Re: Play judge : Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:11 pm  

Scooter Nik wrote:

I'd drink the tea and stroke the kittens

Like this one.

Re: Play judge : Tue Mar 20, 2012 11:32 pm  

Best plug in ever!

If only it worked in the outside world.

Re: Play judge : Wed Mar 21, 2012 1:18 am  

The fact she is religious should be enough to get her off any jury. I’m not sure someone who determines their own life based on blind faith can ever be trusted to determine another’s life by deriving conclusions based on empirical evidence?
These are people who, at the end of the day, will quite happily throw all reason out of the window and go with ‘a feeling they just have’ or some other sanctimonious rubbish.

Re: Play judge : Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:01 am  

V6Chuk wrote:

The fact she is religious should be enough to get her off any jury. I’m not sure someone who determines their own life based on blind faith can ever be trusted to determine another’s life by deriving conclusions based on empirical evidence?
These are people who, at the end of the day, will quite happily throw all reason out of the window and go with ‘a feeling they just have’ or some other sanctimonious rubbish.

On the other hand - whats the first thing they ask witnesses to do ?

You can't refuse someone jury duty on the grounds of religion and then use religion as an arbiter of truth in your courtroom.

Re: Play judge : Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:59 am  

McLaren_Field wrote:

On the other hand - whats the first thing they ask witnesses to do ?

You can't refuse someone jury duty on the grounds of religion and then use religion as an arbiter of truth in your courtroom.

You can affirm

Re: Play judge : Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:55 pm  

V6Chuk wrote:

These are people who, at the end of the day, will quite happily throw all reason out of the window and go with ‘a feeling they just have’ or some other sanctimonious rubbish.

Yes, they are called socialists.

Re: Play judge : Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:33 am  

Do you have to swear on the Bible though? I thought they'd dropped that.

Re: Play judge : Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:45 am  

McLaren_Field wrote:

On the other hand - whats the first thing they ask witnesses to do ?

You can't refuse someone jury duty on the grounds of religion and then use religion as an arbiter of truth in your courtroom.

You are right, I don't think in law we can refuse someone jury service on religious grounds alone, however laws can and sometime should be changed. How in the 21st century can we trust the judgments and faculties of people who are guided in life by Bronze Age superstition?

I'm not sure how anyone who has a history of being unable to deal with facts in coherent and rational way, (something I always imagined is a must for a juror and something religious folk seem to have a constant problem with), can be relied upon to produce a valid conclusion based on the predicates presented to them? I suppose in a similar way a witness who is shown to be inconsistent or a liar is considered unreliable.

Re: Play judge : Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:39 am  

V6Chuk wrote:

You are right, I don't think in law we can refuse someone jury service on religious grounds alone, however laws can and sometime should be changed. How in the 21st century can we trust the judgments and faculties of people who are guided in life by Bronze Age superstition?

I'm not sure how anyone who has a history of being unable to deal with facts in coherent and rational way, (something I always imagined is a must for a juror and something religious folk seem to have a constant problem with), can be relied upon to produce a valid conclusion based on the predicates presented to them? I suppose in a similar way a witness who is shown to be inconsistent or a liar is considered unreliable.

You're making big assumptions. Whose to say what is coherent and rational?? Humans are humans and will always be affected by their own personal prejudices. It may be that someone who is totally irreligious doesn't happen to like people with red hair and would be more inclined to disbelieve them in court. The jury system is supposed to be judgement by your peers and whether you like it or not, there are a lot of people who are religious.

Re: Play judge : Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:09 pm  

Ovavoo wrote:

You're making big assumptions. Whose to say what is coherent and rational?? Humans are humans and will always be affected by their own personal prejudices. It may be that someone who is totally irreligious doesn't happen to like people with red hair and would be more inclined to disbelieve them in court. The jury system is supposed to be judgement by your peers and whether you like it or not, there are a lot of people who are religious.

I was a bit tongue in cheek but anyway I’ll have a go...

A person with prejudices can slip through the selection process, although good a judge, legal representation, etc should go some way to sorting this problem, we do not just accept these people exist and let them on to a jury. A person can be thrown off a jury, e.g. for a racist remark while in discussion with other members, but I don’t think they would if they said something like, ‘God is guiding my hand in this judgement’.

Peer judgement can be a great thing, many people put aside their prejudices every day in order to get on in life, but no one person decides the method to be used for that judgement it’s a matter of following the logic to its conclusion and accepting its determination no matter what. This is what a jury is instructed to do, I’m not sure religious folk can be trusted to do this; I don’t think it’s within their nature.

Who’s to say what is coherent and rational? I think that may be a category mistake, it shouts for itself. The difference between knowledge and belief is that to know something to be the case one must have justifiable evidence, to believe something to be the case one needs only mere acceptance. Religious people have a history of mere acceptance, they can have all the condemning evidence there can ever be and they can just fly in the face of it all... unashamedly more often than not.

I think a good thing about being judged by our peers is that they may have personal insight into ‘their likes’ and judge accordantly. But, these judgements should be based in fact and analyzed and concluded within the laws of logic, and not on some mystic whim.

Or something like that....I'm not sure...I could just be being a tw&t and having a go at religion because I don't like it. But I may have a point...