Evolution Sucks!
POSTED BY: dougp59
UPDATED: Monday, July 27, 2026 16:36
VIEWED: 32323
PAGE 9 of 20
Also true; I was focusing on your example of smoking. Smokers do measurable, demonstrated harm to the health of non-smokers near them when they smoke.
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"That's what governments are for, [to] get in a man's way." -- Malcolm Reynolds
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But the people nearby have the option of removing themselves from that situation...
If you can't smoke anywhere you have no option.
But then let's look at the beer example of yours. Drinking often harms others around you, in many ways, including anti-social behaviour. I'd also make the leap to saying that it does more damage on the whole than smoking. So... 
How about recreational drugs? Many of those only directly harm the user, yet most governments make their use highly illegal.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.
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I don't know about not being able to smoke anywhere. All the places where I work, shop and eat have designated smoking areas designed to keep the resulting smoke away from others. It might not be convenient for the smoker to have to go to a removed location to indulge, but the health of non-smokers who don't want to be harmed by tobacco smoke has been determined by lawmakers to outweigh the rights of smokers to have a convenient place to light up. Smoking is a choice. Having someone walk up to you and blow smoke into the air you breathe isn't, and having to remove yourself because someone else decided to "light up" next to you is no more fair than having to surrender your seat on a bus because some obese (or smelly, or otherwise unpleasant) person just decided to sit in your lap rather than stand.
As for buying a beer on Sunday mornings, it comes down to what purpose was the law forbidding it enacted to serve? If, for example, studies show that a majority of drinking/driving accidents were caused by people who bought beer on Sunday mornings, the law is demonstrably designed to reduce accidents caused by drunken drivers and it's obvious it serves the public welfare. If there are no data showing that such accidents resulted from buying beer at that specific timeframe as opposed to any other, then laws prohibiting beer sales as a way to reduce drunken driving accidents don't have any cause to be linked to specific days. The simplest approach would to be banning sales of beer completely, though of course history has demonstrated that Prohibition isn't workable in America. The aim of protecting the public welfare, then, gets served by laws designed to restrict people from drinking and then driving, through education, programs to assist drunken people in getting rides, and punishment of offenders.
Where, then, the Sunday morning prohibition? Rumor has it the law was designed as an incentive to get men into church services, rather than dropping off the wife & kids and congregating at the local pub. In any rate, the specific target of Sunday morning is quite suspicious in the light of that time being traditionally connected to christian church services, and I can't see any way the law serves any compelling public need. It smells like a law based entirely on some religious pretext, and hence it's one to which I object. If such a public need is ever demonstrated to me, I'll be satisfied and will drop my objection. If I'm right, if it has only a religious basis, then it impels me to ask: what religious observance will be forced on me next? Will it eventually become illegal not to be in church on Sunday mornings, or will they just try to abridge my right to marry someone of my own gender if I so desire, based on writings in a book that means nothing to me?
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"That's what governments are for, [to] get in a man's way." -- Malcolm Reynolds
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Citizen,
Theoretically, a govt. imposes laws because it answerable to the people, and therefore represents their collective will. It is the right of everyone to have no one go into the center of town and set off a nmuclear device. The right of the one person to set off the bomb does not supercede this. This is the structure under which government exists.
This is not just the structure of democracy, it is the structure of government. Even monarchies are supposedly acting on behalf of the will of the people, and if they fail to do so can usually be held accountable through some process and forced to resign.
If a govt. feels that no person can be accorded any freedom for fear that to allow them such freedom would allow the possibility of wrongdoing, then what you could have is a statist entity. I refrain here from saying socialist because I get so much flack for it, so I'll say it's only socialist if it follows the two founding principles of socialism (ie 1. favoring general welfare of the individual and 2. based on cooperation rather than competition) *AND* if it openly calls itself 'socialist.'
