Puh-leez. I wasn't going to respond anymore to this thread, but I'll go ahead and bite. That's a silly argument. You're blanketing all Christians with being the type who read the Bible 100% literally. This is simply not the case. Many denominations actually encourage the scholarly interpretation of the various conflicting--yes conflicting--aspects of the Bible. Christian != Southern Baptist != Catholic != Presbyterian != etc. etc. You're proceeding from a false premise.
Looks like your flaming Slashdot, not writing (high school, college?) papers. Settle down, finish your paper, flame your professor, get an F, we're done here.
I Have faith in NOTHING. Don't ever imply that I have faith any anything ever again, it's insulting. Vee believe in NOTHING Lebowski!
Everyone take a deep breath. It's a joke. We're not going to resolve this here. Let's move on. In other news, Microsoft makes baby Jesus cry. C'mon, let's laugh and enjoy Friday.
"in the name of religion" and "because of religion" are the same thing - one of them is merely an apologists cop-out to try and shift the blame. I respectfully differ. The distinction is of paramount importance in this discussion. The religion didn't cause it. Religion was invoked as the cause. It's much easier to justify something when you're invoking a powerful thing that lots of people believe in. If I get thrown in court for kicking someone's ass, I can argue that God told me to do it all I want--that won't make it true. And God is not the cause of the actions just because I say so.
nationalism hasn't been used anywhere nearly as effectively as religious bigotry to start wars and kill people. So Stalin's 50-odd million in the name of protecting the Soviet Union was what, inconsequential? What about some of the high-profile genocides in the last 60 or so years? What about, for that matter, the Iraq war? Religion wasn't invoked there, but tens of thousands have died already in that conflict. Jeez, you're making it hard for me to not invoke Godwin's law!
Religion thinks it should force everyone to be compliant to it's wishes. Religion is not a thinking thing. I doesn't think anything. It's a belief system.
if you're going to assert something is real, you better well have fucking evidence. The point of many religions is precisely that--faith is required, and the "truths" of the religion cannot be verified scientifically.
Religion is responsible for the supression of my rights Do you live in a theocracy (if so, I'm sorry, that sucks), or are you (rightfully) worried about how the neocons are kowtowing to the religious right in the US in the last few years, making policy that is ostensibly religion-based (not arguing here, just want clarification).
the mutilation of my body I'm terribly sorry. See my response to the next quote.
he pyschological damaging of millions of people, the death of even more millions, the cause of untold wars, No, no, no! These things have been done in the name of religion by dangerous, misguided humans forever. But look at the Twentieth Century. Millions died in that most destructive of centuries at the hands of men for myriad reasons other than religion. People will always misuse things in order to achieve their ends. I'll give you that religion can be particularly dangerously misused, (due to the emotional context in which it is seated in society--one need only look at this thread to see that), but it's not alone, even in that. Nationalism has been used very effectively to such destructive ends as well.
Please note, I'm not arguing from a theological standpoint. I don't belong to a church. I'm just trying to inject a little balance into a discussion that too frequently becomes an emotional conflict.
And I think the music of boy bands suck large smelly logs, but that's beside the point. Science and religion are not the same thing, they shouldn't be made to compete in the same arena. Hating theology because it's not science is like hating apples because you can't make orange juice out of them. That's the entire fallacy of Creationism as a "science" that I was pointing out--it ignores scientific processes, Occam's razor, and all that good stuff, but still has pretenses at being scientific. Religion, on the other hand, although sometimes used improperly in an attempt to supplant science, serves a totally different purpose to vast numbers of people.
Ask a Christian about carbon dating, and they'll say "it doesn't exist" or "its full of errors."
You don't really ever have to ask a Christian to explain anything, since their answer will inevitably be the ultimate academic cop-out: "God did it." Wait, wait, wait!!! Ask a Creationist, and they'll say that nonsense. I know plenty of Christians that are perfectly happy with evolution and science. Science and Christianity don't have to be diametrically apposed, as many absolutists would have you think. In fact, theology and science really occupy totally different parts of many people's lives.
