> we fall into the trap of blind inductionism. And that's not (good) science.
It's not good manners, either:
> It is reasonably well accepted (except by idiots^W americans)
I was not previously familiar with the term "inductionism" and cannot find a definition anywhere (google only found it 252 times, so it's obviously not a well-known concept), but does it not mean to make an assumption about a group based on a small sample? Such as... a small sample of Americans being extrapolated to suggest that the whole country is stupid? I don't know how many Americans you know personally, but are you sure they are a truly representative sample?
People talk about dumb Americans because you (I) see the dumbest of the dumb Americans on TV (politicians, executives, and reality-show contestants). Why don't you take a tour around the farms of Australia, then a tour of the farms of America and then tell me that they aren't about equally unintelligent. Or at least uneducated. I would even venture a guess that the remote areas of the U.S. have better access to schools than the remote areas of Australia. I do not know that for a fact, however.
I know it's popular to bash America, even by Americans, but bash the leaders who aren't doing their jobs, not the each individual of the whole population. After all, if your reasoning is that you don't like the president (I don't), almost half of the population didn't vote for him and aren't "stupid." Well... at least they're not stupid for that reason.
> I didn't say you meant Gnosticism, I said your statement was "too much like Gnosticism".
Too much like it for what purpose? You brought it up, not me. And anyway, that has what bearing, exactly, on the point at hand? Do you make that comparison under the false assumption that it affects my argument at all? Are you saying that just because "the church" doesn't like something that it automatically means all arguments containing remotely-similar concepts are therefore moot?
> really don't understand how anyone could possibly translate [...] as meaning that people were cannibalising themselves!
Umm, because that's exactly what you were saying! Your frickin' point was that that section of your bible is to be taken literally, then you had said: > if Christ was being metaphorical, then how come those people were eating and drinking themselves unto death? and also: > The disciples knew that Christ was being quite literal,
How the hell else do I take that??? You talk about dumb, yet YOU are the one that suggested, and evidently believe, that Jesus wanted people to drink his blood and eat his flesh!
Not to mention the quote "the language used to record the event in the book of John is extremely clear and precise leaving it impossible to honestly formulate any theories of a metaphorical sense" is a lie, as many Christians do not agree with you. But more importantly, plenty of biblical scholars disagree with you.
> as a professional computational astrophysicist, I can say you really have some deep misconceptions about the "established laws of all science".
As master of time and space, please enlighten me as to where my error is? YOU are the one making extremely extraordinary claims, the burden of proof is on you, yet biblical scholars disagree. Being an astrophysicist, it seems unlikely that you have a degree in divinities and are therefore as qualified to talk about factual religious history (and I mean actual study, not just going to church), as I am in talking about astrophysics.
> miscomprehension of the English language
Oh, why didn't you just put "I'm a troll" at the beginning of your post. Tell me what I misunderstood. I asked right in the beginning what it was that I was misunderstanding, and instead of posting a reasonable reply, you started attacking me for things I did not state, but asked. I asked for clarification, you jumped down my throat. Do you act like that IRL? How did you ever get a job? That's assuming you weren't lieing about being an "astro-number cruncher," or whatever you do. Despite your holier-than-thou attitude (that apparently comes along with being a zealot), I cannot make that assumption, only hold to a belief as fervently as you believe a man can be born from a virgin (which is biblically inaccurate anyway, but that's for another day).
I am quite well-versed in English. I went to a Jesuit University. Do you know what that means? It was a number of years ago, but religion hasn't really changed in the last decade. You posted the stuff about people eating another person's flesh and then asked where I got the idea of cannibalism? English, motherfucker, do you understand it?
> Not likely. This is too much like the thinking of Gnosticism, which has been condemned by the Church.
First off, I am not talking about Gnosticism at all, that is an entirely different concept. Gnosticism requires obtaining certain knowledge to be "saved," whereas Buddhism attempts to open your mind: the information itself is not divine, nor even necessary. Very different.
Secondly, even if I did mean Gnosticism, "the church," made that decision a thousand years after Christ died. Not exactly a solid source.:)
> If Christ was being metaphorical, then how come those people were eating and drinking themselves unto death?
I think I am confused here. The only way to translate what you have written is "Jesus made sick those that did not partake in his cannibalism." You are saying that these people, literally, ate themselves (their own flesh) to the point of killing themselves? Eating yourself to any point is sufficiently macabre, to death even moreso. Plus, I've been to some pretty crazy websites & spoken to some wierdos that, I figure, would have mentioned that cannibalism is positively seen by Jesus in the Bible (well, in the NT -- OT would be no surprise, you can justify anything with that, and it's "Old Law" anyway).
