Which of those steps was the "seriously stupid shit"?
The part where the game still checks to see if a supposedly disabled setting is on or off, and still has active functions to enforce permadeath?
Im no programmer-- but this isnt difficult. Somewhere there are a series of functions that get called @ death. One of those does the permadeath stuff. That should have been either ripped out, commented out, or neutered prior to release, if they really did not want that mode ingame.
So instead of dealing with samizdat networks and underground churches... they let them all out in public, then carefully lead them.
all practicing, and all controlled by the party.
There ARE underground churches there, and they arent controlled by the party. Youre describing the end that they are working towards, not what currently exists.
The reason as I understand it (from several folks over there) is that large gatherings of people not under the thumb of the government is deeply frightening to the Chinese government.
Otherwise I generally agree with your post, though Im not sure Id use the "worst thing to happen to humanity" language. As deeply troubling as a lot of their actions are, I think I would still reserve that.
The belief that there are no deities (as with Dawkins) is commonly referred to as atheism. The "no stance" belief is commonly referred to as "agnosticism".
Religious is a stupid meaningless term, yes. It means completely different things to different people and is vague beyond all belief. I think "spiritual" is too, but at least that doesnt lump everyone into it.
Im not sure what youre talking about with the state religion in china. There are state-authorized churches, which are the ONLY place you are permitted to evangelize, and you are not permitted to discuss religion with anyone under 18. There are western / international churches, which are forbidden to anyone without a passport from another country. And if you want to join the communist party, you must disavow any religious beliefs.
The state religion is most certainly not Catholocism, considering that there are roughly 54 million "Christians" (which includes Protestants and Catholics), versus some 600 million Buddhists.
1) Are warnings coercion? 2) you say most.... I will ask you the same question I asked you earlier-- is this anecdotal? Or will you stop using that word as if it means anything more than "the very very few that I have seen"? 3) Dawkins makes the same claim about the root of evil, but Ive never heard the problem of all the 20th century atrocities (the majority either committed by atheists, or with an anti-religious sentiment) really dealt with. Where exactly does religion fit into the killing fields or the soviet purges? 4) Use some line breaks, bro.
Every good teaching on the gospel I have ever heard starts with the statement, "you are a bad person and deserve hell." There is NONE righteous, not even one; all have fallen short of the glory of God.
If you think that "youre a good person and deserve heaven" is the christian message, then youre hearing some poisonous, distorted stuff.
The problem with any internet discussion is that I am happy to respond to either of those two issues you raised, (which I will, very briefly), but there is large chance that it will degenerate argument ad nauseam.
Addressing your first two passages, 4 points
1) Billy Graham is an evangelist, but he also has enormous issues with his theology, to a degree that a great many people now wonder whether he is saved at all (his declaration a few years ago that folks will be saved who do not know christ, which denies one of the core tenets of christianity). I would not turn to him for scriptural interpretation.
2) Jesus was addressing hypocrisy in that passage; I do not remember the name for the argumentative device he is using, but it contrasts the letter of the law to their complete flippancy towards it by demonstrating the degree of respect demanded and the degree of the pharisee's disrespect. You will note that Jesus himself does not call for
3) The OT law is not meant for any other than the nation of Israel. Even Jews will agree with this. Many aspects of it simply do not apply to modern christians, doubly so for racially non-jewish ones. Israel was to be set apart as a nation chosen by God, and so punishments for a number of sins were quite severe to emphasize their duty to God. This is not an issue unless you assume that God does not exist.
4) Regarding picking and choosing: There are different classes of OT law. Some demonstrate moral truths, and remain in force. Some were clearly of a ritual nature (ritual cleanliness) and do not apply. Some were of a sin-atoning nature (sacrifices) and also do not apply (due to Jesus' crucifixion). There is a great deal of text in the NT on this, and I would suggest you acquaint yourself on it before arguing this point.
Whether that particular law would in fact apply for a Jewish family in Jesus time I do not know, as there are a number of considerations and I am not well read on that point.