Because although they didn't mind our presence, they weren't very snuggly, thereby missing out in the burial process, where dogs and cats won.
For some reason, as ridiculous as this museum seems to me, I don't see it as a threat to science. Folks ignorant enough to buy it would be that ignorant anyway, or they're the absolutist type who can't comfortably marry science and theology in their lives (funny because that type of reasoning, devoid of theological imagination, has spawned a "science" of creationism, which is forced to be incredibly fanciful to explain itself). It really is kind of a last gasp, like when the church was scrambling for geocentric arguments against Copernican cosmology--piling epicycle upon epicycle to explain each newly discovered kind of movement (even though Copernicus didn't do away with epicycles completely). This museum will be a very interesting anthropological throwback--a delicate and desperate collection of epicycles for our own time.
Re:I don't want to be an ass ...
on
A Geek On Everest
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I think his Everest book was "Into Thin Air". I haven't read either, but worked in a bookstore when they were popular, and they are supposed to be very readable. :)
I'm sorry, but that doesn't demonstrate knowledge of cold war history. The commies were the first in space, and made much of it. The silliness was distributed at least equally on both sides. One might be able to argue that the Soviets played it up even more than we did. They had more of a state-sponsored propaganda engine fueling the thing; huge billboards, giant, space-age social realism-styled statues of Yuri Gagarin located centrally in Moscow--it was a BIG deal.
haha! Maybe a little too cretin. I might be able to handle information that's a *tiny* bit more technical. :) Soooo, at the risk of sounding really stupid, wasn't this sort of thing happening with previous compilers?
Valid point. For my mom, the iMac's design and scarcity of wires are more important than the horsepower. But for me, the cool design of my G5 tower is only a bonus, not a necessity. I'm gratified by its design, but not wowed. I was merely juxtaposing the two extreme points. Unlike the girl argument though (I appreciate your honesty, by the way, and reluctantly agree), I would consider buying a butt-ugly computer that did exactly everything mine did.
Another thing that I thought about though while reading your post, is that my argument doesn't apply as well to the phone thing, and yours does better, for the simple fact that even I wouldn't want to carry around a totally heinous-looking phone.
You know, it's pretty easy to get tired of the direction that some here always try pushing a conversation that has anything to do with Apple. Yes, I like Apple machines. But that's because the accomplish for me what I want them to do, with ease. If they looked (and here's where the style-over-substance folks get it wrong) like a pile of dump, I'd still use them. If the reverse were true (they look as they do, but don't deliver the goods that I need), I'd never have bought my last one just to have a brushed-metal two grand doorstop. And yes, I do use non-mac stuff too. In fact I have a highly useful Linux box at home, that looks, from the outside, well, like a pile of beige dump.
I guess what I'm saying, is that it's not too useful to immediately start making fun of the iPhone with the substance argument, in a discussion that's about a different product. We've seen the picture now, thanks to a previous poster. Let's talk about that--looks pretty nice, wouldn't buy it for personal use, wouldn't buy an iPhone either./rant
As a musician who uses Macs almost exclusively (disclaimer: I use other platforms for other stuff, not a rabid Macboy), I've constantly over the years been both rewarded and punished by the platform. He gets it right when he complains about the hardware upgrade schedule. It's only been recently that I've found a nice balance between my OS, hardware, and all the intensive stuff that my software needs to do, without having to upgrade one of those three things in a six month period.
Where he gets it wrong though is about the freeware. I've found a wealth of freeware and tinkering advice for getting more into/out of your Mac--I'm always amazed at how much is actually out there, considering the relatively small user base. And that doesn't even count projects like Fink, if you want to do real tinkering. So he's right and he's wrong, but it seems he entered the argument with his mind made up, and that's the real mistake.
Today's starting off pretty well--first the RIAA gets a small smackdown, and now this. It would be nice to live in a country where parents are actually expected to make decisions for themselves about what their kids watch. As a previous poster stated, we already have the annoying warnings about the content of upcoming programs--that means that if you don't want your kids absorbing and regurgitating TV filth, then don't let them watch it.
