How do you know I'm not actually The Creator, and Your Creator, here to test you with slashdot comments?:)
Call me psychic, but I'm 100% sure.
God created humans, and gave them free will - they could choose to serve and obey God, or disobey - with punishment to follow (death).
I'm not sure if that has any biblical backing. God specifically talks about hardening Pharaoh's heart, and moreover, if God actually can tell the future (omniscience), then there is no such thing as free will. If you want to qualify that by saying God only gave some people free will, and God cannot tell the future, I'll allow it, though.
You need to adjust your definition of free will. We have free will in that we can choose to do anything we want in life (within reason) and God generally does not stop us doing that. Knowing what we will do has more to do with the ability to know our thoughts, and how our brain works. It is not random. If you were able to completely simulate a person's brain, you could know exactly what they would choose given any situation. Now expand that to cover the entire world. You can then simulate anything that will happen any number of years into the future. THAT is what it means to know the end from the beginning.
Now come back to free will. We only have free will as much as is determined by our nature and our characteristics etc. Most of the choices we make are subconscious.
There is also the other issue you touched on where God does intervene in people's lives. This is an interesting extension of the first point I made above. If God knows us well enough to predict what we will do in any situation, then he also knows how to manipulate situations around us to cause us to change our mind, and do something else. He knows exactly what is required to change our actions.
However, generally speaking, God does not intervene - so things will take their natural course. In the case of Pharoah, obviously God did intervene.
God also works more actively in the lives of those who believe in him and those who ask for his help. This is in a more positive way. Not that he will stop things going wrong for you - he basically tests you in order to "prove" you, and also he puts things in your life that are for your eternal wellbeing, not just the immediate future.
Can you see that in doing this, God did not go against his principles? His character is intact, he did not contradict anything.
God has no principles by your definition. He can define anything any way he wants, and therefore justify ordering his humble servant to kill his only son on an altar. I'm not trying to say God is contradicting himself by ordering women and children killed, I'm saying that he's not *moral*.
When God CREATES the morals, then by definition, God cannot be immoral. Further, given the definition that "sin is disobedience of God's law/ways", God also cannot sin. It may not seem fair on the surface, but the more you learn about God (not just the few examples here) you realise he's not the angry dictator he's sometimes painted to be. He's fair, so he wont just ignore sin, but he also wont punish you to the full extent as deserved.
I can see your point, but I may just have to disagree here. You're using the word "moral" to mean YOUR definition of morals. Even though western society has fairly similar morals across the board, this hasn't always been the case, and even today different countries have different morals and moral applications. Morals are not a standard thing - and we're just proving that God's morals do not always agree with ours.
The created does not really have the right to question the creator.
Why is that? Do you never have the right to question your mother or father? If you raised slaves, and bred them as per your design, would they have no right to question you, since you create
I switched to fedora 15 when GNOME 3 was new and used it for 3 weeks or so. What I found was that as you said, it is easy to get used to the workflow and it does work pretty well for getting stuff done.
However, the lack of taskbar for task switching was a huge downside. Yes you can switch tasks other ways but it was a lot more cumbersome than a task bar would be.
In the end I found it too limiting and switched back to KDE. Interestingly my experience with GNOME 3 prompted me to make changes to my workflow in KDE. The beauty of KDE is that it is so flexible that I was able to make those changes.
I'd like to try GNOME 3 again sometime but for now KDE fits my workflow perfectly.
I will forward your suggestions on to your creator. Maybe he will do things differently next time, when he sees how much wiser you are than him.
Its not just about having the power to do whatever you want. Its also about doing things that dont contradict your own morals and your own character.
Lets have a look at the situation:
God created humans, and gave them free will - they could choose to serve and obey God, or disobey - with punishment to follow (death). They sinned, so death was the verdict. Now at this point, God could have just let man die. After all, God was righteous, and could not accept sinners. Man was rightly deserving of the punishment.
