I sincerely apologize for the poor behavior of those you know who claim to be followers of Christ. In my many experiences in many different churches, I have not seen the types of abuses you describe (my experiences match those of infinte9), though I know that they must exist in some churches, otherwise I would not run into people like you who are hurting from the wrongful acts of others who claim they follow Christ. On the whole, the majority of Christians are not out to destroy you or out to destroy education. The majority of Christians are trying to be good people, love those around them, pray to a loving God, and hope and pray that you might also find the happiness that they have in worshiping God and knowing his love.
There are a lot of high profile "Christians" and "Christian" leaders who do not follow the teachings of Christ, and there are many "churches" which, like the religious teachers in Christ's day, "travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, [they] make him twice as much a son of hell as [they themselves] are" (Matt. 15:23), and deserve the same chastising today that Christ gave the religious leaders back when he walked on the earth.
Again, I apologize for the pain given to you by those who claim the name of Christian, and hope sincerely that you will encounter true believers who exemplify the love that Christ commands us to give, and that will treat you as the treasured and priceless creation of God that you are.
Ok, I admit my penchant for larger rockets could warrant some type of licensing, but what about chemistry in my basement? Should that be cause for concern? What about building robots in my back yard, should that raise red flags?
These types of activities would also receive the same type of "paranoid neighbor" issue as my previous example, but really should not!
People are afraid that your 1.8 meter wonder might explode in their backyard
Well, in this particular case, I'd have to have built a very successful rocket to get outside this couple dozen acre farm.
People could be afraid my fireworks will burn down their house, afraid that my potato launcher could injure their kid, afraid that my faith will 'corrupt' their child... people can be afraid of many things, but should they be able to restrict me from pursuing my own happiness just because of the possibility of my pursuit hurting them? Should I not be able to use p2p software because it could possibly cause 'injury' to someone else's copyrights?
Once we reach a point where creating the possibility that a crime might occur is, in and of itself, wrong, and punishable as a crime, we move further in a direction that scares the crap out of me, and I don't want to live in the kind of country that mentality will produce.
Thank you for the information. I wasn't saying that it was illegal, I was simply pointing out that 50 years ago, the attitude was "play, learn, build, and play some more until you get to college and learn to build even bigger toys." This excited kids (don't you remember those home chemistry kits? Now we've got someone getting arrested for playing with dried ice and a plastic bottle!?!).
Today's attitude is "if it could be slightly dangerous, it shouldn't be allowed, and if a minor is doing it, punish the parent."
We need to foster more creativity, exploration, and (yes) dangerous activities into our children's lives, not less, otherwise our society will stagnate, and we'll fall into ruin.
What kind of damage can fireworks do? What's the range of a propane tank if the pressure valve is knocked off? What kind of damage can an RC airplane do if filled with a homemade pipe bomb (lots of firecrackers + PVC pipe, end caps, and a remote fuze)? How destructive can a dirt bike be if the user loses control just before a hill (those things can truly fly sometimes!)
Anything can be made to sound dangerous. As we continue to give up our right to liberty and our right to pursue happiness (and limiting my ability to play with rockets does limit both of these), we will never get it back.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." —Benjamin Franklin
Seriously, this type of slapdown on curiosity, creativity, and exploration makes me want to cry. It reminds me of the fall of the galactic empire in Asimov's Foundation series - a degredation of the desire to learn new things... People don't want children to dream and invent, they want them to memorize, regurgitate, and keep the status quo.
An example of the insanity: I love model rocketry. I can build small rockets with no one looking at me sideways (but when I move up to the C or D engines, and buy in large quantity, I start to get odd looks), but I don't want to build small rockets. I want to build large rockets, with radio controlled fins, a wireless video feed, and much stronger engines (either solid state or even move into simple liquid fuels). Now if I were interested in this say 50 years back, this would be odd, but not unheard of, and certainly not slapped down by local law enforcement. In today's age, if I started messing with liquid fuels, or built rockets over 6 feet tall, I would likely get harassed by local law enforcement (or more likely my neighbors would call for them), assuming I could even get the proper permits to be allowed to build the thing... permits to build something with my own two hands and then test it out on my friend's private property (a farm)? CRAZY, and wrong.
