Though I/we are not after religious use. Just religious source.
That’s not what you said earlier, but my point still stands.
Judges were of religious appointments where mediators were of legal/civil positions.
And in reality today’s reality judges, especially the lower levels, are actually mediators. They interpret the law. The jury decides the case within the law and the “judge” mediates the ruling against the law.
Precisely my point. Now if only you’d realize that marriage is no different in that regard as it relates to its usage in law…
Ffrf.org
I’m the minority in the minority, but definitely not alone.
You might as well be. You’re the only one who I’ve ever heard speak out about this outside of purely philosophical debates. You also have a far stronger reaction to the term than anyone else I’ve ever heard mention it. And I actively seek out debates on marriage, atheism, and civil rights when I get bored.
Also, as I’ve already made clear, I have limits to what I consider to be “offensive” from a relatively objective standpoint. If the offended portion of the class is small enough, I really don’t care what they consider offensive when it comes to what should be in the law. More importantly, by “offensive” I mean that it is an insult about or directly related to that class or is based upon ignorance of or misunderstanding about that class. It also can’t solely be offensive if it appears in law. At least, that’s how I’m defining it.
Just because some people take offense to a term doesn’t make that term offensive.
Gods and goddesses. Flat earth. Young earth. Creation.
Things without definite evidence.
When was the last time god sat in a whiteness chair in a court hearing?
Use of the term “marriage” in secular law doesn’t perpetuate those things, so your point goes nowhere here.
Well, guess what? Religious people don’t have any right to decide that for secular marriage, and calling it “marriage” doesn’t concede that notion.
Well, with gay, many of them are happy. But that word of itself is not of a religious origin. The transformation of the word is partly the claim that that was exactly the end result, happinesses.
Well, the “transformation” of “marriage” could be said to be much the same, and the word “gay” currently has no relation to “happiness”. The fact that gay doesn’t have a religious origin is irrelevant.
as for awful: actually we’re not far from that base. Awe isn’t necessarily a positive word.
Currently, no. It used to have a positive connotation that it no longer has. Again, as it was used originally is completely the opposite of its modern meaning.
You seem to be missing the point. Obviously each step in the change would be rational and related to the one just before, but just because A is similar to B and B is similar to C doesn’t mean that A is similar to C.
Well it is. 2 classes actually.
First is the religious claim. One that’s not without merit. As this very long chain shows.
On the contrary, it demonstrates the exact opposite. Also, no religious person is offended by having government’s use the term “marriage” in general. That’s what I mean by offensive. If it’s too context dependent, then it’s not inherently offensive to a class of people.
The other is the group of people who fight against the chains religion holds over our country!
Not only is that group tilting against windmills but some of those windmills don’t actually exist. It’s only “offensive” to them because they unilaterally decided it was offensive because of some irrational reason with no real basis in reality.
We are not majority but we are many. The same people who want “good” off our currency. That want the pre-cold-war pledge restored. That want all religious terms and displays
Removed
From public owned locations.
Assuming you meant “God”, I wholly support those goals. However, that has nothing to do with marriage.
And it’s obvious you aren’t worried about the concerns of atheists, let alone their agnostic supporters like my self.
As I am an agnostic supporter of atheists (an agnostic theist, but an agnostic nevertheless), the only way you could possibly be more wrong about that is if I was an atheist like Stephen Stone or PaulT, neither of whom share your concern, either. I am very worried about the rational concerns of atheists. I am not worried about the ones they make up in their imaginations.
Tilt at windmills all you like; it’s a pointless task doomed to fail that would have no actual benefit if you succeeded, but have at it, I guess. I’ll still call you out if I feel you are wrong or haven’t demonstrated your claim, and I will also point out how dumb the goal you set is. That’s how debate works. It doesn’t make me less of an ally to atheists to not take the extremists’ side on an issue or to fight back against those extremists.
Because many of their members do have an opinion. Even if the organisation didn’t commit one way or the other.
Which doesn’t support or detract from either of our points, making bringing them up completely pointless.
Reverting dictation or autocorrect errors as I go are not a top concern for my life.
Some people-you obviously- are bothered by such minor issues. Others: not.
This isn’t general-publication-quality material. It’s a commentary on a low distribution internet article.
That AI is inconsistent at best, is well documented on this very site.
