J: got her first birthday invitation from a classmate and her first hair pulling incident from another classmate. School is cool and exhausting.
F: standing anywhere, pointing to anything, eating everything (but spinach), waving to anyone, saying mama to anyone. Let's say growing like a maniac.
B: agreed on this '12 photos on the bed project' after weeks of thinking it over. I finally won him over with the books I made from our 52 photos on the wall. But he asks for something in return.
V: not the return kind of person. But happy I won him over. Also a little big bit sleep deprivated but I refuse to go to bed early because it violates my alone time on the couch with my phone, Netflix, camera or even a book. B hates me for it and tells me every night. I'm stubborn and regretting it every morning.
Haha die ene foto waar je recht in de camera kijkt en terwijl aan F haar pull trekt. Love it!
Echt he?! Liever bewust genieten van de rust ipv knock out in bed!


Foreword: I only got sort of interested in Femme Fatale as prequel of Edelweiss and as a part of chaotic production of Inspire company. Detective mystery game should be a safe bet for an interesting story, right?
Synopsis: Taisho era. Main character is a detective in Tokyo. He returns to hometown to dispose of his father's legacy. Local policeman tells him about a case of girl death from illness at a boarding school, but under suspicious conditions. Detective decides to investigate the incident as he needs to stay at the town for some time anyway.
Difficulty: Easy as each wrong decision immediately delivers a bad end.
Rating comments: Should I even continue? I'm gravely offended by this game.
Protagonist: Yagami Shinobu is faceless, voiceless and hardly with any individuality at all.
Characters: Game does not have heroine routes - just one story with lots of bad ends. Girls are well written and have voice, but when spontaneous H events start to trigger one by one any charm that's left just evaporates.
Story: There's hardly anything happens during those 9 days. Each day is divided into some 10 phases, so it's roughly 90 phases where you need to check the new information about places, then the new information about persons and then advance the events further triggering some dialogues and coming out of nowhere spontaneous H events. I admit that it might be me who was not attentive enough to see the correlation of arriving information, but absolutely nothing happened till the last 9th day when you come to the dormitory for the 10th time or so and you're greeted by a character who says "Hey, I expected you to come earlier, but still well done" and that character just tells you who is the killer etc... Credits.
CG: There is on average ONE non-HCG per every girl, and it's CG when we first meet that girl. That's just nothing, an insult.
Overall comments: The story is absolutely banal and greatly ero-tilt so that every girl showing up on the screen could have her performance. All the important information is compressed into one last day. I skipped all the BAD endings (which are all just H events), but there were still some 6 (!) spontaneous H events incorporated into the story-line. So I really hope Edelweiss would have much to do with weapons, because the kind of story Femme Fatale has is a scam and should be only distributed for free like it used to be done for several months.


The first time something happened that I thought only happened to "other people", it was devastating. I'm hoping this one isn't the same.
Found out today that my dear, sweet Grandaddy has a brain tumor (beneign), evidence of 3-4 small strokes in the past, and brain shrinkage consistent with dementia. Wow. They might have tried telling us all of this over the course of a few days… or maybe it's better to get it all out there? I dunno.
Anyways, I guess I've known he's getting older, and that as the body ages, it does experience degeneration. I've just never had a very close family member go through anything like this. I kind of don't know what to think. I'm hopeful that since the tumor is benign, that a doctor will be able to successfully remove the whole thing and he can live another healthy 10-15 years. But, I also worry about the past stroke thing, and the dementia, and wonder if I should be hopping out on an airplane as often as I can possibly spare to just to be able to see him while he still knows it's me.
Regardless of what I think, non of this is about me. He's going to have some big decisions to make, beginning tomorrow when they do a nuclear stress test (not on the treadmill) to assess the condition of his heart. If that looks fine, they go to a neurosurgeon. I will just pray that no further complications arise, and that God will bring them to the right person to be able to handle his poor little brain!
i'm sorry whitney… i'm praying for him.
Hey Catherine…. thanks for your comment. I had completely forgotten that your dad had gone through/was going through the same thing. I'm trying to not "freak out" too much. Once they go see a neurosurgeon and we find out more… that's what I'm waiting for now.


text:
U.S. soldiers kill three men, detain six in northern Iraq clash
U.S. soldiers killed three gunmen firing from several cars in northern Iraq and destroyed several vehicles, including one that appeared to be a ready for use as a car bomb, the military said Sunday.
The fire-fight occurred Saturday and involved soldiers from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division north of Beiji, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad.
"The soldiers engaged the two lead vehicles killing three of the gunmen," the military said in a statement. "Three vehicles following the lead vehicles stopped and their occupants escaped on foot."
No U.S. casualties were sustained.
Troops detained six men from one of the vehicles and found AK-47 rifles in several others. Four cars left at the scene were destroyed by U.S. troops after one was found to be rigged to be used as a car bomb, AP reported. V.A.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Inateck is giving away two types of wireless speakers for both you and your BFF for Valentine's Day. Express your love to the one in your life, and win for both!
Official Rules: Open to US, 13 and older who like the Inateck Facebook page. Begins on February 1 and ends on February 14. One entry per person + bonus for tagging friends.
Note: If their Facebook follower reach 12,500 on February 14, Inateck will giveaway as many as 10 pairs of Inateck Bluetooth speakers. Otherwise, 5 speakers will be given away.


text:
Q: Best practice on sql update statement on NCI dateKey in large Fact table I have a 55Gb Fact table where I have to delete some records which later on can be reverted back. Number of deleted records vary between 10 to 100 thousand.
Currently my delete strategy is based on this:
I update the dateKey for the records to be deleted e.g. from positive int 20080122 to negative int -20080122 so that current date filters don't include it.
My thinking here is that instead of moving data out and back in the fact table I make the date out of filter date range and then move it back into filterable date range by use of updates on dateKey.
I would like to hear your views on this delete strategy especially around NCI (non clustered index) behavior. Do you think updating the indexed dateKey is better than moving actual data?

