Why dismiss me at this point? Is your religious fervor about evolution blocking you from having an open mind about alternatives?
I'd argue that we have some evidence from those who observed the flood - in the book of Genesis. Additionally there is evidence of a worldwide flood. Ever heard of the cambrian explosion? If there was a worldwide upheaval of water and land, it makes sense that lots of living things were covered with mud and that formed the bulk of fossils we see today. It's all about interpretation of the evidence, no?
This "general backlash against science" is not because of a rejection of truth. From my perspective, there are good and bad scientists. Some of the scientists are motivated by religious views to try to manipulate science to "say" what they want to convey. This behavior is BAD, whether the scientists are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Atheist.
Science has become the new "TRUTH" engine. "Recent studies show" "Science now says" "research shows" these are all arbiters of truth - people have come to trust in the results from science to "prove" things about their lives. When people manipulate data or cherry pick information to bolster their point of view, it's wrong, and the public is manipulated.
The backlash is against the manipulation of people who don't know any better by those in the powerful office of scientist. Power tends to corrupt, you know.
I'm a fundamentalist Christian who is ALL FOR science. GOOD science, that is. Many of history's greatest scientists were followers of Christ. Christianity and good science are not in opposition, although it's my opinion that when science (which is continually proven wrong as understanding is refined and scientific knowledge increases) and the Bible are in contradiction, science must be wrong.
That having been said, while I recognize that the Bible is not a science textbook, I reject evolution as origin of species. It is clearly observable and repeatable as a mechanism for variation based on genetic preservation of favorable characteristics. I think that the leap is too big to say that all creatures came through this process.
I believe that science is not equipped to address the origin of the universe, because it was not observed, and cannot be repeated. People calling themselves scientists can speculate about origins, but those speculations cannot be tested by the scientific method, and cannot be disproven. This makes those ideas similar to my creationist view of the origin of the universe - because my view cannot be tested or disproven, either.
so full of themselves as to have 7 kids in this day and age I have no idea what you're talking about. I have 5 kids and I can certainly say that if nothing else, having five kids makes me a LOT less selfish and self-absorbed. When I had no kids, it was easy for it all to be "about me." Our kids learn it's not all about THEM, too.
Do you have kids?
BTW - my wife says our view is consistent with Pro-Choice, (we choose to have babies) it's all natural, and it's survival of the fittest.:)
Does that make masturbation something akin to genocide? Nope. An embryo is a person, a sperm cell is a cell. The mojo is when the sperm enters the egg. At that point, all that is needed for a BABY to be born is food and shelter.
Look, if the Monty Python song is right "Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." Then every time I have sex and a pregnancy results, I've made God (who designed the system) angry because a couple million of those things die. Sperm cells don't contain the minimum necessary ingredients to make a person - just half of the ingredients.
Mindless scaremongering snipped... Interesting when I state facts - even facts written by marijuana advocates - that's called mindless and scaremongering.
I lead a good life. I never said that you are a bad person. I don't know you, but I'll take you at your word. You probably are a decent fellow, and one that I'd appreciate as a next-door-neighbor.
I like to unwind with a little herbal refreshment. It seems to me that an ongoing desire to not be clear of mind indicates that there is something about your life which you desire to avoid - to escape the mundanity of life, you want to use mind-altering substances. This is your choice, but, for the reasons I listed above, I think that it should continue to be illegal.
I don't want some idiot stoned on ANYTHING killing my wife or kids. FWIW, I would be OK with prohibition of alcohol, and cigarettes too - use of alcohol is so unimportant to my life that the loss of it would be nothing to me. (BTW - by definition, anyone being reckless due to their self-imposed incapacity is an idiot.)
Drugs are not the bogeyman. But they are not good for you, and one function of the law is to teach - to teach people what is good and bad for them. Another is to protect society - people on drugs do things that are bad for the general population, and laws against drug use serve to protect the populous.
I know we won't agree here, but I do think that your position is unreasonable, and I think that your life would be more rich and full if you dealt with whatever it is emotionally that drives you to self-medicate with drugs.
