Youtube depresses me

[Azrael]

So, I was watching the latest VFX video, and I got linked to this one.



[glow=red,2,300]A brief digression for your amusement[/glow]: I ended up getting my comments removed and permabanned by VFX with a smug PM saying "Nice Try" when I agreed with him that one user's recommendation that humans can develop a perfect moral system once religion had been purged was Stalinist. VFX sent a nice little PM proving me right using a Hitler quote. I sent one back politely informing him I agreed with him, still no reply. I'm beginning to see why people do not like him.

As for the matter at hand, This video is absolutely disgustingly stupid. I've often heard that theists need to understand science better, however this is one Atheist that has absolutely no understanding of English. My long-standing war in the comments section shows an incredibly pointless attempt to teach an ignorant moron his first language.

Here's the issue at hand: This idiot (with over 10k views, to boot!) contends that the proper interpretation of the 1st Amendment is "Congress will make no laws positively regarding (respecting) the group (establishment) of religion." Get the laughter out of your system now. Let's get down to business.

The correct interpretation is "Congress shall pass no laws pertaining to establishing a religion." Why didn't they write it that way? Because all legal documents are written in passive voice. My high school English teacher always cautioned me against using passive voice as it is confusing, and I now see why.

Here's the deal: When the framers used the word "establishment," they were referring to the nominal (or turned into a noun) version of the infinitive verb "to establish." It referred to an action, a verb. It is a gerund: a noun that takes the place of a verb. It would be obvious if it wasn't in passive voice. Apparently, though, this dolt thinks passive voice is limited to "to be" verbs. Education simply isn't what it used to be. This gentleman happens to fancy himself a scientist as well as a historian. It's a shame he can't comprehend that stating "establishment isn't a verb" is like stating "steam isn't water." You are right in only the most obvious and stupid sense and absolutely wrong where it counts. Basically, only an idiot would think you are right.

Of course after getting squashed, this user decides the most sane thing to do is UNLEASH SOME SERIOUS FING LOGIC on me and turn on CAPSRAPE. Oh well, at least I managed to make an @$$ out of him. Well, sometimes getting trolled is just a failed attempt at education.

Turns out the moron makes a lot of YouTube vids and accepts donations for "what you think the videos are worth." Unfortunately Paypal does not let you make withdrawals. Didn't Atheists get pissed off when VFX did this? (Not that I'm his biggest fan.)



Here's another video choc full of intellectual fallacies (35k views. Ughh). I'll just debunk the first one.

The moron decides to make an appeal to ridicule by saying with regards to the claim that teaching Evolution is evil "How can a fact be good or evil?" Personally, I don't give a crap what people think about Evolution, but this is not a compelling reason against teaching it.

The presentation of a fact can be evil if we measure it by Utilitarian ethics or Consequentialism. History has shown us that the presentation of Evolutionary doctrine can lead to evil consequences such as eugenics. This is a bad consequence, therefore it is possible that the presentation of this information is bad.

What do you all think about this bs?

Edit: Even more stupidity has transpired.

[Radiant Magnificence Alastair]

Don't worry about it, 99.9% of the internet is full of humanities retardation, don't let it get to you because there's nothing you can do.

[dlectronic]

Jan 1, 2011 21:30:27 GMT -5 Radiant Magnificence Alastair said:

Don't worry about it, 99.9% of the internet is full of humanities retardation, don't let it get to you because there's nothing you can do.

Absolutely.

Youtube is the place you ought NOT be if you want to have scholarly discussion, haha.

[Maarten]

Please teach me English too: how is "Congress will make no laws positively regarding (respecting) the group (establishment) of religion" a passive sentence??

[Azrael]

Jan 3, 2011 10:23:30 GMT -5 Maarten said:

Please teach me English too: how is "Congress will make no laws positively regarding (respecting) the group (establishment) of religion" a passive sentence??

Very funny. That was his interpretation.

The original sentence was "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion." The pacified version entails turning the gerund "establishing" into "an establishment." That is passive voice. It doesn't just limit use of the verb "to be." It also entails the transition of verbs into direct or indirect objects. Rather than having "shall pass no" modify "respecting establishing" (which is poor wording anyways and would default to "with regards to"), they have it modify a noun representing an action, or verb turned into a definite noun referring to the action of "establishment." Trust me. My last professor did his dissertation in linguistics and had us implement it in literary analysis.

I don't appreciate the tone.

[clareabel]

Azrael, please remember that we're not all linguists... Thanks for the explanation. (Also remember that Maarten's native language isn't English.)