I’m not hung up on minor rules if the text is readable. And I won’t go through any great pains to fully edit such postings.
I more have an issue with the sheer number of errors that would be obvious at a glance. More to the point, when arguing about language, I personally feel one should be more careful about spelling and grammar in order to not undermine your own point.
And yes, its inconsistency is well-documented on this site, but that only demonstrates that you don’t check it at all since what you meant and what you said would be wildly different.
At any rate, that was more of an aside to begin with rather than a real point. Sure, it bothers me, but I generally avoid criticizing outside of specific situations.
Btw, “rational” has long been the term used by/for non-religious and irreligious thought.
Some of the largest such related publications use it in their titles. The Daily Rationalist, the Rational Times, The Rationalist; or the chain-essay Rational Thoughts on Historical Existence.
Indeed they do. However, if that is the meaning you intend, your argument doesn’t really work that well tbh.
Rational thought simply refers to the scientific method as opposed to blind faith.
Not necessarily; lots of philosophical and logical debates are rational thought but don’t involve the scientific method at all. I’d also contend that that definition differs from the one you literally just mentioned, so if that is what you’re going with, my point still works against you. Your stance isn’t based upon the scientific method, so by your definition it is not rational.
I stop short of that.
I have no interest in barring private belief. When you pass into that level your no difference than witch hunters.
We’re on agreement on that, then, but that’s why I only said you were sounding like a radical purist rather than going all-in on that claim.
I can separate the fear and doubt that kindles religious beliefs, and the benefits of such beliefs, from the institutions of persecution that run so much of religious belief.
That’s great, except that marriage isn’t owned by religious institutions, either. If anything, that makes your point more confusing.
Your looking at the act and I’m looking at the word.
I’m looking at both. You have yet to present any evidence that the word is offensive to any class of people subjectively or is commonly used to deliberately offend people, nor have you shown the language used is ambiguous in context, nor have you shown that your proposed change has any practical difference in terms of its effects. Those are the only legitimate reasons from my POV to make changes to the language used in a law as opposed to a substantive change to the law.
As such, from my perspective, I fail to see how the change is actually helpful from a meaningful perspective rather than an illusory change at best.
A logical, rational, system fights to remove every and all stains of fantasy cloud people floating in the sky, from law. That includes terms that are undeniably based in religious practice, rule, and law,… !!!!!!!!
And since I can rationally deny that the term “marriage” is based in religious practice, rule, or law, it’s not undeniable. Soooooo…. What’s the problem here?
Hey, you’re the one who said “undeniably”, so all I had to do was deny it.
The very term is a disgusting 🤮 word!
I’m sorry you feel that way. Truly I am. However, by saying that, you have lost all semblance of being “rational” as you are now going for a purely emotional and subjective argument from only your opinion. This is especially the case as you appear to be alone in this.
A relig[enslave the population]ous word.
Again, using intentionally inflammatory language without any actual point is not rational argument. I also deny the claim that “marriage” is a religious word.
And anyone who claims it should be used and recognised is an ignorant fool that needs proper education—or an enemy of freedom.
Or—y’know—someone who recognizes that words change in meaning over time and in different contexts and also realizes the word is already used and recognized and so would need an actual reason to change that. Also someone who hates others dictating their language or who doesn’t believe in giving a word to people who don’t own it.
Seriously, your idea of what terms can be used in the law gives religious institutions way too much power.
“How would removing legal recognition of marriage prevent laypeople from getting married? No, seriously, how?”
It wouldn’t!
But
Do you really see non-religious people choosing to go to a church for a second licence/certification that has no legal weight?
I know several nonreligious people who attend church and who get married at a church, neither of which are necessary for a legally binding marriage today, either. So, yes, I absolutely see them doing so.
“Also, what did you say their position was?”
I didn’t. As they don’t have one.
Then why did you bother bringing them up?
It actually mirrors us here.
People like you who want the term for it’s modern use vs people like me who despise the continued use in law due to it’s source. It’s original use.
First off, this has been bothering me, but you keep making very basic grammar mistakes despite also claiming to be an expert on language. In this case, “it’s” vs “its”. I wouldn’t complain except you keep citing linguistics to support your point when you are apparently unfamiliar with the nuances of the English language.
