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Lineage II Addiction Lawsuit Makes It Past the EULA
We recently discussed a man who sued NCsoft for making Lineage II "too addictive" after he spent 20,000 hours over five years playing it. Now, several readers have pointed out that the lawsuit has progressed past its first major hurdle: the EULA. Quoting:
"NC Interactive has responded the way most software companies and online services have for more than a decade: it argued that the claims are barred by its end-user license agreement, which in this case capped the company's liability to the amount Smallwood paid in fees over six months prior to his filing his complaint (or thereabouts). One portion of the EULA specifically stated that lawsuits could only be brought in Texas state court in Travis County, where NC Interactive is located. ... But the judge in this case, US District Judge Alan C. Kay, noted that both Texas and Hawaii law bar contract provisions that waive in advance the ability to make gross-negligence claims. He also declined to dismiss Smallwood's claims for negligence, defamation, and negligent infliction of emotional distress."
... because if it does, I'll have a killer suit against Burger King for making their food too delicious.
Yeah... this attempt is very interesting. A Texas company writing a license agreement in a state requiring any legal claims against them be brought in Texas and limiting liabilities in ways that are expressly prohibited under Texas law? Hrm! Either that EULA came from a boiler-plate that originated from out of state (not a good excuse) or they simply thought they could get away with it and got caught. This is rather like the "new patent troll" story where people are trying to benefit themselves through legal means when they actually have no right to claim such.
I wonder if the pendulum is actually starting to swing the other way now?
Its a good idea when planning a class action lawsuit to ensure that your target actually has any money to be paid out. I think /. likely fails in this regard :P
I am sure its generating some money, but I doubt its huge...
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Can I sue my company for making me addicted to my job? Because of them, I get up at the same exact time and go to the same place everyday monday to friday where I meet same people and spend next 8 hours doing boring and repetitive stuff. If that's not addiction, then I don't know what it is.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
Stop bashing religion. Praying is a form of grace. More good comes from modern religion than you can imagine.
So this man played a game for an average of just under 12 hours a day, every day, for five years?
Emotions! In your brain!
that we're no longer responsible for our own actions.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Praying? Can I sue the Church if that prayer is ineffective? False advertising and whatnot?
The guy suing is almost as stupid as the idiot who sued McDonalds because her coffee was hot.
More good comes from modern religion than you can imagine.
War. Racism. Homophobia. Sexism. Indoctrination of children. Rejection of science/reason. Rejection of contraception leading to the spread of STDs.
So what's the good bit? It better be fucking massive.
It's a stupid lawsuit, but I favor any ruling that weakens the EULA. Those things are near-evil.
Qxe4
Peace, tolerance, acceptance, equality, taking good care of your family, critical thought, responsibility.
I'm sure you can find something in that list that should appeal to you.
Why do you describe buddhism when we are talking about religion?
Check The Ten Commandments. Neither of the stuff you mentioned is approved there. Everything you mentioned is a byproduct of abuse of religion. If there were no religion, people would find another excuse to be racists or homophobes. After all, communists also did most of the things you mentioned and they rejected religion.
And don't give me that crap "communism is good in theory, it's the power-hungry people who abused it". The same can be said for religion. As I said, just check The Ten Commandments. Especially those saying that you should not kill, rape or steal.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
The woman suing Mc Donalds wasn't stupid. A: she got quite a lot of cash out of it, and B: the reason why she won the case was that was shown that Ms Donalds put profit before safety. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
I can have more of that without religion than with it.
peace: without a religion, many wars cease to exist, since there's no "promised land" to fight over, no divine commands to wage war that would otherwise not be necessary. There's no holy war, and no infidels to conquer or convert, no crusades to wage. Certainly, war doesn't disappear completely if you remove religion, but the amount of reasons to wage it shrinks considerably.
acceptance: of what you mean more specifically? But generally I'm a very "whatever floats your boat" kind of person. I think that all victimless crimes should be decriminalized. Religion isn't very accepting of many kinds of those, though.
equality: The bible isn't big on this, especially regarding women, who for instance may not speak in church (Corinthians 14:34). Religion is very much coming in conflict with equality. For instance, the opposition to gay marriage and ordaining women.
taking good care of your family: I don't think there's been a single society on this planet that thought differently. Of course the standards for what "taking good care of your family" means exactly vary widely, but everybody seems to agree on that it's a must.
critical thought: right. Critical thought and blind obedience are mutually exclusive. Did Abraham exericse a lot of critical thought in pondering whether to sacrifice his son? Now of course he was stopped at the last moment, but the whole event is a show of the complete lack of any kind of thought. When told to sacrifice he does, and when told to stop he does.
responsibility: more details on this is needed, but about the same deal as the family one if I understood you correctly.
Slight disagreement: the modern translation is "you shall not murder", not "you shall not kill". The bible certainly contains a lot of killing in it, divinely mandated too. The "you shall not kill" taken seriously would turn christians into buddhist monks that make sure not to harm even an ant, and that clearly isn't happening.
Read the list again ... it's just the antonyms of the parent post.
PS: You're right about the Ten commandments though.
No sig today...
There are millions of people in this country, so there are bound to be a few nutjobs, but I'll admit we seem to be running above average lately...
Remind me again which verse tells me not to murder...I just read the list and it's not there.
No sig today...
Critical thought is frowned upon in religion it is not encouraged. This is practically the definition of faith.
Parroting "evolution is JUST a theory" is not critical thought.
Atheist are perfectly capable of embracing peace, tolerance, acceptance, equality, familial care, critical thought and responsibility. They do this because of a personal ethic, not because they are afraid of the wrath of an invisible monster.
Speaking broadly and drawing from all of the Abrahamic religions; war, racism, homophobia, sexism, indoctrination, anti-reason, and anti-contraception are all practically sacraments.
here
responsibility: more details on this is needed, but about the same deal as the family one if I understood you correctly.
You can do anything you want, as long as you confess it to a priest later and say you're sorry. If you do that all the consequences go away.
As I said, just check The Ten Commandments. Especially those saying that you should not kill, rape or steal.
As long as the one you're killing, raping or stealing from isn't one of the hundreds of exceptions also listed in the bible.
So basically, he's suing for 3 million dollars over 5 years because he's addicted to a video game? If he won, that would make him the first person to make $600,000 a year playing video games. At 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, that averages out to $288.46 cents an hour for playing Lineage 2. Most of us will never make that sort of money doing anything, let alone for playing an MMO.
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That's totally unfair. You missed out overpopulation.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...declined to dismiss Smallwood's claims for negligence, defamation, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Religions are exclusive, so either all are lies and one is truth, or they are all lies.
There is no reason to respect religion. I don't believe in your imaginary "grace". Prove it exists or fuck off.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Huh? Where does it say that's one of the Ten Commandments?
The only place in the Bible where it says "Ten Commandments" is Exodus 34:28
No sig today...
"critical thought, "
Except when applied to the superstition itself. The essence of religion is prohibition and submission.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The essence of religion is prohibition and submission.
Depends on the religion, I guess. For me, the essence is faith.
Modded: 'troll/flamebait'...
Why? Because you disagree?
The arguments above were all valid. If you disagree, you are welcome to make your case.
Religion does NOT get a free pass here. This is NOT the government.
Is buddhism not a religion?
If most slashdotters think that buddhism should be exempted when religion is mentioned in negative context, why are most of slashdotters atheists instead of buddhists?
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
I guess you're a Bahá'í then? It's the only religion I know which pays more than lip service to science and reason, faith in any other religion pretty much precludes critical thinking.
No sig today...
Interesting how I was modded as troll for stating the truth (even if you disagree with my post, remember that slashdot doesn't have a disagree moderation).
And I'm not even a religious person (more like an agnostic), I just wished for you anti-theist folk to look past petty hatred towards religion. But that's something you are apparently uncapable of.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
I guess you're a Bahá'í then? It's the only religion I know which pays more than lip service to science and reason, faith in any other religion pretty much precludes critical thinking.
But it is still a religion and therefore deserves scorn, right? Otherwise why bash religion and/or be atheist if not all religions are same shit in different package?
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
Buddhism doesn't involve believing in any gods (though some people worship Buddha apparently), so you can be an atheist Buddhist..
which is totally what she said
Bible is man-written. Ten Commandments are given to Moses by God himself. Therefore they should be put above anything else written in The Bible.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
We don't want to stoop to the same level as the religious.
