Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Licensure, Restriction, Cometry
Because not everything is as simple as who signs your paycheck ... cetan writes: "As a follow up to being laid off by AOL from Netscape, Mitchell Baker posted an article on Mozillazine discussing her role within Mozilla.org."
Can you think of a title to help her replace "Chief Lizard Wrangler"? All that wrangling has been a good thing, though, as recent builds make clear. I'd like to suggest "Reptilian Ambassador."
Sometimes, you just have to play. t0qer writes: "This is an update to this story. Originally I said kaillera was a net enabled version of mame, it's actually a free SDK to enable any emulator to have netplay. It was written by Christophe Thibault, of winamp fame. Contrary to some comments that the code was ripped from netmame, it was actually borged from jnetlib which was written by his boss and buddy Justin Frankel. So far kaillera has been adopted by 10 different emulators.
Speaking of games, iphayd writes: "Graeme Devine updated his plan , and released a version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. While this isn't interesting in itself, he's claiming that he is getting 3x the frame rate on a dual 800 G4 system than his dual P3 800 system."
You shall not convert the news headlines in the MSNBC component into an audio format. MarkedMan writes: "There has been some confusion over Microsoft's Frontpage EULA, with some claiming it prohibited using the software to produce works disparaging Microsoft and some saying it simply prohibited the use of the Frontpage logo on such sites. (The logo restriction actually seemed reasonable to me.) After some searching I found that some versions of the EULA do indeed limit use of the program itself. This from Northwestern University's Microsoft User License: Check out page 2, section 2. http://www.tss.northwestern.edu/select/mspur.pdf"
We have come to terms. bkuhn writes: "The FSF and FSMLabs have an agreement on a GPL-compliant version of the RTLinux Open Patent License. You can read our statement and related press release on the matter."
It's cool to see this sort of conflict work be met and resolved.
Not quite a date with a star. Troodon writes "A brief reminder, JPL and BBCnews report that this Saturday (22/SEP/2001) at 2230 Universal time (3:30 p.m. PDT) Deep Space 1 has a date with the Comet Borrelly"
*sigh* I wish someone would stand up to those greedy FSF lawyers.
Who is the turd who came out with the name operation INFINATE JUSTICE?
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.
Yeah, whoever uses FP to produce a web page, according to the EULA, is not allowed to remove the "active links" (advertisements ?) from the thing, you may not use it "in connection" with sites that diaparages M$, MSN, MSNBC, etc (note : nothing about those companies peoples, though).
More interesting : you may not use it and infringe ANY state, federal, international laws ! Woooah, given that it's nearly impossible not infringe any law somewhere, that would be a real feat !
Last but not least : you may not promote pr0n ! Yeah, sure, what do you think most porn site webmasters are using ?
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
So there you have it:
Terrorist beliefs do not represent Islam.
Bush beliefs do not represent Christianity.
I am still looking for the "holy" in this "holy war."
From the section referred to in the article:
Not having used FrontPage in general and any of these "web components" in particular, I don't want to draw any conclusions, but it doesn't seem like the restrictions covered in the section would come into play if you just use FrontPage as a WYSIWYG editor to design your site.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
The "updated his plan" link is broken. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy of that Wolfenstein release...
"I pray that this inhuman act will awaken in the hearts of all the world's peoples a firm resolve to reject the ways of violence, to combat everything that sows hatred and division within the human family...resist the temptation to hatred and violence, and to dedicate themselves to the service of justice and peace".
So there you have it:
Terrorist beliefs do not represent Islam.
Bush beliefs do not represent Christianity.
I am still looking for the "holy" in this "holy war."
*falls down laughing*
(Note: it took 3 minutes to get this comment through the "postersubj compression filter". WTF? Apparently, "Enough is Enough" is not an allowable subject field.)
This Microsoft cr*p is ridiculous.
It is now the time for anyone and everyone who spends a significant amount of money on Microsoft products to seriously evaluate their options (i.e. consider open-source and related software products).
From product activation to (fill in the blank) to this latest EULA fiasco, I think most people have had just about enough.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Hmmm, I wonder if the porn shops will soon have more openings for Linux folks... My wife wouldn't like it, but I think it would be a great work environment ;-)
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
The first paragraph in that section reads So basically MSFT doesn't want you using their COM objects on sites that perform illegal activities or diss MSFT subsidiaries. This is very different from stating that if you build your site with Front Page then you must conform to those restrictions. As for "active links", these refer to URLs that components may contaion that lead back to MSFT, for instance MSIE ships with links to Hotmail, Windows Update, and Windows Media Player while Netscape ships with links to AOL and Real. All that section is saying is that if you reuse their components then you shouldn't change the links, seems straight forward enough to me.
But only after much deliberation....
The Northwestern site appears to be slashdotted.... anybody got the relevant text from that pdf file?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
It appears the last quickies article was posted Wednesday March 28, @05:59PM. Come on now, there has to have been a lot of little cool stories since then. I miss the quickies. They had a lot of the funniest, coolest, weirdest tidbits on /.
Anybody know why they have ceased to exist? Taco, hemos, et al you out there?
I found out about Kalliera(sp) and immediately downloaded it. Imagine, being able to play real arcade games, with other people, over the internet! Wow!! I install, join a server, and plop. Nothing. The only games being played, and I mean the only games, are the dreadfully dull fighting games. I try some of the other servers, and the same thing is going on there. I repeat this process many times over the span of a few weeks, and I don't find *anything*. I mean, not one single time did I find anyone playing any real arcade games. I think once I saw someone playing Puzzle Fighter, which tries to fool people into thinking it's a fighting game, and evidently succeeded in this case.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
For those wondering where Graeme's claim about the framerates were, that was in an earlier update. You can find it at QuakeFinger as well.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
MAME is source-available (though not GPL) and is ported to many different architectures. Linux, DOS, Windows, Mac, even digital cameras.
Kaillera is a closed-source SDK for Windows only, therefore it has a much more limited appeal/application than MAME itself.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
(Damn the subject line sounds a bit... well, dirty!)
For a daily dose of quickies, hit: Memepool.com Most of the time it's better than what Slashdot's quickies were back when they posted them :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Of course they can. They can limit whatever speech through their medium that they want. Republican talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh don't have to allow liberals (or atleast, the smart ones) on their show if they don't want to. So what do liberals do when they don't have their voice heard on the EIB network? They go elsewhere.
And frontpage is nowhere near a monopoly, and there are tons of alternatives, so the ability to have speech is not limited through a medium, just one avenew out of several similiar avenews for expressing free speech in one medium is limited.
