Try studying the bible as it was put together. The questionable letters that were chosen, The debates about what to include, what to remove. Did they teach you that the letters the used to put together the new testament where from people who weren't alive when Christ** was? Did they teach you the some stories had Jesus added to them? and that it's very likely that the letters weren't about the same person? That the manger story isn't correct? did they teach you that the trip Mary and Joseph* took wasn't possible to do? No, I thought not.
What are you under the impression is studied in bible college classes? You're getting them confused with a bible study perhaps.
The entire validity of the Bible as a religious text rests on the assumption that it is, in its entirety "God breathed, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16) This assumption requires the stipulation that supernatural forces controlled the evolution of the text in its entirety.
When it comes right down to it, the entire story is worthless unless Jesus was literally the Son of God who was conceived in a virgin through supernatural intervention. (Zeus never managed that now, did he?) If he was NOT the Son of God then his death was meaningless and none of the rest of the pile of cards holds any meaning at all.
In the face of those required bottom level assumptions, your petty concerns about the validity of some of the epistles are meaningless. Either God impregnated a virgin, in which case something like making sure the story was preserved correctly over the next couple thousand years would be pretty fucking easy, or he didn't in which case there's no merit in any of it whatsoever.
that makes you LESS likely to be a rational source.
I'm pretty sure a thorough understanding of the subject, along with a degree in Sociology (the science of studying social constructs such as *GASP* religion) and a neutral viewpoint (rational agnosticism) DO in fact make me a pretty rational source. I generally avoid arguing about religion, since it's so pointless, but I'm feeling bored since i just finished my last college paper ever.:-)
I'm also aware of the conception that agnostics are all self important pricks who just love to troll both sides, and it's entirely possible that I am just being that. However, after my initial antichristian atheistic kneejerk reaction to my upbringing I learned a hell of a lot about both sides, and myself, and realized that atheistic humanism requires just as much conscious belief on my part as Christianity. YMMV, it is fucking religion after all, the great thing about living in the modern era is we each get to choose for ourselves.:-)
Here's the relevant passage, while it isn't as specific with regards to women as to men, it's not an unreasonable interpretation to assume that lesbian behavior is included in the description in my opinion. YMMV however.
Romans 1:26-27 (New King James Version) 26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
The distinction between the sinner (who God loves) and the sin (that is unacceptable to God) is made quite clear in the New Testament. The Bible does not say that God hates homosexuals. The Bible states that homosexual behavior is sin, along with sex before marriage, failure to respect your parents, and witchcraft, among other things. God hates sin because it separates him from his creation, which he loves.
It should be pointed out that CHRISTian means a follower of Christ, not an adherent to the old Jewish law.
I'm agnostic, but I grew up Evangelical Christian and I went through two years of bible college classes while in high school. I'm pretty familiar with the Bible and its teachings, and I can categorically say that anyone who claims that God hates any particular category of sinner is not following the teachings of Christ, and therefore is not a Christian.
That said, bastardized christianity HAS been the rationalization for a horrifying litany of evil. I would argue that this is more because of its ready availability as an excuse that everyone would accept than its inherent aptitude. Any system of belief can and will be perverted by those seeking personal power.
100 mph isn't really very fast on a six lane freeway with a 75+ mph design speed and rare curves. I shudder to think how fast you'd need to be going to not see a slow moving car in time...
I know some people will argue with me and say "Well, Steam doesn't release their stats" and that sort of argument, but it doesn't matter
I know about 4 or 5 people who buy PC games in a physical store, out of the 80+ people I regularly play with. If my group of friends is even slightly representative of PC gamers in general, that makes your sales numbers literally meaningless.
That said, I have absolutely no problem with shitty developers taking their shitty products to the consoles and leaving us the fuck alone.
In the real world there are practical limitations on consumers' ability to fully evaluate the marketplace and most marketing practices explicitly seek to pollute that process rather than improve it.
My point is that there are few , if any, limitations to consumers' ability to fully evaluate the marketplace, there are individual limits to consumers' desire to fully evaluate the marketplace.
