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Finally, A Solution To The DMCA
morcego writes: "Well, finally someone came up with a solution to the DMCA problem.
You can read it on the archive of the Humorix list." Well, combine this with my ULC Reverendship, and we're well underway *grin*.
If we destroy it, I hope nobody will keep a backup copy.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Freedom of Religion? How 'bout Freedom of Speech? We've already eroded freedom of religion to the point that kids have to fight hard to convince their school administrations to allow Bible clubs, even though such groups are explicitly legal. Oh well. :)
What, me worry?
Also note that having sex with a dozen teenage chicks at a time is part of my religion.
The article in question can be found here
Hope this helps out. I always hate it when we slashdot a story this quickly.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Darn, I knew the right religion for me would finally surface!! Where's the membership form?
Now, if I can only find the endor'os...
Your message would have more weight if you'd used a spell checker, or even a dictionary. Try "puerile" next time.
You do realize this article is humor, right?
Virg
Does this mean that if I sin & distribute DeCSS but confess to it in the DMCA house of god, the evidence can't be used against me in court?
And I wish that it would be that easy. But since Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion both come from the same source, the First Amendment, what makes you think that *THEY* wouldn't trample on FoR just as much as *THEY* do on FoS?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Then the Great Programmer leaned back in his executive chair, and gazed upon the newborn Universe.
And frowned. He knew those sentient humans would be a problem. Even after He had sweated over a hot terminal for thirteen days, those humans were ungrateful. They called their place of existence the "Universe", not the "Great Programmer/Universe".
Richard M Stallman, eat your heart out...!
If God gave us curiosity
Too bad the DMCA would beat freedom of religeon any day of the week. 200 year old dead guys can't beat 30 year old millionaire lawyers.
If American Indians can't eat peyote for religious rituals, I doubt this idea will fly either... but still, it's a nice thought.
Humour is harder than it looks, nice try though.
This must be te best part:
those humans were ungrateful. They called their place of existence the "Universe", not the "Great Programmer/Universe".
RMS would _not_ like that one.
Blasphemers !
It's naive to think that the Great Programmer would use C to code the universe. Everyone knows he used Objective-C!
-- Chris Martin, System Administrator
...for the funny part, that is.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Freedom of Religion stops at breaking laws, yah?
Yes I know it was a joke, I am just curious.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
I remember a while back, here in Canada, a bunch of pot smokers made a religion up by saying that pot was god's method of showing us truth and beauty etc. Needless to say, nothing came of that. It's someone's right to refuse blood, but if a child is refused blood due to the religious beleifs of the parents, and death is possible our government would and has 'taken protective custody' of the child. I know that the DMCA is an American law and this loophole looks towards the American constitution, but governments all really think alike. I don't think the U.S. government would tolerate some of the things the Afghan Taliban does. Here, if your wife cheats on you and you kill her, you go to jail. They don't care what religious right you have. I realise the things a joke but we can dream can't we?
All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
BILL GATES!!!
NO!!!!!
of course, that would explain why humans are so insecure and unstable....
so, satire is entirely lost on people who ate paint chips as kids i guess.
do the world a favour and go drink some bleach, if you can still speak, step up to dran-o.
then go ahead and slap your fingers in a drawer 'til you can't type. don't even think about getting one of those stephen hawking type-with-your-eyes devices either.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Yeah! Then Bush will have to support it with his community/religion program. You are therefore compelled to "grep for the divine message" in order to receive Gov't help! This is excellent because it a) gives us a *real* reason to pirate American Pie, and b) pitts the gov't against the MPAA/RIAA in an all out rumble. Where's Jessie Ventura when we need him!
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I forget who.A wise man once said,
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
That's a pretty cool calvin, but please tell me that the ascii art thing is just a slashdot phase!!!
The P.I. believes that the holy document was actually written last Wednesday when the High Priest had a little too much to drink.
This procedure for creating a religion seems pretty popular, I believe Scientology was created that way.
So, this justifies holy wars when it comes to questions of programming?
> Also note that having sex with a dozen teenage chicks at a time is part of my religion.
Actually, by the time they're teenaged, they're not "chicks" any more. They're just "chickens" at that point.
Virg
Didn't go very far, but you had to admire their gusto.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
That's what the Great Programmer gets for writing self-modifying code.
My spoon is too big!
You might be able to pull it off and get federal funding for the "social service" of copying digital video.
# make clean sig
But news for nerds? Stuff that matters? No.
I think, as an intelligent person, he would see the humor in it and appreciate it, if not its attempt to undermine his message.
Just because he doesn't compromise his ideals doesn't mean he doesn't have a sense of humor. I mean really, if you were a christian, would you appreciate if God cut a deal with the devil to split the souls 60-40, just to insure his monopoly on creation?
I implore you, let our Great Hacker lead your coding spirit to the almighty C compiler; so long as it isn't a M$ one! I implore you; IMPLORE YOU to take on thine evil marketers and their slew of arch demons, the MPAA, the RIAA, and the CSS... along with Adobe, M$, and Amazon.com.
Rev. gatesh8r, Cardinal of the The First Church Of Digital Grepping
Karma whorin' since 1999
found it funny, but there are some technical errors...
On the fifth day, He compiled his work, and received 1,024 errors. On the sixth day, He debugged. On the seventh day, He continued to debug. Rest is for the weak. On the eight day, the debugging continued. Only 128 compiler warnings did He now receive.
you don't "debug" compiler errors, you just freakin fix them... and
On the thirteenth day, He discovered the fatal flaw, a misplaced comma He did find. And then void main() executed, and the Big Bang did occur.
void main()? common! it's int main, and optionally (int argc, char **argv)... and a program as large as this is sure to take some arguments... --version if nothing else.
...but they could have wrote those in hexadecimal.
So what does it actually take to create your own religion? You obviously don't need proof of the existence of a higher power or every religion out there wouldn't be acknowledged. Can I start saying that my god is the "Great Programmer" and get away with stuff, or is there some sort of catch, like you must prove that your IQ is the same as a cabbage to be legally allowed to believe in such things.
This sort of joke is so old it could only be funny to adolescents who hadn't heard one like it before.
Slashdot is showing its demographic.
--Blair
"No wonder I got so much karma..."
Ahh, as my first administration of the sacrement, I would like to decrypt the ULC eBook in order to gain access to the materials needed for an ordination in a box.
What happens when the Great Blackout happens and the Universe looses power. Does the Great Programmer have a UPC RAID system to transfer us to tranfer us to 8mm heaven?
Just encrypt your own transmissions violating the dmca using Really Obvious Encryption, then if someone charges you, you can countersue because they don't have a license from you.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Actually, I have been having some pretty serious discussions about this with friends of mine, most of whom are grads from divinity and transpersonal psych backgrounds, as well as with my tech friends (the two happen to coincide quite often as well).
Truth is, freedom of religion pretty much trumps just about every other right in the US. There are exceptions, but in general, even those who have lost on gambles such as polygamy and controlled substances still have a pretty wide berth on just about anything else.
