Passenger killed by air marshall

CFLarsen said:
Why not?
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Why don't you argue that in the next Skeptic Report? Should be fun reading!

A creator God is not supernatural?
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Where is "Creator God" mentioned in the DoI? It just says "Creator". Are your parents (who created you) supernatural gods? Mine aren't...
 
CFLarsen said:
Mycroft said:
Why, exactly, do you reject a non-supernatural interpretation of "creator"?
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I don't have any reason to believe it isn't supernatural.
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But you have every reason to believe the word "creator" was chosen instead of "God" or "Jehovah" specifically to accommodate a variety of belief systems. Since there is an obvious interpretation that accommodates the belief systems of agnostics and atheists, and doesn’t demand a super-natural explanation, why wouldn’t you assume that was intended as well?
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
QUICK! I am within five meters of you, acting completely normally! I could have a knife in my sleeve, my belt, my boot, anywhere! What do you do? Too late, I've stabbed you.
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That's not even part of any argument that's been presented. No one said that people acting normally should have action taken against them. Only people who are being irrational and not obeying lawful orders.


Blowing people away the second they do something funny-looking , or have a panic attack and say something that rhymes with "bomb", is not the solution.
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Yes, it is. And it worked.
 
Kopji said:
I don't mean to imply that everyone's going to run off a plane screaming, just that it is much more likely to be due to mental illness than a terrorist.
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Have there been studies done at airports to confirm this?

I am an advocate for solving the right problem with the right tools. Treating mentally ill people as if they were terrorists is sort of a shotgun approach (excuse the expression). I think we can improve.
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We don't know if they are mentally ill. Maybe we should employ the psychic police to help us determine if they are mentally ill or not. Can we improve, maybe. Perhaps you should write the TSA with your detailed plan.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Mentally ill people exist, sick people exist, drunk people exist and panicky people exist. This is inarguable.

Terrorists who can construct suicide bombs out of in-flight drinks and chair lint, who then flip out and run around telling everyone they have a bomb, on the other hand, may not exist at all.

Arguably people should have the right not to be ordered around at gunpoint without a decent justification too, but that is very much a secondary consideration compared to the primary issue.
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You are correct, no one has ever threated a place with a bomb before.......They've never even detonated such weapons.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
The way he is alleged to have acted, please.
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In the mean time, how many scared, drunk, ill, mentally ill or otherwise impaired people do you think it is acceptable to kill to save, say, one life from (theoretical) terrorists who run off planes with bombs?
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Every single one of them that does the same thing.

A woman has lost her husband of twenty years, Bigred. Please think about that for a bit before you open your mouth again.
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She should've remembered the medication.
 
CFLarsen said:
Why not?
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Jefferson could've wrote "rights are given by the great spaghetti monster" and it still wouldn't matter. The DoI has no standing in american law or legislation, it is not a framework of our government. Even if it was, the intentions of our forefathers matter little in today's politics. They had black slaves, we no longer think that's a good idea. They didn't consider women as equal, we do. They didn't like the danes, we agree with that one.
 
Mycroft said:
But you have every reason to believe the word "creator" was chosen instead of "God" or "Jehovah" specifically to accommodate a variety of belief systems. Since there is an obvious interpretation that accommodates the belief systems of agnostics and atheists, and doesn’t demand a super-natural explanation, why wouldn’t you assume that was intended as well?
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Look at the times it was written. People were generally religious to an extent we can hardly imagine today:

In tracing the growth of the several colonies we have had frequent occasion to notice the religious life of the people, but a few additional words are necessary here. In the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland the Church of England was recognized by law as the State Church; and in Maryland, which had passed through Catholic and Puritan hands, this church was supported by general taxation.1 Many of the clergy were men of doubtful morals, men who were foremost at the horse races, and who were seldom outdone in drinking, betting, and gambling. The Established Church had little footing in the North, outside of New York, where it was rapidly gaining. In Pennsylvania and Rhode Island alone were all religions free.

In New England, except Rhode Island, the Puritan or Congregational Church was practically the State Church. In no other part of America had religion taken such a powerful hold on the people as here.
Source
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What people believed depended on where they lived:

* The New England colonists were largely Puritans, who led very strict lives.
* The Middle colonists were a mixture of religions, including Quakers (led by William Penn), Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, and others.
* The Southern colonists had a mixture of religions as well, including Baptists and Anglicans.

In the 18th Century, the Great Awakening swept the colonies. This was a movement to refocus people's thoughts and minds on the church and religion. Famous preachers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards brought many people into church.
Source
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Against a prevailing view that eighteenth-century Americans had not perpetuated the first settlers' passionate commitment to their faith, scholars now identify a high level of religious energy in colonies after 1700. According to one expert, religion was in the "ascension rather than the declension"; another sees a "rising vitality in religious life" from 1700 onward; a third finds religion in many parts of the colonies in a state of "feverish growth." Figures on church attendance and church formation support these opinions. Between 1700 and 1740, an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population attended churches, which were being built at a headlong pace.

