den_wolf

I agree, sev-mard. The guild of students hands out condoms here. Hahaha.. And believe it or not, a lot of people come and get them. I suppose it's good. One can't assume that there will be no sex without condoms. So providing condoms is an act of good-will, in addition to being useful in terms of getting people's attention to other products.

I don't consider sex as a "disease" in the manner you were referring to, gevo. It is, just like any other thing, a marketing tool, an industry. I think it's O.K. to do that, as long as one is not offering condoms to kids. University level is O.K, in my opinion.

anileve, I don't think anyone is claiming that all women writers suck. What I was pointing out is the fact that a lot of women writers are included in the curricula simply so that the university or the program would not be called sexist. Same goes to different races. Half the English Literature courses in almost any university in North America is conceerned with Caribbean Literature. Half of that is trash. What explains that the trashy half is included? So that there would be some "equality" which reality and history did not bring forth. The situation is the same with the quota systems at universities. Here in England, on the application for admission (whether graduate or undergraduate), it asks you what your ethnic origin is. For example, on the U of Liverpool Postgraduate application, it says: Now please tell me why there is an equality difference between a Bangladeshi (mentioned in application) and between an Armenian (not mentioned in the application). My problem is not that Armenian is not mentioned, but that Bangladeshi is mentioned. My point is that, this is very similar to the way things work in curricula and the inclusion of a lot of non-majority authors, in such an intense manner that half the reading list of someone majoring in English Literature is full of trash. Moreover, in an attempt to spread "open-mindedness", such courses are made obligatory for graduation. The bottom line is, you cannot impose art on anyone. Equality cannot be used to assess artistic worth.

My premises are objective. You don't prove existence. You prove non-existence. Trying to prove your own existence is begging the question. Neither do you assume that you exist. That is why I used "observation." By absolute truth I mean, absolute ideas of things. The one Plato uses (read the excerpt from Jostein Gaarder's book). It is an observable thing that the things we experience can be taken all the way back to the inherent underlying idea, of a horse being a horse, of an apple being an apple. Again, it is all about semantics. Even the term "absolute truth." You are trying to go all the way back to the beginning of things, and say that the root of all proofs is based on assumptions. If that is the case, does it follow that all proofs can be based on assumptions? Where do we draw the line? And yes, we were talking about proofs and the process one should follow in order to arrive at a universal proof. Does a universal proof exist? Do we exist? OUR (only OUR, not God's) existence, is a necessity for making those proofs, and it is that that we can take into consideration when proving things. Therefore, your argument that everything is based on at least one assumption does not work. One must exist in order to prove something. Therefore, that existence lies outside of any proof. Is there proof that we exist? And if no, does it mean that everything we do is meaningless? And does the observation that WE are doing SOMETHING (interacting, doing, proving) work to prove that we exist? What if we are only thoughts in someone's mind, driven by determinism, with no free will whatsoever? Our existence is the bases of all thought, feeling, and all other systems. If we do not have that as a premise, it would be pointless to live, talk, argue, etc. God's existence, however, is not a necessity to that. The fact that atheists do survive without believing in God is a proof to that. Therefore, God's existence and OUR existence are not comparable in our attempts to prove something. I am trying not to repeat myself, but it is difficult not to, because you keep coming up with arguments that are parallel to what you previously said.

Note that if the life sentence were a hindrance to crime, we would've had a Utopia by now.

If not logic, then I ask, what? Feelings? Certainly not. If I had relied on feelings to get me through the day, I would not have gotten past my teenager years.

Jewish Friend, that is a slippery slope fallacy. Moreover, it could be argued that genocide recognition is not a hindrance at all to future genocide attempts. Rwanda is a proof to that. And I could give a lot of other examples.

Let p be "the trash-bin should be emptied because it is full", and let q be "I take out the trash." p is true, so by the Left identity of =>, true => q =* q. which tells me that i am taking out the trash.

I did not refer to you specifically, but in general. Stop taking my comments at face value and take everything as if it is a direct attack on you. I must add to that: Believing that genocide A has taken place does not imply that one must believe that genocide B has also taken place. Because it is a function of Event. That is, Event(G, A) is not necessarily equal to Event(G?, B ). If B is considered a genocide and compared to Event(G, A), it does not follow that we have Event(G, B ), it follows that we have Event(G?, B ). Looking at it from another angle, if p is the Armenian genocide, and q is the holocaust, and if we assume that p is true, then we have a situation of: true => q , which is, by the Left identity of => , =* q. (note that it does not equal to 'true', but q, which means that it all comes back to personal belief and assumption).

