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Tim Cook Speaks Up

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581–590 of 1001 posts

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#581

"(...) and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me". I can only imagine the reactions if the same was said by a heterosexual person, about heterosexual orientation... :)

You mean like the bits about the "great gift" of holy matrimony and God's intention "man and wife" to be joined "as one flesh" that crop up at basically every single Christian wedding?

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#582
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the differences between lutfish in Norway and Sweden? I’ve eaten it in southern Sweden with it presented to me as traditionally Swedish.

The main difference is that Swedes spell it Lutfisk and Norwegians Lutefisk. Lutfish is just as traditional and (un)popular in both Norway and Sweden, and as far as I can tell the base recipe is basically the same in both countries. The only difference between the regions are the condiments and side dishes it is served with.

I think Norwegians make it from cod, while Swedes (and we Finns) use ling.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If he truly does believe in God, then, knowing for sure that he is gay, he has to believe that God made him gay. No, not at all. This is only one very narrow view of how a deity may function, or the kind of relationship a diety may have with the universe, or the humans within it.

What are the other views of how a diety may function? If God didn't make him gay, who did? (from a believer's POV)

>> What are the other views of how a diety may function?

Well, what makes a deity a deity? Surely 'creating the universe' is sufficient to qualify. Why assume that a creator has any interest in the universe? Every day I create a new configuration of a complex, thriving ecosystem in my bowels. I don't give a crap about all those little bacteria living their little bacteria lives. Last week I saw someone drop paint on the floor, and it splattered in a beautiful pattern. They didn't even notice the beauty they had created.

If God was truly powerful and awesome, why stop at one universe? Why assume that the creation of the universe was even worthy of their notice?

Most of the 'founding fathers' of the US were Deists. They believed in a God who created a universe, wound it up, and let it go on its own. For many reasons (including the supposed existence of free will), many people who believe this also believe that God had no idea how the universe would evolve over time. Some believe the opposite.

All of the scientists I've known, who also believe in God, also believe that God plays ZERO active role in anything that is happening in the universe. For some, God is the fully incomprehensible outside of all time and space. For others, God simply manages the afterlife, and leaves the universe to its own machinery.

There are so many views on God, and God's role. The important thing is to ask: Why do people assume that if God has quality X, then God must also have quality Y? Does it actually follow, or is it just an unjustified belief that it must be so?

I have trouble believing that someone smart enough to run the worlds richest company would think that his God intentionally, specifically, knowingly chooses individuals' sexual orientations - especially given what I believe he must know about the science behind orientation-related proclivities.

I could be wrong. Maybe Cook is brilliant at business and ignorant of science.

I just suspect that he was intentionally, perhaps a little dishonestly, saying that bit about God for some well considered reason related to the fact that fundamentalist christians in the US are the main source of homophobia in this country.

TL;DR - See "Deism", for example.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#584
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I don't really care if people are literalist fundamentalist bible thumpers or unitarians, muslims or even deists. They are all wrong, and they all believe in things unsupported by evidence or completely debunked lies. I only care about what is true, and I don't have any reservations about telling people what they believe isn't true, esp. when they bring it out to the open and implicitly invite the discussion…

"Islam he says kill your enemies and apostates" Your interpretation of Islam is flat-out wrong.

Ok, disagreement isn't an argument. Show me the supporting evidence that demonstrates I'm wrong.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#585
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To most Americans, $1k is not a "minor" amount of money. Furthermore, the exact amount of money that he donated is fairly irrelevant anyway. The donation, no matter it's magnitude, serves to illustrate what he believes. If I made a $1 donation to the local KKK group, would you make excuses for me because $1 is a trivial amount of money? Of course you would not.

I'm very, very far away from judging people's work abilities (like being an CEO) based on their skin color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, or ideology. Why you can't be the same?

You would not judge a CEO for publicly admitting to being a racist? I do not believe you. I think that you are lying, either to us or to yourself.

Calling something "Ideology" is not a "get out of criticism free" card. You are free to have whatever political beliefs you desire, but we are all free to criticism you for your political beliefs. Our criticism of political beliefs is just as political as the beliefs that we are criticizing; it is fundamentally illogical to put political beliefs above reproach.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it a different way: Turing was necessary, but not sufficient. We needed him, and the entire field is built on his work. But his is not the only contribution; indeed, many others needed to also contribute to be sufficient for the field we know today. In this light, it seems the original comment is correct.

Turing made great contributions, and had a great mind. But we did not need him, or any other particular individual. What do you think would have happened if Turing had never been born? Perhaps we would never have had a single individual who contributed as much, all at once, as Turing did... but the sum total of his contributions WOULD have been made by other people, eventually.

Well, that statement is generally true, but Turing appeared in a very sensitive moment of history (WWII) and was critical for a very special task (The decryption of the Enigma Machine). Computer science would probably be fine without him, but maybe history would have beeen quite different, so we needed him.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure who "they" is talking about in this thread, so I might be a little off here, but it definitely goes beyond acknowledging existence. People have acknowledged homosexuality for thousands of years (that's why there is a word for it). What the LGBT community wants is acceptance that it is a acceptable form of sexual expression. I definitely feel like there is some amount of "pushing homosexuality on everyone…

If you don't like gay sex, then don't fuck anyone of your gender. It's that simple.

If you don't like that gay people have sex, let them get married. rimshot

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#588
post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While what you say is true, for the benefit of the readers not very familiar with India I would like to add a few things for context. If from the name of the politician linked by the parent comment you come to the conclusion that homosexuality is frowned upon only by muslim politicians, you couldnt be more wrong. India is an incredibly high variance country. In some metros you would find gay pubs and bars, open kissi…

> In metros you would find gay pubs and bars, open kissing on the streets among gay partners with no one bothered a bit I really doubt this. Kissing in public is highly frowned upon for heterosexuals only and there will be a shitstorm if gay couple found openly kissing. Take this incident, happened in September 2014 in Mumbai/Bombay, two couples were harassed by police just because they hugged publicly[0]. Police har…

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Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brendan Eich is entitled to his opinion, and a large not for profit is entitled not to want someone with that opinion as a figurehead. As for who has done more for what — web browsers were going to have a scripting language. Is Javascript so astoundingly good that we can only assume any alternative would have been worse?

I don't believe in the cause that Eich donated to. But taking away someone's job over a political donation is preposterous and disturbing. If he had donated to a liberal cause and was forced out because conservative employees had a problem with it, the entire media would have come down on Mozilla like a ton of bricks. Instead his resignation was celebrated. Chilling political discourse by threatening the livelihoods…

The two sides you paint are not at all equal. Political discourse gets thrown out the window when you are working towards the suppression of the rights of a group of people. If conservative politics is directly linked to bigotry I see no reason we should support it. Perhaps the fiscally conservative, small government political groups should work to dissociate their ideas from intolerance.

There is no paradox of tolerance. It is rational to be intolerant of intolerance, in order to preserve a tolerant society. Karl Popper summarizes: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them...We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant"

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#590

Apple will go to great lengths to steal Microsoft's thunder. I jest. This is a momentous announcement. But, I look forward to the day when being a gay CEO (politician, sports figure, etc.) is not newsworthy.

No, this is because there is a midterm election in a few days.

It has nothing to do with Microsoft or Apple. It is identity politics pure and simple.

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