A: Rather than re-purpose the dateKey column, our standard practice is to add a "soft delete" column to the table, either an "is_deleted" bit column or a "deleted_on" datetime column and use that column to filter out "deleted" rows.
This requires more work on your part as all of your existing queries will have to be modified to use this new column, but now your database doesn't have to do the work of re-indexing or deleting/inserting actual data.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Karl-Rune Samuelson, född 22 mars 1927 i Göteborg, död 2 januari 2022 i Uppsala, var en svensk civiljägmästare. Han tog civiljägmästarexamen 1953 och var chef för Institutet för skogsförbättring (från 1967). Han invaldes 1973 som ledamot av Skogs- och Lantbruksakademien.

Källor

 Familjesidan.se

Svenska jägmästare
Ledamöter av Kungliga skogs- och lantbruksakademien
Alumner från Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
Personer från Göteborg
Födda 1927
Avlidna 2022
Män
Personer i Sverige under 1900-talet

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Thomas E. Panzer, a workers' compensation attorney, joined High Swartz in 2016 as a result of a merger with McNamara, Bolla & Panzer, Attorneys at Law, a firm for which he served as Managing Partner. Mr. Panzer has been practicing law in southeastern Pennsylvania for nearly 25 years.
Mr. Panzer's practice areas focus on administrative litigation, including zoning and workers' compensation. Mr. Panzer has represented multiple zoning hearing boards over the past 20 years. He also represents both claimants and defendants in workers' compensation matters, which has made him a sought-after and frequent lecturer on Pennsylvania workers' compensation topics.
In addition to the practice of law, Mr. Panzer has been involved in community activities with regard to zoning, municipal issues, land reuse and politics. Mr. Panzer is currently the elected Bucks County Treasurer. Mr. Panzer served two terms as a Warminster Township, Bucks County, Supervisor and a full five year term as an appointed member of the Warminster Municipal Authority Board of Directors.
Mr. Panzer has also contributed his time and energy to the MS 150 City to Shore Bike Ride. He has served as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Light the Night, Bucks County Corporate Walk co-chair. He has also served as a volunteer member of the Board of Directors of non-profit entities, including Wesley Enhanced Living and Growth Opportunities Center.


text:
Ai-jen Poo (Pittsburgh, 1974) is een Amerikaans activiste.

Levensloop en werk
Ai-Jen Poo is de dochter van Mu-ming Poo, een vooraanstaand Chinees-Amerikaans neurowetenschapper, en Wen-jen Hwu, een oncoloog.

Poo is sinds 1996 actief in de belangbehartiging en vakbeweging van huishoudhulpen. Sinds 2010 leidt ze de National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), een belangenorganisatie voor huishoudhulpen, en sinds 2011 staat ze mee aan het roer van Caring Across Generations, een coalitie van 200 organisaties die ijveren voor een hervorming van de Amerikaanse gezondheidszorg om beter te voldoen aan de noden van ouderen, personen met een handicap en hun mantelzorgers. In 2010 realiseerde de NDWA onder Poo een doorbraak toen de staat New York de Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights goedkeurde en ze huishoudhulpen zo meer rechten gaf.

Poo kreeg veel erkenning voor haar werk. Zo ontving ze in 2014 de Genius Award van de MacArthur Fellowship in 2014, naast tientallen andere prijzen. Time noemde haar in de Time 100-lijst van 2012. Ze ontving een Four Freedoms Award in de categorie 'vrijwaring van gebrek' in 2017.

In 2015 verscheen Ai-jen Poo's boek The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.

Amerikaans activist
Amerikaans vakbondsbestuurder


My last post got hijacked....evil spam doers. Can't let that nasty junk show up. Maybe it was the word "hell" in the title....nothing crazy, just in hell with pins. I was complaining about having to use pins....that's what I get for complaining at all.
Desist evil spam goers or hijackers or whatever you are!
Yikes!! I read it before it disappeared!! good luck with the curves and pins!!
The nerve! Can't keep the bad stuff out and won't let the legit stuff stay. I saw the post before it was deleted, hope you have a better weekend that you think.
I read your pin post in Google reader.
I wrote an innocent heading once and when I checked the stats, couldn't believe the traffic...till I worked out what they were looking at! I was embarrassed!
I'm glad I read the post before it disappeared!
One benefit of Reader! I was able to read both of your posts. Even when posts are deleted, they still live in Reader.
I read it before it was lost too ~ teehee ~ I've been in that place before and it's not much fun (with sewing I mean).
I read it too and meant to comment that you should definitely try to Clover patchwork pins if you haven't -- they are the greatest!
And you did appear to be sewing through a nightmare. Just how tiny were those curved pieces?
I admire your creativity- make lemonade out of lemons. I need to think that way whenI wreck or scratch something.
already have the cover, just send yourself and that awesome ironing table. Will it fit in your suitcase?


text:
Joseph Chadwick, Birth Date: 9 May 1809, Death Date: 10 April 1876,
Evidence from biographical census records proves that Joseph traveled to Utah in 1855. Further research is needed to determine the name of the company he traveled with.He traveled to Utah from Carson Valley, Nevada.

Joseph Chadwick
Evidence from biographical census records proves that Joseph traveled to Utah in 1855. Further research is needed to determine the name of the company he traveled with.He traveled to Utah from Carson Valley, Nevada.
Company Unknown (1855)
1856 Utah Census.
1860 Utah Census, Box Elder County.
Eastern Idaho Death Records Database.
Portrait, Genealogical and Biographical Record of the State of Utah (Chicago: National Historical Record Co., 1902), 200.


