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camelot
Barsoom
USA
481 Posts |
 Posted - 05/08/2008 : 23:24:43
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I think all this political correctness stuff started when women were allowed to vote. Before that, at least here in USA, we did not have pollitical correctness. The solution then is obvious.... |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 06/08/2008 : 00:09:58
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"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 06/08/2008 : 10:26:52
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quote:
Originally posted by camelot
I think all this political correctness stuff started when women were allowed to vote. Before that, at least here in USA, we did not have pollitical correctness. The solution then is obvious....
Not too sure about that, Camelot! One very positive thing about the 'state' in which I was born and reared; it was (I believe) the very first state in the world to give women equal voting rights with men -- way back in the 1800s. (It's also, of course, the driest state in the driest continent -- could that have been a reason?). Is 'political correctness' as old as that?
We do seem to have strayed from 'religious loonies'. |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 08/08/2008 : 15:01:10
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No place is safe from the 'loonies'; I have just received some notes from a cousin (living in Canada) who recently visited Mongolia of all places. The info came my way probably because of the reference to a one-time hero of mine (Zhukov) -- but led into the Mormons moving in there, as well ...... others among you might be interested (?!):
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Daveb
Earthsea
2823 Posts |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 19/08/2008 : 21:27:08
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| Good grief, self flagellation is stupid at its best but forcing children to do so is beyond the pale! |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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BLONDIE
Barsoom
491 Posts |
Posted - 20/08/2008 : 13:56:35
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"BARREL DISTORTION" at its very best. What was the camera used?
I must remember NOT to buy one. |
Edited by - BLONDIE on 20/08/2008 13:57:57 |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 25/08/2008 : 15:14:16
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The same old theme re-appears -- the fraudulent "born again" Christian pastor, supposedly suffering with terminal cancer, appearing on TV with all the tubes sticking out of his nostrils as the hospital allegedly attempts to keep him alive for a little while longer, caught out -- and freely confessing it's all to do with his obsessive pornography. (Visit some of the local "born again" churches in Brighton; there is no shortage of public display of similar psychopathic symptoms!). This time, from my own home town, the "city of churches" -- when the (then) relatively newly formed Jehovah's Witnesses split in two, a hundred years ago, its no surprise the breakaways set themselves up in Adelaide (as did the Seventh Day Adventists and Christadelphians .....)
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24236206-2682,00.html
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Daveb
Earthsea
2823 Posts |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 23:19:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Daveb
Rather topical at the moment.
One of your friends Anubis?
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/letters/argusletters/3642991.Secular_approach/
Certainly NOT, Daveb. What an absurd statement:
"Only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing.”
Especially in any scientific field, we know so little -- the aim of education is to help students learn how to explore areas as yet unknown, to hypothesize and test their "guesses". A teacher who claims "to know" his subject (except at a very superficial level) has little to offer the proper student. Darwin was the classic example ... as he himself often said, the findings that interested him most were those that DID NOT SUPPORT his current assumptions/beliefs..... |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 23:35:09
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| I thought the statement that "Darwin's theory of evolution is an established scientific fact" was rather a beaut myself |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Daveb
Earthsea
2823 Posts |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 16:28:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Daveb
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/sep/11/creationism.education?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Some of you may find this interesting.
Interesting? Maybe, but just in the final paragraphs, as insight into the different ways different individuals use language:
"Reiss also criticised Prof Richard Dawkins' argument that labelling children as belonging to a particular religion amounted to child abuse. Dawkins has written that, "To slap a label on a child at birth – to announce, in advance … an infant's opinions on the cosmos and creation, on life and afterlives, on sexual ethics, abortion and euthanasia – is a form of mental child abuse.
Reiss said he understood Dawkins' point, but said: "This is an inappropriate and insulting use of the phrase child abuse as anybody who has ever worked – as incidentally I have over many years with children who have been either sexually or physically abused – knows."
Obviously there is 'abuse' and 'abuse' -- sexual, physical, intellectual etc., etc.
An interesting point, but perhaps to understand what Dickie Dawkins is saying, one needs understand WHEN a person becomes a member of a (Christian) congregation. Many congregations, insist you only become a 'member' of their church when you are 'baptised' by personal choice; others, as the (Roman) Catholics argue, say you "join" the church when you are born. This differing in how congregation 'members' are counted makes numerical comparisons difficult, as any researcher in this area will confirm.
It seems reasonable to argue that to declare a one month old child is 'Catholic' is to intellectually abuse the child? Just an opinion -- not something worthy of too much argumentation ......
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 18:12:34
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| Maybe ... I personally feel that using 'abuse' as a way of describing this tendency to categorise pre-verbal children is not only demeaning the very real physical, sexual and emotional abuse that occurs but also leads to misidentification of the real dangers inherent within this type of pigeon-holing. Children will always be influenced by the choices made within their families; that is only natural. However to prematurely pigeon-hole a child can in many instances, lead to a restriction of real choices the child may be able to make later on in life. Children should be free to experience family life while at the same time being able to become acquainted with as many options and alternatives as possible. |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Daveb
Earthsea
2823 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 18:19:17
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You will find that we are in one pigeon hole or another from birth and at many other stages of life.
Even if we are not someone will carry out some research and collate the results to put us in one.