Second, what you’re describing is the essentially the difference between linguistic prescriptivism and descriptivism. The only difference being just how offended you are about any use in the law that goes against what you prescribe. This includes a false sense of attachment to the “origins” of words and English, some of which are factually incorrect. I find prescriptivism strongly distasteful in general, but the fact that you are trying to claim that your side is the “rational” one and the “moral” or “ethical” one is particularly appalling.
“Most Republicans and some Democrats use the religious aspect of just about every term in debate”
Ideally we remove all of them. One by one. Flush religion from the law.
By which point your objection will be moot as no one will object to gay marriage on the basis of religion. It’s also an unrealistic idea that will almost certainly never happen. Let’s stick with reality, shall we?
“Well, there is none, so problem solved.”
Tell that to them. They claim there is.
I simply state that they are not wrong, if not right either.
Just because you say you have a claim doesn’t mean you have one. In this case, their claim to have a religious claim is factually and historically wrong. I don’t change how I word things because someone else claims that term is theirs to use as they see fit and everyone else must conform to their definition despite all evidence to the contrary.
Also, have you ever heard the phrase “not even wrong”? If they are neither wrong nor right, that means their claim is either pure opinion (and so doesn’t matter here) or irrelevant. I see no reason to change the language to conform to a point that is neither right nor wrong.
don’t see
That’s unfortunate. Because as long as we allow items of religious significance, be it words, be it items, etc, to infect our government… we remain infected. Polluted. Dirty.
“Words of religious significance” is absurdly broad to the point that the English language could not function without them. People assign religious significance to so many mundane things that trying to exclude all of them is a fool’s errand. On top of that, you haven’t demonstrated to my satisfaction that marriage is sufficiently religious that allowing it in government somehow connects the government to religion, so the premise is still unproven.
Also, you’re sounding like a radical purist, and that is something I find even more distasteful than prescriptivism. Seriously, you’re beginning to sound fanatical about this. It’s getting to be ridiculous.
The terminology should be offensive to rational people. That it is not is just another sign that we are too willing to remain ignorant to the intrusion.
Assuming for the sake of argument that marriage does have religious origin, that doesn’t make usage of the term with its modern definition inherently offensive to rational people. The conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises.
The fact that we aren’t offended by every use of every term with some connection to religion at any point in time is a point in favor of rational thought.
I despise the legal recognition of any terminology that has religious use.
That removes a lot of terms from legal recognition, not just marriage. Does that mean we have to remove “speech”, “religion”, “charity”, “debts”, “forgive”, “mercy”, “judgment”, “judge”, “leader”, and so many others from the law? Those have religious use as well.
Come to think of it, “law” has religious use, too. Guess it has to go, too.
More so for terms that have a source in religious practice.
No one else shares that opinion. Most people recognize that words can, y’know, change over time, sometimes in ways that are unrecognizable compared to their source.
And, again, lots of words are just as linked to a source in religious practice that today have nothing to do with religion. Going back to the source only helps so much.
Concept and terminology are separate.
And yet you insist on linking the two as though the term “marriage” is inseparable from the concept of “religious recognition of a binding between two or more persons”.
And as long as people foolishly allow such terms to be a part of our law the country remains under the influence of fantasy.
What fantasy?
You may be ohkay with the use of the term. I am not.
Well, no one else has a problem with the use of the term, so you might as well suck it up and deal with it.
That similar secular practice existed before the terminology, that the term has lost it’s historical meaning, is not a reason to hide your head in the sand.
No, it’s not. First off, “similar secular practice”? There is no meaningful difference! There never has been.
And when the modern term “marriage” was introduced to the English language, the number of English-speaking persons who were publicly neither Christian nor Jewish was essentially zero, so there would be no reason to distinguish between secular marriage and religious marriage.
It is the term itself that is offensive. A lowering of one’s self to the hatred and bigotry of religious practice.
It has nothing to do with sexuality for me. The word has no place in a secular society. Fall for the illusion of success if you must.
You’re the only one I know of who finds the term “marriage” offensive. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, polygamists, MGTOWs, Christians, atheists… none of them ever have expressed any issue with the term. You’re trying to solve a problem that does not exist.
But you have in actuality lowered yourself to their level. You acquiesced acceptance of a doctrinal notion.
