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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 10:00 am 
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There is a notion among Christians today that the Ten Commandments serve as the basis for the United States. Most evidence today points towards the Constitution being based on a much older divinely inspired work of law - the Code of Hammurabi. It is interesting to note that despite being empowered by the sun god Shamash to act as a lawgiver, the Babylonian king apparently did not see fit to include laws about blasphemy, unlike Moses who felt the majority of his law should focus on what Yahweh finds offensive.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:16 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Vindicarre wrote:
The Gov't wouldn't have to say anything if the Gov't hadn't involved itself in the first place. The Gov't shouldn't be presiding over a marriage contract any more than it should preside over an employment contract, or a mortgage contract.


It wasn't like marriage was ever some carefree happy-go-lucky thing that "government" suddenly involved itself in. Marriage and government both evolved alongside each other from the first time some caveman had an argument with another over who had to provide meat to a female.

Government is pretty involved in contracts no matter what simply because they're contracts. Government has to step in to clean up the mess when there's a dispute. That's one of the basic functions of government - resolving disputes between citizens -, and it behooves us to have at least some standardized rules for contracts, particularly ones that, like marriage, are very very common and often not entered into under the circumstances of an abstract business contract. Marriage is inextricably linked to property rights and responsibilities for children; it cannot be disentangled without using far MORE government to re-make society from the ground up.

The best we can do is - as in this case - to recognize impractical and unnecessary burdens on people in regard to marriage and eliminate them.


One of the few legitimate causes for Gov't action is resolution and enforcement of contracts. As I said, Gov't shouldn't be any MORE involved in marriage than any other contract. There weren't prohibitions restricting gays from signing other contracts, why were those restrictions in place regarding regarding marriage contracts? Government. Government involvement made the mess, than more Gov't involvement is required to sweep it under the rug.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:17 am 
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Talya wrote:
Claiming something as incontrovertibly factual and historical - when there is absolutely no evidence to support it whatsoever, and even most others inclined to believe at least part of the story without evidence (the existence of a creator being) are going to disagree with the claimed fact, is absolutely idiotic. Using that as claim as an argument to support one's position is asinine.


Whether the Constitution and DOI are divinely inspired is irrelevant - God does not show up telling us what they mean or how to interpret them. The appropriate response to "they're divinely inspired is!" is "so what?", not "that's idiotic".

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At least for those who believe the bible - a couple of its many writers claimed divine inspiration. The founding fathers did not. Rand Paul sounds ready to add the US constitution and declaration of independance to bible canon.


I have no interest in Rand Paul's position on the subject and haven't read or listened to anything he has to say on it, and I don't particularly care how he "sounds" to people that have allergic reactions to anything remotely religious. While the Founding Fathers didn't directly claim any divine inspiration, they seemed pretty sure that their ideas were "endowed by their Creator" and "self-evident" but.. so what? Ok fine, they're endowed and self-evident.

We don't need to maintain the ideals of 1781 in unchanging perpetuity in any other regard. The brilliance of the Constitution is that the Founders recognized that ideas would evolve and change over time. Human liberty and freedom and social ideas advance just like science does; it's just as silly to look at the past and act as if it was populated with horrible bigots as it is to wonder why the English didn't have main battle tanks at Agincourt. Even if we all accepted that the Constitution was divinely inspired, theology is a mystery. It would not tell us anything on how to apply it.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:27 am 
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Vindicarre wrote:
One of the few legitimate causes for Gov't action is resolution and enforcement of contracts. As I said, Gov't shouldn't be any MORE involved in marriage than any other contract.


Yes it should. Marriage is a different sort of contract - it invokes obligations upon third parties, and affects their property and inheritance rights. Furthermore, it is inherently a contact entered into for emotional, personal, and intangible reasons, and by extremely large portions of the population. It is necessary that government standardize it more than other contracts to keep the burden on the courts and taxpayer manageable. Even with that standardization it is the source of considerable cost in both time and money. It is also necessary that standards exist to ensure as consistent and fair adjudication as possible. It absolutely defies logic to think we can either dispense with legal marriage or treat it as just another contractual relationship just because of scared cows of "less government" and contract law.

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There weren't prohibitions restricting gays from signing other contracts, why were those restrictions in place regarding regarding marriage contracts? Government. Government involvement made the mess, than more Gov't involvement is required to sweep it under the rug.


This is not the case at all. "Government" didn't decide that homosexuality was immoral or abnormal; it responded to society thinking that. It took this long for human knowledge to advance to the point where we understand this is not the case.

"Government" did not at any point decide to prohibit same-sex marriage; that was not some sort of default that existed prior to government intervention. There was no "mess" to sweep under the rug. Human social knowledge advances just like science does; this is one form of advancement. It is not an argument against the "government" boogeyman.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:39 am 
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Corolinth wrote:
There is a notion among Christians today that the Ten Commandments serve as the basis for the United States. Most evidence today points towards the Constitution being based on a much older divinely inspired work of law - the Code of Hammurabi. It is interesting to note that despite being empowered by the sun god Shamash to act as a lawgiver, the Babylonian king apparently did not see fit to include laws about blasphemy, unlike Moses who felt the majority of his law should focus on what Yahweh finds offensive.


