Buddhism neither accepts or denies the existence of any gods. All it says is that, if that any do exist, then they are subject to the same laws of karma that any other being is.
Yes, and that requirement makes them atheists, because that actually denies the existence of a god in the same sense atheism does.
The fact that Buddhist "gods" are called "gods" is just a bad translation since, as you say, they are mortal, fallible, not omniscient, not omnipotent, and not creators.
The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"
That's a really poor showing. The Nokia N95 sold more than a million units in the UK alone in 2007; that's a single model and a single country, and it didn't have anywhere near the hype surrounding the iPhone release:
Usability is something MacOS hammers Linux into the ground for right now.
Yeah? And your evidence for that is what?
Hardware add-ons just fscking work, which is far more than can be said for Linux.
Funny, I have a lot of hardware add-ons that I plug into a Mac and they don't work at all: they're either Windows-only, or they don't have up-to-date drivers for OS X, or the drivers don't fscking work.
In fact, the same kind of hardware add-ons work on Linux and on Macintosh: supported hardware with high quality drivers.
Where the hell is my word for not believing in a god damn religious, supernatural, destiny or faith-related thing?
I dunno, but it is not "atheism". Buddhists, for example, are atheists, but they certainly are religious. Maybe you mean "materialist" or "nihilist". However, a pantheist could be considered a materialist. You have to figure out what you mean and then pick the right word for it.
But CRCulver's attempt to deflect criticism of Catholicism by turning it into an atheist/Christian issue was typical Catholic demagoguery anyway. The Catholic church is not synonymous with Christians, and historically, the harshest critics of Catholic morality and doctrine have been other Christians. In many countries, a fiery protestant criticism of Catholicism would likely also land the speaker in hot water, perhaps even more so than a fiery speech from an atheist. Why? Because Catholics and protestants have fought bloody wars throughout the centuries and nobody wants to see a repeat.
Yeah, that's just the usual word-mincing bullshit. It's not worth deconstructing this in detail, otherwise I would have done so in my original post. And I'm certainly not letting the Catholics dictate the terminology of this debate.
Also, the Church has not been condemning "gays" for centuries since the idea of being "gay" is a modern political construct, although homosexual activity has been condemned since the beginning of the Church.
No, it's not. It's just that after the rule of law kept the church and others from killing homosexuals, more people actually "came out". But the identity and lifestyle is ancient and exists in many cultures.
you have a chance to reconcile with God through Confession and Penance. It's still an intolerant line but not as hateful as you put it.
Of course, that has always been the Catholic line. It comes down to a recruiting pitch for the church, because what they're basically saying that once you start submitting to their authority, you can sin all you want and they will still ensure a good afterlife for you.
So, it's "not as hateful" in the same sense that a mafia boss to whom you pay protection money is "not as violent" as one you don't pay that money to.
When a religion says you are a sinner and "deserve to be tortured for all eternity", they're talking about an imaginary torture that ostensibly happens after you're dead.
What's "imaginary" about it? Catholicism teaches that we are all to be resurrected in body. If they say that you will be tortured for all eternity, it's not a figure of speech.
Inciting people to torture one another in real life is a completely different issue--they might actually do it.
Saying "you deserve to be tortured for all eternity" isn't an incitement to torture, it's an expression of a disregard for someone else's humanity and an expression of hatred. (Atheists can't even say such a thing and mean it literally, since they don't believe in eternal life.)
Both Catholics and Muslims dehumanize others in this way: if you believe that I will suffer in hell for all eternity, what difference does it make if you yourself torture me a little to try and save me from such a horrible fate? And if all else fails, since to you I'm sub-human anyway, it doesn't matter if you kill me. Catholics and Muslims have historically used those justifications for torture, executions, and conquests.