As such, many of my friends thought that creating a religion that covers code as an expressive form of religion has come up very often. If you think about it, people who have a deep understanding (deep by the average citizens' point of view, shallow in the tech world) of computers and technology are pretty much regarded as witches by most folks out in the world. The best way, my friends and I thought, to fight this kind of mindset is simply to adopt a shroud of religion.
Hey Joe, you got a problem with the fact that I know things you don't? Well, I know this because God says ITS OK TO KNOW IT. Join my religion, and you can know it too. Just follow the rules. All of the sudden, most of the arguements over whether it should be legal to even KNOW about system security or info sec goes out the window by most peoples' standards if a christian church says its ok, then maybe it isnt the work of the devil, or witches, or evil haxors. Its ok, because god says it can exist.
Yeah, I know that there is some moral reckoning in how the above is presented that wouldn't wash with some knowledgeable and highly ethical people. I don't care. I care about not being picked out of a crowd because I know something other people don't. I care about having something besides the EFF to back my ass up when someone decides to sue me or press charges over something nobody really understands, but hey, THATS OK to press charges, HE knows TECH. He's GOT TO be a witch/evil haxor/apostate.
Fact is, I really do think whatever force that holds it all together talks through us and what we do. I don't think that it would be too unusual to start a church or temple or whatever to back that up, and to spread more knowledge around. Yeah, there are the baptists down the street, they are having a bake sale; the Catholics are having roulette night...oh, look over there, that new church, they are having free computer lessons!
Anyways, we never got around to getting that IDEA off the ground. It was a nice one. However, that may happen in the future. Essentially, at the time, nobody wanted to do the research to write the canon and background literature. Everybody was busy working. Well, now that the bubble has burst, we've got that time. Maybe it will happen, maybe not.
But really think about it...not many organizations can pull off the kind of stunts that folks need when shit hits the fan. Maybe a religion might not be a bad idea, jokes aside.
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
Which is roughly equivalent to saying they have their religious liberty in their own lands, but not in the United States in general. This is kind of like saying you have the right to copy eBooks under US Law, as long as you do it in Russia.
Might as well nick some pits
Reservations are subjected to Federal law and are not considered independant nations. They are essentially nations within nations, so your analogy doesn't work either...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
the title said "A solution for the DMCA." Would someone care to point out where the actual solution is? ;) Thanks.
You wanker. Shut the hell up. I'm sick and tired of people posting "This doesn't belong on slashdot because whine whine whine"
Shut the fuck up and leave. User #175,421. Gee, you sure got here early, I can see where you get off telling people how this should be run. Do the rest of us a favor and get lost. If you don't want to read a story, then don't fucking read it. Don't whine about it in the forums.
God, is always september here?
Praise the Lord!
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It has come to my attention that some of you think that we should incorporate ourselves as a religion based on tightly holding on to our intellectual property and trampling anyone who thinks their pitiful little rights matter.
This would be pointless. I know that some of you are concerned because some religions have sprung up that worship free speech and such things.
Just remember what happened years ago when John Lennon made the mistake of saying that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.
He was wrong. The Beatles weren't. We, however, are.
Sincerely yours,
Jack Valenti
After all, not every OS will let you get away with naming something
.caffiene. . .
Great Programmer/Universe
without complaining about the space. . .
T3/Dev
Need. .
If I had only known then what I know now...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
No religion is complete without a number of holidays that you only get off why every other religion works.
If they were to ammend some holidays into their mix, I would definitely convert.
Freedom of religion only extends as far as there is a Jesuus involved...
he keeps following the rules and doing stupid things at the same time. hahaha.
Mess Stuff Up
Universe...
And on the 20th day, The great programmer built a beowulf cluster of Great Programmer/Universe...
And on the 21st day, the heathen known as Bill was
cast out of the land... into the fiery depths of
redmond...
And the children rejoiced...
Official state religions slowly withered away in the years following the signing of the Constitution. Now people who have no knowledge of why that clause exists in the Constitution believe it means something totally orthogonal to its original meaning. Welcome to Amerika.
the First Disassembly of God church.
/etc/hosts file.)
In the First Disassembly of God church we seek to reverse engineer the nature of the cosmos and supply weekly diffs and patches at our worship services. (As well as debugging of the faithful, documenting the numberous ways of violating syntax, and distribution of the Wine libraries and
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
"...On the thirteenth day, He discovered the fatal flaw, a misplaced comma He did find..."
:) - according to the rumors previous 3 missed the Venus because there was an error in navigation program (written in Fortran) .. and, yes, you guessed it right - dot was misplaced with the comma :). But that's just a rumor though :)
In 1960s there was Soviet Venus Exploration Program. The first lander successfully decended to the Venus at 1967 was Venera 4. Note the ***4***
3.243F6A8885A308D313
The sort of legit version and the fact that Floridian nudie clubs were getting around indecent exposure statutes by having their "thespians" recite Shakespeare while gyrating.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
if the "Great Programmer" was so great, he'd design for the first couple days and avoid the whole "compile and get 1,024 errors." This dude didn't learn to code correctly.
I hate how people see professional coders as people that sit down and just start coding without any planning. I spend weeks designing before I start coding. I like having UML, sequence diagrams, and use cases before I write a line of code.
I've found that once I do this, I have very few errors (mostly typos). I used to do it the old way back in college, and, yeah, you get a million errors, but not if you use good design...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
What? That's like saying: there should not be paramedics in the society anymore than there should be murderers.
Bible clubs as an expression of Christianity fundamentally represent Good whereas "satanic clubs" are evil. You're a prime example of the modern day people with no functioning moral compass. No wonder so many kids grow up so twisted these days.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
WASHINGTON POSTTIMESHEARLD
.0000001% of all our net net revenues. We're very serious about this."
WASHINGTON, DC: Aug 30, 2001
As Congress furiously discussed what to do with the newly discovered "First Church Of Digital Grepping" and its alleged dogma that requires its members to constantly search through copyrighted materials for sacred meaning and salvation, the lobbying organizations for the entertainment and publishing sprang into action.
The entertainments' lawyer and lobbyists have already brought about a marked increase in donations of cash, luxury cars, booze, dope and the deployment of hookers.
One crack addict in a poor neighborhood of DC told us today, "Man, you can't score any good shit with it all going to them Congressmen. We down here smoking Draino and hoping those lobbyists from the entertainment industment get whatever the hell it is they want so we can get our freak back on!"
Another professional worker in the recreational sex business tells relates a similar story, "Geez, it's normally bad enough here with all these Congressmen around. Can't keep in they pants, anyway. You know how it is, if they ain't doing one of us out here, they doing the American people in there. But with all them lawyers and lobbyists working Congress about that Geek Religion thing, its nearly as bad for a sex worker as it is when they ain't no interns around. That's the worst, it's just every ho for themselves then and pray for new load of interns."
Sources within the entertainment industry say their goal is the simple protection of the artists.
One anonymous source said, "Look we all know that the actual artist, the creator who is the principal beneficiary of our actions here. We're going to ensure that the people who create the movies, music and books that we all love and cherish continue to receive their
Another source said that perhaps a solution similar to the one used with Native American peoples would be effective in dealing with "The First Church Of Digital Grepping".
