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God's Debris
I like reading books that make me think, but not in the same way that I think when I'm at work or doing homework. When reading for pleasure, I want something that at first glance is so strange it's absurd, but at closer examination makes a tremendous amount of sense. That depth is the essence of Scott Adams' God's Debris, A Thought Experiment.
Adams is not known for writing super-intelligent commentaries on life, at least ones without a punchline or visual gag. Creator of Dilbert, his writing to this point has focused upon the world of cubicles and shifting organizational charts where engineers and management ('induhviduals' as he often calls them) square off in battles where the engineers are right and management is wrong. Very straightforward, enjoyable reading, but nothing compared to his latest work.
God's Debris was first published in May of 1999 as an e-book. It is sold by Digital Owl and can be purchased as bits for $4.95 or in hardcover wherever books are sold. The story focuses on both the physical laws of nature (relativity, gravity, the origin of the universe) and the psychology behind religion. The story is told by a fairly educated narrator talking to an unseen second character who seems to hold a deep understanding of the universe. As I read more, I found my own questions being raised by the narrator, and addressed by the other character. This arrangement makes for a very strange read, but the unusual format enhances the overall reading experience.
This book second guesses everything one learns in school, and comes close to succeeding. I cannot think of a single statement in the book that can be proven incorrect. To a college-educated reader like me, some of the assertions may seem totally ridiculous -- the problem is that they make just as much sense as Einstein's relativistic physics. In the introduction to the book, Adams observes the fact that ' ... the simplest explanation usually sounds right and is far more convincing than any complicated explanation could hope to be.'
The protagonist makes some very peculiar assertions throughout; My favorite is a statement he makes about the true nature of gravity, specifically that it is fueled by probability. The idea his advances is that all matter is constantly switching in and out of existence, and that is how objects move. The reason that matter appears to be attracted to other matter is that, according to the rules of probability, each piece of matter will inherently appear closer to massive objects the next time it comes back into existence. If you didn't understand that, and you'd like to, then you should read the book.
If you are a religious person, I can assure that this book will be disturbing. Although not told from an atheist point of view, the protagonist rejects the traditional view of religion. There are references to religious beliefs as 'delusions' only intended to allow the less-enlightened to live in relative peace in a world which has little. Taken as a whole, the views expressed can best be summarized ala Jesse Ventura, that 'organized religion is a crutch for the weak-minded.'
I'm purposely avoiding going into detail about the contents of the book. This is not only because a small piece doesn't make sense by itself, but also because most of the fun is in the discovery. Reading this book, you feel as if you are the first and only person to truly understand the world. I wouldn't want to spoil that for you. It's only 132 pages, broken up into very short chapters, and it can be read on your lunch break. I highly recommend it.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Do you want to see your book review on Slashdot? Please take a look at the book review guidelines first.
I liked it.. but I read the whole thing and there was no fucking Dogbert! What the hell..
Jesse Ventura rephrased that from Karl Marx, who said that "religion is the opiate of the people".
Grab.
It would be hard to take any book by him that does not contain comic strips, seriously. I would also find it hard to take seriously a book on philosophy by Charles Schultz, Stan Lee, O.J. Simpson, or Tonya Harding. There's just too much extra baggage tied up with what I think I know of the author. Plus I still haven't forgiven him for that damn Dilbert T.V. show.
I liked the book overall, but I wouldn't say it "blew my mind" or anything. I had read some comments about it prior to shelling out the $4.95 and it sounded like I was in store for some kind of profound mind-blowing experience. I'll admit some of the concepts were a little novel, but not much beyond things that I hadn't already thought of at one time or another. It was neat seeing them all in one place, in a story setting.
If you like the book, I would also recommend getting The Celestine Prophecy (can't think of the author at the moment). It can be a little preachy at times, but overall has some very neat ideas in it.
Qué el infierno usted está hablando?
And loved it. There's something in every chapter to make you think, and the source of the title, "God's Debris", left me stunned. I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a complete "mind-job", and it contains a lot of new ways of looking at just about every aspect of life - from religious to physical to social.
READ IT.
That is all.
Last post!
It's an interesting read, it's kinda fun trying to seperate the stuff that actually makes sense from the stuff that's just bullshit that sounds good. (A suggestion to do this was in the preface) It really does made you question a lot, but for me it didn't really get interesting until the gods debris part.
Very few people ever get this right, so get a good look and do everyone a favor by not modding it down.
If a name ends in an 's' (Scott Adams, for example), the apostrophe should appear after the end of the word.
Correctly written: "Scott Adams' God's Debris."
This is the worst sig ever.
I haven't read this book. However, Adams exposed his "serious writer" persona in the last section of "Dilbert Future", in which he talked about his personal observations on science and humanity. I found this section the weakest of the book -- it was poorly thought out and scarcely researched. Furthermore, Adams' smug writing style needs to be offset by humor in order to avoid seeming arrogant. Many of his claims about physics in "Dilbert Future" are easily disproven by anyone who can think critically. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this one.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
It's hard to make any sort of statements on a book I haven't read... But that Gravity quote seemed sort of silly. It doesn't actually explain why matter inherently comes back into existence closer to large objects. Of course, there might be a lot more to the argument-- I wish more of it had been posted.
