>> ^marbles:

With AA, being any minority is a significant advantage.
No it is not. If we lived in some egalitarian society where race had not been a massive limiting factor for centuries, and where decisions like going to college took place in a fairy land where money, the schools you went to, the opportunities you had earlier and familial obligations play no part, then you might have a point. We don't live in that world.
>> ^marbles:

Opportunity isn't distributed.
Yes it is. If its more than twice as hard to get a job because your skin is dark (it is), if your family doesn't have money to allow you the freedom, to have a safe environment in which to grow up, to allow you to get a good education or to start your own business because they too have suffered financially and socially from the legal and social forces that distribute the power to choose, then you are being denied opportunity for non-meritocratic reasons, and those opportunities are being given to others, for non-meritocratic reasons.
>> ^marbles:

Just like every other social problem in the past century, the government's solution has done more harm than help.
Sure, property rights and national defense are terrible impositions on personal sovereignty, and if we dispensed with both of them then AA would probably not be needed, but I don't really care about fairyland politics, I'm only concerned with reality and how to realistically address problems within it
>> ^marbles:

Anyway it's not the role of government to be distributing anything.
Um... except that they distribute EVERYTHING. Property is a government system that codifies the distribution of resources. They set land boundaries, they arbitrate disputes, what the hell are you talking about?
>> ^marbles:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
Social Convention is not reason or eloquence either, it is force just the same. I would rather the bullies fight each other, then just let the less accountable one loose to beat the shit out of us.
>> ^marbles:

Better solution? Stop subsidizing poverty and end drug prohibition would be a good start.
"subsidizing poverty" I presume is a reference to social programs that allow poor families to have a stable enough environment that their kids can have some opportunities. How exactly does trapping future generations in poverty solve the disproportionate racial distribution of class privilege?

drug prohibition is only tangentially related, consider:

1) All classes do drugs at similar rates
2) poor people get caught more often
3) non-white people get convicted more often

The double whammy of historical poverty and racist jurisprudence are the problem. The insane "war on drugs" certainly has racist consequences, but they are symptomatic of a larger problem that decriminalization will not solve.

>> ^marbles:

Does anybody here think an equally capable black student would have less of chance of being accepted to a university?

Yes. Exceptional students of all "races" will get in easily, but when we get near the average, like it or not, being black in america is a significant disadvantage.

>> ^marbles:

You do realize your so-called "culturally pervasive affirmative action for white people" was enforced by law for almost a century after the end of slavery? And now since those laws have been abolished, we should support more discriminatory laws to "balance" the cultural remnants of society's bigotry?

Do you believe that there is no longer any socially enforced advantage for white people in america? Do you believe that the data indicates that two otherwise identical men, one white and one black have the same chance of success in american society? If that is your contention, you are demonstrably wrong.

>> ^marbles:

Fuck that. Anyone that supports AA in a attempt balance racism is openly saying they are racist and the only way to fight racism is with racism: Fucking lunacy.


We have racism, the implicit institutional form that nobody has to build an office for, or makes any argument to support, that is reality. Are you suggesting that it is less racist to allow that force to determine the distribution of opportunity unchecked?

What is your better solution?

Does anybody here think that an equally capable Jewish ball player would have less of a chance to make the team?

Does anybody here seriously contend that there is not culturally pervasive affirmative action for white people?

The fact that these college students have not thought about this in depth is an indication that people don't think about things in depth, it has no bearing on the appropriateness of the thing they don't properly understand.

The fact that there is, in practice, affirmative action for whites has resulted in conscientious people who believe in meritocracy attempting to balance that with affirmative action for non-whites.

When white people dismantle their affirmative action program, then we can take down its tiny adversary. Until then it makes no sense to appeal for the creation or abolition of affirmative action in principle, having both affirmative action systems is preferable to having only the big and powerful one.

step 1 ) steal one ubiquitous lockbox.
step 2 ) take the lock apart to see the tumblers / cut key to match.
step 3 ) profit.

>> ^DerHasisttot:

Somehow i highly distrust all this libertarian propaganda... why? Because it clearly is propaganda.
And they all seem like giant douchebags.

I understand that position, I agree that these folks tend to reek of "fuck you", but this guy is generally accurate in his description of how bitcoin works.

The real compelling application, which he didn't bother to mention, is that the transactional cost is extremely low and the system security is extremely high. If the market growth stabilizes to a slow deflationary curve against the USD, then it will become useful for what it was designed for, allowing people to make digital transactions of funds with a very small non-percentage transaction cost.

I am currently running a few GPGPU servers on the bitcoin network, which while not as profitable as straight speculation at least is a realistic stable business model which is not dependent on beating a bubble burst.

>> ^shinyblurry:

A classic example would be the Hittite Empire. Critics of the bibles historicity used to claim that it was made up and didn't exist..until its capital was unearthed in 1906.