I hope we get out of this funk and get some new chemistry and engineering excitement back into our children. Sigh.
Some people don't even know how to create a new folder on their desktop... for those people, they need a book. For us, it is so simple, it's actually a bit mind numbingly simple.
Absolutely agree. This is about as close to reality as I've seen yet for a computer based movie. I especially love the showing off of a braille computer interface. That movie is still one of my favorites.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't Sat Phones exactly this? Also Walkie Talkies meet much of what he was talking about. Additionally, he predicted the transmission of pictures, music, speeches, etc. wirelessly from a central station. Isn't this what Television and Radio does, and don't we have wrist watch TVs and radios? Radio (AM) can reach the entire world with the proper frequency and proper weather conditions. While he may not have directly predicted the cell phone, and certainly didn't predict the blackberry in particular (slashvertisements are annoying), he absolutely predicted something very close to it (just like people say Jules Verne predicted rocketry, even though he talked about shooting the craft out of a barrel like a gun, which is not exactly like what we do, but close enough to say he predicted rocketry).
Some of the other parts, such as wireless power, were just part of his personal obsession with this idea, but some of what he talked about has been invented. He talked about remotely controlling a boat with wireless controls. RC boats anyone? Also, satellite navigated boats seem to fit this idea (though through a reflection of wireless signal off a satellite, not directly). He also talked about personal aircraft (ultralights, and vehicles like terragfugia's "roadable aircraft" certainly fit the bill - only laws keep these out of the sky at this point).
"What will be accomplished in the future will baffle one's comprehension. - Tesla
I'm sorry, and I know this is somewhat off topic (though it is about freedom and oppression, so not totally off topic), but I needed to address your signature. Presented on its own, out of context, it portrays a horrible message. This scripture was a lament from a tortured and suppressed people, who had their holy city torn to its foundation. In their pain and misery, they wished vengeance on their oppressors. You try to live the life they lived and not think that a person would find happiness in getting vengeance on their oppressor by killing the oppressors' children. The bible does not condone the action, it only records the emotion. This is a psalm, a poetic song, full of pain and emotion and heart-wrenching cries of misery.
Here's the full text for those who are open minded and curious:
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill .
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
I would think, as much as the "papers, please" thing scares me, and as much as I do not want it under any circumstances, that we should be grateful that the world is mostly a better place than the world the above Israelites lived in, and should not present their misery in such a way as to try and fuel some people's misconception of the validity of the bible as a moral compass by which to live one's life.
Except the whole part of Jesus (the entire crux of the faith) explicitly outlined how one should sum up all the laws and the prophets:
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
-- Matthew 20:35-40
So, if any action you are about to take violates either of the first or second law, then you're not following the intention of the law.
I would just like to say (since I have some very nice Muslim friends) that you might need to tone this down a bit... Some Muslims decide to be irrational and threaten death at the mere mention of Muhammad by an 'infidel'. Most are just really nice people trying to live a good life while remaining faithful to God.
I wholeheartedly agree with your statement. I have a friend who gets so offended by stuff in Family Guy, but I just laugh because they poke fun at things I can identify with, and I have the ability to laugh at myself, my faith, and even my God. Life is funny, and if we're made in the image of God, then God loves a good joke!
I fully expect to arrive in heaven, stand at the gates, and have God stand there and say... hrm... let's see... nope not on the list. Cast him out!" just to see the look on my face before he laughs and opens the doors to heaven.
No, it has not gotten anywhere for one simple reason:
People would stop using the FastPass and would return to cash.
Traffic would increase significantly, the cost of maintaining the entrance and exit points would increase due to additional staff required, and people would still speed, but no longer would get ticketed.
The point of FastPass was to make it easier to collect money from drivers and to eliminate staffing costs. Adding in automatic speeding tickets to the system would kill the primary reason for the system's existence.
Well, the cows will exist because people want hamburgers and cow milk. So, the cows can stand around doing nothing but eat, or they can get some exercise. Now, I agree that they should have a space behind the treadmill where they can back up to in order to get a break, but the idea of putting their food at the top of the treadmill is genius.