How do I reset my VU password?
How can I manage my web presence through Villanova?
How do I advertise events on campus electronically?
How do I submit campus events to the campus event calendar?
How do I submit event advertisments to be made into digital signage?
Does the University support Scantron documents?
I'm a researcher who would like network storage for my lab. What are my options?
Does the University have a purchasing program for personal equipment?
Villanova provides several opportunitiies for faculty and staff members to maintain their web presence. The first is the bio page, a webpage that can be reached from your departmental websites and modified via the University Bio Tool.
For more customized options, the University also provides WebDAV-accessible web hosting, for those who are familiar with WebDAV content editing tools. To make editing easier for those unfamiliar with HTML, CLAS IT provides customizable templates for convenience.
Finally, for faculty members of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who want both customization and useability for their personal homepage, CLAS IT maintains its own web hosting server that supports advanced CMS editors such as Wordpress and Joomla. You can request your own website using the CLAS Web Hosting form.
All class-related materials should be hosted on Blackboard. Except for faculty bios, the departmental pages are maintained individually by each department.
There are four main ways of advertising campus events: the campus event calendar, digital signage, Campus Currents, and the Wildcat Newswire. Support for all of options is available through our website.
See the Campus Event Submission Instructions, provided by UnIT.
See this article about submitting digital signage event advertisements.
For the present year, Villanova University and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences still supports Scantron. More details can be found on our Parsystem webpage.
For more information on our network storage program, see our Research Storage Request Form.
Dell offers a special program for University members that allows faculty and staff to purchase home computers at a discount. See the Dell University Program page for more details.


text:
The Social History Society
Category: Society News
Thomas Cook Archive
By SHS Communications
The Social History Society is pleased to hear that the Official Receiver has agreed to present the Thomas Cook Archive to a professional archive repository. Their decision was influenced by the Business Archives Council, which has worked swiftly to ensure the future of this unique collection of letters, brochures, posters, passenger lists and guide books. … Continued
New SHS Public History Prize
The Social History Society has launched a new prize to recognise activities that enhance public understanding of social and cultural history. The prize has been established as a mark of gratitude to Professor Pamela Cox, who was tireless in efforts to open dialogue with different audiences while chair of the Social History Society. The Pamela … Continued
BME Funding Outcomes
The Social History Society is delighted to announce the results of the inaugural BME Events and Activities Small Grants scheme. The scheme was set up in 2019 to facilitate activities run by BME historians, or those focused on BME histories. It is funded by the Social History Society, the Economic History Society, History UK and … Continued
Social History Book Prize
We are seeking nominations for the Social History Society's annual book prize. Our £1,000-prize rewards scholarship in Social History and is awarded annually by a panel of judges for the best original work published in the preceding calendar year. We are delighted to announce that this year's panel is chaired by Professor Pat Thane and … Continued
Naomi Tadmor elected as SHS Chair
The Social History Society is pleased to announce that Professor Naomi Tadmor has been elected as its Chair. She will lead the society until 2022. Professor Naomi Tadmor is a well-known historian of family and kinship, language, and practices of reading from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. She is currently completing a book on welfare and … Continued
Funding to support BME Histories
The Social History Society, Economic History Society and History UK are launching a new funding scheme to support Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) history. The scheme has been created in recognition of the under-representation, structural inequalities and racism afflicting UK Higher Education Institutions. We are committing £2,000 a year for three years in the first … Continued
Book Prize Winners 2019
The Social History Society's Book Prize recognises innovative scholarship in the fields of social and cultural history. It is awarded by a panel of judges, who look for the best original work of historical research published in the preceding calendar year. The only stipulations are that the book must be written in English, by a … Continued
Blogging Opportunity
The Social History Exchange is a digital forum that continues the discussions of our annual conference all year round. It is made up of three blogs that reflect and showcase the best research, teaching and community engagement in the field of social and cultural history. The blogs have been active for just over a year. In … Continued
Committee Elections Open
Voting has now opened in the election for new members of the Social History Society committee. Members should check their email accounts for details of the nominations and a link to the voting form. The Society would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who have put their names forward as well … Continued
Committee Nominations Open
Posted: April 3, 2019
The Social History Society is looking to fill multiple vacancies on its Executive Committee. These include: Society Chair Society Treasurer Postgraduate Representative (to work alongside our current PG Rep Laura Sefton) Committee Member Each position will be tenable for a three year period in the first instance. Those looking to be nominated for any of … Continued
a social history news item to be featured here
Join the Social History Society
The Social History Society is open to scholars, students and all those interested in social history.
Copyright 2020 © Social History Society.


21st Birthday, Cooking Gift, Custom Apron, 21st Birthday Gift, 1998 Bi – Design, Invent, Print!
Home › 21st Birthday, Cooking Gift, Custom Apron, 21st Birthday Gift, 1998 Birthday Gift, 21st Birthday Present, Master Of My Kitchen!
21st Birthday, Cooking Gift, Custom Apron, 21st Birthday Gift, 1998 Birthday Gift, 21st Birthday Present, Master Of My Kitchen!
Looking for the perfect cooking gift? Our aprons make the perfect 21st birthday gift.
This Vintage, 'Master of my kitchen' design makes the perfect 21st birthday gift for the man or woman who loves cooking or simply makes the odd appearance in the kitchen!


The whale sighting was truly an emotional rollercoaster for this family.
Imagine you're taking a pleasant family boat ride, enjoying the scenery, when all of a sudden you notice that three large humpback whales have surrounded you. Would you scream? Pull out your phone to take a video? Call 911? A family on a boat trip in the Puget Sound in Washington did all three.
The whale sighting was truly an emotional rollercoaster for this family. In the video, the dad — we don't see any human faces, but his kids refer to him as "Dad" — mostly stays in awe of the whales and tries to calm his family down.
The first words you hear in the video, which has gone viral, are the man saying, "Don't start the motor. Do not start the motor!" You can also hear a woman beginning to slightly freak out.
The dad then says, "Alright, alright, calm down."
The woman notices the whales are heading toward the boat, and she worries that they're going to swim right under them. The dad reassures everyone that they're just "checking them out" and that whales are intelligent animals.
These words don't quite comfort the family. You can even hear someone saying, "We're going to die!"
Meanwhile, the dad continues trying to get his family to appreciate the magic of nature. "Look at that, he's rolling!" the dad exclaims.
The family remains unimpressed, but the dad adds, "Oh my god, this is amazing, you guys!"
It's at this point that the woman, perhaps the mom in the family, makes her 911 call. She lets the dispatcher know that she saw three whales swimming under their boat and that everyone was very scared.
Another male voice, probably the son, starts pressing the dad to drive away — and fast. "Drive away dad," the son says. "Drive away faster!"
If you're wondering, the family does appear to make a safe escape, and the whale is OK, too.
Of course, some commenters on the internet thought the idea of calling 911 on a couple of whales was a little silly.
In the woman's defense, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric does have a program called " See a Spout... Watch Out!"
It includes guidelines on how far away boats should stay from whales during whale watching, or if you see that telltale spout.
The guidelines are more about protecting whales from boats than the other way around. But knowing that humpback whales grow to be 50 feet long, it makes sense to be a little uncomfortable when they're swimming right there. Everyone on the boat had a whale of a reaction, but they're all understandable in their own way!
Add your name right now to make a difference for dolphins, whales and other marine mammals with Oceana.


