Mad_Michael

I don't dispute any of that. But the simple fact that well over 90% of all people who claim to 'have a religion' have the same one as their parents. This level of co-relation with parents is far higher than voting habits or income status. This suggests that religion is somehow 'inherited'. If you have actively religious parents, there is a very high likelihood that you will be religious too. If you have non-religious parents, there is a very high likelihood that you will not be religious. Those that reject their parents religion (or inherit no religion) and yet come to accept some other religion are comparatively very rare (statistically less than 2%). Indeed, religious status is statistically the easiest (and most probable) thing to predict about any given person - without knowing any detail about that person save the identity, religion, ethnicity and social status of the parents. On this basis, I don't see how one can just outright reject the idea that religion is inherited. The idea that the overwhelming majority of religious people follow their parent's religion is not a coincidence.

No problem. Just knock one or two percentage points off Canada's annual GDP growth - every year. I might remind you that would put Canada in a recession - pretty much non-stop for the last couple of decades and endless future of recessions. You like recessions? The only thing keeping Canada out of them is our high immigration level. Glad you don't run our government.

Wouldn't it be better to just wait a week or so and then find out what the jury says rather than pure speculation at this point?

Interesting post. However, I don't think you will find anything of a similar character in Charlottetown (though I'll check at the end of August when I visit the place). That's just where they signed the deed and posed for the pictures. For all intents and purposes, the 'idea' of Canada was apparently born in London England (with Lord Durham serving as the midwife).

Okay if you want to play like that. There has never been a just war (ww2 is the classic example, anyone who thinks it was just probably has not studied it enough). There never will be a just war. But, there could be a just war (somewhat Platonic I guess...). I'm not playing anything. I'm just pointing out the logical ramifications of your statement. Can you give us your definition of a 'just war'?

Thanks for the correction. It will be interesting to see how that Lend-Lease list squares with the Congressional authorisation of support to USSR. Could be two different programs going here.... I'll have to follow this up. I admit that this is the first I've heard of any substantive weaponry shipped by USA to USSR during WW2. Lots of trucks, armored cars, aircraft and non-military material, no doubt of that, but I've seen dozens of references to the US prohibition against weaponry shipments to USSR in various books/articles about the Eastern Front so I'm now interested in how that was resolved through the Lend-Lease program.

Your question is flawed. One doesn't need a rational reason for anything, much less religious faith. Human beings have a long history of irrational passions. This is human nature. And since you asked, the vast majority of religious people inherited their religion from their parents/family upbringing. They are religious for the same reason they have manners and speak the language they do. That explanation - religion or faith is inherited- is more than a bit facile. I've noticed many people return to their faith or discover faith later in life. They are not inbred hillbillies either, but thinking caring and intelligent people. There are a couple of explanations for this. The most likely is that as people get older, they tend to move beyond the questions of where the next party might be found. Right. And quite remarkably, those older people tend to move to precisely the religion that they were brought up in - or atleast, in over 90% of cases where this phenomena is known to occur. If your theory was even remotely credible, then these 'older people' might be expected to adopt a variety of different religous views. They generally don't. You are correct in one respect though. People as they age often do 'come back' to the religion that they 'drifted' away from in their younger days. Picking or choosing amongst a hundred various sects amongst the Christian religion is of course equally simple. Indeed, in well over 90% of cases, they will magically choose the one that they were brought up with. Remarkable coincidence that. If you are going to assert that religion isn't inherited from your parents (as is the statistical case of over 90% of Americans who claim to be religious), then you have to offer a more convincing argument. P.S. Your assertion that my argument here is "facile" is troll bait. I replied politely. I don't always reply to troll bait with such politeness.

If you define war as 'unjust' by definition, there is no surprise that you would conclude that there has never been a 'just' war. Indeed, that is called a 'tautology'.

Yes. Apparently ScottSA shares The Kapitan's foul mouth. See post #895 for example of same.

Unequivically, no. You should know what happens when you "assume". The 'Statute of Mortmain' has nothing to do with the ending of the traditional practice of feudalism and the conversion of feudal dues into monetary payments that occured under Edward I.

Right. The Russkies defeated the Nazis by running them over with all those trucks! Btw, I presume you are aware that the USA placed very strict limits on any assistence given to the USSR during WW2 - making sure nothing was an offensive weapon - trucks and armored cars only (no guns or ammo). Admittedly, this is useful stuff and I'm sure the USSR was thankful for the help, but hardly 'make or break' support. Anyways, I'm of the view that USSR defeated Nazi Germany pretty much single-handedly. Quite an impressive feat. All the storm and thunder of the western allies didn't ultimately amount to much. No one could have known or predicted that at the time, but hindsight does provide the ability to look back at this stuff. This doesn't devalue the western allies contributions or thier sacrifices - those sacrifices were made in a good cause, with noble motives. Ultimately, it probably wasn't necessary, but we couldn't have known that back in 1939.

Perhaps because the religious types can't agree on just one religion to run the schools by. If religion runs the schools, then we have to have dozens of religions running their own schools. And indeed, 65.3% of Ontario is not Catholic.

You should know.

