Dispelling the usual nonsense about the Galileo affair.....

[calitennis127]

I think that I actually invoked the principal of equal justice as a work-in-progress, based on the founding ideals.

"America" was never understood to be any kind of idealistic beacon to mankind, except to imbalanced and raging Northeastern Puritans who you would not agree with on a single issue, Moxie.

This country was not founded as an experiment, or a democracy, or a plaything for socialist intellectuals. It was created as an assortment of sovereign political communities signing to a federal pact for very mundane purposes, with the powers of the federal government clearly restrained.

The "founding fathers" were classically educated, and therefore had a contempt for democracy. This notion that "America" is eternally striving for a Soviet-like end-all-and-be-all purpose is derived from Massachusetts Puritanism of the 17th century as well as the French Revolution.

I know a lot about our early history, and it, for all of its flaws, has been about a continual striving for fairness and equality.

In nothing like the sense which you imagine it.

Equality? Ha! I can only chuckle.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the University of Virginia should admit merely 12 students per year, basically all scholarly prodigies, who already were proficient in Latin and Greek. He also spoke of an "aristocracy of talent" in the human race. Both of these stances completely contradict modern prating about "equality" or "fairness". Jefferson was no egalitarian.

Thinking Socratically, are you trying to say that, because we have, in the past, been so unfair that we should be so in our future?

What I mean by "thinking Socratically" is thinking in terms of universal definitions. You clearly think that the United States was, essentially, founded on abstract universal ideals that match your political views. I am asking for you to provide evidence, knowing full well that you cannot do so.

That does not describe the trajectory of this country.

Like what? A president offering to the Southern states in his 1861 First Inaugural Address an amendment to the Constitution that would disallow slavery from ever being eliminated, only for that same individual to be credited with political re-inventing the nation?

Nor does it comply with the Socratic, which was to open the mind and enlighten, not close the mind.

Socrates pestered Meno about his inability to find a solid definition, and hence (in Chesterton's words), to close his mind on something solid after opening it.

If you're stuck in the 19th C., I doubt that Socrates would have been impressed.

My mind is not at all stuck in the 19th century, but yours is stuck in the early 21st. And, intellectually speaking, I have no doubt that Socrates would have preferred the 19th!

 

[Moxie]

There are still some good courses in Classics scattered throughout major universities, but they are optional and they are marginalized. In the past, Classics was an active tradition handed down from authority to carry on a civilization. Students were forced to learn Latin and Greek, whether they wanted to or not. To be considered well-educated, you could not merely have a degree in one of 500 majors. You had to be acquainted with the ancient world's languages, literature, history, and philosophy.

This Classical tradition has been one of the key lifebloods of Western achievement. It is no coincidence at all that Newton, Shakespeare, Einstein, Galileo, Jefferson, Darwin, and many others learned Latin and were classically educated.

Starting after World War II, leftist educators in the West targeted Classics, branding it as fuel for Western ethnocentrism, racism, and imperialism. Gradually over time, high school students were no longer forced to learn Latin, let alone Greek. And now we have gotten to the point where at major universities, there may be just one or two small Attic Greek courses taken by a total of 15 to 20 people (many amateurs) out of up to 40,000.

Jefferson would be appalled.

You should read Alfred Jay Nock's great work "The Theory of Education in the United States". It will spell a lot of this out to you. It is readily available online.

I would say it's the extreme right, these days that's trying to limit the perimeters of solid foundational education. Creationism? And Texas being the last word on what text books put forward, because they have the power of the purse?

The leftist educators in America (starting with the likes of John Dewey) dumbed down education in America and destroyed standards. The vast majority of what goes on at universities is a complete waste of time and money. Professors curve scores constantly, there is no emphasis on grammar whatsoever, people are just funneled through in diploma mills.

In times past, nuns would smack kids for not doing their homework. Nowadays, collective failure is rewarded. If 400 people in a mega-class get an average of 55% on a final exam, it is all curved up so that everyone can pass the course.

To focus on the frankly minor issue of evolution being taught in the state of Texas as some kind of huge educational concern is silly, in light of the immense educational disaster created by anti-Christian leftists in America. I am a Catholic and I also believe in evolution. It took me all of 5 minutes to understand the concept of evolution and I was never troubled by it. Nor was Charles Darwin, a theist himself. On the other hand, billions and billions of dollars are poured into our public education system in the U.S. with precious little return.