But God also is merciful, so he devised a plan which allowed man to be saved. God also has principles - (a) he cannot look upon (or accept) sin (b) he had made a law that the consequences of sin is death. So he sent his son, who although made of flesh and blood like you and I, did not sin - and therefore was not deserving of death. This is why he was raised from death and given immortality. He deserved it because God's righteousness demanded it. God then allowed that anyone who identified themselves with jesus through baptism (which signifies death and resurrection with christ), and lived according to his ways afterwards, would also share in the promise of resurrection (if applicable) and immortality.
Can you see that in doing this, God did not go against his principles? His character is intact, he did not contradict anything. I'm sure there may have been other solutions, but God chose that one.
We could question it - but I'm pretty sure our understanding is a wee bit shallower than God's, on this matter.
The created does not really have the right to question the creator.
He is a mediator through being Son of God, and Son of Man.
His father was God. His mother was human (Mary). Nowhere in the Bible will you read about Mary being divine...that part was invented by man (if jesus was divine, and mary gave birth to him, then oops we have a problem - better make mary divine too. I wonder if you must also make Joseph divine, since a mortal surely couldn't marry an immortal and have more children could they? or what about jesus' brothers - jude and james? are they divine too? it starts to get a bit hairy doesn't it?)
If Jesus was not any part man, he could not identify with man, and could not be any more a mediator than God himself. Why would God need a separate mediator if the mediator was just God anyway? Its simple - Adam sinned, which put him out of favour with God. God declared that "the soul(person) that sins - it shall die". God sent christ, born of a woman, as a sacrifice for sin, but who did not sin, therefore was not worthy of death. He was therefore raised, and those who identify with him through full immersion (baptism) and live accordingly will be saved.
I dont know about you but I have a father, and I'm not the same being as my father. I share many of the characteristics of my father, they were inherited through birth. If I were to share the same ideals and goals as my father, I could accurately say "I and my father are one". Or, if my character was exactly like that of my father I could accurately say "he that has seen me has seen my father". If you read it properly it actually makes sense.
In the same way, jesus was able to do God's will because he (a) shared God's characteristics, and (b) had God's help, particularly the power of the holy spirit.
We dont need to make excuses for their being a father, a son, and a source of power that is intrinsically related to the father. They have a relationship just like any other father and son, but on a higher level for sure.
The trinity just makes things confusing. Is it 1? or is it 3? Trinitarians like to argue for both sides...but that's just silly. Did Jesus really pray to himself for strength? why? and when the angel came to strengthen him, why did God need to send an angel to strengthen himself? Could God really anoint himself (jesus) with himself (the holy spirit)?
It just doesn't work. Maybe logic isn't the best way to argue this....I should just let you guys go. The Bible says a lot about the Roman Catholic church. None of it is positive.
Ask yourself why the vatican is sitting on a major fault line? And that the Bible predicts a major worldwide earthquake about the time of Jesus' return to earth.
Your problem is that you're placing your own idea of morals as the benchmark, and measuring the Bible against that.
If you're not going to accept that God is the head and ruler of the universe to begin with, why even both arguing about the Bible? - you've rejected the one core thing it all rests on.
You cant argue morality if you have nothing to base your morality on (humans do not all share the same moral values)
People forget that if there is a God and he created the universe and us and everything, then surely he can do whatever he damn well wants. He doesn't need to make sure its all ok with us first.
Trying to bring God in line with our own idea of morality is just absurd. You either accept that there is a God, or you reject it.
Seriously, the OSX UI only works for Apple people. Most people who are used to Windows dont like it.
Microsoft do seem to be in panic-mode since the mobile world has caught them completely off-guard.
Once the giant ruler of the IT world, sitting comfortably on their Windows and Office business assets, they are now finding themselves the underdog in a new market they didn't see coming. They've still got plenty of money though and I'd expect Windows 8 to do at least as well as Windows 7 in the corporate and home user world.
The world may have shifted to the iPhone (and more so to Android, I might remind you), but Windows is still king of the desktop.
Any phone manufacturer can do an update like this in just a few months.
I'd say this is just a fill-in device until the iPhone 5 arrives next year (when all the iPhone 4 users are out of their 2 year contracts). With a big Android release around the corner, they needed something to keep the fans happy - and this was it.
"A year and a half later" - its not 2 years yet since the last big update. Most people who bought an iPhone 4 are still on contract.