One might as well say that at an extraordinarily small scale, matter and energy actually consist of swarms of tiny carrier pigeons whose mating instincts are responsible for what we see as the peculiar behavior of the universe. Since nobody can really determine whether this is true or not, and the net result is that the explanation is as good as any other... Well, we should keep it in mind, I suppose, in case we ever find some way to prove or disprove it. But isn't there some old quote about a stampede of Zebras?
...another "geek celebrity" comes out of the closet as an unsaved anti-religious zealot.
Why is this sort of sentiment so prevalent with the otherwise intelligent "geek" crowd? You would think that smart people would realize that science freely admits that it doesn't know what caused the big bang explosion and probably never will. It seems to me that the "geek" crowd that is so knowledgeable about this sort of thing would be among the first to acknowledge that there are some irrefutable truths that rise above the level of cold athiestic science.
Look I won't mind spending eternity with Larry Wall, but it would be nice to have a few more of our cultural icons up there as well. There's still time I guess.
The above post is completely wrong.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Does this still have the insanely weird "gravity is just everything expanding" model? He advocated this in a previous book, and refuses to budge, even though it's easy to show it's wrong. (Hint: Three objects of different masses not in a straight line.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
To form the possessive of a noun that ends in "s," add "apostrophe s" like this:
Scott Adams's God's Debris
See here for a quick reference.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
As for the science vs. religion, I never understood the hypocricy of people who get angry about the past of religion's stupidity towards scientific discovery and the scientific method, yet then turn around and pull the same crap. It is true that many use religion, philosphy, money, relationships, sex, and other 'things' (including drugs, porn, video games, food, excercise, etc) in order to not have to deal and cope with life, but that no more makes them automatically 'wrong' than justification make it right.
I get rather frustrated at people who while claim to be faithful Christians, they get very angry if you question them. (note that here I mean question, as in seeking to learn and analyze... NOT when you are obviously picking a fight (e.g. "How does this work?" as opposed to "Why would anyone use that?!")) The bible teaches us to question our own reality and our beliefs, otherwise we will never really have faith. a sword is tempered and folded under intense heat and pressure, over time and with blood, sweat and tears... if you just poured in the alloy in a mold you would merely have a very heavy and fragile (relatively) stick.
I personally have never seen any dichotomy between science and religion... any religion that I am familiar with. However it is hypocritical zealots (Sept 11, anyone?) that are the problem. Ghandi once said that the Christian Bible was the best manual for how to live. While he personally did not accept Jesus, he understood the logic of what the Bible taught (thats the theology part).
oops, this is way too long. Whether it is religion, politics, or your choice of shoes... always try to take a logical and rational outlook instead of an emotionally reaction.
This is my opinion, and it can be taken for thought, or discared... but it is still my opinion. I at least still have that right.
What if science were a crutch for the weak-minded? What if quantum physics were just a way to explain how strange things happen rationally? What if you were afraid that if there were one great universal being, that noble humankind would be reduced to puppets on (cosmic) strings? That's not how I see it, but that's the greatest (unfounded) fear of the atheist. I feel that Scott Adams is merely another victim of trends. He's done the vegetarian thing and the agnosticism thing, now it's time for the 'throw away everything you know for wild speculation', anti-establishment thing.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Several months ago I paid for and downloaded the DigitalOwl TitleVision ebook version of "God's Debris". I paid $5 for it.
I also downloaded the reader, installed it, and read the book, which was good. However, I didn't like the reader at all. So, using a screen capture utility, I took screen shots of all 90 pages of the book, saving them as .PGMs. Then I booted into Linux (I'd had to be in Windows to run the reader) and used gOCR and a shell script to do initial OCR conversion of all the images. Finally I spent a while with grep and a spell checker cleaning everything up. Overall, this took me about five hours.
Now I've got a 143KB ASCII text file with the same content as my 195KB encrypted .OWL file. I don't ever plan to give anyone a copy of my plain text version; I like Scott Adams and want him to get paid for his work.
If I assume that a professional "image -> OCR text -> corrected text" conversion specialist gets paid $10/hour, then the five hours it took me incurred about $50 in labor cost, bringing the total price to around $55. Not as cheap as the dead-tree version (<$15), but easier to grab quotes from. And of course I now have some valuable skills which I could use to help out Project Gutenberg.
I'm sure what I did would be considered illegal by Digital Owl (though probably not by Scott Adams). I'm just glad I won't have to try to hunt down a copy of the TitleVision viewer fifteen years from now just to read the book again.
And I'm glad that there's now a paper version so that most other people can obtain a less legally-encumbered version without having to do the grunt work I did.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
You are clear to mod my previous post down to -1. I'll go grab a glass of water to wash down my foot.
Lendrick
It's easy to make up 'theories' to explain phenomena... before Descartes and the Scientific Method theories were accepted based upon how good a story they were and how they appealed to various people -- reinforce existing beliefs and your theory is accepted. Descarte realized that hypotheses must be testable in order to decide if they're true or false.
...hmm and this idea has an implied conception of time that must be defined as well.
There are lots of neat ideas out there to explain various physical phenomena, but its hard to come up for tests for many of these... How would you test to see if matter is popping in and out of existence? What do you mean by existence anyway? What exactly does the word matter mean?
My point is, scientific facts must be tested and verified by experiment. Sure there are lots of other ideas that can't be tested.... but these fall in the same realm as religion and require faith. The so called Copenhagen interpretation is a prime example of this.