Most evidence points to all early codes of law having influences on the development of Western law systems eventually arriving at the Constitution - most heavily through the development of English law. It is not inaccurate to say that the Ten Commandments were one of those early law systems, and there is no "most evidence" that can point back more to Hammurabi than the Ten Commandments, regardless of laws on blasphemy. Blasphemy is not necessarily a concept the Babylonian relgion recognized. This is a wild oversimplification and inaccuracy that is more about Coro taking issue with Christians than anything to do with history.

That, incidentally, leads to the next problem - you cannot easily make assumptions about what Christians think because Christians do not have such universality of opinion. Your ideas of what Christians think are a product of what Coro thinks about Christians, which in turn is based on you having far less understanding than you presume yourself to have.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:42 am 
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Since it seems our conclusions are the same regardless of our opinion of the means by which someone got there, I have only this to say...

Diamondeye wrote:
Whether the Constitution and DOI are divinely inspired is irrelevant - God does not show up telling us what they mean or how to interpret them. The appropriate response to "they're divinely inspired is!" is "so what?", not "that's idiotic".


As a technicality, the appropriate response is, "I call bullshit until you prove it!"

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:45 am 
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Corolinth wrote:
I wonder, is it anything like the article I read by a Catholic Apologetics professor at St. Louis University that the Inquisition protected the accused, and everything we've ever read about it in every history textbook ever published was just Protestant propaganda?


There wasn't just one Inquisition and it did different things at different points in its history - and as a matter of fact a great deal of what we believe about the Catholic Church IS propaganda either from Lutherans, Calvanists, or Protestants in Ireland. Perhaps you ought to take the professor seriously seeing as how he's a professor and probably knows what he's talking about. History is a lot more complex and nuanced that the tale of unending brutality that's replaced the tale of good guys and bad guys.

"Apologetics" by the way, does not mean "making excuses for things athesists have decided they don't like and won't accept anyhow" as some people seem to imagine.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:55 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Most evidence points to all early codes of law having influences on the development of Western law systems eventually arriving at the Constitution - most heavily through the development of English law. It is not inaccurate to say that the Ten Commandments were one of those early law systems, and there is no "most evidence" that can point back more to Hammurabi than the Ten Commandments, regardless of laws on blasphemy. Blasphemy is not necessarily a concept the Babylonian relgion recognized. This is a wild oversimplification and inaccuracy that is more about Coro taking issue with Christians than anything to do with history.



Not really. The Hammurabic code had some elements which one would generally associate with more modern, "civilized" law (presumption of innocence, for example). There was nothing revolutionary or unique about the 10 commandments. In fact, from a legal perspective, much of it was useless, and more of it was pointless.

Let's look at the 10 commandments and see how they compare to how America was founded.

(1) Thou shalt have no other goods before me. WRONG. Freedom of religion was an important part of American law early on.
(2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. WRONG. Heck, even most christians don't follow this. Crucifixes abound. And if you're Catholic, graven images are everywhere!
(3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. WRONG. Freedom of Speech is very clearly an early part of the constitution.
(4) Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. WRONG. There are very few religious groups that keep the Sabbath, and even when American law prevented working one day of the week, they intentionally picked the first day of the week, rather than the Sabbath day.
(5) Honour thy father and thy mother. WRONG. There have never been laws in America, to my knowledge, that enforce this.
(6) Thou shalt not murder. Ding ding ding ding! Finally, a winner. Gee, it's so great that God prohibited murder, because if not for that, we'd be running around killing each other. It's not like any other non-judaeo-christian cultures have that prohibition!
(7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. WRONG. I'm tempted give you this one, as there have been legal prohibitions on adultery in parts of the USA in the past, Never at the federal level. I don't see many christian lobbyists pushing for it, either.
(8) Thou shalt not steal. Yay! Another one. Again, if not for God, someone would have taken all my stuff for sure!
(9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. There we go! Perjury is still a crime in most places. Yet another law that nobody else ever had, right? Or not.
(10) Thou shalt not covet. WRONG. Hell, capitalism is pretty well designed to thrive on covetousness. Furthermore, you gotta love how this law puts a man's wife and servants as equal to their house and animals.



So, three out of ten of the famous Ten Commandments applied to Americans, and those are commandments that pretty much exist in every culture EVER, including the Code of Hammurabi. I love how solidly US law is based on those tablets Moses brought down from Sinai.

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Last edited by Talya on Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:59 am 
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(8) Thou shalt not steal. Yay! Another one. Again, if not for God, someone would have taken all my stuff for sure!


Maybe we should point this one out to the Billy Grahamses, Creflo Dollarses, and Joel Osteenses of the world.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:12 pm 
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Talya wrote:
Since it seems our conclusions are the same regardless of our opinion of the means by which someone got there, I have only this to say...

Diamondeye wrote:
Whether the Constitution and DOI are divinely inspired is irrelevant - God does not show up telling us what they mean or how to interpret them. The appropriate response to "they're divinely inspired is!" is "so what?", not "that's idiotic".


As a technicality, the appropriate response is, "I call bullshit until you prove it!"


That presumes that your own bullshit call is meaningful, and it isn't; it just makes you feel better. It's just as unknowable. If we assume for the sake of argument that God did not in any way influence or inspire the Constitution that gets us no farther than assuming He did. It's a distraction from the matter at hand of "what are we going to actually do?"

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:16 pm 
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Diamondeye wrote:
That presumes that your own bullshit call is meaningful, and it isn't; it just makes you feel better. It's just as unknowable. If we assume for the sake of argument that God did not in any way influence or inspire the Constitution that gets us no farther than assuming He did. It's a distraction from the matter at hand of "what are we going to actually do?"