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We're all doomed!
Head for the hills before they start heading for you! |
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Fluffy Sheep
Discworld
1417 Posts |
Posted - 13/09/2008 : 00:13:50
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| If you consider a child `abused` because it is raised in a culture and/or a faith with a sense of belonging, then surely you must consider it equally an `abuse` when a child is raised in a void of indifference - its parents out to shift work, pub or bingo, child left to its own devices with juvenile babysitters/elder siblings, telly and electronic games, till it`s barely old enough to roam the streets and find a sense of `belonging`, even in a gang of hooligans. |
Row faster, slaves! Caesar wants to waterski! |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 13/09/2008 : 09:28:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Fluffy Sheep
If you consider a child `abused` because it is raised in a culture and/or a faith with a sense of belonging, then surely you must consider it equally an `abuse` when a child is raised in a void of indifference - its parents out to shift work, pub or bingo, child left to its own devices with juvenile babysitters/elder siblings, telly and electronic games, till it`s barely old enough to roam the streets and find a sense of `belonging`, even in a gang of hooligans.
As I said, this is not something I wish to argue about too much, Fluff, simply because I think it's "word meanings" we are talking about. I remember about twenty years ago reading about a bombing in a family home in Ulster. The family was not "at home" when it happened and so there were no human casualties -- but the bit canary, in a cage, had died. One of the locals living on the "other side of the street" had smugly remarked, well it wasn't a complete waste of effort ... after all "it was a Catholic canary".
Yes, absurd, but no more absurd than the Catholic practice of counting as members of their Church every child born to a Catholic family as contributing to the "Catholic community". OK, so Dawkins chooses to regard this as an "intellectual abuse" of the child .... and I agree it's NOT the terminology I would choose to use. But the same word can have many meanings ... and this is no rare exception. In common parlance we talk of gamblers "cheating" at cards, we talk of husbands "cheating" on their wives .... people can understand each "cheating" refers to activities fundamentally different (in the first example, nobody gets irate and argues the gambler has been accused of fucking the Ace of Spades!
On the religious aspect of number counting, that each congregation has a different methodology for deciding how many "members" they have is THEIR business and THEIR BUSINESS ALONE .... but for those who may be interested in COMPARATIVE religion, it does help if everybody uses the same approach. I'm sure you must agree. |
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Daveb
Earthsea
2823 Posts |
Posted - 13/09/2008 : 20:15:13
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| How absurd to assume thet anyone could agree to a statement that all the fairy stories use any form of common logic to assess their numbers. |
We're all doomed!
Head for the hills before they start heading for you! |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 13/09/2008 : 21:23:11
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| And further to Daveb ... how absurd that anyone should object to debating anything too much because they feel it is merely "word meanings". It is words and their meaning that give shape to our thoughts and allow us to express our view of 'reality' to share with those around us. If we cannot agree on "word meanings" then there is very little point in any debate as we will never really know whether anyone has anything more than a vague notion of what we are saying. |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 13/09/2008 : 23:21:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Miriam Binder
And further to Daveb ... how absurd that anyone should object to debating anything too much because they feel it is merely "word meanings". It is words and their meaning that give shape to our thoughts and allow us to express our view of 'reality' to share with those around us. If we cannot agree on "word meanings" then there is very little point in any debate as we will never really know whether anyone has anything more than a vague notion of what we are saying.
Sorry, but I'll have to leave the 'linguistic logic' to you two -- quite honestly, I just cannot understand what this sentence could possibly mean "How absurd to assume thet anyone could agree to a statement that all the fairy stories use any form of common logic to assess their numbers" .... To add to my humiliation, Mim obviously DOES understand it, agrees with it and develops it "further", using a logic that is equally far beyond my understanding; I freely acknowledge my very obvious limitations. |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 15/09/2008 : 11:29:47
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| A loop-hole in the law ... well, there's a new one. Next you will see that loop hole closed! |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 18/09/2008 : 22:36:54
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Ankara - Turkish internet users have been blocked via a court order from accessing the site of prominent British biologist Richard Dawkins after complaints from lawyers for Islamic creationist author Adnan Oktar, the website of Turkish television station NTV reported on Wednesday.
A court in Istanbul ordered that Turk Telekom block access to the site and since the weekend Turkish internet users seeking the site have been redirected to a page that says in Turkish 'access to this site has been suspended in accordance with a court decision'.
NTV reported that Oktar complained he and his creationist book 'Atlas of Creation' had been defamed by comments made by Dawkins on the site. |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 20/09/2008 : 08:51:40
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| I think they are hoping it will bring in the cream cakes. |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
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Miriam Binder
Earthsea
United Kingdom
6640 Posts |
Posted - 25/09/2008 : 14:19:05
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| That woman is seriously scary ... |
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin |
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Anubis
Calaspia
718 Posts |
Posted - 30/09/2008 : 09:42:51
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For the 'non scientist', this is probably the best, most humorous, light-hearted tackling of controversial related issues to come from Dickie Dawkins -- at the Edinburgh Book Festival earlier this year: (Watch all five tapes, in order)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ut-ZwWVotls&feature=user
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Daveb
Earthsea
2823 Posts |
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camelot
Barsoom
USA
481 Posts |
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return of the religious loonies