The notion that people like to form long-term relationships as the start of a new nuclear family? Seriously, no one can agree on the “doctrinal notion” of marriage or that such a notion is inherently present within marriage to begin with, so there’s no such acceptance anywhere but your imagination.
You can change meaning, but the source, the history, remains.
And it ultimately means nothing to modern usage. When we use “gay”, are we tethered to its historical meaning? Or what about “awful”? It originally meant “tending to inspire great awe” and was a positive quality to have. Does that mean that every use of it must conform to that origin? And I guess since the N word didn’t originally have any offensive meaning (it was just a word for a kind of mite/bug), that means the word isn’t an insult now?
Seriously, there is nothing about the word “marriage” as it is used today that necessarily invokes a religious connotation. None of the roots of the word “marriage” necessarily refer to religion, either. That religion was intertwined with the concept at the time and place that the term was introduced is irrelevant.
The fact is that there is no reason in the modern day to insert a new term for marriage with no connection to religion because, frankly, it’s a dumb argument. Neither side will be better off or happier with your proposed solution, and it’d be a pain to modify literally every single law that mentions marriage to fit whatever term fits your fancy. You’d also effectively be regulating language since atheists were getting married long before the gay marriage debate came up.
If you’re going to change the words of a statute in such a way that has no effective difference, then the problem with the existing words has to be either that they are ambiguous or confusing (which no one would argue is the case here) or the existing words are inherently offensive to a class of people (which isn’t the case here).
I’m sorry, but the only goalpost-moving was done by Blumenthal. He gave a false definition for “finsta”, and that’s the primary subject of the article. The article also addresses that definition on top of that, so whichever of the two places you think the goalposts should be, the article addresses both.
More to the point, even with that definition, it exposes an ignorance of how the internet works. Facebook can’t really commit to “ending” that because how could you reasonably enforce it without compromising the privacy of everyone else?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ummmm, PS4 support was NOT being killed.
We’re talking about a guy who once referred to the devs of some crowdfunded indie game that was going Epic-exclusive and handled it badly as the developers of the latest Oddworld game, a completely different set of developers who did go Epic-exclusive for their game but did not receive anywhere near the same backlash, a mistake that is still on this site—uncorrected—years later.
Face it; Tim Geigner makes a lot of mistakes and can never be bothered to either do some basic double-checking before posting or to actually do anything to address his mistakes. He can be very incompetent about very simple matters. I would not be surprised if this, too, remains uncorrected and unaddressed on this site forever.
[Microsoft] got a lot of heat from people like deployed military who used XBox but couldn't connect while deployed, but those people didn't show up in the online-only market research...
Imagine that; people who can’t connect online didn’t show up in online-only research and so couldn’t let the researchers know that a decent portion of their consumer base can’t connect to the internet every day or so! What a shocking turn of events! What’s next? That interviewing only people who go to church every week won’t give preachers an idea as to why some people—including some Christians—don’t go to church often, if at all? What is this madness!?
Even if they release a firmware fix for the PS3, what happens if you don't have access to PSN?
The PSN only governs online connectivity between one console and at least one other (of the same or different types). Firmware updates (along with other things like software updates and the PlayStation Store) don’t use PSN even though they do require the console to be connected to the internet.
I have a PS3 that I don't use, mostly because I don't like how most all the games for it require you to go online to download patches […]
Most software requires you to go online if you want to download patches; that’s kinda how downloading works. I’m not really sure what you expect; whether you play games on a PS3, PS4, PS5, PSP, PSVita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS/2DS, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, tablet, or mobile device, they all require you to go online to download patches.
If you’re complaining about the fact that you have to download patches at all, that’s understandable, though again far from exclusive to the PS3.
Also, the few games I actually want for it, can't be bought in physical releases, at least not in complete form.
Unless you’re looking for some sort of DLC, most games that can be bought physically are playable—if sometimes buggy—without an online connection at all. Unless they are online multiplayer games, in which case I have no idea why you’re complaining about having to connect to the internet to download this stuff in the first place.
Needless to say I've never connected it to the net and don't have a PSN account.
Okay… I don’t know why this is such a big issue for you, though…
I suppose it's a moot point for me, since I'm probably never going to bother with it as long as going online is virtually required to get a fully patched and complete game.