Not everyone who has "extra" embryos from IFV will donate them for research. I guarantee that scientists will want to create cell lines by creating new embryos. And why not? They are just cells - just stuff in a petri dish, right?
My world view says that a lump of cells is a lump of cells. An IVF failure or abortion is no different than, say, a tumor biopsy or a liposuction. Right. So take that biopsy or liposuction and put it in a petri dish - provide nutrients and shelter and see what develops.
Now, take that embryo and provide nutrients and shelter for... I don't know.... 21 days after conception - you have a beating heart. Let that continue for another 21 weeks, and THEN compare your biopsy with the very clearly HUMAN BABY and tell me that they are the same. Ridiculous.
People don't need to play football either. Or dance, or scuba dive When I stop dancing, playing football, or snorkeling, I don't have negative after effects linger in my body for days. When I engage in physical activity, I'm not then tempted to engage in more behavior altering activities which lead to greater risk.
The fact is that when some (perhaps many) people use marijuana, they decide that life is not worth living without it. Some go even further to more physically and mentally detrimental drugs. Every addict thinks "I'll be the one who can control it. I'm smarter than those junkies."
Marijuana alters the user's perception of the world around them. Their judgment is impaired, and as a result are more likely to engage in behaviors which are not good ideas. The law recognizes a fixed amount of BAC before determining that someone's ability to respond is impaired and they are no longer allowed to operate a vehicle - regardless of their amount of consumption, body weight, tolerance, or natural giftedness which might allow them to be "safe" behind the wheel. People on drugs are much more likely to think that they are "fine" and then do something stupid like operate a car.
On a pro-marijuana site, I found the following quotes: "Marijuana affects memory, judgment and perception."
"Athletes could find their performance is off; timing, movements, and coordination are all affected by THC. Also, since marijuana can affect judgment and decision making, its use can lead to risky sexual behavior, resulting in exposure to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV"
"regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems."
Sounds great. Where do I sign up for all of these benefits?
pure fascism Yeah. I'm a fascist. You've totally convinced me. I bow at your irrefutable rhetoric. Perhaps if you were clear of mind you could make a rational argument which might influence me. Nevertheless, continue in your constitutional right to take illegal drugs. The man is really sticking it to you, isn't he?
Right - no one will get pregnant to make babies for scientists to kill, but absolutely IVF techniques will be used to create more embyos from which to "harvest" stem cells. Again, my world view says that those are people being killed for research.
Except for the fact that both issues you raise are troublesome.
Medical marijuana is a problem because every place that tries to offer medicinal use of this drug ends up selling it to people who are not sick but just want to get high. In fact, perhaps you can be the first, but I have yet to meet a marijuana proponent who was not also a recreational marijuana user. People don't need to get high. We should not make it legal for people to get wasted just because they want to. I don't need you drunk or stoned and driving the car which ends up killing anyone.
Embryonic stem cell research is more troublesome - it's not just some stoner who is choosing to waste his life on drugs that is the problem. My world view says that a powerless, silent person is killed for every IVF failure and abortion and more would be killed to support the possibility of treatments. That is completely unacceptable.
Californians voted to fund embryonic stem cell research to the tune of $3B, so I'd suggest that federal funding is not the key to success that you seem to believe it to be.
My view is that embryonic research is morally tainted, and adult stem cell research is not, and is already helping people with practical therapies. Why waste time talking about embryonic stem cell research, particularly when we can now get similar cells from amniotic fluid without killing anyone?
For what it's worth, I agree with you that most people are not passionate about stem cell research. It irritates me that when most people talk of stem cell research they are focusing on embryonic stem cell research. As others have noted, it's not helping anyone these days, and adult stem cell research *is* helping MANY MANY people. I'm hopeful that this recent discovery about amniotic stem cells will kill the debate and people will stop trying to do medical research on *all* products of conception.
I'm not sure that I agree with you about people don't want that right taken from them. Recent surveys show that the majority of Americans find abortion unacceptable for themselves but feel that there is some need for it to be available. Most seem to want to protect the right of others to have abortion.