We are seeking a Junior Network Engineer to an existing IT team to assist, maintain and progressively improve the existing database infrastructure of a professional electronic trading environment. The ideal Junior Network Engineer will be someone who has interest in learning how to troubleshoot technology related problems that might include multicast routing, datacenter design, troubleshooting intermittent packet loss, latency issues, trading system connectivity and equipment failure. The successful Junior Network Engineer must be highly self-motivated, excel at multitasking, and comfortable working in a demanding, state of the art trading environment. The Junior Network Engineer must be willing to work some weekend shifts in support of maintenance and participate in on-call rotation duties.
-Day to day support of network and application environments.
-Remote datacenter design support and management.
-Ability to follow and enhance existing IT policies and procedures.
-Support other key initiatives as the business dictates.
-Provide critical thinking to complex problems in a 24/7, mission critical network environment.
-Process, monitor and prioritize trouble tickets.
-Automate any and all tasks that can be automated.
-Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related subject.
-Basic understanding of the TCP/IP suite.
-Knowledge of the OSI layers 1-4 and associated equipment.
-Basic experience with packet sniffing applications (Snort, TCPDump, Wireshark, Netmon, etc.).
-Exposure to concepts of automation and scripting languages (Bash, Perl, PowerShell, VBscript).
-Active or near completion of CCNA, CCNP, CCIE or similar IT certification a plus.
-Exceptional written and verbal communication skills. Must be able to interact with management, vendors and external parties and should be able to effectively communicate complex issues in a clear and concise manner. Must be able to thoroughly document implementations, modifications and removals.
-Must be willing to work some weekend shifts in support of maintenance and participate in on-call rotation duties.


Author has recently been watching Initial D with enthusiasm and reading his reactions has been giving me flashbacks to the days when one of the anime clubs here showed us the first three stages. Several bits and pieces from the series have stuck with me over the years since then. The most distinctly memorable one is a moment very early on in the first season and probably when I fell for the series, partly because it was surprisingly subtle for an anime.
Initial D starts off with the familiar anime scenario of the hidden badass; in this case Takumi (our protagonist) is secretly a really good driver and racer but none of his peers know it. At one point, Iketani (the leader of the local street racers) takes Takumi and Itsuki (our comedy relief secondary character) for a fast drive up the mountain in his hot car to basically show off. Itsuki is in seventh heaven (he looks up to Iketani) but Takumi is visibly almost-terrified on the drive up, to the point where Itsuki ribs him about it when they get to the top.
What Initial D did really well was show and convince us that Iketani was actually not a good driver and his fast drive was pretty sloppy. Takumi was rightfully scared because he actually understood what was going on and how dangerous it was; Iketani was oblivious. The Initial D anime staged this scene well enough that a non-driver like me could really get Iketani's true skill level while at the same time it avoided making him so obviously terrible that Itsuki's ignorance would ring hollow. It was believable both that Iketani was not good and that he and Itsuki didn't understand it, and in the process the show reinforced Takumi as someone who did know what he was doing.
It would have been easy for the show to overplay this scene in a lot of directions (making Iketani's driving too bad, making Takumi's reactions to it too extreme, and so on). That the show didn't, that it played things reasonably subtly because it was confident that the audience would catch on, was a big point in its favour when I watched it way back when.
Written on 08 February 2013.


