carpandean

https://youtu.be/wGdhc9k07Ms?t=24s

I could have given you my 3 cents: Who knew we even had one of those? Technically, it doesn't settle which god. Whatever one is there, we trust. Another interesting fact found along the way: "Our Country; Our God" and "God, Our Trust" were the first suggestions by the Director of the Mint.

But "in god we trust" was added to coins in 1864:

Coins: 1860's (with some interruptions on some coins after that) Paper: 1950's It's interesting that the Declaration of Independence features "their Creator" and "God", but the Constitution does not. Even in the case of the DoI, no specific religion is described, though the use of the singular form of God precludes both atheism and any religion that believes in multiple gods.

Don't forget that you can't be compelled to testify against your spouse, either. The state wants to prevent polygamy, as well. Can't get a license to marry someone if your previous contract is still in place.

Playing devil's advocate: do you know that they didn't?

I take anything that has been processed by "man" with a grain of salt. I am reasonably certain of two things: a) Jesus, be he man or son of God, probably did exist around the time that he is believed to have, b) His message and lessons, whether true and unfiltered or approximate and improved by the writers, are valuable lessons on being a good person. Now, as for who he was, there are four possibilities: 1) He really was the son of God and expected to be considered as such, 2) He was a bit delusional, being just a man, but thinking he was the son of God, 3) He knew he was not and intentionally misrepresented himself, whether for good or bad reasons, 4) He never said that he was the son of God, but a story grew around a popular and charismatic figure with a powerful message. Regardless, of which of those is true, (b) still holds above. So, I leave to each person to believe which of (1) - (4) is correct, but as Neo, Drunkard, etc, have said, the message, without the assumption of (1), is still worth a lot.

I should have done a search before I posted that theory (though, I did note that I had not looked into it.) I believe that the video was David Barton on Glenn Beck. If so, it was about his book, The Jefferson Lies. Here's a quote from Wikipedia on that text: How much egg is on my face? It was an interesting theory, though.

I remember watching a video once that I meant to look into more. Basically, the guy being interviewed said that the so-called "Jefferson Bible" was not actually his revision of the Bible, taking stuff that he did not believe in out, but was rather a concise guide designed to present the valuable teaching of Christ to non-Christians. In particular, it was distributed to all members of Congress, regardless of their personal faith. The guy also provided several quotes and examples of missionary work that Jefferson had done as proof that he did, in fact, believe in much of what was cut. As I said, I didn't have time to look into the credibility of it, but I thought it was pretty interesting, anyway.

There was a time when our government promoted the idea of armed citizens well trained in the military weapons of the day and, no, it wasn't in the 1700's. Teddy Roosevelt felt especially strong about training boys, not just grown men, how to shoot.

Any school, church, etc, shooting is empirical evidence. The aforementioned shooter including it in his thought process is, too.

College seniors vs. college freshman? Yes, I definitely think that there is a maturity difference. Of course, I'd say 21 and 25 are generally very different, too.

Age is an easily measurable proxy for maturity. Never perfect, of course. Many 16 year old girls are more mature than most 18 year old boys, but guess which one gets arrested if they have sex.

Not a cause, per se, but an opportunity. In at least one recent mass shooting, the shooter's journal revealed that he considered other locations, but rejected them because he thought he might not have the opportunity to shoot as many people (or something along those lines), settling instead on a gun free zone (I think it was a school shooting) as there would be less opposition. It's a theory with some logical and some empirical support.

That many shootings (well, those publicized ones, anyway) take place in gun free zones.

Isn't that true for every non-GFZ, already?

Agreed and agreed. On the school carry part: under NY law, a pistol permit can only be issued to someone 21 or over. Additionally, open carry (of pistol, rifle, shotgun, etc) is not legal in NY. So, if schools were not gun free zones, the only ones who could be carrying legally (illegally can happen now anyway) would be seniors (or other older undergrads; e.g., returning students) or grad students, parents, teachers, safety/police officers or visitors who are at least 21. You would not have a class full of armed disgruntled undergrads (grad students generally seem to take their own lives when things get tough.)