You're picking and choosing very specific verses that suit your argument.
That doesn't make him wrong. Would you rather he picked versus completely unrelated to anything he was saying?
I've read the whole of the bible twice btw. God directly started wars in the old testament. That sounds like religion giving reasons for war to me, unless you're saying that the Israelite leaders were just pretending that God said something as an excuse for war? *gasp* Would humans ever do something like that, make up gods and beliefs to control people and get their own way? Surely not!
which is totally what she said
I don't know if that one deserves scorn, I usually reserve 'scorn' for the Bible.
I don't see how any person who claims to know what critical thinking is can base their life around the Bible. Harry Potter is more believable than the Bible and I think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes a much better moral code.
If the Bible didn't exist and was just published then nobody would get past the first chapter.
No sig today...
The things you mention are all works of people
And they're all encouraged or glorified in religious texts. Funny that.
Now you are the one who is picking and choosing from the bible to try and support your points, making excuses for all the stuff that you are scared people won't agree with, or perhaps that you don't agree with yourself. I hate how compartmentalised people can be about this stuff, so terrified to consider that the whole of their religion might just be bunk.
which is totally what she said
Not true. There are faiths that believe that all other religions/holy books are manifestations of the same god and welcome any of them to speak at their temples (in fact they actively invite them...)
No sig today...
Just imagine bigger targets like World of Warcraft.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Umm.. try counting them up. Those are the Ten Commandments that are being referenced in the passage you linked to.
which is totally what she said
With all due respect, stop being a fucking moron. Nobody here has suggested killing all Christians. Nobody here has suggested burning a church, much less all churches. To not only ascribe nonsense to people but declare it to be some sort of sexual thrill for them has to make you one of the most shallow, despicable excuses for a human being I have ever seen in my life. One who obviously has nothing intelligent to say, so he just makes shit up to attack as it pleases him . I'm sure you sleep awfully well at night having defeated your invented evils, don't you? Must be awfully hard to lose an argument when you just decide what the other side thinks and says and declare it to be truth.
Are you truly so dense that you can't separate politics and religion? Lots of people hate Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin, and it has nothing to do with their religion. It has to do with their politics.
I'm sure many of them would. What the fuck is your point?
All else aside, if you can't understand the difference between not caring if somebody dies or feeling the world is better off for it and actively suggesting they should be killed or killing them... well, I was going to ask how dense you could possibly be but at this point the question is becoming rhetorical.
I would consider somebody like Rush Limbaugh dying to be one of the better things to happen to this country because of the way he simply whips people into partisan furors to serve his own set of interests. It doesn't mean I wish death on him, and it especially doesn't mean I think he should be killed. If he WERE killed, I would expect the person locked in prison for the rest of his life and declare him a murderer, not a hero.
Yes, because clearly instead of talking about things or making a logical argument ("bitching on the Internet" in your little world) the correct solution is to kill everybody who disagrees with you. Holy hell, you really are a whackjob. Do you honestly believe you're one of the "normal[s]?" Because I have a newsflash for you. You're a fool, as bad as any religious or anti-religious nutter out there.
For that matter, you need to realize that being anti-religion and anti-theist are wildly different things. Believe in god if you want, I really don't give a fuck. Vapor-lock your lips to some religion's ass without thinking thoroughly about it all and what you truly believe, tell everybody they have to believe what you and your buddies believe, and I have major problems with it and with you. And much as I might think the world is better off without you in it, that doesn't cause me to orgasm to the thought of killing you. Sorry to disappoint.
Let me clue you in, since you're obviously too feeble-minded to reach these realizations on your own. People who don't believe in religion, who don't believe in God, who don't believe in an afterlife believe that this is all there is. They don't support running off and killing people to any degree more than believers do (there are bad apples in both groups, naturally). They don't support fucking each other over. They believe you should be good and tolerant toward one another because you don't get a second chance. Making somebody's life miserable is unconscionable when you can't pretend to believe that no matter how long they live, no matter what you do to them, they'll "live" an eternity longer in perfect bliss with their creator. Not believing in eter
Killing all Christians and burning all churches = wet dream of every slashdot anti-theist
Don't be such a fucking clown. I think Christianity and all religions have it dead wrong, but I don't want to kill everyone who has beliefs. I can understand and even respect some religious beliefs, and I see that religion does provide positive influences in some people's lives, though on a larger scale it has many negative effects.
which is totally what she said
I've read the whole of the bible twice btw. God directly started wars in the old testament. That sounds like religion giving reasons for war to me,
True. I'm just pointing out that the new testament is quite different in that respect (and does that not count? does negative stuff in the OT mean that the NT can't possibly bring something positive?), and that not all wars are divinely inspired. Most wars where religion plays a role, it's really just an excuse for an Us vs. Them war. It could just as easily be about skin colour, ideology or football teams. People tend not to be very picky when it comes to excuses to exclude people.
*gasp* Would humans ever do something like that, make up gods and beliefs to control people and get their own way? Surely not!
Isn't that kinda what I said? Politics abuses anything as an excuse to get what they want. Abstract concepts are really popular, apparently.
Nope, take another look.
The Bible actively encourages slavery.If 'people' take slaves, or sell their own children to other people as slaves, they're just following what god told them to do.
Homophobia as well, the Bible tells us to put homosexuals to death, it's not the work of 'people', it's a commandment from God.
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I don't think you understand what my religion is about. It's not about some verse in Exodus. It's about the NT. It is, in fact, quite explicitly about love. Love for God, and love for your fellow humans.
According to Matthew 22:36-40, the entire bible hangs on that. If parts of the bible don't seem to agree with this, it might be prudent to question your interpretation of them.
That's not picking and choosing, that's sticking to what's important. What the single central figure in the bible personally says it's all about.
he said modern religion, not old (thousands of years), nor ancient
So, in that case substitute praying for paying.
Stop bashing religion. Paying is a form of grace. More good comes from modern religion than you can imagine.
That works for, scientology, evangluism, capatilism, neo-psudo-comunism, republicanism etc....
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The Bible actively encourages slavery.
No it doesn't. It acknowledges the existence of it, and limits its abuse. Slavery was dead common in all countries in that part of the world at that time.
Furthermore, the new testament makes it pretty clear that to God, a slave is not any less than his master. There's a story where Paul helps the runaway slave of a friend, and sends him back as an equal, rather than a slave.
buddhism is a bit like a hindu offshoot.
there are so many branches of hindu that everyone on the planet could really be considered a kind loose variant of hindu.
hindu is sort of the belief in a soul or spirit, though some branches do not believe in that.
The soul can be in one part, or two parts (duelism and none-duelism)
It could be related to a god, or just be part of nature.
The key aspect is that at some point you want to become one with everything.
This is different from western philosophy that view humans as somehow special/separate, though Christianity went a little way towards humans not being so special.
Eastern philosophies basically say you feel separate but you are not, when will you realise this. And then have a number of ways of achieving that.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The Bible's pretty clear about which words were written on version 2.0 of the tablets.
Exodus34:27: Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."
It's also very clear about which set of tablets are the Ten Commandments:
Exodus34:28: Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
I understand that Christians would prefer the other ones to be The Ten Commandments, but wishing it won't make it so.
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peace: without a religion, many wars cease to exist, since there's no "promised land" to fight overy
Sounds nice, except that religion is most often only an excuse for war, most of the time the actual reasons are greed, the thirst for power, and such like.
By far, the ancestors of many, if not most, americans were thrown out of other countries for being weird, overly religious, or generally disliked. As a result, the future population of america was in effect bred to be weird, overly religion and generally dislikable.
This mean that your ancestors are to blame for kicking our ancestors out and creating this mess to begin with.
Please watch your mailbox for the "Weird, overly religious, and generally dislikable americans vs. the rest of the world" class action lawsuit notice.
Killing all Christians and burning all churches = wet dream of every slashdot anti-theist.
No, the wet dream (if we have one) is for them to get a fucking clue, then start actually being the people they thought they were in their delusions.
