CDarwin

Which is why Ron Paul doesn't really have a chance in perdition. What? Who said that? It wasn't me!

Well at some point you change so much that you cease to be regarded as the same species (retrospectively). That's called pseudoextinction. Obviously the sun is going to go kaput at some point. If we don't get out of the solar system by that time, then we're pretty much done for. The universe is going to end at some point too, theoretically. That's all a bit pedantic, though.

Insest isn't a victimless crime insomuch as society stands to suffer from genetic degredation in productions of couplings. Enforcing condoms is really no means to circumvent that, at least not one that any libertarian belief system like the one this decriminialization is based on could be comfortable with. I think there really is a point where even "modern" Western societies should be allowed to maintain some of their taboos, not for the sake of morality, but just for the greater long-term good of society.

But the numerical majority of mutations are still benign.

Now would a man with a name like "Virgil" lie?

I know I would be. Less so, that is. (that wasn't what I was talking about, of course, in case anyone doesn't catch that)

In the actual story the Trojans were just the saps that let the horse in, though. Neither they nor any horse of theirs was responsible for the introduction of any invasive enemies. Now if it were the Greek condom then you'd have a point. Although when I think about it The Trojans did sort of seed the Roman race. I know if that's quite what you want associated with a condom.

The Trojans didn't make the horse; the Greeks did. I wonder if the percentage of priests who molest boys is really so much greater than the percentage of men in any profession where you have men in a position of authority over lots of young children, or if we just hear a lot more about the priests because it sounds so shocking. Of course, you know, there are more than a few cultures in the world where young boys are given to older men to have sex with and teach. The Etoro people, for example. It's interesting how some cultures deem practices that are expected in other cultures as taboo and signs of mental illness. It's also interesting how traumatic experiences can be in some cultures which to other cultures are seen as rights of passage. That might be relevant to the topic at hand.

Ooh, ooh, a method of dating limestone. That would be amazing. Can you imagine the implications?

I want an invention making machine.

Those tests are culturally biased.

I think you might be confused over who Huckabee is. Rudy's foreign policy is most certainly not the same as that of the other Republicans, either. He alone is embracing the Neocons like Podhoretz exiled from the halls of power in the party.

That's certainly all true. In fact many species would suffer more immediately. The human hair and body lice, for example. There are a lot of tropical insects and plants that we've carried all over the world that wouldn't do very well without the artificial tropics of our homes as well as all the domestic varieties we've created. I guess my first response was a little unhelpful. I'll take the topic more seriously. I think the prognosis for the total annihilation of the human species without leaving any descendants is reasonably low. We're an adaptable and extremely wide-ranging species (arguably wider ranging than any other species in history), and our line has already survived 8 million years of pretty extreme climate shifts. It's not an absolute case, but if I were a betting man I'd take Homo sapiens over, say, Cercopithecus mitis.

I edited my other post to encompass some objections on the point of legislation. Let me make my position explicitly (whatever it's worth): Just because this is religious and possibly violent doesn't mean it's child abuse and should be illegalized. But if it is really causing these children psychological trauma, more so than shooting pixel zombies in an arcade, which I could imagine could be the case, then it is. I think that perhaps some legal entity should do a real investigation to see. There is absolutely a line that the religious can cross when their behavior ceases to be excusable even by the most libertarian sensibilities. We call those cults. The potential damage that these can do to a person is several orders of magnitude greater than the worst violent video game.

If I might interject: It really is illegal to sell a violent video game to a kid [in some places according to some laws, but in the US according to universal industry policy]. Whether-or-not that's effective, the statute does exist. It isn't illegal to expose a child to a Hell House. Even if you want to claim that the two are equally harmful, the basic hypocrisy that I think was the inspiration of this thread remains in place. We as a society will sanction much more if it is presented in the guise of religion. I also don't think you can compare the experience of a teenager or tween playing violent video games and the effect that has on your behavior with the experience of being a child brought up in a religion. Need evidence of that? Compare the number of children who adopt their parents' religious beliefs with the number of teenagers who grow up to be serial killers. Just my 2.5 ¥.

I thought about that, but I thought it would be too many threads and an unwarranted imposition on the bandwidth. Not in response to Pangloss but just to put it out there: I back Biden and McCain both. I would love to see that race. EDIT: Oh wow... I misspelled "their"...

There's more to worry about than extinction.The whole species doesn't have to be dead for us to have a problem.

Choose the (main) candidate for United States President you would like to see get the nomination from the Republican and Democratic Parties. If you feel like nominating a candidate from each party because you support both or would like to see a particular race (like me), then feel free, but obviously nominating a candidate from the party you oppose just because you think he/she is weak misses the point a bit. Let this be a vehicle for discussion and what-not. If your candidate isn't listed feel free to make a bitter, rejected post to that effect. EDIT: Don't select multiple candidates from the same party if you can help it. That sort of distorts the results.

That appears to be what the paper was about, at least from the section you quoted and my very cursory skimming. "All life doesn't tend to evolve toward human-like intelligence, in fact only one organism on earth has, so that evolution is pretty unlikely." If that's an accurate summary of the point of the study, then I think that's a bit of a "duh."

I don't think that the 'violence' of Hell Houses is the issue here. I think the fear that kids who don't know better are being traumatized in ways that could seriously affect their future psychological health by having their mortal souls threatened in order to indoctrinate them is what might make some think this child abuse. I'm not absolutely sure that that's what's going on here; I don't think any of us can be. But I certainly think this warrants investigation.

So let me get this strait. They did a study to see if any other organisms were ever as smart as humans? There's a productive use of grant money.

It's not over yet, but do you not think they're going a little easy on ID? They haven't mentioned the Wedge Document or the fact that From Pandas and People was written as a Creation Science textbook, but the names were changed after Edward v. Aguilard declared Creation Science unconstitutional to teach in public schools. EDIT: I guess I was a bit premature.

That was a bit of a tangent, but basically my point is that we decide what a word like "human" means.

The middle class, according to the President's Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform: Used items wouldn't be taxed under the plan anyway. The original purchaser paid that tax.