Dehumanizing others is the essence of hate speech. In Catholicism and Islam, hate speech and dehumanization of others is hard-coded into the scriptures and laws of those religions. And that is why those religions should be banned under hate speech laws until they thoroughly expurgate their scriptures and teachings from that kind of language.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean.. Why should we outlaw an whole religion just because there are people with in that religion that have an unfounded for hate other groups. We are not against hate, it's the hate propaganda that we are against.
Quite right, and so am I. I contend, however, that the Bible and the Quran contain hate propaganda. The fact that it's old doesn't change that. And the semantic acrobatics that their apologists engage in don't change that either.
If those religions really have changed, as they claim, they must officially expurgate those passages and change their teachings, laws, and commentaries accordingly.
If they fail to do so and continue to maintain them as part of their education and teachings, then those religions should be banned until they do remove them.
A pentecostal preacher was sentenced recently in Sweden, for saying stuff about gays in a sermon.
That's nice, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. Look at what Catholicism says: if you're gay, you'll burn in hell. That's doctrine. What could be more hateful than that? Yet, they have been getting away with this for centuries.
Either way, those laws are designed explicitly to protect minorities, people who are ill equipped to fight back in a propaganda war if you will.
I think these kinds of laws are wrong and hurt, rather than help, in the long run. Right now, people like the Pope and Muslim leaders go around claiming to be authorities on ethics and morality, excusing the child abuse and terrorism by their members as aberrations. But we need to have a clear public debate challenging these people's claims to moral authority.
Can you point to some actual examples of atheists being prosecuted for suggesting that Christians or Muslims be tortured?
No, I can't, because atheists generally don't suggest that other get tortured for all eternity. They don't because (1) they don't believe that anybody lives for all eternity, (2) most atheists are either religious or humanists and hence object to torture in any form, whether by divine beings or men, and (3) they know that if they speak out publicly, they risk death threats and arrest.
I suspect that your post is just irrelevant speculation.
Well, then you're living under a rock. Geert Wilders film, for example, has been condemned, literally, as "hate speech" by the UN secretary general (here), and all he did was compile a collection of quotes from the Quran and Muslim leaders.
You can find many more if you look around, with free speech by students, bloggers, protesters, and others being suppressed for criticizing religions or saying things that "offend" people of one or the other religion.
I think Apple's track record is decidedly mixed; they have committed awful usability blunders in the past. I think on balance, they are no better than FOSS.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'm not so sure about that either. Apple's primary business model seems to be to take people's money and spend it on marketing and packaging, while grabbing other people's technologies wherever they can. That seems vaguely parasitic to me...
The trouble with those laws is that they are enforced with a strong bias.
For example, is it apparently perfectly OK for religions to tell non-followers that they are evil and are deserve to be tortured for all eternity for the way they live their lives.
But if you try to tell a follower of a major religion that they are evil and deserve to be tortured for the way they lead their lives, those "hate speech" laws are going to come down like a hammer on you.
If Sweden was really serious about "hate speech", they'd have to outlaw Islam and Catholicism as they are currently being practiced, because those religions are intrinsically in conflict with hate speech laws.
Most recent Nokia phones have SIP clients, WiFi, and HSDPA built in and integrated into everything (contacts, dialer, etc.). Making a SIP call is as easy as making a regular phone call. We're talking sleek, compact consumer phones with cameras and everything, not Windows Mobile or UMPC bricks.
In the US, you can get the Nokia N95, in Europe, the ones to get are the N82, N78, and N96.
I STRONGLY disagree with this assertion. I believe the PRIMARY function of government, far more important than any other aspect, is to protect the public from crime and violence.
Of course, that is the primary function. But it isn't a function that trumps civil liberties, due process, freedom of speech, freedom of association, or many other rights. Societies in which protection from crime and violence trumps these individual rights are totalitarian and undemocratic, and I will fight people like you trying to turn our society into such a police state.
In particular, you should not be able to limit my freedoms because I might hypothetically do something to you.
You seem to be going farther and saying that even though you agree that phishing is morally wrong, you don't think it should be illegal because...?
