Irwin Schiff is a tax protestor who will probably spend the rest of his days in prison. It looks like he is going to fulfill the promise of his video Secrets of Living A Income Tax Free Life by not making any money behind bars.
Schiff and other such zero tax prophets offers an alternative reality more akin to a religious or poltical cult than to investment advice. You see this in Schiff's web site and also in his insanity defense, Schiff makes the claim that he suffers from a mental disease or defect and exhibits symptoms of chronic severe delusional disorder. He further contends that he has chronic acute bipolar disorder, depression and a delusional personality disorder. Within the 400 pages of exhibits to support his plea of insanity were affidavits even one from one of his own attorneys stating: "When confronted with contradictions in his conclusions, Schiff either ignores the challenge or moves on to new exhortations of what the law is and his omniscient 'expertise' on the meaning of income, taxable income, the court's applying the wrong standard, banking and/or money... Schiff's belief system appears to be completely circular: within that system Schiff is right, the government and the courts are wrong and he remains impervious to rational discussion...My attempts at rational discussions with Mr. Schiff have been more difficult than any...Stints of incarceration for years, IRS levies for hundreds of thousands of dollars, substantial sanctions and fines imposed by (1) the Second Circuit for bringing frivolous appeals and (2) the United States Tax Court for presenting groundless and frivolous arguments demonstrate that Schiff's belief system is impervious to negative feed back. Schiff's expectation seems to be that someday the federal courts will experience an epiphany and acknowlege that he has been right all along."
His main argument that paying taxes are "illegal" stems from his views that paying taxes is voluntary as the federal income tax is not authorized by the constitution's taxing clauses. Unfortunately for Schiff, judges and juries have rejected his theory, as we see in this news relase from Febrary 24, 2006.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Longtime tax protestor Irwin Schiff was sentenced in federal district court in Las Vegas to total of 163 months in prison—151 months for tax fraud and an additional 12 months for contempt of court—the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today. In addition, Schiff was ordered to pay more than $4.2 million in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release..
In October 2005, Schiff was convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States, aiding and assisting in the preparation of false income tax returns, filing his own false tax returns, and evading the payment of millions of dollars in back taxes owed. This marks the third time Schiff has been convicted for committing federal tax offenses. Schiff previously has spent more than four years in jail for his tax crimes. Two associates of Schiff, Cynthia Neun and Lawrence Cohen, were also convicted of aiding and assisting other taxpayers in the filing of false tax returns. On February 3, 2006, Cohen was sentenced to 33 months in prison. Neun was sentenced yesterday to 68 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution..
“Last October, a jury of his peers found Mr. Schiff guilty of serious tax crimes related not only to his own tax evasion, but also to his encouraging and enabling others to file false returns. The prison sentence handed down today reflects the seriousness of those crimes,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “The Department of Justice is working vigorously to vindicate the interests of law- abiding Americans who file returns and pay the taxes the law requires.”
Keeping tax records and paying taxes isn't easy nor fun, but it is necessary, the price we pay for our civilization. There are ways to legally mitigate paying taxes, and I make it a practice each year to order Publication 17 to school myself on new tax laws. But the answer isn't to follow such tax protesting hapless Pied Pipers as Irwin Schiff.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (KJV) If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
This verse is a good example of why I'm skeptical of interpreting the Bible by a literal reading of the plain text. Such an approach leads to ethically dubious conclusions, in my opinion, including such doctrines as the flat earth, polygamy, and infant damnation. How then should we interpret the Bible? Here are some of my principles:
1. I'm suspicious of anything that isn't explicitly stated in the Bible. It doesn't mean that such doctrines are not true. It just means I apply a higher level of questioning before I can accept them. These include, for example, the doctrine of the rapture and trinity-- two words that don't appear in the Bible.
2. The more difficult the doctrine is to understand, the less important it is. It doesn't mean that it isn't true. Just that it isn't all that important. Fundamental truth is fundamentally simple.
3. I minimize Bible teachings about things that are in the distant past (such as Genesis) or in in the future (The Revelations). It's hard enough to deal with the "now" than to get worked up about events that have happened or will happen. I prefer to focus on things that I can change or that changes me.
4. I interpet the Bible through my understanding of the character of Jesus, whom I view as the supreme ethical model and as someone who would not stone anyone.
I've recently being transferring hours of 8 mm videos to CDs of the last fifteen years.
What memories!
Parties, trips, the changing seasons, homes, holidays, school, babies, swimming, restaurants, pets, vacations, and also people that have left us-- these priceless images are all now stored in digits.
A few of the videos have deteriorated. The limit on vidoes is about fifteen years, so I expected that, although I was disappointed to lose those memories.
I think it is only going to be a matter of time before someone puts up a bounty to harass O'Reilly and his swarmy side kick Jesse Watters with YouTube ambush postings.
Some people may do this for free as a public service.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz tries to make the case that torture is acceptable in Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge.
In Salon.com, he defends his notion that single nail extraction can save America in a ticking bomb scenerio.
Probably the most controversial chapter in your book is about torture. A lot of people will be surprised to learn that in certain situations you believe that nonlethal torture might be necessary.
It might be necessary. I hope it isn't necessary. But if we ever had the ticking bomb case -- somebody who we believed had plans with others who were out free to blow up a major city or plant a nuclear bomb -- there's no question that the Americans would do everything they have to do to prevent it.
Any reason why you use needles under the fingernails as your torture method of choice?
A reviewer criticized me for that. I purposely wanted to do that. I don't want to be vague. I wanted to come up with a tactic that can't possibly cause permanent physical harm but is excruciatingly painful. I agree with the reviewer; he's right when he said, "different strokes for different folks." For different people, different kinds of nonlethal torture might be more effective. Obviously, to the experts, having seen the movie "Marathon Man," drilling the tooth might be better than some. But the point I wanted to make is that torture is not being used as a way of producing death. It's been used as a way of simply causing excruciating pain.
Aren't there other forms of torture that would be less painful than that, that you might have considered?
But I want more painful. I want maximal pain, minimum lethality. You don't want it to be permanent, you don't want someone to be walking with a limp, but you want to cause the most excruciating, intense, immediate pain. Now, I didn't want to write about testicles, but that's what a lot of people use. I also wanted to be explicit because I didn't want to be squeamish about it. People have asked me whether I would do the torturing and my answer is, yes, I would if I thought it could save a city from being blown up.
But you believe in torture only for the ticking bomb terrorist scenario?
Only for the ticking bomb terrorist -- if the threat is immediate, clear and mega.
And you're advocating that we have warrants for this?
Some accountability. It needn't be a warrant. It can be judicial or legislative. Something that brings it up and makes sure that the American public sees how it works. It's not just done beneath the radar screen.
Regardless, there's a serious slippery slope here.
