Rick Reuben wrote:..organized religion's power of society has diminished and will possibly continue to diminish, but that's inevitable, as globalized capitalism sucks up more of the available oxygen. The church plays less of a role in organizing the lives of those in developed countries, but don't mistake that for a trend towards agnosticism or atheism.

I never said agnosticism or atheism would prevail. What I said was pretty much the same thing as what you reiterated, that organized religion has diminished, and I believe that it will continue to do so.

I don't equate peoples' personal beliefs in God(s) or an afterlife (or afterlives) with organized religion. Religion is dependent on peoples' beliefs in those things, but belief in those things is not necessarily dependent upon politically strong organized religion.

Rick Reuben wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:Why do you say that religion is becoming obsolete?

Because Colonel Panic wants it to be so, very very badly. He's practicing a form of faith, but he may not know it.

I'd appreciate it, Tom, if you would refrain from speaking on my behalf. I'm sure you'd agree that I'm more than capable of digging my own ideological holes for you to bury me in, so let's keep this discussion on the up-and-up, OK?

To answer your accusation, I fully acknowledge that I am practicing a sort of faith, but rather than some religion, I have chosen to place my faith in a constantly-evolving process which has demonstrated consistent and measurable results within human society and technology over the past few millenia. I also have faith, albeit to a lesser degree, in the accuracy of currently accepted results of that process in action. Contrast that with faith in a dogmatic set of teachings and/or writings in a book that others claim to be the direct source of eternal, universal Truth. See the difference?

The difference is that that process allows for the possibility of any teaching or argument to be disproven by evidence and reasoning and in those cases, for the record to be revised to eliminate or clarify the proven faults or inaccuracies. Religion does not work that way.

I had a question about talking to cops. It relates to kind of a bizarre story that happened around a year ago...

:fuzzy flashback montage:

Around 2:30 in the morning there was pounding on the front door. My wife looked out the bedroom window, woke me up and said, "There's police cars outside and I think they're at the front door." I got out of bed, went downstairs and opened the door. There was a cop on my front porch who immediately began asking me a bunch of questions:

What's your name? Jeff.

Do you live here? Yes.

Have you been home all night? Yes.

You haven't gone out at all? No.

You didn't go down to Walt's Lounge? No.

Was there anyone else here with you tonight? My wife.

No one else? No.

Is she hear now? Yes.

Can she verify your story? Yes.

After a few minutes of this I started getting a bit antsy and must of have said something to the effect of "What's all this about?" The cop said that's what they were trying to figure out and assured me that they could have everything taken care of in no time if I'd just come out to the cruiser parked on the street.

I hadn't done anything and I certainly wanted things taken care of, so I followed him down to the car. He lead me toward the back of a cruiser, shining a pretty bright flashlight in my eyes the entire time. When I got to about 8 feet from the car he stopped me and began addressing someone who must have been in the back seat - I couldn't really see anything, with the flashlight and all. What he said, in so many words was, "Is this the guy? Take a good look. Are you sure?"

Satisfied, he turned back to me and started walking me back to my porch. He apologized for bothering me and said it looked like there'd been a mistake. It was then that he explained that the woman in the back of the car was some combination of drunk/hysterical/crazy. She reported to the cops that she'd been drinking at Walt's Lounge and that she'd subsequently been taken to a house and raped. She told them she was raped at my house.

:fuzzy flashforward montage:

Should I have talked to the cops? What do you think would have happened if I declined to answer their questions? What would they have done if I refused their impromptu line-up of one?

Jeff wrote:I had a question about talking to cops. It relates to kind of a bizarre story that happened around a year ago...

:fuzzy flashback montage:

Around 2:30 in the morning there was pounding on the front door. My wife looked out the bedroom window, woke me up and said, "There's police cars outside and I think they're at the front door." I got out of bed, went downstairs and opened the door. There was a cop on my front porch who immediately began asking me a bunch of questions:

What's your name? Jeff.

Do you live here? Yes.

Have you been home all night? Yes.

You haven't gone out at all? No.

You didn't go down to Walt's Lounge? No.

Was there anyone else here with you tonight? My wife.

No one else? No.

Is she hear now? Yes.

Can she verify your story? Yes.

After a few minutes of this I started getting a bit antsy and must of have said something to the effect of "What's all this about?" The cop said that's what they were trying to figure out and assured me that they could have everything taken care of in no time if I'd just come out to the cruiser parked on the street.

I hadn't done anything and I certainly wanted things taken care of, so I followed him down to the car. He lead me toward the back of a cruiser, shining a pretty bright flashlight in my eyes the entire time. When I got to about 8 feet from the car he stopped me and began addressing someone who must have been in the back seat - I couldn't really see anything, with the flashlight and all. What he said, in so many words, was "Is this the guy? Take a good look. Are you sure?"