That is, round all them up, march two thousand miles in the middle of winter. Take their computers and ATM cards away from them. Give them habitats in faroff remote Northern rural areas, and allow them to practice their supposed religion two or three times a year, under close Bureau of Geek Affairs supervision.
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
1. When is the deadline for giving you all my money and killing my family as a sacrifice? 2. I'm not a huge fan of sugary drinks. Do I still have to drink the kool-aid(tm)? 3. Why is everyone wearing black? And what's with everyone having the same shoes?
<sig>Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.</sig>
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
The U.S. Supreme Court specifically said that the establishment clause prevented the U.S. Federal government from ruling if $cientology was a religion or not.
:^)
The IRS later over-ruled SCOTUS and declared it a religion. (I know, but they basically did.) Members of $cientology can now deduct tution fees for $cientology schools as religious contributions. As well for as private detectives and massive lawsuits.
So now I guess we know who wears the pants in the U.S. Federal government...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
That should of course be:
It's naive to think that the Great Programmer would use C to code the universe. Everyone knows He used Objective-C!
And you have the nerve to call us blasphemers! :)
I was contemplating your sig (a good one!), and started thinking aobut it. To enlarge it:
All coders want are fast cars, fast women, and fast algorithms, but what they get are efficent cars, efficent women, and efficent algorithms.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It's a joke for crying out loud.. Get over yourself.
Here's an interesting question: Should the U.S. military be allowed to have religious chaplains?
:^)
It sounds like the same class of thing as voluntary religion clubs in schools to me. (And I imagine schools are state level not federal?)
By the way, the U.S. Army caters to Wiccans. Who are not satanists, of course. Mind you, I doubt the satanists are much more dangerous than, say, a Neitche (sp) Appreciation Club, or Randites.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I can understand being interested in technology and "geeky" things... but if you read more than the first few sentences of this thing you need to go to some therapy. Whoever wrote this needs to find a more stimulating job because they obviously have too much time on their hands. Do you all think it would be possible for us to get some USEFUL news today?
~ now you know
If not for your religiously blinded mind, you would see the fucking hypocracy in your post. Asshole.
Proving once again that there is Life after Hope.
...he did discover a storage space shortage and did then execute this command: /home/bill_gates/.ego
rm -f
The command is still running...
It took the "great programmer" 5 days to get rid of his compiler errors?
What a twink.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
"What? That's like saying: there should not be paramedics in the society anymore than there should be murderers. "
That my friend would be a very bad example.
"Bible clubs as an expression of Christianity fundamentally represent Good whereas "satanic clubs" are evil"
Well, I find bible clubs as an expression of evil. Take for instance 'christian' views against gays. THAT is evil. But alas, I digress. Unless you can tolerate having something like a satanic club in your school that you hate as much as I hate bible clubs, it shouldn't be in the school.
Or better yet, lets not get into an arguement, and *gasp* not have either. ANY religious affiliated and school sponsored club offends me. What would you say should I want to start up an athiesm club? How about spread athiest propaganda on the walls of your school just like your bible club would do? You don't like it? Well neither do I. I don't go around telling you that your god doesn't exist, so please don't go around telling me he does. That's all it comes down to.
Yeah, then they come back and eat your heart.
Recently the Great Libertarian Hacker has nailed his seven thesis about the superiority of bazaars on the door of the church's Great Cathedral. The thesis are reproduced below:
(I'm sorry if this text offends you in your religious beliefs, it was not my intention.)
Sadly, Christians are among the least tolerant in the world. You want prayer in school, and the ten commandments on the wall. But you don't want mein kampf read, sex education or homosexuality discussed unless its to condemn it.
Yeah...and all generalizations are bullshit...including this one right?
Do NOT lump all Christians together as they are NOT all the same...and you drag the people who are both spiritual and forward thinking and who just might happen to be Christian, into the mud without provocation...then wonder why some people are edgy about tolerance.
Believe what you will...but unless your critisism is of me personally, and my own personal beliefs...well...I am not going to put so much thought into your comment, as you obviously didn't either.
What's interesting is that I'd really like you to find the line in the constitution that reads "separation of church and state". All the constitution says is that the govt. shall "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Allowing a religeous experience or meeting on property that is affiliated or owned by the government isn't really promoting it. It's more a matter of just letting it happen...which I am pretty sure people are entitled to in this country. (or should be really) If you go back far enough, it's that very issue that made a lot of people come here. Should other religeons be allowed to meet where ever? Provided they abide by the other rules of the premises...yeah...they pretty much should be allowed. For some of them though, that may be a problem, and that should be a consideration.
And what in the blue hell is up with trying to tie in people like Falwell with the DMCA? If you left it to the CDA, I'd have to give you a point, but exactly how in the hell does his religeous status affect his view on the DMCA? I am pretty sure that somewhere in the world (and even in our goverment) is a pro-DMCA athiest, agnostic, or anything other than Christian. What that would prove...I have no idea.
And not all censorship is the "erasure of history" actually...although some people seem to be into that, which is a bad thing in my mind as well for what it's worth.
Posting anon
P.S. Most Christians I know think Michael W Smith blows too. Unfortunately, there are still plenty out there who seem to feel otherwise. I never said all of them had their heads on straight either.
However, there are a lot of exceptions, mostly cultural.
:-)
It also depends on whether or not there is an undue burden on the state (or some private individual) in creating an exemption for someone's belief.
For instance, your faith may dictate that you may not work on Saturday's. It has been decided that the employer would be excessively burdened by being required to move employees around to accomodate you. However, it's not an undue burden to ask other employees if they mind working on Saturday to fill your space.
Another example is that states are required to issue non-photo driver's licenses to those who have some type or religious objection to being photographed/photographed for identification purposes. The minor burden to the state is outweighed by the fact that the individual loses quite a lot of liberty in not being licensed to operate a car.
In the example of Amish...many of their exceptions are rooted in the fact that, pretty much creating their own independently working society, whatever they do doesn't really burden the state that much.
As time has gone on though, we have probably allowed even more exceptions--it's just become politically incorrect to mess about with the Amish.
Oh yes, almost forgot. You might want to check the actual stats of deeply religous men. A lot were quite free-thinkers.
And there was good ole Ben's visitor's pass to the *cough*Hellfire Club*cough* in London before the war.
Mind you, he did propose an offician chaplain for congress, but this was turned down due lack of funds.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I see. How do you know the bible was written by god and not some lunatic who thought he was god and made up all the stories about miracles and morality? How do you know there is a god at all?
Its funny to argue this point with anyone but here goes....
Satanic [or Satanists for that matter] clubs do not in anyway promote evil, killing or any other bad morals that would adversly affect a society. For the most part "Anton Le Vay" satanists are the perfect citizen because they only work for a better life here on earth instead of spirtual pipe dreams. I cannot think of a better club for school. I would hope that people would understand some day that Satanist's do not worship Satan. Most Satanists do not even believe in god. This is the offical stand point I have about myself, and what most other satanists have told me when I have met them.