The slippery slope is that you're making a statement that there's no absolute right not to be tortured. My whole life has been devoted to trying to prove to my civil libertarian absolutist friends that there is no such thing as absolute rights, at all, period. I don't believe that there's any right that's absolute. Torture has always been used hypothetically as the example to prove it; [the legal theorist] Jeremy Bentham was the first to make that argument in the late 18th century, arguing that if you need to use torture to stop torture, it would be permissible.
I'll put aside the moral arguments that torture is unacceptable. There are practical reasons why we should never torture, even in a doomsday scenerio that Dershowitz envisions.
First, torture doesn't produce reliable information. We can prove this by working over this ivory tower theoretician and his pudgy comrade in arms John Yoo with metallic devices that are found in any office. In no time, they will be squealing allegiance to any number of treasons. But the question still remains: Is anything they said true? Conversely, there are people who will never break no matter how much torture is inflicted.
There must be ways to get information without violating a person's human rights, especially when that person may be innocent. Isn't that the point of trial by jury?
Secondly, the use of torture invites retaliation-- enemy torture to captured US civilians and soldiers.
Thirdly, our use of torture acts as a recruiter for more terrorists by radicalizing those who may be on-the-fence.
Finally, how can we trust anyone to show restraint in who is to be selected to be tortured and the torture that is the be inflicted?
The use of violence to extract what might seem like important information may be psychologically satisfying. But, as a practical matter, it can cause more harm than good and may even cause no good at all.
Good and evil is a state of mind and nothing more or less.
Are the effects of good and evil-- from rain drops on roses to the holocaust-- a state of mind and nothing else? If so, that would take solipsism to another level-- that all reality is subjective with the exception of my own mind. May I suggest that good and evil are not states of mind but states of behavior, and that we can calibrate almost with mathematical exactitude that morality with reference to our own humanity-- that we with all other humans share commonalities, such as parents, lifespans, blood, and bones. None of this are states of mind. And, if they are real, we must infer that the consequences of acting on human in certain ways that are either desirable or undesirable are also real.
With the braying of 328 yahoos — members of the House of Representatives who voted for retroactive and punitive use of the tax code to confiscate the legal earnings of a small, unpopular group — still reverberating, the Obama administration yesterday invited private-sector investors to become business partners with the capricious and increasingly anti-constitutional government. This latest plan to unfreeze the financial system came almost half a year after Congress shoveled $700 billion into the Troubled Assets Relief Program, $325 billion of which has been spent without purchasing any toxic assets. Jefferson warned that "great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities." But Democrats, who trace their party's pedigree to Jefferson, are contemplating using "reconciliation" — a legislative maneuver abused by both parties to severely truncate debate and limit the minority's right to resist — to impose vast and controversial changes on the 17 percent of the economy that is health care. When the Congressional Budget Office announced that the president's budget underestimates by $2.3 trillion the likely deficits over the next decade, his budget director, Peter Orszag, said: All long-range budget forecasts are notoriously unreliable — so rely on ours.
This is but a partial list of recent lawlessness, situational constitutionalism and institutional derangement. Such political malfeasance is pertinent to the financial meltdown as the administration, desperately seeking confidence, tries to stabilize the economy by vastly enlarging government's role in it.
From the New York Times, March 22nd book review of Wars, Guns, and Votes.
A professor of economics at Oxford, Paul Collier examines the governments of what, in an earlier book, he callef the "bottom billion" -- the world's 58 most impoverished countries. He undertakes this daunting task by summerizing an array of sophisticated economic and social science research, all in a folksy, accessible style. For those who want statistical chapter and verse, he refers readers to his web site.
I have a grumba-da-zippy. Because I think I have a grumba-da-zippy, it exists to me. I can't prove it, you can't disprove it. Rationality has nothing to do with it because I think it doesn't make sense to you - and by my definition rationality can only deal with things that makes sense to US. What my grumba-da-zippy does is not an issue, and it does nothing. It just sits there and fidgets.
OK, you folks on this thread are having too much fun. :-D
But let me suggest an argument or two to balance out the stalwart agnosticism on this thread. I'll accept the Wiki definition for the soul: "In many religions and parts of philosophy, the soul is the immaterial part of a person. It is usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and personality, and can be synonymous with the spirit, mind or self.[1] In theology, the soul is often believed to live on after the person’s death, and some religions posit that God creates souls. In some cultures, non-human living things, and sometimes inanimate objects are said to have souls, a belief known as animism.[2]"
(BTW, on the last point, National Geographic last night had an interesting documentary on the Stonehenge, speculating that the animists that built it believed that souls inhabited the stones. Thus, to the question, can a carrot have a soul: some animists would say: yes.) There are in my view three arguments for the existence of the soul:
1. The persistence and prevelance of belief that there is a soul-- something distinct from bodily mechanics-- through all recorded time and in almost every culture.
Obviously, the mere existence of belief no matter how universal doesn't equate to the existence of its reality. However, on prima facie grounds, this strikes me as compelling and the counter-arguments (genetic basis for supersitions, fear of death, reverence for ancestors, self-ego, and so on) are not knock-out punches to the doctrine of the soul.
2. The conservation of energy premise that mental energy is neither is neither created nor lost in a closed system.
Of course, whether the energy that makes up my personality and emotions persists after my death as a recognized entity is another matter is more a matter of theology (reincarnation, heaven) or fantasy and folklore (ghosts and the weird).
3. The final argument relates to our inability to clearly define the human mind. The analogy of the human brain to a computer seems to fall apart on analysis as we cannot model states of cognition and consciousness mechnically, such as dread, jealousy, greed, affection, ambition, and numinous, to name a few. While it is possible that increased increased research in cybernetics and robiotics may fill in these gaps, I think it is more likely that we will never replicate what the human mind can do.
Can a machine have a soul? I don't see how as everything we see from that machine (toast from a toaster or calculations of pi from a computer) are nothing more or less than the operations of machine itself. We don't have that same kind of certitude about the processing of the human mind. It's a reasonable scientific premsie, but it is far from settled fact.
My own view is that the soul can exist in humans and higher animals, but it need not exist. It is a quality like joy not an essence like blood. And it is largely an imputed quality and dependent on its nurturing community. For example, a puppy in a neurotic family will absorb those neurotic qualities and will generally become a neurotic dog. A puppy in a fun-loving family will become fun-loving. That neurosis or playfulness is the soul of the dog. This is why generations of cats and dogs within the same human family often have the same disposition. On the other hand, a feral dog may not have a soul at all-- it will do nothing more and nothing elss what a feral dog will do to survive.
Webster says ‘Cabal—artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united to bring about an overturn or usurpation in public affairs—plot’. Quickie from wiki: “The banking cabal refers to a conspiracy theory regarding collusion between bankers, financiers, and other associated individuals of extreme wealth to manipulate the strings of commerce, politics, and media in order to serve their common interests. The primary source of their money and power is described as the use of fractional reserve banking and fiat money to surreptitiously steal wealth from the rest of society via inflation of the money supply and by levying interest on sovereign debt.” I claim that many of the leaders of CA (Corporate America) have been involved as a cabal in America for at least two decades. This cabal has been and is presently plotting and accomplishing to create a public policy in America that best suites their self-interest. The present financial melt down has resulted from this plot and has resulted principally as a result of that segment of this cabal that control the American and worldwide financial aspects of the world economy.