The Copenhagen interpretation claims that wave functions in Quantum mechanics collapse because they are effected by being observed by an intelligent observer. Supposedly you can see this by taking a large number of observations of photons or electrons or whatever and seeing the 'spike' from the wave function collapse. But wait, statistic's Law of Large Numbers says that if you take a large number of observations with random error you'll get this spike no matter what just because of the math - not because of some interaction between the particle and the observer.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
He should stick to cartoons about management, he's certainly good at that.
That same problem applies to all of our physical theories about the universe, at some level. Newton's theory of gravity did not explain why massive objects attract each other - they just do. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity does not explain why spacetime warps in the presence of mass - it just does.
All we can really do with our theories is describe what we observe, and develop predictive models. Physics doesn't provide an ultimate answer to the question of "why" - it only ever provides local answers, pushing back the "why" to a different level.
Scott Adams' theory of gravity does this too, and is actually quite comparable to Newton's theory. In fact, I'm sure it would be possible to develop an Adamsian theory that's the equal of Newton's theory in all predictive respects - but you would ultimately find that you could dispense with the winking in and out of existence stuff, just as Einstein was able to dispense with the ether as a medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves. As you pointed out with the carrier pigeon example, if something can't be detected, and doesn't add predictive value to a theory, to all intents and purposes it doesn't exist.
Even more amusing is how you got a 0:Offtopic for admitting it!
You were correct though!!
Read the thread - Adams' and Adams's are correct and you can choose based on which is easier to say.
Dónde aprendió usted el español? ;-p
One thing Adams seems to be unable to realize is that any explanation of gravity must account for all effects of it. This includes the orbits of planets. His theory in Dilbert future claimed that gravity is just the effect of everything growing in size. While that _may_ explain why things fall straight to the ground, it does not explain why the Earth orbits the sun in circular motion or why light bends around massive objects.
Although I haven't read God's Debris, claiming it all to be a matter of probability is less founded than the previous theory... as it doesn't even explain simple attraction well. "It happens just because... IT HAPPENS!" Then he goes off to claim religion is off base? At least religion has the benefit of involving non-testable topics. His pseudoscience has no such excuse.
This book looks to be particularly dreadful, as it ignores the relative functional form of science. For instance, the review states that Adams believes that gravity is fueled by probability. It really doesn't matter whether he just made that up or it is the result of methodical analysis. Until Adams shows us how this 'new physics' can better send a rocket to Mars it is largely useless. Take a look at it this way. We have all sorts of alternative theories of gravity, most in an effort to reach a theory of Quantum Gravity. It each case, the authors try to find something that can be tested in a lab. For instance, we may generate black holes in the next generation of accelerators, and that will be interesting.
Some may invoke Thomas Kuhn and say I am being obstructionist. This is not the case. I am merely saying that it not so hard to write 128 of compelling fiction, and the fact that it is anti-establishment does not say anything about ir's correctness. It is true that many great discoveries were hard to believe. It is also true that most of these corrected severe defects in contemporary theory. We could not begin to simply explain the planets without Galileo. We could not explain black box radiation with Planck. We could not fully explain the planets without Einstein. Again, I want to see Adams tell us how to get to Mars faster.
I do have great respect for Adams. He is honest and straightforward about what he does and why he does it, much like Heinlein. He also has an ego bigger than Shatners, and it may be getting the best of him.
now this may not be a sophisticated as a physicist, or your college certified philosopher, but it can be useful. Not everything will be spot on, that depending entirely on the insights of the author.
I for one, do not know what he would make of the guy who has offered a million dollar reward for evidence conclusively proving there is no afterlife.
But that is part of the fun of talking about things like this.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The former is a system of beliefs which one comes to based on one's own experiences and understanding.
The latter is an external system, often forced on individuals, without any thought on their own part.
I happen to be a very "religious" person myself, but I'll be the first to admit that a huge percentage of people filling our churches, synagogues, mosques or whatever are there simply to be led around by the nose without having to really wrestle with the deeper questions of life and their existence.
In that sense, yes - "Organized Religion" is certainly an Opiate.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
When Scott Adams first published God's Debris as an e-book, I refused to buy it because of the platform-biased and fair use-restricted nature of his chosen distribution technology. And I told him so. The conversation turned into a fairly in-depth conversation on the nature of e-publishing and software piracy. The results are on my web site as an e-mail exchange between us that he gave permission for me to post.
At least one person who has written me about the exchange felt that I gave up. I didn't really give up-- in fact I hadn't intended it to become a drawn out argument in the first place. But by the end I felt I had reached the point of diminishing returns-- it was clear that Scott didn't want to be convinced. I decided that the real argument would be won in the court of public opinion-- which was why I felt it important to end on a (superficially) conciliatory note and get him to give me permission to publish the discussion. If I had taken the last word, I think it unlikely he would have let me post our exchange.
To be fair, Scott made two points that bear further consideration:
1) E-books are not identical to executable software.
2) If free file sharing is ubiquitous, people will steal when it's easier than buying.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but briefly I would respond to both points by saying that non-executable media such as books, movies, photographs, and music need to have a new distribution infrastructure put in place where buying is actually easier than stealing, and quite cheap for the end user. I believe the future of electronic distribution will lie not in increasingly Draconian legal and technical barriers that fight against the paying customer, but in the ubiquitous availability of micropayments that make enjoying creative content painless and subject to the Free Market. I believe Scott would point out that that system isn't here yet.