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Just because the NT isn't that bad in the regard of war doesn't mean it negates what wars were caused in the OT. Oh and don't forget about the crusades and Spanish Inquisition or is it b/c those are 100's of years old they don't count OK how about all the terrorists fighting for religion now? Hell on a smaller scale how about abortion clinic bombings? Sure religion brings some good but I'm willing to bet many more people died for their faith or because of someone elses than was ever saved by religion. I mean other than the original10 commandments nothing else was actually written by the hand of god. So the only thing important enough for god to write down himself was a list of rules that are pretty common sense. If that was what Christianity taught and not hate no one would have any problems with it.
I guess you're a Bahá'í then? It's the only religion I know which pays more than lip service to science and reason, faith in any other religion pretty much precludes critical thinking.
I'm not familiar with Bahai, but you might not be familiar with all branches of Christianity.
My church encourages critical thinking, has a lot of mathematicians and scientists among its members, and the level of education is, as far as I can tell, at least, quite a bit higher than that of the average (mostly non-Christian) population. But even that bastion of conservativism and traditionalism, the Vatican, invests quite a bit in science.
Somebody making generalizing claims that this can not be true, is just not terribly convincing.
Ok, I over-reacted a bit, but that's because my previous comment was modded down as troll even though I wasn't trying to bash atheists nor anyone else, only trying to defend religion itself by mentioning Ten Commandments. My intention certainly wasn't to defend religious leaders who start wars, deny evolution, prohibit use of condoms or do other stuff which has nothing to do with teaching of Jesus.
As I wrote in another comment, Ten Commandments are the only thing every Christian is obliged to follow because they are given to Moses by God himself. Everything else in The Bible is written by men and could be a load of crap.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
The problem with this verse is that its not taught this way. Its a nice sentiment but historically Christianity has taught people to fear change and to fear or hate people that are different than you. Love your neighbor (unless he is a queer.) Love God unconditionally (and never question him)
A few religious people do that so you blame all religions? There are atheists who have started wars, are racist, are homophobes, are sexist, indoctrinate children, reject science they don't agree with, ignore reason, and spread STDs directly.
Guess that leaves us agnostics as the only true saints.
Okay so what are you trying to say the ten commandments are? And are you saying God made a different covenant just because the first set of tablets were smashed?
which is totally what she said
Hey he has a point if it wasn't for scientology we would have one of the best episodes of southpark ever. Give credit where credit is do.
It doesn't matter, if you believe the bible then the old testament is as much a part of who the Christian god (and therefore Jesus) is as the new.
which is totally what she said
You may think so, but apparently even Dalai Lama isn't too fond of atheists and thinks they are no better than religious extremists.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
Oh and don't forget about the crusades and Spanish Inquisition or is it b/c those are 100's of years old they don't count
No, they don't count because they're political, rather than religious. Religion was just an excuse. The people in power used religion to keep people in line, which makes heresy basically rebellion. The crusades weren't religious, but cultural. "Those people are different and getting closer! Let's go take their stuff!"
OK how about all the terrorists fighting for religion now?
Which ones exactly are fighting for religion? It seems to me most are fighting for freedom or against cultural suppression. They feel put down, so they rise up.
Hell on a smaller scale how about abortion clinic bombings?
You mean the people who are insane murderers? I'd like to know what kind of religion inspires that kind of murder.
I'm willing to bet many more people died for their faith
I'm not denying that. Many people are willing to die for what they believe in, rather than renounce that belief. Is that wrong of those people? Or is it wrong of the people who kill them? (You know, the ones in power who feel their power threatened by people who believe something they can't control?)
I mean other than the original10 commandments nothing else was actually written by the hand of god. So the only thing important enough for god to write down himself was a list of rules that are pretty common sense. If that was what Christianity taught and not hate no one would have any problems with it.
That is what Christianity teaches. Or should be teaching. A lot of confused christians keep getting in the way.
Ghandi once said: "If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today." (I thought he said it would be irresistible, but this is what Google gave me.)
It's not the teachings that are wrong. It's the people.
Well, of course since I'm not religious I consider any scripture based justification for war an excuse.
Still, the less excuses that will do, the better, and the whole "promised land" deal created quite a bit of trouble.
Like Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
If that's how it's supposed to be, you've get the hell of a job to do to fix things.
On the other hand, I'm not sure this way of doing things is the best idea. If you love your enemy and forgive everything, how do you fight against those you consider that interpret your religion really wrong? For instance, with a mindset like that you're probably not on the side of those who burn abortion clinics, do you try to do anything about them? And does it work?
Which functions you mean? Paul wrote quite a few things on women in churches, but I don't remember seeing anything very progressive. Also, see below.
Which? The Vatican declared that ordaining women is a crime. For a start, please tell me of which denominations comply with the Bechdel Test for Religion:
(1) at least one woman in a position of authority;
(2) who plays a formal, recognized role in shaping doctrine or practice;
(3) that is binding on male members of that religion.
Please try to stick to ones of a reasonable size, if there are lots then it shouldn't be difficult.
Also it seems a schizm is going to happen over the ordaining gays issue.
So it got better. Why not make it better still by removing the limits that christianity imposes? There's no reason why improvements can only happen once.
Please. God demands blind obedience repeatedly. Also I'm not sure what trust even means in this context. With Job for instance its demonstrated that God is perfectly willing to kill children just to make a point, so I don't think the "never mind that" at the last moment was guaranteed by any measure.
For me at least, a command like "kill somebody" is never valid on its own and must be questioned. I'm not of the sort that would never, ever in any circumstances take a life, but what I'd definitely never do is doing it without an excellent explanation for why it's needed. No amount of trust overrides that.
Heheh, but so do you, and so does everybody else. According to Wikipedia there are about 38000 christian denominations. So what makes you think you've got a more accurate view of it than I do?
The Catholic Church is effectively a shiny charity organization. The billion or twelve that go into all the gold and artifacts and museums and the bullet proof Popemobile is like the 15 cents or so you spend on pisscoffee at the convenience store. The rest goes to "missions" that have no hope of success, like feeding the poor or sending perfectly healthy priests to leper colonies in third world countries where they can get leprosy and die (but well, they manage to get everyone else to feel a bit better and keep them bathing properly and such, I guess).
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People have taught people to fear and hate. That doesn't mean that's what Christianity is about.
it is a system of philosophy. Pairs well with Catholicism, actually; Jesus was pretty good but nobody really paid attention to him.
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It does matter. It's the essence of what it's all about. If you ignore the words of Jesus, you're ignoring the most important part of the bible (at least from a Christian viewpoint).
Isn't that kinda what I said? Politics abuses anything as an excuse to get what they want. Abstract concepts are really popular, apparently.
My point is that I wish people would consider that everything about their religion may be man made. Not just the "politics". Now that I've managed to accept that this is the case with Christianity (very hard when you're brought up believing it as 100% truth your whole life), it's easy to see how it's just as much of a farce as all the other belief systems that people have around the world. There are millions of smart people out there who currently believe in stuff that they'd immediately dismiss as a fairytale if it was presented to them as some other belief system. It's amazing how many people try to poke holes in evolution, saying how statistically improbable it is etc. Just how is it any more probable that there is a god who has always existed with a fully formed intelligence, made of three parts who are apparently completely perfect and happy in each other, yet feel the need to create other beings to worship them to give them more sense of self worth or satisfy some narcissistic urge (very human), etc.. at least stuff like evolution is testable, while most religions word things so that there is no way to prove or disprove that their god is there (yet life for all these religious people is exactly as it is for non religious, etc, the bible even points this out in some places just in case people notice, while in other places it says how the lord will make the good prosper, blah blah.. meh sorry, ranting. I just wish there was a way to deconstruct everyone's thought patterns and beliefs and have them think logically through everything, realising that they're just falling prey to thousands of years of superstition. I'm not saying it's impossible that there are superior beings, or even gods or whatever out there, but I certainly think the bible doesn't hold water.
which is totally what she said
Why would you subject yourself to reading the bible through? I wouldn't read anything through, least not more than once. I'm trying to find a good book on Taoism at the moment, and maybe Buddhism but that's trickier. Trying to compare and contrast the deeper philosophy between religions (I have no use for gods) ... it's an enlightenment thing. A lot of religions had enlightened spiritual leaders -- Jesus got nailed to a tree for saying we should try being nice to each other for a change, and Buddha accidentally ate a Death Cap after spending his whole life telling people they should be nice to each other. Mahatma Ghandi was pretty enlightened too, but he didn't get associated with a religion (Jesus - Christianity; Buddha - a substitute for Confucius in various religions).