My response.
An example to support the affirmative is the relationship of Lawrence Summers, Obama's chief economic advisor, to the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, which was involved in using currency derivatives because of the deregulation of those derivatives that he facilitated under the Clinton administration. It is these derivatives that has created toxic assets that have poisoned our over-leveraged financial institutions.
Limbaugh is a 'Conservative', not a republican and if anything a centrist in the Conservative vain.
Please help me to understand.
How is Limbaugh a conservative? He cannot be a social conservative with his divorces, drug abuse, and indifference to organized religion.
He cannot be an economic conservative as he was in the amen corner with George Bush for the last eight years.
I struggle to comprehend how he can be a centrist on anything either ideologically or in terms of his disposition.
Limbaugh as well as O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter has found a lucrative marketing niche that has made them money by being a nay sayer to all things Democratic. But even the most generous estimate of their following-- rightist radio, cable, and columnists-- must be less than 30 million people-- and that isn't enough to win a national election. So what you now have is a confluence of interests. It's in the interest of Limbaugh to have their following. But it also is in the interest of the Democratic Party for them to have their following. So long as these loud know-nothings embody the Republican Party, the Democratic Party will thrive. While it is true that these folks have riled up the base, they have also radicalized the vital center of the electorate, causing a decisive shift of electoral votes into the Democratic column. My estimate is 50 net electoral votes. It is especially important that Democrats continue to personify political ideology as the animus toward George Bush and Richard Chaney recedes. Democrats need to run against the straw man of racist, hypocritical, resentful, and rich white Republicans. It is amazing that these so-called conservatives have so artfully created these straw men.
I can visualize Republicans winning several Congressional new seats in 2010 and possibly the electoral votes in 2012. Most counties vote Republican in the first place, while districts are concentrated in three areas...LA, Orange and around SF. With out going through all their referendums, they basically went conservative, emphasized by Prop 8 on same sex marriage rejection and have a very strong history of restricting government over many years. If the economy doen't turn the corner by 2010, you may be right, especially if it looks like Obama's increasing controls on the national economy makes things worse. But you will only be right if the Republicans can offer a pragmatic alternative to Democratic policies. And I don't see that happening so long as they remain fixated on how such peripheral concerns as how gays live their lives Don't you see the inherent contradiction of your own statement: "they went conservative (by rejecting) same sex mariage and ... restricting government."
I predict that this ideological contradiction will keep Democrats in power for several more electoral cycles until the Republicans come to their senses and start giving us leaders who can solve real problems.
Here is how Wikipedia defines liberalism. "Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Within liberalism, there are various streams of thought which compete over the use of the term "liberal" and may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for constitutional liberalism, which encompasses support for: freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual's right to private property, and a transparent system of government."
In other words, it is a world view that was promoted by our founding fathers and is integral in all of our founding documents. The suggestion that liberalism equates to egaliterianism is news to me, and I reject that definition. Rather, the point of liberalism is to take down contrived barriers to advancement so that each individual go rise to their highest level based on merit, not birth, religion wealth, gender, or race. There is nothing antithetical between liberalism and making money or liberalism and honor societies, for example.
Liberalism cannot be related to fascism. It's essence is authoritarianism (the "leadership principle") and the subordination of the individual to the state. "Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist ideology that aims to create a single-party state with a government led by a dictator who seeks national unity and development by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or race."
Nor is there anything antithetical between conservatism and liberalism. These are complementary ideas, although they are caveated with a realistic view of man-- that man, invested as he is with original sin needs to be counterbalanced and restrained by law and institutions, such as the banches of government. It's an insight that escaped those who were responsible for our current conomic crisis. President Obama, hardly a torch-bearer for modern conservatism, in his January 20th address, said "Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths." Liberals recognize that there are indeed good things that are old.
Finally, I offered a source for you, "The Dumbing Down of America." What is straw about that? It contains real facts. There are many, many more sources.
It does have facts. But the organization of those facts is what I question. An alternative collection of facts can give rise to an equally persuasive tome called "The Smarting Up of America", pointing to rising test scores, increasing patents, books published, and Nobel prizes won.
My sense is that you have a point-- Amercians at least under Republican control-- were getting dumber. You see this in the embracing of nativism and creationism and the resistence in using science rather than dogma to guide policy as in ecology, mining, and global warming. Even the cable shows-- Fox in particular but also all the others-- use classic progranda tools-- simple, repeatable images (Reverand Wright waving his arms each night) or messages ("the war on terror") with plenty of gratuitus sex, gore, and gossip thrown in. It's fun to watch but it isn't smart to watch. I used to subscribe to TIME, but it is today a far cry from the magazine that Henry Luce published. It looks and reads more like a comic book today.
Fascism is a national ideology. For the liberals it is egalitarianism. And they want a single party state run by Authoritarians.
You assert, but don't prove. That statement has more to do with your dogma that reality. The last thing liberals want is a stalinoid state. I may be that it is the hard-core Repubilcans who want that. You see that in the intrusion into private decisions, such as the Terry Shiavio case, and in the erosion of personal liberties, such as increased wire-tapping, suppression of First Amendment rights, and the people who have been incarcerated outside of our legal system in Cuba. The trend in the last ten years is to more statism, largely under Republican governance.. You also see this in a way that touches every child in the unfunded mandate of No Child Left Behind, an intrusion by the federal government into local authority if there ever was one.
But all these cases, as well as the one you mentioned about gay marriage and affirmative action are subject to appelate review. You write about respecting the will of the people, but that contradicts your elevation of principle when your principles contradicts the will of the people. And that is why we have a Supreme Court to ultimately sort it all out. We are a nation of law, and there never is any final word on any of these decisions. That liberals would want by fiat to make all of America march to its fascistic drumbeat is utter nonsense.
Look, there will always be extremists of every political hue. But America is a nation of moderates. We are not center/right or center/left. We are a centrist nation. When the country's policy swing too far to one side, as it did in the late sixties, there will be a reaction. Now you are seeing a reaction to the mismanagement of the last few decades of conservatism. And, perhaps in our lifetime, we will see yet one more reaction to liberalsim, although I don't think that will happen any time soon.
I don't disagree with the definition, history does. Do you propose there was no Bakke case and Californians did not vote on the issues I sighted?
You remind me of a Marxist in how you anthromorphize History. "History"-- whoever she is-- makes no such proclamation that liberalism is fascism. That is your assertion, and it is clearly made out of willful ignorence than an understanding of political ideas. I am astounded that you evidently believe that John Locke shares common ideological ground with Joseph Goebbels. Just because you repeat your assertion, that doesn't mean it's any more true.