Slashdot Mirror
one of my favorite recent (last ten years or so) Simpsons scenes:
Online Auto Diagnosis Doctor [using AOL voice]: You've got... Leprosy!
Puh-leez. I wasn't going to respond anymore to this thread, but I'll go ahead and bite. That's a silly argument. You're blanketing all Christians with being the type who read the Bible 100% literally. This is simply not the case. Many denominations actually encourage the scholarly interpretation of the various conflicting--yes conflicting--aspects of the Bible. Christian != Southern Baptist != Catholic != Presbyterian != etc. etc. You're proceeding from a false premise.
Looks like your flaming Slashdot, not writing (high school, college?) papers. Settle down, finish your paper, flame your professor, get an F, we're done here.
Aahr. There be unpatched pirate servers here.
Everyone take a deep breath. It's a joke. We're not going to resolve this here. Let's move on. In other news, Microsoft makes baby Jesus cry. C'mon, let's laugh and enjoy Friday.
What about some of the high-profile genocides in the last 60 or so years?
What about, for that matter, the Iraq war? Religion wasn't invoked there, but tens of thousands have died already in that conflict. Jeez, you're making it hard for me to not invoke Godwin's law!
Hee hee! This thread's about to go all Godwin on us.
:)
if you're going to assert something is real, you better well have fucking evidence. The point of many religions is precisely that--faith is required, and the "truths" of the religion cannot be verified scientifically.
Religion is responsible for the supression of my rights Do you live in a theocracy (if so, I'm sorry, that sucks), or are you (rightfully) worried about how the neocons are kowtowing to the religious right in the US in the last few years, making policy that is ostensibly religion-based (not arguing here, just want clarification).
the mutilation of my body I'm terribly sorry. See my response to the next quote.
he pyschological damaging of millions of people, the death of even more millions, the cause of untold wars, No, no, no! These things have been done in the name of religion by dangerous, misguided humans forever. But look at the Twentieth Century. Millions died in that most destructive of centuries at the hands of men for myriad reasons other than religion. People will always misuse things in order to achieve their ends. I'll give you that religion can be particularly dangerously misused, (due to the emotional context in which it is seated in society--one need only look at this thread to see that), but it's not alone, even in that. Nationalism has been used very effectively to such destructive ends as well.
Please note, I'm not arguing from a theological standpoint. I don't belong to a church. I'm just trying to inject a little balance into a discussion that too frequently becomes an emotional conflict.
And I think the music of boy bands suck large smelly logs, but that's beside the point. Science and religion are not the same thing, they shouldn't be made to compete in the same arena. Hating theology because it's not science is like hating apples because you can't make orange juice out of them. That's the entire fallacy of Creationism as a "science" that I was pointing out--it ignores scientific processes, Occam's razor, and all that good stuff, but still has pretenses at being scientific. Religion, on the other hand, although sometimes used improperly in an attempt to supplant science, serves a totally different purpose to vast numbers of people.
Don't worry. We got your message. Grandparent was a troll, and missed your outdoors point completely.
Because although they didn't mind our presence, they weren't very snuggly, thereby missing out in the burial process, where dogs and cats won.
For some reason, as ridiculous as this museum seems to me, I don't see it as a threat to science. Folks ignorant enough to buy it would be that ignorant anyway, or they're the absolutist type who can't comfortably marry science and theology in their lives (funny because that type of reasoning, devoid of theological imagination, has spawned a "science" of creationism, which is forced to be incredibly fanciful to explain itself). It really is kind of a last gasp, like when the church was scrambling for geocentric arguments against Copernican cosmology--piling epicycle upon epicycle to explain each newly discovered kind of movement (even though Copernicus didn't do away with epicycles completely). This museum will be a very interesting anthropological throwback--a delicate and desperate collection of epicycles for our own time.