Regarding your second point, I think #3 above as well as considering the demands that a tin soldier might make on his maker answer it well enough. It is, again, only an issue if you assume God does not exist, in which case the Bible would be fiction and we would have no problem. The problem comes when you employ broken logic to assume for argument that the Bible is true but God does not exist (or else have any rights as a creator).
Christianity and other irrational belief systems like Communism and Maoism and Nazism have killed hundreds of millions of people over the years.
Whats irrational is putting Maoism, Nazism, and Communism into the same breath as Christianity-- not only because of the scale of their killing, but because the virulently atheistic sentiment they express is being expressed in this very discussion thread by others.
Many of the Bible's authors can be presumed to have been suffering from chronic malnutrition
I attended one of the Westboro protests recently with my kids.
Referring to the Westboro as if it is even remotely representative of christianity is dishonest in the extreme. I (and a great many others) find what they do to be sinful and a denial of the values taught in the new and old testaments, all in the name of elevating "hatred of a particular sin" to their chief concern.
And even so you acknowledge that what they do-- probably one of the most extreme examples-- is and should be lawful.
demonizing outgroups and generally creating a cult-like, bunker mentality
You can potentially see this in any echo chamber. Certainly I see "demonizing outgroups" even in forums like slashdot; did we not see people calling for the hurricane to wipe out the GOP convention back in august, some posters in full seriousness? Yet from my experience, the worst of it is that if you walk away from your faith it will change the nature of your relationship with others of the church. I have seen it in my own church, and it is not what you claim it to be.
If you honestly think that people like Pat Robertson and James Dobson are not good representatives of their religion, then you are willfully ignoring reality.
Im not terribly familiar with what either of them teach or believe, but in general those who go out of their way to be well known politically or otherwise tend to be poor examples of christian authorities. Theres no easy answer to "what does a faithful pastor" look like, much as you might say "theres no easy answer to 'what does a good solid secular humanist look like' ". If you want to know what is truly in line with the christian faith, we have a manual thats probably the most available book in existence.
Folks "attacking gays" have utterly missed the point and IMO descended into sinful hatred. We are called to abhor sin, yes-- but to love the sinner, as Jesus himself did. I believe all sex outside of a man-woman marriage to be sin, yes-- but remember that Jesus himself had pity on and absolved prostitutes. When I look at that example, and then at the videos you mention, I find the two to be totally disconnected and can only say that those involved have sadly misunderstood their responsibility as christians (if they are in fact sincere in their faith).
The separation of church and state is one of things.
Separation of church and state refers to the prohibition of a state endorsing or enforcing a particular belief system. That would (IMHO) include the enforcement or preference for atheism, as it is seen in China today (where you may not work for the government without affirming by oath that you are atheist). Its funny how some people will get all a-dither about the whole "separation" thing and then advocate violating it by endorsing atheism.
1) Westboro is following the religion as laid out in the bible
Incorrect. When Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself", no exception was made for those committing specific sins. I may think someone a sinner and still follow the tenets of christian charity.
Wherever you are getting your information on the bible is either deliberately lying to you or else is ignorant; either way I suggest you rely on your own reading of the bible, not someone else's.
2) Just put religion where it belongs, out of politics, law, schools
Tell you what, separate YOUR worldview from the ballot box, and when you figure out how to do that let me know and we can talk about me doing that. The whole idea that you can just separate one part of a person's beliefs from the rest of them is absurd.
worshiping a book that promotes genocide, homophobia, misogyny, stoning people to death, not allowing you to eat shellfish, pork etc (except most christians ignore this rule from god)
Again, whoever is feeding you facts about the bible is unreliable. That you think we worship a book at all is a good indication of that.
Youre calling my beliefs poisonous while deciding that it is OK to deprive me of constitutional rights because of my beliefs? And you then dare to criticize naziism?
Wow, talk about hypocrisy. What do you suppose made naziism so bad, if not their attacks on the rights of others based on belief?