Yes, I remember the Bakke case of 1978, Effectively, the Supreme Court outlawed inflexible quotas but upheld the legality of affirmative action per se. Speaking as white male, I never had much of a beef with this. And the reason for that is I have tried to be so competent, that I don't allow myself to be in a place where my abilities are equal to the abilities of someone else. In other words, I don't view competition as zero sum-- they succeed and I cannot. It is is merely one more barrier for me to jump and I do so with alacrity. My view is that affirmative action has its strongest justification when it is based on family wealth rather than race or sex, i.e. if you are poor, you should be given preference over those who are rich, certis paribus. If that were the case, Yale would have never admitted former president George Bush. Affirmative action is merely a recognition that white males have benefited from affirmative action for centuries-- admissions and promotions over other people for no other reason than because of an accident of white, male birth.
You use the word "egaliterianism" as a prejorative and are especially resentful to judges who seem to have upset the natural order of things-- as if the natural order of things is a static reality. It seems to me it is you who is naive. Do you really expect the Christians and capitalists to do the right thing when it comes to public policy? Without the courts, we would still have separate and unequal educational facilities for caucasions and negroes and a generation before that we would have had children toiling in work houses and sausages made out of garbage. Often, moral change must be mandated and enforced sometimes with a bayonet (as in the 1957 Brown vs. the Board of Education) over the howls of bigots. If conservatives had their way, there is no doubt that we would still have slavery.
Fascism was created by the nationalization of certain sectors of the revolutionary left, and its central role in its conceptual orientation was played by revolutionary syndicalists who embraced extreme nationalism. The revolutionary "left' by definition are Liberal. They promote change. Linking Liberals of today and fascism is common knowledge.
All politicans promote change, include your conservative heroes.
It is the the linking of Republican conservatism and fascism that is common knowledge. I am reminded of the slogan used by the '70s Symbionese Liberation Army that involved the kidnapping of heiress Patty Heart: "Death to the fascist insect that prays upon the life of the people." The left, as you call them, and increasingly the center has equated Republican policies with fascism. Do I think they are right to do so? No, I do not. I think they are as profoundly ignorant of history and fascism as you are and represents a failure of critical thinking. Fascism, both in Italy and in Germany, stated certain goals to achieve popular support. But those stated goals were not fascism. Fascism in its fully developed form under Adolf Hitler involved the elimination of the civil rights of entire classes of people and the rule of law-- the diametrical opposite of US/UK liberalism. Superficially, there are both conservative elements to fascism (appeals to folk traditions) and liberal elements (restraints on laissez-faire capitalism), but these are not the heart of liberalism or fascism. In any case, I consider the use of the word fascism and its equation with modern day liberal or conservative political thought dishonest and fallacious.
If you are looking for a non-Wiki source to support my contention, may I suggest The Rise and Fallof the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.
Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.
Just read about a professor who, on the first day of his 4th year physics class, advised his students that they will all be getting an A+. Now the professor is fired from the university.
I'm in mid-50s with two teenage children. My sense is that their education is far more rigorous today than it was in my time.
First, you have the No Child Left Behind mandate of standardized testing through grade school and to college.
Secondly, they compete with children not only in their school district but from Asia, Europe, and Africa for slots in universities and good jobs.
Yes, kids today have Spell Check and Google. But school as a whole is tough-- tougher than what I experienced in the mid 1970s. On a case specific basis, there will always be unfair or mediocre teachers. So what? When those kids enter the work force, they will ecnounter unfair and mediocre managers. That's life.
Bright children from all over the world clamor to enter the colleges and universities of our country and they do so for a reason. The same is true with the conservative students of conservative parents. They too fight to be admitted to those so-called bastions of liberalism-- the Ivy League and the Big Ten. They know that such institutions give them the kind of education that they want irrespective of a professor here or there who may lean and little bit to the left of the lecturn. It is not by accident that the United States generates more Nobel Prize winners than any other country. The whole point of education is to teach critical thinking, and if they can only accept what is beautiful and familiar, then perhaps a church school is more to their liking.
As far as awarding students only 'A's, my response again is: so what. Stanford University's MBA program is generally regarded as amonth the best business school in the world, but its grading is pass/fail. The assumption, justified in my view, is that such kids don't need the additional incentive to master the body of knowledge that they are striving to learn.
So the decline of the Grand Old Party has come down to this: a cat fight between two right-wing princesses.
"Defeated Republicans have turned on each other with a debate on the party's future descending into a protracted bout of name-calling and poisonous remarks about the girth of John McCain's daughter."
It is the Battle of the Bulge between the perioxided skeletar spinsters Anne Coulter and Laura Ingraham tag-teaming on one side of the ring and Meghan McCain, the daughter of Senator John McCain, on the other side. We're grateful for this distraction for once again we see the face of Republicanism in all its pettiness.
Issues? The only issue is getting and staying elected and the Republicans have lost their groove. Part of the reason must be the relentless rhetoric of ridicule that passes for analysis from reactionary radio and cable. It's entertaining, and I don't miss a night of watching Hannity or O'Reilly. But it isn't persuasive, because it reinforces our view that the party of Reagan and Buckley as devolved into the party of Limbaugh and Ingraham. This nonsense makes for ratings and it sells books. But it does nothing to win the confidence of the vital center and expand the ranks of conservatives.
Talking heads like Laura and Bill and Anne and Sean strut and fret their tales "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" except the continuing irrelevance of Republicans. And so that's why Laura and her ilk are indeed useful idiots for the Democratic Party.
I joined British Mensa when I was 16 - I became slightly disillusioned after a time with the Committee and the way I thought the organization was going so I dropped out. When I realised that our 8 year old son was gifted, I rekindled my membership mainly to see what sort of support was available for him. They have a Gifted and Talented Programme which is quite good but from a UK perspective but beyond that I find there is little which is specifically targeted to gifted childrens needs. Most of their meetings and social events are adult orientated as is their magazine so the value of membership I feel is slightly limited. By far the best organisation I have found is the NAGC - National Association for Gifted Children. They have tons of fact sheets and advice, an excellent magazine and a far better support system designed for children and parents too. Their UK website is www.nagcbritain.org.uk although I'm sure there is a US based one too.
Frank Rich When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth — Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed — are now either dead, retired or disgraced.
An entertaining vivisection of someone who is louder than he knows.
But, as John notes, this is more than entertainment. However, it does amaze me that anyone would take trading advice from Jim and CNBC's 17 hours of broadcast.
A reader says his friend says: "If I find one contradiction in the Bible, I will abandon my faith."
Why does contradiction require the abandonment of faith? The power of religion derives largely from people's capacity to explore aspects of consciousness that are contradictory, mystical, metaphorical, paradoxical, and non-Aristotelian. Many people, including those with rigorous minds, are eager to embrace this aspect of their lives. Perhaps in a sense it brings wholeness and comfort to their lives.