Toward mid-century the country experienced its first major religious revival. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. In America, the Awakening signaled the advent of an encompassing evangelicalism--the belief that the essence of religious experience was the "new birth," inspired by the preaching of the Word. It invigorated even as it divided churches. The supporters of the Awakening and its evangelical thrust--Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists--became the largest American Protestant denominations by the first decades of the nineteenth century. Opponents of the Awakening or those split by it--Anglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalists--were left behind.

Another religious movement that was the antithesis of evangelicalism made its appearance in the eighteenth century. Deism, which emphasized morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, found advocates among upper-class Americans. Conspicuous among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Deists, never more than "a minority within a minority," were submerged by evangelicalism in the nineteenth century.
Source
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Religion played a major role in the American Revolution by offering a moral sanction for opposition to the British--an assurance to the average American that revolution was justified in the sight of God. As a recent scholar has observed, "by turning colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by crying the message to all ranks in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better."

Ministers served the American cause in many capacities during the Revolution: as military chaplains, as penmen for committees of correspondence, and as members of state legislatures, constitutional conventions and the national Congress. Some even took up arms, leading Continental troops in battle.
Source
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The Continental-Confederation Congress, a legislative body that governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, contained an extraordinary number of deeply religious men. The amount of energy that Congress invested in encouraging the practice of religion in the new nation exceeded that expended by any subsequent American national government. Although the Articles of Confederation did not officially authorize Congress to concern itself with religion, the citizenry did not object to such activities. This lack of objection suggests that both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity.
Source
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Some states even supported religions with public funds:

Many states were as explicit about the need for a thriving religion as Congress was in its thanksgiving and fast day proclamations. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 declared, for example, that "the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion and morality." The states were in a stronger position to act upon this conviction because they were considered to possess "general" powers as opposed to the limited, specifically enumerated powers of Congress.

Congregationalists and Anglicans who, before 1776, had received public financial support, called their state benefactors "nursing fathers" (Isaiah 49:23). After independence they urged the state governments, as "nursing fathers," to continue succoring them. Knowing that in the egalitarian, post-independence era, the public would no longer permit single denominations to monopolize state support, legislators devised "general assessment schemes." Religious taxes were laid on all citizens, each of whom was given the option of designating his share to the church of his choice. Such laws took effect in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire and were passed but not implemented in Maryland and Georgia.
Source
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This focus on Jefferson is skewing the true image of what was going on:

The first two Presidents of the United States were patrons of religion--George Washington was an Episcopal vestryman, and John Adams described himself as "a church going animal." Both offered strong rhetorical support for religion. In his Farewell Address of September 1796, Washington called religion, as the source of morality, "a necessary spring of popular government," while Adams claimed that statesmen "may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand." Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the third and fourth Presidents, are generally considered less hospitable to religion than their predecessors, but evidence presented in this section shows that, while in office, both offered religion powerful symbolic support.
Source
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thaiboxerken said:
Jefferson could've wrote "rights are given by the great spaghetti monster" and it still wouldn't matter. The DoI has no standing in american law or legislation, it is not a framework of our government. Even if it was, the intentions of our forefathers matter little in today's politics. They had black slaves, we no longer think that's a good idea. They didn't consider women as equal, we do. They didn't like the danes, we agree with that one.
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Jefferson wasn't the only person responsible for the American Revolution. Read the above texts.
 
Just in case I'm not the only one that wonders what would happen to an aircraft whose wall had been pierced by a bullet -- this is the most authoritative information I've been able to find.* A post by chiselchick on killermovies.com forums. :rolleyes: Well it is well written and she does make sense, as to whether the information is actually correct I can't say. It is more reassuring than what I expected.

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-24423-should-us-brits-have-air-marshels-with-guns.html

chiselchick
The effects of firearm discharge in a pressurized commercial aircraft is dependent on the size of hole caused by the bullet. Inside most commercial aircraft, there are already two existing 'holes' for regulating the cabin pressurization. They are called the outflow valves, one located in the front and the other is at the belly. Their function is to modulate and maintain a desired cabin pressure and it varies with the aircraft altitude. This operation is performed automatically.
If a gunshot creates a clean hole through the skin, it is not going to be disastrous because air will just whistle out of the hole. The outflow valves will automatically response to this sudden loss of air by closing the valves a little to compensate for the air leak.
The aircraft would certainly not disintegrate unless there is a bomb on board.
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* I'm still frustrated that I couldn't find a newspaper, magazine article or another credible source on the subject though.
 
Chiselchick is correct. It only takes a slight udnerstanding of pressure vessel technology to understand this.
 
CFLarsen said:
Are those the only two responsible for the American Revolution?
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I'm just demonstrating that not all americans that were part of the revolution were overtly religious. This undermines your argument that the USA was founded by only religious people and intended to be a theocracy.
 
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