It was Isaac Newton's apple tree. Even had him sitting under it.
Posted on 01/06/2011 12:41:45 PM PST by Springfield Reformer
Apple is telling us that the apps' content is considered "likely to expose a group to harm" and "to be objectionable and potentially harmful to others." Inasmuch as the Manhattan Declaration simply reaffirms the moral teachings of our Christian faith on the sanctity of human life, marriage and sexual morality, and religious freedom and the rights of conscience, Apple's statement amounts to the charge that our faith is "potentially harmful to others."
(Excerpt) Read more at manhattandeclaration.org ...
Screw yourself if I can't remember your crappy FR name.
Don't be such a creep.
No, this is pretty reasonable, except remember that it's pretty much impossible to do computing these days without giving your money to a liberal company. I believe many of the bigger Silicon Valley companies were pouring money in to defeat Prop 8. A while back, your Microsoft money went to Planned Parenthood. Buy Windows, kill a baby? It's a sad, but true, state of affairs.
It was Isaac Newton's apple tree. Even had him sitting under it.
Is the ‘letter’ or ‘statement’ from Apple available anywhere? I see excerpts when I follow your link, did some other looking and found reference to a letter, but I can’t find this letter.
I am a fan of my Apple products, and would like to see what they have said.
Trademarks are specific to an area of trade, and are a concept created by the government to reduce the likelihood of consumer confusion commerce. I buy a drink labeled Coke, I know I'm buying Coke, because the Coca Cola company has the trademark for "Coke" in soft drinks. Many variations of "Coke" belong to the Coca Cola company, but other variations of "Coke" also belong to companies dealing in coke, the black stuff used in stoves. The Coca Cola company can't tell a coke company to stop using the word "coke" because there is no confusion. Nobody going to a coke maker is going to confuse their product with anything made by the Coca Cola company.
Likewise here. Apple Computer was a computer company, and Apple Records was a record company. Apple did start stepping on the toes of Apple Records almost 30 years after founding by opening the iTunes Store. But they made a deal, money and other considerations changed hands, and Apple wasn't infringing.
Before that, Apple Records got stupid, suing over the mere event sounds in the computer. Sorry, no reasonable person is going to associate a Mac startup sound with Apple Records, so there will be no reasonable infringement. But that suit is why one sound is now known as Sosumi ("So sue me"). The developers got the name past the lawyers by claiming it was a Japanese word.
Thank you. I learned something new today.
Kind of makes them sound like the Roman soldiers.
There are MANY Bible apps. The Bible apps say the same things about morality since they are the source, they are not banned.
How odd. You freely violate your FR agreement regarding name-calling, yet, though I have called you no names, you say I am too agressive for people with sound minds? Hmmm... that is very agressive talk on your part. The reason name-calling is forbidden on FR is because 1) it is not a Godly thing to do, 2) it IS too agressive for sound minds, and 3) it does not advance the discussion at all. Disagree with me if you must, but I must ask you to at least be consistent with your own sense of moral superiority.
alleged Christianity
Even stranger, you cast doubt on my Christianity because I wish to see a Christian message successfully published? Honestly, that actually makes no sense to me. I don't know what you're saying. As for having a reason to be published, everyone who believes in Jesus has a reason to be published, as we are all responsible before God for spreading the Gospel, and that is reason enough. See Matthew 28:19-20. Will you at least read that?
Haven't read it, probably won't!
That speaks volumes. So you have no idea what the Manhattan Declaration is about, yet you feel free to insult those who do know what it says. Do you really think that is a fair way to treat people?
aggressive attitudes of any type are discouraged
Really? There are no aggressive games, like the iDracula survival shooter game, for example? No military iPhone apps? No, what you really appear to mean, and correct me if I am wrong, is that anyone who won’t just back down like a good little sheep when confronted with moral evil is “too aggressive for sound minds.” I guess you would say then that the Prophet Daniel was too aggressive when he wouldn’t bow to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, or that Jesus was too aggressive when he took a whip to the money-changers in the Temple, or that the Apostles were too aggressive when they disobeyed the Sanhedrin and kept preaching the Gospel even when it was illegal to do so?
How many Chinese Christians have you met?