In the "Real World" everyone is forced to live with the consequences of their decisions. Society does a great job sometimes of pretending that this isn't so, but it fails to change the underlying principle. This goes for underhanded marketers as well, if you're lying about your product don't be surprised when there's a massive backlash in public opinion.
there are other forms of "marketing" like exclusivity agreements with vendors to artificially constrain consumer choice and secret kickbacks to salesmen (aka commissions like what happens with most mobile phone sales).
If exclusivity agreements removed enough of the products value that it wasn't worth it to the consumer, then they would only serve to hurt the marketers. Ultimately it still comes down to consumers making the choice that the convenience, status, or other value that the product brings, is worth the cost of the product. (this would be why there were so many iPhone sales in spite of AT&T, and then a lot more when they became available across providers. Apple realized that they had reached the point where everyone who wanted an iPhone more than they wanted to have good service already had an iPhone)
Likewise, if you are offering kickbacks to salesmen, you are still only selling to consumers who have decided that the convenience of not having to research and make an informed decision is worth the risk involved in taking the advice of a stranger who is paid to sell things to you.
I don't understand how your decision to allow expensive marketing to influence you is in any way the fault of the people using the marketing. in fact, blaming marketing for the consumer's inability to objectively make decisions makes it seem like you're making excuses for being lazy.
I'm confident that the resources available to an average consumer who wants to discern the truth behind a marketing campaign far exceeds the resources available to any company to control what they see.
Now the government is certainly doing their level best to change that as we speak (http://censorshipinamerica.com/) but such is corporate cronyism, and that's an entirely different discussion.
capitalism is not the same as free enterprise. capitalism is when the government creates special objects we call corporations which are not subject to the same laws as everyone else.
Go learn some basic economic theory, (preferable not solely from Marx), then come back and try again.
Capitalism is not the same as corporate nationalism or crony capitalism.
Your entire argument is fine except for your basic assumption that all these abuses are the result of capitalism. They are the result of a corrupt government. The only reason it's illegal for you to bet a grand on the super bowl is that the government is busy controlling enterprise. Controlled enterprise is not capitalism.
Start by educating yourself on what you are fighting against, then come join the fight.
I just realized that my sig is totally applicable to this conversation, since it is my mother's reaction to scanning in Linux with a brand new HP all in one that windows was having trouble recognizing as a scanning device.
Personally, since about 2006 I have had MUCH less work getting Ubuntu installed and working properly than getting windows to the same working state.
Yesterday I spent all day trying to get 7 to install on an empty hard drive. Ubuntu installed in a half hour and is working great so far, putting my fears that I was working with malfunctioning hardware to rest.
ALTHOUGH SPEECH IS GENERALLY PROTECTED UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT, THERE ARE INSTANCES IN WHICH RESTRICTIONS ARE WARRANTED.
HOLY SHIT, THEYRE CONSIDERING THE LAW AS IT'S WRITTEN AND APPLIED IN THE REAL WORLD
There is no "general protection" for speech in the first amendment, there is absolute protection:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
How are they considering the law as it is written?
This further confirms my lack of conviction that they have caught anyone of importance at all... Who's word are we going on here that these guys are big kahunas anyway?
I don't know why we even have to ask "who's responsible?" Of course it's the oil corps and their wholly owned assets in the government. The government should run real investigations, try and convict the people making and executing these plans. Then anyone asking the question will have to be an obvious employee of the oil corps, making their living by trying to make it somehow questionable who's doing this to us.
wait... honest question here. seriously.
I read this and assumed you were making a very funny sarcastic post pointing out how it's become politically incorrect to think for yourself: Then I read your later posts and it looks like you weren't kidding, so here's my two honest questions:
1. Do you really think that Big Oil influencing government is a bigger threat than Big Green doing the same? (keep in mind the massive amount of money involved in each and the respective profit margins) My own opinion is that big green is a much bigger immediate threat, I don't see any oil companies taking massive amounts of my money and disappearing with it a la Solyndra. (of the the massive amounts that I spend on gas much more goes to the government than to the profits of either the station or the big oil company) Furthermore, it seems that a big oil that had heavy influence over government would be able to drill in Alaska by now. 2. Did you really mean that to be read the way i read it? ie "thinking for yourself is bad, don't question the people in charge" I find it hard to believe that you meant it that way, but it sure read that way to me.
