“Building a new stadium down the street does not work unless (Ron) Lancaster spilled some DNA in the lot where they’re going to build the new stadium,” he added. “You have to refurbish (Mosaic Stadium). You’ve got to can all new ideas you might have and use the sacred ground. Fenway did that and that is why Fenway is loved. The new Yankee Stadium isn’t the same as it used to be.”
The former Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos pitcher will not be running for the vacant mayor’s position in Regina later this year. With his opinion on the new stadium, he wasn’t sure he would garner many votes anyway. But that is nothing new to the former member of the Rhinoceros Party. Lee ran on the Rhino ticket in 1988 for president of the United States. Not surprisingly, he didn’t make the ballot in a single state. He said one of the high-ranking members within the party gave him a six-pack of Molson Canadian and asked him to run for president.
“I adhered to their funny philosophy,” Lee said. “My campaign slogan was ‘No guns, no butter. They’ll both kill you.’ And I only campaigned in federal prisons where I knew they couldn’t vote, and I only accepted a quarter in campaign contributions.”
With it being an election year in the U.S., Lee said he is all in for the re-election of Barack Obama.
“The only time (Mitt) Romney opens his mouth is when he needs to change feet,” Lee said of the Republican nominee. “If Obama does lose this, which I can’t see happening, then it’s because of a lady in Florida who works for Jeb Bush and Diebold, the voting-machine company. If Obama even comes close to losing this election, it’ll be fraud.”
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You know, this sentiment is actually even dumber than what Akin said. Less offensive maybe, but dumber.
You might want to breath into a paper bag or something. You're getting awfully worked up over a trivial error, which wasn't even really an error. If you honestly believe Obama wasn't running for president before his formal Feb. 2007 announcement, I have to seriously question your "Journalist" chops.
How the #### was it not an error?
How many times do I need to repeat the same thing? Everyone knew Obama was running for president long before he formally announced he was running for president. Whether he formally announced in 2006 or '07 is little more than trivia, and the difference between one year as a back-bench senator and two years is another triviality.
Had I remembered Obama's formal announcement was in 2007 rather than 2006, I would have said so in the beginning, but that extra year doesn't change the original point one iota.
How many times do I need to repeat the same thing? Everyone knew Obama was running for president long before he formally announced he was running for president.
First, that's not what you said. Second, no, I don't accept that premise just because Joe Kehoskie think's he can read Barack Obama's mind. I have no freaking clue when Obama decided to run for president, and neither do you.
With the legion of pedants around here, why would I lie about something as easily verifiable as the date of Obama's announcement? Whether Obama formally announced in 2006 or '07 doesn't change my original point at all.
I guess you've succeeded, though. Instead of talking about what a huge media creation Obama was, we're talking about whether he was in the Senate for 20 minutes or 30 minutes before formally announcing for president.
LOL. Were you on the O.J. jury, by any chance?
I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Your original statement (in comment #3083) was that "Paul Ryan's been in Congress for 14 years, which is 13 years more than Obama had when he announced for president." Barack Obama "announced for President" two years after he was sworn into the U.S. Senate, which is, as you say, "an easily verifiable" fact, and also not the difference between 14 and 13. How is your failure to check an "easily verifiable" fact that you knew was liable to be nitpicked a defense against the ensuing nitpicking?
Well, there were plenty of news reports throughout 2006 detailing Obama's preparations to run for President. Folks here aren't seriously suggesting that Obama just decided in January 2007 to run for President, are they? Joe K. may have slightly misstated the chronology, but it is clear that Obama was weighing a Presidential run from virtually the start of his Senate term, and committed to doing so early on.
Inherent in calling someone a "liar" is a belief there was an intentional effort to mislead rather than a simple error being made. I thought Obama announced for president after his first year in the Senate, but it turns out it was after his second. Since that extra year doesn't change the original point one iota, it wouldn't have made sense for me to have "lied" about it. (And as I've said about three times in the last hour, everyone — except, apparently, 'Weekly Journalist' — knew Obama was running for president long before his formal announcement.)
In the future, I'll stick to saying Obama announced for president "after 20 minutes in the Senate," although the pedants will likely object to that, too.
Change "announced for" to "decided to run for" in #3083 and I think your defense against the pedants is much stronger - in fact "Obama decided to run for President after 20 minutes in the Senate" is even stronger, because it's so obviously hyperbolic and "decided to" is unknowable so irrefutable. And yes, I'm intentionally being pedantic in a pedantic discussion - I'm trying for irony.