> How can you possibly insist that they were in error?
Let's see... Well, I can insist it because it's contrary to the established laws ("theories" if you wanna bitch about minor semantics) of all science and it reeks of ignorant mysticism. Insert another few paragraphs of atheist screaming here. I'm leaving out the drawn out arguments, because if you actually believe that bread can magically change into human flesh, you have no interest in reasonable discourse.
Anyway, last point: This page states that those passages are "clearly" allegorical. I believe it's all hogwash anyway, so it makes no personal difference to me...
> By the way, receiving a 'pipe' is one of the most pleasant thing in this world
I never knew, as I'd always been on the "giving" end of the pipe. I always just assumed it was uncomfortable because the guys with the pipe-indentations in their heads never thanked me afterward.
> After witnessing the devastation caused by the tsunami in a few minutes, I think there are a few people who think god could do a hell of a lot in seven days.
A very large wave and creating a planet out of nothingness are quite different... The size of the tsunami waves are comprehendable. Amazing, yet comprehendable. A rock as big as Earth, for me, is not.
> Why did Christ let them walk off without clarifying his metaphor?
I guess you could say I'm "Playing Jesus' Advocate" here, but perhaps he believed that true wisdom can only come when one figures out the metaphor for themself. Try talking to a Buddhist monk. Some things he says make perfect sense, other things seem like he was stoned when he came up with it. Pondering those statements later may reveal deeper insight.
I don't believe that, but there are claims that Jesus studied Buddhism, so using koans or other similar methods may not have been out of the norm. It might just be that those disciples were not mentally ready for the statement to be personally meaningful.
> While many are unsupported by external sources at this time, none have been disproved
Because it is almost impossible to do so without a time machine. The fact that they have not been disproved says nothing positive about the plausibility of it having happened.
> killing your opponent in time of war is not murder (depending on the conditions of the war), and the death penalty is not murder, at least biblically.
Well, if you want to talk biblically killing your own son no an altar and offering him up to God is not murder either. In reality, you better get thrown in jail/psych ward for the rest of your life.
> It wouldn't be fair to force everyone into what my view of distasteful is but a voluntary database is a good idea.
Great, then use one that already exists. There have been programs available to block content since before the World Wide Web was a household name. Use one of those.
> Blaming religion for evil acts of people who prefess religious beliefs is the same as blaming science because nuclear weapons can kill lots of people
No one died from nukes dropped "in the name of science." Those religious whackjobs act "in the name of God" or "for God's grace" or whatever bullshit they believe. So no, it is not even close to being the same at all.
> I had a chick dump _me_ once because I refused to hit her. Suffice to say, that was just fine with me.
Are you rich? She might have been trying to get you to hit her so she could sue you. Doubt it, but if she's crazy enough to need physical abuse, she's probably crazy enough to try tricking you into something like that.
> The thing is, the boogerhead could just re-run all the films, as they are, during the summer and they'd pack theaters anyway.
No no, this is far more insidious than you think. He's eventually going to release the 3D Super Special Editions on HD-Holodisk, and no other previous releases will be available. That way you'll have to buy all those. Then, after the money stops rolling in by the truckload, he'll release the originals all over again.
"I originally wanted it in 3D, but we didn't have the technology at the time!" Yeah right.
Whoever complains that their post isn't moderated high enough needs to quit whining. What you should be complaining about is that your net score on that is -2 since the +Funnies aren't counted to your total yet the -whatevers are. Actually I'd rather you didn't complain about that either, but it would be at least slightly justified.
> Look at BeOS, they've been gone for a long long time and people are still developing softwares for it.
BeOS? Heck, I've seen people write Amiga software in the past 5 years! How long's THAT been dead? (Since before Commodore went under, but that's another story)
> Do you have a legitimate reason to share your music library over the internet as opposed to your local network?
The only possible reason I can think of is if you want to listen to music off your home PC while you are at work... In which case I'd say you should just burn some CDs but it is still, perhaps arguably, a valid reason.
Slashdot Mirror
> we fall into the trap of blind inductionism. And that's not (good) science.
It's not good manners, either:
> It is reasonably well accepted (except by idiots^W americans)
I was not previously familiar with the term "inductionism" and cannot find a definition anywhere (google only found it 252 times, so it's obviously not a well-known concept), but does it not mean to make an assumption about a group based on a small sample? Such as... a small sample of Americans being extrapolated to suggest that the whole country is stupid? I don't know how many Americans you know personally, but are you sure they are a truly representative sample?