According to this article, Energizer Cow, Not only do cows that exercise make more milk, but they also generate less methane gas than those that stand around all day.
So, it sounds like a win-win situation.
The only question I have is, can one make more power from capturing and burning the methane output, or from the treadmill motion?
The only thing I can see is being able to log into Google Docs from anywhere in the world and have it print to your home network—regardless of machine you are printing from. I could see this being valuable.
Um... you can? It's built into the Google Docs printer... it creates a PDF, which opens on your local machine for previewing, and then you can click print.
OR... you could just clean them? That's the whole point of the foot washing story in the bible... when your soul is dirty, come to Jesus, and he'll wash it. He washed the disciples' feet, so soul washing should be no problem for him.
the company more or less considers the tool to be dead.
OR... the company realizes that the benefits of crowd sourcing the application far outweigh the potential monetary gains of keeping it closed source. If the company releases it via BSD license and then develops and sells closed source plugins for the architecture, the massive adoption of the core software will springboard their new plugin products. As the developers of the software, they are best positioned to be the leader in plugin development for this project.
So, the cynical view that the application is dead completely ignores the possibility that it may simply be more profitable for them to open source it.
You gloss over my point. The statistics you chose ignore the additional findings (in the same study) that a person who attends a religious service 2 or more times per month are in a significantly different group with different statistics related to divorce rates than those that attend less than that.
My point was that there are many who say on a survey that they are a Christian but haven't attended church in years, or only go on Christmas and Easter out of guilt. For all practical purposes, these people behave the same or very nearly the same as agnostics/atheists. Their beliefs on divorce, marriage, morals and basic ethics often bear no resemblance to the actual teachings of the religion they profess to adhere to. This horribly skews the truth about active belief in a particular religious set of teachings and a passive "I'm a believer in X because I said so, not because I attempt in some ways to follow the teachings of X" attitude.
If you can't see the difference, then I think our conversation is incapable of moving forward with any additional constructive discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
I sincerely apologize for the poor behavior of those you know who claim to be followers of Christ. In my many experiences in many different churches, I have not seen the types of abuses you describe (my experiences match those of infinte9), though I know that they must exist in some churches, otherwise I would not run into people like you who are hurting from the wrongful acts of others who claim they follow Christ. On the whole, the majority of Christians are not out to destroy you or out to destroy education. The majority of Christians are trying to be good people, love those around them, pray to a loving God, and hope and pray that you might also find the happiness that they have in worshiping God and knowing his love.
There are a lot of high profile "Christians" and "Christian" leaders who do not follow the teachings of Christ, and there are many "churches" which, like the religious teachers in Christ's day, "travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, [they] make him twice as much a son of hell as [they themselves] are" (Matt. 15:23), and deserve the same chastising today that Christ gave the religious leaders back when he walked on the earth.
Again, I apologize for the pain given to you by those who claim the name of Christian, and hope sincerely that you will encounter true believers who exemplify the love that Christ commands us to give, and that will treat you as the treasured and priceless creation of God that you are.
Ok, I admit my penchant for larger rockets could warrant some type of licensing, but what about chemistry in my basement? Should that be cause for concern? What about building robots in my back yard, should that raise red flags?
These types of activities would also receive the same type of "paranoid neighbor" issue as my previous example, but really should not!
Wish I could mod you up. :-)
People are afraid that your 1.8 meter wonder might explode in their backyard
Well, in this particular case, I'd have to have built a very successful rocket to get outside this couple dozen acre farm.
People could be afraid my fireworks will burn down their house, afraid that my potato launcher could injure their kid, afraid that my faith will 'corrupt' their child... people can be afraid of many things, but should they be able to restrict me from pursuing my own happiness just because of the possibility of my pursuit hurting them? Should I not be able to use p2p software because it could possibly cause 'injury' to someone else's copyrights?
Once we reach a point where creating the possibility that a crime might occur is, in and of itself, wrong, and punishable as a crime, we move further in a direction that scares the crap out of me, and I don't want to live in the kind of country that mentality will produce.