None, other than reading their stories. You have me there. But what’s your point? I’m really not clear why you even raised the issue. I’ve had contact with persecuted Christians, and I keep track of reports on the hardships of life for Chinese Christians. I think you’re point is, and I’m just guessing here because you didn’t make it clear, that Christians living under that degree of oppression do not have the luxury of complaining (or whining, as you put it) about the moral evil in their culture, so why should the Manhattan people complain about an app. If that’s what you meant, I dispute that premise, on two levels.
First, Christians never get out of the duty to speak out against the moral evils of their day, and even to disobey civil authority if obedience puts them in disobedience to God. The methods and the means may vary, but the duty never goes away.
Second, my information suggests the Chinese Christians are doing their level best to carry out their duty to speak to the moral evils of their culture, and the primary evidence of this is their persecution. The reason Communist regimes hate people whose conscience is controlled by God and not the state is because they can’t really control those people. Christians don’t make very good drones. Communists really are psychotic control freaks. It’s what drives them. And so people of conscience are their single worst enemy.
And that’s why the Manhattan app is so important. It is nothing other than what Christians have been teaching for the last 2000 years, even the “aggression” part. It has been a normal feature of Christian cultures. And while Dell and Microsoft may be of like mind, Apple has crossed a line by now declaring openly that normal Christian belief is dangerous. To accept this passively will only encourage greater and greater efforts to marginalize and eventually criminalize Christian belief, as the so-called hate laws demonstrate. It is better to fight that descent into tyranny now, while there is hope of success, than to wait until the situation becomes as oppressive as it is in China.
So what’s your theory on why they’re rejecting the Manhattan app? Random irritability?
As near as I can tell, the quotes are direct extracts from an mail or email communication between Apple and the Manhattan people. The document, to my knowledge, is not yet public other than those quotes.
I agree with grumpa. Have you ever been on the inside of an organization that was bent on imposing a liberal moral view on its employees, to the extent of discouraging specific Christian belief and practices? I have. If this is the culture at Apple, statements like this are a burden to the employees. Like going to work for a medical outfit and having them become abortion/euthanasia providers. Does a Christian really want to work there? Do you really want your boss running around telling the whole world he thinks your moral beliefs are dangerous? How does that work, long-term? It’s a process of systematic marginalization of Christian belief, and it doesn’t stop unless people speak up and say its wrong.
Apple's statement amounts to the charge that our faith is "potentially harmful to others."
I guess I would like to see Apple's statement. Maybe there is some sort of confidentiality clause that only allows them to excerpt, or maybe Apple isn't disparaging the complete 'faith'.
That said, I have more faith in Chuck Colson than Apple. I just don't understand why the statement hasn't been released. Or it has been released and is just a 'form letter'.
After further looking, I found a couple articles from late 2008 that talked about non-disclosure of app rejection letters, so maybe these small excerpts are all that is allowed.
I’m not an Apple basher. I use and like Apple products. The problem is the legal and ethical gray area that advanced telecommunication has created. Imagine for a moment a country where, theoretically, there is religious freedom. Also imagine, that adherents of religion X, because it advocates for political change consistent with it’s moral views, cannot get a website, cannot get a Facebook account, cannot use a telephone, cannot use email, etc. But they can use, say, their mouth. And only then if no one listening is offended, otherwise they are charged with a hate crime. Would that be your idea of “freedom?” Or does a major telecommunication provider have a unique obligation to not obstruct the exercise of constitutional liberties, even if privately owned and operated?
As for corporate values, morality still counts. Do you want to do business with a corporation that systematically abuses its employees? That’s unchristian too, isn’t it? Or are you saying that no company could ever do anything that would make you uncomfortable with them?
And don’t forget, the war of marginalization is a long and patient one. As more and more Christian values and beliefs are tagged as “disruptive, insensitive, unduly aggressive, mean-spirited,” etc., Christianity itself is shoved into the shadows, and much to the harm of society, because Christian moral views have a long history of beneficial effect, even on corporations.
As for “Render unto Caesar,” that applies to paying taxes to Caesar. Last I checked, Apple is not Caesar, and supporting them is optional. It is a choice you make. If your commercial choices are never made with moral considerations, I could see how you think as you do. But frankly, I doubt if that’s true. I think we all would shrink from supporting a law firm, for example, that deliberately encouraged otherwise healthy couples to get divorced. That’s a moral consideration, and its fair game. So please forgive me if I treat Apple with a little less respect than Caesar. Their choices, free as they are to make them, have made them fair game too.