Where did I say anything like that? Phishing attempts are violations of trademark rights, that's what trademark law is there for. And successful phishing attempts are fraud. Except for possibly adjusting penalties on trademark enforcement, we don't need new laws to deal with on-line crime.
Again, I do not understand why some people consider computer crimes to be fundamentally different from other types of crime.
Yeah, indeed, it boggles the mind. Can you tell me why you take such a stupid position?
So how do you protect yourself from DNS spoofing?
I don't understand what you're asking. You have heard of SSL, haven't you? In addition, my bank uses additional security mechanisms that make phishing just not work. Most forms of DNS spoofing are OS or server-side issues; they are simply not my responsibility and are outside my control; all I have to worry about is that my OS and my browser do name lookups correctly, respect TTL, and use certificates correctly.
I have to say I'm surprised this wasn't covered by some sort of patent already, or will tomorrow's Slashdot include the accompanying lawsuit?
Despite the usual Apple PR distortions, Apple didn't invent multitouch and multitouch is old technology. At best, Apple may have some patents covering specific implementations, and even those may not be valid. Apple's real contribution with multitouch was to use just a little bit of it and integrate it well, but that's not patentable.
ASUS either figured they're in the clear, or they're willing to fight it. Good for them.
By using Windows XP, users can sidestep many of the software and hardware compatibility issues that plague the Linux version. We've encountered numerous devices that don't work with a Linux Eee because of driver issues, including some USB disc drives, printers and TV tuners. You simply don't get these problems with a Windows-equipped Eee PC 900.
That's biased bullshit. There are plenty of problems trying to get hardware to work on a regular Windows XP machine, and it only gets worse on an Eee PC. Imagine first time it asks you to insert the driver CD, displays its 800x800 configuration dialog, or requires "Windows Vista or better".
I have a phone with WiFi and 3.5G. What do I use? SIP, not Skype. I actually signed up with a SIP provider despite using Skype on the desktop. Skype on mobile phones is simply too painful compared to SIP.
In real life, all sorts of things are being regulated and prohibited as well. Sometimes, it makes sense (monopolies), sometimes it doesn't (sex, drugs). It's just the way governments and people work.
You have a "blame the victim" mentality. It's clearly the fault of the stabbing victim that he got stabbed. He should have jumped out of the way. It's willful helplessness, plain and simple.
That's the kind of emotional drivel that's being used to erode our civil liberties. Of course, the perpetrator is the guilty party, and the victim is the innocent party. But were discussing policy, not guilt, so that doesn't mean that we need to protect the victim. It isn't the government's function to protect everybody from anything that might happen to them.
In this case, it's PayPal, a company doing this to reduce their financial losses, which is their right. But it's also my right to say that they are stupid. I don't use anti-phishing technology because all those technologies themselves have serious problems, and they are completely unnecessary: for any important site, I just type the URL or use a bookmark.
RedHat is figuring out that there is no way they can keep up with SuSE and Ubuntu, and that any mass market consumer business is tough, so they are focusing on what they think is a cash cow: servers.
Of course, many other companies have made the same mistake.
Sorry, I think Biden may mean well, and politically, he isn't all that bad, but this kind of incompetence simply shouldn't be allowed in a decision maker. People like him should be retired at the next election.
Animal life around Chernobyl is also doing well. That's not an indication that radiation is harmless (most animals are shorter lived than humans, so they can tolerate more radiation), it's an indication that human presence is even more harmful than radiation.
Slashdot Mirror
Buddhism neither accepts or denies the existence of any gods. All it says is that, if that any do exist, then they are subject to the same laws of karma that any other being is.
Yes, and that requirement makes them atheists, because that actually denies the existence of a god in the same sense atheism does.
The fact that Buddhist "gods" are called "gods" is just a bad translation since, as you say, they are mortal, fallible, not omniscient, not omnipotent, and not creators.
They may have switched to Flash to make it a little harder to link to their content and to copy the images.