Better to wait until all of those people are ready to buy a new phone, and then launch the iPhone 5.
Unfortunately for Apple, everyone knows this - so the iPhone 4S was really just a fill-in. Why did they need a fill-in? If I had to guess I'd say its because Android 4 launches in a week from now, with the Samsung Nexus Prime (or whatever it will be called). They needed something to tie the users over...
The greater news will be when iOS5 gets rolled out soon...that's what Apple should be pinning their hopes on. New hardware is nice and all, but was it needed? probably not - the iPhone 4 coped just fine. But the new features in iOS5 sound good, and the earlier iPhones get them too for free...
Have to wonder if this was all a bit of a misstep for Apple. It wont hurt them, sure, but one wonders if it was even necessary? The problem Apple have created is that the hype always preceeds their events - and if their products dont live up to the hype, then people get disappointed. How will they prevent this happening again?
I bought my first iMac with OSX 10.7 on it. Long story short, its for sale, and I'll never touch another one.
I actually liked the idea of launchpad - which is what it has in place of a start menu - although it'd be hell with heaps of apps. You can organise it a bit with folders and such, but I'd rather a linux-like solution where everything already comes in categories, without me having to do it all. And if I do want something like launchpad - well we have Gnome 3 now dont we?
As for the rest of OSX, I'm sure it works for a lot of people, but I just found it frustrating.
I found that to use a mac effectively you had to first become Steve Jobs, and then things would start to make sense. You need to accept that there are no preferences, so the sooner you just accept the defaults the sooner you can move on and get things done.
Its almost impossible to switch between OSX and Linux on a daily basis - the habits you form on one make the other one irritating.
I could detail every feature that frustrated me to tears, but I'm sure there's someone with a "works for me" solution for every one of them, and you're probably not interested anyway.
The only redeeming feature is that people pay ridiculously high prices for 2nd hand apple products so I wont lose too much money on it.
Windows sucks because it lacks design and organisation. Linux sucks because it lacks quality. OSX sucks because it lacks sense.
this is fine, except I rarely use the search unless I dont know what I'm looking for. If I know what I'm looking for, I'd rather navigate right to it.
With the start menu - you can do it all with the mouse - with one hand. Replace it with a search box, and now you need 2 hands...and most people will still grab the mouse to make the final selection.
This is just Microsoft moving things around to justify the never-ending upgrade cycle.
The next version will have a different interface again...its just change for the sake of change.
why should the Bible be any more a source of authority than, say, Dianetics?
Because it predicted the return of the Jews to the land known as Israel. We accept it as fact, but just 100 years ago it was anything but. For nearly 2000 years there was no such thing as a nation of Israel. Now there is, and the detail with which it was predicted is astounding. The jews would first be hunted, and would return to the land as a means of escaping persecution. Then later, the prosperity of the land would call more of them back. Interesting isn't it? Yet it was predicted in Ezek 37 and Luke 21:24.
Also because it predicted many other historical events: * the destruction of the ancient city of tyre, first by nebuchadnezzar, and later completed by alexander the great - Ezek 26. * the procession of kingdoms in the middle east - Dan 2 - still correct - the feet and toes continue today - part iron and part clay - the weakest of the "metals", to signify the weakest form of government - democracy (where the power balance is upside down - interesting that the image of daniel 2 was top heavy then...)
I could go on...
The Quran and book of mormon both have sections plagiarized straight from the bible - complete with translational errors. They also originated much later (obviously). Both originated from just 1 author each vs over 40 authors for the Bible (spanning over 1000 years, yet the message is consistent).
I suppose God should have let the world die instead of "sacrificing his child" as you put it?
A being that created the entire universe including us doesn't need to ask us for permission. He didn't have to save us, and looking at the world today there are few who even want to be saved, and less who even know what that means.
To quote from the bible: "shall the pot say to the potter, 'why have you made me thus?'"
Has it occurred to you that Abraham was enacting the very same thing God was to do to his own son? And in the mercy of God, he never required Abraham to go through with it, because Abraham had displayed the faith in his future son. Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac from the grave - it says so in Hebrews 11:19.
Should you also condemn God for saving the world? You speak as one without understanding in these things.