Please provide some evidence of this supposed denial, which while cute in a urban legend sort of way, smells of classic christian revisionism rather than fact.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's not a question of whether the bible is historically accurate, because that has already been proven conclusively.

I question it, so it is obviously questioned. But as to it being proven, by whom and when? You continue to assert this without the slightest bit of evidence.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The question is, what will it take for you to believe the very obvious fact that the bible refers to real people and places?

Sometimes it does, and so do Doyle's novels about sherlock holmes, that does not make either of them historically accurate.

>> ^shinyblurry:

the general history it recounts has been proven time and time again. Never once has it been seriously disputed, and skeptics have been forced to backtrack from their claims for centuries.

There is no reason to believe that anything said to happen in the bible before the Babylonian Exile ( you know, the actual historical event with Cyrus and all) is the slightest bit historical, if you have any EVIDENCE to counter that I would be interested to get actual verifiable links to it.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Actually my claim was that the bible has been proven historically accurate by numerous archaelogical finds, thousands of them.

Find me one, just one from the Pentateuch, that is not referenced in extra biblical sources. If the bible is a sufficient source, on its own, find me just one thing for which it is the only written source for which there is clear archeological evidence, take your time, I'll wait.

>> ^shinyblurry:

lol..off the top of your head..now you're just full of shit..those are popular atheist talking points. pathetic.

The fact that they came readily to mind is suspect because...and I love this part...they are sited so often.

>> ^shinyblurry:

You utterly failed to prove your case; apparently the bible is historically accurate, and you admit this but only for the things you want to prove.


My case: there is such a dearth of archeological evidence for events portrayed in the bible, that the bible can be assumed to be false.

Your Response: Here are a few links that, if you don't read them might look like they contain the evidence that does not appear to exist.

My counter: So you really have no evidence do you?

Your counter: I'm right by default, you loose HAHA!

>> ^shinyblurry:

like your contention about the freed slaves.


You have already admitted that Josephus constitutes an extra biblical source for this.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's obvious im arguing with a search engine, a dishonest, disingenuous search engine at that. you don't actually know anything about the bible, or history..what's been discredited here is your testimony.

Is this one of those situation where you think by accusing me of doing what you are doing people will assume that you just can't be so hypocritical as to do it yourself? It's a classic christian apologist move, but it's pretty weak, I honestly expected better.

>> ^shinyblurry:
what I did say however is that it has never, and that is, not once, been proven historically inaccurate

Four off the top of my head, massive events which would leave piles of evidence in the most dug up part of the world, and their complete absence from the archeological record constitutes proof?

In short your argument is that absences of evidence is evidence of accuracy?

>> ^shinyblurry:

evidence of solomons temple http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071023-jerusale
m-artifacts.html



Did you read the link? They found some bone and pot shards, no link to any building or complex like the biblical temple.

>> ^shinyblurry:



evidence of exodus: http://www.bibleandscience.com/archaeology/exodus.htm

Half a dozen vague artifacts with pages of excuses as to how they might vaguely "prove" biblical authenticity? Apologetics is not archeology. You still, for some reason, claimed archeology backs you up. If you want anyone to accept that you are going to have to come up with some archeological evidence.

>> ^shinyblurry:

So why is that archaelogically, it has proven to be 100 percent historically accurate?


Okay alternate reality boy, please provide references to any archeologically valid physical evidence of any of these biblical "events":

1) Jewish slavery in Egypt.
2) The parting of the Red Sea.
3) A decades long genocidal rampage in the desert.
4) The construction of Solomons Temple.

If you can even get yourself past the falsehoods in the Pentateuch then we can move on the all the nonsense in your gospels.

>> ^kceaton1:

Shiny, I think the problem is that you are using source A for data and everyone else uses sources B,C, and appendix D.


I'm inclined to agree.

P.S. Please use the quote feature when responding to comments, so that those you are responding to get an e-mail.

What is this in response to? I know that A/ELF folks burn shit down, but I have not heard the news of actual assaults.

>> ^shinyblurry:
So, the bible is only good for the claims you wish to prove.
No, perhaps you should re-read, the bible has NO historical authority. Like a broken clock it can, rarely, be right, but I can't reasonably accept anything from it without outside corroboration.
>> ^shinyblurry:

Again, you show your lack of research..the prophecy and the fufillment of the prophecy are in seperate books written 1 or 2 hundred years apart.

Sooo...You are claiming that these books have not been under the same copy/editorship for millennia ? My point does not require a by-line match, only that the folks copying (and editing) the canonical versions are in control of both, and have incentive to make them seem more impressive. Are you claiming this was not the case?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not "widely considered forged". Again you don't know what you're talking about.
Educate yourself:
Wow, nice straw split. The portion of the testimony that claims the divinity of jesus is cut from whole cloth, that is what you were talking about, that is a forgery. You wish to interpret it as a testimony of divinity, when the historical record strongly supports the contentions that these parts were not in the original text, and are not attributable to Josephus => forgery.