From my own experience, the difference is that I can look at a word and know what it means, but I have to interpret an icon.
I'm sure that a ribbon interface makes it easy to pick up the absolute basics quickly, but I think that it limits overall productivity levels for people who use it extensively and generally only use the UI for finding those seldom used functions that they don't know the shortcuts for.
You mention the Quick Access Toolbar, but it is a perfect illustration of my point. Everything I need regularly goes there, then when I need something I don't use often I must look through a jumble of icons in multiple tabs instead of being able to drop down and scan text menus. To add insult to injury, even though the Quick Access Toolbar is the most useful part of the interface it is also the smallest, leaving the ribbon to hog screen real estate while providing little service in return, provided you don't minimize it (and basically change the interface to 2003 with massive hard to scan menus and only one customizable toolbar.)
The ribbon is an improvement in user interface design
I disagree, I makes it harder to find seldom used functions since you can't quickly run your eye down a menu, and it puts commonly used functions (that would have previously been on the toolbar) on separate pages of "ribbon" intermixed with sundry others.
As far as your accusation of bitching about change, I have used Office 2007 more than 2003 at this point (I was forced to switch as soon as it came out because I happened to be taking a required freshman level office apps course that semester.) I think it's safe to say that I'm quite familiar with the ribbon and dislike it based on its own merit at this point.
Slashdot Mirror
Try studying the bible as it was put together. The questionable letters that were chosen, The debates about what to include, what to remove. Did they teach you that the letters the used to put together the new testament where from people who weren't alive when Christ** was? Did they teach you the some stories had Jesus added to them? and that it's very likely that the letters weren't about the same person? That the manger story isn't correct? did they teach you that the trip Mary and Joseph* took wasn't possible to do? No, I thought not.
What are you under the impression is studied in bible college classes? You're getting them confused with a bible study perhaps.
The entire validity of the Bible as a religious text rests on the assumption that it is, in its entirety "God breathed, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16)
This assumption requires the stipulation that supernatural forces controlled the evolution of the text in its entirety.
When it comes right down to it, the entire story is worthless unless Jesus was literally the Son of God who was conceived in a virgin through supernatural intervention. (Zeus never managed that now, did he?) If he was NOT the Son of God then his death was meaningless and none of the rest of the pile of cards holds any meaning at all.
In the face of those required bottom level assumptions, your petty concerns about the validity of some of the epistles are meaningless. Either God impregnated a virgin, in which case something like making sure the story was preserved correctly over the next couple thousand years would be pretty fucking easy, or he didn't in which case there's no merit in any of it whatsoever.
that makes you LESS likely to be a rational source.
I'm pretty sure a thorough understanding of the subject, along with a degree in Sociology (the science of studying social constructs such as *GASP* religion) and a neutral viewpoint (rational agnosticism) DO in fact make me a pretty rational source. :-)
I generally avoid arguing about religion, since it's so pointless, but I'm feeling bored since i just finished my last college paper ever.
I'm also aware of the conception that agnostics are all self important pricks who just love to troll both sides, and it's entirely possible that I am just being that. However, after my initial antichristian atheistic kneejerk reaction to my upbringing I learned a hell of a lot about both sides, and myself, and realized that atheistic humanism requires just as much conscious belief on my part as Christianity. YMMV, it is fucking religion after all, the great thing about living in the modern era is we each get to choose for ourselves. :-)
Here's the relevant passage, while it isn't as specific with regards to women as to men, it's not an unreasonable interpretation to assume that lesbian behavior is included in the description in my opinion. YMMV however.
Romans 1:26-27 (New King James Version)
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
The distinction between the sinner (who God loves) and the sin (that is unacceptable to God) is made quite clear in the New Testament. The Bible does not say that God hates homosexuals. The Bible states that homosexual behavior is sin, along with sex before marriage, failure to respect your parents, and witchcraft, among other things. God hates sin because it separates him from his creation, which he loves.