Again, almost all modern games and modern systems have that requirement, especially the fully patched thing.
Really, while I can understand the annoyance with having to download stuff for the final product, and I can certainly understand being annoyed that some single-player-only games require an online connection to start playing at all or for DRM or something, I really don’t get why you’re so bothered by the fact that patches require an online connection to be downloaded or why you’re so focused on this being the case for the PS3, specifically, given that every console or handheld dedicated gaming device since the Xbox 360 (if not earlier) as well as PCs, smartphones, tablets, etc. have the exact same requirements. In other words, it’s been a thing since online gaming or downloading games from the internet has been a thing, and I’m not entirely sure how you would expect to get those patches without an online connection.
Yeah, Tim Geigner dropped the ball on this one. Again.
At least it’s not as damaging as the mixup between a game that had adequately communicated it would be a timed-exclusive on the Epic Store and one that did not.
Re: Re: Re: Ummmm, PS4 support was NOT being killed.
I don’t think this article was terrible in explaining there were two issues—one affecting the PS3 and PS4 and one affecting the PSP, PS Vita, and PS3—but Tim Geigner’s articles do seem to be… subpar compared to the others.
“No, it’s when they accepted Christian marriage, not marriage, period.”
Well, prior to that they didn’t have marriage. They had multiple other similar terms for similar recognition. The Christians just changed the term and applied all their restrictions to what use to be the legal method of partnering in law.
Not really. And, ultimately, that’s just saying they had different names for marriages under different religions. That doesn’t mean that marriage originated with Christianity or religion.
Better?
It does fix the problem I found more-or-less. There may be some constitutional issues, and I’m no more convinced that this is actually helpful, but it’s the best version you put forth so far.
You didn’t respond to my main point, which was asking why this is relevant to the discussion. I see no need to address the plausibility or factuality of the claims if they aren’t relevant.
This is particularly the case when one of the claims gives off a conspiracy-theory sort of vibe. I don’t want to touch any claims of a conspiracy if I don’t have to, and if it’s not relevant, then I don’t have to, so I won’t.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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That’s not what you said earlier, but my point still stands.
Precisely my point. Now if only you’d realize that marriage is no different in that regard as it relates to its usage in law…
You might as well be. You’re the only one who I’ve ever heard speak out about this outside of purely philosophical debates. You also have a far stronger reaction to the term than anyone else I’ve ever heard mention it. And I actively seek out debates on marriage, atheism, and civil rights when I get bored.
Also, as I’ve already made clear, I have limits to what I consider to be “offensive” from a relatively objective standpoint. If the offended portion of the class is small enough, I really don’t care what they consider offensive when it comes to what should be in the law. More importantly, by “offensive” I mean that it is an insult about or directly related to that class or is based upon ignorance of or misunderstanding about that class. It also can’t solely be offensive if it appears in law. At least, that’s how I’m defining it.
Just because some people take offense to a term doesn’t make that term offensive.
Use of the term “marriage” in secular law doesn’t perpetuate those things, so your point goes nowhere here.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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Well, guess what? Religious people don’t have any right to decide that for secular marriage, and calling it “marriage” doesn’t concede that notion.
Well, the “transformation” of “marriage” could be said to be much the same, and the word “gay” currently has no relation to “happiness”. The fact that gay doesn’t have a religious origin is irrelevant.
Currently, no. It used to have a positive connotation that it no longer has. Again, as it was used originally is completely the opposite of its modern meaning.
You seem to be missing the point. Obviously each step in the change would be rational and related to the one just before, but just because A is similar to B and B is similar to C doesn’t mean that A is similar to C.
On the contrary, it demonstrates the exact opposite. Also, no religious person is offended by having government’s use the term “marriage” in general. That’s what I mean by offensive. If it’s too context dependent, then it’s not inherently offensive to a class of people.
Not only is that group tilting against windmills but some of those windmills don’t actually exist. It’s only “offensive” to them because they unilaterally decided it was offensive because of some irrational reason with no real basis in reality.
Assuming you meant “God”, I wholly support those goals. However, that has nothing to do with marriage.
As I am an agnostic supporter of atheists (an agnostic theist, but an agnostic nevertheless), the only way you could possibly be more wrong about that is if I was an atheist like Stephen Stone or PaulT, neither of whom share your concern, either. I am very worried about the rational concerns of atheists. I am not worried about the ones they make up in their imaginations.