Back to the point here I think that if you allow one club, you should make room for all of them. I personaly found that my high school (back in the day here...) had a club called: C.H.A.O.S (Christ has all our anwsers) but to start a club you needed a teacher to sponser you. Needless to say that anyone that wanted a christian club could find a sponsor, but I could not get one for my club S.I.N. (Satanism is Natural), so I was allowed to have a club of this nature, but I wasnt allowed to have this club with out a sponsor. The lesson learned is leave the descrimination up to the teachers and you only get the type of clubs the teachers would join.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
You are wrong about what prominent early Americans believed:
s /c onlaw/reynoldsvus.html
Grep for Madison here:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrial
Duh! Because the Bible and the Holy Church say so.
In it the God has given us a clear set of rules with which to live by. Anything and anyone who acts against these instructions is also acting against the God. Since God is Good, acting against him is Evil. Is the logic simple enough for you to see? Here's a bit of logic: you're an idiot.
-- you can't hug your children with nuclear arms.
Hey! That ULC website is really cool. Now, I've got a prefix for my name.
Anyone know of something like that for a Ph.D? Or, at least, a very easy mail-order or online course?
"Dr. Lawrence Wade" suits my officious nature far more than "Rev. Lawrence Wade".
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
This gives a new meaning to Linux and MacIntosh zealots!
Insulting your opponent doesn't win you the argument.
Again, leave the bible for a second.
If I don't belive in "God" then why would I read the bible as more than a children's story?
So anyways, don't quote the bible on me, I think IT is evil. Organised religion is thought control for the masses.
here's a thought for you. God is supposedly all good and all powerfull. if he is all good, why doesn't he destroy the devil, for he is letting people suffer, that is not a good thing to do, no matter how bad they were in life. If he can't destroy the devil, then he is not all powerfull, and the devil would be more powerfull than god. So, why worship the lesser deity?
Religion has brought more pain on this earth than anything else. More wars have been fought in the name of god, more people burned at the stake in the name of god, seems to me that the name of god has caused more suffering than anything on earth...
Nevermind the fact that the church has punished scientists numerous times in the past for being "blasphemous" because they said something against that all knowing book you call the bible, when in fact they were correct and the church was wrong.
and another thing, there is no reason for personal attacks in any form of debate.
Well I would rather let someone eat my heart out than my WALLET!
You cant win with someone that doesnt fight with facts.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
A classical mistake.
You are judging God's morality with your own incomplete knowledge of what good and evil are as a reference point.
God defines good and evil. You're not capable of doing that. Therefore, anything the God says is good is good even if it involves a mass murder and rape of a dozen 12-year old girls. To human morality it is repulsive, but in God's greater plan it might be necessary and therefore good.
"if the bible proves the existance of god, then superman comics prove the existance of superman" - Usenet
Sorry, just had to share.
- RustyTaco
My facts have been supplied by the God.
*sigh* biblethumpers...
Neither does circular reasoning. ...... oh, wait that's stupid.
God is good, the bible says so and the bible is true because it's the word of
Even if he did make it somewhat inflammatory. I'd like to know as well. What makes a religion "legitimate" in the eyes of the government?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
so if you can't define evil then why is the devil evil, other than the fact that it probably says "and the devil was evil" in the bible? What specific actions make him and evil deity?
I'm reading at -1?
On the other hand, for a billion dollars, who wouldn't sleep with Bill Gates for one night?
I can't define evil or good by myself. Therefore I must trust only what the Bible says.
Deeply religous and free-thinker are not necessarily contradictory, although you might have trouble finding a prominent example today.
And there was good ole Ben's visitor's pass to the *cough*Hellfire Club*cough* in London before the war.
Good old Ben. :-) But I did say most of them, not all. I am certain he was not anti-religous, which seems to be the fashion today.
Were government run schools really around much when the constitution was written? I though they became the norm 50-100 years later.
The best solution to this whole mess would be to get the governemnt out of the school business altogether. It's not like they're doing a good job or anything...
So the Great Programmer did the Universe in C huh? I thought the Universe was a little more object-oriented...
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
ah, but what proof do you have that the bible was written from the words of god? You ever meet jesus to have him say "yeah my dad told them to write that"? No? So why should I blindly beleive what a book tells me to beleive?
had a club called: C.H.A.O.S (Christ has all our anwsers)
I remember that. But then they changed it to the C.I.A.: Christians in Action. They sang songs around the flagpole, put up posters with bible passages around school, and even got some airtime on the school P.A. now and then.
I had a talk with the vice-principal about it. He agreed that they were probably crossing the line in some areas, but said it was "too popular to shut down". This is in sunny liberal california, btw.
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
So then allowing gay student groups on school property is state support of gays?
Yes, it is. There is no constitutional prohibition on the support of gays, and public schools are free to support them, chess players, latin speakers and most any other group organized around the pursuit of legal activities except for religions.
c'mon, mod that up (5, Funny) asap!!
I'm not sure of your point. I did say "most of them". Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say many or some, but I didn't feel like calculating percentages. And I am aware there were great differences of opinion among the delegates. Sometimes it astonishes me that they produced such a rational and coherent document.
But I don't think that invalidates my main point that the original purpose of the 'separation of church and state' clause was to prevent the Federal government from sponsoring a religion over individual state religions.
Read up on the Treaty of Tripoli, and some of George Washington's personal letters. Most of them were religious believers, since being an atheist in their time would be akin to believing in a flat earth today; no matter what evidence you give for your beliefs, people would look at you cross-eyed. However, most of them vehemently abhorred organized religion. They could rightly be called deists, since they believed in a God, but held suspect any assumptions about this God's nature. If anything, their intention was to allow each one to make his/her own decisions with respect to religion, without the coercion of a state-sponsored organization. Also see Thomas Jefferson's remarks in regards to the bill in the VA House of Commons (pre-Revolution) guaranteeing religious freedom.
I always thought the Great Programmer used something more O.G., like lisp.
-Frank
Let's use a little logic and reasoning here:
God has given us a clear set of rules with which to live by
Ok...maybe. The only clear set of rules in the Bible is the Ten Commandments. Everything else is someone's interpretation/translation over the years. How do we know that the Bible is God's word? Because it says so? That's circular...you can't use the contents of the Bible to "prove" that the Bible is the word of God.
Anything and anyone who acts against these instructions is also acting against the God.
Sounds reasonable. Of course, we don't know that these instructions are from God...
Since God is Good, acting against him is Evil
Another jump of logic here....how do we know that God is good? Because of the Bible? If the Bible is the word of God, we're basically taking his word for it: "I'm God, I'm good. Worship me." How do we know that God isn't really an evil entity waging a massive PR campaign to keep us from knowing the truth?
The arguments aren't whether kids are allowed to form Gay and Lesbian Student Aliances, but whether allowing the clubs to use school property constitutes state support of homosexuality. My own view is that it does not, but reasonable people may differ on this point.
Kinda falls on it's face when you apply it to someone else's pet group, don't it?
Don't forget to recomend government restrictions on gun ownership because "militias" no longer serve a useful purpose now that constitutionally banned standing armies exist. Also, you might argue that the government should be alowed to billet those troops in your house because only criminals have things to hide. Reasonable people can differ, right?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Oh well, the cerimony ended with castration.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
damn straight...
If you get 3 millionth, then you've got something. For now, all you get is a cookie.