You should have seen the day-long argument some jerk had with McCoy a week ago Saturday. They've already bronzed that one and put it in the Painful Internet Discussions Hall of Fame.
And yet, the media elected not to "crush" their joke candidacies. Instead, it devoted massive amounts of time, space and analysis in non-incredulous, chin-stroking consideration of Trump's and Cain's important roles in the 2012 GOP race.
Treating back-to-back Hanna-Barbera candidacies as something real suggests rather strongly that Joe K's premise -- that the media would have "crushed" a Republican for stepping forward with Senator Obama's timecard and resume -- is a shaky one. It's the standard "the media would be out to get us, because they always are" scarytale that all partisans tell themselves at bedtime.
And it's not much of a calling card for the forged-by-iron experience of the career legislator Paul Ryan that he's sponsored two bills that became law in 14 years (arrow tax, post office renaming), while Obama sponsored two bills that became law in 3 years (Congo relief, post office renaming).
The media did so at the expense of the legit GOP candidates.
No, see reply above. Also, right-wingers don't need to imagine that the media is overwhelmingly liberal when they're kind enough to admit it. (I'm sure people will bash the MRC link, but I'm also sure they won't have links to refute the data presented.)
There was one legit GOP candidate, and he's about to be nominated. Every knew that. The media was absolutely desperate for a second candidate, as was the party's right-wing base, but none ever emerged.
The entire population of the UK owes CNN an enormous debt of gratitude for removing Morgan from their TV screens.
USA! USA!
Seriously, is this argument really about whether Obama was running for president in 2005 or 2007? Who in the #### cares? He got 69,456,897 people to vote for him once he decided to run, and I'd think that his opponents here would be more concerned with November of 2012 rather than whining like girlie girls about the Big Bad Mean Old Media.
--------------------------------------------------
Obama at first was treated a bit lightly; he got credibility by winning. If he came in third in Iowa, or if he made some awful foreign policy gaffe, he would have been treated as a joke.
Exactly. The media are completely impartial when it comes to one track narratives about losers. (See Carter, J., Dukakis, M., and Kerry, J.) And if Romney loses this time, he'll be the new Michael Dukakis and Ryan will be the centerfold in Ann Coulter's Christian Playgirl magazine. When it comes to football or presidential elections, Al Davis had it right.
Threatening to shoot people in the face was one thing, but this type of blatant sexism is really beyond the pale.
Threatening to shoot people in the face was one thing, but this type of blatant sexism is really beyond the pale.
Well, if the bra fits, you can't acquit.
Have you heard the one about issuing a writ of arrest for Chief Justice Taney? Murphy did a great SNL riff on it in 1985. Beyond the simpering praise of the historians, Lincoln is a goldmine of gallows humor.
Stuff like this is why I like BTF. Huxley is one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century, and then those same genes cranked out a grandson who became one of humanity's greatest geniuses. You can't write this stuff.
I'll echo PF's #3074 here. If your purpose at this point is not to be taken seriously, keep it up.
The media did so at the expense of the legit GOP candidates.
Jesus, we are brilliant.
That was kind of you, Lassus. You could have responded by posting pictures of Gordon Gekko and John Galt for Ray to ruin his sheets on, but that would've been small.
PF was responding to Joe, and you are responding to Ray.
Understood when written. Sentiment is equal.
"Experience" is a perfect legitimate line of attack, but hardly against a sitting President - John McCain tried it when it had a point, it failed (picking Caribou Barbie didn't help).
I'd much rather giggle at the irony of Joe complaining that Obama hasn't been in government long enough only a few pages after bemoaning people who spend their entire lives in government.
Not quite. The Croswell case wasn't prosecuted using A&S but rather New York State law. And it's worth noting that Jefferson based his opposition to A&S not on freedom of speech grounds but rather on States rights.
Jefferson certainly approved of the prosecution but didn't (couldn't) order it.
My recollection from a Hamilton biography differs, but it's been a while (and a Hamilton biographer isn't likely to be charitable to Jefferson, too, I guess)... Wasn't Aaron Burr's treason charge predicated under one of the A&S Acts (under one of the provisions that didn't have a sunset)? I suppose Burr by that point had pretty much shown himself to be a scoundrel - but on the matter of civil liberties, it's actually a bit like the whole al-Awlaki imbroglio, no? Of course - Burr was charged rather than killed, and then acquitted.
