Isn't the text "In God We Trust" on US currency a violation of the constitution as well?

Maybe they can learn something about fusion, that would be nice.

That's a good point Steve. Theism can be used as a political tool by claiming to know the will of God, but deism can not.
This must be part of the reason why deism was so popular in the 18th and 19th century among intellectuals.

I wonder what Harts answer to the problem of evil is, if he can just dismiss it as no big deal so easily.

We should do a DDOS attack on their website, that would be awesome.

"The website with the threat against these guys should be permanently shut down and the people in charge locked up for inciting people to commit violence."
This would not work if the website is hosted in the US which has absolute free speech.
If it's hosted in Europe where hate speech is restricted, then you could have a case.

I'm on the fence when it comes to absolute freedom of speech, don't know if it's a good thing or not.
Maybe someone could convince me one way or the other?

I loved mechanical physics in high school, because I could immediatly see how it would be applied in the real world. When I was sitting on the bus and it took a turn to the left and I would be pushed to the right, I thought of preservation of motion.

Luke_B: I agree with you. I don't think people who came up with this heaven myth quite understood what eternity meant. I would love to be immortal and have a choice as to how long I want to live, but I wouldn't want to be forced to exist forever.

Conversly, I also think that even putting a single person to hell for eternity is the worst possible thing you can do ethically since it is infinite suffering, if I had to choose between killing every human or condemning one person to hell, I would have to choose the former.

LP222, are you a deist, then?

The empire strikes back

"
However, as evidenced here, dochmbi was rather misguided in saying what he did here, where victims may be present. "

Oh, believe me, I would prefer to take it to the forums, if they hadn't been taken down.

Ok I thought about this a bit more and tried to work out what bothered me about this that made me question it in the first place, here's what I came up with:

In cases like this, how exactly do we determine the correct amount of money someone should recieve as compensation? Should it be proportionate to the amount of suffering? Yes, but how do we measure that? Should it be proportionate to the wealth the victim already posesses? Maybe, since a poor man benefits a lot more from the same amount than a rich man would. Should it be proportionate to the wealth of the perpetrator? Maybe, since a rich perp would be harmed less than a poor perp.

It would seem to me that in order for there to be equality and justice, there would have to be satisfying answers to all these questions.
Of course there is never perfect justice, but this one seems more difficult to work out.

*paces around the room attempting critical analysis*
-sidenote- just started out studying philosophy at helsinki university

Nevermind, I was talking bullshit all along. We do have a similar law, just that the amounts are never that great...

Did a bit of googleing. I'm sorry for the dishonesty.

Nope, the perpetrator would not have to pay you, you would get money either from insurance and/or from state pension.

Don't know which system is better though, yours or ours.

Just punish the perpetrator? Isn't that enough in the name of justice? I don't know how it works in other European countries, but at least in Finland you'd never get monetary compensation like that.

If the money does not compensate, then why does he even recieve money in the first place?

"If I give you $1.4 million dollars, will you allow me to molest YOUR child?"

No, of course not. I don't have the right to sacrifice another persons well-being for my own gain.

Ensured financial security for the rest of my life (@ 5% interest, that would amount to 70k per year) vs being emotionally scarred, seems like a very real choice to me. Of course this depends on personal values, not saying this man in particular was lucky.

There's no way in reality I could have this choice, I'm just speaking hypothetically.

I wouldn't mind being abused for that kind of money.

I guess he figured if god existed and he believed, he would have a chance to go to heaven, and if not he wouldn't lose anything :p

I know I know, Pascals wager has been refuted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

Seems like every European country has a hate speech law, but the United States does not. Interesting. I'm not sure which side to take on this issue.
I view freedom as a means to improve well-being, not a value in and of itself (just my opinion), so to me the question is does restricting hate speech have net positive or negative effects?

Also, I was under the impression that the primary reason there are US soldiers in Iraq is not to protect the country, but to further the financial interests of certain people. Are there any books / articles that deal with the ethical aspects of the war on iraq, and whether it is justified or not? Preferably something neutral and objective.

I like the title His Holiness, because it creates a nice irony when combined with this child rape case.

"paedophile

noun
an adult who is sexually attracted to children [syn: pedophile]
"

I would like to note here that this itself is not criminal, nor should it be. Being attracted is one thing, actually going out and harming children is another. Let's not criminalize thoughts.

Even if an adolescent were homosexual, it would not automatically make sexual contact with a priest consentual, so moot point there.

Funny that he mentions philosophy of science, if he would study that he wound find creationism to be false on epistemological grounds.

"These ads also mark the public launch of the Northwest Arkansas Coalition of Reason, which is made up of three area nontheistic (atheist and agnostic) groups."

No love for deists?

Yes, we should teach the controversy in a way, as in teach philosophy in schools so that children can understand the difference between faith and reason and many other important things.

I thought Mitchell Henderson was dead...

Kind of like blaming women for inducing rape.

I have to say one good thing for the man though, I respect his honesty. Democracy would function much better if all politicians were this honest.