The following numbers come from recollection - frankly I'm too busy this morning to go look up the actual numbers, but this is pretty close to what I've been reading on this issue:
The number of Americans that think abortion is a bad thing is something like 80+% The number that feel it should be illegal is substantially smaller, but the bottom line is about 10% want it legal under every possible circumstance, about 10% want it illegal in every circumstance, and the other 80% of the population is split just about down the middle with varying circumstances determining the legality.
Essentially about half of the US wants it illegal under some circumstances, and about half of the US wants it legal under some circumstances.
I tire of the meme that a 'religious minority controls the government.' That's crap. If it was true, there are lots of things that would be handled differently.
The fact is that there are a lot of people who disagree with the liberal view that abortion should be legal for all women. Most of those people are not passionate advocates of that position, but when the issue comes up, they stand for what they believe. This is the phenomenon of the "values voters."
The religious minority of which you speak is merely the 'tip of the spear' to speak in military parlance. You see them, the politicians feel them because of their platforms, *and* because of the values voters. Policies are made as a result.
That abortion is still legal in the US shows that there are many near silent people who share your view, and the politicians feel their presence on election day, too.
We had a very smart guy on our team who had little operational experience and a great deal of theoretical knowledge. He set up our suite of unix boxes to share home directories - not a bad idea, right? Except that this brainiac hard mounted the home directories for all users.
The first time that the box hosting the home directories went down for maintenance, no one could log into ANY of the unix boxes - each was waiting for the hard mounted NFS resource to become available.
We switched to soft mounts of home dirs, and life was much less painful for us. (Mail was hosted on a different platform, and few users wrote to their home dirs much so we didn't need to worry much about nfs lock problems.)
As someone up the chain indicated, the law explicitly indicates that I don't have that right. I have the right to the copy I have, and no other copies. If I have the foresight to make an archival copy, then it's acceptable for me to recover from my archival copy. If I don't, then I'm out of luck. Why would that law ever be changed in favor of consumers? I can't imagine a scenario where that would fly.
Ok - so I mis-spoke. The distinction (for lawyers) is significant when I use the word license to mean "right to copy." It's an error, and I understand your response.
However, my understanding of copyright law is that I have the legal right to produce archival copies for personal use in the event that my original media is destroyed. In the case of the original post (to which I replied) the situation was that the person whose media was destroyed during Katrina had failed to make an archival copy of his media, and felt it was acceptable to download copies of the music he paid for originally. I suppose he considers it a retroactive archival copy. I'd suggest that this is not in the letter of the law, but may be within the spirit of the law.
Your quote about "No...rights to.. reproduce additional copies" may be inaccurate. I believe that the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 allows unlimited personal copies of music. As I said, IANAL, so you might want to check with one before making any copies of anything.:)
A couple of points: While you are correct that the courts determine the outcome, the parent poster was attempting to justify behavior which is clearly in conflict with the laws of the US.
Also, I'd suggest that opinions about moral behavior are quite relevant. Legal systems are a societal attempt to codify moral behavior.
You *must* be trolling, right? If so, I guess I'm falling for it.
He bought a legitimate license, lost his original copies in a natural disaster, and then downloaded replacements - and that's the moral equivalent of your download without purchasing any license? I don't see it.
In his model, the money was paid to the copyright holder, and presumably some of that money made its way to the artist. When he downloaded replacements, he cost the copyright holder nothing, and only deprived them of the opportunity to charge him for an additional copy.
I'm not saying what he did was morally right, but it's a darn close to acceptable in my book. I'm frankly uncertain of what I'd do in that situation. I keep an off site mp3 version of all of my legitimately purchased music, so I'm less exposed in the case of a natural disaster. It seems ridiculous to suggest that he should pay full price to have access to something he already paid full price for.
I think it would be a good idea for you to pay for music. After all, if no one pays for music, there's no money to pay artists at all, regardless of the fairness of the contracts and the distribution mechanisms.
Ok. You're right. That means that 2 hours of employee time make up for the cost of one Windows XP license.