An interesting point. I'll have to do some further reading.
If anything, their intention was to allow each one to make his/her own decisions with respect to religion, without the coercion of a state-sponsored organization.
In this context (and correct me if you disagree), I think you mean Federal-sponsored organization rather than State-sponsored (i.e., one of the original 13 States), since there were already several States with state-sponsored religions.
My impression has always been that they wanted to step as lightly as possible on the rights of individual States.
Working on it...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
The unclear part is how to apply this when the each of these two adjacent sentence clauses (no establishment/no prohibition) contradict each other.
It is unclear whether providing overhead (electricity, land, janitorial services etc) support for people egaged in religious activity constitutes a move, however tiny, towards the establishment of religion. Neither is it perfectly clear that forbidding equally all such support to all such groups effectively prohibits their right to excercise freedom of religion.
People tend to see the issue as perfectly clear cut on one side or the other. It isn't, in my opinion. It is perfectly possible, in my view, that the framers left us with situations where those two adjacent phrases give us two contradictory imperatives, at least viewed using two valued logic.
Let A be the proposition that letting the students meet on school property is kind of state establishment of religion. Let B be the proposition that not letting the students meet on school property limits their free excercise of religion.
It's not a black and white issue. Propositions like this aren't true or false in the same way that "3 > 2" or "pi is irrational" are. They are matters of judgement, and can be somewhat true or somewhat false. I happen to think A is practically completely false (but to a tiny degree true); and B is mostly false (but considerably more true than A). Therefore, I favor the students being allowed to meet, but I can see how other people would have different opinions.
Since neither A, nor B is anything like 50% true, I'm not going to get very worked up either way. Since there is not way to split the difference (the students are allowed to meet on the property or they are not), then either decision is somewhat good and somewhat bad.
Now, if the policy where not applied equally to atheists, jews, pagans, muslims and christians, then I would definitely get very excited about it, since it would be a clear step towards establishment.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Ok first question, is "Satanist" don't worship "Satan." Then WHY THE FUCK do they call themselves SATANIST.
Doesn't have to be circular reasoning.
:)
Suppose you define God and the Universe to be the same thing.
Where are all your arguments then?
Hah.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
People seem to think that God is a person...
What if God is closer to.. a mathematical concept? Or a fact?
The only things we know about God are bits and pieces of stories transcribed and translated thousands of times over thousands of years. How close are they to the original meaning?
Suppose God says the Bible is true, knowing that we will argue and in that find our own truth.
Maybe God lies to prove a point...
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
but no one knows if god says the bible is true, for all we know about him is what is in the bible. Unless an all mighty being comes down from the sky to tell me the bible is true, I don't see any proof about the bible being fact or fiction coming to light any time soon.
And yes, Satanists do promote evil, because by definition God is pure, truth, love and good and Satan and what he stands for is about distorting God and trying to coopt God's authority. Who cares if you are aiming for a better life on earth for yourself. That sounds like a lot of greed to me that results in ignoring the less fortunate. With Christianity you can still prosper and share with/help the less fortunate.
It is a "pipe dream" to claim that Satanists don't believe in God. Thats like saying liberals don't believe in conservatives, that white's don't believe in blacks, that males don't believe in females, that overweight people don't believe in skinny people. It's also a "pipe dream" to ignore all the PROOF of creation by a higher being (God). As a doctor, it is incredibly obvious to me that the design of humans, biology, DNA and the whole earth is not random--far from it--it is designed and created by a loving God who cares for us and desires for us to have happy life and spend eternity with him in heaven. Don't try and tell me that by being a follower of Satan that you have promise of eternal life. I think I would throw my support with the side of good rather than evil.
...Your system positively will not crash, for the Great Programmer knows that if you install Windows, your security holes are bound to be opened and you are bound to become like the Great Programmer, knowing good viruses from bad ones...
Consequently, the user began to gaze upon the O/S and saw that it was something desirable to the eyes and she began installing it on her PC. Also she gave unlicensed copies to her friends...
You're using her as bait, Master!
> Since God is Good, acting against him is Evil. Is
> the logic simple enough for you to see?
Yes.
Premises:
1. God is good (in the usual sense of the word, corollary: and therefore, deserving of worship)
2. God exists
3. God is infinitely powerful/all powerful
Observation (just another premis):
4. I observe evil around me that God could end with infinite ease, yet He does not.
Conclusion:
One of the premises are wrong.
1. Maybe God doesn't exist
2. Maybe God isn't infinitely and all powerful
(thus is just a "superhero" at best [and a
sleepy one at that].)
3. Maybe God isn't good.
Take your pick. I reject notions of God being good "not in the usual sense", nor of "there are things Man Was Not Meant to Know/God Works In Mysterious Ways"
Infinite power + Allowing Evil To Happen = God is Evil (second best excuse) or God Doesn't Exist (indeed, why propose Him in the first place?)
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Scientology claims its most high-level texts as "trade secrets." Our new religion can do the same thing -- however we circumvent protection can be one of our trade secrets!
Very true...
I wonder if God's really the highest-up. I mean, he might be in charge of *this* universe, but does he have co-workers? a boss?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
I!
We don't even have our own religion for a freakin' day and already it gets forked into splinter factions! Bah!
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
We had the "In the Light" club, though. They used to pray around the flagpole on Wednesday mornings. One day, while they were doing their thing, a bunch of my friends and I went to a garbage can located on a hill near the flagpole and stood around it reciting passages from The Myth of Sisyphus and other fine works. The principal came out and made us stop because it was 'offensive' to other groups. Go figure.
Just to piss YOU off!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
THE SPANISH INQUISTION...er the DMCA!!!!! I think I just voilated it.
Chapter 16, Verse 256 of the Sacred Readme of the First Church Of Digital Grepping states: On the first day, the Great Programmer created a new text file and the Universe was born. ...First He wrote universe.c. Then sys/laws_of_physics.h and universal_constants.h. ...
While the article appears to be largely in jest, I don't think the point is without merit. The idea of God as an Engineer of sorts is not a new one. In one part of Carl Sagan's Contact he describes an advanced group of sentient lifeforms that have found a message embedded within physical constants (Pi). In this perception of God, it is the people's responsibility/destiny to decode the messages and try to understand the original designer. When the focus of a religion is achieving understanding, freedom of information is imperative.
I'm not saying that this particular freedom would necessarily outweigh the rights of copyright owners, but it is a legitimate religious perspective.
I wonder what kind of license the allmighty Hacker used. Hope it's GPL, i always wanted to change a few things... (look ma, in my universe we can drive at 6! and perl is readible! w00t!)
On the other hand, what if it is all proprietary? that would mean that even trying to figure out how our universe works would get you behind bars! Hmm... would make a nice excuse for skipping classes...
This sig is intentionally left blank
If I remember right: "We are sorry for the inconvenience" - God's message, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
It does seems more of a marketing guy's message than a programmer guy's message...
If you let the Great Programmer into your life and remain faithful, you wouldn't have any reason to be angry.
______________________________________
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I...
I have bad news for you. God didn't write down all those sacred rules. A bunch of well meaning men did. Good men, but still fallible men.