Interestingly I think Lincoln was about a century ahead of the SC on freedom of speech. In his correspondence you can see him working through things until he reaches something close to what would later be called, "Clear and present danger" (as you can see in his discussions of the Vallandigham case, where he concedes that Vallandigham can't be prosecuted for personal insults or for opposing the war. Only for taking actions that will affect the prosecution of the war)
Took him a long time to make his standards clear to commanders in the field (he wrote a lot of "please don't do that again" letters to commanders) and would always back his commanders publicly regardless of what he felt (and wrote) privately.
Especially considering that the only non-government job that Paul Ryan has ever held in his adult life was driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
The data may indicate that Obama had been in the Senate 2 years, but...
The endless charges of hypocrisy and double standards regarding the left that JK levels in the face of this is truly beyond me. If on nothing else, I'd like to hear a comment from him here.
There's no point in trying to talk to stupid. Plonk.
The endless charges of hypocrisy against the left that JK levels in the face of this is truly beyond me. If on nothing else, I'd like to hear a comment from him here.
In fairness to Ryan, that Wienermobile experience probably produced more net social benefit to the world than the 30 months Romney spent in France doing the Mormons' version of community organiing.
The actual quote was that it was easy to "forget how often the hypocrite goes from state to state of public fame, under false array, and how often, when men obtain the last object of their wishes, they change from that which they seemed to be; that men, the most zealous reverers of the people's rights, have, when placed on the highest seat of power, become their most deadly oppressors." (and he notably refrained from actually naming Jefferson)
Of course this applies to Hamilton in that while in power he actually supported A&S prosecutions and only when out of power did he decide that truth could be a viable defense against libel.
As for Burr, No the charge had nothing to do with A&S. Just a run of the mill attempt to start a war with Spain, grab a bunch of Spanish territory (plus some that was arguably American) and create a new nation. With a side order of conspiracy with the British. Acquitted on the grounds that conspiracy without actions is not a crime (at least according to Marshall)
An "army" of about 200 was planning to attempt the capture of New Orleans at the time of Burr's arrest (about 30 miles from New Orleans). They had a much larger force assembled in Ohio, but the governor of Ohio had the base raided and only one boat got away.
Aaron Burr: The Original Libertarian Seasteader
I'm aware of this Crosby, I never claimed it was consistent or even logical. The vehicle behind this is, I'm still trying to rationalize whether the question is answerable to begin with. Somedays I don't give a #### and move on, other days I feel like I have a "belief". For someone that doesn't spend a lot of time conversing with other people about religions, deities, the question(s), or spirituality; I sure can spend a lot of my time thinking and internalizing about the subject.
The "if you're agnostic about god(s) why aren't you agnostic about magic leprachaun poop" is a false equivalency.
Ferguson may be no "fool" but he is frequently truth impaired.
Basically he is a liar.
and I'm not going to call someone a liar for saying that Ryan was in Congress for 13 more years than Obama, when it was really only 12 years (IOW Joe K. was essentially correct on his little point there that everyone jumped on)
Ferguson lies, not about the "little things" not about small details that don't impact the actual point.
to be fair, I think he was trying to say how much worse Ted Kennedy and someone who may or may not be a wife beater are/were.
Besides someone's got to defend Akins and it seems that none of the usual suspects have the heart to do it
:-)
No, he was trying to deflect the shitstain off of Akin because it was detrimental to GOP brand identity in an election year. Joe's first reaction to a politician of his preference ranting incoherently about "legitimate rape" was to think "how can I make this bad for the Democrats." That's a pure, lizard brain partisan with no higher moral reasoning about his person. You don't discuss and debate with reptiles. You bash them with the flat side of a shovel.
I would like to spend more time talking with other people about this stuff, but most discussions tend to degenerate quickly. The reason I make such a big deal about language is because people view (in fact, some in this very thread) agnosticism as some sort of "middle ground" or "moderate" position, when it's answering an entirely different question. Someone shouldn't say "I'm an agnostic, not an atheist, because I don't know whether God exists or not"; it's a nonsense response.