I would suggest you stop and take a good hard at your own beliefs before criticizing others.
No, it is not. If you peel it back to the most basic point, atheism is simply a lack of a belief in a deity.
NOT true. Dawkins doesnt say "I have no belief regarding deities", he makes an affirmative statement: "I believe there are no deities".
That is, its not a lack of belief, its an active belief. Wikipedia defines religion thus... Religion is a collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values
Certainly what Dawkins believes falls under that. He has beliefs about human spirituality, as shown by this very article.
That depends on how you define religion, which is a famously tricky word. Certainly "atheisms" are belief systems.
Black is not a color.
Not to be pedantic, and I know this wasnt your main point, but absolutely it is. In light, it is the absence of light, but with pigments it a color formed by the combination of the primaries.
Whether it is high grade "in your face" coercion, like abortion clinic protests
Here I thought protest was a staple of democracy, not an example of heinous coercion. Do people not have a right to express their views, simply because said views might be influenced by their religious convictions? Are religious people second-class citizens in that regard?
the low grade group-think scare tactics used by most churches to keep members(especially young members) in line
Thats a weak, vague claim. What tactics would those be? You say "most" churches, is this from personal experience with a statistically significant number of churches, or can we file this under "anecdotal"?
Youre gonna have to define what you mean by "psychologically coercive" in the context of a local church, because I have NOT seen that.
If by limits he meant that a religious group should not have the power to enforce its beliefs upon society in general,
It doesnt, except by voting. Would you have us make it illegal to vote based on your beliefs?
1) Just because SOME religions use coercion or violence, does not mean all do. Not all churches are the Westboro, and I would assert that at LEAST for christianity as it is found in the US, such acts are incredibly rare and not even remotely representative. 2) Thats a really ominous statement. Would your position make using coercion to inhibit religion justifiable? 3) The problem is that "quality of life" includes the right to worship.
they make (some) of their own network gear, and have since at least 2007
Either theyre in the chip business, or theyre getting the switch parts from another switch company. And this statement:
It is our opinion that Google (GOOG) has designed and deployed home-grown 10GbE switches..... Coming off of a blog 5 years ago, does not seem terribly reliable. Especially since you cant just decide out of the blue "hey, why dont we make our own switches"... you need the switchport asics, the switch OS (assuming you want any features beyond "can do layer 2 switching"), and a crapton of troubleshooting. Thats not something you bust out on a whim.
Thats not really correct. They give you a "free" second license with every copy of Windows Server, but that "free" copy may ONLY be used for HyperV stuff. That server may not legally host files, act as DNS / DHCP, run as a ADDC, etc. And I believe the "license you paid for" has to be running on that HyperV host. Basically, theyre just throwing in the environment to virtualize everything with when you buy the OS.
But of course, ESXi has a free version, albeit with a 32GB RAM limit (yuck).
VMWare has a much better networking stack, for one. For another, its a lot more reliable (ive had config changes in HyperV take several reboots to really kick in, like changing a vNIC's network). For a third, it lets you hot-add hardware that HyperV doesnt even dream of (disks, NICs).
There is also, as you mention, the much wider OS support, as well as the generally better performance.
Oh, and under VMWare Workstation, I can host guests running ESXi, and set up an entire virtual lab environment, and even host sub-hypervisors under that (3-4 levels deep). I believe it will also allow me to host HyperV, even tho microsoft doesnt really support it. I do not believe HyperV has ANY nesting capabilities.
I subscribe to the "monocultures are inevitably fatal" mind set. If everyone had the same browser with the same plugins and the same antivirus, all running on the same OS, do you have any idea how quickly a zero-day would spread?
Do you think current viruses are not checked against Norton/McAffee/etc?
Do you have any idea how malfunctioning machines Ive troubleshot only to find that they were infected and the virus disabled Norton or Security Essentials? Its a lot.
Cleverly written code can easily mess up an AV. Remember that there are generally removal tools for AVs, and that theres generally no reason a virus couldnt use the same mechanisms the removal tool uses to disable the AV (and still have it report as active in the security center).