If we had a classically educated elite class, no one would have been so obtuse as to call for "spreading democracy" in the Middle East, as both Republicans and Democrats did in the early 2000s. Merely suggesting such a thing in classically educated circles would draw puzzled looks and amused smiles. And somehow you are more concerned with an utterly trivial debate over evolution in Texas, as opposed to the rotten educational standards at Harvard and Yale which result in the U.S. government killing thousands of innocent people in careless wars?

Please. Get your priorities straight.

As to the rest of it, your argument is typically and passive-aggressively all over the place. I don't buy your argument that the diminution of Classical education in the US is down to leftist educators. I'd say it was more ill-served by conservatives cutting education funding, which always ended in cutting out languages, art and music, especially, and in early education, where it is fundamental. The fact that we are surely educating to testing is a travesty, and we agree on that, and also on the loss of emphasis on a classical, foundational education, but I don't agree you can put that on the left.

If you think the fact that Texas basically controls how textbooks get written in this country is not an issue, then you are the one that needs to get your priorities straight, my friend. It's not as simplistic as evolution. It's about one state controlling the educational conversation. You care about the loss of the classics? Care about that. I got an excellent education at the University of Texas, (in my own opinion,) but the Texas state legislature is not what I'd like to see controlling how text books get written for the whole country.

 

[calitennis127]

Here are some quotes for everyone to ponder.....

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...so great is my veneration of the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens in their country and respectful members of society." - John Adams

"My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising....It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day....It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue." - John Quincy Adams

And from George Washington's Farewell Address of 1796:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."



So much for the founders being advocates of gay marriage and a single particular definition of "equal justice", huh?

I guess they just hadn't read Richard "I am more than just a scientist" Dawkins.

 

[Moxie]

^ "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -- Thomas Jefferson

Our founding fathers were creatures of the conventions of their time, but they signed their names/committed their lives to the document which starts with this principal. That you read into either your quotes or mine, Cali, as a denial of gay rights or equal justice under the law I find a small minded and agenda-driven reading. I especially don't know how you keep denying "equal justice" with a straight face. Remember, no matter how Christian their personal beliefs and how much they expressed them, the country was founded on a notion of religious freedom, and those personal views have no bearing on how the country was meant to be run.

 

[calitennis127]

^ "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -- Thomas Jefferson

Our founding fathers were creatures of the conventions of their time, but they signed their names/committed their lives to the document which starts with this principal. That you read into either your quotes or mine, Cali, as a denial of gay rights or equal justice under the law I find a small minded and agenda-driven reading. I especially don't know how you keep denying "equal justice" with a straight face. Remember, no matter how Christian their personal beliefs and how much they expressed them, the country was founded on a notion of religious freedom, and those personal views have no bearing on how the country was meant to be run.

The quotes above from John Adams and George Washington were explicitly about the desirable public effects of religion. For God's sake, Washington's quote is from his farewell address. These ideas were absolutely intended to impact how the country was run.

Everyone - Christian and non-Christian - knows that the Bible condemns homosexuality. If both John and John Quincy held it in such high regard, do you think they would have been proponents of gay marriage?

Furthermore, my point about equal justice is going completely over your head. I am saying that you simplistically believe that your own conception of what that means is, in fact, what "equal justice" must mean. My argument all along is that standing on its own, it is a vague concept, and it will mean many different things to different people.

Under Islamic shariah law in Saudi Arabia, "equal justice" could mean that two homosexuals - even if one is rich and one is poor - each should be lashed 200 hundred times in the public square. Now can you tell them that they are misconstruing the concept of "equal justice"? And on what grounds?

 

[Moxie]

^ The Bible is two large documents that hold conflicting views about a lot of things. The Old Testament condemns homosexuality (the much-quoted Leviticus,) the New only in Paul, never Jesus. But let's not get into the other things that the Bible proscribes against or condones, which most of us all wholly ignore, good Christians in the lot, (such as not mixing meat and dairy, eating shellfish, beating your wife, divorce, etc.) I don't personally care what folks like the early Adams' and the other founding fathers might have condoned. I know what they aspired to, for the country. Their smaller 18th C. aspirations are not where we should finally rest our own. What they conceived this country as is much in keeping with where we are, and in that sense we could image they'd be proud. (And I have as much right as you do to assume what they'd have wanted as you do.)