There's no middle ground on belief. Either you have a positive belief (in which case you're some kind of theist), or you lack a positive belief (in which case you're an atheist). We're all born atheists, and we stay atheists until, for whatever reason, some of us accept a positive belief.
What would you call the positive belief that there cannot be any gods? Most people use the term "atheism" for that and "agnosticism" for lacking a positive belief (which is incorrect, but very common).
This seems like the sort of assumption believers would find to be more than a little bit of an affrontery.
False. You are simply substituting your preferred definition of atheism for a far more flexible term.
Theism - the positive belief in some sort of deity/power/etc
Atheism (soft) - the lack of any such positive belief
Atheism (hard) - the positive belief in the absences of some sort of deity/power/etc
Agnosticism - the epistemilogical position that knowledge of answers to the theist/atheist question are beyond human cognition
There are lots of ways to shake drinks with those basic mixers, but your position that it's a binary is simply wrong.
This is just an article of faith on your part. You have no idea whatsoever if humanity is born with an inherent belief or disbelief in supernatural entities. Considering the willingness of children to believe in monsters and magic until it's trained out of them I'd suspect that the exact opposite of your statement here is true - that we are all born theists of some sort, most likely exuberant pantheists of some sort, until we are categorically trained by dogma and tradition to limit our beliefs to more acceptable realms of theisms and truthifying, or until such time as we decide to believe in disbelief instead.
Why does that matter? We could frame the question in such a way that the unicorn, magical teapot, or flying spaghetti monster is a creative external force, and people wouldn't suddenly say "now I have to consider that more carefully." You're creating a distinction that doesn't really exist.
Does the question really change in kind if someone asks "Are you agnostic about Zeus?" or "Are you agnostic about Xenu?"
The "if you're agnostic about god(s) why aren't you agnostic about magic leprachaun poop" is a false equivalency.
I would say it is a perfect equivalency (assuming that magic leprechaun poop has some qualities that make it impossible to detect). Anything you define as unverifiable is something you should be agnostic about; that's what it means not to know. Do you think it's possible to prove or disprove magic leprechaun poop? If the answer is no, you're agnostic.
"There cannot be any gods" is a position that is "not agnostic" and "athiest." (You lack belief in a god, and you believe that the question is answerable.)
Atheism (soft) - the lack of any such positive belief
Atheism (hard) - the positive belief in the absences of some sort of deity/power/etc
These are the same beliefs. Lacking belief in something is functionally identical to believing that it does not exist. There's nothing between "exists" and "doesn't exist."
This is just an article of faith on your part. You have no idea whatsoever if humanity is born with an inherent belief or disbelief in supernatural entities.
To the extent that the question is knowable at all, I do have an idea. We're born without any beliefs at all; we develop beliefs over time through our experiences. Is the letter C more aesthetically pleasing than the letter E? It's very unlikely that you've ever bothered to consider the question; prior to that moment, you lack belief.
We could, and the only purpose in that sort of framing would be a rhetorical trick to put the opposition to your preferred position on the defense by defining their beliefs as silly and childlike from the start. It's argumentative schtick, not argumentative heft. The proper answer to the question of external causalities is to consider the role of faith versus knowledge in human cognition (for the record, your apparent position that only knowledge is worthwhile is categorically wrong.) This is the correct response whether your frame your question with intellectual honesty (i.e. basic respect for the other side's position) or if you frame it with pre-existing spin (decrying the mere possibility that anyone would believe such as magical unicorn poo.)
I think your phrasing here where the question is "prove or disprove" gives away your position and the entire game of your rhetoric, from the start. Theosophy isn't about proofs. We're not doing science here.
Um.... No.
You seem to be arguing to a theory of blank slate humanity at birth. I believe this is contrary to basic neuroscience, and regardless, peripheral to the larger scope of the debate at hand. If all of humanity is born carte blanc, but then immediately and universally begins develop in a manner consistent with theism (the belief in powers above and beyond what are seen), then the common language position to take is that humanity is born believing in higher powers.
This is the one bullet point every believer's argument has had in common in their varied discussions with me regarding my atheism.
Jersey Shore is very populare. It's still wrong.
Someone should call PETA on you
In [3148] you claim there is a categorical difference between belief in random imaginary things (unicorns, magical leprechaun poop) and belief in a deity(deities) yet here you seem to be claiming they are the same thing.