Philosophers who defend theism by making use of the classical arguments or some variation thereof (like the cosmological argument, the teleological and fine tuning arguments and the moral argument) have always been realistic about what each of these arguments, if sound, establishes. The cosmological argument establishes that the universe has a cause with certain features (the features of being spaceless, timeless and if Bill Craig is right, personal). The teleological argument, if sound, establishes that there is a creator with intelligent intentions. The arguments are obviously and intentionally limited in scope, so it makes no sense to complain that one of them doesn't establish, say, the Apostles' Creed. This is a point sometimes lost on apologists for atheism. Richard Dawkins, for example, complained that the cosmological argument doesn't also tell us that the one true God has the properties of omniscience, omnipotence, creativity, mercy and so on. But the answer to this complaint, as Bill Craig duly noted, is a rather obvious "so what"?
If this were the whole story, then the response could be a fairly abrupt "so what?" But this is only 99.999% of the story. The rest of the story is as follows: Law then says during the remainder of the article that actually, the statement quoted above is true, concluding that "Perhaps there are grounds for supposing that the universe was created by an intelligent being. But, at this point in time, the suggestion that this being is omnipotent, omniscient, and maximally good seems to me hardly more reasonable than the suggestion that he is omnipotent, omniscient, and maximally evil." After all, the thesis that God is benevolent faces the problem of evil, but this problem would not confront the believer in a malevolent God. Law does provide us with an inventive and almost amusing (in a good way) account of how the believer in a malevolent God could provide reversed versions of arguments that believers in a good God now give. For example, instead of a problem of evil, we might have the problem of good. Why would a malevolent God allow so much good in the world, perhaps much more good than evil? But just as theists now do, the worshipper of the malevolent God can wheel in a free will defence. Or, just as theists now offer an eschatological defence: God will put things right in the end and an eternity of heaven will outweigh temporary evils, the believer in the malevolent God can say that any good done in this life will be cancelled out with an eternity of suffering at the hands of a malicious God.
Firstly, Law says, "However, to date, it remains, even among theists, controversial whether any such argument exists." But this surely cannot be all that relevant. For starters, my anecdotal experience is evidently not the same as Law's, since I am familiar with more theistic philosophers who would endorse, rather than eschew the moral argument. But that hardly matters here. Secondly and more importantly, it is contentious to say that such an argument does not exist in light of the number of theistic philosophers (not to mention theists in general) who think that such an argument does exist. The brute fact of disagreement over whether or not a decent moral argument has been offered surely doesn't weaken any moral argument that has been offered.
Secondly, other than the more sociological observation that there is not unanimity in the acceptance of moral arguments for theism, Laws does give a reason for rejecting moral arguments, by reaching, as many have done, for that familiar line of argument from Plato's Euthyphro. This is the only actual criticism of the moral argument presented here. But whether or not the Euthyphro dialogue shows a genuine problem for theologically grounded ethics is much more contentious among philosophers of religion and ethics than is the moral argument among theists! In reaching for this argument, Law reaches for an argument that as far as I can tell is widely regarded has having failed. Contrary to Law's very brief suggestion, both of the horns of the dilemma: that either God is not really the source of morality after all, or else God's commands are purely arbitrary, are avoided by someone who, for example, holds to a sophisticated version of a divine command theory of ethics.
But if the fact that not all theists accept moral arguments is irrelevant, and if the only reason Law gave for rejecting moral arguments is widely discredited, he has done nothing to fend off the force of moral arguments against the evil God challenge. If we recognise moral truths that require benevolent conduct and shun malevolent conduct, and if moral truths only exist because of the will of God, then this must surely count heavily – perhaps even decisively – against the hypothesis that God is malevolent rather than good.
Turnabout on the "actual infinite" argument?
Terrific post. This is how a critique ought to be offered.
If we were the product of an evil creator, why would we (in general) seek the good and shun the evil? Not just in the sense that we think "that would be a nice thing to do" but in the sense that "we ought to do that, we have a duty to do so".
Also, what motivates people to do evil? Generally they are motivated by a desire for a certain good. Sadists torture because they derive pleasure from it. Scientists engage in vivisection because they believe that the suffering they inflict is justified with reference to a greater good. Even Hitler wanted to see his country great again which is not in itself a bad end. The end justifies the means.
Good is seen intuitively as an end in itself, suggesting that the moral law-giver itself values the good. Evil may be seen as a means to achieve a good end, but I don't know of anyone who sees the evil as an end in itself.
do you think that when Craig says "personal" he means it in the sense as opposed to an unconscious force (impersonal cause)?
I should clear that up again – I guess it's pretty clear personal means something different than impersonal.
But, if something is impersonal (lacking conscious activity – assuming Craig meant something along these lines) then whatever action that that impersonal thing can perform would have just performed it immediately. Since if this is the cause of all subsequent causes and nothing could have acted upon this first cause of all causes (to aid it in bringing about it's effect) nor does it have the conscious wherewithal (agency) to perform that act that brings about the other subsequent causes.
You'd need something, personal (agency), to consciously make that decision to either enact a series of other temporal causes or a series of simultaneous causes (which are held into existence by that first cause).
Manual, yes, I think that's the way Craig frames the argument too.
If we recognise moral truths that require benevolent conduct and shun malevolent conduct, and if moral truths only exist because of the will of God, then this must surely count heavily – perhaps even decisively – against the hypothesis that God is malevolent rather than good.
If the moral argument is valid, given that the argument is about "oughts" then it is simultaneously an argument for God and for a moral being. It is an argument for a moral-creator. Like the teleological argument is an argument for an intelligent-creator.
Good point Jason about the discordance between the benevolence of man and the malevolence of God with Law's claim. If this were the caso then the moral argument does not work.
Glenn, I also wondered whether it is worth introducing the concept into your rebuttal of: bad is not an attribute in itself but a distortion of the good.
Glenn you could add that Stephen Law fails to really address arguments from religious experience. From memory he seems to construe these arguments as arguments to the best explanation, i.e God explains the experience of God. But that is not how they are offered, Swinburne, Plantinga, Alston, Craig et al, argue that one is justified in forming a basic belief in response to experience. The fact one can explain these experiences by noting an evil deity could have caused them no more refutes these arguments than the observation that our sensory perception could have been explained by a Cartesian demon entails we cannot have justified basic beliefs in the external world.
Everyone should read Matt's comments (#34 and 35 on the previous post) as they are very relevant.
G K E – Yes, they certainly are relevant, as they indicate that proponents of moral arguments for theism have indeed given arguments not just for theism simpliciter, but for a God who embodies the very things that he wills as moral.
I wish that those who think highly of the evil God challenge (assuming that there are people who do) would only read up on the moral argument itself.