I have no interest in studying the whole of the Holy Texts on the Tao and Buddhism. I should add Confucianism to the roster too though. Maybe I'll write a book later.
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Excellent point. From the linked article:
"WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today."
I didn't say ignore the new testament, but why ignore all the rest? Anything that you don't understand you just automatically say "oh well God is definitely real and he's a good guy, so it must be me that's just not understanding here", instead of truly, really, honestly giving consideration to the fact that the bible might just be an entirely human fabrication.
which is totally what she said
That's not factually correct. Buddhism doesn't believe in any god, the Buddha is just considered ones revered teacher shown the same respect that one would show any teacher of standing. Which is why the Buddha always gets the highest seat in a room and will typically be given gifts for his teachings on a daily basis.
It is of course just as stupid to deny that there could be a god as it is to say that your god definitely exists when there is 0% proof. But I was just pointing out that you can follow Buddhist philosophies without believing in any god (no, I'm not a Buddhist or anything else, I'm pretty agnostic).
which is totally what she said
Sure sounds like worship to me. While I have respect for some stuff that dead people have done and taught, I don't make little statues of them and give them gifts.
which is totally what she said
Of *course* the lawsuit made it past the EULA - who reads those, ever?
The judge probably just thought "blah blah blah, click OK".
Why would you subject yourself to reading the bible through?
It's what you're told to do - read the bible every day, as well as praying. It helps to keep you brainwashed.
which is totally what she said
No, they don't count because they're political, rather than religious. Religion was just an excuse. The people in power used religion to keep people in line, which makes heresy basically rebellion. The crusades weren't religious, but cultural. "Those people are different and getting closer! Let's go take their stuff!"
And how do you not think that organized religions do not have rules to keep people in line? Even if the people in power were corrupt its the religions they used to instill the fear they didn't get all the soldiers to fight and torture for them by saying it was for their culture they told them that it was for their religion and their god.
Which ones exactly are fighting for religion? It seems to me most are fighting for freedom or against cultural suppression. They feel put down, so they rise up.
I don't know maybe the thousands that are fighting for Sharia Law?
You mean the people who are insane murderers? I'd like to know what kind of religion inspires that kind of murder.
The one this group follows apparently
I'm not denying that. Many people are willing to die for what they believe in, rather than renounce that belief. Is that wrong of those people? Or is it wrong of the people who kill them? (You know, the ones in power who feel their power threatened by people who believe something they can't control?)
sure that's a nice way to look at it but I was more talking about the millions that died in wars in the name of religion.
That is what Christianity teaches. Or should be teaching. A lot of confused christians keep getting in the way.
Ghandi once said: "If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today." (I thought he said it would be irresistible, but this is what Google gave me.) It's not the teachings that are wrong. It's the people.
You pretty much said it for me religions are not what they should be they are corrupt. Todays religions are nothing more than a political system trying to control people.
When that is what has been taught for generations that is what it is about. Maybe it used to be about something better but it hasn't been that way for hundred of years.
Personally? I don't know the will of "god" and I don't believe the Bible is any more divine than Harry Potter.
What I'm saying is that what the the Bible refers to as the Ten Commandments and what Christians usually quote when asked what the Ten Commandments are are two completely different things, ie. that their belief is based on dogma rather than any form of reason or critical thinking.
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Homophobia as well, the Bible tells us to put homosexuals to death, it's not the work of 'people', it's a commandment from God.
Bible is NOT written by God.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
You know, the story of Abraham and Lot always made me think the Christian God is more than a little bit of a sadist. Why exactly would I want to worship a Deity that thinks its hunky dory to ask for the head of one of his loyal follower's children, or makes bets with the enemy that cause one of his most loyal to have his family murdered and to be tortured? If any man did that we'd call him a sick fuck, but a Deity equals that's cool? Then again a whole lot of the bible never made any damned sense to me. Take Lucifer: Here you have the best and the brightest, the number one guy taking a shot at the title. Now he lost the first round but knows they'll be a second shot at the title. So instead of rallying his troops, trying to build a large army and giving them what they need to win, he and his generals are supposed to beat the shit and torture the crap out of those that are gonna be fighting FOR him? WTF? Is he supposed to be retarded?
As for TFA, ever since we saw that bitch, and I'm sorry but she was an absolute bitch that should have had her kids taken away, sue McDonald's because the lazy heifer fed her kids NOTHING but McDonald's for their ENTIRE life and then sued because they were fat and diabetic, then I knew the court system in this country is completely fucked up. What's next? Ohh I got a blister playing HL2, Valve owes me a million dollars! Oh and seeing those install screens on XP and Windows 7 all day gives me a headache, I want 10 million from MSFT AND a dozen top of the line x360s with lifetime XBL gold AND a pony! (Black 2010 convertible preferably) Give me a fricking break! Is this numbnuts gonna have to actually pay for all the time he wastes of the court, or is that just another bill We, The People get to enjoy?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Like Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
If that's how it's supposed to be, you've get the hell of a job to do to fix things.
We definitely do. Ghandi is completely correct, as far as I'm concerned.
On the other hand, I'm not sure this way of doing things is the best idea. If you love your enemy and forgive everything, how do you fight against those you consider that interpret your religion really wrong?
With words. It's what I'm doing here.
For instance, with a mindset like that you're probably not on the side of those who burn abortion clinics, do you try to do anything about them? And does it work?
I'm not aware of any in my country, but I'm all for giving them a fair trial and then locking them up for a good long time.
A large swathe of American Christianity seems to have thoroughly derailed, and I have no idea how to get that train wreck back on the rails again. I'm confident there are also still some more sensible Christians in the US, though.
Which functions you mean?
Deacon is one literally mentioned. My minister/vicar/preacher (or whatever it's called) claims there were more, though.
Paul wrote quite a few things on women in churches, but I don't remember seeing anything very progressive.
Not for today perhaps, but for those days, everything he wrote was incredibly progressive.
Which? The Vatican declared that ordaining women is a crime.
Who cares what the Vatican declares? Not even all catholics do.
For a start, please tell me of which denominations comply with the Bechdel Test for Religion:
(1) at least one woman in a position of authority;
(2) who plays a formal, recognized role in shaping doctrine or practice;
(3) that is binding on male members of that religion.
I've never heard of the Bechdel Test, but my local church has women in the leadership team who shape quite a bit of practice. Plenty of churches of female priests, preachers/ministers/vicars, etc.
So it got better. Why not make it better still by removing the limits that christianity imposes? There's no reason why improvements can only happen once.
I'm not sure those limits are really imposed by christianity, but I'm all for removing limits.
For me at least, a command like "kill somebody" is never valid on its own and must be questioned. I'm not of the sort that would never, ever in any circumstances take a life, but what I'd definitely never do is doing it without an excellent explanation for why it's needed. No amount of trust overrides that.
I fully agree there.
Heheh, but so do you, and so does everybody else. According to Wikipedia there are about 38000 christian denominations. So what makes you think you've got a more accurate view of it than I do?
My impression is that I've got a bit more of an inside view. Mostly, though, I don't know. My interpretation is an interpretation like any other. I arrived at it through quite a bit of critical thought and common sense, but most Christians I meet seem to agree with it for the most part. The people who disagree are mostly atheists or Americans.
I didn't say ignore the new testament, but why ignore all the rest?
I'm not saying ignore all the rest, I'm saying read it in the light of the new testament. And that quote from the NT in particular. Some parts are pretty hard, I admit. I'm no ultimate font of wisdom either.
Hi!
I finally get a chance to use one of my home grown pages in a discussion! Here's the list of my Buddhism shelf. I'd consider most of them "good".
http://taophoenix.colorhost.net/Buddhism/BuddhismArticle2c.html
Here's the still terribly fragmentary index page of my envisioned site. Apologies for the unbearably rough nature of the page. I had an audience of 0 until now, so I got lazy. : (
http://taophoenix.colorhost.net/ReVisionWide.html
The concept of the site is to version the articles like software programs. So the fragments are currently much like pre-alpha place holders, but you can see where things will go. You're free to email me for any discussion.