The very thing that you are calling EVIL is exactly what man did to Jesus Christ. God knew they would kill him, but what was he to do? If he took his son away, we would all be doomed to die. But consider the love of God in that he allowed his son to die so that we could live.
If that doesn't make sense to you, I'll cover the details very briefly: God is righteous - he cannot accept sin (Sin equals disobedience of God's law, which it goes without saying that God cannot sin). Adam sinned, so there needed to be some way to reconcile Adam to God. What was needed was for a human who came in the very same nature as Adam (not God), yet who lived a sinless life. In doing so, it was not right that he should stay in the grave, so God's righteousness demanded that he be raised, and made immortal.
All of this was God's plan right from the start - but it runs right through the heart of the Bible. You cannot interpret the Bible without understanding why Jesus Christ came into the world.
This is why the idea of a trinity is wrong. If Christ shared God's nature, he could not have been our mediator or our saviour. The fact he did share our nature, means that by us identifying with him through baptism (full immersion - signifying us dying with christ, and then rising out of the grave with him) God is prepared to forgive our sins. Christ suffered a cruel death because of OUR sins. That death was required because of OUR sins.
I'd love to go on, but if you want to find out more - read the book entitled "elpis israel" (the hope of israel). You can get it from the christadelphians.
You can argue that they are somehow built-in, but I tend to think morals are something we learn from our parents and surroundings, as evidenced by the rapid decline in morals in the last 20-50 years.
What you are referring to are incidents where adherence to God's commands is seen as a higher moral than what a human might consider.
You need to understand that the Bible was written for one purpose only - to teach US about GOD.
In the Bible's eyes, humans are not the most important beings in the universe, God is. So if things seem unfair, remember that God sees things differently.
Trying to understand the Bible through the eyes of humanism wont get you very far.
Given that less than 1% of the Bible deals with that (and the Bible's account is extremely and intentionally vague), I'd argue why is that a reason to see conflict?
"If you believe one of the Bible's claims, then you must believe all of them."
The same would only apply to the ancient Greek texts you referred to if those texts were intended to form 1 coherent work, and each text made reference to that.
OEM versions of windows 8 do not compete with windows 7.
Now, when MS say you can only purchase the OEM version with a new pc, they really mean it. No more purchasing OEM copies and installing them on your existing box.
Of course, this is just hypothetical - lets hope its all false.
btw, when I say "creation cannot be disproven" - I do not mean that it must therefore be right.
I simply mean that there is little value in trying to disprove something like creation.
Either you accept it as fact, or you reject it. The point is that the Bible makes other claims - and many prophecies that have been fulfilled with incredible accuracy - so there lies the proof. And if you are to believe one part of the Bible, you must believe all of it.
If you refuse to read it, then how can you discuss it?
If you're going to make claims like that you'll need some proof.
Creation cannot be disproven.
You cannot prove that God did not create the earth in 6 days. If Adam was created as a ~20 year old man, with all of the signs of someone who has already lived for 20 years, then so the earth was also created as a X billion year old earth, with all the signs of a planet that has been through growth, or evolution if you like.
I dont see much benefit in looking to the past for things like that, because the Bible makes other claims too.
Over 2000 years ago, it claimed that Israel would be scattered from their land, and that much later it would be regathered into that same land. It detailed HOW it would happen (they would be hunted, forcing them to return for peace, and also later they would return for prosperity, to return to their homeland).
Ezek 37 has the details, among others.
It was written by ~40 authors over a period of more than 1000 years, yet it is consistent and carries the same message from cover to cover. No other book can make that claim. No other book stands beside it right through history.
As a history book it has been proven accurate. As a guide for life it is impeccable.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you know I'm not actually The Creator, and Your Creator, here to test you with slashdot comments? :)
Call me psychic, but I'm 100% sure.
God created humans, and gave them free will - they could choose to serve and obey God, or disobey - with punishment to follow (death).
I'm not sure if that has any biblical backing. God specifically talks about hardening Pharaoh's heart, and moreover, if God actually can tell the future (omniscience), then there is no such thing as free will. If you want to qualify that by saying God only gave some people free will, and God cannot tell the future, I'll allow it, though.
