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stonebeard 
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 Posted: December 09 2010 at 11:51 |
 seventhsojourn wrote:
I'm not saying that every statement is a provocation, but what exactly do Northeast Indianan Wild Unicorns and invisible pet dragons have to do with Christianity? (Rhetorical question, obviously.) |
Maybe rhetorical, but I'll answer anyway. The church declares itself an authority over an unprovable thing (miracles). I declare myself an authority over unprovable things (NI Wild Unicorns). Just because the church has more people in on the joke doesn't mean it's not a joke.
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 11:13 |
Dean wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Not correct everywhere Dean, in USA and I believe in UK the only two veredicts are Guilty and Not Guilty, there's no innocent veredict
| Juries never find defendants innocent. They cannot. Not only is it not their job, it is not within their power. They can only find them "not guilty."
Hugh Duval
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I believe only in Scottland they have a Non Proven verdict.
Don't know about the rest of Europe.
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At least you now acknowledge (in this thread) the difference between not guilty and innocent - which was the point Mike was making. |
Dean, I'm saying that each and every case is a guess in certain degree, almost never a judge or a jury can have 100% of evidence of the guilt or innocence of a person, no matter what science does.
Iván
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 11:11 |
For example, Mike Tyson was declared guilty based exclusively on the word of the accuser and his fame, because there wasn't a single witness or piece of evidence of rape in date.
As a fact, after he was declared guilty, a photo in which he and Desiree Washington left the hotel hugging the following morning to the rape morning appeared.
That verdict was purely subjective.
On the other hand, despite the evidence O.J. Simpson was declared not guilty because people believed him.
A good percentage of the verdicts are at the most educated guesses, a proof of this is that since DNA is available, 261 convictions have been overturned (17 with death penalty), and this is the tip of the iceberg, thousands of wrongfully convicted don't have the money or interest or have short terms to serve..
Iván
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Icarium
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 11:06 |
one reason I don't study law is that the book is so huge, you need a year to plow your way through it
thats how thick a law book is for a country of 4.7 millions, only think of the lawsbook for a country with 300 million people 
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Dean
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 11:03 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Not correct everywhere Dean, in USA and I believe in UK the only two veredicts are Guilty and Not Guilty, there's no innocent veredict
| Juries never find defendants innocent. They cannot. Not only is it not their job, it is not within their power. They can only find them "not guilty."
Hugh Duval
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I believe only in Scottland they have a Non Proven verdict.
Don't know about the rest of Europe.
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At least you now acknowledge (in this thread) the difference between not guilty and innocent - which was the point Mike was making.
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What?
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Snow Dog
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 11:01 |
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^ Dean never said there was an "innocent" verdict. I can't find it anyway.
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 10:58 |
Not correct everywhere Dean, in USA and I believe in UK the only two veredicts are Guilty and Not Guilty, there's no innocent veredict
| Juries never find defendants innocent. They cannot. Not only is it not their job, it is not within their power. They can only find them "not guilty."
Hugh Duval
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I believe only in Scottland they have a Non Proven verdict.
Don't know about the rest of Europe.
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Dean
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 10:08 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
How can a lawyer, of all people, make such a horrible mistake?
Courts declare people "not guilty". The difference between "not guilty" and "innocent" is essentially the same as the one between "we don't know what caused the cure" and "god did it". You need positive evidence to convict someone of a crime, you need positive evidence to identify miracles. |
Now, who is being naive?
When a client comes to me, I only have his word of innocence, in some cases not even all the evidence in the world can prove if A, B or C killed another person, in some cases all have the same interest, all have an alibi with 100 witnesses tha hey were 100 miles away from the scene of crime. .
In the same way, the juries nor the judges can read minds, a the end they declare a person guilty or innocent because they believed more the arguments presented by the lawyer or the DA, science can only give an approach (in most cases) the rest is deduction..
Only on TV series you can get all the evidence, in most of he cases you don't have a weapon (most criminals use illegal weapons without register and they dispose of them after a crime) or a single witness, you only have three or four suspects with similar possibilities too be the criminal, and still the Judge has to decide and give a ruling.
In the same way, science don't tell us what is a miracle, it helps us to know which are not miracles.
Iván |
Ah, no.
The point Mike was making was that proving someone is innocent is not the same as not proving they were guilty. A not guilty verdict does not mean the person was innocent, it means they could not prove he was guilty.
Edited by Dean - December 09 2010 at 10:09
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 09:45 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
How can a lawyer, of all people, make such a horrible mistake?
Courts declare people "not guilty". The difference between "not guilty" and "innocent" is essentially the same as the one between "we don't know what caused the cure" and "god did it". You need positive evidence to convict someone of a crime, you need positive evidence to identify miracles. |
Now, who is being naive?
When a client comes to me, I only have his word of innocence, in some cases not even all the evidence in the world can prove if A, B or C killed another person, in some cases all have the same interest, all have an alibi with 100 witnesses tha hey were 100 miles away from the scene of crime. .
In the same way, the juries nor the judges can read minds, a the end they declare a person guilty or innocent because they believed more the arguments presented by the lawyer or the DA, science can only give an approach (in most cases) the rest is deduction..
Only on TV series you can get all the evidence, in most of he cases you don't have a weapon (most criminals use illegal weapons without register and they dispose of them after a crime) or a single witness, you only have three or four suspects with similar possibilities too be the criminal, and still the Judge has to decide and give a ruling.
In the same way, science don't tell us what is a miracle, it helps us to know which are not miracles.
Iván
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Snow Dog
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 07:06 |
Dean wrote:
Before the last Ice Age (which never happened because that was supposed to have happened 6,000 years before the world was created) Ireland wasn't an island. |
Yes. I know. But the land there may have had lizards and reptiles at some point in time. If one goes back far enough the whole area of the British Isles were a collection of tropical islands. But I bet you knew that.
But I agree...the Ireland we know today, has never had snakes.
Edited by Snow Dog - December 09 2010 at 07:09
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Icarium
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:46 |
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I am a Lawnmower
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Dean
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:42 |
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Before the last Ice Age (which never happened because that was supposed to have happened 6,000 years before the world was created) Ireland wasn't an island.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:38 |
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Actually "never" is not quite right. Never since the last Ice Age for sure.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:37 |
^ That confused me for a few moments, but now I understand your reference. 
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Dean
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:34 |
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^ most people "forgot" there never were any snakes and reptiles in Ireland.
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What?
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Snow Dog
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:28 |
^ I would never forget! 
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Dean
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:26 |
Turn all the Christmas trees, including artificial ones and all the images, representations and descriptions, green, then erase every memory of them ever being pink from everyones mind...
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Snow Dog
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 06:06 |
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^ I saw a programe about the acceptence of miracles once and the conclusion was at the end that God would have to physically move the stars in the night sky to spell out " A Miracle"
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Mr ProgFreak
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 05:56 |
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Let God stop the earth from spinning on one special day of the year, with gravity still intact and sunshine everywhere for 24 hours, and then let it continue spinning. That would be a miracle that could be positively confirmed by science, and which would seriously break the laws of physics as we know them. For an all-powerful God who *wants* us to believe, such a thing is definitely not too much to ask.
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Textbook
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Posted: December 09 2010 at 01:54 |
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Yes I note with great suspicion that miracles never truely break causal chains- for example a piece of chocolate cake turns into an elephant- but simply where we can't percieve the causal chain.
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