P.S. Hey Slashdot, holler if the site goes down, I am doing a small opt-in free host study, and durability is one of the metrics. Colorhost is hoping to be a Paid host, so they need to be able to take a hit.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Yeah, all those things are exclusive to religion... oh wait. Your claim is laughable. Then again, so is the claim that religion is super good. It's really more of a neutral thing.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Yet we're told to obey it or go to hell...? I dunno, seems to me like getting into heaven is a bit of a crap-shoot if it depends on the Bible.
If heavenly entrance depends on good works and deeds towards your fellow man then I'm betting it's full of Atheists.
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The bible's not in English, man. It needed translation, and we have about 30 translations that all say conflicting things.
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Bullshit. Christians explicitly recognize that while they may be forgiven for certain actions, that does not mean that they are without consequence. It simply means that the misdeed will not be held against you forever.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Critical thought is frowned upon in religion it is not encouraged. This is practically the definition of faith.
I know it would be breaking with /. tradition, but it would be nice if people found out something about the subject before posting. Yes, there are religious groups that frown on critical thinking, and they can be very vocal, but they're far from representative of religion. Pascal, Aquinas, Priestley, Gödel, Berkeley, Descartes, Leibniz and Kant were all religious and great critical thinkers (mainly encouraged by religious institutions), and critical thinking has always been very strongly encouraged in non-fundamentalist religion. To the non-fundamentalist religious, faith is a supplement to reason, not a replacement for it. And for strongly secular examples of why such a supplement is needed, see almost any episode of the original Star Trek. Spock will try to solve everything with "logic", and will be forced by circumstances to step outside logic.
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And how do you not think that organized religions do not have rules to keep people in line?
Who says I don't think that? I'm not defending organized religions here. I'm very much against them. Hierarchical organizations are very easy to corrupt. Corrupt the top (which is easy to corrupt, because there's power there), and you've got the rest too. Religion should be about a personal relationship with God, not about blind obedience to some organization.
The one this group follows apparently
Scary people. Don't think for a moment that they represent any meaningful part of mainstream christianity. I completely fail to see how anyone could believe themselves to be christian and do what they do.
sure that's a nice way to look at it but I was more talking about the millions that died in wars in the name of religion.
That a war is fought in the name of religion doesn't mean that that's what it's really about. Iraq was invaded in the name of WMDs, but nobody outside the US believed that one for a minute.
You pretty much said it for me religions are not what they should be they are corrupt. Todays religions are nothing more than a political system trying to control people.
Not all. But way too many.
Shame on whoever modded that flamebait "insightful". (S)He must have been a European xenophobe that knows nothing about the USA except stupid stereotypes. I, for one, am offended.
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B: the reason why she won the case was that was shown that Ms Donalds put profit before safety. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
It's a good job you USAnians dumped the tea. In tea-drinking countries (UK, Ireland, India, China, etc), tea is as served as close to boiling point as possible, and we even have rituals to make sure of that ("pot to kettle, never kettle to pot..."). In India, tea is often served with a second, empty, cup, so the customer can pour the tea from one to the other until it's cool enough to drink. Somehow we tea-drinkers manage without incinerating ourselves.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I think it's a sad state of the slashdot moderation system when someone espousing that a group is rascists, homophobes, and STD spreaders gets modded insightful and someone saying a group espouses peace and tolerance in the same form and conversational tone gets modded flamebait. They're either both flamebait or they're both contributing to the discussion at hand. You can't mod just one, it's not -1 disagree.
Which version of the "Ten Commanments" should we follow?
The unnamed set of rules listed in Exodus 20 or the explicitly named commandments given in Exodus 34?
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Honestly, this isn't specifically a response to the immediate parent - but the whole length of the thread that has gone off on religion.
WTF?
I've not got the mod points to mark the whole of this stuff Offtopic ... this really has nothing to do with the court case of a dude who's addicted to a shitty version of World of Warcraft.
McDonald's was the stupid one. All she wanted was the medical bills for her 3rd degree burns paid; I think that's quite reasonable. McDonalds said "No way, bitch, sue us". Dumb. They deserved getting their asses handed to them on a platter, they BEGGED for it.
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Ok. He claims to have spent 20000 hours over the course of 5 years. 20000 hours / 24 = 833.33 days played 833.33 days/ 365 = 2.28 Years So in the past 5 years, he has spent nearly 50% of his time playing this game. Is it a sign of addiction or just plan sad
The things you mention are all works of people. Things people have done with or without religion. They're products of conservativism and traditionalism, and have very little to do with religion.
You could also argue that religion is the work of people and any good or bad from it stems in essence from people. Like you said it's mainly an excuse rather than a reason and there's plenty excuses if you want one.
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So what's the good bit?
Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, counseling the bereaved, trying to talk youth out of a destructive lifestyle...
War.
Wars are started by pseudo-religious people who use it for their own personal gain. War is ALWAYS about land, power, control; all are the atithesis of almost every religion on earth.
Racism.
Citation? Example?
Indoctrination of children.
Depending on the Indoctrination, it can be a good or bad thing. What is so bad about Indoctrinating your children to love one another, to not steal, to be peaceful?
Rejection of science/reason.
There are a lot of religious scientists.
Rejection of contraception leading to the spread of STDs.
AFAIK that's only ONE (Catholicism) religion out of all the different religions. Besides, what makes STDs any different than any other diseases? If you're going to bash people for not wearing a condom, bash others for not getting flu shots or for going to work or to the grocery store sick.
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Thanks. I was surprised about that too. I usually have a bit more faith in the Slashdot moderators.
(It doesn't really put a dent in my karma, though. Whether you believe in that or not.)
As I said, just check The Ten Commandments. Especially those saying that you should not kill, rape or steal.
The first half are pretty much just about worshipping god then you have some good morals which aren't exactly Christian exclusive. Basically don't be a dick, and it doesnt mention rape at all.
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That's why you sue the parent company instead, which will most likely rather settle than have a drawn-out court battle.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
How can you so easily separate religion and politics? Many religions have people that are supposed to act as conduits for gods wisdom. So if they order you to do something then those orders are definitely a religious matter.
Take the crusades for example. Popes might have called for them for political reasons, but once they did, didn't the crusade become a religious cause for the people involved?
The same can be said for suicide bombers and other terrorists. If they believe that blowing people up is according to their religion, then their actions are a religious matter.
You can't just decide that, since you feel that a persons actions aren't how YOU understand their religion, they aren't following their faith.
It's not the teachings that are wrong. It's the people.
But what if the teachings themselves include, for example, orders to kill heretics? If religious leaders admit that parts of their holy texts no longer apply, and that they were written by man in the first place, why not change them? It's been done many times in the past.
The Bhuddists worship life itself. But when I was in Thailand in the USAF, where most people are Bhuddist, they seemed to be polytheistic. They even had these little ornate things that looked like bird houses for the spirits, gods, demons, and what not to live in.
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than you can imagine.
+1 funny. Aww mods have no sense of humor.
You still haven't given any evidence for what you're saying though.. I don't really see the point in it, trying to say that the commonly accepted ten commandments are not the "real" ten commandments, especially when you don't even believe the bible is true?
which is totally what she said
Luckily for us, all of those versions are available online. The site I linked to has 21 English versions and many foreign versions, maybe you can point out where the conflicts between the versions are...
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works as a joke.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
McDonald's was the stupid one. All she wanted was the medical bills for her 3rd degree burns paid; I think that's quite reasonable. McDonalds said "No way, bitch, sue us". Dumb. They deserved getting their asses handed to them on a platter, they BEGGED for it.
So if you sold someone some pizza and they shoved a piece of the melted cheese onto their "nether region", and they got burns, its your fault ?
What person in their right mind, regardless of "how hot" something is puts an OPEN container of coffee between their thighs ? If someone said "I put my hot coffee between my thighs and I got burned - Its your fault." came to me I'd say sue too.. because I'd think there is no way this can be my fault.
UPS Sucks
I defer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_version_debate
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Peace: See The IRA, Al Qaeda
tolerance, acceptance, equality: See Salem Witch Trials, Proposition 8, Slavery, Westboro Baptist Church
Taking care of your family: See honor killings
Critical though: See Intelligent Design
Responsibility: See Catholic Sex abuse cases
Yes, religion can be used for some great things, but every area that you listed can be provided with counterexamples of how religion can be used for evil purposes that fly in the face of what many believe to be the main tenets of modern religions.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
peace: without a religion, many wars cease to exist
Can you name a single 20th century war that was fought over religion? Look at American wars -- WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I, Iraq II, were all fought over land, other resources, power, and secular ideology. Almost all wars are. In fact, I can think of only a few in all of history that were fought over religion.
acceptance: of what you mean more specifically?
