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Domain: truthorfiction.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to truthorfiction.com.
Comments · 60
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Re:Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. The Onion.
Don't laugh too much - that Onion story has been making its way around Christian circles, often being regarded as near gospel-truth.
I was recently at meeting of some 1,000 pastors from the São Paulo (Brazil) Pastor's Council where this report was read out (having been translated into Portuguese) and presumably believed by the majority because it had 'come from the Internet'.
(I can't work out why the above URL isn't showing up in my preview - it should be http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/harrypotter.
h tm). -
Re:Shame on them!Well, Jerry Falwell has an interesting hypothesis as to the cause of the recent terrorist attacks on America.
If Mr. Falwell is to be believed, we need not search baggage at airports, perform background checks on persons visiting the country, or take any other precaution apart from banning the ACLU, abortion and paganism; restoring prayer in school, et cetera, et cetera. We need not examine the ways in which our thirst for oil distorts our relations with the Arab peoples. We have only to join Mr. Falwell's cult, and pray. And, he most certainly was not joking when he said as much (follow the link).
This incident illustrates perfectly why we should not permit religion any role in the regulation of our polity. -
Foundations, polystrata, three stars, a question
I've often wondered why so many evolutionists are reluctant to question their foundations. Thanks for clearing that up for me!
Maybe I can clear it up a little further.
Or not....
"Questioning my foundations" is what led me to reject creationism, and favor evolution, in the first place.
And so what happened? You seem to have either stopped questioning too early, or to have based your conclusion on the strength or weakness of some individual's position, rather than on the strength or weakness of the available evidence itself.
I started my thinking life as an evolutionist. I upset Mum badly one day (but she didn't show it then or ever) by mentioning some one-line wisdom I'd heard to her in a 'phone conversation: `a man needs religion like a fish needs a bicycle.' She started praying for me that day (and asked her church to as well), said nothing to me, and within two months I was studying the Bible, history and science with a variety of people and within six months was a committed Christian - although in such a completely different branch of Christianity to hers that I think Mum died not completely convinced that her prayers had been answered.
One advantage that I've had is in directly witnessing several supernatural events, through my association at the time with a `white' witch (the basic difference is in purpose, not in methods). One of those takes a while to describe, involved two other sober people, and was deeply shocking. Another was watching some books leap out of a book-case unaided (I checked the book-case and books (and wall) all over, inside and out, carefully, and made sure that there was no mechanical trickery here) and several meters across the room. Even without that advantage, you can turn to one of the very many events which were clearly supernatural, witnessed by many people, and well documented (Lloyds subsequently came back at $500 PA and extended coverage to Guyana).
I suspect that such events are not more prevalent today for several reasons, foremost among which are (1) any diety interested in wholehearted allegience would probably want it to depend on that nature of that diety, rather than on a `sugar-daddy' stream of miracles, and (2) there is apparently more than one source (direct or indirect) of supernatural effects, which opens the field more widely to fraud.
I'd presumed upon the millions-of-years thing myself, and polystratic fossils are one of the more graphic and convincing observations which overturned that presumption for me. Of course, sans millions of years, materialism doesn't even give the appearence of being in the running.
For example: the Yellowstone trees (so often cited as evidence of life over millions of years) combined with dendrochronology (also so often cited as proof of excessive amounts of time) are actually a fairly clear witness to the absence of those years, for the Yellowstone fossils are not only polystratic and bedded on different strata but also grew contemporaneously and show strong symptoms of having been emplaced by a mechanism essentially identical to that observed in Spirit Lake after the eruption.
There are many, many other good polystratic examples to
hand, including inclined trees, and also many half-hearted attempts to explain them away. One of the common `counterexamples' is a set of lycopods with root systems; an examination of the available samples indicates that these trees grew floating, or at least on an extremely spongey substrate, so it is reasonable to expect them to be disturbed and embedded complete with roots. Even ignoring this, it is still most unreasonable to expect even relatively short (1.2m, in the worst case) stumps to be fossilised upright and intact in an evolutionary scenario.