Satisfied, he turned back to me and started walking me back to my porch. He apologized for bothering me and said it looked there'd been a mistake. It was then that he explained that the woman in the back of the car was some combination of drunk/hysterical/crazy. She reported to the cops she'd been drinking at Walt's Lounge and that she'd subsequently been taken to a house and raped. She told them she was raped at my house.

:fuzzy flashforward montage:

Should I have talked to the cops? What do you think would have happened if I declined to answer their questions? What would they have done if I refused their impromptu line-up of one?

You're lucky it turned out the way it did. In this case, either scenario could have gone very bad. The woman could have mis-identified you, which is more common than you might think. Visual identification, without back up evidence, can be very faulty, especially under the circumstances you described. On the other hand, refusal to cooperate could have caused the cops to be suspicious also. It would be a hard situation to be in.

Walking out to their cruiser in the street is taking a pretty big chance, especially if they are giving you no indication why they want you to do this.

Mark Hansen wrote:You're lucky it turned out the way it did. In this case, either scenario could have gone very bad. The woman could have mis-identified you, which is more common than you might think. Visual identification, without back up evidence, can be very faulty, especially under the circumstances you described. On the other hand, refusal to cooperate could have caused the cops to be suspicious also. It would be a hard situation to be in.

I know. I watch enough "Law and Order" to know that "lawyering up" is usually the way to go, but I really feel like things would have gone worse if I'd stonewalled them.

Thankfully I'll never know. We've just filed this episode away as another fucked-up but largely harmless thing that's happened in our fucked-up but largely harmless neighborhood.

I would have never answered the door in the first place, I have had this exact thing happen...cops banging on the door. Happened at 9am about 2 weeks ago. I looked out the window, saw a cop and went back to bed. Nothing I wanna get involved with. I'll never know what they wanted. Fuck them. If it's serious enough they'll find me some other way where I can't get away or ignore them. Till then the cops can eat a dick if they think I am willingly going to open my door and speak to them, ever under any circumstances.

I dislike giant evil greedy corporations as well, but that doesn't make me suddenly not despise religion or religious people. I still do.

Marsupialized wrote:I would have never answered the door in the first place, I have had this exact thing happen...cops banging on the door. Happened at 9am about 2 weeks ago. I looked out the window, saw a cop and went back to bed. Nothing I wanna get involved with. I'll never know what they wanted. Fuck them. If it's serious enough they'll find me some other way where I can't get away or ignore them. Till then the cops can eat a dick if they think I am willingly going to open my door and speak to them, ever under any circumstances.

I'd never considered not answering the door, but it does make sense, and it's certainly within my rights as a citizen. We're not under any legal obligation to open our doors and talk with cops.

Jeff wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:I would have never answered the door in the first place, I have had this exact thing happen...cops banging on the door. Happened at 9am about 2 weeks ago. I looked out the window, saw a cop and went back to bed. Nothing I wanna get involved with. I'll never know what they wanted. Fuck them. If it's serious enough they'll find me some other way where I can't get away or ignore them. Till then the cops can eat a dick if they think I am willingly going to open my door and speak to them, ever under any circumstances.

I'd never considered not answering the door, but it does make sense, and it's certainly within my rights as a citizen. We're not under any legal obligation to open our doors and talk with cops.

Exactly. They go away eventually. Nothing good at all comes from speaking to police officers on your doorstep. You think they rolled up to give you a present or just say 'Hi?'
I promise you, it's some bullshit

Marsupialized wrote:I would have never answered the door in the first place, I have had this exact thing happen...cops banging on the door. Happened at 9am about 2 weeks ago. I looked out the window, saw a cop and went back to bed. Nothing I wanna get involved with. I'll never know what they wanted. Fuck them. If it's serious enough they'll find me some other way where I can't get away or ignore them. Till then the cops can eat a dick if they think I am willingly going to open my door and speak to them, ever under any circumstances.

This scares the hell out of me.

Jeff wrote:I'd never considered not answering the door, but it does make sense, and it's certainly within my rights as a citizen. We're not under any legal obligation to open our doors and talk with cops.

And back to the point of the thread: the law prof in the video, the third year law student cop who spoke after the law prof and the totally unique and powerful 5th amendment. Listen to all of them.

If you are walking around in this country and you don't know you have no obligation to even speak with police in your home, that's one thing.

But to encourage people to throw away that advantage is just unspeakably stupid, and there's been a lot of that in this thread.

This is one of the only places on the planet where state authority works this way. Try having as much respect for yourself as the founding fathers did. If you can throw away that head start out of nervousness or geniality or because you're impressed by shiny things like flashlights and badges, then you need to wise the fuck up. What wouldn't you throw away?

-r