Restrictions like this should make a lot of people consider using alternatives. The more people that move away from microsoft products, the better. And if microsoft is going to give people good reason to switch, I'm not going to complain.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
I would avoid Reptialian Ambassador.
You wouldn't want anyone confusing Mitchell Baker with a M$ sales rep.
Did he recompile Wolf to take advantage of the second processor?
Has it occured to anybody that the names of the operations the US mil uses aren't normally the most eloquent or even intelligent? The name of an op does not necessarily have to relate to what the op is about. My point is, the name is only really there as a point of reference. They could call it Operation Speghetti and Meatballs for all anyone really cares.
Sorry for the stupid post. It's late.
There is simply too much glass..
Why should I care what the Pope has to say about any of this? If it was not for religion, we would not be in this absurd mess. The terrorists died, convinced by their religion that they would go on to live some kind of glorious, joy-filled afterlife.
I'm tired of holy wars, crusades, jihads, fatwas, terrorist acts by Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Jews, bombings of abortion clinics, murders of doctors, torture, murder, mutilation, and oppression by the Taliban, and dying children being denied medical treatment.
I am an atheist, realist, and an adult. I do not need religion to tell me comforting stories about an all-powerful being that watches over us -- but who will allow thousands of innocent people to be murdered by terrorists. I can do without the religious fantasies that say I will never die. I can distinguish right from wrong without ancient works of fiction to provide me with a moral compass.
More bad news for the religious among us: the Easter bunny, tooth fairy, and Santa Claus aren't real either. Grow up.
I seem to recall something about if you apply restrictions to the content of what passes through your channels, than you are giving what passes through the nod.
In the case of MS, by prohibiting particular content being made and published using their product, then they are leaving themselves open to aiding people who make, say, porn or hate pages, using Frontpage. And because their licences prohibit some content, then they are party to what is let through.
Hmmm - just a thought ....
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Folks, I work for a large company when these sort of things were brought to the table our lawyers wrote our OWN EULA that overrides M$'s, not to exclude clickable EULA either on all M$ products. You would be supprised they don't complain too much. This sort of strategy has been used on PO payment as well. For software unless we have a predetermined license agreement with a software vendor we include our OWN EULA as part of the payment process. They have 30 days to accept the payment and OUR EULA or we return the software and they don't get paid.
I have never seen a company complain about this. You thing a fortune 500 company worth their salt is going to agree to let M$ dictate there content our allow M$ to order an inventory of there software. Sheesh, it ain't as bad as you think.
This is probably fair enough for Hotmail, and Frontpage too -- how many Slashdotters would like the see the
However, as for any content generated by the program in question... strip out the META tags and M$ junk it includes in HTML files, and voila! "Could've been any program that done this, guv'ner..."
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Win2K come with a program called Narrator that converts text into an audio format. I wonder if we could sue MS for violating the DMCA (circumvention device) using their own software? Thoughts?
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
You may not use the software in a connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia or their products or services, infrince any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state federal or international law, or promote racism, hatred, or pornography...
I like what one poster made fun of -- what is Microsoft thinking? Can't make pr0n sites with frontpage? No links that promote racism or hatred?
This seems a bit much... I dont condone hate groups, nor do I condone racists... but I respect the right they have to have their views. Microsoft is seeming to be letting idealogies determine what a person can do with their product... to ask yourself if this can be done -- think: do you think its ok and legal to sell a product to make web pages with the EULA that "You can not use this to make any page that does not have only the words 'Microsoft is Cool' on it" and advertise it otherwise? Someone buys this product (for example) for the sole purpose to let other people know what a complete and total idiotic racist that they are, and then they find that the EULA that they did not see until after they installed the product prohibited it. They can't return it -- (open box software), and they cant use...
What can we do?
you're thinking of 'common carrier' status. It relates to telecommunications companies and has nothing to do with software.
-
Atheism is a religion, too. It is a concrete belief that is held without any conclusive proof one way or another. Some atheists are more dogmatic and hate-filled than your average churchgoer. Ask Russians what life is like under an 'enlightened' atheistic government. Belief or disbelief in universal principles is no guarantee of morality.
You need to draw a distinction between the positive philosophies espoused by most major religions and the self-serving hypocrisy of those who would use noble concepts to their own ends.
Just because you don't 'need' the myths of organised religion doesn't give you the right to get pointlessly aggressive with those who do. In a lot of ways, the myths of eternal life or reincarnation/karma are a lot like parents using Santa Claus as a way of teaching children the benefits of being good. It is explained to the immature in language they can understand and identify with. By the time they are old enough to see through the stories, the value of the underlying message will hopefully have made some impact on them. The fact that a lot of people misinterpret the message and stay stuck in a juvenile fantasy world indicates that it is not a foolproof methodology, but secular humanism doesn't have a 100% strike rate either.
Perhaps you should examine your own belligerent tone of phrase before you start accusing others of intolerance.
For the record, I consider myself an agnostic.
Maybe there isn't anything good to mod up. It isn't like any of the subjects are all that explosive, and most people (atleast in the US) are probably watching Bush's address to Congress and the nation about this "war" called Operation: Infinite Justice.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
If one uses "religion" as you define it, the word becomes watered-down and is essentially just a synonym for belief. So after we convince everyone of your definition, someone else will have to come along and create a word which means "a set of beliefs which are accepted on faith and usually involve some sort of deity." What word do you suggest we use?
-- La1d, killed by a newt, while helpless.
Theism, perhaps?
Okay, I was making a glib point, but the word is 'watered down' anyway. Buddhism and Confucianism have few or no positive references to God/gods, but most people, particularly in the West, would consider them religions.
Media Elements. The Software may include certain photographs, clip art, animations, sounds, music and video clips (together Media Elements)....
...(ii) You are not licensed to do any of the following:...
...You may not create obscene or scandalous works, as defined by federal law at the time the work is created, using the Media Elements...
Are they serious? Also, I thought the federal obscenity laws depended on local norms. What is "local" on the Internet? (Let alone "scandalous?")
"Atheism is a religion, too. It is a concrete belief that is held without any conclusive proof one way or another."
Atheism is a default position. We all start out atheists when we are born. We have no idea of a god until someone tries to tell us about one or we hypothesize one. We are "a-" without "theos" god belief. There are no rituals, no songs, no dogma. Is someone who has never heard of the god idea atheist? They have no belief in god. They don't even know what a god is. The belief in a god is absent. They are a-theos.