But even if it's not socialist, it can still be statist, giving most power to the govt to control things, and limiting personal freedom to only that which could not by some stretch of the imagination be used to harm anyone else. This is sometimes refered to derogatorily as the 'Nanny state.'
A statist regime is NOT by definition totalitarian. It may in fact be directly accountable to its people, may have elections with different socialist candidates or may have the rule of a consortium. But socialism in particular does not *lend* itself to the process because of a tendency to rely on cooperation rather than competition, and democracy is a competitive process.
Still, all forms of govt. tend to in some way be accountable to the people, or in the absense of a mechanism of accountability, have the people's sworn interests at heart. If the govt. should completely fail to meet these criteria, then the people will rise up to overthrow the govt.
All of that said, I agree, govt. sometimes legislates things it shouldn't. I believe in a minimalist govt. in which the only responsibility of govt. is to ensure that the rights of the people (to swing their arms as long as they don't connect with someone else's nose) are protected. This includes the rights of the people to be free on unjust rule (the right not to be bashed in the nose by the long arm of the law or any other unjust entity, corporate, religious, etc.)
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In a brief aside, I'd like to say how pleasant I find it when a troll's thread is hijacked into something even remotely interesting/constructive.
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"That's what governments are for, [to] get in a man's way." -- Malcolm Reynolds
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Ultimately we're all in search of the truth right? Some choose to Evolution, and some choose Religion....
Fact is it's all acquired knowledge therefore equal leaps of faith in light of insuffiecient evidence.
I'm paraphrasing here but as someone once said "They used to think the world was flat and that was wrong. They used to think the world was spherical and that was wrong. But if you think they were both equally wrong, then you're more wrong than both of them put together."
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Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:Quote:
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Ultimately we're all in search of the truth right? Some choose to Evolution, and some choose Religion....
Fact is it's all acquired knowledge therefore equal leaps of faith in light of insuffiecient evidence.
I'm paraphrasing here but as someone once said "They used to think the world was flat and that was wrong. They used to think the world was spherical and that was wrong. But if you think they were both equally wrong, then you're more wrong than both of them put together."
and if you think they are both correct?
www.cirqus.com
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DT, Spinland:
Good answers.
Quote:
Originally posted by Spinland:
In a brief aside, I'd like to say how pleasant I find it when a troll's thread is hijacked into something even remotely interesting/constructive.
It bet Dougy-boy's real upset that we're not tearing strips off each-other...
Quote:
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
I'm paraphrasing here but as someone once said "They used to think the world was flat and that was wrong. They used to think the world was spherical and that was wrong. But if you think they were both equally wrong, then you're more wrong than both of them put together."
and if you think they are both correct?
To them I say, I have a time-share in the Maldives, great price...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.
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This thread is far too long for me to catch up on right now, but I wanted to express my opinion on this:
Quote:We can conceive of a hell on earth that has nothing to do with eternal flame. The war of all against all. Endless effort without rest or reward, the treadmill of survival. No place of trust. Watching our children die.
You see, from your worldview, there is no punishment for evil. There is just the same ol' nothingness upon death irregardless of your behaviour in this life.
We create that hell through our beliefs, and we can relieve that hell through our beliefs.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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In regards to the variable speed of light issue. I actually examined this in data analysis in college. When you look at the results of the various experiments throughout the ages that have measured the speed of light using a weighted regression, you get a perfectly flat line. A weighted regression means that the more accurate measurements (i.e., the ones with the smallest standard errors) are given more weight. When that is graphed it shows the speed of light to be constant. The speed of light is not changing and has not changed.
In regards to how DNA can increase in a species, mutations. Entire sections of DNA or entire chromosomes can be duplicated through what is essentially an error. Most times this will cause a diasadvantage and the creature will die. Some times it will have no effect and the change might or might not be passed on. Rarely, it will prove to be beneficial in some way (making protein better or faster for example) and will be passed on to offspring.
I will probably respond to other stuff when I get further through this discussion.
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