The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"
That's a really poor showing. The Nokia N95 sold more than a million units in the UK alone in 2007; that's a single model and a single country, and it didn't have anywhere near the hype surrounding the iPhone release:
http://www.intomobile.com/2007/11/28/brief-nokia-n95-sales-in-the-uk-top-1-million.html
I can't figure out why anybody would buy an iPhone: it's a clunky phone with clunky desktop integration. Adding 3G doesn't change that.
Usability is something MacOS hammers Linux into the ground for right now.
Yeah? And your evidence for that is what?
Hardware add-ons just fscking work, which is far more than can be said for Linux.
Funny, I have a lot of hardware add-ons that I plug into a Mac and they don't work at all: they're either Windows-only, or they don't have up-to-date drivers for OS X, or the drivers don't fscking work.
In fact, the same kind of hardware add-ons work on Linux and on Macintosh: supported hardware with high quality drivers.
Where the hell is my word for not believing in a god damn religious, supernatural, destiny or faith-related thing?
I dunno, but it is not "atheism". Buddhists, for example, are atheists, but they certainly are religious. Maybe you mean "materialist" or "nihilist". However, a pantheist could be considered a materialist. You have to figure out what you mean and then pick the right word for it.
But CRCulver's attempt to deflect criticism of Catholicism by turning it into an atheist/Christian issue was typical Catholic demagoguery anyway. The Catholic church is not synonymous with Christians, and historically, the harshest critics of Catholic morality and doctrine have been other Christians. In many countries, a fiery protestant criticism of Catholicism would likely also land the speaker in hot water, perhaps even more so than a fiery speech from an atheist. Why? Because Catholics and protestants have fought bloody wars throughout the centuries and nobody wants to see a repeat.
Actually the Church says [...]
Yeah, that's just the usual word-mincing bullshit. It's not worth deconstructing this in detail, otherwise I would have done so in my original post. And I'm certainly not letting the Catholics dictate the terminology of this debate.
Also, the Church has not been condemning "gays" for centuries since the idea of being "gay" is a modern political construct, although homosexual activity has been condemned since the beginning of the Church.
No, it's not. It's just that after the rule of law kept the church and others from killing homosexuals, more people actually "came out". But the identity and lifestyle is ancient and exists in many cultures.
you have a chance to reconcile with God through Confession and Penance. It's still an intolerant line but not as hateful as you put it.
Of course, that has always been the Catholic line. It comes down to a recruiting pitch for the church, because what they're basically saying that once you start submitting to their authority, you can sin all you want and they will still ensure a good afterlife for you.
So, it's "not as hateful" in the same sense that a mafia boss to whom you pay protection money is "not as violent" as one you don't pay that money to.
The reading comprehension problem is entirely yours, since you somehow brought in atheism and posed an entirely irrelevant challenge.
The fact is that people get into legal trouble for criticizing Islam frequently. If you don't see that, you're really out of touch with reality.
When a religion says you are a sinner and "deserve to be tortured for all eternity", they're talking about an imaginary torture that ostensibly happens after you're dead.
What's "imaginary" about it? Catholicism teaches that we are all to be resurrected in body. If they say that you will be tortured for all eternity, it's not a figure of speech.
Inciting people to torture one another in real life is a completely different issue--they might actually do it.
Saying "you deserve to be tortured for all eternity" isn't an incitement to torture, it's an expression of a disregard for someone else's humanity and an expression of hatred. (Atheists can't even say such a thing and mean it literally, since they don't believe in eternal life.)
Both Catholics and Muslims dehumanize others in this way: if you believe that I will suffer in hell for all eternity, what difference does it make if you yourself torture me a little to try and save me from such a horrible fate? And if all else fails, since to you I'm sub-human anyway, it doesn't matter if you kill me. Catholics and Muslims have historically used those justifications for torture, executions, and conquests.