The vid you post takes the safety position that since the original appears to be about jesus that it is proof of his historicity. The original text, as far as we can reconstruct it, as well as all the other non-fake historical documents don't actually claim that jesus was real or divine, they only convey the story as stated by christians.

I can also state the christian story, as a matter of historical record, without validating it or accepting it myself, the fact that christians existed is not proof that jesus did.
>> ^shinyblurry:

but the only sources concerning freeing the jews are from the bible and Josephus. You can't have it both ways..you can't claim the bible for evidence when the entire evidence you're claiming was about what Cyrus was doing for God, let alone it was the fulfillment of prophecy from the book of Jeremiah.
You can't say Josephus is discredited yet claim it for evidence about the jews either. If the bible is evidence, then the credit goes to God for freeing the slaves.
If you say Josephus is accurate, you have to admit Jesus is a historical figure.


I see what you did there, let me see if I can recreate your "logic":

1)I claim the testimony has been forged
2)Therefore I must accept Josephus as completely unreliable
3)Therefor the bible is the only source of the story
4)Therefor the claimed historicity of the events depends on the bible
5)Therefor for the Cyrus claim to hold the bible must be divinely inspired

Step 2 does not follow, most of Josephus is considered sound. The fact that your predecessors felt the need to lie in his name does not invalidate all his writings, only those which we have reason to believe have been altered. As it turns out, your boys tended to do a pretty unconvincing job in their historical revisionism.

Example:
[FORGERY]
>> ^shinyblurry:

I deny the Holy Spirit.
[/FORGERY]

Does that forgery make all your actual words fundamentally suspect?

>> ^shinyblurry:

Doesn't seem like many people agree with you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Jesus_as_myth

Some religious theologians think that the myth argument is unsound? Color me surprised. Argumentum ad populum is still a fallacy.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Did you know that Cyrus freeing of the slaves confirms the bible is true?


[sarcasm]
[PROPHESY] I'm going to eat pickles while writing this post [/PROPHESY]

Clearly, since text can not be edited, all text which precedes a statement must, of necessity, predate it. Therefore if a claim is made in a text, and then said to be fulfilled in the same text, the author must be a true profit.
[/sarcasm]

>> ^shinyblurry:
Titus Flavius Josephus. The same historian who confirms that Jesus was a historical figure and affirms His life death and resurrection.


Josephus's testimony is widely considered forged, and few, excepting christian ideologues, claim that it has not been at least altered. The older Arabic translation does not contain a profession of faith, just an account of the claims of the followers, and saying that christians exist, is not the same as saying that they have their facts straight.

Josephus, of course, is not the only source on Cyrus, he ruled a fucking empire, he was not some two bit sheep herd. Yet you avoid the issue, you made a claim, Cyrus refutes it.

>> ^shinyblurry:

This agrees with modern historians, almost none of which make the ridiculous claim that Jesus never existed.


Some do make this "ridiculous" claim, and those who are left still have not provided the slightest shred of evidence that someone of that name did anything like what is stated in the gospels.

There is no historical reason to believe that such a person did exist, and the gospels are so glaringly contradictory that the authors clearly cared nothing about historical accuracy. Absent any historical authority in the gospels, or the forgeries, there is just as much chance that some guy named meatloaf was tearing around Galilee on his motorcycle at or around 30CE, but I don't believe it.

P.S. I ate pickles

>> ^shinyblurry:

lol!! wow this is truly classic.
Maybe you should actually read the articles you're providing as evidence from your desperate google search to disprove me.
Do you know what slaves he freed? The Jews. That's right, Gods chosen people.


Sooo...that means he was a Christian? Do you understand the concept of moving the goal posts?

>> ^shinyblurry:

How do we know this? The bible. Getting a sinking feeling yet?


I have never claimed that the bible does not reference historical events/places/people, but it can not by any objective measure be considered historically accurate itself. Cyrus, unlike Moses and Jesus, is not a construction of the biblical authors, if the bible had never existed we would still know of Cyrus and have a general understanding of what he did.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Christians are the reason we abolished slavery. There has never been an abolitionist movement anywhere besides in the Christian west.


Your first sentence is false, non-Christian humans have been abolishing slavery for millennia, see here.

You, of course then back peddle by talking about a "movement". I'll counter that the only reason that a movement was necessary in the US was because Christians so bitterly opposed abolition that a great amount of political force (and a massive war) had to brought to bare against them. Civilized societies, on the other hand, seem to dispense with it much more easily.