So-called "contradictions" in the Bible can be explained by expanding on the context and by accepting that vast portions of the Bible are poetry not news print.
Let's say you have two verses in the Bible, which I will invent to make the point.
Verse one. "Ten people were in the room." Verse two. "Twenty people were in the room."
Is there a contradiction? Not necesserily, depending on how you contextualize the two verses. Verse one might be a subset of the cohort described in verse two. Verse or or two might be transciptionist errors-- one might be true or they both may be false. Finally, and less trivially, the pastor or rabbi might suggest that the number of people so denoted was irrelevant in context to the thrust of the story. It is the confusion with the concept of "myth"-- denoting not a falsehood, as in "it is a myth that my uncle is a millionare" but in a fable that tries to make a greater point and thus is true for all time, such as the myth of the Three Little Pigs.
The Bible is the most dangerous book in existence, because it is filled with dangerous ideas-- allowing each reader to interpret those ideas as they wish. This was the intuition that informed the church's resistence to allow people to read the Bible, something that did not change until John Wycliffe in 1382 completed his translation directly from the Vulgate into vernacular English.
You got it there. People who believe don't do so logically, they believe. Therefore the said friend is simply deluding himself in the false assertion unto himself that he is being logical, whereas he is not in reality. Contradiction doesn't require the abandonment of faith, but in that case no statement should be made about the cogency of that faith, and if it is indeed interpreted like a poetry or a myth, then I earnestly think that all bible-believers should stop making appeals to it for earthly matters. How would it feel if there were a cult who insisted that we should try to measure our lives with coffee spoons, or wear our trousers rolled? It'd be delusional. Completely delusional. By the way, it is imperative in Islam to wear the trousers in such a way that it doesn't reach lower than one's ankles... but that's another matter :)
From the AP. "Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby."
This is a minor tragedy that means no more than what it is-- the collapse of a relationship between two kids who had a child a decade or so before they were ready. While I don't think much of the politics of Grandmother Palin, I do wish Levi, Bristol, and baby Tripp health, happiness-- and luck. It's a tough way to start their lives, so they will need all the fortune and good will they can get.
FRIENDS: Never ask for food. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Always bring the food.
FRIENDS: Will say 'hello'. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Will give you a big hug and a kiss.
FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Call your parents Mom and Dad.
FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Cry with you.
FRIENDS: Will eat at your dinner table and leave. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Will spend hours there, talking, laughing, and just being together.
FRIENDS: Know a few things about you. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.
FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds' back-ends that left you.
FRIENDS: Would knock on your door. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, 'I'm home!"
FRIENDS: Will visit you in jail. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Will spend the night in jail with you.
FRIENDS: Will visit you in the hospital when you're sick. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Will cut your grass and clean your house... then come spend the night with you in the hospital and cook for you when you come home.
FRIENDS: Have you on speed dial. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Have your number memorized.
FRIENDS: Are for a while. CHICAGO FRIENDS: Are for life.
"We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. "
An atheist would he say he believes there is no god.A believer would he say he believes there is a god.Since there is no firm evidence that there is no deity, atheism is a belief, and a form of faith.The only truly rational position being agnosticism. Correct?
Incorrect. It is true that any kind of a belief system requires a prioris. Your question implies several-- that belief is a form of faith, that rationality relates to one's world view, and that evidence and should inform one's world views. Furthermore, your question implies that there are but three categories of "belief"-- theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Another category also exists, that such categories are themselves meaningless. The term A.J. Ayer used for this was acognosticism.
I have my doubts that people who call themselves atheists or theists can engage is a civil exchange of arguments, because such conversations rarely get past radically different phenomenal/noumenal epistomological presuppositions and god-definitions that shapes subsequent arguments.
"Fact" pertains to the "isness" of life, without regard to our interior world, such as feelings and ideas. It is that part of reality over which we have no control, such as to whom we were born, where we were born, and our individual genetic makeup.
"Acts" is behavior. Axiomatically, behavior drives thoughts. Reinforcing and promoting of good behavior leads to good thoughts. The converse-- that good thoughts leads to good behavior-- is a fool's errand. Thus, parents and teachers expend great effort trying to teach kids the Golden Rule in the hope that they won't bully their playmates. But what they really should be focusing on is learning moments that come out of their children's behavior-- either rewarding good behavior or punishing bad behavior. The last column is entitled "thought". This is both the most interesting and the least significant part of my view of life. It is the most interesting part because it embraces the greatest and most challenging ideas and ideals of humanity, including religion, politics, and art. It is the least significant because excessive rumination in distinction to acts leads to errors and evil.
I was watching a biography last night of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhold Heydrich. He was a Renaissance man-- a gifted musician, highly intelligent, a skilled sportman-- and also an architect of the holocaust. His genocidal impluses flowed out of his inner world informed as it was with anti-semitism and ambition, constrained only by his assassination in Prague. Heydrich's future would have been different if his behavior was shaped at an early age by more positive forces. This is an extreme example, but it is true also wiuth theists and atheists, liberals and conservative, Hindus and Catholics, Republicans and Democrats, Marxists and liberterians. These are but labels put on ideas that do not always flow out of behavior. Rather than debating the labels-- does God exist, for example-- it seems to me it would be much more worthwhile to focus on questions of behavior-- what does it mean to raise truthful children, for example.
Finally, around it all, I have a box, a metaphysical representation of God as the first principle and the ontological ground of all existence. What I haven't included, however, is the implication of two parallel worlds, such as secular and sacred or worldly and spiritual. I see little justification in such dichotomies. Also, there is no implication of a transcendent supreme force or being that orchestrates our behavior, a varient of fatalism that abdicates our role in intentionally molding ethical behavior.
Here is an interesting discussion on nano computers.
"First suggested by Richard Feynman in 1959, the idea of nanotechnology, constructing at the atomic level, is now a major research topic worldwide. Theoreticians have already come up with designs for simple mechanical structures like bearings, hinges, gears and pumps, each made from a few collections of atoms. These currently exist only as computer simulations, and the race is on to fabricate the designs and prove that they can work."
With a nod to today's calender, here is a silly rope jump song.
Three- Six-Nine The goose drank wine The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line The line broke, the monkey got choked And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat
The market continued to erode today on news of continuing weakening of bank stocks and the possibe collapse of GM. The paradox is that Obama's approval rating continues to be high-- more than 60 percent.
My interpretation is that the market continues to be skeptical of a recovery in key sectors of the economy-- especially thge efficacy of government intervention-- while the public generally recognizes that Obama's is doing the best he can to find a solution to inherited problems.