It should be pointed out that CHRISTian means a follower of Christ, not an adherent to the old Jewish law.
I'm agnostic, but I grew up Evangelical Christian and I went through two years of bible college classes while in high school.
I'm pretty familiar with the Bible and its teachings, and I can categorically say that anyone who claims that God hates any particular category of sinner is not following the teachings of Christ, and therefore is not a Christian.
That said, bastardized christianity HAS been the rationalization for a horrifying litany of evil.
I would argue that this is more because of its ready availability as an excuse that everyone would accept than its inherent aptitude.
Any system of belief can and will be perverted by those seeking personal power.
I forgot to add, what I'd worry most about is some retarded animal deciding to commit suicide.
100 mph isn't really very fast on a six lane freeway with a 75+ mph design speed and rare curves. I shudder to think how fast you'd need to be going to not see a slow moving car in time...
also Valve.
I know some people will argue with me and say "Well, Steam doesn't release their stats" and that sort of argument, but it doesn't matter
I know about 4 or 5 people who buy PC games in a physical store, out of the 80+ people I regularly play with. If my group of friends is even slightly representative of PC gamers in general, that makes your sales numbers literally meaningless.
That said, I have absolutely no problem with shitty developers taking their shitty products to the consoles and leaving us the fuck alone.
In the real world there are practical limitations on consumers' ability to fully evaluate the marketplace and most marketing practices explicitly seek to pollute that process rather than improve it.
My point is that there are few , if any, limitations to consumers' ability to fully evaluate the marketplace, there are individual limits to consumers' desire to fully evaluate the marketplace.
In the "Real World" everyone is forced to live with the consequences of their decisions. Society does a great job sometimes of pretending that this isn't so, but it fails to change the underlying principle. This goes for underhanded marketers as well, if you're lying about your product don't be surprised when there's a massive backlash in public opinion.
there are other forms of "marketing" like exclusivity agreements with vendors to artificially constrain consumer choice and secret kickbacks to salesmen (aka commissions like what happens with most mobile phone sales).
If exclusivity agreements removed enough of the products value that it wasn't worth it to the consumer, then they would only serve to hurt the marketers. Ultimately it still comes down to consumers making the choice that the convenience, status, or other value that the product brings, is worth the cost of the product.
(this would be why there were so many iPhone sales in spite of AT&T, and then a lot more when they became available across providers. Apple realized that they had reached the point where everyone who wanted an iPhone more than they wanted to have good service already had an iPhone)
Likewise, if you are offering kickbacks to salesmen, you are still only selling to consumers who have decided that the convenience of not having to research and make an informed decision is worth the risk involved in taking the advice of a stranger who is paid to sell things to you.
I don't understand how your decision to allow expensive marketing to influence you is in any way the fault of the people using the marketing. in fact, blaming marketing for the consumer's inability to objectively make decisions makes it seem like you're making excuses for being lazy.
I'm confident that the resources available to an average consumer who wants to discern the truth behind a marketing campaign far exceeds the resources available to any company to control what they see.
Now the government is certainly doing their level best to change that as we speak (http://censorshipinamerica.com/) but such is corporate cronyism, and that's an entirely different discussion.
The end result is the same. Less money in my pocket. And I'm supposed to be happy about that.
To be fair, the end result is twofold: less money in your pocket and more "things" in your house.
If you engage in a commercial transaction that does not provide added value to you, then you are entirely at fault.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
capitalism is not the same as free enterprise.
capitalism is when the government creates special objects we call corporations which are not subject to the same laws as everyone else.
Go learn some basic economic theory, (preferable not solely from Marx), then come back and try again.
Capitalism is not the same as corporate nationalism or crony capitalism.
Your entire argument is fine except for your basic assumption that all these abuses are the result of capitalism. They are the result of a corrupt government.
The only reason it's illegal for you to bet a grand on the super bowl is that the government is busy controlling enterprise. Controlled enterprise is not capitalism.