Tilt at windmills all you like; it’s a pointless task doomed to fail that would have no actual benefit if you succeeded, but have at it, I guess. I’ll still call you out if I feel you are wrong or haven’t demonstrated your claim, and I will also point out how dumb the goal you set is. That’s how debate works. It doesn’t make me less of an ally to atheists to not take the extremists’ side on an issue or to fight back against those extremists.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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Which doesn’t support or detract from either of our points, making bringing them up completely pointless.
I more have an issue with the sheer number of errors that would be obvious at a glance. More to the point, when arguing about language, I personally feel one should be more careful about spelling and grammar in order to not undermine your own point.
And yes, its inconsistency is well-documented on this site, but that only demonstrates that you don’t check it at all since what you meant and what you said would be wildly different.
At any rate, that was more of an aside to begin with rather than a real point. Sure, it bothers me, but I generally avoid criticizing outside of specific situations.
Indeed they do. However, if that is the meaning you intend, your argument doesn’t really work that well tbh.
Not necessarily; lots of philosophical and logical debates are rational thought but don’t involve the scientific method at all. I’d also contend that that definition differs from the one you literally just mentioned, so if that is what you’re going with, my point still works against you. Your stance isn’t based upon the scientific method, so by your definition it is not rational.
We’re on agreement on that, then, but that’s why I only said you were sounding like a radical purist rather than going all-in on that claim.
That’s great, except that marriage isn’t owned by religious institutions, either. If anything, that makes your point more confusing.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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I’m looking at both. You have yet to present any evidence that the word is offensive to any class of people subjectively or is commonly used to deliberately offend people, nor have you shown the language used is ambiguous in context, nor have you shown that your proposed change has any practical difference in terms of its effects. Those are the only legitimate reasons from my POV to make changes to the language used in a law as opposed to a substantive change to the law.
As such, from my perspective, I fail to see how the change is actually helpful from a meaningful perspective rather than an illusory change at best.
And since I can rationally deny that the term “marriage” is based in religious practice, rule, or law, it’s not undeniable. Soooooo…. What’s the problem here?
Hey, you’re the one who said “undeniably”, so all I had to do was deny it.
I’m sorry you feel that way. Truly I am. However, by saying that, you have lost all semblance of being “rational” as you are now going for a purely emotional and subjective argument from only your opinion. This is especially the case as you appear to be alone in this.
Again, using intentionally inflammatory language without any actual point is not rational argument. I also deny the claim that “marriage” is a religious word.
Or—y’know—someone who recognizes that words change in meaning over time and in different contexts and also realizes the word is already used and recognized and so would need an actual reason to change that. Also someone who hates others dictating their language or who doesn’t believe in giving a word to people who don’t own it.
Seriously, your idea of what terms can be used in the law gives religious institutions way too much power.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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I know several nonreligious people who attend church and who get married at a church, neither of which are necessary for a legally binding marriage today, either. So, yes, I absolutely see them doing so.
Then why did you bother bringing them up?
First off, this has been bothering me, but you keep making very basic grammar mistakes despite also claiming to be an expert on language. In this case, “it’s” vs “its”. I wouldn’t complain except you keep citing linguistics to support your point when you are apparently unfamiliar with the nuances of the English language.
Second, what you’re describing is the essentially the difference between linguistic prescriptivism and descriptivism. The only difference being just how offended you are about any use in the law that goes against what you prescribe. This includes a false sense of attachment to the “origins” of words and English, some of which are factually incorrect. I find prescriptivism strongly distasteful in general, but the fact that you are trying to claim that your side is the “rational” one and the “moral” or “ethical” one is particularly appalling.
By which point your objection will be moot as no one will object to gay marriage on the basis of religion. It’s also an unrealistic idea that will almost certainly never happen. Let’s stick with reality, shall we?
Just because you say you have a claim doesn’t mean you have one. In this case, their claim to have a religious claim is factually and historically wrong. I don’t change how I word things because someone else claims that term is theirs to use as they see fit and everyone else must conform to their definition despite all evidence to the contrary.