I think his Everest book was "Into Thin Air". I haven't read either, but worked in a bookstore when they were popular, and they are supposed to be very readable.
:)
I'm sorry, but that doesn't demonstrate knowledge of cold war history. The commies were the first in space, and made much of it. The silliness was distributed at least equally on both sides. One might be able to argue that the Soviets played it up even more than we did. They had more of a state-sponsored propaganda engine fueling the thing; huge billboards, giant, space-age social realism-styled statues of Yuri Gagarin located centrally in Moscow--it was a BIG deal.
Well, we all know trolls are hopelessly stupid and can only read Slashdot at 800 x 600, so to him, it must look much bigger.
You spelled '1337' wrong. Now that's funny coming from a n00b like me!
Heh, now that's what I really needed to hear. So crap's going to automatically make use of multiple cores better.
;)
FYI, not a programmer/developer/etc., not even PHP, just interested in tech, but love the attitude anyway, AC
haha! Maybe a little too cretin. I might be able to handle information that's a *tiny* bit more technical.
:)
Soooo, at the risk of sounding really stupid, wasn't this sort of thing happening with previous compilers?
...briefly translate this article into cretin for me, so that I can understand a bit more of why it's so cool?
>for it's editor
Did you mean that? Poignant!
>19. Illegal filesharing caused Pangea to split.
hahahahaha! They must have been using TCP/IP over bongos (I know, Pangea was a long time before bongos, settle down).
Yes, I know my user id is high. Yes, I've been lurking for a long time.
Valid point. For my mom, the iMac's design and scarcity of wires are more important than the horsepower. But for me, the cool design of my G5 tower is only a bonus, not a necessity. I'm gratified by its design, but not wowed. I was merely juxtaposing the two extreme points. Unlike the girl argument though (I appreciate your honesty, by the way, and reluctantly agree), I would consider buying a butt-ugly computer that did exactly everything mine did.
Another thing that I thought about though while reading your post, is that my argument doesn't apply as well to the phone thing, and yours does better, for the simple fact that even I wouldn't want to carry around a totally heinous-looking phone.
You know, it's pretty easy to get tired of the direction that some here always try pushing a conversation that has anything to do with Apple. Yes, I like Apple machines. But that's because the accomplish for me what I want them to do, with ease. If they looked (and here's where the style-over-substance folks get it wrong) like a pile of dump, I'd still use them. If the reverse were true (they look as they do, but don't deliver the goods that I need), I'd never have bought my last one just to have a brushed-metal two grand doorstop. And yes, I do use non-mac stuff too. In fact I have a highly useful Linux box at home, that looks, from the outside, well, like a pile of beige dump.
/rant
I guess what I'm saying, is that it's not too useful to immediately start making fun of the iPhone with the substance argument, in a discussion that's about a different product. We've seen the picture now, thanks to a previous poster. Let's talk about that--looks pretty nice, wouldn't buy it for personal use, wouldn't buy an iPhone either.
As a musician who uses Macs almost exclusively (disclaimer: I use other platforms for other stuff, not a rabid Macboy), I've constantly over the years been both rewarded and punished by the platform. He gets it right when he complains about the hardware upgrade schedule. It's only been recently that I've found a nice balance between my OS, hardware, and all the intensive stuff that my software needs to do, without having to upgrade one of those three things in a six month period.
Where he gets it wrong though is about the freeware. I've found a wealth of freeware and tinkering advice for getting more into/out of your Mac--I'm always amazed at how much is actually out there, considering the relatively small user base. And that doesn't even count projects like Fink, if you want to do real tinkering. So he's right and he's wrong, but it seems he entered the argument with his mind made up, and that's the real mistake.
Today's starting off pretty well--first the RIAA gets a small smackdown, and now this. It would be nice to live in a country where parents are actually expected to make decisions for themselves about what their kids watch. As a previous poster stated, we already have the annoying warnings about the content of upcoming programs--that means that if you don't want your kids absorbing and regurgitating TV filth, then don't let them watch it.