Which makes it even more idiotic to claim it!

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:27 pm 
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Talya wrote:
Not really. The Hammurabic code had some elements which one would generally associate with more modern, "civilized" law (presumption of innocence, for example). There was nothing revolutionary or unique about the 10 commandments. In fact, from a legal perspective, much of it was useless, and more of it was pointless.

Let's look at the 10 commandments and see how they compare to how America was founded.

(1) Thou shalt have no other goods before me. WRONG. Freedom of religion was an important part of American law early on.
(2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. WRONG. Heck, even most christians don't follow this. Crucifixes abound. And if you're Catholic, graven images are everywhere!
(3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. WRONG. Freedom of Speech is very clearly an early part of the constitution.
(4) Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. WRONG. There are very few religious groups that keep the Sabbath, and even when American law prevented working one day of the week, they intentionally picked the first day of the week, rather than the Sabbath day.
(5) Honour thy father and thy mother. WRONG. There have never been laws in America, to my knowledge, that enforce this.
(6) Thou shalt not murder. Ding ding ding ding! Finally, a winner. Gee, it's so great that God prohibited murder, because if not for that, we'd be running around killing each other. It's not like any other non-judaeo-christian cultures have that prohibition!
(7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. Huh. I'm tempted to say wrong, but you'll find prohibitions on adultery in a lot of early american laws. Not that they were ever followed...I'll be nice and give you this one. Note that it's not there anymore, however, and I don't see many christian lobbyists pushing for it, either.
(8) Thou shalt not steal. Yay! Another one. Again, if not for God, someone would have taken all my stuff for sure!
(9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. There we go! Perjury is still a crime in most places. Yet another law that nobody else ever had, right? Or not.
(10) Thou shalt not covet. WRONG. Hell, capitalism is pretty well designed to thrive on covetousness. Furthermore, you gotta love how this law puts a man's wife and servants as equal to their house and animals.

So, if we're feeling generous, four out of ten of the famous Ten Commandments EVER applied to Americans, and three of those are commandments that pretty much exist in every culture EVER. I love how solidly US law is based on those tablets Moses brought down from Sinai.


Because it's not like there were thousands of years of intervening legal evolution or anything. You're spending a lot of effort proving wrong a strawman that's entirely the invention of Coro's desire to make generalizations about Christians that feed his own worldview.

The juvenile nature of this "analysis" and the meaninglessness of the numerical comparison aren't even worthy of additional discussion.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:31 pm 
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Legal Evolution? Nothing in the Israelite law evolved into modern law. It was a fringe group of isolated barbarians that had no legal influence on the world around them. The Greeks? Babylonians? Egyptians? Romans? Persians? Sure. THEY all contributed to the evolution of modern legal systems. The Jews? Not so much -- at least not until after WW2, where what was done to them caused all sorts of new international law elements.

The point is, there's NOTHING in US Law that originated in the Ten Commandments. Those few elements from the 10 commandments that ARE in US Law are common in all law codes, and none of them got influence from the ten commandments either. The constitution is definitely not based on the law of Moses. I'd say there's no influence from the ten commandments in American law at all.

There are things in US law that clearly originated from the Code of Hammurabi.

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Last edited by Talya on Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:36 pm 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Vindicarre wrote:
One of the few legitimate causes for Gov't action is resolution and enforcement of contracts. As I said, Gov't shouldn't be any MORE involved in marriage than any other contract.


Yes it should.
I can make fiat declarations too:

No, it shouldn't.

Diamondeye wrote:
Marriage is a different sort of contract - it invokes obligations upon third parties
No, it does not.

Diamondeye wrote:
and affects their property and inheritance rights.
Just like numerous other contracts.

Diamondeye wrote:
Furthermore, it is inherently a contact entered into for emotional, personal, and intangible reasons, and by extremely large portions of the population.
Just like numerous other contracts.

Diamondeye wrote:
It is necessary that government standardize it more than other contracts to keep the burden on the courts and taxpayer manageable. Even with that standardization it is the source of considerable cost in both time and money. It is also necessary that standards exist to ensure as consistent and fair adjudication as possible.
Just like with numerous other contracts.

Diamondeye wrote:
It absolutely defies logic to think we can either dispense with legal marriage or treat it as just another contractual relationship just because of scared cows of "less government" and contract law.
Other than the fact that all the "standardization" and "manageability" instituted by the Gov't have resulted in 1,138 statutory provisions..oh wait, they added 120 new ones, keep it simple Gov't.

Diamondeye wrote:
Vindicarre wrote:
There weren't prohibitions restricting gays from signing other contracts, why were those restrictions in place regarding regarding marriage contracts? Government. Government involvement made the mess, than more Gov't involvement is required to sweep it under the rug.

This is not the case at all. "Government" didn't decide that homosexuality was immoral or abnormal; it responded to society thinking that.
So, you are saying that Gov't placed restrictions on gays regarding marriage and not other contracts. As I stated. Got it.

Diamondeye wrote:
It took this long for human knowledge to advance to the point where we understand this is not the case.
I don't care to argue whether homosexuality is abnormal, the definition of abnormal will suffice there. As for immorality, the Gov't has no place legislating morality, it has neither the ability nor the authority.