In another unpublished conversation, Scott credits e-publishing in this matter with enabling him to land his print-based book deal. He's happy with the outcome.
Some overzealous moderators are hitting the thread with -1 offtopic.
... bad posters, straying offtopic.
Oooo
Whatever happened to the "moderate up the good stuff in preference to moderating down the bad" advice in the moderators' guide?
si.
tengo gato. vamos gato vamos.
You're splitting angel hairs here. Marx was an athiest. But we can still have a little fun:
Karl Marx dies and shows up at the gates of heaven to be met by Saint Peter.
"Name?" asks Peter.
"Marx, Karl Marx." replies the famous author.
"Hmm," says Peter to himself, "why do I know that name?"
"I am Marx," Marx said, beaming with pride, "founder of socialism and the driving force behind the communist ideal called Marxism."
"I see," Peter said. "I'll have to check with God."
So Peter rushes off to confer with God. God hears the name Marx and immediately a look of disgust infects His face. "Marx?" God says, "He's nothing but a trouble maker. Send him down to hell."
So Peter happily signs the appropriate forms and deports Karl Marx to Satan's fiery hell.
Some time later, a free trade agreement is forged between Heaven and Hell. The deal is hailed by all to be a great economic leap forward that would revitalize both struggling economies. But soon after the treaty, God realizes that Heaven is no longer receiving any products
from Hell. So he sends Saint Peter down to investigate.
"Well?" asks Peter of Satan, "What's the hold up? We have an agreement!"
Satan shrugs his shoulders, exasperated. "It's that Marx fellow," Satan
replied. "Ever since he got down here, all we've had are strikes and labour demands. Productivity has dropped to zero!"
"So?" Peter asks, "What would you have us do?"
"Take him back. Take Marx back to Heaven, and I guarantee productivity will sky rocket!"
So Peter agreed, on God's behalf, to accept Karl Marx back to Heaven.
Some time later Satan realizes that Hell has not received any orders for product from Heaven. In fact, very little communication at all has leaked from Up Above. So, concerned for the economic welfare of Hell, he makes a trip to Heaven.
"Peter! Peter, are you there?" Satan demands.
"Yes, what is it?" Peter answers.
"What's the hold up? What about the flow of trade?"
"Oh I'm sorry," Peter said, "We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance. We are an intrinsic self-governed body that is now based on the needs of the prolitariate. It is our opinion that this free trade agreement only benefits the bourgeois."
"What?!" Satan was furious. "I demand to speak to God!"
Peter's eyebrow is raised in confusion. "Who?"
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
It's bad, but bad enough to be funny, I guess. Or maybe not.
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/sitemap/
* News archive
* FAQ
* Meet the characters
* Scott Adams' advice: How to become a cartoonist
* Wallpaper
* Link Icons
* Cursors
* Birth of a cartoonist
* The dawn of Dilbert
* Scott Adams' secret past
* Scott Adams' biography
instead of printing it to a local/network printer, someone could redirect the print output to a file. it should come out a regular .ps file, which can be translated into plain ascii.
time spent in doing that: more or less 15 minutes.
reason: having a backup copy of the book that can be kept in a safe place, sure that one day it could be used platform-independently.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Gandhi never said the Christian bible was any sort of manual for how to live. He did, however, esteem Jesus over any other historical/mythical/whatever person. I quote:
A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
He saw the passion of Jesus as the ultimate act, and considered it the moment at which Jesus truly became human in sacrifice to God.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Richard Feynman was a physicist that had some interesting ideas on life.
Albert Einstein was a physicist that had some interesting ideas on life.
Douglas Adams had some interesting ideas on life, the universe, and everything.
Scott Adams is a cartoonist, with some really depressing and unfounded ideas about life.
Nuff said.
Part of the problem is thinking that there has to be a 'why'. There doesn't; the fundamental laws of the universe work the way they do *just because*. If the Big Bang had turned out a little differently then so would these fundamental laws; Planck's Constant, for example, could be any number of values depending on the properties of the initial creation of the universe. There's no 'why' to it, nor does there need to be.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Ah. But you're wrong.
You don't even need ghostscript for windows. I just installed that so I could view what I printed (to make sure it turned out ok). I just installed the HP PaintJet XL300 drivers that come with windows, and had it print to file. My output is 1.83 megs (bigger than the original), but its a perfect copy.
I know this is off topic and I will lose karma, etc.. but I need to get this off my chest.
Just because I need and use a crutch does not mean the crutch doesn't exist.
If I had a son that was totally dependent on me and "needed" me as a "crutch", does that prove that I do not exist?
Why couldn't a God create beings that need him?
I think Scott Adams and others will find that no matter how "strong" minded someone becomes, the intelligence does not eliminate the need for religion. There are blue collar who do not believe in God, and there are scientists who do not believe in God, just as there are blue collar who do believe in God and scientists who do believe in God. Strong or weak mindedness has nothing to do with it.
a wonderful book by Alan Lightman. Strongly recommended for those interested in physics, space-time, and the like. I don't think there is a slashdot book review - maybe I'll write one.
sulli
RTFJ.
I think Scott actually ended up making a good argument against his first point - he said he didn't want to release a non-encrypted version because he "didn't want to compete against a free copy of his own book".