Also, have you ever heard the phrase “not even wrong”? If they are neither wrong nor right, that means their claim is either pure opinion (and so doesn’t matter here) or irrelevant. I see no reason to change the language to conform to a point that is neither right nor wrong.
“Words of religious significance” is absurdly broad to the point that the English language could not function without them. People assign religious significance to so many mundane things that trying to exclude all of them is a fool’s errand. On top of that, you haven’t demonstrated to my satisfaction that marriage is sufficiently religious that allowing it in government somehow connects the government to religion, so the premise is still unproven.
Also, you’re sounding like a radical purist, and that is something I find even more distasteful than prescriptivism. Seriously, you’re beginning to sound fanatical about this. It’s getting to be ridiculous.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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Assuming for the sake of argument that marriage does have religious origin, that doesn’t make usage of the term with its modern definition inherently offensive to rational people. The conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises.
The fact that we aren’t offended by every use of every term with some connection to religion at any point in time is a point in favor of rational thought.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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That removes a lot of terms from legal recognition, not just marriage. Does that mean we have to remove “speech”, “religion”, “charity”, “debts”, “forgive”, “mercy”, “judgment”, “judge”, “leader”, and so many others from the law? Those have religious use as well.
Come to think of it, “law” has religious use, too. Guess it has to go, too.
No one else shares that opinion. Most people recognize that words can, y’know, change over time, sometimes in ways that are unrecognizable compared to their source.
And, again, lots of words are just as linked to a source in religious practice that today have nothing to do with religion. Going back to the source only helps so much.
And yet you insist on linking the two as though the term “marriage” is inseparable from the concept of “religious recognition of a binding between two or more persons”.
What fantasy?
Well, no one else has a problem with the use of the term, so you might as well suck it up and deal with it.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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No, it’s not. First off, “similar secular practice”? There is no meaningful difference! There never has been.
And when the modern term “marriage” was introduced to the English language, the number of English-speaking persons who were publicly neither Christian nor Jewish was essentially zero, so there would be no reason to distinguish between secular marriage and religious marriage.
You’re the only one I know of who finds the term “marriage” offensive. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, polygamists, MGTOWs, Christians, atheists… none of them ever have expressed any issue with the term. You’re trying to solve a problem that does not exist.
The notion that people like to form long-term relationships as the start of a new nuclear family? Seriously, no one can agree on the “doctrinal notion” of marriage or that such a notion is inherently present within marriage to begin with, so there’s no such acceptance anywhere but your imagination.
And it ultimately means nothing to modern usage. When we use “gay”, are we tethered to its historical meaning? Or what about “awful”? It originally meant “tending to inspire great awe” and was a positive quality to have. Does that mean that every use of it must conform to that origin? And I guess since the N word didn’t originally have any offensive meaning (it was just a word for a kind of mite/bug), that means the word isn’t an insult now?
Seriously, there is nothing about the word “marriage” as it is used today that necessarily invokes a religious connotation. None of the roots of the word “marriage” necessarily refer to religion, either. That religion was intertwined with the concept at the time and place that the term was introduced is irrelevant.
The fact is that there is no reason in the modern day to insert a new term for marriage with no connection to religion because, frankly, it’s a dumb argument. Neither side will be better off or happier with your proposed solution, and it’d be a pain to modify literally every single law that mentions marriage to fit whatever term fits your fancy. You’d also effectively be regulating language since atheists were getting married long before the gay marriage debate came up.
If you’re going to change the words of a statute in such a way that has no effective difference, then the problem with the existing words has to be either that they are ambiguous or confusing (which no one would argue is the case here) or the existing words are inherently offensive to a class of people (which isn’t the case here).
On the post: Blumenthal's Finsta Debacle: It Remains Unacceptable That Our Politicians Are So Clueless About The Internet
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I’m sorry, but the only goalpost-moving was done by Blumenthal. He gave a false definition for “finsta”, and that’s the primary subject of the article. The article also addresses that definition on top of that, so whichever of the two places you think the goalposts should be, the article addresses both.
More to the point, even with that definition, it exposes an ignorance of how the internet works. Facebook can’t really commit to “ending” that because how could you reasonably enforce it without compromising the privacy of everyone else?
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
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We’re talking about a guy who once referred to the devs of some crowdfunded indie game that was going Epic-exclusive and handled it badly as the developers of the latest Oddworld game, a completely different set of developers who did go Epic-exclusive for their game but did not receive anywhere near the same backlash, a mistake that is still on this site—uncorrected—years later.