What does the word "god" even mean exactly? If I can't conceive of a god, then even the question is meaningless. How can I have a belief one way or the other if the concept itself seem unintelligible? This is the position of many atheists.
As to your statement about being agnostic, that is an answer to another question about what can be known. That isn't that same as what is believed. Are you an agnostic theist or agnostic athiest?
"Ask Russians what life is like under an 'enlightened' atheistic government."
Well, there are plenty of atheists who are skeptical of the communism idea as well as the god idea.
The next MS EULA should say anyone can use this peice of software as long as their skin isn't black. It's a free market what's wrong with that?
Or perhaps we could have the "no developers" license? You can only use this peice of software if you've never written a program longer than 2000 lines of code. (This would be for the purpose of stopping reverse engineering of course...)
Atheism is a religion, too. It is a concrete belief that is held without any conclusive proof one way or another.
Atheism is not a religion. It is the rejection of "faith" -- which is the term for believing in something without real evidence. If you are unwilling to reject the notion of "God", why would you reject the notion of the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy? Would you feel that someone who believed there was no tooth fairy was closed-minded or intellectually inferior to those who said "there could be a tooth fairy"?
You need to draw a distinction between the positive philosophies espoused by most major religions and the self-serving hypocrisy of those who would use noble concepts to their own ends.
I don't care about the positive philosophies of religion. It's time for man to grow up and take responsibility for his own behavior, thoughts, and morals. Christianity led to the Crusades. There was no weird splinter group that had perverted Christianity to that purpose. And religion brainwashes its practitioners into believing that they are doing the right thing, whether it's murdering abortion providers or crashing planes into skyscrapers.
Perhaps you should examine your own belligerent tone of phrase before you start accusing others of intolerance.
I never accused anyone of intolerance and I never claimed to be tolerant of religion. I am not and do not wish to be. Why should I be tolerant of something that has caused so much death and suffering? You act like intolerance is, by definition, bad. Are you tolerant of child molestors, muggers, rapists, murderers, and neo-nazis?
No we don't. That's like saying that we all start out with centrist political views. The whole notion of concepts like politics and religion is so alien to a newborn that to say they have any position at all is fallacious. Stricly speaking, from an etymological point of view, your interpretation of the word is correct, but "English as she is spoke " has a more restrictive, belief-based meaning.
No, that's the position of an agnostic. An atheist actively disbelieves in the existence of the divine.
Neither. Try not to be so binary.
Which has nothing to do with my original argument. Theist governments can be socialist, totalitarian, capitalist or any other -ist.
There are positive examples of 'atheistic' societies that are not repressive, but they tend to be centered around some defining philosophy like Buddhism. My point was that an overtly atheistic culture is not necessarily free of the type of repression that theistic cultures are.
Sadly, most of you are getting all uptight and angry at microsoft over a clause in the EULA which doesn't exist. Have any of you read it yourself? The clause which DOES exist, and has had one portion selectively quoted refers to placement of the FRONTPAGE logo on websites. You are all suggesting that you can't use FP to make pages you want to, impeeding on your free speech. This is so far from the truth it's not funny. Instead, this is an ALLOWANCE by Microsoft. Actually using the FP logo is a violation of trademark, however, in their license agreement, MS is allowing you to display their logo on your site, under their conditions. THIS IS COMPLETELY LEGAL AND MORAL! Here's the status quo - you're not allowed to use their logo, because you violate trademark copyright. However, due to their generosity, mainly stemming from their desire to promote their own product, they ARE allowing people put the logo on their pages, but only if you don't then go on to diss MS. It is their logo, and YOU are agreeing to a license to use it with them. They are not restricting your free speech at all - spout on about how much you hate M$ as much as you want, but don't violate trademark and display their logo while you're doing it. That's all MS is asking.
Penguin worshippers, stop thinking balls before brains and check out the facts before you start posting angry comments about MS destroying the first ammendment, thats simply not the case. Rather, MS is giving you the okay for you to break the copyright law protection on their trademark, as long as you follow certain guidelines in doing so. Thats not too much to ask when they're letting you steal something from them, is it?
Atheism is not a religion. It is the rejection of "faith" -- which is the term for believing in something without real evidence. If you are unwilling to reject the notion of "God", why would you reject the notion of the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy?
Actually, the other guy is right. The only intellectually pure stance is Agnosticism, when you believe that the existence of God can neither be proven or disproven. Atheism takes it as an article of faith that God doesn't exist, without any proof. Certainly you can make intellectual cases for the non-existence, but you can also make the same cases for the existence.
As for Santa Claus et al, it's actually not the same. We have evidence for the non-existence of Santa Claus, since we can trace the myth and see where it came from. As for God, he's been around since the dawn of writing, particularly the Judeo-Christian God (at least 8000 years, I believe). Not to mention that there is at least some "documented" evidence (the resurrection of Christ).
Anyway, if you want to intellectually clean, pick Agnosticism. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Or open up the list of rejected articles someplace for everyone to poke at. /. is getting all these submissions for free, follow the open source spirit and post them someplace.
Rate of spontaneous healing at Lourdes: 1/75,000
Rate of spontaneous healing anywhere else: 1/50,000
Also, for those that didn't notice it, http://www.microsoft.com/ was infected with the Nimda virus for about a half-hour yesterday (thereby infecting any unprotected surfers).
I'm tired of the bullsh*t of having to fight three different viruses at work and then coming home to MS commercials on tv where they hype security and "plays well with others". How 'bout a little truth in advertising?
-Firewall
Did anyone else think "V" when they read this? Showing my age, I guess.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
You have faith that your disbelief is true. Any logical system is built on unprovable axioms that must be believed in despite being unprovable.
A totally specious line of reasoning. Just because someone believes one thing, they are not compelled to believe in everything.
And all those whose societies are still too immature to deal with that can just implode for all you care. Perhaps they need to eveolve toward enlightenment by being shown positive examples of how to live without God. Insulting them will do that admirably, of course.
Actually, there was. Landless nobles used the crusade as an excuse to steal land from other Christians, not just Moslems or Jews. The calling of the Western crusade was misguided, but was at least partially in response to the foreign threat to the like-minded Byzantine Empire. It can be viewed as a political decision. How is it different to the formation of a Western coalition to fight Communism in Vietnam?
Or it can be used to teach 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. The vast majority of religious bvelievers are peaceful, if occasionally misguided. It's often a few bad apples that spoil the whole barrel.