Whilst your post is specifically addressed to Stephen (or at least his argument), he is pursuing his thread in the previous post, which makes sense, as it is all too easy to get side-tracked by new posts. So I will attempt an answer here, not so much on behalf of Stephen but just from my own understanding of the issues.
1. Stephen is correct, no-one but philosophically inclined believers think much of the moral argument, since it is terrifically flawed in many ways – but I will address that in your post specifically on that topic.
2. As for whether Stephen uses the Euthyphro to reject the moral argument, I am not sure and will not put words in his mouth. The point, as I understand it and, that I think that Stephen is trying to make and I will make here anyway, is that the moral argument fails to refute the evil god hypothesis.
That is granting for the purposes of argument that moral argument does turn out to be both sound and valid or cogent, and that, again for the purposes of argument, we grant that there are moral facts, what does this say about the moral character of the deity?
Whether the deity is in some sense or another "all-good" or "all-bad" or else somewhere "in between" makes no difference at all since the moral argument has relativised moral facts to the deity's "eternal unchanging nature" or whatever. That is it provides zero indication as to what that nature is and so as to what real moral (and immoral) facts are.
Granted for the purposes of debate.
This is entirely question begging. It is exactly this point that Stephen is challenging with his Evil God Hypothesis (EGH). It does no good ignore it and assume the Good God Hypothesis (GGH)and point to the purported "moral argument" to support this.
Alternatively one can flip the notion of moral and immoral on their head.
Most significantly, since moral facts are relativised to the deity, the argument could read exactly as you originally stated it but it is now relative to an Evil God.
There is no way to tell from this argument as to whether such a deity is good or bad.
Indeed I really have not seen any argument yet to show that the purported moral argument makes EGH v GGH assymtetrical in favour of GGH over EGH. Until you do, you have not yet present even an attempted refutation of the EGH.
I have been brief here but heopefully you understand the thrust of my argument.
Martin, as for whether or not the moral argument is "terrifically flawed," I'll just have to wait for somebody to make that case. I haven't seen it yet. Perhaps you could oblige.
I really don't see how you can, on the one hand, say that the moral argument says "nothing at all" about the nature of God, even inserting a "tumbleweed" for rhetorical effect, implying that theists are just stumped into silence on this point, and then turn around and try to engage with the argument that the moral argument does indeed say something about God's nature. That there is such an argument to be interacted with just shows that the whole "tumbleweed scenario" isn't there, and that reference must surely have only been for rhetorical effect. Now, Stephen might not have been persuaded by this line of argument, but he has never, as far as I know, really explained why (perhaps that's where the tumbleweed reference would be more appropriate!).
But surely this fails because it is false. The reality is that the moral argument is borne out of the actual recognition that we have to do good in the non-moral sense. What you're proposing is merely a verbal mirror-image that does not the reflect the reality that prompted the moral argument in the first place. The fact is, we do not have the recognition that we ought to hurt each other (for example). Given that this is so, the attempt to just change things around in this way doesn't succeed as a rebuttal.
Are you certain that you've understood this post?
Martin, that's where you fail and fail hard. WHAT recognition about duties to do bad? Do you recognise a duty to do bad? Really? If this is how Stephen's defenders must reply, then I wouldn't be feeling too confident if I were him!
I gave two further counter-points and you did not address these.
To expand on a different tangent, it is not the case "we do not enjoy the recognition that we ought to hurt each other" – well see the Inquisition which was the major, if not the most major contributor to torture methods or, more recently, Proposition 8 in California recently, to name but two of many possible examples. Many, not all, recognise that we ought not hurt each other for fun, but when it comes to deities many have recognised that we ought to others on behalf of a deity. They might recruit the purported moral argument to support their claims but this does not alter the fact that they are generating immoral facts on this basis.
Now as regards the actual recognition to do "good", as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Again past and present, supported both in history and in psychology many have claimed, often absolute sincerely, to be doing good when they were doing bad or extreme evil. And such claims for good have often been grounded in the commands, will or eternal natural of a deity.
Maybe I have said the same thing three different ways or maybe there are significant differences between them. The above was just to expand one of my points hinted in my first comment.
Indeed if we grant equal prior likelihood to the EGH and GGH then the EGH far better explains such evidence than a GGH, either through inference to the best explanation or Bayesian inference (granted that there is a deity for the purposes of argument).
So yes I have understood your post and you yet to show that you have merely question-beggingly assumed a beneficent god. Now by testing your assumption by examining this assumption and see what results, you see it is useless in refuting the EGH. Not only is the moral argument itself is useless indeed it is a immoral argument to make, since it can and has been used to justify many horrendous evils.
PS I noticed a preview button. Maybe I missed it before but anyway when I press it (using Firefox 3.6 on XP SP3) I get "Preview error".
You misread this. The point is that within many theistic-based religions, certainly with at least some adherents in the present and most likely with many more adherents in the past, they do have duties to do bad. Now, of course, they would see it that way but we do. A timely example being the September 11th plane-jackers.
PS Preview now worked on this comment!
Martin, you must surely be simply digging your heels in. Are you actually prepared to say that the moral facts that we find ourselves confronted with (facts that prompt the moral argument) include the fact that we really should try to harm people? The inquisition fails as an example largely because of ignorance but that would be somewhat tangential so I will be brief: They did not believe that the ultimate consquences of their actions would be to harm people.
This line of response from you is a non-starter because of obvious falsehood.
The remainder of your last comment fails in the same way. You're investing time trying to show that people have the intention to not harm people but actually do harm people anyway (that is what I took from your reference to the road to hell), but this is surely not relevant, because the salient point is that people are recognising some moral fact involving a certain disposition (i.e. to not hurt/harm people).
I'm sorry, but none of this even begins to tackle the issue raised.
To be short this is really the key point and what you need to address.
I posted my last comment before I read 16.
You and I may not but that is being subjective. Being objective the evidence points otherways with people using whatever irrational arguments they have to make them think they they are not harming people such as your type of moral argument.
And your reply supports the point I just made.
So what you are saying here is that if you believe, according to your deity, that you must torture and kill people but this is ok, indeed morally good, because the "ultimate consequences" would not be to harm people, then you would do so? This surely makes my point that and an EGH explains this so much better than a GGH!
And, pray tell, what is this so-called obvious falsehood? Making a claim without showing what it is is not an argument and not the basis to dismiss my argument.
Maybe this is your "obvious falsehood". Well an "argument from the obvious" when what is obvious is being questioned is not a valid argument.
What I am trying to show is that your moral argument fails to point to a all-beneficent deity since it lacks the sufficiency conditions to be able to do so.