Of course, itll be a zillion times more fun now that its a core component and you cant just use a removal tool to clean up the mess.
Slashdot Mirror
Which of those steps was the "seriously stupid shit"?
The part where the game still checks to see if a supposedly disabled setting is on or off, and still has active functions to enforce permadeath?
Im no programmer-- but this isnt difficult. Somewhere there are a series of functions that get called @ death. One of those does the permadeath stuff. That should have been either ripped out, commented out, or neutered prior to release, if they really did not want that mode ingame.
(ignoring overheads etc)
I think I found the problem with your assumptions. Ignoring overheads can get you into a lot of trouble in parallel computing.
So instead of dealing with samizdat networks and underground churches... they let them all out in public, then carefully lead them.
all practicing, and all controlled by the party.
There ARE underground churches there, and they arent controlled by the party. Youre describing the end that they are working towards, not what currently exists.
The reason as I understand it (from several folks over there) is that large gatherings of people not under the thumb of the government is deeply frightening to the Chinese government.
Otherwise I generally agree with your post, though Im not sure Id use the "worst thing to happen to humanity" language. As deeply troubling as a lot of their actions are, I think I would still reserve that.
The belief that there are no deities (as with Dawkins) is commonly referred to as atheism. The "no stance" belief is commonly referred to as "agnosticism".
Religious is a stupid meaningless term, yes. It means completely different things to different people and is vague beyond all belief. I think "spiritual" is too, but at least that doesnt lump everyone into it.
Im not sure what youre talking about with the state religion in china. There are state-authorized churches, which are the ONLY place you are permitted to evangelize, and you are not permitted to discuss religion with anyone under 18. There are western / international churches, which are forbidden to anyone without a passport from another country. And if you want to join the communist party, you must disavow any religious beliefs.
The state religion is most certainly not Catholocism, considering that there are roughly 54 million "Christians" (which includes Protestants and Catholics), versus some 600 million Buddhists.
Careful, youre making assumptions about why I became a christian that are almost certainly false.
1) Are warnings coercion?
2) you say most.... I will ask you the same question I asked you earlier-- is this anecdotal? Or will you stop using that word as if it means anything more than "the very very few that I have seen"?
3) Dawkins makes the same claim about the root of evil, but Ive never heard the problem of all the 20th century atrocities (the majority either committed by atheists, or with an anti-religious sentiment) really dealt with. Where exactly does religion fit into the killing fields or the soviet purges?
4) Use some line breaks, bro.
P> 1) It makes you feel good about yourself
Every good teaching on the gospel I have ever heard starts with the statement, "you are a bad person and deserve hell."
There is NONE righteous, not even one; all have fallen short of the glory of God.
If you think that "youre a good person and deserve heaven" is the christian message, then youre hearing some poisonous, distorted stuff.
The problem with any internet discussion is that I am happy to respond to either of those two issues you raised, (which I will, very briefly), but there is large chance that it will degenerate argument ad nauseam.
Addressing your first two passages, 4 points
Whether that particular law would in fact apply for a Jewish family in Jesus time I do not know, as there are a number of considerations and I am not well read on that point.
Regarding your second point, I think #3 above as well as considering the demands that a tin soldier might make on his maker answer it well enough. It is, again, only an issue if you assume God does not exist, in which case the Bible would be fiction and we would have no problem. The problem comes when you employ broken logic to assume for argument that the Bible is true but God does not exist (or else have any rights as a creator).
Christianity and other irrational belief systems like Communism and Maoism and Nazism have killed hundreds of millions of people over the years.
Whats irrational is putting Maoism, Nazism, and Communism into the same breath as Christianity-- not only because of the scale of their killing, but because the virulently atheistic sentiment they express is being expressed in this very discussion thread by others.
Many of the Bible's authors can be presumed to have been suffering from chronic malnutrition
Ridiculous, assumptions, and ad hominems.
I attended one of the Westboro protests recently with my kids.