Diamondeye wrote:
"Government" did not at any point decide to prohibit same-sex marriage; that was not some sort of default that existed prior to government intervention.

Other than the point when Gov't legislated that gay marriage was illegal in numerous jurisdictions and Federally legislated the legitimacy of those laws? There were numerous points at which Gov't has intervened to prohibit same sex marriage.

Diamondeye wrote:
There was no "mess" to sweep under the rug. Human social knowledge advances just like science does; this is one form of advancement. It is not an argument against the "government" boogeyman.

Except the mess created by Gov't. This has nothing to do with "science" or "social knowledge", or "boogeymen" and "sacred cows", those are red herrings inserted to distract and draw attention away from poor logic and the fact that people are cheering the idea that more Gov't "fixed" a problem, that Gov't created in the first place by over-stepping it's warranted need for involvement.

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Talya wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
That presumes that your own bullshit call is meaningful, and it isn't; it just makes you feel better. It's just as unknowable. If we assume for the sake of argument that God did not in any way influence or inspire the Constitution that gets us no farther than assuming He did. It's a distraction from the matter at hand of "what are we going to actually do?"


Which makes it even more idiotic to claim it!


No, it doesn't. Getting distracted by an irrelevancy isn't idiotic. It's pretty normal. We get dragged of on tangents all the time around here. By trying to argue it into being idiotic instead of just dismissing it you're being lured into the same mistake.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:08 pm 
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Vindicarre wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Vindicarre wrote:
One of the few legitimate causes for Gov't action is resolution and enforcement of contracts. As I said, Gov't shouldn't be any MORE involved in marriage than any other contract.


Yes it should.
I can make fiat declarations too:

No, it shouldn't.


You already did; I don't know why you're repeating the same one.

Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
Marriage is a different sort of contract - it invokes obligations upon third parties
No, it does not.


It clearly does. Third parties are required to give recognition of married couples in many regards. Medical decision-making power is a prime example.

Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
and affects their property and inheritance rights.
Just like numerous other contracts.


Such as?

Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
Furthermore, it is inherently a contact entered into for emotional, personal, and intangible reasons, and by extremely large portions of the population.
Just like numerous other contracts.


Such as? Other contracts might be entered into for those reasons on an individual basis, but there is nothing inherent about it, unless you're going to argue that people customarily select their mate on the same basis as any other business decision. I'm pretty sure that you will though, since it involves arguing with me.

Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
It is necessary that government standardize it more than other contracts to keep the burden on the courts and taxpayer manageable. Even with that standardization it is the source of considerable cost in both time and money. It is also necessary that standards exist to ensure as consistent and fair adjudication as possible.
Just like with numerous other contracts.


Other contracts also can and should be standardized to some degree, indeed. So what? Different types of contracts are different; the need for standardization is therefore different.

Diamondeye wrote:
Other than the fact that all the "standardization" and "manageability" instituted by the Gov't have resulted in 1,138 statutory provisions..oh wait, they added 120 new ones, keep it simple Gov't.


Where are you getting these numbers from, and how do these "statutory provisions" involve making "marriage" any more complicated?

Diamondeye wrote:
So, you are saying that Gov't placed restrictions on gays regarding marriage and not other contracts. As I stated. Got it.


Wrong. These restrictions weren't in place because of "government.", and that isn't what I said. The restrictions were on gays long before we had "government" as we recognize it today and long before the concept of sexual orientation existed; they were a continuation of society as it had previously existed. Furthermore it wasn't that gays were restricted. It was that the definition of marriage was one that didn't include two people of the same sex. It simply never occurred to almost anyone until the last 40-50 years that a marriage would ever include two people of the same sex. Even gay people probably rarely conceived of that until the latter part of the 20th century.

Diamondeye wrote:
I don't care to argue whether homosexuality is abnormal, the definition of abnormal will suffice there. As for immorality, the Gov't has no place legislating morality, it has neither the ability nor the authority.


Some morality is more easily legislated than others. Murder and theft are both immoral. The idea that government can't legislate all morality is yet another idea that had to evolve over time; people discovered that through trial and error. In a primitive society that decides homosexuality isn't ok because it doesn't result in babies and where babies are essential to survival, the primitive authority structure will try to legislate that morality. It's persistence isn't because of the evils of "government" it's because society has to evolve and gain understanding.

Diamondeye wrote:
Except when the Gov't stated that gay marriage was illegal in numerous jurisdictions and Federally legislated the legitimacy of those laws? There were numerous points at which Gov't has intervened to prohibit same sex marriage.


Same sex persons could not marry prior to that; I don't know why you think this is an example of government intervention or represent a meaningful change, especially since it enjoyed wide popular support. In point of fact, that action was probably necessary to bring matters to a head and galvanize the issue so that we can have this decision today rather than 50 years from now.

Diamondeye wrote:
Except the mess created by Gov't. This has nothing to do with "science" or "social knowledge", or "boogeymen" and "sacred cows", those are red herrings inserted to distract and draw attention away from poor logic and the fact that people are cheering the idea that more Gov't "fixed" a problem, that Gov't created in the first place by over-stepping it's warranted need for involvement.


Except that it didn't. Government didn't create any such problem; same-sex marriage has never been a thing throughout history. You're just trying to turn the issue into yet another reason to whine about "government" as a boogeyman. There's plenty of much better areas where there's actual good reason to complain about government involvement.