Anarchists never rule
I'll be he used to 'smoke weed everyday..'
Have you seen the Lain?
To be defined as a religion doesn't take all of these things, but the more you got, the more it helps. For the most part, judges will use "common sense" for something like proving is a belief system is a legitamate religion. This approach to worshiping code certain can take on many aspects though.
BTW, using religion as an aspect of political protest has a much longer tradition than even non-violent protests that you see much more commonly, and tends to get neglicted by the ruling governments until they can't do anything about it. (C.F. Christianity and the Roman Empire, as well as the Catholic Church and Communism... especially in Poland and much of Eastern Europe).
"The mission of the church is to make digital copies of
every music CD, every movie DVD, and every printed book and
then grep the digital version for any tell-tale signs of
'The Meaning Of Life'."
That won't be neccessary. I've got a copy of it on VHS that I'll loan you! (Warning: the flick is extremely British.)
G0del
P.S. I know, I know, (-1, offtopic).
1. Break an encryption scheme.
(ok, this part could be difficult)
2. Encrypt the resulting code, documentation, etc using a scheme developed by you. Say, ROT-14 or something equally brilliant.
3. If Adobe's laywers (for example) come after you for possessing a "circumvention mechanism" then let them know that they have circumvented your encryption and are equally in violation of the DMCA.
maybe there is evil so your ass will pay attention to whats going on around you? in most religions god or allah also gave people free will, they can do what they want, according to most organized religions
Yeah, I got really annoyed last week when I received a tax rebate from the state for nearly double what the federal government sent me, even though I paid federal taxes far in excess of triple what I paid in state taxes. Just who does Jessie and his crew think they are, doing that and making GWB look like a chump? (Needless to say, I'll take "annoying" people like Jessie over politics as usual any day)
wrong it's actually a BBC hearplay called the hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galaxy
If only we could figure out which 'work of art' the Sacred Readme refers to, and then grep through the binary representation to extract the divine message," the High Priest explains.
wrong again grepping is not enough ..they '' have to use ROT-42 on the wave-file of the hearing
-- just some deep thoughts ...
red--
Do you remember the books "Eon" and "Eternity" by Greg Bear? In those books, an alien race called "Jarts" held it as their sole goal to "preserve" all the data in the Universe, basically by "downloading" it into a hyper-massive archive. I would suggest that this is an ideal analogy to use in positing the goal of this anti-DMCA religion and that the term "Jart" should be used in association with it.
baliset@zeta.org.au
Funny that the Universal Life Church, Inc. has been brought up repeatedly in this thread.
The founder, Kirby J. Hensley, was a guy who didn't believe in tax-exempt status for churches. He fought this law for a long time, even including suing the IRS, and he lost at every turn - (big surprise, eh?).
As an extreme effort, he figured that he might try to form his own church and make it profit oriented , but not so much that it would look like a disingenous effort. Then, when the IRS turned him down for tax-exempt status, he could use this as a precedent to fight again for repeal of the tax-exempt status of the more mainstream churches.
Much to his surprise, the IRS granted him tax-exempt status. I think he folded at that point and I guess he figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
At least that's the condensed version of the story I heard when I became a minister with the Universal Life Church, Inc. in 1979. Five bucks and I was a minister. I can marry people, bury people, and legally avoid the draft on concientious objector status. I qualify for any benefit that any other clergy would receive. (I even signed the certificate for my step-daughters marriage. My now ex-wife performed the Pagan ceremony.)
Additionally, myself and two others can form a local chapter of the church, take a vow of poverty, donate all our secular income to our church (which then takes care of all our bills), and donate our home(s) to our chapter of the church - then the home comes off the property tax rolls as church property.
The potential tax savings are incredible.
What does it take to create your own religion? I guess if you follow in the footsteps of ULC, that should be close enough. If someone does, please let me know, I'd join up.
Open Source Software - it's the difference between Trust and Anti-Trust.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
You have to be 21 to drink american "beer" which is barely alcoholic??!! I think german schools are promoting this sort of low-alcohol beer for kids (as being less unhealthy than coca-cola). Of course this used to be common at schools some time ago.
The law in the UK is 18, but shopkeepers don't seem to enforce it (a-cha, those white kids all look the same to me :-), not helped by the current trend of "school uniform" parties at nightclubs (along with 70s fashion mistake night outs). The supermarkets do, and so do the suburban chain pubs (but they also have stupid dress codes) but I've certainly seen the occasional 14 year old going to London nightclubs. 17 is much more common though.
On the other hand it is very rare to see an 18 year old drive - insurance is very expensive if you are under 25.
Obviously Germany and the United States have different thresholds, since one of them recognises Scientology and the other doesn't.
Note that germany has/used to have voluntary church taxes, which may be why the bar is set higher.
Now, I suppose that anyone who converts to this will have to help stomp out this evil, heretical AtheOS from the face of the net?
Because in our society, Satan represents the advesary in christian mythos. Satan represents what we do, Satan represents what america stands for. Free speech even when its against god, sex, the abilty to vote for the other party that isnt a christian. Satanism is what comes natural. Christianty is living like a monk for god. If your inbetween your confused.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I
found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:
"Hi! I'm John, and this is Mary."
Mary: "Hi! We're here to invite you to come kiss Hank's ass with us."
Me: "Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would
I want to kiss his ass?"
John: "If you kiss Hank's ass, he'll give you a million dollars; and if
you don't, he'll kick the shit out of you."
Me: "What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"
John: "Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank
owns this town. He can do what ever wants, and what he wants is to give
you a million dollars, but he can't until you kiss his ass."
Me: "That doesn't make any sense. Why..."
Mary: "Who are you to question Hank's gift? Don't you want a million
dollars? Isn't it worth a little kiss on the ass?"
Me: "Well maybe, if it's legit, but..."
John: "Then come kiss Hank's ass with us."
Me: "Do you kiss Hank's ass often?"
Mary: "Oh yes, all the time..."
Me: "And has he given you a million dollars?"
John: "Well no, you don't actually get the money until you leave town."
Me: "So why don't you just leave town now?"
Mary: "You can't leave until Hank tells you to, or you don't get the
money and he kicks the shit out of you."
Me: "Do you know anyone who kissed Hank's ass, left town, and got the
million dollars?"
John: "My mother kissed Hank's ass for years. She left town last year,
and I'm sure she got the money."
Me: "Haven't you talked to her since then?"
John: "Of course not, Hank doesn't allow it."
Me: "So what makes you think he'll actually give you the money if you've
never talked to anyone who got the money?"
Mary: "Well, he gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you'll
get a raise, maybe you'll win a small lotto, maybe you'll just find a
twenty dollar bill on the street."
Me: "What's that got to do with Hank?"
John: "Hank has certain 'connections.'"
Me: "I'm sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game."
John: "But it's a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And
remember, if you don't kiss Hank's ass he'll kick the shit of you."
Me: "Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to him, get the details straight
from him..."Mary: "No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank."
Me: "Then how do you kiss his ass?"
John: "Sometimes we just blow him a kiss, and think of his ass. Other
times we kiss Karl's ass, and he passes it on."