Face it; Tim Geigner makes a lot of mistakes and can never be bothered to either do some basic double-checking before posting or to actually do anything to address his mistakes. He can be very incompetent about very simple matters. I would not be surprised if this, too, remains uncorrected and unaddressed on this site forever.
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
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Hold on; wasn’t there a huge thing about the Xbox One doing that and Sony capitalizing on that for the PS4?
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
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Imagine that; people who can’t connect online didn’t show up in online-only research and so couldn’t let the researchers know that a decent portion of their consumer base can’t connect to the internet every day or so! What a shocking turn of events! What’s next? That interviewing only people who go to church every week won’t give preachers an idea as to why some people—including some Christians—don’t go to church often, if at all? What is this madness!?
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
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The PSN only governs online connectivity between one console and at least one other (of the same or different types). Firmware updates (along with other things like software updates and the PlayStation Store) don’t use PSN even though they do require the console to be connected to the internet.
Most software requires you to go online if you want to download patches; that’s kinda how downloading works. I’m not really sure what you expect; whether you play games on a PS3, PS4, PS5, PSP, PSVita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS/2DS, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, tablet, or mobile device, they all require you to go online to download patches.
If you’re complaining about the fact that you have to download patches at all, that’s understandable, though again far from exclusive to the PS3.
Unless you’re looking for some sort of DLC, most games that can be bought physically are playable—if sometimes buggy—without an online connection at all. Unless they are online multiplayer games, in which case I have no idea why you’re complaining about having to connect to the internet to download this stuff in the first place.
Okay… I don’t know why this is such a big issue for you, though…
Again, almost all modern games and modern systems have that requirement, especially the fully patched thing.
Really, while I can understand the annoyance with having to download stuff for the final product, and I can certainly understand being annoyed that some single-player-only games require an online connection to start playing at all or for DRM or something, I really don’t get why you’re so bothered by the fact that patches require an online connection to be downloaded or why you’re so focused on this being the case for the PS3, specifically, given that every console or handheld dedicated gaming device since the Xbox 360 (if not earlier) as well as PCs, smartphones, tablets, etc. have the exact same requirements. In other words, it’s been a thing since online gaming or downloading games from the internet has been a thing, and I’m not entirely sure how you would expect to get those patches without an online connection.
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
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I just reread the article, and I now retract the first clause of my statement and further affirm the second.
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
Re: Ummmm, PS4 support was NOT being killed.
Yeah, Tim Geigner dropped the ball on this one. Again.
At least it’s not as damaging as the mixup between a game that had adequately communicated it would be a timed-exclusive on the Epic Store and one that did not.
On the post: PS4 Battery Time-Keeping Time-Bomb Silently Patched By Sony; PS3 Consoles Still Waiting
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I don’t think this article was terrible in explaining there were two issues—one affecting the PS3 and PS4 and one affecting the PSP, PS Vita, and PS3—but Tim Geigner’s articles do seem to be… subpar compared to the others.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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That’s more or less what I was getting at.
On the post: Texas Legislature Says You Can't Teach About Racism In Schools, But Social Media Sites Must Host Holocaust Denialism
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Not really. And, ultimately, that’s just saying they had different names for marriages under different religions. That doesn’t mean that marriage originated with Christianity or religion.
It does fix the problem I found more-or-less. There may be some constitutional issues, and I’m no more convinced that this is actually helpful, but it’s the best version you put forth so far.
On the post: Texas' Unconstitutional Social Media Censorship Bill Challenged In Court, Just As Texas Joins The Legal Fight For Florida's Unconstitutional Social Media Bill
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You didn’t respond to my main point, which was asking why this is relevant to the discussion. I see no need to address the plausibility or factuality of the claims if they aren’t relevant.
This is particularly the case when one of the claims gives off a conspiracy-theory sort of vibe. I don’t want to touch any claims of a conspiracy if I don’t have to, and if it’s not relevant, then I don’t have to, so I won’t.
On the post: Minnesota Dept. Of Public Safety Now Handing Out License/Insurance Carriers In Hopes Of Keeping Cops From Killing More Drivers
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How selfish.
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