Thank you for the information. I wasn't saying that it was illegal, I was simply pointing out that 50 years ago, the attitude was "play, learn, build, and play some more until you get to college and learn to build even bigger toys." This excited kids (don't you remember those home chemistry kits? Now we've got someone getting arrested for playing with dried ice and a plastic bottle!?!).
Today's attitude is "if it could be slightly dangerous, it shouldn't be allowed, and if a minor is doing it, punish the parent."
We need to foster more creativity, exploration, and (yes) dangerous activities into our children's lives, not less, otherwise our society will stagnate, and we'll fall into ruin.
What kind of damage can fireworks do? What's the range of a propane tank if the pressure valve is knocked off? What kind of damage can an RC airplane do if filled with a homemade pipe bomb (lots of firecrackers + PVC pipe, end caps, and a remote fuze)? How destructive can a dirt bike be if the user loses control just before a hill (those things can truly fly sometimes!)
Anything can be made to sound dangerous. As we continue to give up our right to liberty and our right to pursue happiness (and limiting my ability to play with rockets does limit both of these), we will never get it back.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." —Benjamin Franklin
Seriously, this type of slapdown on curiosity, creativity, and exploration makes me want to cry. It reminds me of the fall of the galactic empire in Asimov's Foundation series - a degredation of the desire to learn new things... People don't want children to dream and invent, they want them to memorize, regurgitate, and keep the status quo.
An example of the insanity: I love model rocketry. I can build small rockets with no one looking at me sideways (but when I move up to the C or D engines, and buy in large quantity, I start to get odd looks), but I don't want to build small rockets. I want to build large rockets, with radio controlled fins, a wireless video feed, and much stronger engines (either solid state or even move into simple liquid fuels). Now if I were interested in this say 50 years back, this would be odd, but not unheard of, and certainly not slapped down by local law enforcement. In today's age, if I started messing with liquid fuels, or built rockets over 6 feet tall, I would likely get harassed by local law enforcement (or more likely my neighbors would call for them), assuming I could even get the proper permits to be allowed to build the thing... permits to build something with my own two hands and then test it out on my friend's private property (a farm)? CRAZY, and wrong.
I hope we get out of this funk and get some new chemistry and engineering excitement back into our children. Sigh.
Some people don't even know how to create a new folder on their desktop... for those people, they need a book. For us, it is so simple, it's actually a bit mind numbingly simple.
Absolutely agree. This is about as close to reality as I've seen yet for a computer based movie. I especially love the showing off of a braille computer interface. That movie is still one of my favorites.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't Sat Phones exactly this? Also Walkie Talkies meet much of what he was talking about. Additionally, he predicted the transmission of pictures, music, speeches, etc. wirelessly from a central station. Isn't this what Television and Radio does, and don't we have wrist watch TVs and radios? Radio (AM) can reach the entire world with the proper frequency and proper weather conditions. While he may not have directly predicted the cell phone, and certainly didn't predict the blackberry in particular (slashvertisements are annoying), he absolutely predicted something very close to it (just like people say Jules Verne predicted rocketry, even though he talked about shooting the craft out of a barrel like a gun, which is not exactly like what we do, but close enough to say he predicted rocketry).
Some of the other parts, such as wireless power, were just part of his personal obsession with this idea, but some of what he talked about has been invented. He talked about remotely controlling a boat with wireless controls. RC boats anyone? Also, satellite navigated boats seem to fit this idea (though through a reflection of wireless signal off a satellite, not directly). He also talked about personal aircraft (ultralights, and vehicles like terragfugia's "roadable aircraft" certainly fit the bill - only laws keep these out of the sky at this point).
"What will be accomplished in the future will baffle one's comprehension. - Tesla
The man was a visionary.
Please see my other post about this exact issue.
I most definitely do not take killing and wholesale slaughter into my personal moral worldview.
I'm sorry, and I know this is somewhat off topic (though it is about freedom and oppression, so not totally off topic), but I needed to address your signature. Presented on its own, out of context, it portrays a horrible message. This scripture was a lament from a tortured and suppressed people, who had their holy city torn to its foundation. In their pain and misery, they wished vengeance on their oppressors. You try to live the life they lived and not think that a person would find happiness in getting vengeance on their oppressor by killing the oppressors' children. The bible does not condone the action, it only records the emotion. This is a psalm, a poetic song, full of pain and emotion and heart-wrenching cries of misery.