Belief in things unseen, and in forces unknown but real, is a fact of human existence from such time as humans begin squawking noises back out at the world. My distaste for the "teapot of magic in orbit around Uranus" is two fold: first, it assumes that the assertion of a thing in the world, randomly in orbit around a distant star is the same as belief in things unseen (and external to the world), which is false; second, it is a cheap rhetorical trick used by impatient and disingenuous interlocuters to pre-spin the debate against the "silly, childlike" position of belief - basically a hidden attempt to beg the question.
Which is always a snoozefest of an argument... I had always thought the silver linings of the deaths of Kennedy and Byrd would be an end to questions of policy responses being some variation of 'Chappaquiddick' or 'Robert Byrd was in the KKK', but alas...
I think policy discussions are interesting. I think historical discussions are interesting. I think discussions of character - both current and historical - can be interesting, if often more salacious than insightful.
However, the mashup of those three is just lazy deflection and pretty damn boring, to boot.
That doesn't answer my question though(EDIT:I didn't pose a direct question but I believe you understood my post to be one). You are now equating "belief in things unseen, and in forces unknown but real" with theism. I still don't see the two as the same thing and wouldn't say that humans are born theistic.
Note, I probably wouldn't say humans are born atheistic either, rather that at birth we lack the cognitive ability to even understand the argument at all. This goes for young children as well. In as much as they may be theistic it's no different than their belief in "monsters and magic" as you put it.
It will never end until everyone now alive who remembers that Robert Byrd was a clan member (and that therefore Dems are the real racists) are dead and buried
I would argue that this is a perfectly good definition of theism. The question at hand is "is there more to life than this." The operative disagreement, theologically speaking, is the narratives built to describe and prescribe the "something more."
Ok, but then who decides what qualifies as "cheap rhetorical trick" and what qualifies as legitimate theistic belief of "something more to life"? Let's say with regard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
New religious formations sprout up regularly, bringing with them a complex array of practices and beliefs, community relationships and personal ethics. They also often sound kind of silly, at first. The "Flying Spaghetti Monster" is not of this type, it is a joke made up in order to be funny (it's funny sometimes!) and in order to win arguments on the internet (it rarely does!).
Of course Chappaquiddick (and particularly the way he handled it) should diminish Kennedy in anyone's eyes, for many reasons. The question is whether or not his entire life should be defined by it, not that you're necessarily doing that here.
Says you, heretic.
Yes, I do basically think his entire life should have been defined by it. I think it should have shadowed him everywhere he went. I think he should have stepped down from government - not run for president - and gone off quietly to live in obscurity somewhere.
If I had done what he did I'd live the rest of my life in shame. But he apparently had no shame.
I don't know.
My take on it was that he was probably drunk (or stoned), and delayed telling the police in order to sober up.
Remember Gary Condit?
He as it turns out had nothing to do with his GF's disappearance and murder, but of course his political career was definitively over just the same- not because he was essentially caught cheating on his wife, but because he displayed himself to be a soul-less snake- he just could not care less whether or not this girl he'd been sleeping with was alive or dead- his career mattered to him, he mattered to him, absolutely nothing else- it's rare for such a textbook sociopath to be outed without actually doing anything criminal himself.
There are conflicting reports on Ted Kennedy's actions and state of mind during and after the incident- some people say he was frantic and distraught, some people said that the next morning he was acting as though nothing happened, there are reports that he had a concussion... No film exists, anyone can draw their own conclusions at this point...
I'm not sure what t make, but my take has always been that, Chappaquiddick notwithstanding, Teddy, as flawed as he was, was actually a better person - a more well meaning person than either JFK* or RFK.
*I mean seriously, JFK has been lionized because he was murdered, but really he was a mash-up of the worst characteristics of Bill Clinton (sex addict, lack of impulse control, hedonist) and Mitt Romney (no true core political beliefs whatsoever)
This applies to a scarily high number of politicians and political pundits.
Yes, I do basically think his entire life should have been defined by it. I think it should have shadowed him everywhere he went. I think he should have stepped down from government - not run for president - and gone off quietly to live in obscurity somewhere.
If I had done what he did I'd live the rest of my life in shame. But he apparently had no shame.
That's harsh, but it's a position I can certainly respect, as long as you're willing to apply the same admonition to anyone else who's done comparable or worse things. I'm not asking you to give me examples, I'm only making a general point, but the question is what level of transgression does a politician (or businessman, or ballplayer, or...) have to commit before you start giving him that same advice?