You need to adjust your definition of free will. We have free will in that we can choose to do anything we want in life (within reason) and God generally does not stop us doing that. Knowing what we will do has more to do with the ability to know our thoughts, and how our brain works. It is not random. If you were able to completely simulate a person's brain, you could know exactly what they would choose given any situation. Now expand that to cover the entire world. You can then simulate anything that will happen any number of years into the future. THAT is what it means to know the end from the beginning.
Now come back to free will. We only have free will as much as is determined by our nature and our characteristics etc. Most of the choices we make are subconscious.
There is also the other issue you touched on where God does intervene in people's lives. This is an interesting extension of the first point I made above. If God knows us well enough to predict what we will do in any situation, then he also knows how to manipulate situations around us to cause us to change our mind, and do something else. He knows exactly what is required to change our actions.
However, generally speaking, God does not intervene - so things will take their natural course. In the case of Pharoah, obviously God did intervene.
God also works more actively in the lives of those who believe in him and those who ask for his help. This is in a more positive way. Not that he will stop things going wrong for you - he basically tests you in order to "prove" you, and also he puts things in your life that are for your eternal wellbeing, not just the immediate future.
Can you see that in doing this, God did not go against his principles? His character is intact, he did not contradict anything.
God has no principles by your definition. He can define anything any way he wants, and therefore justify ordering his humble servant to kill his only son on an altar. I'm not trying to say God is contradicting himself by ordering women and children killed, I'm saying that he's not *moral*.
When God CREATES the morals, then by definition, God cannot be immoral. Further, given the definition that "sin is disobedience of God's law/ways", God also cannot sin. It may not seem fair on the surface, but the more you learn about God (not just the few examples here) you realise he's not the angry dictator he's sometimes painted to be. He's fair, so he wont just ignore sin, but he also wont punish you to the full extent as deserved.
I can see your point, but I may just have to disagree here. You're using the word "moral" to mean YOUR definition of morals. Even though western society has fairly similar morals across the board, this hasn't always been the case, and even today different countries have different morals and moral applications. Morals are not a standard thing - and we're just proving that God's morals do not always agree with ours.
Why is that? Do you never have the right to question your mother or father? If you raised slaves, and bred them as per your design, would they have no right to question you, since you create
I actually agree with you entirely.
I switched to fedora 15 when GNOME 3 was new and used it for 3 weeks or so. What I found was that as you said, it is easy to get used to the workflow and it does work pretty well for getting stuff done.
However, the lack of taskbar for task switching was a huge downside. Yes you can switch tasks other ways but it was a lot more cumbersome than a task bar would be.
In the end I found it too limiting and switched back to KDE. Interestingly my experience with GNOME 3 prompted me to make changes to my workflow in KDE. The beauty of KDE is that it is so flexible that I was able to make those changes.
I'd like to try GNOME 3 again sometime but for now KDE fits my workflow perfectly.
However, the ability to edit commands from the grub boot menu is awesome, and has quickly saved my system many times.
I will forward your suggestions on to your creator. Maybe he will do things differently next time, when he sees how much wiser you are than him.
Its not just about having the power to do whatever you want. Its also about doing things that dont contradict your own morals and your own character.
Lets have a look at the situation:
God created humans, and gave them free will - they could choose to serve and obey God, or disobey - with punishment to follow (death).
They sinned, so death was the verdict.
Now at this point, God could have just let man die. After all, God was righteous, and could not accept sinners. Man was rightly deserving of the punishment.
But God also is merciful, so he devised a plan which allowed man to be saved.
God also has principles - (a) he cannot look upon (or accept) sin (b) he had made a law that the consequences of sin is death.
So he sent his son, who although made of flesh and blood like you and I, did not sin - and therefore was not deserving of death. This is why he was raised from death and given immortality. He deserved it because God's righteousness demanded it.
God then allowed that anyone who identified themselves with jesus through baptism (which signifies death and resurrection with christ), and lived according to his ways afterwards, would also share in the promise of resurrection (if applicable) and immortality.
Can you see that in doing this, God did not go against his principles? His character is intact, he did not contradict anything.
I'm sure there may have been other solutions, but God chose that one.
