If belief in the existence of God is predicted to lead to a feeling of contentment, and the prediction is fulfilled, does it follow that God exists? Surely not. All that would follow would be the desireability of the belief.
Richard PosnerIt is the censor's business to make a judgment about the propriety of the content or message of the proposed expressive activity. The regulation here does not authorize any judgment about the content of any speeches. ... A park is a limited space, and to allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility as a forum for speech. Just imagine two rallies held at the same time in the same park area using public-address systems that drowned out each other's speakers.
Richard PosnerThe Constitution has to be interpreted loosely, otherwise it becomes a straitjacket. You can't interpret it literally. You can pretend to, and go digging around in 18th Century dictionaries to figure out what 'cruel and unusual punishment' meant or what the 'right to bear arms' meant, but that is all fake really. The Constitution has to be interpreted in light of modern needs, and that's what they (the strict interpreters) end up doing in spite of all their investigations.
Richard PosnerMacKinnon's treatment of the central issue of pornography as she herself poses it - the harm that pornography does to women - is shockingly causal. Much of her evidence is anecdotal, and in a nation of 260 Million people, anecdotes are a weak form of evidence.
Richard PosnerWe have a tendency to assume people are a unity, and thus good people all good, etc. But the fact that Hitler was good to dogs and children isn't a paradox.
Richard PosnerI was an advocate of the deregulation movement and I made - along with a lot of other smart people - a fundamental mistake, which is that deregulation works fine in industries which do not pervade the economy. The financial industry undergirded the entire economy and if it is made riskier by deregulation and collapses in widespread bankruptcies as what happened in 2008, the entire economy freezes because it runs on credit.
Richard Posner