An EG could likely be very happy with everyone endorsing the moral argument and the world, especially with respect to inter-religious conflict, could pretty much appear as it is. However this is far more difficult to explain based on a GGH.
I did not realise this before but the more I look at it the more the moral argument stacks the cards in favour of an EGH over a GGH.
Until you answer why this is not the case you have failed miserably to show that the moral argument refutes the EGH.
Martin, I can only look at your reply and shake my head in wonder. You can wax rhetorical about me failing miserably, but honestly this just doesn't look like a serious line of response and as such I'm not worried about anyone being persuaded by it. Not realising that I've offered an explanation of the falsehood of your claim (whether or not you agree with it) just leaves me thinking: OK, I'll just leave this guy be. That you went as far as to say that I have implied that torture can itself be morally good is just absurd. Have you even read my comments? I'm sorry if that sounds dismissive, but there's just nothing at all here for me to get my teeth into, Martin. You think you've stumbled onto an amazingly persuasive comeback, I think you're uttering sentences that nobody can actually believe, and (apparently) not really grasping what's being said to you. All the best.
The compact version of my point is that the moral argument, allowing it to be sound for the purposes of debate, is that lacks the sufficiency conditions to eliminate an EGH. Another implication in trying this out briefly is that the evidential implication lends more support to an EGH than a GGH.
Your rhetorical proclamations of this approach failing were clearly premature and without basis. Your inability to respond with little except a fallacious argument from obviousness and dismissing difficult challenges and so giving up, indicates how weak the moral argument really is, or at least your ability to use it.
Since there you have provided no cogent response, whether your readers are or are not persuaded is irrelevant. As far as I can see, any unbiased observer could surely conclude is that you, in your own way, have conceded that the moral argument can be used to reject the EGH, and agree that it cannot.
Martin, wow. Just wow. You don't even seem to realise what just happened.
Glenn: The moral argument arises because of certain moral facts that we recognise, including the moral duty not to harm people and to do good to them.
Martin: But we can just turn this around and state that we recognise a duty to hurt people and do bad to them!
Glenn: Well, not in the real world, because we don't actually have the recognition you're describing. But we do have the recognition that I'm describing, the recognition of the duty to do good to people and not harm them.
Martin: No, as a rule we don't have that recognition. Look at the inquisitors for example who did actually harm people.
Glenn: No, it's not the point whether or not their actions did harm people. The point is that they still did have the recognition of the duty not to harm people. Their actions don't prove otherwise, since they believed that they were acting in the long term good of people.
Martin: Wow, you think torturing people is morally OK?
Seriously, your responses are not just wrong, they're ridiculous.
While Dave's comments are a little blunter than mind, Martin, he's right.
I noted that as a true observation of the real world, we enjoy the recognition of moral duties to do good to others and not harm them. You can call this a "fallacious" appeal to the obvious, but I just call it an appeal to the obvious. If someone claims that it's obvious that the sky is blue, will you accuse them of committing a fallacy?
I also agree that you're exhibiting some signs of haste in not carefully taking the time to understand what is said to you. As I read through the comments here it looks to me like you feel a sense of victory because you haven't realised what has actually been said here. As I read things, the fundamental claims made in this blog bost are still standing strong with no serious challenge to them.
Dave is also right – and I mean no offence – in noting that I have no obligation to devote time and energy to just any old argument, no matter how silly. You can use that as an opportunity to claim some sort of victory (even making up stories about me "conceding" [!!!] that I am wrong), but that doesn't make it so.
Both Glenn and Dave are still missing the point.
Oh dear, this is not what I was addressing. To repeat mere recognition of this is insufficient to ensure that by following a deity's nature or equivalent there be such a minimisation of harm to others. This is what Glenn needs to show and has not.
Now it is not just logically conceivable but more than evidentially plausible that any harm can or could be justified if it is claimed to be in the interest of a deity for a supposed "higher good". The Inquisition example amply shows this and Glenn avoided addressing this because AFAICT he cannot answer this challenge.
In addition to what I noted above, an EG could quite happily condone the moral argument, in another way. Two people could commit the same act with the same bad consequences. However the first does this knowing this an evil act whilst the second believes that they are doing good. It is more than likely that an EG would prefer acts done on the second basis to the first, as being more evil.
So until Glenn addresses this insufficiency point, his argument has no merit.
The appropriate response to this is: "So what?" As I hope the reader will clearly see, that was never the point of the argument. You're construing things backwards. The point was not that by following a deity's nature we will certainly minimise harm. That was never at issue. The issue was that we do in fact – in the real world – recognise moral duties. Among those moral duties is the duty to not harm people. This means that if our encounter with moral facts, if it favours any kind of deity, favours a deity who is (non-morally) good rather than bad.
As I scan through your comments, Martin, I see nothing at all that really addresses this. I just don't see anything to respond to.
The Inquisition acted in the interests of social order. They were no worse, and in many ways better than the contemporary secular authorities.
That's true Jason. Although I don't want to say that what the Inquisition did was good, anyone who has taken the time to learn about the history of the inquisition in its historical context will realise that it was an ecclesiastical court that was noted for being preferable to the secular equivalent.
It's just obviously shallow to think that they believed in doing harm to people rather than good. Whether they were correct or not isn't the point – the point is that they, like we, recognised the duty to not harm people, and they acted on it, believing that they were working for the long term good of people. In other words, they most certainly did find themselves confronted witht he same moral duties that we find ourselves confronted with.
Shallow thinking? Screams atheism to me.
Your reply addressed to me seems to miss the point of this whole discussion, as to whether the moral argument can rule out an EGH.
Your (specifically non-shallow) answer to Jason again proves my point. That the moral argument is insufficient to point to a beneficent god over a malevolent one.
And their actions make much more sense on the basis of an EGH than a GGH.
So your Moral Argument defence of a GGH fails.
In comments #34 and 35 on the previous post a I refered to three of the most important moral arguments for theism in the Philosophical literature. Robert Adams, John Hares and Stephen Laymans, I noted that all three require that God be benevolent, or just in some substantive sense of the world. So what you say here is simply false. Try reading arguments before you comment on what they do and do not do.
Martin, how on earth could my answer to Jason regarding the inquisition prove your incorrect claim that the moral argument does not favour a benevolent God?
You've really mishandled that point. The point was, and continues to be, that we are confronted with the same moral facts, including the fact that as a rule we shouldn't harm people. Nothing about this ensures that we will all act on this fact perfectly. There's just no point for you to use here.
You did refer or assert those supposed 3 arguments, however as noted previously you have not made any of those arguments here. Until you do there is nothing to discuss.
Martin – so until somebody makes their case there's nothing to discuss?
Now you know why I have no motivation to discuss your argument!
Question, is it immoral for the Police and the Judiciary to imprison and execute criminals?
Yes, because their duty is to the higher good, the maintenance of a civil society. That is the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