Your last sentence is an excellent example of the defeatist attitude that I am tired of. Without any details relating to how he acquired his weapon, you're asking me what could have been done. How am I supposed to answer that? It's going to take a full police investigation just to figure out what actually did happen. If I had the facts of that investigation I think I could sit down and pick out any number of points of interest and explore them further. But to sit here and say "what could we have done?" while having no way of addressing that question is pure cynicism and nothing more. I agree. We should find out what happened, ask what could have prevented it and then decide which, if any, of the answers to the second question should be implemented. That last part is where much of the debate occurs. I would add that the defeatist attitude is the balanced by the "someone was shot again" (in a nation of 300+ million people), "we have to get rid of all legal guns" argument. As you said, we don't know how he got it (legal? not legal?) and whether any bigger problem (e.g., previous signs of a mental health problem) should have put other steps into action. I am obviously pro legal gun ownership and I would love nothing more than to keep guns out of the hands of those who would do harm with them. It would make all of our lives easier. I do think that all guns purchases should have a background check, provided that the system is easy, cheap and relatively quick (right now, rifles take minutes, while purchasing your first pistol can take many months or even years.) Much of the resistance to universal background checks (not sure what the "gun show loophole" actually is, since gun shows have NICS systems set up to run background checks and the county clerk's office often has someone there to add pistols to legal permits) comes from how they have been implemented (long waiting periods, lack of resources, arbitrary or unmeetable criteria, etc, make them de facto gun control), the slippery slope once they are (as mentioned above, government agencies often get to set the criteria; plus, once in place, it is easier to add limitations), abuses of such systems (ex's claiming that they were threatened because they know that it will mean that the guns will be taken - yes, it has happened) and, perhaps one of the biggest reasons, because the politicians writing the laws have no idea what they are talking about, so you get pieces of s**t legislation like the (so-called) SAFE Act that might include some good things, but without debate, the bad stuff cannot be clarified, removed or improved. I had a thought that I wanted to throw out: people often bring up the analogy of DWI's and how we don't ban cars. The counter-point is often "cars have other uses; guns don't." Now, we can argue that counter-point, but I prefer to look at the analogy another way. Alcohol does not have another purpose other than entertainment, yet we are not bringing back prohibition just because some (a lot, actually) of people who drink then get into a car and drive. I know that the "there's another thing killing innocent people" argument doesn't hold much water, but returning to the other uses point, while we can debate how effective guns are in preventing crime (hard to say, because such stories, at best, make local news, not national, and the statistics are not kept) or tyranny (side note: armed citizens would not have to fight the US military alone; the military would be split and many police officers, Sheriff's deputies, etc, would side with them, making the cost too high and the chance of success too low), certainly we can agree that their use is better than any use alcohol has. So, let's focus on finding ways to limit the misuse of both guns and alcohol (I can tell you with utmost certainty that the system is waaaaaaaay too lenient on DWI offenders, even and especially repeat offenders.) Interesting question: if there haven't been a large portion at gun free zones (statistical evidence that you want to see) and, as you point out, schools are gun free zones, then should we really be concerned about school shootings? In other words, either they don't really happen that frequently (just seems like it because they get so much media attention) or they do and the "gun free zone" point holds. ;)

Along these same lines, I always wonder about the "in His own image" part. Man is such a weak and flawed creature that, were we actually the image of God, would He actually have been capable of creating us in the first place? Seems much more plausible that we are, in fact, simply the furthest point that evolution has taken us so far. We're a little ahead of other primates and dolphins, but there's still soooooo much room left to grow. Unless the movie Lucy was right and it's the 90% of our brains that we don't use that will make us all-powerful.

Ah, but there's the crux of the problem. You tell someone that the "facts" say that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and they respond, "God told us that it's 6,000 years old and then created your 'facts' (He is all-powerful, after all, so he must be capable of doctoring the evidence, right?) to test your faith." You literally can't prove them wrong. That's why I laugh when someone says that they "disproved God." Can't be done when the counterargument involves being able to control everything that you see. Note: I tend to believe the science, but I know that I can't, technically, rule out anything based on faith. I guess you could say that my - and I believe your - "faith" is in science.

Two of my top three, as well. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, there are a lot of issues in both the "Agree with" and Disagree with" list for each candidate that I feel strongly about. My ideology is "Centrist" with a slight offset toward Libertarian. No candidate ever seems to represent me well, so I have to count on compromise and/or ebb & flow to keep the country closer to me than any of them. If only we could get money out of politics (as the Founding Fathers would have supported), it might actually work. As it is, the two party's actions often seem too similarly bad.

Oh, have no doubt, the double entendre was quite intentional.

He's calling out the established Republic leaders in Washington for not doing anything that they have promised. A lot of Republicans saw the last election as a big message and opportunity, but (right or wrong) feel that those leaders have done nothing but give in. People supporting Trump don't necessarily want Trump to actually win; they just want him to have an effect on the party's leaders. It's early; he's a tool.

As I said, there is bias in the system. Of that, I have no doubt. Heck, a white judge subconsciously feeling "that could be my son/daughter" when sentencing a young white defendant is going to introduce some bias when the majority of judges are white. It's just not as biased as "incarcerated 5.8 times more than whites" suggests. What you really need to look at is the conviction rate and sentences for apples-to-apples crimes, histories, etc. Again, I'm sure that they are not equal, but how unequal are they?

% of the crime committed (arrested) by a particular group divided by the % of the overall population that the group makes up. Edit: oops, not convicted.