Not that I'm defending Ted -- but the thing is, we don't really know what happened... beyond the fact that we know Kennedy had been drinking, we know he drove into a pond, and we know that as a result of that - a woman died.
Everything else is really conjecture. I've never driven into a pond, but I have been in a car crash (on a deserted country road) - and I had a hard time piecing together what happened in the hour or two between hitting a tree and running into a cop who got me medical attention.
I'm not defending Kennedy's actions by any means -- at minimum, I feel pretty safe in saying he shouldn't have been driving. Of course, the laws and society concerning DUIs was pretty different in 1969. I likewise feel pretty confidant that Ted/others at the party spent at least some of their response time viewing the accident through the lens of what it meant for the Kennedy's and Ted's own career.
I can add that up and absolutely agree with the 'shame on him'.
However, this all happened 4 years before I was born and the one time that I'd have had an opportunity to vote for Kennedy (living in the midwest), I was 8.
For better or worse, my judgment of Ted Kennedy the politician is limited to the policies he championed, most of which I agree with. I'd say the same of Byrd and his skeletons. I'd actually say the same of Strom Thurmond and HIS skeletons.
Few politicians have any real shame - you really can't if you're going to go into politics - the only 'shame' I've ever seen ANY politician face was when the situation became so untenable he was cooked anyway.
I don't think I'd have ever voted for Kennedy, but as a liberal Democrat - sure, I appreciate many of his legislative achievements and likewise agree with many of the things he pushed for. I don't think that's treating him like a deity - that's just simple practicality.
*I mean seriously, JFK has been lionized because he was murdered, but really he was a mash-up of the worst characteristics of Bill Clinton (sex addict, lack of impulse control, hedonist) and Mitt Romney (no true core political beliefs whatsoever)
Funny how something like the above can be completely true and yet be overridden by other substantive considerations. But then as has always been pointed out, there are very few non-Type A personalities who reach the pinnacles of public life, and Type A personalities aren't generally known for their self-denial or lack of sense of entitlement. There probably haven't been but two or three presidents (Truman and Carter, and maybe Obama) since Herbert Hoover who didn't cheat on their wives at some point, and in the cases of Carter and Obama that might just be an uninformed inference on my part.
You wish! We still occasionally have arguments about Lee Atwater and he's been dead for 20 years.
Outside of this tangential conversation (which I'm not suggesting shouldn't be happening), the question at hand in these circumstances is not how the Chappaquiddick incident should have impacted Ted Kennedy's life or career. It's never brought up as a point of honest discussion re: Kennedy's biography. Rather, it is always a sort of invocation by which jackasses like Joe call up the ghosts of Chappaquiddick in an attempt to condemn all Democrats from historical inception to the present second with the stain of Kennedy's action there, and it's more or less universally deployed as a tactic to defer attention from some current GOP atrocity by waving the red flag red herring of DEAD GIRL IN KENNEDY'S CAR as a distraction piece.
Reference to Atwater is near universally made as his historically well-established "southern strategy" and openly acknowledge race-baiting are still prevalent in the GOP today, Dan.
The idea that "polite society" isn't about power, and that a scion of the Kennedy family would be written out of it for something as simple as a dead peasant girl, is quaint if painfully naive.
Sure - like I said, those discussions can be interesting.
It's the merging of those arguments... Like - if I said Medicare vouchers were an awful, evil policy because Lee Atwater was an amoral #########, and as a consequence, all Republicans are amoral ##########; witness Strom Thurmond raping a maid to produce a child...
I've got no problem discussing Kennedy's failings as a human being - I just think it's completely bogus to use those failing as 1)some sword in a policy fight, 2)some proxy for other discussions.
It's funny being called "stupid" by someone who not only massively misrepresents the dialogue to which he objects, but also makes a second-grade grammar error in his diatribe. But then again, intelligence and self-awareness are to Sam Hutcheson as beauty and elegance are to Roseanne Barr.
***
So you're willing to give Teddy Kennedy every benefit of the doubt because he championed some causes of which you approve, but some unknown GOP candidate says something dumb, and it's a total outrage that should end not only his Senate candidacy but also his political career. As I said earlier, that's the very definition of a double standard.