Referring to the Westboro as if it is even remotely representative of christianity is dishonest in the extreme. I (and a great many others) find what they do to be sinful and a denial of the values taught in the new and old testaments, all in the name of elevating "hatred of a particular sin" to their chief concern.
And even so you acknowledge that what they do-- probably one of the most extreme examples-- is and should be lawful.
demonizing outgroups and generally creating a cult-like, bunker mentality
You can potentially see this in any echo chamber. Certainly I see "demonizing outgroups" even in forums like slashdot; did we not see people calling for the hurricane to wipe out the GOP convention back in august, some posters in full seriousness? Yet from my experience, the worst of it is that if you walk away from your faith it will change the nature of your relationship with others of the church. I have seen it in my own church, and it is not what you claim it to be.
If you honestly think that people like Pat Robertson and James Dobson are not good representatives of their religion, then you are willfully ignoring reality.
Im not terribly familiar with what either of them teach or believe, but in general those who go out of their way to be well known politically or otherwise tend to be poor examples of christian authorities. Theres no easy answer to "what does a faithful pastor" look like, much as you might say "theres no easy answer to 'what does a good solid secular humanist look like' ". If you want to know what is truly in line with the christian faith, we have a manual thats probably the most available book in existence.
Folks "attacking gays" have utterly missed the point and IMO descended into sinful hatred. We are called to abhor sin, yes-- but to love the sinner, as Jesus himself did. I believe all sex outside of a man-woman marriage to be sin, yes-- but remember that Jesus himself had pity on and absolved prostitutes. When I look at that example, and then at the videos you mention, I find the two to be totally disconnected and can only say that those involved have sadly misunderstood their responsibility as christians (if they are in fact sincere in their faith).
The separation of church and state is one of things.
Separation of church and state refers to the prohibition of a state endorsing or enforcing a particular belief system. That would (IMHO) include the enforcement or preference for atheism, as it is seen in China today (where you may not work for the government without affirming by oath that you are atheist). Its funny how some people will get all a-dither about the whole "separation" thing and then advocate violating it by endorsing atheism.
All of the ones I see tell you if you do not believe their ways you are going to hell.
That isnt coercion.
Also they have fundraisers and instead of saying these kind people helped, it is always God helped.
Who is they?
3) there is no such thing that says quality of life includes the right to worship
Would you be in favor of making atheism a state religion?
1) Westboro is following the religion as laid out in the bible
Incorrect. When Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself", no exception was made for those committing specific sins. I may think someone a sinner and still follow the tenets of christian charity.
Wherever you are getting your information on the bible is either deliberately lying to you or else is ignorant; either way I suggest you rely on your own reading of the bible, not someone else's.
2) Just put religion where it belongs, out of politics, law, schools
Tell you what, separate YOUR worldview from the ballot box, and when you figure out how to do that let me know and we can talk about me doing that. The whole idea that you can just separate one part of a person's beliefs from the rest of them is absurd.
worshiping a book that promotes genocide, homophobia, misogyny, stoning people to death, not allowing you to eat shellfish, pork etc (except most christians ignore this rule from god)
Again, whoever is feeding you facts about the bible is unreliable. That you think we worship a book at all is a good indication of that.
Youre calling my beliefs poisonous while deciding that it is OK to deprive me of constitutional rights because of my beliefs? And you then dare to criticize naziism?
Wow, talk about hypocrisy. What do you suppose made naziism so bad, if not their attacks on the rights of others based on belief?
I would suggest you stop and take a good hard at your own beliefs before criticizing others.
No, it is not. If you peel it back to the most basic point, atheism is simply a lack of a belief in a deity.
NOT true. Dawkins doesnt say "I have no belief regarding deities", he makes an affirmative statement: "I believe there are no deities".
That is, its not a lack of belief, its an active belief.
Wikipedia defines religion thus...
Religion is a collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values
Certainly what Dawkins believes falls under that. He has beliefs about human spirituality, as shown by this very article.