Then in two seperate instances, he went on to note that a chapter of his own book had been OCR'ed and mailed to him and another author had a whole book OCR'ed and distributed online. So, in all probability he's competing against a free copy of his own book anyway, only it's a version probably not giving proper credit to the author!! At least with a PDF or text file released, he could make sure his name was plastered all over.
On top of that, as you said he credits ePublishing with helping him get a book deal. So couldn't you say that even if you didn't end up making any money on ePublishing it could stil be valuable to you from after-effects like landing book deals. Sometimes people are too focused on direct costs and don't think about long-term benefits.
The sad part is, I would have bought an open eBook too but now I'll have neither.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Plato used the format of a somewhat-enlightened person vs. very enlightened person conversation in The Republic, which formed at least part of the basis of the Heglian dialect (thesis-antithesis-synthesis).
Scott's doing nothing new format-wise, but I'd be interested in what he has to say. Much of it sounds like the stuff he wrote towards the end of The Dilbert Principle
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Excuse me, but Marx said that television is the opiate of the people. Yes, he was ahead of his time.
And John Lennon said that lsd should be the religion of the people.
Then Postman said television is the religion of the people.
Then Burroughs said lsd is better than television
Ventura just was trying to start a new thread.
Actually I prefer "consumerism is the religion of the people" .
Working to buy a bigger car than your neighbor sure makes life meaningful.
Sarcastic? Who, me?
"The Elements of Style" is a good book, no doubt; but it lacks the panache of Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrope, You Idiots
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
People can be forgiven for thinking that there must be a "why", because physics and indeed all of science is all about answering "why". The only problem is that science never provides an absolute and total answer, which may be, as you say, because there isn't one.
But the lack of an "ultimate answer" is disturbing to many people, so religion, which also attempts to answer the "why" question, is often used to fill the gap that science leaves. So it's not surprising that this whole issue of ultimate cause is often used as a justification for the existence of deities.
Except that you've just given a "why": that at least some fundamental laws and constants were determined by the Big Bang. That could raise question of why the Big Bang happened the way it did - which, of course, is an area of intense study.
The problem is figuring out which things have a why and which things don't. For example, we might still learn more about "why mass warps spacetime", once they figure out that all the theories about the Higgs boson are wrong... ;)
Surely not Stephen "Fuck the Creationists Hawking??
Your "Jesus Christ" (not his real name, of course) was the leader of a traveling gang of (mostly) homosexual prostitutes. "Jesus" father started him in the business. His mother was a tramp, and probably a prostitute as well.
The indigenous peoples' death rituals normally included devouring a small part of the deceased and perhaps sipping a bit of his/her blood, if any could be gathered. The thought was that since 'you are what you eat', the deceased would be returned to the living inside his friends/family.
Those who had died with no friends or family probably would not be given the resurrection ceremony. Disrespected persons would have met the same fate, though in this case, a local government may have been charged with preventing "resurrection", so they wouldn't have to repeatedly execute the same miscreant.
The Romans of the time may have tried to prevent the locals eating their dead by hanging them above reach until they were quite decayed, or some time limit for "resurrection" had passed.
Evidence supporting these statements can be found in a sufficiently comprehensive version of the many Xtian bibles currently available, and a close view of the catholic church's mass, especially the "communion".
Also see a dictionary definition of the word 'sarcophagus'.
Religion is truly disgusting, not only for the lies it tells, but that it denies what makes us human. It is a basic survival instinct to believe our parents and leaders, even if they spout at us the most nonsensical religious tripe. We as humans have the higher ability to use our intellect to see the nonsense of religion, but if prevented from doing so by parents, priests, preachers, rebbes, imams, and others of their ilk, we remain no higher than the common sheep, waiting to be fleeced.
After the 3rd or 4th book his style became like "Family Circus" and "Peanuts" to me. Predictible and common. I don't think I'll invest in his book (even though the government has asked us to keep the economy going). I think I'll buy a multi-pack of snickers instead....
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Well, do you mean you applied tests to the statements and they were not disproved? Or do you mean there would be no possible way to disprove them? The latter case is called "nondisprovable" or "untestable". A theory that can't be tested is useless.
God's structure is not even an Abelian group, so he/she can't exist, sorry. Don't even get me started on that pile of crap the Bible is, stopping the Sun? Come on! Or what Moses did with the Red Sea, pure shit. Islamic religion is even worse since it treats women like crap.
Why are we here?
Because we're here. Roll the bones.
it's the garbageman. He knows everything.
And your references are.....?
It always amuses me, when a religious topic is brought up on Slashdot, at the number of people who are more than willing to spout garbage without having any idea what they are talking about. Why do I bother reading this tripe?
Tu Quieres Taco Bell? Yo quiero Taco Bell. La chihuahua quiere putas con tetas hasta la madre.
It's a dilemma(well, not in an absolute sense). If you investigate the mechanisms that make a religion survive , truth is a weak mechanism. An institute is a strong mechanism. And rituals are the strongest . Take away the ritual, the repetition, the reminders, and a religion runs a big risk of atrophy. Rituals give continuity. Going to church every week, or praying 5 times a day.
You want to make a religion atrophy? convince people that the rituals , controlled and distorted by institutions, are not the essentials and can be easily skipped.
Oh I wish that I had mod points.
I haven't seen satire this good in a while. Thanks.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
I purchased this e-book when it first came out and
:)
despite some of the faults I found in it's so-called science and logic, I still found it really enjoyable to read. It is definitely one of the better books that I have read in the past couple of years.