In the Christian religion, it means not just acceptance but unquenchable love. "Love those who hate you, do good to those who persecute you." It means being nonjudgemental -- "Judge not, lest you be judged yourelf." Christians are supposed to hate sin while loving the sinner. Most other religions are similar from what I know of them.
Did Abraham exericse a lot of critical thought in pondering whether to sacrifice his son?
He allegedly spoke directly to his God; and he was created by his God in his God's image. Do you have the right to tell a computer program you wrote to kill a child process it has running? Would you expect it to argue with you unless you had programmed it to?
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Yet we're told to obey it or go to hell...?
We're told so by short-sighted people, not by God. Religion isn't about worshipping short-sighted people, it's about worshipping God.
And Heaven (if something along the Christian concept of Heaven exists) might be indeed full of Atheists. I seriously doubt it could be full of people who committed atrocities in the name of God.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
Being a little nitpicky here, but this isn't true. Several of the eastern religious variants make no claim to authority, and readily accept western religion as a valid expression of their own understanding of existence. Hence things like Christian Buddhists, and the fact that Hindus don't generally start religious wars.
And further back, most of the polytheistic religions in ancient times were highly inclusive. The whole "believe in my God or die" thing is more a trait of monotheistic religion, which is probably most of your western experience.
I was an honest believer in Jesus as my saviour from 14 to ~24. And before that I believed in the existence of Jesus since I was a toddler.
I'm quite aware of what devout Christians consider to be a real Christian, ie anyone who believes Jesus died for their sins. Sure the bible doesn't say you have to read it and pray all the time to be a Christian, but it's widely regarded that if you are a Christian you will be doing these things because you want to. If you don't do these things people tend to think something must be wrong.
I'm not angry at all, you are generally presenting your opinions in a fairly respectful way, apart from the blind assumptions, which are a little arrogant.
I didn't get tired of going to church, I continued to go for many months even during the doubting phase that caused me to eventually stop going. A few months before I stopped going I was actually feeling more "spiritually alive" and committed than I ever had been. I was very used to going to church twice every Sunday, having done so since I was about 3. Sometimes I'd go along to the midweek prayer meetings, I was going to youth events on Saturdays, and going to help out at "Christianity Explored" courses when we ran them etc. I used to have discussions online even in places here like Slashdot arguing for Christianity being the one true faith, etc.
My enlightenment came not through becoming tired of going to Church, but through various doubts that developed over the years, and one relationship in particular that brought me down pretty low and in a state such that I was able to question my beliefs seriously. Everyone has "doubts", but most people never actually consider seriously that their god might not exist for example.. they just think that there must be something wrong with themselves rather than something wrong with what they're being taught. I appreciate your concern, but I seriously am happier this way, the last couple of years haven't exactly been perfect, but my outlook on life has been so much better since I've started to take responsibility and control of my own life rather than choose to believe that there is some deity in control of everything.
which is totally what she said
This is absolutely correct. Anyone who says differently needs to take a Comparative Religions course at your local institute of higher education.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
If you think buddhists don't believe in gods you either are stupid or severely misinformed. Not only do they believe in gods they believe in dozens and dozens of gods. I should know, I have in laws who are buddhists.
Like any religion Buddhism has countless sects. I'm sure there are some sects, especially the sort that seem to be popular in Hollywood, that are more secular in nature. Just like there are sects of Christianity that are drastically different from the more common forms.
Like any religion Buddhism has countless sects. I'm sure there are some sects, especially the sort that seem to be popular in Hollywood, that are more secular in nature. Just like there are sects of Christianity that are drastically different from the more common forms.
Exactly, so believing in gods is not one of the basic things that makes Buddhism Buddhism.
I wasn't going by Hollywood, while I was checking what I was saying about Buddhism and Atheism I was using this link: http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/buddhaatheism.htm
It does say:
The many mythological creatures and beings that populate Mahayana Buddhism art and literature are often called "gods" or "deities." But, again, just believing in them is not the point.
which is totally what she said
I'm just saying that you can be a Buddhist without believing in a god, but there are many Buddhists who happen to also believe in gods (which are not necessarily anything to do with Buddha).
which is totally what she said
I find that atheists are the most obnoxious, elitist group of people of any faith. They carry themselves with this air of superiority like they've got the universe all figured out. Agnostics are far, far more open-minded. And yes, atheism is a faith. It's faith in the concept that there is no God.
These people love to blame religion for all the ills of the world. It's no different than this jerk blaming a game for his own addictive personality. People can get addicted to anything even work.
The fact is that even if everyone were atheists we'd still have wars, rejection of science and reason, oppression and any other social ill you can imagine. These are human failings not religious failings. Religion is merely a tool. Religion is what gives people justification; it's how people convince themselves they're right. But humans don't need religion to convince themselves they're right and everyone else is wrong. The perfect example? Atheism.
Religions have helped humans come up with explanations for why things happen, why the world is the way it is. But I think on a more fundamental level religion is a convenient method of conveying a code of morals. Clearly you can have morals without religion, but this facilitates the message and gives people something to strive for. It conveys an ideal. Of course humans also do a good job of corrupting everything they touch, but again that's not a failing inherent to religion.
When you look at any religion from this perspective they're good for humanity. What are the fundamentals? Don't kill, don't steal and care for the less fortunate. What's wrong with any of this?
Countless wars have been fought under the banner of religion. There have also been many more wars where religion has not been a motivating factor. Lets not be naive. The ultimate goal wasn't to impose religion. The goal is a drive for power, wealth and territory. Socioeconomic forces drive nations to war. Again, religion is used as the tool to justify wholesale murder and destruction. But even without religion they'd be fighting that war.
Want to be an atheist? That's perfectly acceptable. It's as acceptable and reasonable as someone choosing to be religious. But there's no need to revise history and make unfounded claims in order to convince yourself that you're in the right and somehow enlightened.
The McDonald's coffee wasn't just coffee hot, it was boiling hot; far hotter than anyone would expect coffee to be and far hotter than coffee should be. You're sitting in a car with a cup of coffee it's going to be over your lap. With normal coffee if you spill it it's going to hurt like hell, but you're not going to need medical attention. McDonald's coffee gave her third degree burns. It looks to me like McDonald's was the negligent one.
Pizza is expected to be firey hot when it comes out of the oven. Coffee isn't expected to be just a few degrees below boiling; that is, unless you get it from McDonalds. Its coffee is insanely hot; I always put ice in it to cool it down enough to drink, otherwise I'd have to wait an hour for it to be drinkable.
McDonald's coffee is stupidly hot.
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The Old Testament forbids work of any sort on Sundays (or Saturdays if you insist). You're supposed to prepare the food the night before and do the washing up the day after. The Jews try their best but I don't know any Christians who obey that one.
In the New Testament Jesus says to give away all your worldly goods and that God will provide for you. If you own a car or a TV or a house or a cell phone or a gold ring or whatever then it's going to be as hard to get into Heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (ie. impossible). I don't personally know any Christians (or Jews) who gave away all their worldly goods. I did once see some people in Rome who were wearing sacks (literally!) I guess they might get in so long as they manage to do all the other stuff as well.
In short ... even by the very simplest interpretation of the rules 99.99999% of all Christians are going straight to Hell.
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I'm not familiar with Bahai, but you might not be familiar with all branches of Christianity
I guess not ... I just assume that if you believe in the Bible then you're not a critical thinker despite the label you put on yourself.
even that bastion of conservativism and traditionalism, the Vatican, invests quite a bit in science.
Only in the science which they find convenient, and mostly so that they can say "We're scientists too!"
No sig today...
So if you sold someone some pizza and they shoved a piece of the melted cheese onto their "nether region", and they got burns, its your fault ?
What person in their right mind, regardless of "how hot" something is puts an OPEN container of coffee between their thighs ? If someone said "I put my hot coffee between my thighs and I got burned - Its your fault." came to me I'd say sue too.. because I'd think there is no way this can be my fault.