Atheism is not a religion.
That depends on how you define religion, which is a famously tricky word. Certainly "atheisms" are belief systems.
Black is not a color.
Not to be pedantic, and I know this wasnt your main point, but absolutely it is. In light, it is the absence of light, but with pigments it a color formed by the combination of the primaries.
Whether it is high grade "in your face" coercion, like abortion clinic protests
Here I thought protest was a staple of democracy, not an example of heinous coercion. Do people not have a right to express their views, simply because said views might be influenced by their religious convictions? Are religious people second-class citizens in that regard?
the low grade group-think scare tactics used by most churches to keep members(especially young members) in line
Thats a weak, vague claim. What tactics would those be? You say "most" churches, is this from personal experience with a statistically significant number of churches, or can we file this under "anecdotal"?
Youre gonna have to define what you mean by "psychologically coercive" in the context of a local church, because I have NOT seen that.
If by limits he meant that a religious group should not have the power to enforce its beliefs upon society in general,
It doesnt, except by voting. Would you have us make it illegal to vote based on your beliefs?
I believe ECC can be used in (some?) AMD desktop mobos.
1) Just because SOME religions use coercion or violence, does not mean all do. Not all churches are the Westboro, and I would assert that at LEAST for christianity as it is found in the US, such acts are incredibly rare and not even remotely representative.
2) Thats a really ominous statement. Would your position make using coercion to inhibit religion justifiable?
3) The problem is that "quality of life" includes the right to worship.
Notice the key modifier I added that must've whooshed past your head like the fall breeze: "sensibly-designed UNIX or UNIX-like system."
Gadzooks, my "No-True-Scotsman" alarm is going full crazy!
they make (some) of their own network gear, and have since at least 2007
Either theyre in the chip business, or theyre getting the switch parts from another switch company. And this statement:
It is our opinion that Google (GOOG) has designed and deployed home-grown 10GbE switches.....
Coming off of a blog 5 years ago, does not seem terribly reliable. Especially since you cant just decide out of the blue "hey, why dont we make our own switches"... you need the switchport asics, the switch OS (assuming you want any features beyond "can do layer 2 switching"), and a crapton of troubleshooting. Thats not something you bust out on a whim.
Thats not really correct. They give you a "free" second license with every copy of Windows Server, but that "free" copy may ONLY be used for HyperV stuff. That server may not legally host files, act as DNS / DHCP, run as a ADDC, etc. And I believe the "license you paid for" has to be running on that HyperV host. Basically, theyre just throwing in the environment to virtualize everything with when you buy the OS.
But of course, ESXi has a free version, albeit with a 32GB RAM limit (yuck).
VMWare has a much better networking stack, for one. For another, its a lot more reliable (ive had config changes in HyperV take several reboots to really kick in, like changing a vNIC's network). For a third, it lets you hot-add hardware that HyperV doesnt even dream of (disks, NICs).
There is also, as you mention, the much wider OS support, as well as the generally better performance.
Oh, and under VMWare Workstation, I can host guests running ESXi, and set up an entire virtual lab environment, and even host sub-hypervisors under that (3-4 levels deep). I believe it will also allow me to host HyperV, even tho microsoft doesnt really support it. I do not believe HyperV has ANY nesting capabilities.
I subscribe to the "monocultures are inevitably fatal" mind set. If everyone had the same browser with the same plugins and the same antivirus, all running on the same OS, do you have any idea how quickly a zero-day would spread?
Do you think current viruses are not checked against Norton/McAffee/etc?
Do you have any idea how malfunctioning machines Ive troubleshot only to find that they were infected and the virus disabled Norton or Security Essentials? Its a lot.
Cleverly written code can easily mess up an AV. Remember that there are generally removal tools for AVs, and that theres generally no reason a virus couldnt use the same mechanisms the removal tool uses to disable the AV (and still have it report as active in the security center).
Of course, itll be a zillion times more fun now that its a core component and you cant just use a removal tool to clean up the mess.