Yes, you did:
That's an implicit assumption of intolerance.
Perhaps because you have an overly simplistic view of one of the most (if not the most) influential elements of human thought over the course of recorded history.
Religion has both good and bad elements. It is a notion that we are (in my opinion) evolving away from, but to scapegoat it for all the bad things that humanity has done ignores the fact that it is often a hypocritical excuse for bad behaviour rather than a cause.
They tried their damndest to get the Church of Satan to remove "Made with a Mac" or an apple logo removed from their pages.
At least MS is coming outright and tell users what they can't do, as opposed to picking on certain groups because it might upset the herd.
Most americans couldn't care less about free speech and the corporations know this, and now they're exploiting it.
I really don't expect to make a convert of somebody who is obviously dedicated to their own beliefs; but I will ask you not to make light of my faith. You don't know me, you don't have any idea how mature/immature I am, what I "need" to feel secure, and whether or not my beliefs are "fantasies." And while I don't favor a strict interpretation of the bible, I don't believe it to be a "work of fiction."
Nobody in my parish ever killed somebody because they were protestant, or buddhist, or hindu, or muslim, or jewish, or for that matter athiest. The people who do such things are likely to have been bad people with or without religion, as they've already twisted their faith into something it's not. They weren't taught to do these things by their faith. All of the religions I mentioned above espouse peace, love, support, tolerance.
You've every right to your opinion; but is it necessary to criticize me for mine?
Finally, what do you expect from the Pope? Wouldn't you be a little disappointed if the Pope, the leader of Catholicism, the man we call the "Holy Father" said "Nuke 'em. Stomp 'em. Kill as many of them as you can?" I would. Even if I felt that way, I'd be disappointed to hear the Pope say that.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
I'm normally not a MS basher. Hell, I've been an MCSE for over 2 years (both the NT4 and recently the 2K track)...but this kind of stuff makes me happy that I'm making the switch to Linux and open source.
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
Why should I care what you have to say about any of this?
I don't know, but you clearly do as evidenced by your lengthy response.
The victims died, convinced by their upbringing that these terrorists would go straight to hell.
The terrorists thought they would go to heaven, the Christians thought they would go to hell, and neither side has a shred of evidence to support their beliefs.
I am a Christian, realist, and an adult.
That is simply contradictory.
I do not need athiesm to tell me comforting stories about how I'm supposedly statistically smarter
Where did that come from? An atheist is someone who does not hold religious beliefs. It is not based on statistics about intelligence.
-- but who think that morality is subjective and bend it to whatever they want to believe in.
Personal insults about my morality are both inappropriate and baseless. You don't know me. You don't know how I lead my life, whether I help people in need, donate to charities, or have a strict moral code. Since you brought up the supposedly superior morality of Christians, I'll throw out a couple of names: Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Baker.
I can distinguish right from wrong without just making it up as I go along.
Right. You have such divine guidance as:
Exodus 21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
Great. You can beat servants as long as you do not kill them.
Deuteronomy 15:12 [And] if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
And you can only keep slaves for six years. Boy, that is some great moral guidance.
1 Corinthians 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
More declarations of right and wrong. Women are not to speak in church.
Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh [is] the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth [any] work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
More clear-cut moral guidance: Capital punishment for those who work on the sabbath.
The more I learn about the Bible, the more proud I am to be an atheist.
You have faith that your disbelief is true.
A lack of belief is not the same as disbelief. This is an important, though subtle, distinction. My beliefs are based on logic and reasoning, not faith. I have been provided no credible evidence of a god, therefore I do not believe that there is one. That is not the same as believing that there could not be a god.
A totally specious line of reasoning. Just because someone believes one thing, they are not compelled to believe in everything.
It is not at all specious. My point was that you are holding religious beliefs to a different standard of evidence than you would other beliefs. You implied that my lack of religious belief was akin to being closed-minded. Would you characterize a lack of belief in the tooth fairy the same way?
Yes, you did:
I'm tired of holy wars, crusades, jihads, fatwas, terrorist acts by Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Jews
That's an implicit assumption of intolerance.
I don't view those things as "intolerance." Denying medical care to a sick child due to religious beliefs is not intolerance and that was another example I provided. I view those things as heinous acts done in the name or religion. Intolerance is far too tame a word.
Perhaps because you have an overly simplistic view of one of the most (if not the most) influential elements of human thought over the course of recorded history.
Now show me that it's positive influence outweighs the negative. When you do that, I will be more tolerant.
The only intellectually pure stance is Agnosticism, when you believe that the existence of God can neither be proven or disproven. Atheism takes it as an article of faith that God doesn't exist, without any proof.
Atheism means "without religious beliefs." It does not mean an absolute conviction that it is impossible for God to exist.
I agree that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven. Neither can the existence of ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster, the tooth fairy, or Bigfoot be proven, but that does not mean that you must mentally give each one a 50/50 chance of existing in order to be intellectually pure. If I went into a room full of cosmologists and claimed that the universe was populated with invisible, massless, giant warthogs, I doubt that they would be "agnostic" about the subject -- even though they could not disprove my claim.
Not to mention that there is at least some "documented" evidence (the resurrection of Christ).
Just as there is "documented evidence" of the Greek gods, the Roman gods, and the Norse gods? Evidence is more than something written anonymously in a book.
Sounds like agnosticism to me. Also, you did implicitly state that you believed that God wasn't real:
Sounds like a belief in nonexistence to me.
Then it was a poorly argued point. All matters of faith are not logically equivalent. A belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life (based on the size of the universe, or whatever) does not compell me to place that faith in the same basket as belief in UFO abductions.
Another problem is that you seem to have just as immature a notion of God as the people you slag off. I suspect that a lot of smart religious people do not believe in a bearded guy sitting on a cloud, but have a more sophisticated notion of a universal principle. The fact that a lot of people don't have this maturity does not invalidate the basic premise.
Choosing the one element of that list that I would not classify as rooted in intolerance (except of ideas) does not alter the basic nature of my point. You're being a bit semantically slippery, here. Let's use other words: bigotry, chauvinism, fanaticism. You say potayto, I say potaato.
Prove to me that the positive benefits of capitalism, secular humanism, Taoism, etc, etc outweigh the negative. What a pointless challenge.
Okay, here's some positive things that organised religion does: foundation of socially inclusive charitable institutions, political activism such as liberation theology, safekeeping of secular knowledge during the dark ages. If you want to claim that such activities could carry on separate from religion, then you have to accept that murderous hatred and fanaticism could as well.