IMHO, the whole point of this book is try and get people to think 'outside of the box'. All too often people just accept what they see on the news/tv/newspaper or from 'subject experts' as fact, without bothering to think or do research for themselves.
Where would we be today if people just accepted the status-quo and there were no innovative or different ideas?
Scott is not trying to force the wacky views in this book on his readers. He is just trying to provoke thought and challenge the accepted norms.
In fact, I believe he even says something to this affect in the intro to the book.
Don't judge a book by it's cover... Or by it's Slashdot comments.
I find it interesting that a community that so strongly supports things like Napster and DeCSS so willingly condemns religion based on its misuse.
People commit murders all the time an account of such things as love and money; do you have a problem with those things as well? The fact that religion is often a motive for murder does not make religion in and of itself wrong or bad. Hinckley tried to kill Ronald Reagan for the sake of Jodie Foster. That does not mean Jodie Foster doesn't exist, nor does it mean the Jodie Foster Fan Club are inherently idiots.
I'd also like to point out that it was science and scientists that created those planes and buildings, not to mention those bombs, those poisonous gasses, those weaponized strains of virii, all those wonderful new ways to kill more efficiently and indiscriminantly. If we're going to attack the motive, let's not forget the method, too.
Cast the first stone, science.
It always comes down to the same handful of logical fallacies.
"There exists some true theories that are hard to believe" -/-> "All theories that are hard to believe are true."
"To a college educated reader like myself"
I guess proof reading isn't one of the skills taught in college.
While it's great and all to blame all the evils of the world on *organized* religion, and to long for the panacea of completely disorganized religion, do try to remember that human beings cannot deal with anarchy for very long. There are no long-lived anarchies in the wordl - people cannot live with Chaos their entire lives.
That is why governments form. Of course anarchy would be a better political system than any organized government, but people cannot live that way for long.
It is very true that organized religions are a crutch for the masses. They also happen to be a crutch for the intellectually elite who aren't so filled with pride as to think themselves perfect. But be that as it may, the purpose of all organizations is to be a crutch.
People are weak. If one learns nothing else from the study of mankind it is that people are weak. They need crutches. And if even at times they don't, they will with time. A young man does not need a cain, but wait 60 years - a very short time - and he will not be able to walk without it.
Human beings, left to themselves, degenerate. We are not sufficient onto ourselves. Hence organizations - it allows people, all in various states of imperfection, to borrow each others strength to counteract their weaknesses.
All that we call organization can basically be summed up in the idea of everyone saying what they intend to do, and what they intend to expect (and allow) of others.
Of course organizations can and do great evil - that is precisely because they can do so much good. A rock cannot be moral or immoral, so far as we know. A moral worm and an immoral worm are difficult to tell apart - what could morality be for a worm? A good dog and a bad dog are distinguishable, but a dog cannot be either so good or so evil as a man. A dog cannot be an artist or a philosopher, a confessor, or even a surgeon. But by the same token, no dog will ever reach the depths of evil that Shakespeare's Iago achieved.
Good and evil are not two sides of the same coin if by that one means that they are both an inherent part of the same being, and the existence of one necessitates the existence of the other. However, they are two sides to the same coin if you are flipping that coin - if you mean that the possibility of the one necessitates the possibility of the other.
To be good, one needs free will, but free will allows for the possibility of evil. The more that one can be good, the more that one can be evil. That is why you should not dismiss organizations because they have brought so much evil in the world - it means that they can bring as much good into the world. And some of them even have.
Just look what what Mother Teresa of Calcutta did.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Trust has to be earned. Science is by default skeptical, you have to prove that your theory is a good approximation of the phenomena that you are describing, or else it is bunk. It must be predicatable and repeatable. I do not put faith in scientists, as I trust them, since they describe and predict phenomena much better than say, David Koresh ever would.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
it makes sense, because of the equivalence of gravity and acceleration. So Einstein did make a connection between standing on the surface of the earth, with gravity, and standing on a hollow shell that is expanding outward. (if you recall the example of the elevator)
The hard part is understanding the mathematical universe where these two are equivalent. Einstein showed that you can consistently describe the dynamics without the use of forces.
So I would not say it is wrong. I do think it is somewhat "cheap" , also reasonably funny , and not much help in understanding.
In science, all the premises are supposed to be of the form "Someone I trust went out and looked. Here's what they say they saw, and you can go out yourself and look if you don't believe me."
In religion, the premises seem to be of the form "Someone I trust talked to a Supreme Being, and they say this is what they were told." Some religions extend this with "And you can talk to the Supreme Being yourself if you don't believe me."
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It's fairly easy to see that he could not use forces. You can recreate the whole of electromagnetism from electrostatics and special relativity(it's been done, including radiation).
:) - don't do this at home
example: take two static charges. Electrostatics describes the forces. Now move backwards very fast
now you have two ways to describe what happens
1. electrostatics + relativistic transformation of forces (they apply , whatever the nature of the force)
2. electromagnetism+ two charges flying away from you in parallel(leading to a magnetic field and a resulting extra force ).
Next step : do the same with mass and newtonian force.
You can try to create some mass-magnetic force and approximate the behaviour but you'll never make the calculations fit. The masses ruin it. You can't create a consistent "gravitymagnetic theory"
Or would you prefer "Girls like herself are very hard to find" ?
The word "me" is a legal object pronoun and it wasn't used in conjuntion with "I".