We could question it - but I'm pretty sure our understanding is a wee bit shallower than God's, on this matter.
The created does not really have the right to question the creator.
He is a mediator through being Son of God, and Son of Man.
His father was God. His mother was human (Mary). Nowhere in the Bible will you read about Mary being divine...that part was invented by man (if jesus was divine, and mary gave birth to him, then oops we have a problem - better make mary divine too. I wonder if you must also make Joseph divine, since a mortal surely couldn't marry an immortal and have more children could they? or what about jesus' brothers - jude and james? are they divine too? it starts to get a bit hairy doesn't it?)
If Jesus was not any part man, he could not identify with man, and could not be any more a mediator than God himself. Why would God need a separate mediator if the mediator was just God anyway? Its simple - Adam sinned, which put him out of favour with God. God declared that "the soul(person) that sins - it shall die". God sent christ, born of a woman, as a sacrifice for sin, but who did not sin, therefore was not worthy of death. He was therefore raised, and those who identify with him through full immersion (baptism) and live accordingly will be saved.
I dont know about you but I have a father, and I'm not the same being as my father. I share many of the characteristics of my father, they were inherited through birth. If I were to share the same ideals and goals as my father, I could accurately say "I and my father are one". Or, if my character was exactly like that of my father I could accurately say "he that has seen me has seen my father". If you read it properly it actually makes sense.
In the same way, jesus was able to do God's will because he (a) shared God's characteristics, and (b) had God's help, particularly the power of the holy spirit.
We dont need to make excuses for their being a father, a son, and a source of power that is intrinsically related to the father. They have a relationship just like any other father and son, but on a higher level for sure.
The trinity just makes things confusing. Is it 1? or is it 3? Trinitarians like to argue for both sides...but that's just silly. Did Jesus really pray to himself for strength? why? and when the angel came to strengthen him, why did God need to send an angel to strengthen himself?
Could God really anoint himself (jesus) with himself (the holy spirit)?
It just doesn't work. Maybe logic isn't the best way to argue this....I should just let you guys go.
The Bible says a lot about the Roman Catholic church. None of it is positive.
Ask yourself why the vatican is sitting on a major fault line? And that the Bible predicts a major worldwide earthquake about the time of Jesus' return to earth.
Your problem is that you're placing your own idea of morals as the benchmark, and measuring the Bible against that.
If you're not going to accept that God is the head and ruler of the universe to begin with, why even both arguing about the Bible? - you've rejected the one core thing it all rests on.
You cant argue morality if you have nothing to base your morality on (humans do not all share the same moral values)
People forget that if there is a God and he created the universe and us and everything, then surely he can do whatever he damn well wants. He doesn't need to make sure its all ok with us first.
Trying to bring God in line with our own idea of morality is just absurd. You either accept that there is a God, or you reject it.
Apple are beating Microsoft in Mobile, not UI.
Seriously, the OSX UI only works for Apple people. Most people who are used to Windows dont like it.
Microsoft do seem to be in panic-mode since the mobile world has caught them completely off-guard.
Once the giant ruler of the IT world, sitting comfortably on their Windows and Office business assets, they are now finding themselves the underdog in a new market they didn't see coming. They've still got plenty of money though and I'd expect Windows 8 to do at least as well as Windows 7 in the corporate and home user world.
The world may have shifted to the iPhone (and more so to Android, I might remind you), but Windows is still king of the desktop.
and I'm a linux guy...
Any phone manufacturer can do an update like this in just a few months.
I'd say this is just a fill-in device until the iPhone 5 arrives next year (when all the iPhone 4 users are out of their 2 year contracts). With a big Android release around the corner, they needed something to keep the fans happy - and this was it.
Just an observation - do you agree?
I think you nailed it in your first line.
"A year and a half later" - its not 2 years yet since the last big update. Most people who bought an iPhone 4 are still on contract.
Better to wait until all of those people are ready to buy a new phone, and then launch the iPhone 5.
Unfortunately for Apple, everyone knows this - so the iPhone 4S was really just a fill-in. Why did they need a fill-in? If I had to guess I'd say its because Android 4 launches in a week from now, with the Samsung Nexus Prime (or whatever it will be called). They needed something to tie the users over...