It is the height of arrogance to assume that someone is closed minded just because they have reached a conclusion different from yours.
Yah, and the height of stupidity as well. Given the number of viewpoints in the world, simple arithmetic tells you that most or all of your (and my) opinions are globally wrong in some way. (-:
...and don't get me started on `contextually wrong'! (-:
After all, if we hold a view, it's usually because we think it is correct. Each side would do well to remember that this is true of the other side as well. I can't count the number of times I've been guilty of this error myself.
If I was a Wemmick, I'd give you at least three stars for that statement. (-:
Food-for-thought time.
Five-year-old Mary was obliged to undergo an operation, and lost so much blood that it was necessary to resort to blood transfusion. The blood of thirteen-year-old brother Jimmy was found by test to match exactly the little patient's. "Will you give your sister some of your blood, Jim?" asked the doctor. Jimmy set his teeth. "Yes, sir, if she needs it." He was prepared for the transfusion. In the midst of the drawing of the blood, the doctor observed Jimmy growing paler and paler. "Are you ill, Jim?" he asked. "No, sir, but I'm wondering just when I'll die." "Die?" gasped the doctor. "Do you think people give their lives when they give a little blood?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy. "And you are giving your life for Mary's?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy.
Mary and Jimmy are pseudonyms, but the story is true. If you had been Jimmy, would you have done the same? -
holy shitskyThat's crazy. It reminds me of another bizarre cloud phenomenon (includes explanation). Googling for weird cloud picture also turned up this, this, and this (Gandalf was just outside the frame sparking up a deeb).
Yeah, clouds are awesome.
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Re:Meanwhile, outside of CaliforniaYou must be right. There's no way anyone could be that crazy. Why, that would be like speaking out against the teletubbies because you think one of them is gay. But maybe it's not so far-fetched, considering the power of the covert gay agenda. Or that anyone could possibly think that the reason we were allowed to be attacked on September 11th was that God was punishing America because of the ACLU, abortionists, feminists, gays... And nobody could possibly suggest that having a school mascot of a blue devil encourages satanism. But don't forget literature. They could never consider burning literature that they think is subversively satanic.
Ok, I think that's enough. Look, you need to be a little less naive. The evidence you're presenting is purely anecdotal. You assume the world everywhere is just like you've seen it where you grew up. It isn't. There are nutjobs all over the place, and yes, they can think and say some pretty idiotic things, not at all any more far-fetched than the idea of BSD being satanic because of its mascot. Fundies are notorious for coming up with insane theories about things. You just need to realize that, and realize that it is not the fault of your faith, it's just those particular people.
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Re:The good side
It's not just illegal. It's stupid. It's well known that this is not a responsible approach. There's no way to prevent such a program from causing network congestion and affecting computers that it isn't supposed to.
It's a bad idea that sounds like an attractive concept. But good intent only matters so much with self-replicating programs. They can have unexpected results. Xerox PARC experimented with "good worms" in the early eighties. They wrote worms to do things like clear printer queues and install software packages. Then they wrote a worm with a bug in it, and discovered that even worms you write yourself can create a path of destruction across your network.
There are other reasons why it's a bad idea. A "good worm" can be modified into an evil worm very easily. Also, you don't want to send mixed messages to an easily confused public, and make people think they can sometimes "trust" a worm. At least one malicious Outlook worm has been seen in the wild that pretends it's antivirus software from Symantec. -
Re:The cost of being competitive
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Re:Mozilla
If you get AIDS, having sex with a virgin will cure you!
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Re:sit down...
If you're going to post a ficticious urban legend, at least remove the '>>>'s
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Re:Wingdings and Webdings
This font oddity has been around for a while..
Coverage on Snopes includes pictures of these fonts
All WTC Urban Legends
The Register's coverage of WTC hoaxes
Truth or Fiction tries to dispel or prove WTC rumors