The left only hates what it’s not afraid to hate. They would disapprove of public decapitations but for the fact that it scares them so much. Hitting only those who won’t hit back is the ultimate cowardice.
You make some interesting points, Springfield. I am going to think about them.
I think you will find that Karl Marx was most influenced by Hegel and Dialectical Materialism while at the University of Berlin. Regardless, it is compatible with Nietzsche’s existentialism and the denial of God. Marxism/Communism is all about destroying the status quo even when they are the status quo. Destruction is their aim, deception is their game. And it is, as you say, unsustainable.
Just quoting Apple. It's their generalization, not mine. If that's not good enough for you, nothing else I can say would persuade you.
Do you disagree with their moral and ethical standards that pornography should not be allowed?
The problem here is natural law. If you can equate the propagation of a serious moral harm like pornography with the life and health affirming values of Christian morality, we are farther apart than I first imagined. God has written on the human heart a natural understanding of the basics of good and evil. Therefore there are things that should be rejected from the public square because they do have a well-known harmful effect. Pornography is not victimless. The great many of the bodies on screen are drawn into the system through various degrees of drug usage, intimidation, and other forms of coercion. Experience acquired in the course of my legal work confirms this. Remove the criminal element, and the supply of pornographic materials would become so small that Apple would not have any interest in the market.
So, just to be sure, you are equating a substantially criminal enterprise with Christian moral belief, in the sense that Apple should treat them the same. Did I get that right? Apple has a societal obligation to take a stand on moral issues, but the obligation only extends to those things that are objectively immoral, as the promotion of sexual immorality inherently is, and as the promotion of Christian sexual mores is inherently not. You have equated opposites, and it will not wash.
apps that advocate violence against groups of people
I deal regularly with corporate leadership personnel. They are too smart to be making the innocent mistake you are suggesting. Anyone reading the Manhattan Declaration would know the argument is not for violence but for freedom of conscience in the spirit of civil disobedience that gave us the reforms of the Civil Rights movement. If Apple's leadership is really that stupid, why are they so successful? They are not stupid. The only alternative interpretation is that they are willfully drawing unwarranted inferences from the text to support a visceral animus against Christian moral belief. However, because they know they cannot deny Christian apps without creating a general uproar, they have selected the Manhattan app for exclusion because it so sharply makes the point that Christian in America, right here, right now, are being asked to not surrender to the frenzy to reject Christian morality. Apple leadership knows exactly what they're doing. Nice try.
Apple is not a political movement
True, sort of. Some do view the emergence of the technocracy as a category of political movement. However, again you've misunderstood me. I never said Apple was a movement of any kind. Apple does, however, apparently espouse the standard liberal moral worldview, and is therefore a part of the larger leftist movement that is affecting so many of our public and private institutions. Please don't make that more complicated than it is.
That most definitely is not what cronyism is about
Now hold on just a minute FRiend, in your first post you said cronyism was just friendship. You were reacting to me, remember? Trying to tell me that because cronyism is just friendship, its no big deal? Why then are you now switching directions on me? If you had used the definition you just played, you probably wouldn't have even got a rise out of me. So now I'm telling you you're wrong, that its not just about "being friends," and that it does matter, and you turn around and dispute with my second statement while agreeing with my first? Yikes you are hard to follow.
As for what cronyism actually means, I like your new definition a lot better, but in politics that word has come to mean much more than just hiring unqualified friends, because one of the key side effect of that is to exclude and demean outsiders to the "crony club," the "peasants," and it is very much about control. Here in Illinois, we've got a special lab for cronyism called Chicago Politics, where your definition and mine are both in play.
Anyway, the yard monitor is calling me in from recess and I have to get some things done for which I might actually get paid. It's been a treat talking with you. :)
Peace,
SR
PS: Sorry about the straw man. Hard to avoid with all those flip-flopping definitions. Sincerely, no harm meant.
You are the one using works carelessly. There are two separate words here: crony and cronyism. You first used the word crony which means a friend. Then you used the word cronyism incorrectly. Cronyism is the practice of hiring friends without regard to their qualifications. I would recommend buying a dictionary. A dictionary is your friend.
Hard to avoid with all those flip-flopping definitions.
You are using words very carelessly. First, please buy a dictionary. Second, actually use it.
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