Start by educating yourself on what you are fighting against, then come join the fight.
You've got it backward though, that is the primary problem.
The government is not corrupted by capitalism, capitalism has been corrupted by the government.
I was going to post and then I realized you'd literally posted everything I was going to say.
so...
same here!
I just realized that my sig is totally applicable to this conversation, since it is my mother's reaction to scanning in Linux with a brand new HP all in one that windows was having trouble recognizing as a scanning device.
Personally, since about 2006 I have had MUCH less work getting Ubuntu installed and working properly than getting windows to the same working state.
Yesterday I spent all day trying to get 7 to install on an empty hard drive. Ubuntu installed in a half hour and is working great so far, putting my fears that I was working with malfunctioning hardware to rest.
For the love of all sanity mod this insightful/informative!
I know you're a troll, but I find this an interesting topic so I'm going to point out that IQ does not, and never has, measured intelligence.
Lord of the Rings is Historical Fiction.
ALTHOUGH SPEECH IS GENERALLY PROTECTED UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT, THERE ARE INSTANCES IN WHICH RESTRICTIONS ARE WARRANTED.
HOLY SHIT, THEYRE CONSIDERING THE LAW AS IT'S WRITTEN AND APPLIED IN THE REAL WORLD
There is no "general protection" for speech in the first amendment, there is absolute protection:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
How are they considering the law as it is written?
Thermite.
This further confirms my lack of conviction that they have caught anyone of importance at all... Who's word are we going on here that these guys are big kahunas anyway?
I don't know why we even have to ask "who's responsible?" Of course it's the oil corps and their wholly owned assets in the government. The government should run real investigations, try and convict the people making and executing these plans. Then anyone asking the question will have to be an obvious employee of the oil corps, making their living by trying to make it somehow questionable who's doing this to us.
wait... honest question here. seriously.
I read this and assumed you were making a very funny sarcastic post pointing out how it's become politically incorrect to think for yourself: Then I read your later posts and it looks like you weren't kidding, so here's my two honest questions:
1. Do you really think that Big Oil influencing government is a bigger threat than Big Green doing the same? (keep in mind the massive amount of money involved in each and the respective profit margins) My own opinion is that big green is a much bigger immediate threat, I don't see any oil companies taking massive amounts of my money and disappearing with it a la Solyndra. (of the the massive amounts that I spend on gas much more goes to the government than to the profits of either the station or the big oil company) Furthermore, it seems that a big oil that had heavy influence over government would be able to drill in Alaska by now.
2. Did you really mean that to be read the way i read it? ie "thinking for yourself is bad, don't question the people in charge" I find it hard to believe that you meant it that way, but it sure read that way to me.
From my own experience, the difference is that I can look at a word and know what it means, but I have to interpret an icon.
I'm sure that a ribbon interface makes it easy to pick up the absolute basics quickly, but I think that it limits overall productivity levels for people who use it extensively and generally only use the UI for finding those seldom used functions that they don't know the shortcuts for.
You mention the Quick Access Toolbar, but it is a perfect illustration of my point. Everything I need regularly goes there, then when I need something I don't use often I must look through a jumble of icons in multiple tabs instead of being able to drop down and scan text menus. To add insult to injury, even though the Quick Access Toolbar is the most useful part of the interface it is also the smallest, leaving the ribbon to hog screen real estate while providing little service in return, provided you don't minimize it (and basically change the interface to 2003 with massive hard to scan menus and only one customizable toolbar.)
The ribbon is an improvement in user interface design
I disagree, I makes it harder to find seldom used functions since you can't quickly run your eye down a menu, and it puts commonly used functions (that would have previously been on the toolbar) on separate pages of "ribbon" intermixed with sundry others.
As far as your accusation of bitching about change, I have used Office 2007 more than 2003 at this point (I was forced to switch as soon as it came out because I happened to be taking a required freshman level office apps course that semester.)
I think it's safe to say that I'm quite familiar with the ribbon and dislike it based on its own merit at this point.