You're trying to hard to stretch "equal justice" into something more vague than it is, because it does your argument in. It's not at all a vague concept. It's very specific, and gets argued in the Supreme Court all the time, where it wins. (Brown v. Board of Education, Loving v. Virginia, etc.) That we are not there yet does not mean we don't strive for it. Everything in our history proves that it is our goal.

I can't actually believe that you brought in Shariah law, since that would be the equivalent of the Bible being the only law of the land here, rather than a non-theology based civil law, which we are supposed to be governed by. I'm assuming that you would find shariah law abhorrent here, and so is a really desperate reach as an example in your argument.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

A Jefferson quote :
"“Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”

Also , as president, Adams signed the famous Treaty of Tripoli, which simply stated, “[T]he government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion….”

Another Jefferson gem, to Adams “And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

Madison wrote "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. "

Madison also said "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." He must have agreed with me about religion and wars.

Thomas Paine said "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."

I know he was not a founding father, but he was an important figure just the same . Adams said of him " "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."

Of Course, Paine also said "The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense."



Needless to say, none of the people quoted above would be able to be elected to any office today in the USA.

 

[calitennis127]

LOL.....I got some nice little information for tented and Moxie to "like". I doubt they will like Thomas Jefferson much after this.

Mr. Jefferson believed that the punishment for sodomy should be dismemberment of a limb. He placed sodomy in the same class as rape. In a 1781 bill, he wrote the following:

“Crimes whose punishment goes to LIMB. 1. Rape 2. Sodomy } Dismemberment.”

I guess Jefferson was just a stupid Neanderthal. If only he had the cultivation and wisdom of Barney Frank, Michelle Obama, Anthony Weiner, and Susan Rice.

Now - here is the real question. Would Jefferson have snapped photos of his male parts and put them on Twitter if he was alive today? Doing so would certainly qualify him to be a proponent of "gay marriage".

 

[calitennis127]

Also , as president, Adams signed the famous Treaty of Tripoli, which simply stated, “[T]he government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion….”

Indeed, the Federal government of the United States was not founded on explicitly Christian principles and the most famous national figures of the "founding" generation were not devout Christians. They were Deists and freemasons. It is a mistake for the Christian right to try to make it sound like the USA was founded as a militant Christian national state. It was not.

However, all of that misses the point. The Federal government was nothing more than a pact between states which had absolute sovereignty. The individual states could set up state religions, and some of them did. Individual states were free to be theocracies if they wished. The idea of the federal government was to not impose a single Christian denomination's belief on everyone, since there were multiple Christian groups in the USA. The Constitution was basically just an agreement between competing sects to leave each other alone in their own areas.

Learn your history folks.

 

[calitennis127]

I have never seen any evidence, archaeological or otherwise about how you can turn water into wine, how you can survive 3 days in the belly of a whale, or how a snake can talk or how kangaroos made the roughly 7 thousand mile trip to noah's ark . Care to explain the evidences you speak of?

Sure.

In 1896 a seven-foot slab of black granite (or "stela") with hieroglyphic inscriptions was found inside a temple in Thebes. It has been dated to 1209/1208 B.C. by archaeologists. The stela's inscriptions boast of the pharaoh's conquest of Libya and various peoples including the Israelites.

This finding proved that the Israeli people really existed and that they were known in Egypt. This was an answer to Biblical skeptics who doubted whether the Israelites even existed as a distinct people.

 

[calitennis127]

***news flash***
David Nalbandian has read this thread and is seriously considering coming out of retirement.

Speaking of Nalbandian, his career would have been much better if he had taken his Catholic religion more seriously. Because of his lax personal attitudes about Catholicism, his soul was never in as crisp and vibrant state as it could have been. This truly undercut him in terms of quality of preparation and handling pressure moments.

It is no coincidence that Del Potro has had a much more accomplished and consistent career than Nalbandian (despite being less talented) while being much more serious about his Catholicism.

 

[Kieran]

Perhaps he preferred his soul to suffer, Cali, you ever think of that? The Martyr Daveed!

 

[brokenshoelace]

***news flash***
David Nalbandian has read this thread and is seriously considering coming out of retirement.

Speaking of Nalbandian, his career would have been much better if he had taken his Catholic religion more seriously. Because of his lax personal attitudes about Catholicism, his soul was never in as crisp and vibrant state as it could have been. This truly undercut him in terms of quality of preparation and handling pressure moments.

:lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz::lolz:

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

***news flash***
David Nalbandian has read this thread and is seriously considering coming out of retirement.

Speaking of Nalbandian, his career would have been much better if he had taken his Catholic religion more seriously. Because of his lax personal attitudes about Catholicism, his soul was never in as crisp and vibrant state as it could have been. This truly undercut him in terms of quality of preparation and handling pressure moments.

It is no coincidence that Del Potro has had a much more accomplished and consistent career than Nalbandian (despite being less talented) while being much more serious about his Catholicism.

And because Delpo takes his Catholicism more seriously, he is rewarded by god with more wrist issues. Lord works in mysterious ways...:snigger:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

I'm looking forward to society not treating me as a psychological/social third world f@ggot anymore when the same sex marriage bill finally comes into law in England and wales..or good old fashioned gay marriage as its called,

its a game changer for me..or hopefully will be, Its good news week.

 

[calitennis127]

***news flash***
David Nalbandian has read this thread and is seriously considering coming out of retirement.

Speaking of Nalbandian, his career would have been much better if he had taken his Catholic religion more seriously. Because of his lax personal attitudes about Catholicism, his soul was never in as crisp and vibrant state as it could have been. This truly undercut him in terms of quality of preparation and handling pressure moments.

It is no coincidence that Del Potro has had a much more accomplished and consistent career than Nalbandian (despite being less talented) while being much more serious about his Catholicism.

And because Delpo takes his Catholicism more seriously, he is rewarded by god with more wrist issues. Lord works in mysterious ways...:snigger:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing

That's not the point. As always, you have to be shallow about things.

Delpo has earned almost twice the prize money of Nalbandian's whole career by age 25. Part of this is because the purses have grown at the major events, but it is more so because Del Potro has been far more consistent. And among the reasons that he has been more consistent is simply that he has been a more disciplined person all-around. Nalbandian cut a lot of corners. Well, cutting corners is the difference between winning Indian Wells or losing in the 3rd set tiebreak of the quarters because you hit 74 double faults against Mardy Fish.

And, btw, Nalbandian had a ton of injuries. Not that I think God was punishing him, as a 1972Murat-style Evangelical would. But if you're going to make that stupid argument about Delpo's unfortunate wrist, Inhave to provide that retort.

God does not make Tim Tebow capable or incapable of throwing an accurate sideline pass. But connection to spirituality has a profound impact on people's habits and characters.

As much as I love Nalbandian's game and attitude, Kieran was right that he was in some sense a cad. He did not come to work sharp and primed. He came to work like a modern areligious Westerner all too often - unshaven, sloppy, and unprepared. These are the kinds of people who swallow Richard Dawkins' ideas hook, line, and sinker.

 

[britbox]

Nadal is a non-believer - where does that fit it?

 

[Kieran]

Delpo has earned almost twice the prize money of Nalbandian's whole career by age 25. Part of this is because the purses have grown at the major events, but it is more so because Del Potro has been far more consistent. And among the reasons that he has been more consistent is simply that he has been a more disciplined person all-around. Nalbandian cut a lot of corners. Well, cutting corners is the difference between winning Indian Wells or losing in the 3rd set tiebreak of the quarters because you hit 74 double faults against Mardy Fish.

And, btw, Nalbandian had a ton of injuries. Not that I think God was punishing him, as a 1972Murat-style Evangelical would. But if you're going to make that stupid argument about Delpo's unfortunate wrist, Inhave to provide that retort.

God does not make Tim Tebow capable or incapable of throwing an accurate sideline pass. But connection to spirituality has a profound impact on people's habits and characters.

As much as I love Nalbandian's game and attitude, Kieran was right that he was in some sense a cad. He did not come to work sharp and primed. He came to work like a modern areligious Westerner all too often - unshaven, sloppy, and unprepared. These are the kinds of people who swallow Richard Dawkins' ideas hook, line, and sinker.

Buddy, God is not in the business in making the eye of the needle even smaller for the camel to pass through, ya know what I mean?

 

[nehmeth]

Nadal is a non-believer - where does that fit it?

No idea where it fits.

Just for information though - seems as though he's agnostic:

http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Rafael_Nadal

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

:laydownlaughing
If only Nalby shaved closer, he would have won at least 5 Wimbledons. Add a suit and a tie, you are looking at a couple FOs as well...:snigger

Cali...stop...please...believe whatever you do, cookie monster, tooth fairy, zeus...just stop, because I am at work and I can't stop laughing and people are looking at me funny.:laydownlaughing:laydownlaughing