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I just want to say, that only on the glade, will several people who mostly agree with each other, still find tiny details only tangentially related to argue about nonstop. :)

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:19 pm 
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Talya wrote:
Legal Evolution? Nothing in the Israelite law evolved into modern law. It was a fringe group of isolated barbarians that had no legal influence on the world around them. The Greeks? Babylonians? Egyptians? Romans? Persians? Sure. THEY all contributed to the evolution of modern legal systems. The Jews? Not so much -- at least not until after WW2, where what was done to them caused all sorts of new international law elements.

The point is, there's NOTHING in US Law that originated in the Ten Commandments. Those few elements from the 10 commandments that ARE in US Law are common in all law codes, and none of them got influence from the ten commandments either. The constitution is definitely not based on the law of Moses. I'd say there's no influence from the ten commandments in American law at all.

There are things in US law that clearly originated from the Code of Hammurabi.


Now you're just being ridiculous. You're just claiming that elements of the 10 commandments that are present in U.S. law weren't actually influenced by it because Taly says so. This is complete bullshit. The 10 commandments are widely recognized as a very important early legal system right alongside Hammurabi and the others you mentioned. The Jews were hardly "isolated barbarians"; they were in one of the most-travelled areas of the ancient world and in close proximity to many influential societies.

This is about you wanting it to be irrelevant because it has to do with Christianity and you just don't like it. You might say that the 10 commandments have no influence, but practically no serious historical scholar would agree with that; this would be an utterly novel idea.

In fact, all you've really done is construct an argument by which mysteriously the 10 commandments are the only well-known historical code that has no influence.. but everyone else did, no really guys! It has nothing to do with Taly's personal feelings at all! Measuring the amount of influence any of them had is probably impossible but it is beyond silly to claim ANY of them had NO influence.

Maybe you missed that part where Christianity was the dominant religion of the entire western world up to the founding of the U.S... but somehow the 10 Commandments central to that religion that basically everyone knew had no influence at all! How you can actually expect anyone to take this idea seriously is beyond me.

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This isn't "because Taly says so."

This is because of the following:
(1) Of the 10 commandments, only three are present in any way in US law at the federal level.
(2) Those three commandments were present in every legal system ever recorded both long before and long after the ten commandments, without any line of descent from the laws of Israel.
(3) Of the laws unique to the ten commandments, that may have originated in Israel, none of them made their way in any form into US law.
(4) Ergo - nothing in US law came from the ten commandments.
(5) Some ancient law systems OLDER than the ten commandments have unique legal elements that appear to have originated with those legal systems, and DO appear in the US legal system. Therefore, the code of Hammurabi can be 100% proven to have influence on the US legal system. There is no evidence for the 10 commandments to have done the same.

As for influence - Ancient Israel was a tiny, reclusive, xenophobic nation that did NOT influence those around them. Any influence from Israel on the world as a whole came afterward, when Christianity spread. Christians, however, did not follow Israelite law, ever. They were never mandated to follow the ten commandments as a code.

If the Ten Commandments influenced the US law at all, it was like this. "Should we include these?" "**** NO." "Okay." Which is why they aren't in there, at all, in any form.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 2:12 pm 
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Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
Marriage is a different sort of contract - it invokes obligations upon third parties
No, it does not.


It clearly does. Third parties are required to give recognition of married couples in many regards. Medical decision-making power is a prime example.

The marriage contract does not impose an obligation on a third party. The marriage contract does not oblige a third party to make medical decisions for the contract signatories.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
and affects their property and inheritance rights.
Just like numerous other contracts.


Such as?

Wills, trusts, articles of incorporation...

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
Furthermore, it is inherently a contact entered into for emotional, personal, and intangible reasons, and by extremely large portions of the population.
Just like numerous other contracts.


Such as? Other contracts might be entered into for those reasons on an individual basis, but there is nothing inherent about it, unless you're going to argue that people customarily select their mate on the same basis as any other business decision.

Since your argument here hinges on "inherently", I'm sure you'll agree that inherent means existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute. People enter into marriage contracts for myriad reasons many times primarily financial. Hence, the marriage contract is not "inherently" intangible or emotional. People enter into contracts based on emotions all the time. People envison themselves enjoying a vacation and buy a timeshare, they picture the status they believe a Mercedes will confer on them socially and enter a financial contract...

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I'm pretty sure that you will though, since it involves arguing with me.
Yup, it'as all about you. I never should have responded to your post in the first place...oh, yeah. I didn't.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
It is necessary that government standardize it more than other contracts to keep the burden on the courts and taxpayer manageable. Even with that standardization it is the source of considerable cost in both time and money. It is also necessary that standards exist to ensure as consistent and fair adjudication as possible.
Just like with numerous other contracts.

Other contracts also can and should be standardized to some degree, indeed. So what? Different types of contracts are different; the need for standardization is therefore different.

The "so what"?" is that your whole argument is that a marriage contract is "different". It is not, as my points have repeatedly shown.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Other than the fact that all the "standardization" and "manageability" instituted by the Gov't have resulted in 1,138 statutory provisions..oh wait, they added 120 new ones, keep it simple Gov't.


Where are you getting these numbers from, and how do these "statutory provisions" involve making "marriage" any more complicated?
The United States Government Accountability Office. If you honestly believe that having over 1,000 legal benefits, rights, and privileges and adding or subtracting from that list multiple times doesn't make a contract more complicated, I have no desire to continue discussing this, so let me know.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
So, you are saying that Gov't placed restrictions on gays regarding marriage and not other contracts. As I stated. Got it.


