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Mozilla Cracks Down On Merchandise Sellers
An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine reports that the Mozilla Foundation is cracking down on those selling unofficial Mozilla-branded merchandise. This takes the form of an open letter addressed to retailers of goods that bear the Mozilla name or logos. The letter suggests that the Foundation are willing to work with those selling Mozilla wares, as long as they get a cut and the retailer isn't operating in the US, Canada or Mexico, where they would be competing with the Foundation's own Mozilla Store. Threats of legal action for non-compliance are issued, albeit with friendly overtones. This open letter is part of the Mozilla Foundation's campaign to better enforce its trademarks, an effort that began when the Foundation was launched in July. In a related move, the Foundation announced that the new Firefox artwork is not open-source and can only be used in official builds or those sanctioned by the Foundation - this has led to debates about whether Firefox is free enough to be included in the Debian Linux distribution."
It's not a violation of IP to make something LOOK like something else, as long as you don't jack their logo, trademark, or code.
Sigs are for the weak.
I'm just curious how a clearly logical person like a software coder could state "that the Bible is an accurate and uncorrupted historical document".
Surely you must know the Bible wasn't written first in English and wasn't written yesterday. It was written thousands of years ago in another language. Its journey to its current form traversed many many different languages with each translator having their own agendas. This is in addition to the fact that whenever you translate something as large as the Bible you lose things or translate some of them wrongly.
How people could dedicate a way of life to a book that is in no way verifiable and is certainly not in the same state it was originally written boggles my mind.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Its journey to its current form traversed many many different languages with each translator having their own agendas.
That's simply not true. A current modern English version is translated directly from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. And enough people know these languages that if a translation contains a mistake, people point it out. For example, the New World Translation used by the Jehovah's Witnesses is held by most Hebrew and Greek scholars to be full of bad translation (in order to support their theology.)
There are plenty of atheist scholars who'd be happy to point out if a mainstream version of the Bible contained dodgy translating.
This is in addition to the fact that whenever you translate something as large as the Bible you lose things
It's true that no translation can ever perfectly capture the meaning of the original while using the same number of words. But you can do it if you just use enough words - hence things like 'Amplified Bibles', which are much thicker than the ordinary ones because they take extreme care to capture every nuance of the original.
But that doesn't mean that a same-length translation is of no value.
How people could dedicate a way of life to a book
The way of life is not dedicated to a book, but to a person - Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Christianity is about knowing and loving Him.
Gerv
If you really want an answer to that, I can give it a shot:
;).
:shrug: that's just the way it is.
First of all, the accuracy is considered semantic and pragmatic. Obviously, it doesn't bear a whole lot of syntactic relationship to the original (especially the old testament/torah which was written right to left with no vowels). The idea is that there's a 'natural language' to the Bible, and that God has protected the accuracy to that language throughout each translation.
When we talked about hermeneutics in religion class, an algorithm for verification of verses was presented:
1) figure out what the contextual meaning of the verse is
2) figure out what the verse means to people today
3) abstract
4) investigate the validity of that abstraction as a valid biblical theme.
his was a class on Pauline literature, and this became really important, because there are a lot of surface inconsistencies. This is due to different writers who claim to be Paul throughout the early centuries, and with the general curosities to be found in the book of Acts.
All this is based on a faith that the Bible is in fact directly inspired by God, which in turn requires faith (which is by definition unverifiable). I think that many people accept the Bible (or any complete belief system) as absolute truth because they feel that otherwise they are just making haphazard decisions on things they don't feel qualified to judge. Of course, they are making a haphazard decision to buy into a particular belief system, but they only do that once. Plus, usually their parents do that for them
At this point I've created a rather circular argument. Faith -> Belief Belief -> Trust Trust -> Faith. I suppose that's where people come up with 'a leap of faith' to enter the circle, but I think there might be something you can do to rationally enter it. If you believe in God - and if you don't, the whole thing is rather moot - then try to define what you see as his nature for yourself. Then try to find relgions/philosophy that matches what you see as God's nature. Then see what they say the implications of that nature are. That gives you a fundamental basis on which to accept/reject both individual ideas and whole themes/writers/religions. It still leaves a lot of gray areas and question marks, but
Reading Mr. Markham's site, I am rather curious how he came to the conclusion you quote. I don't see how it is as inevitable as he makes it sound (since plenty of open-minded and intelligent people have taken different paths). However, given what I have said, I do see how one could reach the conclusion that the Bible is accurate and historical.
Thanks for reading this if you did. If you didn't, meh.
> There are plenty of atheist scholars who'd be happy to point out if a mainstream version of the Bible contained dodgy translating.
I'd like to clear up that sentence a bit... "There are plenty of atheist scholars who are happy to point out [that] the Bible contains dodgy translating."
It does contain dodgy translating, which has been pointed out by many people, atheist & otherwise.
It does contain dodgy translating, which has been pointed out by many people, atheist & otherwise.
Which version are you referring to? I normally use an NIV (New International Version), which is pretty good. The ESV (English Standard Version) is considered a bit better by some, but the English is slightly more stilted.
But let's not get distracted here. Arguments about a few phrases aside, the message and claim of the Bible is clear to Christian and atheist alike. The only difference between the two is the response they make to it.
Gerv
But let's not get distracted here. Arguments about a few phrases aside, the message and claim of the Bible is clear to Christian and atheist alike. The only difference between the two is the response t
You're right. I'm an atheist, and I'm against the declaration and execution of war, under false pretences, upon underdog nations. Tony Blair and George W Bush are both Christians. Hallelujah!
Yours Sincerely, Michael.