God and Country

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

What a beautifully delivered ugly truth!

Here sits a man. A man who can cast a ballot that can determine the path of action for millions, potentially billions (since he may cast a vote that directly impacts another nation) and he thinks humans might be but 5000 years old! Disagraceful. No wonder our congress does nothing and has a lower approval rating than King George did in 1775.

"It could have possibly been that"

Well, in a sense anything is possible. I might be a three legged giraffe using googletalk to translate and post my thoughts. But teapot on mars and all. (although, I'll admit, if Curiosity can find a teapot on Mars, that would be about the damned best thing I could imagine)

Now I'll be generous. I'll admit that God is a matter of faith, and not knowledge. It is not science, when we believe or disbelieve in God. Science doesn't have sway in theology; but theology must not overstep into science either!!

God is about faith. Faith, because we cannot know.

Kant showed this. Kant was a believer. He made room for faith; but he also showed that we cannot KNOW if God exists. You can merely have faith.

So go, have your faith. But don't use your faith to impede on the running of the country! Our laws are not secular laws--but they ought be! We have legal code that denies entry into govt positions due to lack of faith. We have national days of prayer. We put God on our money, for God's sake!

Keep your faith in your closet, as a wise Jew advised.

And let's start talking about that IQ test for senators....

Comments

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

Of course, then there's the Babel fish... :)

It's frightening that the people running our country know so little and care even less. How are they supposed to make sound, informed decisions? Oh, yeah, they listen to the person with the biggest campaign contribution.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Do you mean to tell me that you do not believe in the Babel fish? Shock! Horror! Have you no fear for your mortal soul???

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Such is the risk of democracy.

The downside to letting the mob has a say is that the mob gets to have a say.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Interesting thought.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Pratchett knows it right, yo (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/423162.html#cutid3)!

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Plato was right?

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Kant was wrong. All of the so-called empirical sides of his antinomies are faulty. The existence of an omnipotent being is provable.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The existence of an omnipotent being is provable.

Scientifically?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

How would one go about such a proof?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Pinky stop going near that laptop....

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually it's not provable. Such a being's actions would be empirically detectable, there is no such empirical evidence on a cosmic, a terrestrial, a geological, or a personal scale.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

All things are provable.

Some things have more evidence than others, though, so we can say they are, for all intents and purposes, proven. ;)

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

If an omnipotent being existed, it would have eliminated me years ago.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> Science doesn't have sway in theology; but theology must not overstep into science either!!

This really is an impossible state of affairs. Gould's idea of Non-overlapping magisteria is just the truce of the moment in a society where Authority is shifting from pole to pole.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Lets start talking about that IQ test for senators...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Oops. I replied (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1519673.html?thread=122492729#t122492729) in the wrong place.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly crude, when I see sentiments like this expressed, at the one hand I agree with them, at the other hand the way they're expressed gives me the same knee-jerk reaction as any other poorly stated excuse for Ad Hominem instead of an argument. Creationism is bunk, people imposing it against the will of SCOTUS have no respect for the established law of the land. There are ways to say this that are 1) comprehensible, and 2) not coming across as a chimp flinging shit. This is not that.

And what's more, focusing on this kind of statement as opposed to witch-hunts aimed at a non-existent Islamist threat and the attempts to end-run the SCOTUS on matters like sodomy laws and opposing critical thinking is more revealing, as it's another instance of shallow criticism where the actual faults are far deeper.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And no, the critical thinking statement is not an exaggeration:

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/no-comment-necessary-texas-gops-2012-platform-opposes-teaching-critical-thinking-skills/

The Texas GOP refuses to change this part of their platform, and this is what the "most successful" GOP state party considers an ideal goal. See, if you want to claim the GOP is incapable of participating in civilized, rational discourse, just let it hang itself with *this* insanity. Not to mention IRA-funding terrorist-lovers persecuting Muslims.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

It's alright to be crude when you have Godzilla urinating in your userpic

...

Hey that's totally what it looks like!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

You should reread The Best and the Brightest. High IQ actually doesn't mean you'll make the right decisions. In fact, knowing you are the smartest person in the room can easily lead you to double down on bad ideas that you don't even recognize as bad, since they are your own and you are so damn smart.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Nobody suggested that having a high IQ means you'll make the right decision.

Having a painfully LOW IQ, however, does mean you'll often make the wrong decision since you are incapable of using logic and reason properly.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

If its no one's business what gays do in the bedroom, why should it matter what a person believes?

How is discriminating against or criticizing gays for their sexual orientation different from discriminating against or criticizing religious believers for their religious orientation?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

When gays start passing laws restricting the rights and choices of religious people, get back to me.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I do not think that we need an IQ test. All that we need is a basic literacy test. Here are some sample question:

1) The tree of knowledge of good and evil is
a) An apple tree
b) A persimmon tree
c) A pear tree
d) A metaphor for a philosophical construct

2) The residents of Sodom were
a) Homosexual lovers
b) Advocates of marriage equality
c) People who want to allow homosexuals to serve in the military
d) Brutal thugs with a passion to abuse visitors from out of town

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

You have obviously learned nothing about formatting multiple choice tests.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Don't be so reactionary and fascist about it.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Jonah Goldberg argues that fascists are progressive, not reactionary. That is how reactionary he is.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

As an aside, who would administer said IQ test for senators, and wht guarantee would there be that it wouldn't be used as a political weapon?

I would require basic understanding of Calculus and Newtonian physics to be included on that test along with the Bayesian inference and it's application to statistics which would of course disqualify many progressive viewpoints.

Likewise how would you prevent candidates from cheating?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly. I am the standard by which these things should be judged. Anyone who knows less than me, well they can't vote.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

He said it could have been, later in the interview, he said evolution was feasible. He really doesn't sound like he wants to be pinned down on anything... except that IQ tests aren't a job requirement.

He is a Senator and has gotten a JD and passed the bar, I'm willing to give him the benefit fo the doubt that he'd do just fine on an IQ test. It could be that he just wasn't taking an interview with Bill Mahr very seriously and simply let his guard down more than he should have. He's certainly a very religious fellow but I'm not seeing where it really affects his voting. He may talk like a fundamentalist but he votes like a centrist.