Wrong. These restrictions weren't in place because of "government.", and that isn't what I said. The restrictions were on gays long before we had "government" as we recognize it today and long before the concept of sexual orientation existed; they were a continuation of society as it had previously existed. Furthermore it wasn't that gays were restricted. It was that the definition of marriage was one that didn't include two people of the same sex. It simply never occurred to almost anyone until the last 40-50 years that a marriage would ever include two people of the same sex. Even gay people probably rarely conceived of that until the latter part of the 20th century.

That is exactly what you said. You claim that Gov't imposed restrictions on gays regarding the marriage contract due to beliefs in society.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I don't care to argue whether homosexuality is abnormal, the definition of abnormal will suffice there. As for immorality, the Gov't has no place legislating morality, it has neither the ability nor the authority.


Some morality is more easily legislated than others. Murder and theft are both immoral. The idea that government can't legislate all morality is yet another idea that had to evolve over time; people discovered that through trial and error. In a primitive society that decides homosexuality isn't ok because it doesn't result in babies and where babies are essential to survival, the primitive authority structure will try to legislate that morality. It's persistence isn't because of the evils of "government" it's because society has to evolve and gain understanding.


Whether society "evolves" to "understand" the limitations of Gov't, or not, does not change those limitations.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Except when the Gov't stated that gay marriage was illegal in numerous jurisdictions and Federally legislated the legitimacy of those laws? There were numerous points at which Gov't has intervened to prohibit same sex marriage.


Same sex persons could not marry prior to that;


Prior to what? When gay people tried to marry, the Gov't ruled against it.
Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I don't know why you think this is an example of government intervention or represent a meaningful change, especially since it enjoyed wide popular support. In point of fact, that action was probably necessary to bring matters to a head and galvanize the issue so that we can have this decision today rather than 50 years from now.
Gov't intervening to stop two consenting adults from entering into a contract is Gov't intervention, it's kind of self explanatory.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Except the mess created by Gov't. This has nothing to do with "science" or "social knowledge", or "boogeymen" and "sacred cows", those are red herrings inserted to distract and draw attention away from poor logic and the fact that people are cheering the idea that more Gov't "fixed" a problem, that Gov't created in the first place by over-stepping it's warranted need for involvement.


Except that it didn't. Government didn't create any such problem; same-sex marriage has never been a thing throughout history.

Other than at various times in Greece and Rome, Mesopotamia, China, and Europe, nope never a thing.




Diamondeye wrote:
You're just trying to turn the issue into yet another reason to whine about "government" as a boogeyman. There's plenty of much better areas where there's actual good reason to complain about government involvement.
Aaaand, time. Thus ends the discussion, as usual, with your introduction of blatant ad hominem.

Enjoy.

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 Post subject: Re: About bloody time.
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:10 am 
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1) Beware lest you form a covenant with the inhabitant[s] of the land into which you are coming, lest it become a snare in your midst. But you shall demolish their altars, shatter their monuments, and cut down their sacred trees. For you shall not prostrate yourself before another god, because the Lord, Whose Name is "Jealous One," is a jealous God. Lest you form a covenant with the inhabitant[s] of the land, and they [the gentiles] go astray after their gods, and they offer sacrifices to their gods, and they invite you, and you eat of their slaughtering, and you take of their daughters for your sons; then their daughters will go astray after their gods and lead your sons astray after their gods.

2) You shall not make molten gods for yourself.

3) The Festival of Unleavened Cakes you shall keep; seven days you shall eat unleavened cakes which I have commanded you, at the appointed meeting time of the month of spring, for in the month of spring you went out of Egypt.

4) All that opens the womb is Mine, and all your livestock [that] bears a male, [by] the emergence of ox or lamb. And a firstborn donkey you shall redeem with a lamb; if you do not redeem it, you shall decapitate it; every firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and they shall not appear before Me empty handed.

5) Six days you may work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing and in harvest you shall rest.

6) And you shall make for yourself a Festival of Weeks, the first of the wheat harvest, and the festival of the ingathering, at the turn of the year. Three times during the year shall all your male[s] appear directly before the Master, the Lord, the God of Israel. When I drive out nations from before you and I widen your border, no one will covet your land when you go up, to appear before the Lord, your God, three times each year.

7) You shall not slaughter [or sprinkle] the blood of My sacrifice with leaven,

8) and the offering of the Passover feast shall not remain overnight until the morning.

9) The choicest of the first of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord, your God.

10) You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk.

27 The Lord said to Moses: "Inscribe these words for yourself, for according to these words I have formed a covenant with you and with Israel.”
28 He was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water, and He inscribed upon the tablets the words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:09 am 
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Vindicarre wrote:
Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
Marriage is a different sort of contract - it invokes obligations upon third parties
No, it does not.


It clearly does. Third parties are required to give recognition of married couples in many regards. Medical decision-making power is a prime example.

The marriage contract does not impose an obligation on a third party. The marriage contract does not oblige a third party to make medical decisions for the contract signatories.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
and affects their property and inheritance rights.
Just like numerous other contracts.


Such as?

Wills, trusts, articles of incorporation...

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
Furthermore, it is inherently a contact entered into for emotional, personal, and intangible reasons, and by extremely large portions of the population.
Just like numerous other contracts.