The stock market is the more accurate indicator than polls, as it recognizes the verdict of all players in the market-- and the verdict right now is a thumbs down. While I think it is a mistake to anthromorphize the market, I do believe that it tries to hurt or fool as many people as it can. Stocks will only recover when the floor is reached. The floor will be reached when if last bit of optimisim has been squeezed out of the market and a conensus has been reached that all is gloom and doom. We're not at the place yet.
"Short of giving the boys Action Man models of her own husband smiting the evil forces of neoconservatism, Mrs Obama’s gesture could not have been more solipsistic or more inherently dismissive of Mrs Brown."
I had no idea the Brits were so thin skinned. So much for the stiff upper lip. So much for the empire.
"I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama's double insult - first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. "Tough one. Really tough one," I said, torn - as most of surely are - between delight at seeing Brown roundly humiliated, and dismay at having the special relationship so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured."
If the universe was empty at the beginning, then how could something be created from nothing?
Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to define some terms.
Universe = all that there was and now is. Empty = nothingness, the absence of actuality or potentiality Beginning = the assumed alpha point on a single ribbon of time Created = formed, developed, transformed Something = that which is not nothing
The simplest answer is that all that now is once always existed in some prior form. Concepts such as "beginning" and "now" presuppose the existence of "time". Creation and destruction are nothing more than transformations of that which always has existed, which is energy.
I think your definitions aren't quite as clear-cut as might be imagined. What we usually call "the universe" might be only one of a large, perhaps infinite, number of self-contained universes that make up "the mulitiverse." "Empty" might be confused with "vacuum" which actually is anything but empty. Saying that "beginning" is a point on a single ribbon of time seems to imply that there might be more than one ribbon, which is true, i.e., there might be more than one ribbon. Each universe in a multiverse would have its own ribbon, which raises the question, "beginning of what?" "Created" means "originally formed," not just "formed." How "created" is connected to "transformed" seems less clear. I see no problem with "something." I might add that we are postulating that the multiverse is bounded space, i.e. that it is possible to surround the multiverse in a conceptual globe, donut, or whatever. Contrarywise, it could be that the multiverse is dimensionless and thus non-createable.
No comment yet on the universe definition. The definition of of empty is a little bit ambiguous, maybe we can add: Quote: Empty = nothingness, the absence of actuality or potentiality at least relative to a concerned thing or the thing in question. There can be emptiness in an ongoing actuality, that is the actuality of the observer.
"Beginning = the assumed alpha point on a single ribbon of time Created = formed, developed, transformed." No comment yet. Good points.
"Something = that which is not nothing." This is superficially clear, but internally ambiguous in my opinion. A question arising from this is that how can you tell there is nothing there? Then, what is the basis of that experience where in you concluded 'nothing'? It seems to me that nothingness is a process, and as a process, structurally it shares a common feature with everything. Nothing then is something. So then, there is an extension of something wherein nothing is included. If we consider something to include processes that we can observe, then something is and can only be contrasted to nothingness by its greater comprehension and extension.
With great sadness and emotion I regret to inform you that on March 3, 2009 David Stewart has left this world to join his creator and loving wife Fran Stewart. David passed away in the evening with his loving family Melody (daughter), Melissa, David, Ann (grandchildren) and Randy (nephew) at his side.
I am sure David's genuine grace and goodwill has touched all of you receiving this email, your thoughts and prayers will be heard through Gods power and wisdom in the coming days as we all remember the good man David was to all of us.
Details of the funeral services are underway and will be released via the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper on Wednesday, March 4, 2009. http://www.argusleader.com/obits Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you during this sad time.
Sincerely yours,
Dave Roberts (grandson-in law)
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Sioux Falls - David W. Stewart, 80, of Sioux Falls, died Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at Dougherty Hospice House. David W. Stewart was born April 28, 1928 at Faulkton, South Dakota to Albert O. (A.O.) and Lillian (Wik) Stewart. He lived on the family farm and attended rural schools in the area. He graduated from Cresbard High School in 1946. Following high school, he entered military service in November of 1950, and served in the U.S. Navy. While in the Navy, David served as a Flight Engineer. He received his honorable discharge from the Navy in August of 1954 and returned to the family farm for a short time. He attended the Virginia Farrell School of Cosmetology in Michigan. It was there that he met Fran Attilio. They moved to Sioux Falls where they were married. He and his brother, Gordon Stewart started Stewart Enterprises. David won several awards in artistic hair design. He was also a cosmetology teacher, and spoke to many different organizations. His passions include personal flying for over 30 years, leather tooling, photography, chain saw sculpturing, metal engraving, gun finishing, golf, fishing, dirt biking and artistic woodturning. Above all else, his greatest passion was for his family. He was a devoted father to his daughter, Melody, and spent an inordinate amount of time and energy on the younger members of his family, starting with his nieces and nephews, and extending to all his grandchildren and great grandchildren. He was lovingly called papa by all of his immediate family, including his three grandchildren, Melissa (Mike) McMunigal, David (Julie) Mickelberg, and Ann (Dave) Roberts; and to his seven great grandchildren, Maxwell, Dunnavin and Franne McMunigal, Zoe and Ben Roberts, and Margaret Ann and Peter Mickelberg. David was active in many different organizations including being a very active member of First Baptist Church. He served on the Board of Trustees at the church, of which he was a past chairman. He had also served on the board of the Girl Scouts, Sales and Marketing, South Dakota Cosmetology Association, and the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He was a member of the El Riad Shrine Temple where he served on the Divan and was in the Rickshaw Unit. David was part of the Cosmetology Crediting Inspection Team and the Governor's Education Oversight Committee. He was also a past member of the Optimist Club. Grateful for having shared his life are his daughter, Melody Mickelberg, of Sioux Falls, SD; his three grandchildren and seven great grandchildren; two brothers, Gordon (Dee) Stewart and Roger (Carol) Stewart, both of Sioux Falls; and two sisters, LaVonne Griffith of Sioux Falls, and Betty Fillbach, of Ipswich, SD. He was preceded in death by his parents; and his wife, Fran on September 15, 2008.Memorial services will begin at 2:00 pm Friday at First Baptist Church. Private interment will precede the memorial service at Hills of Rest Memorial Park. The family will be present to greet friends from 5:00 - 7:00 pm Thursday at Miller Funeral Home, Main Avenue location.
The family requests that memorials be directed to the El Riad Shrine Building Fund. For obituary and online registry, please visit www.millerfh.com.
