Vatican: The living are too fixated on life.

[Evangelical Capitalist]

I'm not sure in which forum this should go, but this seems as good as any.

Cox and Forkum: Pain and Suffering

I don't know what I can add to this. It's all right there. Altruism is anti-life. All I can think of is some idiot Catholic (no offense intended to any Catholics that happen to be reading this) saying, "Yes, that's absolutely right! We shouldn't want to be well."

I seem to recall the Pope complaining a few years ago about a "Culture of Death." Now the problem is too much concern for health, i.e. for life. Life, apparently is only for those who don't yet have it, embryos and fetuses (feti?) and whatever. The living are too preoccupied with it.

Here's the worst part of the article that Cox and Forkum reference: "Precisely in the handicap, in the disease, in the pain, in old age, in dying and death one can, instead, perceive the truth of life in a clearer way... The pope's message is 'suffering is part of life and has meaning.'" There you have it: malevolent universe, worship of death, of pain, of suffering, worship of evil for being evil, hatred of the good for being the good. It's not easy to put that much evil in two sentences. How anyone can listen to this and not run from the Church in abject terror, I don't know. (Proof that we have no instinct for self-preservation.)

Everytime I see something like this, I'm reminded of Rand's critics who accuse her of setting up altruism as a straw-man, as being something it's not. I'm reminded of the fact that she was absolutely right about all of it, and that those critics don't have a leg to stand on.

[The Wrath]

Doesn't surprise me. All you have to do is look at the history of that Catholic church to know that it is anti-life.

Great quote in your sig, by the way.

[JMeganSnow]

I love Cox & Forkum. Best political cartoonists EVER!!!

[EC]

This is off topic, but every once in awhile I'll see someone put Q.E.D. after a post. What does this mean? The only Q.E.D. that I know of is Quantum Electrodynamics; is this what this refers to, kind of like some new way of saying, "Hey, this isn't rocket science"? That would make sense, I guess, but truthfully I have no idea. The reason why I bring this up here is because it is used in the subtitle of this thread.

[Dufresne]

This is off topic, but every once in awhile I'll see someone put Q.E.D. after a post. What does this mean?

It's the abbreviation for the latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum" meaning "which was to be demonstrated".

[BurgessLau]

It's the abbreviation for the latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum" meaning "which was to be demonstrated".

Yes, that is the translation.

Rational_One, what Q. E. D. means when it appears at the end of a proof is this: We have arrived at the point we set out to prove, so now we are done with the proof. It is a way of "signing off" once the philosopher (or mathematician) has done his job of proving a certain point.

Keep in mind that the people who often used this notation favored deductive ("demonstrative") proofs. The point they wanted to prove ended up as the conclusion of the final syllogism of their argument.

Let's say we are discussing whether or not Socrates is mortal. One of us, the one who believes Socrates is mortal, might write:

"All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Q. E. D."

[Edited to add example.]

Edited March 4, 2005 by BurgessLau