The greater news will be when iOS5 gets rolled out soon...that's what Apple should be pinning their hopes on. New hardware is nice and all, but was it needed? probably not - the iPhone 4 coped just fine. But the new features in iOS5 sound good, and the earlier iPhones get them too for free...
Have to wonder if this was all a bit of a misstep for Apple. It wont hurt them, sure, but one wonders if it was even necessary? The problem Apple have created is that the hype always preceeds their events - and if their products dont live up to the hype, then people get disappointed. How will they prevent this happening again?
I bought my first iMac with OSX 10.7 on it. Long story short, its for sale, and I'll never touch another one.
I actually liked the idea of launchpad - which is what it has in place of a start menu - although it'd be hell with heaps of apps. You can organise it a bit with folders and such, but I'd rather a linux-like solution where everything already comes in categories, without me having to do it all. And if I do want something like launchpad - well we have Gnome 3 now dont we?
As for the rest of OSX, I'm sure it works for a lot of people, but I just found it frustrating.
I found that to use a mac effectively you had to first become Steve Jobs, and then things would start to make sense.
You need to accept that there are no preferences, so the sooner you just accept the defaults the sooner you can move on and get things done.
Its almost impossible to switch between OSX and Linux on a daily basis - the habits you form on one make the other one irritating.
I could detail every feature that frustrated me to tears, but I'm sure there's someone with a "works for me" solution for every one of them, and you're probably not interested anyway.
The only redeeming feature is that people pay ridiculously high prices for 2nd hand apple products so I wont lose too much money on it.
Windows sucks because it lacks design and organisation.
Linux sucks because it lacks quality.
OSX sucks because it lacks sense.
this is fine, except I rarely use the search unless I dont know what I'm looking for. If I know what I'm looking for, I'd rather navigate right to it.
With the start menu - you can do it all with the mouse - with one hand. Replace it with a search box, and now you need 2 hands...and most people will still grab the mouse to make the final selection.
This is just Microsoft moving things around to justify the never-ending upgrade cycle.
The next version will have a different interface again...its just change for the sake of change.
um, its HTC, not Android...but the humour was noted.
The joke is a little old though...
All of the Bible's texts agree with each other. Its not coincidence nor accident.
why should the Bible be any more a source of authority than, say, Dianetics?
Because it predicted the return of the Jews to the land known as Israel. We accept it as fact, but just 100 years ago it was anything but. For nearly 2000 years there was no such thing as a nation of Israel. Now there is, and the detail with which it was predicted is astounding. The jews would first be hunted, and would return to the land as a means of escaping persecution. Then later, the prosperity of the land would call more of them back. Interesting isn't it? Yet it was predicted in Ezek 37 and Luke 21:24.
Also because it predicted many other historical events:
* the destruction of the ancient city of tyre, first by nebuchadnezzar, and later completed by alexander the great - Ezek 26.
* the procession of kingdoms in the middle east - Dan 2 - still correct - the feet and toes continue today - part iron and part clay - the weakest of the "metals", to signify the weakest form of government - democracy (where the power balance is upside down - interesting that the image of daniel 2 was top heavy then...)
I could go on...
The Quran and book of mormon both have sections plagiarized straight from the bible - complete with translational errors. They also originated much later (obviously). Both originated from just 1 author each vs over 40 authors for the Bible (spanning over 1000 years, yet the message is consistent).
No other book can match the Bible.
What if your son was Jesus Christ, and the potential salvation of the entire world depended on it?
I suppose God should have let the world die instead of "sacrificing his child" as you put it?
A being that created the entire universe including us doesn't need to ask us for permission. He didn't have to save us, and looking at the world today there are few who even want to be saved, and less who even know what that means.
To quote from the bible:
"shall the pot say to the potter, 'why have you made me thus?'"
morals are relative to the situation, are they not?
Has it occurred to you that Abraham was enacting the very same thing God was to do to his own son? And in the mercy of God, he never required Abraham to go through with it, because Abraham had displayed the faith in his future son. Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac from the grave - it says so in Hebrews 11:19.
Should you also condemn God for saving the world? You speak as one without understanding in these things.