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Shouldn't that be "moderators'S"?
Thank you.
Please moderate the parent down.
There is no respectable scholar, of any religious affiliation or lack thereof that accepts any of the dribble that you have presented as remotely possible.
That you have presented is not humorous, and beyond that is merely a poorly compiled string of groundless assertions. The only means by which a post such as your may be seen as humorous is from the mind of a child. Well son, expousing your angst, the jist of what is merely rebellion against mommy and daddy does not go very far in the real world. That it is moderated up here, is very telling of the level of immaturity here.
Your post quite clearly constitutes a flame, and I expect that anyone with mod points, reading this, will mark it as so.
Science is a study of A causes B. Religion attempts to answer why A.
Besides, haven't we learned by incompleteness and chaitin's randomness that there are enough random things that science or math can't explain? (I.e. they are Just "A", they can't be reduced any further.
So religion can still explain "A"
Science is NOT philosophy. And Darwin mixed Science and Philosophy, cause he attempted (or people have interpreted) to say how "A" happened from observing other A->B. But in some respect, that isn't science, its a belief.
No true scientist would say he has a theorem (A->B) that is absolutely true. He can say its true based on the observance of the 5 senses and is currently repeatable.
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
No. It is moderators' guide
moderators is the plural of moderator, not a singular word that ends in 's'
Christian theologians talk about the wine and the wineskins. The wine is the good message that Christians have to share with others. The wine is vitally important - it is what has real value. The wineskins are the structures that facilitate the growth of the message. The value of the winkeskins is directly related to their effectiveness in delivering the wine to the people. They have no value apart from the wine.
The problem of most Christian organizations is that they have forgotten the importance of the wine. They have allowed the wineskins to be seen as valuable in and of themselves. The structures of the church - the buildings, the meeting formats, the hymns (Oh the hymns!!), even the chairs - have remained the same for hundreds of years because they have been valued for their tradition. But they should not be valued if they do not effectively communicate the wine, and judging by the number of people bored out of their minds on Sundays, they are definitely not serving this purpose. They were once effective, but they are not any longer.
Organized religion is good when it provides an effective means of distributing special revelation to the populace. Every part of a Christian organization should be geared towards distributing the wine. Organized religion is bad when it is not willing to prune away the dead branches. If members are not willing to do so, if they value any part of the structure more than the wine, their organization is destined for trouble.
For all of you out there who think God is not watching, you are in the dark, and are in for a big unpleasant suprise. Please note that this is not me when you go here. This is where you can find out what is really happening. See how God responds. Be sure He will.
I have bought and read each of Adams' books as they have come out, starting with The Dilbert Principle. I enjoyed TDP immensely, but have grown more and more disillusioned with each book.
Whilst his jokes about "padding his material" were funny in the first book, the humor has faded as the joke is repeated in later books. Possibly because I've also had the realization that this joke is not the only thing being repeated. To be honest, the whole "philosophy" is simply repeated.
After thinking about this for a while, I've come to the conclusion that Scott Adams is simply a lucky guy who stumbled upon the idea that depicting the inanities everpresent in Corporate America in a comic strip would touch a certain angst-ridden nerve in a fair amount of the population and be fairly popular.
And it was. And so he set about exploiting it to make more money.
All of which is well and good. But it doesn't make him an intelligent person or some whose theories should be given extra credence because of who he is. He's just a guy with the right idea at the right time.
Let's not turn him into Feynman or Socrates, OK?
Thank you Celsus.
....glad you got to read "On the True Doctrine"
too in your Freshman Western Civ class.
*GRIN*
Religions a funny thing. You have fanatics on both sides who believe that they have to hate and discredit the other side. Usually its because they are insecure in thier own beliefs.
1."Jesus" was his real name. The romans took extremly good records, and his name is in those records due to him being born during Caesars year of the census.
2. If he was part of a gang of homosexual prostitutes he would never have gained such a following. If a whore started preaching would you listen?
3. His mother was a tramp? Can you back this up with any evidence? Thought not.
4. Cannibalism amoung the Jews? I have never heard that accusation made. And trust me if there was any record of that, Hitler would have used it as political ammunition agaisnt them. But he didnt.
5. If they didnt want "resurection" to take place they would have simply burned the body. Not place in a publicly known tomb.
6.Hanging them out of reach? Ever hear of an axe? It would not be hard to steal a body or use a ladder to retreive part of one. The romans usually fataly tortured people. The only reason that hung them to die was to be a warning. The crosses would be placed along the road leading into a town or on a visible location, such as a hill.
7. Lets see, I have the NIV, New King Jams, and the Mormon bible. Wait you probably want something older and more accurate. Hmm, Ive got an Old King James, and also a couple early catholic bibles from the 1700s. So go ahead and post the passages that back you up.
8. Communion is symbolic, not literal.
9. Sheep? Many of the most inteligent people in the world believe in a higher power. With all of our scientific knowledge today We still do not know the origin of the universe, or how such order came from chaos.
Sorry my post is so long, but such hatred bothers me and I wanted to respond to every point.
Oh my god (God, your choice)! someone on slashdot knows what a VT100 is?
For those of you that don't know, it's a dumb terminal (you know, like the application Hyperterminal), but that's all that it does.
I didn't do it, and if I did, you can't prove it. Bart Simpson
I believe that you'll find that Benjamin Franklin was considered a "free thinker". But I guess that means he could have believed in a supreme being.