[Maarten]

Jan 3, 2011 21:19:08 GMT -5 Azrael said:

It also entails the transition of verbs into direct or indirect objects..

Wait... what?

Isn't the definition of the passive voice that the grammatical subject of the verb expresses its object? How does that entail the transition of a verb into an object?

Am I misunderstanding something?

I do by the way think you are right about the correct interpretation of that text, about the word 'establishment' refering to the act of establishing.

I'm sory if my tone offended you.

[Azrael]

Jan 4, 2011 15:49:00 GMT -5 Maarten said:

Jan 3, 2011 21:19:08 GMT -5 Azrael said:

It also entails the transition of verbs into direct or indirect objects..

Wait... what?

Isn't the definition of the passive voice that the grammatical subject of the verb expresses its object? How does that entail the transition of a verb into an object?

Am I misunderstanding something?

I do by the way think you are right about the correct interpretation of that text, about the word 'establishment' refering to the act of establishing.

I'm sory if my tone offended you.

Passive voice moves the focus from the verb to the object by A: nominalizing a verb (shown above) or B: Using the copula (to be) in order to establish relation or change a verb to a noun or adjective.

Passive voice doesn't require the copula verb in order to be passive voice. It is by result-the transition of a verb to an object (more specifically, an event)-that this case is passive voice.

More informally, Passive Voice has been expanded in academia to refer to anything that needlessly clutters prose, although this instance of turning what should be a gerund into a noun falls under a common result of passive voice.

Also, at the risk of sounding patronizing, an apology that levels blame or fault on the recipient is viewed, correctly so, as most insincere. There's that tone thing I was talking about again.

[Maarten]

Jan 5, 2011 13:27:19 GMT -5 Azrael said:

Passive voice moves the focus from the verb to the object by A: nominalizing a verb (shown above) or B: Using the copula (to be) in order to establish relation or change a verb to a noun or adjective

I'm sorry, but I know four languages (Dutch, English, Greek and Latin) and a bit of German, all of which have a passive voice (Greek even has a mediopassive voice) and never have I heard the passive voice defined in any way similar to your definition.

I wikipedia'd it to make sure I wasn't going completely crazy and wikipedia says:

"Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is called a passive sentence. In contrast, a sentence in which the subject has the agent role is called an active sentence, and its verb is expressed in active voice."

Nowhere does 'nominalizing a verb' come in anywhere.

[Azrael]

Jan 5, 2011 13:56:54 GMT -5 Maarten said:

Jan 5, 2011 13:27:19 GMT -5 Azrael said:

Passive voice moves the focus from the verb to the object by A: nominalizing a verb (shown above) or B: Using the copula (to be) in order to establish relation or change a verb to a noun or adjective

I'm sorry, but I know four languages (Dutch, English, Greek and Latin) and a bit of German, all of which have a passive voice (Greek even has a mediopassive voice) and never have I heard the passive voice defined in any way similar to your definition.

I wikipedia'd it to make sure I wasn't going completely crazy and wikipedia says:

"Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is called a passive sentence. In contrast, a sentence in which the subject has the agent role is called an active sentence, and its verb is expressed in active voice."

Nowhere does 'nominalizing a verb' come in anywhere.

Nominalizing a verb is a natural consequence of passive voice in some occasions as I proved earlier. I see you also managed to ignore the fact that I noted in modern American academia Passive Voice has been expanded to informally refer to cluttering language.

Now we can move on, so long as your ego allows.

[behemoth]

First off I want to state that I agree with your interpretation of the intent that lies behind the usage of 'establishment' within this sentence.

Nonetheless I would argue that the sentence itself is active on the basis of what follows.

Regardless of the voice (active or passive as English has no middle as Attic Greek and some other languages do) in the clause about the establishment, the clause itself is a subordinate clause and as such has no determinative powers outside the boundaries of said clause. It is a passive clause, but the main verb of the sentence is "shall make" which is a future, active, indicative verb, in this case negated by the immediately following 'no.' The main verb of the sentence defines the voice of the sentence as a whole, so while the subordinate clause originating with 'respecting' and including what follows is passive, the sentence remains active because the independent clause "Congress shall make no laws," is active.

The distinction between 'shall' and the other potential choice, 'will,' is interesting as it implies a slightly imperatival nuance to the future active indicative as 'shall' carries the connotations of "ought-ness" beyond the simple indicative, but as that has no baring on voice, but rather mood, it is irrelavent to the debate at hand.

Then again, the clause in question is a passive clause as you said, so regardless of the state of the sentence at large the passivity of the clause remains if you are interpreting the clause specifically. Also, as I said I agree with your interpretation, so I guess this was a bit pointless...