People talk about dumb Americans because you (I) see the dumbest of the dumb Americans on TV (politicians, executives, and reality-show contestants). Why don't you take a tour around the farms of Australia, then a tour of the farms of America and then tell me that they aren't about equally unintelligent. Or at least uneducated. I would even venture a guess that the remote areas of the U.S. have better access to schools than the remote areas of Australia. I do not know that for a fact, however.
I know it's popular to bash America, even by Americans, but bash the leaders who aren't doing their jobs, not the each individual of the whole population. After all, if your reasoning is that you don't like the president (I don't), almost half of the population didn't vote for him and aren't "stupid." Well... at least they're not stupid for that reason.
Offtopic, I know. Mod points are for the weak.
> I didn't say you meant Gnosticism, I said your statement was "too much like Gnosticism".
Too much like it for what purpose? You brought it up, not me. And anyway, that has what bearing, exactly, on the point at hand? Do you make that comparison under the false assumption that it affects my argument at all? Are you saying that just because "the church" doesn't like something that it automatically means all arguments containing remotely-similar concepts are therefore moot?
> really don't understand how anyone could possibly translate [...] as meaning that people were cannibalising themselves!
Umm, because that's exactly what you were saying! Your frickin' point was that that section of your bible is to be taken literally, then you had said:
> if Christ was being metaphorical, then how come those people were eating and drinking themselves unto death?
and also:
> The disciples knew that Christ was being quite literal,
How the hell else do I take that??? You talk about dumb, yet YOU are the one that suggested, and evidently believe, that Jesus wanted people to drink his blood and eat his flesh!
Not to mention the quote "the language used to record the event in the book of John is extremely clear and precise leaving it impossible to honestly formulate any theories of a metaphorical sense" is a lie, as many Christians do not agree with you. But more importantly, plenty of biblical scholars disagree with you.
> as a professional computational astrophysicist, I can say you really have some deep misconceptions about the "established laws of all science".
As master of time and space, please enlighten me as to where my error is? YOU are the one making extremely extraordinary claims, the burden of proof is on you, yet biblical scholars disagree. Being an astrophysicist, it seems unlikely that you have a degree in divinities and are therefore as qualified to talk about factual religious history (and I mean actual study, not just going to church), as I am in talking about astrophysics.
> miscomprehension of the English language
Oh, why didn't you just put "I'm a troll" at the beginning of your post. Tell me what I misunderstood. I asked right in the beginning what it was that I was misunderstanding, and instead of posting a reasonable reply, you started attacking me for things I did not state, but asked. I asked for clarification, you jumped down my throat. Do you act like that IRL? How did you ever get a job? That's assuming you weren't lieing about being an "astro-number cruncher," or whatever you do. Despite your holier-than-thou attitude (that apparently comes along with being a zealot), I cannot make that assumption, only hold to a belief as fervently as you believe a man can be born from a virgin (which is biblically inaccurate anyway, but that's for another day).
I am quite well-versed in English. I went to a Jesuit University. Do you know what that means? It was a number of years ago, but religion hasn't really changed in the last decade. You posted the stuff about people eating another person's flesh and then asked where I got the idea of cannibalism? English, motherfucker, do you understand it?
> Not likely. This is too much like the thinking of Gnosticism, which has been condemned by the Church.
:)
First off, I am not talking about Gnosticism at all, that is an entirely different concept. Gnosticism requires obtaining certain knowledge to be "saved," whereas Buddhism attempts to open your mind: the information itself is not divine, nor even necessary. Very different.
Secondly, even if I did mean Gnosticism, "the church," made that decision a thousand years after Christ died. Not exactly a solid source.
> If Christ was being metaphorical, then how come those people were eating and drinking themselves unto death?
I think I am confused here. The only way to translate what you have written is "Jesus made sick those that did not partake in his cannibalism." You are saying that these people, literally, ate themselves (their own flesh) to the point of killing themselves? Eating yourself to any point is sufficiently macabre, to death even moreso. Plus, I've been to some pretty crazy websites & spoken to some wierdos that, I figure, would have mentioned that cannibalism is positively seen by Jesus in the Bible (well, in the NT -- OT would be no surprise, you can justify anything with that, and it's "Old Law" anyway).
> How can you possibly insist that they were in error?
Let's see... Well, I can insist it because it's contrary to the established laws ("theories" if you wanna bitch about minor semantics) of all science and it reeks of ignorant mysticism.
Insert another few paragraphs of atheist screaming here. I'm leaving out the drawn out arguments, because if you actually believe that bread can magically change into human flesh, you have no interest in reasonable discourse.
Anyway, last point: This page states that those passages are "clearly" allegorical. I believe it's all hogwash anyway, so it makes no personal difference to me...
> Wow, somebody's a bit dense...