I didn't do it, and if I did, you can't prove it. Bart Simpson
Does anyone else agree that people like John Hagee and Benny Henn make christianity look absurd? They are killing religion more than any other group I know of. On a side note, I find the Bible Errancy page a real joy to read. No one can accept christianity literally after examining that site.
Serious commentator? How long did it take you to figure out that I'm not a serious commentator?
I'm in the entertainment business. That's why I preface my "serious commentating" with the warning not to take it seriously (essentially).
As for the reall.org discussion, I just reread it along with the response to my response that I hadn't seen before. Apparently we both have excellent rebuttals to points that neither of us claim to have made. Assuming both of us were being serious, which I believe to be true, it's a good demonstration of my main point that reality is mostly subjective, in practice, because regardless of how good the process and the data, some idiot like me has to interpret it at the end. And as the discussion with the skeptic shows, people see what they want to see.
Scott Adams
Read Candide by Voltaire if you want to see what true satire is. Try to find a version with a foreword to explain the time it was written in and what Voltaire was mocking. Adams is just a very funny humorist, though the "very funny" is IMHO only.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Many readers of God's Debris apparently seem to think that Scott Adams actually believes all the stuff he put in the book. Ok, so maybe he has a big ego, but even he is not that uneducated.
He did ask people not to blame him for the words that a fictional character said in his prologue, but some readers chose not to take that bit seriously, even though they then proceeded to take the rest of the book seriously, and find holes in it.
Of course there are holes in, but that wasn't the point. The point was to make you think. And in that the book certainly succeeds. In parts he does sound like he is lecturing like a professor, but most of the book is just a ploy to get the grey matter going.
So take it all with a grain of salt, pick out the bits you think are good, and don't let the other bits upset you.
Check out Theseus and the Minotaur
I'm much happier finding my own peace with "god." I don't need any book to tell me that there's probably some reason anything exists in the first place. Think about it. Please. It makes me very sad that so many people consider the large denomination-ed religions their only options.
Please pardon the previous uninformed babble.
This book sounds to me like a whole bunch of amusing psedoscience. Sure, perhaps it's meant to be taken seriously, or to make you question science, or something like that, and if that's true, well, then, to hell with it (I'm a proud scientist, thank you very much!). But it looks amusing. I'm interested. It sounds funny.
And to all the people lamenting Scott Adams' apparent lack of originality or creativity, this is sure gosh-darned creative.
I plan to give it a read, just because it sounds like a nice distraction.
Peace.
> No true scientist would say he has a theorem (A->B) that is absolutely true. He can say its true based on the observance of the 5 senses and is currently repeatable.
A theorem is ALWAYS ABSOLUTELY TRUE coz it's nothing more than a chain of logical deductions establishing the truth value of a statement (i'm meaning the logical truth not the "philosophical" one.. ) in regards to a given set of "basical" (primitive) statements (the hypothesis), whose truth value is considered unambiguous for the scope of this reasoning.
Maybe you'r confusing THEOREM whith THEORY. The main difference between them is that the THEORY tries to explain some thing happening into the real word (and therefore the set of initial conditions can not be controlled/known @ 100% and the observability is limited by our "5 senses" as you could say) whereas the THEOREM is an abstract reasoning where one can control/set ALL the parameters.
The main consequence is that a theory HAS to be refutable in order to be considered a scientific theory..
Scott Adams ? THE Scott Adams ? :)
To Scott Adams: don't bother about people against you as long as you do what you think is right.
Before we get fleeced?! Man, someone quoted Freud earlier about the neurosis of religion--I'm wondering if there hasn't been a study on the neurosis of "free thinking."
Does pure logic and thought define the essence of mankind? Have I no real capability to love but for electrochemical processes and survival instinct? Who's denying the essence of mankind now? Materialism doesn't have an answer for man--not a real one--just evolutionary biological response and the dash of occasional romantic nonsense.
Deconstructionism just tears apart, dissects, and pisses on everything...am I to believe that in this I have found truth? Once everything has been unraveled and destroyed I am free to...what? Weep over what's no longer there? Surely that's what's left after the swell of my own ego passes.
Besides, cold logic and empirical blah-blah-blah went out the window with modernity. Get with the decade, dude. People are looking for answers and this y = v + 2ad^2 crap didn't get our parents anywhere.
I leave you with a quote from Salvador Dali: "If man is dead, blame Jules Verne--he was logical."
-Ken
Job 38:1,2
I looked at the web page for the book, and while it says text is not selectable, it says it IS PRINTABLE. So, why not just print to the "FILE:" port with some postscript driver? You could then convert it to text or PDF with almost no effort. IS there something that prevents you from doing this? Anyone care to provied a copy to prove it ;-) ?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's still comedy!
This is a flame:
You are an idiot.
Maybe I'm one of the few with this opinion, but I'd hashed over most of the ideas in this book by the time I was in high-school. :), and so on. But this one just missed all the marks.
Adams doesn't cover any new ground here, and is simply regurgitating other people's ideas and opinions in a mediocre story format.
There are several connections he makes that are mildly interesting, but skips many other connections and observations. For the most part this book is not worth the time or money. I purchased it looking forward to the promised "brain spinning in my head" and instead was bored stiff throughout most of it.
I do enjoy some of his Dilbert books, "The Joy of Work"
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people