The very thing that you are calling EVIL is exactly what man did to Jesus Christ. God knew they would kill him, but what was he to do? If he took his son away, we would all be doomed to die. But consider the love of God in that he allowed his son to die so that we could live.
If that doesn't make sense to you, I'll cover the details very briefly:
God is righteous - he cannot accept sin (Sin equals disobedience of God's law, which it goes without saying that God cannot sin). Adam sinned, so there needed to be some way to reconcile Adam to God.
What was needed was for a human who came in the very same nature as Adam (not God), yet who lived a sinless life. In doing so, it was not right that he should stay in the grave, so God's righteousness demanded that he be raised, and made immortal.
All of this was God's plan right from the start - but it runs right through the heart of the Bible. You cannot interpret the Bible without understanding why Jesus Christ came into the world.
This is why the idea of a trinity is wrong. If Christ shared God's nature, he could not have been our mediator or our saviour. The fact he did share our nature, means that by us identifying with him through baptism (full immersion - signifying us dying with christ, and then rising out of the grave with him) God is prepared to forgive our sins. Christ suffered a cruel death because of OUR sins. That death was required because of OUR sins.
I'd love to go on, but if you want to find out more - read the book entitled "elpis israel" (the hope of israel). You can get it from the christadelphians.
It depends who decides on the morals.
You can argue that they are somehow built-in, but I tend to think morals are something we learn from our parents and surroundings, as evidenced by the rapid decline in morals in the last 20-50 years.
What you are referring to are incidents where adherence to God's commands is seen as a higher moral than what a human might consider.
You need to understand that the Bible was written for one purpose only - to teach US about GOD.
In the Bible's eyes, humans are not the most important beings in the universe, God is. So if things seem unfair, remember that God sees things differently.
Trying to understand the Bible through the eyes of humanism wont get you very far.
Given that less than 1% of the Bible deals with that (and the Bible's account is extremely and intentionally vague), I'd argue why is that a reason to see conflict?
Wrong. Most modern high-profile games these days would easily rival Office in terms of the complexity of fixing bugs.
The difference however is this:
Having a bug-free game is really just critical to the success of the game-maker.
Having bug-free office is critical to the success of all of its users.
I'm sure there are counter-arguments to all of that but there you go.
Its fun to take things out of context isn't it?
clearly what you assumed isn't what I meant.
It should more correctly be rendered:
"If you believe one of the Bible's claims, then you must believe all of them."
The same would only apply to the ancient Greek texts you referred to if those texts were intended to form 1 coherent work, and each text made reference to that.
This is a long way off topic now.
OEM versions of windows 8 do not compete with windows 7.
Now, when MS say you can only purchase the OEM version with a new pc, they really mean it. No more purchasing OEM copies and installing them on your existing box.
Of course, this is just hypothetical - lets hope its all false.
btw, when I say "creation cannot be disproven" - I do not mean that it must therefore be right.
I simply mean that there is little value in trying to disprove something like creation.
Either you accept it as fact, or you reject it. The point is that the Bible makes other claims - and many prophecies that have been fulfilled with incredible accuracy - so there lies the proof. And if you are to believe one part of the Bible, you must believe all of it.
If you refuse to read it, then how can you discuss it?
If you're going to make claims like that you'll need some proof.
Creation cannot be disproven.
You cannot prove that God did not create the earth in 6 days. If Adam was created as a ~20 year old man, with all of the signs of someone who has already lived for 20 years, then so the earth was also created as a X billion year old earth, with all the signs of a planet that has been through growth, or evolution if you like.
I dont see much benefit in looking to the past for things like that, because the Bible makes other claims too.
Over 2000 years ago, it claimed that Israel would be scattered from their land, and that much later it would be regathered into that same land. It detailed HOW it would happen (they would be hunted, forcing them to return for peace, and also later they would return for prosperity, to return to their homeland).
Ezek 37 has the details, among others.
It was written by ~40 authors over a period of more than 1000 years, yet it is consistent and carries the same message from cover to cover. No other book can make that claim. No other book stands beside it right through history.
As a history book it has been proven accurate. As a guide for life it is impeccable.