Such as? Other contracts might be entered into for those reasons on an individual basis, but there is nothing inherent about it, unless you're going to argue that people customarily select their mate on the same basis as any other business decision.

Since your argument here hinges on "inherently", I'm sure you'll agree that inherent means existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute. People enter into marriage contracts for myriad reasons many times primarily financial. Hence, the marriage contract is not "inherently" intangible or emotional. People enter into contracts based on emotions all the time. People envison themselves enjoying a vacation and buy a timeshare, they picture the status they believe a Mercedes will confer on them socially and enter a financial contract...

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I'm pretty sure that you will though, since it involves arguing with me.
Yup, it'as all about you. I never should have responded to your post in the first place...oh, yeah. I didn't.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Quote:
It is necessary that government standardize it more than other contracts to keep the burden on the courts and taxpayer manageable. Even with that standardization it is the source of considerable cost in both time and money. It is also necessary that standards exist to ensure as consistent and fair adjudication as possible.
Just like with numerous other contracts.

Other contracts also can and should be standardized to some degree, indeed. So what? Different types of contracts are different; the need for standardization is therefore different.

The "so what"?" is that your whole argument is that a marriage contract is "different". It is not, as my points have repeatedly shown.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Other than the fact that all the "standardization" and "manageability" instituted by the Gov't have resulted in 1,138 statutory provisions..oh wait, they added 120 new ones, keep it simple Gov't.


Where are you getting these numbers from, and how do these "statutory provisions" involve making "marriage" any more complicated?
The United States Government Accountability Office. If you honestly believe that having over 1,000 legal benefits, rights, and privileges and adding or subtracting from that list multiple times doesn't make a contract more complicated, I have no desire to continue discussing this, so let me know.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
So, you are saying that Gov't placed restrictions on gays regarding marriage and not other contracts. As I stated. Got it.


Wrong. These restrictions weren't in place because of "government.", and that isn't what I said. The restrictions were on gays long before we had "government" as we recognize it today and long before the concept of sexual orientation existed; they were a continuation of society as it had previously existed. Furthermore it wasn't that gays were restricted. It was that the definition of marriage was one that didn't include two people of the same sex. It simply never occurred to almost anyone until the last 40-50 years that a marriage would ever include two people of the same sex. Even gay people probably rarely conceived of that until the latter part of the 20th century.

That is exactly what you said. You claim that Gov't imposed restrictions on gays regarding the marriage contract due to beliefs in society.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I don't care to argue whether homosexuality is abnormal, the definition of abnormal will suffice there. As for immorality, the Gov't has no place legislating morality, it has neither the ability nor the authority.


Some morality is more easily legislated than others. Murder and theft are both immoral. The idea that government can't legislate all morality is yet another idea that had to evolve over time; people discovered that through trial and error. In a primitive society that decides homosexuality isn't ok because it doesn't result in babies and where babies are essential to survival, the primitive authority structure will try to legislate that morality. It's persistence isn't because of the evils of "government" it's because society has to evolve and gain understanding.


Whether society "evolves" to "understand" the limitations of Gov't, or not, does not change those limitations.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Except when the Gov't stated that gay marriage was illegal in numerous jurisdictions and Federally legislated the legitimacy of those laws? There were numerous points at which Gov't has intervened to prohibit same sex marriage.


Same sex persons could not marry prior to that;


Prior to what? When gay people tried to marry, the Gov't ruled against it.
Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I don't know why you think this is an example of government intervention or represent a meaningful change, especially since it enjoyed wide popular support. In point of fact, that action was probably necessary to bring matters to a head and galvanize the issue so that we can have this decision today rather than 50 years from now.
Gov't intervening to stop two consenting adults from entering into a contract is Gov't intervention, it's kind of self explanatory.

Quote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Except the mess created by Gov't. This has nothing to do with "science" or "social knowledge", or "boogeymen" and "sacred cows", those are red herrings inserted to distract and draw attention away from poor logic and the fact that people are cheering the idea that more Gov't "fixed" a problem, that Gov't created in the first place by over-stepping it's warranted need for involvement.


Except that it didn't. Government didn't create any such problem; same-sex marriage has never been a thing throughout history.

Other than at various times in Greece and Rome, Mesopotamia, China, and Europe, nope never a thing.




Diamondeye wrote:
You're just trying to turn the issue into yet another reason to whine about "government" as a boogeyman. There's plenty of much better areas where there's actual good reason to complain about government involvement.
Aaaand, time. Thus ends the discussion, as usual, with your introduction of blatant ad hominem.

Enjoy.

U mad bro?

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:46 am 
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Talya wrote:
This isn't "because Taly says so."

This is because of the following:
(1) Of the 10 commandments, only three are present in any way in US law at the federal level.
(2) Those three commandments were present in every legal system ever recorded both long before and long after the ten commandments, without any line of descent from the laws of Israel.
(3) Of the laws unique to the ten commandments, that may have originated in Israel, none of them made their way in any form into US law.
(4) Ergo - nothing in US law came from the ten commandments.


(4) does not in fact follow from any of the other 3 above it. More importantly, the 3 elements you cite came from the commandments; whether they were present in other systems or not is irrelevant.