Regarding your pizza example: no, they'd just be an idiot.
Regarding McDonald's: "McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180–190 F (82–88 C). At that temperature, the coffee would cause a third-degree burn in two to seven seconds. Prior to her lawsuit, there had been approximately 700 other burn cases involving McDonald's between 1982 and 1992." (Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants)
I agree it wasn't a good idea to put the coffee in her lap but she spent eight days in a hospital, required skin grafts and two years of medical treatment just because she spilled it on herself. I don't know if you've ever ended up with a hot beverage in your lap but it usually just hurts for an hour and gets a little red; it doesn't involve a trip to the hospital. Her original plan was to settle with McDonald's to cover her medical costs and they offered her $800. After that, they filed a suit for gross negligence for providing "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured" coffee.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
hardly surprising the west is capitalist [free will] and the east is communist [you are one with everything].
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
This is completely wrong. Buddhism is a religion but you could claim that it is not a theology. There is a difference. It is a religion because it involves things like souls and the afterlife/reincarnation. It is the combination of a philosophy and a fairy tale, a way of living your life and a fantastical reason why it should be that way. That is pretty much the definition of a religion. Now, in most Asian countries, the "Buddhas" are treated as gods. Why? Well because when they converted to Buddhism they took their old gods and made them enlightened ones (Buddhas). The same way that old African gods became saints in places where Christianity took over. The same story is repeated every place one religion comes to supplant another. In traditional (Indian) Buddhism, this is not the case, they accepted the old Hindu stories as useful parables but mostly moved on from their old beliefs.
Must be awfully hard to lose an argument when you just decide what the other side thinks and says and declare it to be truth.
But that's what people like George Carlin and Bill Maher love to do when they talk about Christians. It made them very popular among Atheists. Why am I not entitled to use same methods as them?
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
Okay, so can you explain where the "completely wrong" bit comes in? I don't see any of that that disagrees with what I said. You can be a Buddhist that happens to worship gods, but you don't have to worship anything to be a Buddhist.
which is totally what she said
If you are that prone to addiction and unable to take control of your own life, then you shouldn't have any rights, let alone the right to sue someone else for it. If you don't lead your own life you need to be locked up in some institution where your life is lived for you. Animals eat any chance they get; they can't help it and they have no control over it. But I don't see us giving them any kind of legal power. Why should it be different for someone who can't stop playing a videogame, something that doesn't even cause physical addiction? Yeah, proceed with the "you're an asshole" comments. I don't care.
Sounds like he follows this saying:
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
-Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
Well, that is true; and Thailand was the only place I met a lot of Bhuddists. There may well be Bhuddists in other places who don't have those gods and demons.
Free Martian Whores!
If there were no religion, people would find another excuse to be racists or homophobes. After all, communists also did most of the things you mentioned and they rejected religion. And don't give me that crap "communism is good in theory, it's the power-hungry people who abused it". The same can be said for religion. As I said, just check The Ten Commandments. Especially those saying that you should not kill, rape or steal.
The point is, did religion every really prevent that stuff from happening? Not on a large scale it didn't. Maybe on a rare personal scale. Usually, the person or people were going to do whatever it was they wanted to do and religion, far from putting the brakes on the wholesale slaughter, actually was twisted to support it. So why bother with religion in the first place?
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
And if it doesn't work?
That seems to conflict with the previous idea of loving your enemy and forgiving them. Or is jail a form of forgiveness? Also that's a very secular approach.
That seems to be a contentious issue. As far as I gather, the bible contains arguments both for and against, people pick whatever they like more. Note how the site mentions that women should still be restricted by the limitations mentioned by Paul.
Ok, so why still have it in the current bible?
How do you decide which limits are okay to remove?
So why do you need religion at all? If you'd tell to your own God, "wait a sec, what am I doing this for?" then clearly you're exercising judgement that's not coming from your religion. Your sense of right and wrong therefore doesn't have a divine source to it. Might as well go all the way then.
There is a lot of Ascetic or Buddhist like teachings in the new testament; which is why medieval monks led such humble lifestyles.
I think it's fair to say that Jesus was teaching an entirely different philosophy than was preached by the profits who were said to have prophesied his coming.
I think I can also say that applying current western cultural values to ancient texts as a method of ridiculing them is extremely ethnocentric. Of course the closer you get to modern western culture the more agreeable the beliefs will be, and the less agreeable they would be to an ancient middle-eastern tribe.
To abstract this away from religion; Imagine you were a Spartan judging Athenians, then imagine you are an Athenian judging Spartans. Also imagine you are an Athenian or Spartan imagining the ideal person.
The problem is that we have a court system that is more than willing to indulge those nutjobs.
Hmmm...here's the only paragraph from that link where the Dalai Lama mentions atheism:
Having a bit of trouble with reading comprehension? He specifically mentions "Radical atheists", not atheism in general...
But only if you also do the penance the priest gives you.
Peace, tolerance, acceptance, equality, taking good care of your family, critical thought, responsibility.
but
I'm not defending organized religions here. I'm very much against them. Hierarchical organizations are very easy to corrupt. Corrupt the top (which is easy to corrupt, because there's power there), and you've got the rest too
and according to this 2007 graph thats 51% of the population (only including Christians and Islams which I know are hierarchical though some of the other 32% probably have some sort of hierarchy as well) even if we cut that figure in half that's a quarter of the population that are members of a corrupt religion. That's over a billion people and we both no I am low balling here.
Scary people. Don't think for a moment that they represent any meaningful part of mainstream christianity. I completely fail to see how anyone could believe themselves to be christian and do what they do.
Yet it happens all the time justifying killing so its ok with your religion whether its fighting in a war (any war) or being a suicide bomber. Thou shall not kill (unless you join the army then its fine)
That a war is fought in the name of religion doesn't mean that that's what it's really about. Iraq was invaded in the name of WMDs, but nobody outside the US believed that one for a minute.
Your right people outside the US know its a religious war or a war for oil and since gas prices here are still over $2.50 a gallon guess which one is more likely of the two.
Not all. But most. There fix that for you. Though religion has bought some good to the world it has brought much more harm than good. Religion was needed hundred and thousands of years ago to help explain what we couldn't understand and to bring people together to help one another but that time has past and civilization is far enough a long that religion has become a hindrance and is now holding us back from moving forward be it socially or scientifically.
In the future, to avoid liability, games will be required to suck.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My church encourages critical thinking, has a lot of mathematicians and scientists among its members, and the level of education is, as far as I can tell, at least, quite a bit higher than that of the average (mostly non-Christian) population.
Did they publish a peer-reviewed study applying their critical thinking to the existence of god? Did they perform an experiment, stating their hypothesis, and testing that hypothesis in order to arrive at the conclusion that god exists? Were the methods used rigorous and unbiased? Was the experiment repeatable, with others able to replicate very similar results? What is the accuracy of their conclusion?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
And if it doesn't work?
Then I keep trying.
That seems to conflict with the previous idea of loving your enemy and forgiving them. Or is jail a form of forgiveness? Also that's a very secular approach.
If they're honestly sorry for what they did and promise not to kill people again, I'm all for second chances. Then again, if they're aware that what they did was wrong and regret it, they might agree that a prison sentence is only fair. In the end, though, they're not my enemy, nor did they wrong me in any way, so it's not really up to me to forgive them. If the family of their victims forgive them, who am I to object?
By the way, secular law is not invalid in any way. There's nothing wrong with following the law. Well, unless that law is wrong, of course. (I'm also a strong believer in civil disobedience.)
As far as I gather, the bible contains arguments both for and against, people pick whatever they like more.
It's a flexible book in some areas. Use what works for you. It leaves a lot of room for personal judgment (and the NT is quite clear about that too). In any case, there's no fundamental reason why women should not ever hold important positions in a church, though. Other than "because Paul said so", but considering the core tenets of the bible, that's not a terribly strong argument.
Note how the site mentions that women should still be restricted by the limitations mentioned by Paul.
That's their interpretation. It's not universal. I certainly disagree. Had it been such an important issue, it would have been mentioned outside of Timothy too.
Ok, so why still have it in the current bible?
Why not? It's part of the thing. I prefer reading it in the social and historical context over short-sighted revisionism.
How do you decide which limits are okay to remove?