How did you arrive to that conclusion based on what I said?!??????? Not bringing Nazism into a discussion about the Armenian genocide does not mean that one is pro-Nazism!!! It also does not mean that one is forgetting about the holocaust or any other genocide, and not caring about it. How you got to that conclusion is beyond me. And what is with the majority of Armenians being holocaust nuts? If they were as enthusiastic and radical about the Armenian genocide, we would've had a better chance at getting our own ancestors' genocide recognised. But go on with your obsession with anti-Nazism. It proves nothing. Nazism (or the fact that the holocaust took place, if it's a fact, that is), proves nothing about the Armenian genocide.

I tend to agree with gamavor. Armenians tend to go off in various directions against Nazism without realising that Nazism wasn't there during The Great War, when the Armenians were (being) massacred. Neither was Hitler (well, he didn't witness it, anyway). If he said what he did, he was probably basing his speech on what was being told to him. He could've just as well said that "Armenians were not massacred" had he been in a position of denial. There were conflicting reports from both sides. The fact that he chose to believe one doesn't mean that it can be used as proof. Proving something goes further than using "circulating rumours."

LOL!!!! I would refrain from voting, if I were a citizen of the United States. I refrain from voting here in the United Kingdom too. It is pointless. If you vote, you will be playing by their rules. But it is true that the Republicans have always used false promises in their campaings. But haven't the Democrats done the same?

Here's a BEAUTIFULLY written excerpt from Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World (a MUST read!!): "You have a box of Lego and you build a Lego horse. You then take it apart and put the blocks back in the box. You cannot expect to make a new horse just by shaking the box. How could Lego blocks of their own accord find each other and become a new horse again? No, you have to rebuild the horse, Sophie. And the reason you can do it is that you have a picture in your mind of what the horse looked like. The Lego horse is made from a model which remains unchanged from horse to horse." And another excerpt, to clarify Plato's view: "[Plato] was astonished at the way all natural phenomena could be so alike, and he concluded that it had to be because there are a limited number of forms 'behind' everything we see around us. Plato called these forms ideas. Behind every horse, pig, or human being, there is the 'idea horse,' 'idea pig,' and 'idea human being.' [...] Plato came to the conclusion that there must be a reality behind the 'material world.' He called this reality the world of ideas; it contained the eternal and immutable 'patterns' behind the various phenomena we come across in nature. This remarkable view is known as Plato's theory of ideas."

To answer your question in a more direct mien, I don't know if all existence is observable. But to prove the validity of something, one must base one's proof on observable premises, otherwise anything can qualify as a "premise," and hence one can prove anything using anything, which is not (I assure you), what we want. The existences that are not observable COULD be existant, I am not denying that, but to use that inobservable thing (which is then nothing more than a "belief", after all, what distinguishes a fact from a belief?) in order to prove that something else exists, or to prove that something works in such and such a way based on that inobservable thing, is not what the idea of proof is all about.

What I think is observable is irrelevant. I am not talking about relativism here and whether my view of what is observable differs from your view of what is observable. I am talking about things that are universally observable. In fact, there is no relativism in observation. Only in syntax and semantics arguments, which undermines the NATURE of things, and deals with language and terminology. This is what I meant by the difference in apple and "apple." You can call an apple a "chair," but the apple is still an apple.

That an apple can be considered a shapplle by you or rhapplle by another person is irrelevant. That the apple can be observed, compared to other apples, and agreed upon it being an apple (note difference between apple and "apple", the latter referring to the terminology, which could vary from one person to another) is relevant.

You are misusing my words. Something hasn't happened until it has happened. You cannot assume guilty until proven innocent. It works the other way around. Tough luck.

thanks, hyebruin. Come to think about it, I do cherish my childhood, as uneventful as it might've been. I can say that I owe my current situation to my childhood experiences, and all the attention my parents gave to my "education." So those of you who have kids, do play or spend time with them, it does make a huge impression on the personality and the inclinations of a child. Speaking from personal experience.

It's called "Affirmative Action."

As a philosopher, I feel inclined to agree with Anonymouse. Jean Chretien said it best: "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven."

Moral values and morality are not the same thing.

Observed, such as, an apple is an apple is an apple is an apple.

I believe in truth that can be observed. And I believe in proofs that are based on such truths.

I suppose you knew him personally and were there when he did that? So THOTH, do tell me this, how is American propaganda against Nazism and Hitler (even nowadays, in any discussions about history) any different or better from the "evil" Nazi Germany propaganda?

Ha!!! Nairi, well said!!! Exactly what I've thought frequently! I remember taking a course in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature, and half the poets were women (Isabella Whitney, Anne Cecil De Vere, Anne Dowriche, Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Wroth, Rachel Speght, etc.)... With all due respect to all the women on here and all the feminists and all the woman poets, I don't consider them gifted at all (some were good, most were not). Definitely not comparable to Sir Phillip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the rest of them "misogynists"..... it's a shame that academic curricula are being altered for the sake of political correctness. And what's with Virginia Woolf? I think she's pretty horrible for a writer... Her essays are boring and so hateful of men. If you've read "A Room of One's Own," you'd see what I mean (although it doesn't extend throughout the essay).