In fact, by that logic, no ancient system with elements against stealing, murder, etc., can be said to be an influence because it can always be found in some other system. AT BEST this leads to a simplistic analysis where simply appearing in a certain place first means it came from there and nowhere else, but this is the understanding of a child. The mere fact that these elements are common to every system means that they developed as important basic elements of law, and ALL primitive law systems deserve credit - credit which cannot be effectively divided up as more or less.

All you are doing is engaging in special pleading fallacy where you argue that the Ten Commandments didn't have any influence, but everything else DID because those elements are present in anything else. You are using one set of criteria for the Commandments and a different one for every other system.

So yes, it's "because Taly says so". No one thinks that the Constitution was influenced solely by the Ten Commandments, or even directly; the idea however that the Ten Commandments had no influence whatsoever because ~reasons~ is utterly novel and you're certainly not in a position to pass off your terrible opinions as scholarly research.

Quote:
(5) Some ancient law systems OLDER than the ten commandments have unique legal elements that appear to have originated with those legal systems, and DO appear in the US legal system. Therefore, the code of Hammurabi can be 100% proven to have influence on the US legal system. There is no evidence for the 10 commandments to have done the same.


Simply having been somewhat older does not mean that Hammurabi influenced the U.S. system and the Ten Commandments did not. No one is arguing whether Hammurabi had an influence or not, but showing that it did and that it's slightly older does not somehow contest that the Commandments did. Influence cannot be measured in any quantifiable form and the influence of one does not preclude the influence of the other.

Quote:
As for influence - Ancient Israel was a tiny, reclusive, xenophobic nation that did NOT influence those around them. Any influence from Israel on the world as a whole came afterward, when Christianity spread. Christians, however, did not follow Israelite law, ever. They were never mandated to follow the ten commandments as a code.


Israel may have had some ideas about being "reclusive" but their location prohibited that, and they certainly did have a degree of influence on nations around them. You don't get to put "not" in capitals and have it become true. Simply by being there they had significant influence - the idea that a nation had no influence works for geographically isolated places, not for highly central ones. In fact, merely by getting invaded and conquered on more than one occasion they had significant influence as conquerors tended to adopt from what they conquered.

More importantly, though, it doesn't matter how much ancient Israel influenced the nations around it. When Christianity appeared, it spread throughout the Western world and was a major part of the societal background against which all Western legal systems developed. Whether Hammurabi was part of that influence or not is irrelevant - those legal systems eventually arrived at the U.S. Constitution. As for "not following the Ten Commandments as a code" that's technically true, but they still form the fundamental basis for what is considered sinful in Christianity. Dispensing with Jewish legalism does not mean they were somehow unimportant in Christianity. That's why they're still prominent today; they have always been important.

All ancient systems influenced them either by inclusion or omission, and trying to isolate out one particular one - which is widely agreed by historical scholars to be a major influence anyhow -

Quote:
If the Ten Commandments influenced the US law at all, it was like this. "Should we include these?" "**** NO." "Okay." Which is why they aren't in there, at all, in any form.


Aside from "Do not murder", "do not steal" and as for the thing about adultery, that's a valid reason for divorce claim - civil law.

You are engaging in a highly simplistic understanding of "influence" wherein all you're doing is looking for simple repetition. Influence has far more subtle and extensive aspects to it than this, and can't be measured by how much is repeated and how much is not.

You've also switched from "The Constitution" to "The U.S. Legal system" which are two different things. The Constitution includes only one example of statutory law; it's purpose is not to proscribe specific behaviors and so it would necessarily not actually repeat the Ten Commandments. However the influence is still there in the spirit of the document - the idea that it comes from a source beyond men, and in the fact that both are short, easily understood documents on their face. (If you compare the Constitution to practically any other U.S. law, or even many state Constitutions it's remarkably short and concise). Simple numeric counts of repetition are a meaningless, ignorant method of comparison and you are focusing on them to get a result you want. A good example is the "free exercise" clause. It does not MANDATE no other Gods before Me" but what it does is protect anyone from being required to place any other god first. the same applies to "no state religion". The first amendment is heavily influenced by that commandment - as filtered through the intervening ~3000 years or so. Trying to disagree with it because it doesn't apply in the same way it is to ancient Israel is to redefine "influence" as "repeated verbatim".

Furthermore, the U.S. legal system and the elements it contains today are very different from at the time of founding and a lot more similar elements were present in various statutes and ordinances in the past. Many have subsequently been rejected, but that does not mean their influence was not present. More importantly, the Constitutional provisions as we understand them today are not the same as the understanding at the time of writing. Libertarians bemoan this, but that change of understanding is how we got the decision that spawned this thread. People who think liberty has been steadily eroding tend to focus only on changes that support that idea and ignore ones that hurt it, which is why you get supposedly "libertarian" people trying to argue there was a problem with the 13th-15th amendments. Regardless, influence is not positive or negative. To take for example your complaint earlier that a certain commandments puts wives and children on the same level as property - so what? That's irrelevant to the influence or lack thereof of that commandment. It doesn't matter whether we approve of it or not; that has no relevance to the question of influence.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 4:12 pm 
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Now gay people can ruin their lives with marriage too. Wooo!

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 Post subject: Re: About bloody time.
PostPosted: Fri Sep 04, 2015 3:40 pm 
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In a futile attempt to stir up controversy on this site...

Kentucky clerk arrested for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples or allow her employees to issue them.

Before you hold her up as a model Christian...

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...Seems more like a model hypocrite.

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Last edited by Talya on Fri Sep 04, 2015 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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