I also was trying to figure out how to insult the... slow... poster without resorting to flamebait, but you did it quite nicely.
> By the way, receiving a 'pipe' is one of the most pleasant thing in this world
I never knew, as I'd always been on the "giving" end of the pipe. I always just assumed it was uncomfortable because the guys with the pipe-indentations in their heads never thanked me afterward.
> After witnessing the devastation caused by the tsunami in a few minutes, I think there are a few people who think god could do a hell of a lot in seven days.
A very large wave and creating a planet out of nothingness are quite different... The size of the tsunami waves are comprehendable. Amazing, yet comprehendable. A rock as big as Earth, for me, is not.
> Why did Christ let them walk off without clarifying his metaphor?
I guess you could say I'm "Playing Jesus' Advocate" here, but perhaps he believed that true wisdom can only come when one figures out the metaphor for themself. Try talking to a Buddhist monk. Some things he says make perfect sense, other things seem like he was stoned when he came up with it. Pondering those statements later may reveal deeper insight.
I don't believe that, but there are claims that Jesus studied Buddhism, so using koans or other similar methods may not have been out of the norm. It might just be that those disciples were not mentally ready for the statement to be personally meaningful.
> While many are unsupported by external sources at this time, none have been disproved
Because it is almost impossible to do so without a time machine. The fact that they have not been disproved says nothing positive about the plausibility of it having happened.
> when I die I expect to find him laughing...
I do too, but my problem is I expect him to be laughing at us, not with us.
Ah, but only until you read the commandment. At that point, you are no long allowed to believe it, since you have just read it, ala Commandment V.
> killing your opponent in time of war is not murder (depending on the conditions of the war), and the death penalty is not murder, at least biblically.
Well, if you want to talk biblically killing your own son no an altar and offering him up to God is not murder either. In reality, you better get thrown in jail/psych ward for the rest of your life.
> Of course in this case your sound will also have a lot to do with the quality of other devices:
As well as the shape and construction materials of the room you are in...
> It wouldn't be fair to force everyone into what my view of distasteful is but a voluntary database is a good idea.
Great, then use one that already exists. There have been programs available to block content since before the World Wide Web was a household name. Use one of those.
> Blaming religion for evil acts of people who prefess religious beliefs is the same as blaming science because nuclear weapons can kill lots of people
No one died from nukes dropped "in the name of science." Those religious whackjobs act "in the name of God" or "for God's grace" or whatever bullshit they believe. So no, it is not even close to being the same at all.
> geek elitists who bother to memorize html than they are for your average human.
Wow, what logic.... So you are saying [tag] & [/tag] are sane and simple, whereas <tag> & </tag> are for elitist bastards... Greeaaaat.
> I had a chick dump _me_ once because I refused to hit her. Suffice to say, that was just fine with me.
Are you rich? She might have been trying to get you to hit her so she could sue you. Doubt it, but if she's crazy enough to need physical abuse, she's probably crazy enough to try tricking you into something like that.
You are right, I confused myself on that one.
> of -a- body....
Err... of a face, not even a body.
> The thing is, the boogerhead could just re-run all the films, as they are, during the summer and they'd pack theaters anyway.
No no, this is far more insidious than you think. He's eventually going to release the 3D Super Special Editions on HD-Holodisk, and no other previous releases will be available. That way you'll have to buy all those. Then, after the money stops rolling in by the truckload, he'll release the originals all over again.
"I originally wanted it in 3D, but we didn't have the technology at the time!" Yeah right.
Whoever complains that their post isn't moderated high enough needs to quit whining. What you should be complaining about is that your net score on that is -2 since the +Funnies aren't counted to your total yet the -whatevers are. Actually I'd rather you didn't complain about that either, but it would be at least slightly justified.
I'm an idiot. When I say "device" I mean neatly-shaped piece of glass. not exactly a "device"
This is so crazy, two days before this article was posted, I saw one of those in someone's office. Very neat device.
> Look at BeOS, they've been gone for a long long time and people are still developing softwares for it.
BeOS? Heck, I've seen people write Amiga software in the past 5 years! How long's THAT been dead? (Since before Commodore went under, but that's another story)
> Do you have a legitimate reason to share your music library over the internet as opposed to your local network?
The only possible reason I can think of is if you want to listen to music off your home PC while you are at work... In which case I'd say you should just burn some CDs but it is still, perhaps arguably, a valid reason.
> When you buy a car "as-is," you aren't getting a car with better mileage and fancier paint than the one you see in front of you, are you?
And I'm not allowed to repaint it or replace the engine? Or replace the door locks/ignition??? I had no idea I was such a criminal.