Betty T. O'Shea, nee Caplis, of Chicago, beloved wife of the late James O'Shea, C.F.D.; loving mother of Bonnie Johnson, John, C.P.D./C.F.D. (Kristin), James, C.F.D. (Julia), Marilyn Libaris and Kevin O'Shea, C.F.D.; like a mother to John Murray, C.P.D.; proud Nana of Billy, Aimee, Erik, Michael, Erin, Jimmy, Katie, Michael, Timmy, Kevin, Grace, Patrick, Liam, Ryan and the late Kimberly; great-grandmother of Brendan; fond sister of the late Tom, C.F.D. (late Helen) and late John, C.F.D. (late Gen) Caplis; dear aunt of Mike, G.F.D. (Kathy), Tom, C.F.D. (Joan), Mary Caplis, Betty (Pete, C.F.D.) Lazzara and the late Johnny and Maureen Caplis; great-aunt of Tommy, Danny, Katie and Patrick. Betty is also survived by many cherished and beloved friends. Visitation Friday from 3 until 9 p.m. at The M.J. Suerth Funeral Home, 6754 N. Northwest Highway, Chicago. Funeral Saturday, family and friends meeting at Saint Eugene Church, 7930 W. Foster, Chicago, for Mass at 10 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorials to Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60601 appreciated. Interment All Saints Cemetery. For information, 773-631-1240, 847-823-6540 or www.suerth.com
Here is my contribution to Wikipedia's article on irrationality. It's the last paragraph on the discussion page on the supernatural section.
The section in this article where it says, "belief in the supernatural without evidence" could conflict with religious beliefs, and should either be removed, or reworded. (Not to say that I have any religious views, but others may find it offensive; I don't). Exothermic Reaction (talk) 22:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Now you're being irrational. If "belief in the supernatural without evidence" is irrational, then it should be listed, irrespective of whether it offends those who don't want to see anything that disagrees with their views. Would you say that belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a supernatural entity without evidence, is rational? Don't consider "religious" opinions to be any more sacred than philosophical or political opinions. --131.111.8.96 (talk) 13:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the phrase "belief in the supernatural without evidence" means. The "evidence" is presumably the believer's culture and traditions. "God" or "gods" is a conceptual bucket that contains those values, and if those values have utility to them as they inevitable do have, than I don't think we can call them-- belief in the supernatural-- irrational. They may seem irrational to us, but it doesn't follow that they are irrational to others. That is the problem with FSM-- it's a god-concept detached from culture, values, and tradition and thusly "evidence". It's for this reason I think discussion on the relationship of evidence to theisms is better suited for the atheism page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mymallandnews (talk • contribs) 04:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just finished reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather, about the violence-infested world of the Cosa Nostra in the late 1940s. Vito Corleone is the benevolent despot, a reasonable, responsible and prudent man, a quiet man who never threatens but unleashes waves of terror against those who stand in the way of The Corleone Family. The 1972 movie starring Marlon Brando and directed by Francis Ford Coppola was in my view of the the greatest moves I've seen. But it left some gaps that the book helped fill in, such as the motivation of Michael to return from Sicily after he shot the police capitain. (Someone who was about to be executed anyway took the blame.)
As I read the book, the incipient thought arose about the parallel between cults and amoral familialism. Wikipedia begins its examination of the cults, defining is as "a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding population considers to be outside the mainstream" having both positive ("the cult of beauty") and negative ("the Jim Jones cult") connotations. In relationship to a family and as a pathology, there are many families that are cult-like, in their rituals and traditions, their adoration of strong leaders (usually parents or grandparents), their political extremism, their subordination of individual thought to collective action, their narrowness of beliefs, and their emotional reinforcement of aberrant behaviors and ideas. Michael's sister Connie is portrayed in the movie as hysterical in her confrontation with with Michael's execution of her husband Carlo Rizzi. But, in the book, Connie apologizes to Michael a few days later, claiming she was mistaken and glad to be rid the abusive Carlo-- a good example of the power of the cult of amoral familialism.
Unlike most other cults, family cults come into existence as a function of marriage and birth. Thus, it is much more difficult for someone to leave such groups. And, like the Corleone Family, the nexus of evil grows out of extended family ties rather than the nuclear family, making it even more difficult to leave.
For those of you who do not know, on February 21st, the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association - the main professional body of American philosophers - hosted a kind of debate. I say "kind of debate" because one philosopher gave a paper, the other commented and the first philosopher replied and the floor opened for questions. But in fact the session was a debate.
The debate was between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett. Plantinga is one of the founders of the Society of Christian Philosophers and one of the fathers of the current desecularization of philosophy. He is widely regarded - even by his critics - as one of the finest epistemologists of the last fifty years and one of the finest philosophers of religion since the Medieval period. Daniel Dennett is one of the New Atheists and is a well-known proponent of atheistic Darwinism and critic of religion. He is widely regarded - even by his critics - as one of the most important early philosophers of mind that opened the field to cognitive science and evolutionary biology. He has contributed enormously to the serious study of the mind and its relationship to the brain. Both philosophers are over sixty and perhaps at the height of their philosophical powers. They have also faced off before but, as far as I know, not in person.
Plantinga was the presenter. The session asked the question of whether science and religion were compatible. Plantinga argues that they are and that in fact the scientific theory taken to be most incompatible with religion - evolutionary theory - is not only compatible with Christian theism (the religious view Plantinga defends) but is incompatible with Christian theism's most serious opponent in the scientific world - naturalism. Naturalism is the view that physics and the sciences can give a complete description of reality. Plantinga defines it as the view that there is no God or anything like God.
I was at the talk. It was packed with professional philosophers and graduate students in philosophy, most of whom sided with Dennett. I wrote live comments on the debate/session. I prefer to remain anonymous for various reasons, in particular because I am inclined towards Plantinga's position over Dennett's and were this to become well-known it could damage or destroy my career in analytic philosophy. This is something I prefer not to put my family through. I almost didn't publish these comments at all, but as far as I could tell, this would be the only public record of the discussion.
It is clear that most in the room are naturalists. But the questions were not acrimonious. Dennett was the only one who was mean. I don't know how most people reacted to it. I have to admit that I think Dennett behaved like a serious jerk. I am extremely disappointed in his reply to Plantinga. It is clear that this is a man with serious character defects.
Post-script: It has been about ten minutes since the session ended. I spoke to Peter Van Inwagen about the talk and he said it was an expected performance and that while it was a clash of worldviews, it was an interesting clash in two styles of doing philosophy. Initially, I thought to myself, "Yeah, Plantinga thinks philosophy is about arguments; Dennett thinks it is about stories." But on further reflection I realized that Van Inwagen had a point. Dennett believes that science can tell us many things about metaphysics and epistemology, that we work from science to these positions. Plantinga thinks of these matters rather differently.
On another note, I walked around and listened to various conversations (not eavesdropping really, just listening for loud reactions to the session). The Christian philosophers were particularly interesting. They were not upset, surprised or even moved. They were wholly unphased. They were so unphased that they weren't even discussing the session. I was floored at Dennett's behavior but they reacted as if Dennett's hateful, childish behavior was to be expected. I thought they would be upset, but from what I can tell they simply expected Dennett to compare theistic belief to holocaust denial and to advocate murdering the Almighty. I guess I was wrong to expect more from him. In my estimation, Plantinga won hands down because Dennett savagely mocked Plantinga rather than taking him seriously. Plantinga focused on the argument, and Dennett engaged in ridicule. It is safe to say that Dennett only made himself look bad along with those few nasty naturalists that were snickering at Plantinga. The Christians engaged in no analogous behavior. More engagements like this will only expand the ranks of Christian philosophers and increase the pace of academic philosophy's desecularization.
