbitary". Do you think they made it up
or something? What is surprising (to me) is just how soon life
appeared on the planet. Life goes back almost to the oldest rocks. If
I believed in miracles... But no!

 So it remains from
my point of view that the belief of the origin of life still requires
the proverbial "leap of faith".

much remains unexplained. That's what makes science fun!

<snip>

--

If cosmology reveals anything about God, it is that He has
an inordinate fondness for empty space and non-baryonic dark
matter.
Sverker Johansson (talk.origins)

 

[Nick Keighley]

John Kelly wrote:

) But if there is no God, then why does the universe exist at all?  Why is
) there not merely a void of nothingness?  Mathematically, is a void of
) nothingness more probable than a universe consisting of matter?  Can you
) devise a proof, or counter proof?

Easy: There is an almost uncountable number of possibilities for what
a universe could look like.
The number of possibilities with little or no matter is vanishingly small
when compared to the number of possibilities with a lot of matter.

how'd you work that out?

 

[Nick Keighley]

In message <[email protected]


Which version.....

KJV

everyone knows god speaks 17th century english

there are many versions of the Bible in use
currently. Not to mention the many historical versions.

do they mention satan in genesis? The more modern the *less* likely
words like satan would appear, I'd have thought. I got the same result
for The New International and The New American Standard. You're
welcome to try your own search. It was the serpent that tempted Eve.
Next question, was it an apple she was tempted with?

If it is the word of God them God is constantly changing it's mind.

well if you can read ancient Hewbrew and Aramamaic go for it!

 

[Nick Keighley]

Isn't there some notion that the Med breaking through the Bosphorus and
flooding the Black Sea supposed to have given rise to the flood notion?

isn't it far more likely it was just mythology? Is that Siberian Taiga
swarming with little old ladies living in huts with legs?

 

[Chris H]

In message <[email protected]

KJV

So not Gods word but a modern human translation (with known errors)

everyone knows god speaks 17th century english

Clearly

do they mention satan in genesis? The more modern the *less* likely
words like satan would appear, I'd have thought.
Why?

I got the same result
for The New International and The New American Standard. You're
welcome to try your own search. It was the serpent that tempted Eve.
Next question, was it an apple she was tempted with?


well if you can read ancient Hewbrew and Aramamaic go for it!

Also Greek etc the Bible comes from multiple sources written over 1000
years in multiple languages... What about all the books that didn't make
the final cut 300-700 AD?

 

[Nick Keighley]

"Beyound comprehension", or even "arcane".

In some context, "immanent" is the vice-versa word of "transcendental".

" There might be things that we cannot comprehend, but then that's OK,
because they are incomprehensible"
Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Nick Keighley]

I thought that promoting promiscuous behavior (such as encouraging people to
become physically involved prior to marrying, ...) and socialist economics
(central planned economies, promoting the welfare system, ...) was one of
the major central points of liberalism?...

no you are entirely mistaken. Some liberals would think it is a matter
of personnel choice what personnal mores people follow and cerainly
not a matter for third parties (or governments) to concern themselves
with. Some liberals are SP (by your definition) some are not. I'm
guessing you're thinking of Flower Power hippies or something.
Socialist economics is also not necessarily liberal. There are
economic liberals who are madly laissez faire. Probably most europeans
who identify themselves as "liberals" would favour a more regulated
economy than the average texan republican. Note most people in western
style democracies favour free markets with some regulation. The
disagreement is usually on the degree of regulation. Centrally planned
economies are more the arena of socialist parties than liberals.
Liberalism probably believes in more of a social safety net (welfare)
than the appocrophal texan republican. So, yes, I'll give you the
welfare one.

I don't know where american's aquired their bogey-man attitude to
liberals. Europeans laugh, but it really is quite strange.

In the 19th century many methodists were liberals. The UK liberal
party still identifies that as part of its roots.

as for atheists, AFAIK the central claim is that only the material world
exists, and for example, supernatural entities don't exist due to there
being a lack of evidence or any real verifiable mechanism for their
existence, ...

what has that got to do with socialistic economics or sexual
promiscuity? I think there are certain people who think
atheist == liberal

but, I am not sure if I am missing something here.

you've gained a cartoon characterisation of liberals and an inability
to distinguish
atheists/liberals/socialists/communists

I thought all that Macarthyist pinko-liberal-commie stuff stuff died
out in the 60s.

 

[Nick Keighley]

I thought that promoting promiscuous behavior (such as encouraging people to
become physically involved prior to marrying, ...) and socialist economics
(central planned economies, promoting the welfare system, ...) was one of
the major central points of liberalism?...

[...] socialism is vice versa of liberalism.

Socialism require the increase of governemental control over economy,
which is just plain against the liberal ideas.

I consider there is some over lap. Liberalism has both its left and
right tendencies. Is freedom from want more important than economic
freedom? There can be a tension between the two.

Something like. Strictly, this is "materialism".

again probably a degree of over lap

No, this is "agnosticism".

sounds like materialism again

This _alone_ is "agnosticism". To become "atheism", the _belief that
the transcendental powers and entitties do not exist_ must be added.

