Concerns About Sony's Religious Intolerance

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Time to close the thread.

Word to that.

[zelda_pinwheel]

if y'all just stop posting in it, it will disappear quickly enough.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

if y'all just stop posting in it, it will disappear quickly enough.

If you'd close the thread, it would go away even faster.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i don't see any reason to close it, as everyone participating is being quite polite and reasonable, and the discussion has been rather interesting. if you're tired of it, just don't post in it yourself.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

It's elephants all the way down in the Buddhist parable. It's only turtles all the way down on Discworld.

Turtles is much older than Discworld. I saw it first in a Bertrand Russell book. One of the possible sourced from wikipedia:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

[CCDMan]

1. Sony does not care that (according to numerous polls) that 90% of Americans believe in God. They are clearly interested in promoting their own agenda, regardless of the fact that it may insult 90% of their customers.

Exactly why SHOULD they care (aside from economic self interest)? The idea that they are promoting an "agenda" (one assumes you mean a faith agenda) is totally stupid. They are a company, they exist to make a profit, period. Like most companies, that is the only agenda they give a damn about. They could care less about your religion, my religion, or any religion. Maybe they used the book because it was a bestseller. Maybe they used it because it was cheap or had a sweet deal with the publisher. We do not have any REAL information as to why they used the book but you can damn well bet it was NOT ideological.

2. The choice of including this book demonstrates a policy that they agree with the content of the book, to the point that it should be promoted to every single person who purchases their ebook reader.

You cannot possibly know what their intent was. The inclusion of this book demonstrates nothing, proves nothing.

3. Sony is committed to this type of religious intolerance because it apparently has also been included for free on the new 700 model.

Again, Sony is committed to selling stuff and making money. They will put whatever they want to in their products and they have the right to do so just as we have the right to buy them or not buy them.

And WHO exactly is being intolerant here? Would you be posting here if the BIBLE had been one of the books? How about the KORAN, the TALMUD, or the BHAGAVAD GITA?

Religion should not get a special "pass" not to be criticized. EVERYONE has a right to their opinion. This (USA) IS a free country (of course some religious extremists would have it otherwise).

It is just a book and Dawkins, like you, has a right to express his opinion. Don't like the book? Delete it.

I noted that in his inauguration speech, president Obama had the balls to include "non-believers". They are not only are entitled to their beliefs, they are entitled to write and read books about what they believe. Just as you are.

[jmorton]

See, this just goes to show: different strokes for different folks. I, personally, was surprised and delighted to find an excerpt of the Dawkins book on the Reader. It's a popular book, and I was not offended at all. And, no, I definitely did not find it disrespectful. I had been curious about the book and this allowed me to see what it was like. (I still haven't read it though. I made the mistake of starting with Pillars of the Earth, which is taking forever to finish.)

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by tompe

Turtles is much older than Discworld. I saw it first in a Bertrand Russell book. One of the possible sourced from wikipedia:

Well elephants is older than turtles (dating back several centuries). Man ... that sentence just sounds wrong .... "elephants is older than turtles"??

The original saying is from a very old Buddhist parable about faith, and why it is futile to argue a point of faith.

And, why would Bertrand Russell be lecturing on astronomy?? He wasn't an astronomer. He wasn't even a scientist. He was a philosopher ... at least he was the last time I read any of his work.

[CCDMan]

To insist that the judge never mention god would infringe upon _his_ freedom of religion. And again, it's separation of _church_ and state, not _religion_ and state.

Uh, no. The judge was acting in his OFFICIAL capacity when he uttered those words. He was speaking for the law and for the state as long as he was speaking from the bench.

If he had said it to one of his clerks after court, or to his buds at the local watering hole, that would be a whole different kettle of fish.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by tompe

Turtles is much older than Discworld. I saw it first in a Bertrand Russell book. One of the possible sourced from wikipedia:

Well, the 17th-century philosopher John Locke did consider an elephant-tortoise combination:

"If any one should be asked, what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but the solid extended parts; and if he were demanded, what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian before mentioned who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on; to which his answer was--a great tortoise: but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied--something, he knew not what."
[Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, 23, 2.]

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by CCDMan

Uh, no. The judge was acting in his OFFICIAL capacity when he uttered those words. He was speaking for the law and for the state as long as he was speaking from the bench.

If he had said it to one of his clerks after court, or to his buds at the local watering hole, that would be a whole different kettle of fish.

Are you sure about that? I looked, and cannot find the court transcript or a copy of the ruling. You need to show that that sentence is in one or the other. Otherwise it wasn't said in an official capacity.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I could turn around and say that anyone who prays to jesus is anti-God as Jesus is not God.

People that pray to Jesus do believe he is God. Part of the Holy Trinity.

BOb

[catsittingstill]

Aarg; I can't quite figure out how to do this; I apologize if I have done violence to the normal way of quoting somone:

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety Begin Ricky post------------------

Now, if the Bible had begun with general physics and worked its way into string theory and parallel universes, instead of gardens and begats, well, then I might have not tossed it out as interesting fiction.

But, alas ..... it was not to be.

End Ricky post----------------

I doubt that would have gone over with the general population at the time of the writings........

I respectfully disagree. I'm not sure how much could be done with string theory, because I don't in the least understand it, but the beginning of the cosmos / origin of earth could have been done pretty well, I think. It might have started something like:

In the beginning everything was pressed together in one spot, and it was smaller and heavier and hotter than anything the human mind can imagine. It was so hot that in the next instant it sprang outward, into clouds of dust and wind, hanging in the empty night. The clouds were so vast that they were heavy, and over uncountable eons they drew together in clumps, like curds forming in milk, but made of dust and wind falling inward under its own weight. The clumps grew hotter and hotter until they began to burn with a fire that is not like earthly fire but is far hotter and more powerful. They became suns. Their sun fire changed the nature of the their own sun stuff, to make new materials that would be able to combine to form air and rock, iron and ash, water and copper and bronze, all the things of the world. These suns lived a long, long time, and some of them sprang apart when they died, strewing their changed sunstuff in new clouds...

And so on. I don't think it would have been that hard.

[slayda]

If parallel universes do exist, could there be a univers where god probably does exist?

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

Aarg; I can't quite figure out how to do this; I apologize if I have done violence to the normal way of quoting somone:

How you've done it is understandable

However, the easier way of doing it is, on the first post you want to quote, click on the multiple pages button to the right of the Quote button. Do the same for any intermediary posts you want to quote. For the last post you want to quote, click the Quote button.