I ses the role of the parents to be much like an early warning system, our radars ceaselessly sweeping the horizon for incoming ballistic missiles that might knock our children off their feet. One such potent missile is that of drugs.
We attended a seminar today at church on drug trends in Arizona and got a lot of new information. I've included some of the old-school information that we have inculcated into our children from an early age. I was watching an 2001 video recently when our boys were five and three about whether they would take something "if it made them feel kooky" if there friends wanted to take it. No, they both said, but the youngest volunteered that he "liked salad."
Here are some of my notes from this seminar.
1. Heroin is interchangeable with over-the-counter drugs in effect and danger. Dextromethorphan (DXM) is a substance found in cough and cold medications. Slang: DXM, Robo-flipping, Skittles, Tussin, Dex, Red Devils. Side effects include brain damage or death.
2. Be a parent, not a best friend. Fight curiosity, peer pressure, and boredom with facts, understanding,observation, conversation, monitoring, fun, and a vision for their future.
3. Highs in the home include medicine cabinets, office supplies such as whiteout, markers, and Dust Off, the kitchen (air freshners, clearners, aerosols), and the garage (paints, cleaners.)
4. The three most prevalent drugs of abuse are alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. 47 percent of 12th graders have reported drinking in the last 30 days. 47% of Arizona adults think it's OK for youth to drink without parent supervision.
5. Alcohol companies are manufacturing their products to confuse their cans with energy drinks, i.e. Rock Star and Sparks versus Amp and Monster. They are also creating bottles the size of a bottle of nail polish, such as Spykes. Also: Pocket Shots-- plastic bags containing rum, whisky, vodka, tequila, or gin. They are all bad and sometimes deadly for your children.
6. Alcopops-- sweet, sugary alternatives to beer, i.e. Mike's Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice.
7. Tobacco is the number one killer of all drugs out there. It kills more people than AIDs, alcohool, murders, car crashes, fires, suicides, and all drugs combined. A new danger: Third hand smoke-- the residue of smoke in a room where someone once smoked.
8. Salvia-- a Mexican herb-- creates delusions and paranoia. ($10-$100/ounce.)
9. Inhalents are not drugs, but poisons. They kill more first time users than any other substance used as a drug.
10. Purple Drank-- recreational drug popular with the hip-hop culture.
11. Pharm Parties-- go to party and take various pills, usually with alcohol. Skittle parties. Club kids.
12. Morphone Suckers-- Fentanyl.
13. Diversions include hollowed out magic markets, reef flip flops, flasks, water drinks, Hershey mint packs, and magnets.
14. Sudafed is a Pseudoephedrine found in methamphetamine. "Strawberry Quick" and "Yaba"-- flavored meth.
15. PCP - Phenyclidine-- horse or elephant tranquilizer. "Sherms", "Wet".
16. Special K- Ketamine-- cat tranquilizer-- less potyent version of PCP.
17. Ecstasty (MDMA) - Methylenedioxymethamphetamine-- chemical cousin to meth.
18. Marijuana -- most commonly abused illegal drug by teens. More carcinogens than tobacco. "420"
19. Chemical depndency is primary, pervasive, progressive, 100% treatable, 100% fatal, 100% preventable.
Here are some excerpts from my e-bookAn Evening With Your Dad, where I discuss this and many other topics that may someday interest my chidlren.
Smoking Since middle school, I’ve had a strong aversion to tobacco—a well-earned reaction to traveling eight miles each day to Council Rock in a smoke-filled bus. Zach in Mrs. Fleming’s Third Grade class did a science project that asked “Is Smoking Good For You?” He found his answer when Zach determined that two packs of Marlboros each day over twenty years would cost him almost $60,000, excluding interest and health and insurance costs. Zach also found out that the chemicals in tobacco are the same as in rat poison (arsenic) and toilet cleaner (ammonia). Cigarettes, he concluded, is bad for your health and your wealth. When I started work in the early 1980s, co-workers would smoke in their cubicles. Today, your will see them outside the office building in the rain, cold, or the snow—huddled masses yearning to breath free.
Drugs Some conservative have made arguments why certain illegal drugs such as heroin and ecstasy should be made legal—to raise tax money, to reduce prison overcrowding, and to reduce the demand for drugs. On the other hand, countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have no qualms in hanging Americans or Australians who try to smuggle drugs into their country. But the legal aspect is beside the point. The real question is why do some people use drugs and booze to numb themselves? Why seek a false reality that can become your only reality? I don’t want to minimize the pressure of peers, but I know you will have the courage to rebuff them. You will see that friends who make you weaker and dumber are your enemies. College and career is hard enough, and a clear and healthy mind is the edge you need to compete and to excel.
Alcohol Alcohol, like tobacco, is a legal drug, and it’s a drug that can kill. When Zachary was a year old, three teenagers Christina Valzano, 15, Scott Gerfen, 18, and Kevin Eineke, 21, rammed a tree in a Pontiac Trans Am close to where we lived in Lake in the Hills. All were killed bringing tremendous grief to the community. Eineke, who was driving the car 70 miles per hour on a road with a 25 mile per hour limit, had a blood alcohol level at .188, almost double the legal limit.
I’ve never liked alcohol of any kind. During my twenties, alcohol lubricated social life, and people thought you were a blue nose if you didn’t drink. In more recent years, however, there has been a sea change in perception, largely due to the carnage on the roads. I no longer feel embarrassed when I decline a margarita and ask for lemonade. But is there any need to dwell on the toxic power of alcohol? In moderate doses, it disturbs appetite and murders sleep. It makes me think I’m charming when I’m an ass—thereby slandering the name of a perfectly fine animal. It excess, it makes me vomit and extinguishes that dim flicker of reason in my poor mind. Alcohol soon overcomes the strongest man and turns him into a bellowing beast that flails against imaginary enemies. It shipwrecks families and careers, and besots the brain and destroys the liver. I don’t drink for the same reason I don’t use cocaine. All that I have between me and abject failure is a basically average mind and body. And if abstaining from alcohol is one more thing that will keep me from failure, then abstain I will. I don’t view my rejection of alcohol as a moral choice, but as a matter of personal taste and, more importantly, a pragmatic decision that will give me that tiny edge over those with whom I compete.
arising from this is that how can you tell there is nothing there? Then, what is the basis of that experience where in you concluded 'nothing'? It seems to me that nothingness is a process, and as a process, structurally it shares a common feature with everything. Nothing then is something. So then, there is an extension of something wherein nothing is included. If we consider something to include processes that we can observe, then something is and can only be contrasted to nothingness by its greater comprehension and extension. 