The United Kingdom is putting creationism in its place, that is to say, nowhere near a science classroom. It's about time a government stood up and defended reason against religious zealots who are trying to indoctrinate children with untested mythological ideas presented as tried and tested scientific knowledge. Interestingly enough, given that there is no constitutional mandate or legal requirement for any separation of Church and State in Britian.

The only subject I have heard him actually get 'rabid' on would be abortion...other than that he is as credible as any other writer. Just because you don't agree with him, doesn't make him incredible. Coren's credibility has nothing to do with my agreement or disagreement with his views. If you have watched Michael Coren's show, you will see him shout down or shut down anyone who disagrees with his anti-homo or 'all Islamics are terrorists' crap. If anyone tries to approach any of these particular topics, Coren will use his power as 'host' to cut them off, talk over them and go to a commercial - giving himself the last word every time. That is his 'right' as tv-host, but it displays a consistently closed mind on several key issues. The man is an ideologue. No substantive credibility by definition. And yes, this same applies to all ideologues. Ideologues have no credibility, regardless of whether I agree with their views or not. I always object when tv-personality-celebrities are held up as some example of wisdom because they just happen to say something one agrees with.

This is one of the issues of philosophy and politics that interests me greatly. Does the law reflect morality, codify morality, or legislate morality? Alternatively, does morality follow from the codification or legislation of law?

As for Charter schools (or vouchers for that matter), I agree the ideas appear to have merit. However, in ten years of closely following the issue, I've yet to see ANY data that suggests that either policy would ACTUALLY provide an improvement upon the present system (lots of promises, few good results). Indeed, for every example of a 'good charter school', there appears to be a several 'ugly' ones. A large US report was recently published (I don't have a link at the moment, but I'll look for it) citing the fact that charter schools were performing at rates BELOW the public system in the USA.

The public school board in Ontario is entirely non-denominational (as it should be). It is NOT a protestant school system.

The jury system has been the bedrock of the Common Law tradition for almost 1000 years now. It (theoretically) prevents the government from abusing their power as investigator, prosecutor and judge by inserting in just one group that doesn't have a direct vested interest in the case and isn't controled by the government. Now, you have stated that our legal system needs dramatic reform. Can you give one clear-cut description of what is precisely wrong with it? It seems from reading your post that you want to get rid of juries because it might save some money. This suggests that you think the problem with the legal system is that it costs too much. If so, why do you ignore cost of private lawyers? They are the single largest cost of the legal system. Juries are cheap compared to the lawyers. Ergo, if you are truly concerned about the high cost of our legal system, you ought to be proposing some way to limit, cap or reduce law fees. But no, you ignored that and chose to attack the ancient institution of juries. This suggests a ideological motive - a bias against juries, the traditional bulkwark defense of the commoner against the power of the elites. So it appears to me that you feel that our legal system doesn't protect our elite rulers sufficiently. If that is the case, I agree, getting rid of the jury system is the way to go for that. (Gosh I hope this isn't going to turn into some argument to free Scooter!)

I learn something new every decade..... Which decade? The general funding of the Catholic school board is early 1980's (Bill Davis' retirement 'gift' to the people of Ontario) and Mike Harris' reorganization of the Provincial/Municipal funding transfer formulas is 1990's.

Rolleyes eh? That speaks louder than your words. Anyway, since you claim expertise upon this topic, perhaps you might like to inform me how is it that science can make any claim of real or true knowledge? How can any given scientist actually know the results of the test actually did occur? On what basis is this claim of knowledge made? I respectfully submit, that the scientist is using faith and cannot possibly do otherwise. And so, how is this different than the faith of a religious believer? You are contemptuous of the question? Enlighten us poor ignorant fools! I shall await your learned reply.

Bemused giggles. Did you have as much fun writing that as I had reading it? You are becoming rather colourful!

And just for fun... I could give proper bibliographic citations in support of the existence of a middle class in England and Western Europe in the 13th century, but that's too much work for forum entertainments. I shall not bother to address more sophisticated evidence of the phenomena such as Edward I's 13th century ending of feudalism and the transmission of hereditary feudal obligations into monetary payments, or the 13th century Italian merchant banking and trading networks established across Europe. Instead, I'll just cite some bland references to 13th century middle classes from the 1st page of a Google search of the term. Apparently, by the early 14th century, the middle classes were so uppity with their style or manner of dress that the nobles passed laws to restrain clothing styles. Who knew? source source source source

What concept? Back to the drawing board... it doesn't make sense to be so exclusive when defining sexual orientations... if someone has homosexual relations, they are gay until they make a firm decision to turn away from this behavior. That is YOUR definition. You are apparently entitled to adhere to your own reality. Apparently this is The Kapitan Rule Number Two (Rule Number One is that no law ought to be valid unless The Kapitan approves of it). Indeed, if we apply YOUR definition to the Kinsey Data set, the approximate number of 'gay' males is roughly about 25-35% amongst teenagers, and drops to about 15-20% for 20-45 year olds and really only gives a number under 5% if you survey over 45yr olds (based on your definition that a 'gay' person is one who has not yet abjured homosexual acts). And which part of "...according to the Kinsey scale..." did you not understand?

You are apparently attempting to apply a 'rational rule' to that which you have defined as irrational (and I agree that iit is). That is invalid logic.