It means that political systems that simply specify their own rules of evaluation of their actions per their own benefit, and are militarily and economically entrenched in doing so, have as a practical matter no accountability, which the OP seemed to suggest he was going to fix.

Well, no. He'll futilely rail against it ("the West", but any government can be substituted) on Slashdot, accomplish nothing, then die and become irrelevant. As will you. I suggest a more pragmatic viewpoint.

I'm not sure you understand how contradictions work, since I've made none.

I said people have free will, including to do harmful things, and suggested accountability exists in the afterlife.

Luther's stance on Jews (which may, in fact, ultimately serve as example of exactly my statement) has no more to do with contradicting this than me saying that because someone of your political party held a view that you do not, your statement is contradicted.

Ah, no.

I'm not sure what context you are presenting this from. Assuming it's atheism, please include your objection from the perspective of Darwinism. We can take it from there, on whether DNA propagation would be increased or decreased by this, that sort of thing. Everything you've got derived from your stance, whatever little that may be.

Still there prioritizing free will and not making people automatons despite what many of them do with it.

I do find this a strange argument from a practical perspective, though. An existing God with afterlife consequences is the one and only thing that could make these people accountable. You certainly won't be changing anything.

Or more insidiously, backed by the loan they just made to some other guy.

So, essentially the proposition is that one can pay back principal plus interest with the assets of existing principal, considered on the level of the financial system as a whole.

While it is a remarkably convenient system by which the banks can steal the added value of all human productivity gains, it remains the case that P + I != P, and inability to repay loans is inevitable. But by then, of course, the banks have the actual gains from imaginary value loaned, and it's time to blame the victim.

For example, more than 20% (38 of 186) of authors who submitted papers from Bulgaria were flagged, more than eight times the proportion from New Zealand (five of 207). In Japan, about 6% (269 of 4759) of submitting authors were flagged, compared with over 15% (164 out of 1054) from Iran.

I suspect that the ratio in countries where the motivation could -literally- be publish or perish, will be consistently higher than those where the saying is figurative.

Or, put less pictorially and more... Coptically...

No, that's the fun thing. Your argument fails both on the level of analogy and literally.

And, well, I'd destroy you at chess. So I guess that makes 3.

Like, when someone says that quoting Nimzowitsch's "My System" on a question of chess strategy -categorically cannot be a valid argument-, regardless of any concurrent establishment of the general veracity or lack of it in the GM's book, for example.

Oh look. They guy playing checkers--that's you.

Just to note, though, although this scenario does seem to be a serious concern, I mainly raised it to make sure that Slashdot's anti-religious cadre enthusiastically fights to make sure we avoid "pseudoscience" and leave ourselves permanently vulnerable to a potential terrorist pandemic, by continuing to reject that determining biological design is even possible.

My guess is that their position on it will suddenly change when it's an issue of saving their own ass, rather than suppressing "religious" ID concepts. Just a guess, though.

You would think it would not be difficult to settle on a consistent translation, from the start, though.

Unfortunately, I'd say, oh maybe half of that $425 million recently (apparently) stolen by ISIS from the Iraqi central bank (letting alone the black-market oil revenue) would be enough to find a suitable biology-educated taker.

Probably more than one. Particularly if they held extremist sentiments, which seem to be in abundance lately.

Money seems to come with a lot of unintended consequences, doesn't it?

Whichever it "officially" is, isn't really what I'm commenting on. The distinction held by any member of either rendering isn't worth bothering with thinking about, nor any member of either organization, they'll just be annihilated en masse anyway--either by evolution or by the actual God their doctrines attempt to pervert, take your pick.

It was just a commentary on propagation of an acronym within a sociopolitical media context, really. Nothing to get so upset about. Unless you know more about yourself than I do.

While I'm not in a position to comment on your specifics, I did find it rather strange that from the government down through the media both the terms "ISIS" and "ISIL" were being used interchangeably to refer to the organization, right from the start. It almost seemed like a kind of "red versus blue" A/B testing following which usage (naturally linked in a number of conceptual ways to the broader stances and positions of the people using each term, and the countries referenced by the respective acronyms) would gain predominate currency of usage among the media-consuming public.

I'd have to add another few layers of tinfoil to my hat to make any real positive assertions about this, but it did strike me as... odd.

Given the current political environment in our conflict with ISIS, I think resources should probably be put into preparing to counter a potential terrorist-weaponized version of Ebola. There seems to be a reasonable chance that with ISIS' newfound financial resources, the attempt could be made to create a weaponized genetically-modified version of the Ebola virus, perhaps even rendering it airborne-transmissible. If we encounter such a thing in the population, preparation for a military response to the perpetrators seems called for, if we can determine it is indeed engineered and what its origin is.

Oh wait. Attempts to determine design in biological structures are impossible and pseudoscience. They proved that in court in at Dover. The lawyer in the black robe said so.

(Hmm... couldn't resist)

Let me start by saying thank you for an intellectually interesting conversation that doesn't involve name calling, finger pointing or ranting. I have a tendency toward snark, don't take it too personally :)

Likewise. And I'll resist the contextual urge to reply--

THIS... IS... SLASHDOT!

--with a corresponding 300-style virtual kick. ;)

Your points are well-made, and I will consider them further. In particular, I'm noting that the seeming weakness of the apparent "organism -> any mutation -> any resultant organism" process is strengthened by the incorporation of chronological sequence as a filter, in terms of being able to determine actual plausibility, so there is a better "falsifiability mechanism" here than I had in mind.

I think I've reached the limit of time I can spend on arguing these sub-branches of the question for the time being, though, so I will leave it here. Have a good weekend, perhaps we'll resume on these interesting topics another time.