Here's the full text for those who are open minded and curious:
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill .
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
I would think, as much as the "papers, please" thing scares me, and as much as I do not want it under any circumstances, that we should be grateful that the world is mostly a better place than the world the above Israelites lived in, and should not present their misery in such a way as to try and fuel some people's misconception of the validity of the bible as a moral compass by which to live one's life.
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
-- Matthew 20:35-40
So, if any action you are about to take violates either of the first or second law, then you're not following the intention of the law.
I would just like to say (since I have some very nice Muslim friends) that you might need to tone this down a bit... Some Muslims decide to be irrational and threaten death at the mere mention of Muhammad by an 'infidel'. Most are just really nice people trying to live a good life while remaining faithful to God.
I wholeheartedly agree with your statement. I have a friend who gets so offended by stuff in Family Guy, but I just laugh because they poke fun at things I can identify with, and I have the ability to laugh at myself, my faith, and even my God. Life is funny, and if we're made in the image of God, then God loves a good joke!
I fully expect to arrive in heaven, stand at the gates, and have God stand there and say... hrm... let's see... nope not on the list. Cast him out!" just to see the look on my face before he laughs and opens the doors to heaven.
No, it has not gotten anywhere for one simple reason:
People would stop using the FastPass and would return to cash.
Traffic would increase significantly, the cost of maintaining the entrance and exit points would increase due to additional staff required, and people would still speed, but no longer would get ticketed.
The point of FastPass was to make it easier to collect money from drivers and to eliminate staffing costs. Adding in automatic speeding tickets to the system would kill the primary reason for the system's existence.
Well, the cows will exist because people want hamburgers and cow milk. So, the cows can stand around doing nothing but eat, or they can get some exercise. Now, I agree that they should have a space behind the treadmill where they can back up to in order to get a break, but the idea of putting their food at the top of the treadmill is genius.
According to this article, Energizer Cow, Not only do cows that exercise make more milk, but they also generate less methane gas than those that stand around all day.
So, it sounds like a win-win situation.
The only question I have is, can one make more power from capturing and burning the methane output, or from the treadmill motion?
The only thing I can see is being able to log into Google Docs from anywhere in the world and have it print to your home network—regardless of machine you are printing from. I could see this being valuable.
Um... you can? It's built into the Google Docs printer... it creates a PDF, which opens on your local machine for previewing, and then you can click print.
Um... do you mean Rule 34? And how exactly would you apply that to this situation?
OR... you could just clean them? That's the whole point of the foot washing story in the bible... when your soul is dirty, come to Jesus, and he'll wash it. He washed the disciples' feet, so soul washing should be no problem for him.
the company more or less considers the tool to be dead.
OR... the company realizes that the benefits of crowd sourcing the application far outweigh the potential monetary gains of keeping it closed source. If the company releases it via BSD license and then develops and sells closed source plugins for the architecture, the massive adoption of the core software will springboard their new plugin products. As the developers of the software, they are best positioned to be the leader in plugin development for this project.
So, the cynical view that the application is dead completely ignores the possibility that it may simply be more profitable for them to open source it.
That short story was excellent. I will have to look into the Screamers movie. Thanks for the info!
VHS was longer tapes and cheaper. Lower quality, but the length of the tapes was one of the primary reasons for its success.
You gloss over my point. The statistics you chose ignore the additional findings (in the same study) that a person who attends a religious service 2 or more times per month are in a significantly different group with different statistics related to divorce rates than those that attend less than that.
My point was that there are many who say on a survey that they are a Christian but haven't attended church in years, or only go on Christmas and Easter out of guilt. For all practical purposes, these people behave the same or very nearly the same as agnostics/atheists. Their beliefs on divorce, marriage, morals and basic ethics often bear no resemblance to the actual teachings of the religion they profess to adhere to. This horribly skews the truth about active belief in a particular religious set of teachings and a passive "I'm a believer in X because I said so, not because I attempt in some ways to follow the teachings of X" attitude.
If you can't see the difference, then I think our conversation is incapable of moving forward with any additional constructive discussion.