Me: "Who's Karl?"
Mary: "A friend of ours. He's the one who taught us all about kissing
Hank's ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times."
Me: "And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank,
that Hank wanted you to kiss his ass, and that Hank would reward you?"
John: "Oh no! Karl's got a letter Hank sent him years ago explaining
the whole thing. Here's a copy; see for your self."
John handed me a photocopy of a handwritten memo on "From the desk of
Karl" letterhead. There were eleven items listed:
From the desk of: KARL
1. Kiss Hank's ass and he'll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
2. Use alcohol in moderation.
3. Kick the shit out of people who aren't like you.
4. Eat right.
5. Hank dictated this list himself.
6. The moon is made of green cheese.
7. Everything Hank says is right.
8. Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
9. Don't drink.
10. Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11. Kiss Hank's ass or he'll kick the shit out of you.Me: "But 9 says 'Don't Drink,' which doesn't quite go with item 2,
and 6 says 'The moon is made of green cheese,' which is just plain wrong."
John: "There's no contradiction between 9 and 2, 9 just clarifies 2. As
far as 6 goes, you've never been to the moon, so you can't say for sure."
Me: "Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made
of rock..."
Mary: "But they don't know if the rock came from the Earth, or from
outer of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese."
Me: "I'm not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon came
from the Earth has been discounted. Besides, not knowing where the rock
came from doesn't make it cheese."
John: "Aha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know
Hank is always right!"
Me: "We do?"
Mary: "Of course we do, Item 5 says so."
Me: "You're saying Hank's always right because the list says so, the
list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated
it because the list says so. That's circular logic. That's no different
than saying 'Hank's right because he says he's right.'"
John: "Now you're getting it! It's so rewarding to see someone come
around to Hank's way of thinking!"
Me: "But... oh, never mind. What's the deal with wieners?"
Mary blushes. John says: "Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It's Hank's
way. Anything else is wrong."
Me: "What if I don't have a bun?"
John: "No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong."
Me: "No relish? No Mustard?"
Mary looks positively stricken. John shouts: "There's no need for such
language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!"
Me: "So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it
would be out of the question?"
Mary sticks her fingers in her ears: "I am not listening to this. La la
la la la la la la."
John: "That's disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat
that..."
Me: "It's good! I eat it all the time."
Mary faints. John catches her: "Well, if I'd known you where one of those,
I wouldn't have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of you,
I'll be there counting my money and laughing. I'll kiss Hank's ass for
you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater."
With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.
Me: "This would appear to be written on Karl's Letterhead."
Mary: "Hank didn't have any paper."
Me: "I have a hunch that if we checked we'd find this is Karl's
handwriting."
John: "Of course, Hank dictated it."
Me: "I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?"
Mary: "Not now, but years ago he would talk to some people."
Me: "I thought you said he was a philanthropist. What sort of
philanthropist kicks the shit out of people just because they're
different?"
Mary: "It's what Hank wants, and Hank's always right."
Me: "How do you figure that?"
Mary: "Item 7 says 'Everything Hank says is right.' That's good enough
for me!"
Me: "Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up."
John: "No way! Item 5 says 'Hank dictated this list himself.' Besides,
item 2 says 'Use alcohol in moderation,' Item 4 says 'Eat right,' and
item 8 says 'Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.' Everyone
knows those things are right, so the rest must be true too."
Me: "But 9 says 'Don't Drink,' which doesn't quite go with item 2,
and 6 says 'The moon is made of green cheese,' which is just plain wrong."
John: "There's no contradiction between 9 and 2, 9 just clarifies 2. As
far as 6 goes, you've never been to the moon, so you can't say for sure."
Me: "Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made
of rock..."
Mary: "But they don't know if the rock came from the Earth, or from
outer of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese."
Me: "I'm not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon came
from the Earth has been discounted. Besides, not knowing where the rock
came from doesn't make it cheese."
John: "Aha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know
Hank is always right!"
Me: "We do?"
Mary: "Of course we do, Item 5 says so."
Me: "You're saying Hank's always right because the list says so, the
list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated
it because the list says so. That's circular logic. That's no different
than saying 'Hank's right because he says he's right.'"
John: "Now you're getting it! It's so rewarding to see someone come
around to Hank's way of thinking!"
Me: "But... oh, never mind. What's the deal with wieners?"
Mary blushes. John says: "Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It's Hank's
way. Anything else is wrong."
Me: "What if I don't have a bun?"
John: "No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong."
Me: "No relish? No Mustard?"
Mary looks positively stricken. John shouts: "There's no need for such
language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!"
Me: "So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it
would be out of the question?"
Mary sticks her fingers in her ears: "I am not listening to this. La la
la la la la la la."
John: "That's disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat
that..."
Me: "It's good! I eat it all the time."
Mary faints. John catches her: "Well, if I'd known you where one of those,
I wouldn't have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of you,
I'll be there counting my money and laughing. I'll kiss Hank's ass for
you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater."
With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.
"Better than nothing" is a pretty low standard though. The alternative wouldn't be to replace them with nothing, but with competing private schools. Harry Brown puts the argument pretty well here.
Oh, and comparing literacy rates from before public schools (1840?) and 2001 is of course of very litle value, since society has changed in 42 zillion other ways in between.
At least, thats the plan. Problem is that nowadays state run schools are largely dependant upon money from the Federal government, which is given to them if they meet certain requirements, some of them basically being consitutional limitations. My state runs an excellent education program, despite the flak recieved from the whole Creationism debacle.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Basically, for a large chunk of the republican party, their whole "morality" play is just a ploy to dupe the churchgoing population into voting for them. There are still LOTS of people who attend church (esp. in rural areas) and would like to see our government represent good morals. However, sooner or later, I believe that we'll see congress siding up with the businesses they are truly loyal to as opposed to the faithful.
Might be something hard to percieve, but it isn't impossible. For instance, maybe a church group decides to protest outside of many movie theaters or the movie studio that they disagree with the content of a movie. The studio feels that the protesting is hurting their movie at the box office, and sues them, or lobbies congress for new laws to shut up "moral" protesters.
Or perhaps a poor country church is accused by the RIAA of having a "public performance" of one of the songs "owned" by them without proper lisencing.
These things have probably happened quietly in the past. But maybe the media corporations will try to squash out the religious types after they are done dealing with the "evil hacker" types. I'm sure parents who are trying to raise their kids to follow their faith rather than becoming zombie consumers are pretty annoying to media corps.
BTW, Corporations want to convey the idea that file and intellectual property sharing == theft.
Hmn, an interesting quote here....
And all that believed were together, and had all things common
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
Acts 2:44-45 (KJV)
Of course, this verse was written almost 2000 years ago, but it does pertain to the sharing of goods and possessions with other people in your church. During the days of the early Christians, there really was no such thing as Intellectual Property as far as it exists today. I guess if you were to read this one loosely then you could justify sharing of things such as software between church members if there was a need for it. Just a thought anyway.
It is scary, however, how much we've let our rights get trampled over.
We've pretty much already given up on the right to bear arms in this country. Now we've got all of these gun control laws in place that were put there comfort all of those who are foolish enough to trade freedom for a false sense of security.