I await the stern lecture from Sam Hutcheson deriding you for being a shameless "lizard brain partisan" hack.
So then change the question to "are you agnostic about Zeus?" or "are you agnostic about Xenu?" or "are you agnostic about Christ?"
The proper answer to the question of external causalities is to consider the role of faith versus knowledge in human cognition (for the record, your apparent position that only knowledge is worthwhile is categorically wrong.)
I'm not speaking of "worth," but of proof. There are quite a few aspects of the human condition that are spectacular and wonderful that have nothing to do with knowledge. I cannot prove that the Beatles produced objectively great music, but I certainly believe it. I cannot prove that my dog loves me, but I certainly believe it.
I've specifically separated belief and knowledge; the two often coincide but often do not.
This is the correct response whether your frame your question with intellectual honesty (i.e. basic respect for the other side's position) or if you frame it with pre-existing spin (decrying the mere possibility that anyone would believe such as magical unicorn poo.)
I'm not sure we're viewing respect the same way. I would say that the respect an opposing position demands is the assumption that it is argued in good faith. It is a common and reasonable tactic in argumentation to show the same chain of logic leading to an absurd result in a different situation; it can be used to mock the other position but it need not be.
When I was 18 and angry, I did indeed use those sorts of hypotheticals as weapons rather than as rhetorical tools, but they still have a legitimate use without meaning to offend. I'm happy to avoid unicorns and leprechauns and the flying spaghetti monster, but I think Zeus and Xenu still need to be addressed. (My good faith belief is that they're all equally ridiculous.)
Carter I am confident about, because I'm pretty sure that if that self righteous blowhard had cheated on his wife he'd publicly confess and whip himself over it.
That long? And if I recall those were not actually "arguments" but rather DMN's own peculiar brand of reality denialism
This is an error of technologically obsessed modernity. Knowledge is a form of belief, not a separate thing from belief.
Zeus and Xenu are narrative attempts by humanity to explain that which exceeds and engulfs them, to the best of their abilities. Zeus is a better narrative formulation than Xenu, IMHO. Another narrative formulation are the flavors of Abrahamic monotheism. Another narrative formulation is the presumption that only repeatably observable causality as pre- and described by the scientific method is worthy of "belief."
I think the question "is there more to life than this?" has a pretty certain answer of yes. You don't need any sort of theology to get there.
If you're looking to define god as nothing more than "the gaps in our understanding of the universe," then we're just using different words to describe the same thing. If you're looking to define god as a conscious force that intervenes in the material world, I think you're starting to answer different sorts of questions.
That wasn't addressed to me, but I want to state for the record that the last thing in the world I'd want to do would be to force Tom Akins out of his Senate race. Let the Missouri voters decide in November whether they want him to represent them.
Your record of missing the point remains unblemished!
To the best of my knowledge, Ted Kennedy never championed any law changes that allowed for one get-out-jail free card, never supported any bill that allows for drunk driving... and I do know for a fact nothing of the sort has ever been in any Democratic platform or legislative agenda.
Todd Akin, on the other hand, didn't just "say something stupid" - he was expressing a view that is likely shared by many among the SoCon base that are his biggest supporters. The FRC has backed him up. Mike Huckabee has backed him up. And here's another key distinction - you can check the GOP platform, but their 'culture of life' LIKEWISE carries no 'rape' exclusion. The GOP VP candidate had less than two years co-sponsored legislation that sought to change the Hyde amendment's language from "rape" to "forcible rape".
Do you see the distinction?
Even if you don't consider these things equally ridiculous, I think it reasonable to consider them equally viable. I don't see any reason Christ, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, Moses, Vishnu, Xenu, Zeus, Odin, Ancient Aliens, a universe with consciousness of own or whatever is a much better choice than the other in a cosmological sense. I can definitely see the appeal of some over others as system of beliefs or morality, but that is separate from the creation aspect of the story. Jesus can definitely be an appealing model even if he's not the actual son of the God.
Part of the point is that you're doing a form of theology while arguing vehemently that you're against theology.
I, personally, prefer less and less constrictive narratives. I can abide less and less people who claim to know what they do not know. This is true of Christians, Muslims and rabid, brutal materialist atheists dancing beneath their gods of scientific process.
I hope this makes it pas teh flip, but what about Carter has been "self-righteous blowhard" worthy? I honestly am unaware.
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