Sorry if this is off topic... but it's been *very* hard to program this last week. I feel like I have this enormous burden on my chest. I live in a Democracy, and I feel I must now pay for my freedom with time, energy, and concern. If you feel the same way, please comment on this draft to the President regarding his speech this evening. If you don't feel this way, please don't mark me as Troll or Flame-Bait. Instead write your own letter. Call me an idealist if you wish... but somebody's got to do it. Thank you.
...
Dear President,
Given that you have resolved to take actions against Afghanistan and that our Congress has passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, I humbly offer a few suggestions which I hope you will consider.
0. We need more compassionate talk about those innocent refugees who are ravaged by war in Afghanistan. Identify with them and the Arabic world will follow you. Give these people hope and help them rebuild their society. Only then will terrorists be unwelcome.
1. Make it clear that we are temporary guests who are visiting to restore basic freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, and self-determination. Clearly point out how Muslims, Christians, and Jews peacefully practice their religions in our country due to the separation of church and state.
2. For every military dollar, spend two dollars on relief efforts in Afghanistan and other "at risk" areas where dissent is evident. To really fight terrorism, we must give hope back to the citizens of Afghanistan. Use this to rally the Arabic peoples of other nations to support us so that the terrorism does not just move to another country.
3. Declare an American media style 'war on mines'. Rally the Arabic world to help rid Afghanistan of its millions of mines. Let this be a known goal of our "invasion". Promise on our nation's flag that we will not leave mines when we go.
4. While "war against terrorism" rages, carry on a separate 'war on illiteracy' in the Refugee camps. Build schools. Teach them Math. Teach them Science. Teach them Humanities (esp. Middle-Eastern History). Teach them Business. Teach them Agriculture.
5. Help rebuild their cities by providing knowledge, food, housing, supplies, and encouragement. Help them rebuild their countryside by exploring what crops work best in their climate and how to build an agricultural system to support their peoples.
6. Help them form a democratic government. Be clear that we are not Imperialistic. Afghanistan is their country, and will remain their country.
7. Above all, make it known to the Afghan people and the whole world that we are there to remove terrorists and the government which harbors those terrorists. Make it clear we will eventually leave. And make it clear that when we do leave, their country will be in better condition than when we arrive.
I close with the recently spoken words of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II:
"I pray that this inhuman act will awaken in the hearts of all the world's peoples a firm resolve to reject the ways of violence, to combat everything that sows hatred and division within the human family."
"[May God] help all to resist the temptation to hatred and violence, and to dedicate themselves to the service of justice and peace."
Sincerely Yours,
Clark C. Evans
blatant M$ astroturfing.
Atheism means "without religious beliefs." It does not mean an absolute conviction that it is impossible for God to exist.
According to the dictionary, Atheism actively denies the existence of God, which I think regardless of the etymological derivation of the word, is pretty much the modern usage. Just check out alt.atheism if you don't believe me. There are some might strident folks in there. :)
I agree that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven. Neither can the existence of ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster, the tooth fairy, or Bigfoot be proven,
Ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot could all be proven to exist given one example. The Tooth Fairy, on the other hand, is in the same class as Santa Claus where we can actively trace the myth and determine that it was human created.
Just as there is "documented evidence" of the Greek gods, the Roman gods, and the Norse gods? Evidence is more than something written anonymously in a book.
The Greek gods, Roman gods and Norse gods are all steeped in clear mythical literature. In other words, there were never any claims that the literature was true. The difference is that the bible is claimed to be based on eyewitness accounts.
Trust me, I'm with you for the most part. I think the chance of God existing, at least as the Judeo-Christian faiths define God, is pretty close to zero. My only point is that when it comes to the question of whether there is a Supreme Being running the universe (independent of whether that being is described Judeo Christian beliefs), it's best to stay agnostic about it. Like I said, one visit to the looney bin known as alt.atheism should convince anyone that those people cling to their beliefs as tightly as the most rabid religious nut. They won't even consider that there might be "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy". :)
Personally, I think we should just define God as "that which created the universe", and be done with it. Then we can all believe in God, and never fight another religious war.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
"Americans are asking: Why do they hate us?
They hate what we see right here in this chamber, a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other"
And the people cheered.
But it is pure self-gratify bullshit! Clear thinking is being thrown out the window. I am all for War, sure, but War with intellect intact with sound reasoning and clear obtainable objectives.
The US people are being mislead and are being swept in a tide wave of nationalism, and nationalism is at the bottom of greatest evils this world has ever endured.
First off we are not being attacked because or our democratic principals or our freedoms. The irony is that the majority of people are all for the removal of our freedoms in order to attack those who supposedly hate our freedoms.
We are being attacked by blind religious fervor that is not based in logic and has its example in the dark ages. The mixing of fundamental religion and autocratic power is devastating. We are stooping to their level and will pay the price.
This is worse than Vietnam. The jungle will be our civilized society. And this time there will be chemical and biological weapons that we cannot detect or stop. In 5 years, it will be nuclear and will make the WTC look like a day in park. It is time for new solutions.
Bush has hinted that it will take 100 Billion bucks to win this war. 100 Billion and we will not win the way he is vaguely proposing. What if we took 100 Billion and invested in the future. Let have a "go to the moon" attitude on energy independence. Rampup spending on fusion, space based energy and alternative energy research. Then we can de-emphasize the importance and significant on the Middle East.
Talk about a war on drugs. How about the way Americans are addicted to cheap Middle East oil. And like an addict we make stupid decisions, like supporting feudal governments such as Saudi Arabia or even Osoma. The Middle East region is stuck in the dark ages. Let them fight out between themselves. I am confident that given a generation or two they we emerge from the cellar. Lets not follow them in.
Anyone with dissenting opinion is promptly criticized with a "if you don't love it leave it" attack. This is the same knee jerk response that was repeated over and over during the Vietnam era. And surprisingly the present day hawks (like Bush and most of his advisers) used their influence to run and hide. Were was our leader in those years, MIA.
Bush has yet to state what our objectives are. Words like:
"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or rest."
Cut of funding. How much do you think the WTC attack cost? $200K maybe $300K. As long as developed nations pump trillions of dollars into the region there will always be a budget for terrorism.
turn them one against another Oh, i like this one best. As a common enemy, we will achieve the exact opposite. Instead of focusing on each other they will have the great satan to fight. They don't call it holy war for nothing.
Drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or rest. Bush should get a travel guide of Afghanistan from the Russians. They drove their tanks to battle and flew their bombers from the homeland and they were still decimated and humbled in the end.