"Not hurting people" as a criteria is so vague that it's almost criminal. Should we therefore not pull diseased teeth, or cut out cancer? Perhaps we shouldn't use "time-outs" for discipline? That must lead to some psychological pain.
In the case of the Inquisitions the principle they revolved around finding people who professed to be Christians but were not, Cathers in the first Inquisition, Muslims in Spain. These people posed a threat to social order, the Cathers by rejecting civil authority, the Muslims by acting in support of Muslim attackers of the Spanish community.
Contrary to the propaganda put out by Protestants and atheists, the Inquisitions were not particularly lethal, not particularly feared, and unless they had cooperation from local civilians, not especially effective.
You have attempted to make a case I have given you a number of rebuttals and you have failed in any meaningful way to respond to the most significant ones and now no have no motivation to do so. I am not surprised, since I cannot see any way of saving your argument. This again looks like you are tacitly admitting defeat.
Your last post seems quite confused and irrelevant to the debate in this thread.
Not sure of your point here since this naive version of classical utiltiarianism could be read as saying it is not immoral. Then again AFAIK mostly no modern uttilitarian makes arguments that way anymore. Further the theist philosopher Henry Sidgwick was a utiltiarian and argued that God was a utilitarian, but only by rejecting the Moral argument!
"In the case of the Inquisitions the principle they revolved around finding people who professed to be Christians but were not…," and this justifies torturing and murdering them. Right, what a dispicable great immoral code you have.
Aaaah, so that makes it ok then? How do you know you aer not eating up Catholic propaganda. Double standards? The fact that they invented that large majority of torturing devices but only tortured and murdered less than some think makes them OK?! Not!!
And what relevance is any of this to the discussion over whether the Moral Argument points to a GGH over an EGH? Nothing. I do not think you understand what an argument is Jason and will not waste any time replying to you again unless you actually make some sort of relevant point to the discussion.
You spew rhetorical rubbish like this and then ask people to donate their precious time to you. Do you actually realise that time has value, and people could be doing other things with it? The more I read the more I think your time would be better spent picking fights down at the arcade.
You say "duh," it's obvious, yet you don't do this very thing. So there's nothing to discuss.
Water off a duck's back Glenn.
Anyone who's still bleating about the Spanish Inquisition after the latest research shows that in 345 years they handed over a mere 3200 people to the civil authorities for execution is too historically ignorant to be worth my time.
What a great example of empty rhetoric, Glenn, you really know what you are talking about on this topic.
Clearly this thread has run its course. To pursue it further would be pointless. What I have learnt is that contrary to your assertion that the theistic moral argument eliminates the EGH, it actually lends more support to an EGH over a GGH! That is interesting and a discovery, at least to me. Thanks for enabling me to make that discovery Glenn.
I am signing off the RRS comment feed now, sayonara!
Sam Harris has argued both that torture is justified in stopping terrorism, and that some people hold beliefs so terrible that killing them is the only rational course of action.
He has also stated that he does not regard water-boarding as torture. Interestingly enough that was one of the techniques used by the Inquisition.
The latest research refutes the atheist propaganda, and the Protestant propaganda that it was based on.
Just kidding. Though reading some of the content here was starting to make me think I would be way in over my head. This thread gives me hope that I may be able to keep up with some things.
Martin, sorry I don't need to make these arguments they have already been made in the literature. The point is that when you and Law state that moral arguments for Gods existence, even if sound do not establish that God is good, you are ignoring the actual moral arguments that have been made.
You can choose to limit your claim to none of the argument I have made establish the existence of a good God over an evil God, but that was not laws original argument was it.
I jumped over here from the latest ontology/epistemology post, because I was wondering some things about this whole 'evil god' argument.
In Prof. Law's post-debate blogs he does a lot of shoring up points he didn't get to deal with to his satisfaction in the debate. Of course, he spends a lot of time explaining the evil god challenge. I must confess, I don't see how this poses a problem at all since it seems to be the equivalent of responding to an argument with sketch comedy. At the surface, the biggest problem I have with it is that it casts 'evil' as the sort of thing that could be reality-grounding. Since the challenge is parodic, it fails to apprehend the fact that serious arguments for the existence of God are trying to get at the thing that is holding every other thing up.
At any rate, I am asking a question, but my questions always sound like statements. I'm wondering if I'm misunderstanding the challenge, or if I'm being too bold in my inferences from certain theistic arguments. I read Law's recent post-debate blogs, but it's very difficult to see why he thinks the evil god challenge illustrates anything important about theistic arguments that are not arguments from morality in the first place.
It seems that the "evil" in "evil god" is ad hoc, while when we describe God as "good" this is not ad hoc, but an important metaphysical conclusion. Aside from those considerations, it seems the argument works only against design and cosmological arguments, if it works at all.
Yes, that's an effective summary. In the recent debate with Craig, Law is dismissing all arguments for God on the basis that he believes his 'evil God hypothesis' is as equally valid as a benevolent God hypothesis and since both can't be true, neither are. Therefore, he concludes, unless someone can show why that evil God hypothesis is false, all other possible arguments for the existence of God are irrelevant.
As Craig repeatedly points out, the evil God hypothesis has nothing to do with or say about the cosmological argument (or any other argument that is separate to the moral argument for the existence of God). Law has no response to any of those that are of any note.
sorry that's not entirely accurate… Law says that since the evil God hypothesis is so obviously false, then so is any argument used to show a God that is good (as he believes it uses the same logic, just with the opposite outcome).
That's what I gathered, Nathan. I really don't understand why Law thinks that this is good, and I've found his subsequent clarifications more confusing. I think that what is confusing to me is that I want to be charitable to Law, because he knows more about philosophy than me, but I just can't fathom why somebody who does this for a living thinks that "evil god" is a good challenge. It seems like arguing against the existence of horses by running some modal excersize involving unicorns.
P.S., it seemed to me as well that all Craig needed to do was point out that theists don't use the same logic as Law was using in his argument, which he did. I was disappointed however that, as in his debate with Harris, Craig did not go the extra mile as far as explaining why it is important that God is good, that evil is a privation of good, and he didn't really justify the first premise of his moral argument except with quotes from Ruse, Dawkins, etc. He just left it with, "well, it's part of the definition of God… and all these other atheists agree with me about the moral argument." To be fair, all I heard Law do to knock down the moral argument was throw around Swinburne's name.
Glenn, is there any update on the book you've been working on?
Hi Cody. Life being what it is and my psyche being what it is, the book is the kind of project I need to invest a sustained, focused effort on. I was hoping to be able to come up with a way of working on it more or less full-time so I could do this, but my professional situation being what it is (having to work a 40 hour week in an entirely non-academic context), I've drawn a blank. So the book is on my list of things I would do if I had the opportunity at the moment.


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