Dehumanizing others is the essence of hate speech. In Catholicism and Islam, hate speech and dehumanization of others is hard-coded into the scriptures and laws of those religions. And that is why those religions should be banned under hate speech laws until they thoroughly expurgate their scriptures and teachings from that kind of language.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean.. Why should we outlaw an whole religion just because there are people with in that religion that have an unfounded for hate other groups. We are not against hate, it's the hate propaganda that we are against.
Quite right, and so am I. I contend, however, that the Bible and the Quran contain hate propaganda. The fact that it's old doesn't change that. And the semantic acrobatics that their apologists engage in don't change that either.
If those religions really have changed, as they claim, they must officially expurgate those passages and change their teachings, laws, and commentaries accordingly.
If they fail to do so and continue to maintain them as part of their education and teachings, then those religions should be banned until they do remove them.
A pentecostal preacher was sentenced recently in Sweden, for saying stuff about gays in a sermon.
That's nice, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. Look at what Catholicism says: if you're gay, you'll burn in hell. That's doctrine. What could be more hateful than that? Yet, they have been getting away with this for centuries.
Either way, those laws are designed explicitly to protect minorities, people who are ill equipped to fight back in a propaganda war if you will.
I think these kinds of laws are wrong and hurt, rather than help, in the long run. Right now, people like the Pope and Muslim leaders go around claiming to be authorities on ethics and morality, excusing the child abuse and terrorism by their members as aberrations. But we need to have a clear public debate challenging these people's claims to moral authority.
Can you point to some actual examples of atheists being prosecuted for suggesting that Christians or Muslims be tortured?
No, I can't, because atheists generally don't suggest that other get tortured for all eternity. They don't because (1) they don't believe that anybody lives for all eternity, (2) most atheists are either religious or humanists and hence object to torture in any form, whether by divine beings or men, and (3) they know that if they speak out publicly, they risk death threats and arrest.
I suspect that your post is just irrelevant speculation.
Well, then you're living under a rock. Geert Wilders film, for example, has been condemned, literally, as "hate speech" by the UN secretary general (here), and all he did was compile a collection of quotes from the Quran and Muslim leaders.
Here are other examples:
http://www.lutononsunday.com/lutononsunday-news/displayarticle.asp?id=306589
http://www.axcessnews.com/user.php/articles/show/id/12315
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/ap-far-righters-arrested-for-anti-islam-protest
You can find many more if you look around, with free speech by students, bloggers, protesters, and others being suppressed for criticizing religions or saying things that "offend" people of one or the other religion.
Especially the "making it actually usable" part.
I think Apple's track record is decidedly mixed; they have committed awful usability blunders in the past. I think on balance, they are no better than FOSS.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'm not so sure about that either. Apple's primary business model seems to be to take people's money and spend it on marketing and packaging, while grabbing other people's technologies wherever they can. That seems vaguely parasitic to me...
The trouble with those laws is that they are enforced with a strong bias.
For example, is it apparently perfectly OK for religions to tell non-followers that they are evil and are deserve to be tortured for all eternity for the way they live their lives.
But if you try to tell a follower of a major religion that they are evil and deserve to be tortured for the way they lead their lives, those "hate speech" laws are going to come down like a hammer on you.
If Sweden was really serious about "hate speech", they'd have to outlaw Islam and Catholicism as they are currently being practiced, because those religions are intrinsically in conflict with hate speech laws.
Most recent Nokia phones have SIP clients, WiFi, and HSDPA built in and integrated into everything (contacts, dialer, etc.). Making a SIP call is as easy as making a regular phone call. We're talking sleek, compact consumer phones with cameras and everything, not Windows Mobile or UMPC bricks.
In the US, you can get the Nokia N95, in Europe, the ones to get are the N82, N78, and N96.
I STRONGLY disagree with this assertion. I believe the PRIMARY function of government, far more important than any other aspect, is to protect the public from crime and violence.
Of course, that is the primary function. But it isn't a function that trumps civil liberties, due process, freedom of speech, freedom of association, or many other rights. Societies in which protection from crime and violence trumps these individual rights are totalitarian and undemocratic, and I will fight people like you trying to turn our society into such a police state.