Agnosticism is just Occam's razor. Atheism is a _belief_.

only in the same sense that not believing in unicorns or teapots
around saturn is a "belief".

Is baldness a hair colour?

 

[Nick Keighley]

it's a broad church

Well the meaning has changed in the U.S.

and elsewhere

now: Libertarianism.

good grief. was attila the hun?

That is probably accurate, circa 1955 or `59 or whenever it was.

environmentalism, veganism and PETA are *communist*?!

I'm not sure when/how the change came about, but somehow the
Democratic 'left-wing' either adopted or were labelled 'liberals'.

this is probably closer to the european (or UK) model anyway.
Liberalism and Methodism were intertwined. There's both the economic
libreals with a strong lug of Free Trade and the social improvment
liberalism. These were people who thought the urban poor shouldn't
live in shit or die of cholera. That it was reasonable to expect some
basic literacy and that a man shouldn't starve when he was old or out
of work.

You know the problems of inaccurate labels and pigeon holing.

In a broad view of the Democrats, I'd say they believe Gov. is the
arbiter of fairness in a market economy.  And the 'left' is more
militant in laxness of the interpretation of the limits of powers
delineated in the Constitution in order for Gov. to be more effective
in that thrust.  The 'Commerce Clause' is the foot in the barn door
they drive through for much of the 'regulation' constructions.  The
present administration is using 'taxing powers' arguments in the
courts to plow new ground in the 'mandates' in the health care
legislation, in the sense of 'forcing compliance' to 'mandatory health
care insurance'.  Slavery really.

no not really

<snip>

 

[Nick Keighley]

I am in the US, and was using the terms as they are used in the US...


yes, but in the US, the term Liberal refers to a very different group than
Libertarians...

I was confused, as I had thought people were talking about liberals, in the
US sense...

fair enough, but be aware that term is more wide than you might expect
(the Australian liberal party is, I believe, quite "right wing").
Though I suspect not all Americans use a Robert A Heinlein definition
of "liberal". Or equate atheist/liberal/socilaist/communist. The
democrats are atheists? really?

[...] Republicans are against promiscuity, therefore Democrats
"must" be _for_ promiscuity, whereas the reality is that Democrats are
only for letting _you_ choose whether to be promiscuous or not rather
than having the government mandate what you do (or not do).

there are, of course, promiscuous people who will start putting up a major
fuss if one turns them down

you are confusing liberals with socipaths. No one *has* to go to bed
with anyone. Anyone who thinks so is a border-line rapist. I describe
myself as a liberal and this is definitly not what I'd call
liberalism. The opposite in fact. Liberalism is about choice.

(WRT going to bed with them or similar). like,
the hitting on someone at one point,

they just moved from sexual harrassment to assault. Attempting to get
someone to agree to sex by the use of violence. Pretty good candidate
for the sexual offenders register I'd say.

then insulting them at the next point (when turned down) type people...

only, a person is not under any obligation to do any of this if they don't
want to (like, a non-gay male is under no personal or social obligation to
allow themselves to be sodomized for sake of making some gay feel happy),

yup. Nor is a gay man under any obligation to have sex with another
gay man if he doesn't want to. We liberals are liberal in the
application of our principles!

and a person should be under no obligation to claim that gayness is a
healthy or morally acceptable lifestyle choice, if they don't personally
believe this to be the case.

well ok

as for economics, mostly I am a capitalist I guess. although I also believe
in open-source, I don't believe in "idealized" open-source (as in the
GNU/GPL sense). (I more prefer BSD or MIT style licenses, or public domain).

rather, a person should be able to release their source under whatever terms
are most convinient to them, be it commercial or open-source or whatever.

quite right. And most of the sane open source people would quite agree
with you


<snip>

 

[Nick Keighley]

In message <[email protected]

so in which version of the bible was Eve tempted by Satan? She was
tempted by a serpent which is often interpreted as the devil/satan.

So not Gods word but a modern human translation (with known errors)

all versions of the bible were written by people

Clearly



Why?

it's got an old fashioned ring to it. A biblical/shakesperian ring.
"The Devil" sounds more like modern usage to me (though I don't mix in
circles where either word is used much!).

Also Greek etc the Bible comes from multiple sources written over 1000
years in multiple languages... What about all the books that didn't make
the final cut 300-700 AD?

I waiting for the Director's Cut

 

[Chris H]

In message <[email protected]

so in which version of the bible was Eve tempted by Satan? She was
tempted by a serpent which is often interpreted as the devil/satan.


all versions of the bible were written by people

I know that but you have to take believers step by step...

it's got an old fashioned ring to it. A biblical/shakesperian ring.
"The Devil" sounds more like modern usage to me (though I don't mix in
circles where either word is used much!).




I waiting for the Director's Cut

See the Apocrypha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha

The trouble is the Christians can not agree what is in the Bible....

So the question is of the very many versions of the Bible we have which
one is the Word of God?