nobodyCloak

That’s interesting you say that because I initially had the opposite impression because this would imply that the Earth has experienced major temperature swings much beyond what we’re seeing now and life carried on.

Then I reread and saw the part about increased greenhouse gas effects… I hope those calculations at least are inaccurate.

Not OP, but for anyone who’s curious I believe they may be referencing George Bernard Shaw’s infamous quote [0] (which FWIW I think expresses a morally abhorrent way of going about things)

[0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7WBRjU9P5eo

Ahhh you are correct, thanks for pointing that out. I'll update the title. They do refer specifically to "trusted digital agency" but, as you pointed out, it's "agency" as in "ability to choose" not "agency" as in "an organization."

And yes it is quite scary to me as well.

A lot can be said about Israel, and this NSO stuff is extremely alarming. However, they also should get some credit as (one of?) the only countries in the Middle East where the laws don’t dictate that people be persecuted and/or killed for being homosexual.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel

At least in the context of this essay this point seems moot to me. Whether the author argues that only Christianity provided such theories or not, the vast majority of the US founders cite the Christian God as the source of a lot of things, human rights among them. They don’t cite some Greek philosopher because that’s not what they pulled that aspect of their argument from.

Maybe this is just more cut snd dry for me because I’ve studied US history for years and I’m imposing a lot of that into the essay, but I don’t think the author is being disingenuous at all for rightly pointing out the reaching effect of Christianity on our modern understanding of human rights (see Locke’s “Reasonableness of Christianity” for some fun reading).

I think you may be missing the point of the essay. I don’t think it meant to say that Christianity is perfect nor that Christianity is the supreme religion. Of course Christianity has been used to justify hateful conduct (just like most other religions at some point) but regardless it more than anything else is responsible for how “Western Civilization” developed, and by extension our understanding of human rights. Yes Christianity was used to defend slavery, but it was also used to condemn it. Regardless, the point was that Christianity is a driving force behind Western thought/morality and ignoring that is dangerous.

Are there other religions that teach the same values of human rights? Of course! But how many of them directly influenced Western life and the Western definition of those same rights, specifically in the founding of the US (which became the blueprint for so many other countries after it)?

Also, I feel like Judaism is implicitly included to some degree in this because Jesus was a Jew and the author specifically mentions he (the author) was Jewish.

Isn't that kind of lumping a great number of people with very different mindsets into a big group of Idiots Because They Don't Think Like Me?

I won't spend the time to go through and contradict every single one of your points, but let's not forget that Tipper Gore (Al Gore's wife at the time) was the main push behind the parental advisory labels, freedom fries is a joke to 100% of the people I've talked to about it, and just because not everyone agrees at what point (or whether) an abortion becomes synonymous with a murder does not mean that everyone on the right wants to rule over women (unlike some cultures that do exist to this day in other countries).

I don’t support all of those proposed changes, but I’m legitimately curious as to why, if the election process is so important and sacred, it is also too much to ask for some sort of proof that the person voting absentee is actually allowed to vote.

I don’t like the witness signature requirement for absentees, but saying that people of a certain race can’t provide a driver’s license or some other state id because they have a certain skin color seems a little racist (?). That might just be me though.

Honestly seeing the comments on here makes me feel a little better about life. Even if there are people out there who want to judge me literally by the color of my skin and not the content of my character, I’m happy there are still a lot of people here who don’t want to go back to the 1950s way of looking at race (or heaven forbid to the racially-focused social Darwinism that caused so much suffering in the early and mid-20th century in so many countries).