Let us not give up the rights guaranteed in the 1st. Ammendment just so we can stop the "evil hackers" out there from "stealing" from corporate fat cats. Congress is so sold out... if we sit here and let them, they WILL take away our other rights gradually if it benefits the corporations who bought them.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
AP: August 2001
In a shick move today Linus Torvalds finally admitted that Linux has ceased to be an operating system and bcome a religiion
"for some time now we have realised that to keep up the charade of an operating system was pointless' Said Mr Torvalds. "After all an Operating System is by default something that companies want to use because it is controlled and stable - and we realised linux didn't quite fit"
Mr torvalds then went on to outline how the decision that Linux was a religion came about " we were sitting around one day and we realised that we had all the hallmarks of a religion - we had loyal and vocal supporters willing to believe what they were told by the elders, they would willingly donate their time and money to the good of the cause and were used to irrational behaviour and insane actions and they never miss an opportunity to evangalise the word of the penguin at any occasion"
"plus they already had displayed religious zealotry in the form of Microsoft bashing and abuse of anyone with a different point of view showing the intolerance any major religion needs"
Mr torvalds outlined the basic belief systems of the church and its deities - "the great satan is of course bill gates ! and Microsoft will henceforth be known as "The Great Evil". We have decided to adopt as our symbol and image of Dimitri Skylarov crucified on a cross and the Penguin will of course be our sacred animal"
Mr torvalds went on to declare a jihad on Microsoft, The RIAA, The US Government, FBI, CIA, Every windows user, trolls and Steve Jobs. He also announced a rolling series of tent evagalist shows promising to show people the ture power of the penguin and outlined his plan to follow the hare krishnas and hand out linux distribution cd's to unsuspecting travelers and bus stops and airports.
Bill Gates was unable to be reached for comment due to his being 'doubled over laughing his head off' according to his secretary. Steve Ballmer just jumped around and made stpid noises as usual.
Analysts immedaitely advised customers to sell all of their stock in Linux companies such as VA Linux and Red Hat.
It is not known if this announcement is linked to Dennis Ritchies recent acknowledgment that UNIX was a "college prank that got out of hand"
Try defining a new particle.
Why do I get the feeling that the two parent posts were both written by the same person?
But how do you know that the Bible wasn't written by the Devil, hoping to fool people who were afraid to decide good and evil for themselves to follow his plan? The only real way to determine what is good and evil is to try things, and see what works best. That which helps the most is good, and that which hurts the most is evil.
For those /.ers who are interested enough about DMCA to want to write to their representatives in Congress about it, there is a note in the latest Risks Digest from another person who has concluded that he cannot take the risk of continuing to work in the encryption field either commercially or academically. Tracing the back links in that story gives other instances.
The fact that someone comes up with the idea of using religion against DMCA...
Or that it actually makes sense.
There is no such thing as good luck. There is only misfortune and its occasional absence.
I thought we were talking about the judeo-christian god who is explicitly described as being the creator of the universe and separate from it.
However it's still circular to say that the universe is good because the bible says so and the bible is true because it's part of the universe.
Inicidentally, changing the topic of conversation ie. from one god to another totally different one, is not a valid way of winning an argument either.
[paraphrase]The arguments aren't whether kids are allowed to form Gay and Lesbian Student Aliances, but whether allowing the clubs to use school property constitutes state support of homosexuality. My own view is that it does not, but reasonable people may differ on this point. [paraphrase]
Kinda falls on it's face when you apply it to someone else's pet group, don't it?
Not really. I think it applies just as well to Christians, Gays, and Nazis equally.
Why do you think I would have a problem with gays?
It's funny how people seem to think I'm either a foaming at the mouth Christian zealot or a flaming secular humanist, because I can see both sides of the argument.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Think "teenaged" in chicken years.
Virg
I disagree with that. I'm strongly opposed to school prayer or posting the 10 Commandments, etc. But we had a 'moment of silent meditation' every morning when I was in school, and I was never bothered in the least. There was no pressure to pray, and I usually just thought about what homework was due that day.
Since Social Security makes us all property of the government, does that mean that everything we create is also property of the government? (How can I make that statement? Well, it's called *collateral*. What do *you* think is the collateral for the several-trillion-dollar federal debt? The land? The people? Both?)
-AC because of subject matter.
Satan represents the advesary in christian mythos.
Actually thats Lucifer, try again.
(Yes people have confused Satan and Lucifer, but they are not the same.)
Feel free to check the rather in-depth anaylsis of this amendment at Findlaw. A search on Google will turn up some less-dense discussions of this amendment's implications as well.
The fact is that Christian groups are not treated as well as homosexual organizations. School administrators frown on religious groups while promoting homosexual group activities. Just look at Chicago sometime where public money is spent on a seperate prom for homosexuals. Yet church groups are looked on as strange and subversive. This kind of treatment is not confined to Chicago. So much the better for homosexuals, as long as these events and clubs are not being used for the exploitation of children by their supposed gaurdians.
It is perverse that the "establishment clause" which aims to protect religious expresion is used to opress religion. It seeks to protect religious expression in part by preventing the formation of a single state sponsored religion, but mosly by telling the state that no laws should be made against any religious activity or speach. People who prevent church groups from using public property by creating rules or laws against such use have clearly violated the constitution's spirit and letter.
It's hard to model yourself as moderate and side with those who violate the rights of others. The framers of the constitution considered homosexuality such a perversion as to continue to keep it unlawful. America has become a more tollerant place than that. Why would you side with anyone less tollerant than the constitution's framers? To "see the both sides" there is to give legitimacy to oppresors.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
(Yes people have confused Satan and Lucifer, but they are not the same.)
I blame it on the quality of religious education in this country.
As I understand Satanism (I know a few Satanists but I might have misunderstood them), they have exactly one commandment: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt."
That bit about harming none is very important and often "mistakenly" left off by dogmatic members of certain other religions, so they tell me.
One interesting thing to be about the "separation of Church and State" clause is that this clause is NOT from the Constituion -- which is why I get so irked when I see editorials and such in major newspapers talking about such and such being against the "Constitutional Separation of Church and State". It actually comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote, and, like you said, in context refers to his thoughts on why the State shouldn't be involved in the Church, rather than the popularly believed Church-not-involved-in-State.
Yes I realise that this is true, however in Anton Le vay Satanism, Satan is called such because he is the advesary to god. To christianity's hipocrocy comes a figure agaisnt this, he is the opposite, he is Satan. He does what is correct in life, he follows what he says. After all its god that starves the little children after putting them here, right?
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
In several states it was higher than it is today and in all states it was rapidly improving. There's no reason to think that government-run schools did anything to improve the rate at which literacy was improving. The modern common school was introduced in the US around 1840; compulsory schooling legislation was first introduced around 1890. Prior to 1840 in some of the northern states the literacy rate was 99% prior to the introduction of the modern government-run common school, and in all states it was already trending in that direction.
A brief google search on terms such as "literacy 1840" found a relevant partisan essay on the subject by Sheldon Richman and David B. Kopel called "End Compulsory Schooling". Here's the relevant part:
I play Nerd-Folk!