Well, maybe it's okay as long as you are just showing pornography. This isn't promotion, after all. So "Come See Barely Legal Chicks" sites would be banned, but just no-frill hardcore porn pages would be A-OK.
Similarly, maybe this means it's okay to make a site saying "I hate, I am racist, and here's a picture of me naked", as long as you aren't saying that other people should feel the same.
I've wondered about going through the entire purchase-refuse-EULA-get-return-denied process, and then go ahead and find something interesting in the EULA that I can then break (since they haven't held up their end of the contract, I thus wouldn't be bound).Maybe I should purchase a copy of FrontPage, try to return it, fail, and then make a particularly offensive page with it, with a big "made with FrontPage" logo on it.
The other way would be civil disobedience -- buy this sort of software on a credit card, and when you can't return it get the credit card company to stop payment. I've never done that sort of thing with a credit card, so I don't konw how hard it is. Admittedly you wouldn't be going into the transaction in good faith either. I'd be curious if someone else has tried such a thing.
No, that's the position of an agnostic. An atheist actively disbelieves in the existence of the divine.
no, you sir are completely incorrect. an atheist has no belief in god, period. that does NOT mean they believe there is no god. pay attention to the difference. one who actively believes there is no god is more accurately described as a hard atheist.
please stop spreading incorrect information.
Definition. Perhaps you should stop spreading pompous inaccuracies. By the definition of most thinking people, agnosticism is the "no belief in God, period" that you ascribe to the more active denial inherent in atheism.
Wooah - 3x the frame rate on a duel G3 800, compared to a duel PII 800.
This is a nonsense comparison - as the entire architecture of the G3 means that it is more equivilent to a higher clock speed PII. It's akin to comparing Q3 on a PII333 and a PII750 (or whatever).
Check this out: .
You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia or their products or services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state, federal or international law, or promote racism, hatred , or pornography
That's just obtuse.
Homeland security? Why the hell not 'Interior' security? It dosen't seem patriotic enough? Maybe the Dept. of Defence should be renamed the Dept. of Crusades!
Pacific Bell Internet Services has a similiar clause in their usage aggreement. That means that if I were to tell you guys the truth, that PacHell has the worst tech (non)support of ANY ISP that I've ever had to deal with, then they could revoke my account. I've contemplated using this as an out of the minimum 1 year service agreement if I need to.
Atheism is to religion as to baldness is a haircolor. To be atheistic, all you have to be is without a diety. The lines between atheism and agnosticism don't exist, and most agnostics qualify as atheists since they don't recognize any diety, only proclaim that such an entity cannot be discovered through our means. Atheism also procures no dogmatic structures, although people do certainly create their own, and yes they often are brazen about it. Atheism is little more than a philosophy. The stubbornness, egotism, hatred and bigotry are personal.
Why not call it Counterstrike ?
On second thoughts that's a bad idea; someone's already got the game rights to that already !!
When is someone going to release a Quake/Half Life addon pack with Bin Laden lookalike terrorist enemies ?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Wouldn't you be a little disappointed if the Pope, the leader of Catholicism, the man we call the "Holy Father" said "Nuke 'em. Stomp 'em. Kill as many of them as you can?" I would. Even if I felt that way, I'd be disappointed to hear the Pope say that.
Actually lots of Popes in history have uttered almost exactly those words, especially about Islam [Crusades, Protestants, alternative Catholic church, Inquisition etc]; it's only in recent times that religions in general have started to frown on such things.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Plus, if you're looking forward to the gnu economy, you may want to investigate acquiring your own, descriptive, relevant, URLs. thanks.
"You have faith that your disbelief is true. Any logical system is built on unprovable axioms that must be believed in despite being unprovable."
Nice try boy, but you just blew your none-to-carefully-worded arguement. For you see, Sparky, atheism does not involve "faith" at all, but rather the concept of accepting independently verifiable empirical fact. In other words, since there are no emprical facts that indicate the presence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, yet invisible and undetectable metapresence with the name God, there's no reason for an atheist to even consider such a concept - much like there's no reason for them to consider that the sky of Earth may acutally be *red*. Also, unlike the agnostics, the atheist is truly the embodiment of anti-relgion because they do not vascillate. In short, athesits are quite secure in the *fact* that there is no evidence as yet to bulwark the conception of the existance of "Godlike" beings; ergo the concept of such a being is currently a non-sequitor (this can, of course, chage if actual emprical evidence shows up to back up the aforementioned idea - a consequence of basing a conceptual framework on the tenants of the scientific method. However, I have yet to hear a repeatable, independently verifiable supernatural event take place. Do tell me when such an event comes about, m'kay?
What absolute nonsense. Agnosticism is entirely in line with the scientific method. It's all very well and good having a hypothesis, but the absence of proof for it does not invalidate it. Agnosticism is more in tune with reality than either religion or atheism, which are both extremist positions.
Lets trade Ariel Sharon for Osama bin Laden; i.e., our terrorist for yours.
The butcher of Beirut for the butcher of Manhattan. Seems like a fair
trade. Let us show the world that the lives of Palestinian women and
children are just as sacred as the lives of American women and children.
The life of one American soldier invading Afghanistan is not worth Sharon.
God bless America
Pete.
People still using FrontPage? Crap, I thought everyone with a shred of self-respect was using DreamWeaver...
Dont complain about FrontPages licensing issues, just dont use it and dont buy it...
Anyway, anything, under any platform is better than FrontPage (and InterDev is pretty sucky too)...
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
Before you get too proud, why don't you try actually LEARNING about the Bible first. This book was written a long time ago so you can't just take what it says without knowing when or why it was said. It's called CONTEXT. Or are your READING COMPREHENSION and HISTORY skills as out of date as that King James version you're quoting from?
Or you could just continue to be smug in your ignorance. At least until the day of your death.
Sounds like agnosticism to me.
To me, an agnostic is someone who is "on the fence" and cannot decide whether to believe or not. I am absolutely not in that category. I do not believe that there is a God and will not believe it unless someone provides me with credible evidence -- and old books don't count as evidence to me.
Also, you did implicitly state that you believed that God wasn't real:
I do not believe in anything without evidence -- God included. If credible evidence is presented, my mind can be changed, but right now, I see no significant chance that God exists in any form.
I also don't want to fall into the religious zealot trap that argues anyone unwilling to claim with certainty that God does or does not exist is confused. It's the same line of reasoning that causes them to claim that evolution is only considered a "theory" so creationism must be an an equally likely explanation.