In particular, you should not be able to limit my freedoms because I might hypothetically do something to you.
You seem to be going farther and saying that even though you agree that phishing is morally wrong, you don't think it should be illegal because...?
Where did I say anything like that? Phishing attempts are violations of trademark rights, that's what trademark law is there for. And successful phishing attempts are fraud. Except for possibly adjusting penalties on trademark enforcement, we don't need new laws to deal with on-line crime.
Again, I do not understand why some people consider computer crimes to be fundamentally different from other types of crime.
Yeah, indeed, it boggles the mind. Can you tell me why you take such a stupid position?
So how do you protect yourself from DNS spoofing?
I don't understand what you're asking. You have heard of SSL, haven't you? In addition, my bank uses additional security mechanisms that make phishing just not work. Most forms of DNS spoofing are OS or server-side issues; they are simply not my responsibility and are outside my control; all I have to worry about is that my OS and my browser do name lookups correctly, respect TTL, and use certificates correctly.
I have to say I'm surprised this wasn't covered by some sort of patent already, or will tomorrow's Slashdot include the accompanying lawsuit?
Despite the usual Apple PR distortions, Apple didn't invent multitouch and multitouch is old technology. At best, Apple may have some patents covering specific implementations, and even those may not be valid. Apple's real contribution with multitouch was to use just a little bit of it and integrate it well, but that's not patentable.
ASUS either figured they're in the clear, or they're willing to fight it. Good for them.
By using Windows XP, users can sidestep many of the software and hardware compatibility issues that plague the Linux version. We've encountered numerous devices that don't work with a Linux Eee because of driver issues, including some USB disc drives, printers and TV tuners. You simply don't get these problems with a Windows-equipped Eee PC 900.
That's biased bullshit. There are plenty of problems trying to get hardware to work on a regular Windows XP machine, and it only gets worse on an Eee PC. Imagine first time it asks you to insert the driver CD, displays its 800x800 configuration dialog, or requires "Windows Vista or better".
I have a phone with WiFi and 3.5G. What do I use? SIP, not Skype. I actually signed up with a SIP provider despite using Skype on the desktop. Skype on mobile phones is simply too painful compared to SIP.
You don't get a user base as big as Skype's with Open Source advocacy.
No, you get it with marketing and loose promises.
But you sure can lose a user base as big as Skype's because you don't play ball with open source and open standards.
In real life, all sorts of things are being regulated and prohibited as well. Sometimes, it makes sense (monopolies), sometimes it doesn't (sex, drugs). It's just the way governments and people work.
I think it would make a lot of sense for Google to buy them and integrate them with GrandCentral and GTalk.
You have a "blame the victim" mentality. It's clearly the fault of the stabbing victim that he got stabbed. He should have jumped out of the way. It's willful helplessness, plain and simple.
That's the kind of emotional drivel that's being used to erode our civil liberties. Of course, the perpetrator is the guilty party, and the victim is the innocent party. But were discussing policy, not guilt, so that doesn't mean that we need to protect the victim. It isn't the government's function to protect everybody from anything that might happen to them.
In this case, it's PayPal, a company doing this to reduce their financial losses, which is their right. But it's also my right to say that they are stupid. I don't use anti-phishing technology because all those technologies themselves have serious problems, and they are completely unnecessary: for any important site, I just type the URL or use a bookmark.
RedHat is figuring out that there is no way they can keep up with SuSE and Ubuntu, and that any mass market consumer business is tough, so they are focusing on what they think is a cash cow: servers.
Of course, many other companies have made the same mistake.
Sorry, I think Biden may mean well, and politically, he isn't all that bad, but this kind of incompetence simply shouldn't be allowed in a decision maker. People like him should be retired at the next election.
Animal life around Chernobyl is also doing well. That's not an indication that radiation is harmless (most animals are shorter lived than humans, so they can tolerate more radiation), it's an indication that human presence is even more harmful than radiation.