Common sense. Some are helpful, some are harmful.
So why do you need religion at all? If you'd tell to your own God, "wait a sec, what am I doing this for?" then clearly you're exercising judgement that's not coming from your religion. Your sense of right and wrong therefore doesn't have a divine source to it. Might as well go all the way then.
All the way where exactly? The fact that I can think for myself doesn't automatically imply God has no validity anymore. I'm sure there are people who need God more than I do (ooh, a hint of hubris there), but that doesn't mean I don't need him at all.
I'm not familiar with Bahai, but you might not be familiar with all branches of Christianity
I guess not ... I just assume that if you believe in the Bible then you're not a critical thinker despite the label you put on yourself.
Man, did you just condemn a lot of influential philosophers. Kant not a critical thinker? Descartes and Erasmus not critical thinkers?
Who said anything about killing people? I said "burn abortion clinics". Certainly, people can die from things like that, but there are more things to it.
Actions like these are a kind of terrorism. The intent is not just to harm a single person/place, but to intimidate a group of people. Even if the main target forgives the perpetrator, there's plenty harm that remains, and I don't think it's possible to have a large and largely undetermined mass of people forgive something. In the US it's also a federal crime, and no amount of forgiveness from the direct victims will stop the government from going ahead with the process.
IMO, it makes for an interesting question precisely for that reason. You can't just say "I would forgive" and be done. What about the harm to the society?
Certainly not, but your reply was most curious. First you profess a religious position, then when I ask what would you do seem to forget about what you just said, and answer just like an atheist might. It's like you're religious in theory but not in practice.
This and the next few paragraphs are interesting. Do you ever worry you might overstep your bounds and go to hell as a result, or the right intention is all that matters? And with such a tolerant doctrine, is belief needed at all, or good deeds would be sufficient?
Where exactly you'll know better than I. Secular humanism maybe.
But given all this, what do you need a god for, why does it have validity, and what do you find in the bible or any other such source that you can't find somewhere else?
He specifically mentions "Radical atheists", not atheism in general...
Well that makes him quite different than the typical Internet (slashdot, digg, reddit, you name it) religion-hater.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
Who said anything about killing people? I said "burn abortion clinics".
Somehow I read "bomb" instead of "burn", and assumed (possibly incorrectly) that it was an attempt at someone's life, rather than an attempt to destroy property.
Whatever the case, the big question from a religious point of view is: do they honestly regret what they did? If they do, are they willing to do everything they can to repay the damaged property? There's not much in the way of sin that can not be forgiven, biblically speaking.
But to be honest, I think this is all pretty theoretical. Is it very likely that these people will regret their actions? If you resort to that level of terrorism, you've got to be pretty full of yourself.
From a societal point of view, it's clearly a crime, and deserves punishment. Not to mention the fact that if they want to keep doing it, they're clearly a threat to society.
In the US it's also a federal crime, and no amount of forgiveness from the direct victims will stop the government from going ahead with the process.
And rightly so. It is the government's job, after all. You can't go condoning people intentionally burning down stuff.
Certainly not, but your reply was most curious. First you profess a religious position, then when I ask what would you do seem to forget about what you just said, and answer just like an atheist might. It's like you're religious in theory but not in practice.
The religious aspect and the secular aspect are very different. You can be forgiven and still go to jail. In fact, you can love them and still think they need to go to jail.
This and the next few paragraphs are interesting. Do you ever worry you might overstep your bounds and go to hell as a result, or the right intention is all that matters? And with such a tolerant doctrine, is belief needed at all, or good deeds would be sufficient?
The right intention is definitely important. According to 1 Corinthians 13, it is the only thing that matters. Am I worried I might go to hell? Not really. I have faith in God. Whether belief is needed at all, I don't know. Sometimes the bible is all about faith, sometimes it's all about good intentions (love). Do you need both? Is either one enough? Somewhere it even says that good deeds for the wrong intentions are still better than nothing. In the end, only the grace of God can save us. And personally, I hope that grace is not withheld from atheists or people from different religions who lived such a life of love.
But given all this, what do you need a god for,
Salvation, I guess?
why does it have validity, and what do you find in the bible or any other such source that you can't find somewhere else?
What I find is, I think, a hint of truth. Not the complete truth, nor do I think it's undiluted, nor the only source of truth. But what I get out of it most of all, is a sign saying "truth that way -->". That, and the trust that I'm safe. Which is certainly a nice feeling.
but I'm not going to assume those things because they are preposterous.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If one guy is in the store and is otherwise occupied.
Some of the stores really were "7 [AM] - 11 [PM]"
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Manifestation of assent doesn't literally have to be a paper signature.
Your installer hack would violate meeting-of-the-minds against the publisher; whereas EULAs in their normal state may offend that principle against the consumer.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
1. He must really be an expert at that; Malcolm Gladwell must be doubly pleased.
2. Indeed, contract clauses involving sometihng illegal are unenforceable.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, Or crookbacked, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; ... Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the lord do sanctify them.
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and don't lean on your own understanding. In all things acknowledge him, and he shall direct your way.
O lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
This whole War wouldn't happen if we didn't have religion thing is stupid.
The wars and the greed and all the conquering done were dreamed up by a real person first. Religion was the tool they used to get people to do their bidding. This is a huge mistake made by many anti religious people. It wasn't the religion that caused all these evils. Evil just is. Religion was just the tool used to perpetrate said evil. Ironic isn't it?
I love when Family Guy sums up the Abraham story in one single moment. The walk down the mountain with his son. "You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?"
"Buddhas" ? The only time when Buddha is referred to in the plural, is when talking about statues of him. There has only ever been a single Buddha, and it's made abundantly clear that he was human, even after he reached enlightenment.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Just as you can easily find examples that prove the opposite. Islam is a modern-day religion, is it not ? Kill the infidel. Let's have a look about tolerance and acceptance of gay people, in quite a few modern religions. Equality of women ? The catholics are turning out to be very good at taking care of the family - especially the younger members; and responsibility for that is of course taken by all involved.
And I'm not even going to bother citing an example of critical thought.
Yes, much good comes from religion, in the form of arts, morals and what have you. Unfortunately, much evil also comes from *organized* religion, where people get addicted to power over others. It's a two-edged sword, and don't delude yourself about which edge has dulled over the centuries.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
You also have to mean it, and GOD KNOWS ! *cough*
What a depressingly stupid machine.
No it's not. There's practically no religious overtones to the conflict at all. On the Jewish side, at least, many of those who most strongly believe they have a Biblical right to the land do not believe that the State of Israel should exist.
It is a fight over land, just like most wars throughout history.
You don't know Classical Hebrew. The word used in Exodus means murder, not (just) kill. Not necessarily premeditated murder, by the way. More like killing without just cause.
It also seems to be a Christian and/or Islamic ideal. Judaism doesn't care at all what non-Jews believe. It is a tenet that bad things will happen to those that don't believe in God, but God doesn't punish them directly; rather he allows bad things to happen. And of course there are perks for believers (even non-Jewish), but what religion doesn't have that?
That shouldn't matter, because EULA's have no legal weight anyway
Someone better tell the judges, then, because the case law so far rather decisively disagrees with you.
Didn't some fat chicks already sue McDonalds? I don't think I ever did find out what became of that...
You may want to look at these articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_(disambiguation). The term buddha means "enlightened one". In Buddhism, the goal of any soul is to reach enlightenment and become a buddha. What generally happens is that a "saint" or god from a previous religion gets renamed a buddha when the culture converts. It actually gets complicated as you get into the particulars of each version of Buddhism since they all have different cultural variations on what a Buddha is, what their role is and how the ones they call buddhas became that way.
Now there is only one "The Buddha". By which people mean Siddhrtha Gautama. Also, the statues of "Buddha" are often not the buddha you are thinking of. Watch a lot of Chinese or Thai movies and it will become clear that they aren't talking about "The Buddha" when they refer to the statues or their buddhas.
HTH.
I didn't say war wouldn't happen, I said it'd happen less.
And that's something I consider a problem. Religion is sometimes a good backup reason when no other good justification is available. Some things would be harder to justify if a good reason had to be provided, and the excuse wasn't available.
Also, for the record, when I say "religion" I don't just mean the god of abrahamic religions, but the general set of irrational belifs that can't be questioned. Personality cults are included as well.