I suspect that a lot of smart religious people do not believe in a bearded guy sitting on a cloud, but have a more sophisticated notion of a universal principle.
I am sure that is true but my intent was not to argue their point. A caricature the less sophisticated beliefs better serves my purpose and the very fact that God is so ill-defined as to be so different to different people is, in and of itself, telling.
Prove to me that the positive benefits of capitalism, secular humanism, Taoism, etc, etc outweigh the negative. What a pointless challenge.
Not pointless at all. You urge me to be more tolerant of religious views that I feel lead to death, torture, destruction, pain, suffering, grief, and war. All I am asking you to do is show me why I should be more tolerant of something that I feel does so much harm. Or should I just take it on faith that religion is good?
"You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia or their products or services"
Basically they're saying that you can't use Frontpage to build frontpagesucks.com. . .
Do What??? That whole statement seems to center around the premise that I even care.
Do you wander around all day saying "I Don't Believe in Santa Clause." Do you confront people with your disbelief? Do you join the "Don't believe in Santa Clause" movement?
NO!.
I don't care. Plain and simple.
To be more accurate, I don't care about organized religion, churches, meetings, prayers, et al. I do believe that the basic teachings included in most religious texts, be it the bibles, Qu'ran (sp?) or whatever, all have good ideas about human cooperation and peace. But the absolutism that these texts are held to is just closed minded and dangerous.
My offer is: Read the text, pay attention to the parts about peace, cooperation, love your neighbor, help others, all that stuff. The rest of the stuff that doesn't really fit with modern knowledge (science, astornomy et al) is just historical efforts to understand science but have been outdated by modern knowledge. And when it says "This is the absolute, correct word of God and shall not be disparaged in any way" think "Some human is making a power play and trying to control his neighbors" or "Microsoft".
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
believe that there is a God and will not believe it unless someone provides me with credible evidence -- and old books don't count as evidence
to me.
Or should I just take it
...", and "..go forth and tell all the world..", and "Believe in me and you shall be saved". Notice that there is nothing in there about hatred. Many people call themselves Christians, and many of them honestly believe that they are, yet they don't seem to be living up to what Christ asked of us. Be aware that most of what you have heard called Christianity might well be something else entirely. Find out what it is before you reject it. If you want to learn about it, try reading the book of John, and the book of acts, then email me with questions at tomlinso@purdue.edu
on faith that religion is good?
Well, that's exactly right, actually. You must take the whole package on faith, at least for Christianity. God seems to have been careful to leave no eye-witness accounts of his time here in the flesh, except in the bible. If you read the old testament, you find over and over that God places enormous emphasis on faith. Consider his relationship with Abraham: Abraham was a terrible sinner, but was justified by his faith.
I have heard that there are historical proofs of the existence of Budda, Mohammed, Joseph Smith and perhaps of some other religous figures. Many knowledgeable Christians have told me that there are indeed historical confirmations of Jesus's life and death, but none have ever managed to actually point me to them. If there are indeed no proofs outside the bible, that seems quite consistant with God's insistance on faith.
Christianity is about Christ and why he came here: God sent him to live a sinless life and then be killed by us to atone for our sins. I have no idea why God choose to do any of this, but I take it on faith that because of it, we can receive forgivness from God. If you are not perfect in God's eyes, you need that exactly as badly as I do.
If you want to know what God expects from us, Christ told us, among other things: "...love your neighbor as yourself
I am a Christian, realist, and an adult.
That is simply contradictory.
This is simply flamebait. Or would be if the rest of the message weren't fairly well written and reasonable.
You don't exactly say why someone can't be Christian, adult, and realist at the same time, but I'm guessing your quotations form some of your evidence for that. The thing about the Bible is that it is a huge book (compilation of books, actually) written over a very large span of time in cultures significantly different from our own. They seem jarringly "unchristian."
But I want to show that a Christian person can be realistic and logical. Such a person (me, for example) would do some research and come up with the following conclusions:
Exodus 21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall surely be punished.
It actually gets worse if you read the next verse. That verse says that if the servant lives, then he won't be punished at all, because, after all, he's already lost the services of that slave, who was his property.
The thing is that the slavery/servanthood system back then was not as bad as the slavery that existed in the US before the civil war. Now that doesn't mean that it was good on any scale, but if you happen to be a Deity who is trying to lead a group of people "rough and stiffnecked" people through the desert, who complain that instead of all the really great food they had in Egypt while they were SLAVES there, they have to eat this mana stuff which you cause to appear on the ground every morning while they wander through the desert for 40 years because even though they saw You (said Deity) rain down the 10 plagues on Egypt, open the Red Sea, etc., they took one look at the giants in the promised land and didn't think You could handle that little problem, then as said Deity You have to realize that you have the racial equivalent of a "problem child" on your hands and they probably won't accept it if you try to change their whole social, political, and economic structures over night. (*) As such, you will prioritize the Bad Things which you have to get rid of, and perhaps even make some gradual changes on them.
That's where the second verse comes in:
Deuteonomy 15:12 [And] if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
God changes the slavery system here. It is no longer a permanent thing, but more like selling your services to someone for seven years in return for room and board. As opposed to various forms of robbery or begging, I think that's a marked improvement. Slavery here wasn't a system in which a group of people captured a bunch of foreigners and then forced them to work for life, along with their children and all their decendents. Slaves were people who had been hit with sudden and severe lack of economic means with which to sustain their basic needs (mainly just food, in those days). Thus, the slaves came from the same set of people as their owners, and so the owners placed a greater value on them (as a human being). Also because of this, they weren't all that common, and were looked upon with far more value (economically) than slaves in the US were. Thus, beatings would be pretty rare. If they did happen, the law states that if the slave lived, the loss of his services would be enough to convince any smart slaveowner that beatings weren't a very good economic choice. In summary, slavery in this culture was not what we think of when we think slavery, and while not wholly desirable, was something far more akin do (indentured) servanthood.
Also, there were three types of laws given to the Isrealites. This law was part of the laws for the nation of Isreal. We're not necessarily bound by them today, although they are worth studying for the principles behind them. Another part of the law was the ceremonial law, which had to do with the priests, worship service, and sacrifices in the sanctuary. This whole system of laws was a symbol of the plan of Salvation - specifically, Jesus taking our sins on Himself and dying on the cross for us. These laws are very much worth studying, but these symbols of what was to come became meaningless when what was to come came. The other set of laws was the 10 commandments, or Moral Law. These laws are still very much in effect, no matter who tells you that they were "nailed to the cross." Christians would do well to heed them, and here I'll take the oppurtunity to suggest that they all take a closer look at the 4th one. (well, 3rd if you think that it was valid for the roman catholic church to remove commandment number 2 and split commandment 10 into 2 commandments so that there would still be 10.)
