OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Omnirizon]

personal experience is the only means of knowing something, but nobody is privy to the interpretations of their personal experience.

for example, according to an article by Arthur C. Brooks, statistically the religious donate more than the secular. Brooks doesn't make his data available or even display his statistical models; and Policy Review, the journal he published in, is unapologetically conservative.

because he doesn't even display his models, Brooks is unceremoniously ignored; and rightly so. Less absolutely conservatively biased studies do display their models and indicate that Brooks is correct: even when controlling for as many relevant social factors as possible, the religious donate more. However, Brooks doesn't bother to explore the effects of social networking. The more insular a social network, the less its members donate. Ironically, religious networks are the most insular. This means that it is actually the very liberal, cosmopolitan, non-conservative, postmodern religious individual who is doing all the charity and donating; and not actual christian conservatives as Brooks implied. All Brooks did was compare a strawman atheist to a christian conservative, and showed that his conservative donates more only when aggregated with all religious individuals; the large majority of whom are not the anecdotal "christian conservative".

......
hmm....

that wasn't a very good example of experience was it?
but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective and no one has the rights to final interpretation, not even of themselves. what separates conservatives from the rest of the world is that conservatives have not yet risen to the level of consciousness where they are able to possess this kind of irony.

[Mithras]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

that wasn't a very good example of experience was it?
but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective and no one has the rights to final interpretation, not even of themselves. what separates conservatives from the rest of the world is that conservatives have not yet risen to the level of consciousness where they are able to possess this kind of irony.

Now I may misunderstand this so correct me if I'm worng but I think you're saying: The conservative does not understand that they do not have the rights to the final interpritation of anything.

If this is so then I have to disagree. Because while passing judgement on others is seen as a conservative trait, liberals do it to. Are you saying that all liberals realise that when they say a conservative is wrong they are not entitled to that judgement?

Added to this I find myself being branded a conservative, it is my opinion for example that what goes on between two consenting adults in private is their entitlement. I will not hesitate to inflict this opinion on others, and argue about it constantly. I firmly believe it is right and everyone else who thinks otherwise is wrong.

Sorry for the derail, but he called me a conservative

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Mithras

Now I may misunderstand this so correct me if I'm worng but I think you're saying: The conservative does not understand that they do not have the rights to the final interpritation of anything.

If this is so then I have to disagree. Because while passing judgement on others is seen as a conservative trait, liberals do it to. Are you saying that all liberals realise that when they say a conservative is wrong they are not entitled to that judgement?

Added to this I find myself being branded a conservative, it is my opinion for example that what goes on between two consenting adults in private is their entitlement. I will not hesitate to inflict this opinion on others, and argue about it constantly. I firmly believe it is right and everyone else who thinks otherwise is wrong.

Sorry for the derail, but he called me a conservative

I don't necessarily agree with all liberals who believe they have the correct model of utopia in hand. What I look for is anyone who presents what they say as a final interpretation.

People are afraid that with this kind of relativism that there would be no way to distinguish between fact and fiction. However, making a "fact" and "fiction" dichotomy is a mistake in itself. There is no such thing as fact or fiction. Science doesn't actually prove anything, it only allows us to see what we don't know and through falsifiability create incrementally and asymptotically more and more accurate interpretive frameworks.

So the classical complaint is that with this kind of relativism the creationist are just as right as the evolutionists. But this is incorrect because the creationist must always present their interpretation as the final interpretation, that cannot be deconstructed. The evolutionist on the other hand is always in a position to be proven wrong, and often is. Evolution is not a fact but is only the interpretive framework that allows us to make falsifiable deductive statements about species and their histories. The testing of these statements allows us to continually refine the interpretive framework so that it can become a more and more accurate representation of something. We assume that something is the relationship between species and their histories, and on this grounds anyone is free to disagree. However this can only be challenged with another interpretive framework capable of making falsifiable deductions, which creationism cannot.

Evolution doesn't present itself as fact and it doesn't even present itself as necessarily representing what we call "evolution". The only thing it presents is a falsifiable and modifiable interpretive framework; from which no final interpretations can be made. Christian conservatives can stop raising cane about the whole "came from monkeys" thing. That really isn't what the theory of evolution really represents in this big debate. All it represents is a challenge to christianity, or any religion, to make final interpretations. The only possible means of disagreement now is whether or not you believe you have the right to make final interpretations. Being a conservative doesn't put you in this category, but being a christian conservative does.