OK, next verse:
1 Corinthians 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
Paul can be a pain to reconcile with the modern day idea of the equality of the sexes. My take on it is that males and females are of equal value, but are generally assigned different roles. One of these, as un-PC as it may seem, is that in a marriage relationship the women are supposed to be obedient to the man. Or rather, the two people are metophorically supposed to become one, so that they make decisions and decide on things together, but if they can't come to an agreement (which shouldn't happen very often in a working marriage), the man gets the final say. But why should the women shut up in church? Well, evidently the church services in Corinth were a bit too chaotic, to the point where hardly anyone could understand anything. The Corinthian populous was fairly heterogenous, linguistically speaking, and at any given time in the service there might be several different people prophesying/preaching in different languages, more people translating for them, and on top of this all the wives talking to their husbands and asking for their husbands to explain this chaos to them. So in the last part of 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is trying to lay down some ground rules which suggest that if in general only one person speaks at a time then in general everyone will get a lot more benefit out of the service.
Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh [is] the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD; whosoever doeth [any] work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
Exodus through Deuteronomy cover roughly overlapping time sequences. In Deuteronomy 15:32-36 there is a story of a man who was gathering sticks on the Sabbath. He wasn't supposed to be doing that, but the leader's didn't know what to do with him so they asked Moses, who asked God. Got told Moses the man had to be stoned. The first point about this story is that neither the leaders nor Moses knew what to do, so the law from Exodus hadn't been given yet. This story gives us some of the background on that law. Not much, so let me use my imagination and my view of God to fill in one plausible account of these events - Gathering sticks on the Sabbath is not such a big infraction, and in my opinion (I keep the Sabbath) is in most cases quite ok to do. But this man did it, and God had him stoned. Why? I'd say it's because this guy was pretty angry at these restrictions placed on him and on God in general. He probably didn't even need the sticks, he was just rebelling against the Rules and in effect saying "I'm breaking the law, what are you going to do about it?" Now God, in his infinite love, realizes that your eternal destiny is the only thing that really matters, and that this life doesn't. So if this person is already in such a mindset that he will forever be rebelling against God and never allowing himself to be saved, it is insignificant whether he gets killed now or lives a few more years. Maybe stoning him now is actually the only way in which he might be saved if he realizes his error as he is getting stoned or about to be getting stoned and has true repentence. So as far as the man is concerned, punishing him with death is not eternally significant except for the chance that he'll reconsider and be saved because of it, which is a good thing. Nothing to lose, everything to gain for him.
However, this was the first time that this law had been broken, and it was clear that the decision on this issue would affect how the Israelites viewed sin, and the Sabbath. Stoning would drive home the eternal consequences of sin home to the Israelites (humans have this way of ignoring the eternal) and hopefully deter them from making the same mistakes.
My point is that Christianity can form the basis for a consistent, logical view of life, the universe, and everything. I'm just guessing, but I'd say that your view of this stuff probably also constitutes a fairly consistent system.
So why do I believe in Christianity and not agree with you? I have basically two choices: The universe was created by some sort of God, or the universe, and all life in it, came about because of some random chain of events. Now I think, for many reasons, that evolution is incredibly improbable on astronomical proportions. I'm talking about the kind of thing where it's theoretically possible, according to quantum theory, that I could suddenly find myself transported one foot in any given direction, because electrons and such don't actually exist at a certain place but rather there are certain finite but extremely small probabilities that they are in any given place in the universe. My knowledge of quantum theory being limited I may have screwed something up, but I think the chances of evolution happening are something of one to the number of atoms in the universe or something.
You see, evolution says that we evolved from more primitive organisms and on down the line via random mutations in our DNA in which the bad ones got filtered out (natural selection) and the good ones remained. But for this to work, there has to be some mechanism for the DNA to propogate itself, and to mutate. The simplest thing capable of doing this would be a very simple cell. Simple, as far as cells go, but incredibly complex nontheless. So where did the first cell come from? Lots of structures in the cell are very interdependent on eachother, so you'd basically have to have the cell wall, it's DNA, incredibly complex enzymes that walk along this DNA and copy it in some manner, and a method to provide energy for these reactions, to name a few. None of these components can really exist without all the other ones. So, you'd have to have them spring into existence (the atoms would have to magically form into the right molecules, and so on) virtually instantly, for it to work at all.
That's one of the big reasons I don't believe in evolution. Some evolutionists also see this problem and think the first cells were seeded by some alien race or came from mars or something. I just think Creation by a God is a better explanation.
Daniel Plaisted
daniel@danielplaisted.com
* - I apologize for the runon (andonandonandon) sentence. I tend to think it's funny...
When he said his canidate had served in the military and was a governor there was a glimmer in my heart that he'd name Gov Jesse Ventura to the position. I mean really who could protect our country better than a pro wrestler? No body wants to mess with that d00d. I bet he could kick Ridge's ass too.
Your comment was true about the other story, until it was updated. I would suggest you read the links in THIS article that goes to a copy of the EULA which DOES contain this restriction. There seem to be different versions of the EULA.
:P
Anonymous coward, stop thinking balls before brains and check out the facts before you start posting angry comments about penguin worshippers
You're right. Several Popes throughout history did say that, and other similar things. And it was wrong. Do we now criticize the current Pope for not doing that?
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Clearly the president stated in his address that we are not at war with Afghanistan, but he said, "Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them." He identified al Qaeda as at the root of terrorism.
Bush also noted, "The leadership of Al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see Al Qaeda's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough."
On humantarian aid, "The United States respects the people of Afghanistan--after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid--but we condemn the Taliban regime." The US is the largest donor of aid to help the Afghans, aid that amounts to $170 million this year.
All that you suggest is good, but I think the President is way ahead of you on this
You can't criticise the Pope - he is infallible!! At least according to Catholic Church doctrine he is. (Actually I don't know if this has been knocked on the head nowadays)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Ho hum, not that anyone seems to be too fussed anyway but here is the correct link to the JPL news item. Good luck DS1.
troodon.net
Updates:
Deep Space 1 comet flyby highly successful
Spacecraft flies close to comet
troodon.net
Well, the key point is that it's heavily based on faith.