Please don't misunderstand - F/OSS provides LOTS of great software, but I don't see any way you can pencil the cost of Linux as a desktop replacement for Windows. Linux makes just about everything possible. (FWIW, I have been a daily Linux user since 1994.) Just because it's possible doesn't make it a good idea. Just because it's cool doesn't make it make any business sense, either.
All of the software/hardware vendors work their butts off to make sure that Windows compatibility is met. This doesn't mean that they do it well, but they don't care about any other OS. You can care, and if you select peripherals well, it won't be any issue at all. What happens when one of your "important" users goes out and finds a great deal on a digital camera/printer/trackpad/some other device which is completely unsupported in Linux?
It's not worth fighting the battle for the desktop. Linux is not complete enough yet for non-technical users to have. Linux on the server makes great sense, and I highly recommend it. (Although at home I just migrated all of my services to OS X.)
Why shut down your home system? Why not have it available as a server to make your life easier? I agree with other posters about using "offline" mode of Thunderbird and like clients.
In case you're thinking that you have a particularly repressive ISP...
My ISP blocks ports 80 and 25 - particularly irritating, if you ask me. My ISPs TOS, if read to the letter, would mean that multiple browser windows or tabbed browsing are inappropriate because it's more than one session over the broadband pipe.
I agree that it would be ideal if I could use every port I want, block the ones I want to firewall - but I'm too cheap to pay for that kind of access.
So I work around it. I use dyndns [dyndns.com] to create a pointer to my dynamic IP address. My ISP does not block https or ssh ports, so I leverage those to get what I want.
I use cron, fetchmail [berlios.de], procmail [procmail.org], spamassassin [apache.org], and postfix [postfix.org] to bring mail from my ISP to my local system.
I use uw-imapd [washington.edu] to share my mail with other computers on my home network
I use ssh and pine, or apache+php+MySQL+https (self-signed cert) with roundcube [roundcube.net] to get remote access to my IMAP server.
I use WinSCP [winscp.net] to get access to my files at home when I'm at work. My data is *MINE* and I easily back it up (nightly and offsite qurterly - snapshot backups coming soon thanks to rsnapshot [rsnapshot.org], perl and rsync)
Every tool that I use is free of charge and as free as the GPL and apache licenses are free (zealots can feel free to argue with someone else about the relative freedom of the GPL, thanks.)
I certainly could pay for more open TOS with an ISP - I could even host my applications at an ISP. I'm cheap, and this solution works well enough for me. Hope you find a solution that works for you!
My ISP blocks ports 80 and 25 - particularly irritating, if you ask me. My ISPs TOS, if read to the letter, would mean that multiple browser windows or tabbed browsing are inappropriate because it's more than one session over the broadband pipe.
I agree that it would be ideal if I could use every port I want, block the ones I want to firewall - but I'm too cheap to pay for that kind of access.
So I work around it. I use dyndns to create a pointer to my dynamic IP address. My ISP does not block https or ssh ports, so I leverage those to get what I want.
I use uw-imapd to share my mail with other computers on my home network
I use ssh and pine, or apache+php+MySQL+https (self-signed cert) with roundcube to get remote access to my IMAP server.
I use WinSCP to get access to my files at home when I'm at work. My data is *MINE* and I easily back it up (nightly and offsite qurterly - snapshot backups coming soon thanks to rsnapshot, perl and rsync)
Every tool that I use is free of charge and as free as the GPL and apache licenses are free (zealots can feel free to argue with someone else about the relative freedom of the GPL, thanks.)
I certainly could pay for more open TOS with an ISP - I could even host my applications at an ISP. I'm cheap, and this solution works well enough for me.
I'd like to ask you to clarify this statement: Well, first I believe that it is impossible for anyone to understand the nature or motives of God. On what do you base that belief? I don't mean to be difficult - this is a serious inquiry - how can you *know* that you *can't know*?
my God is better, because I don't force him to live in my god box. With all due respect, have you not created a different box in which to place your god?
Can your really tell me that there are more similarities between Yahweh and God the Father, than there are between Yahweh and Allah? In fact, yes I can. The first comparison is simple, because they are the same. The second comparison is one of a personal God with one who is impersonal - fundamentally different in type.
there is a substantial disconnect between Yahweh instructing the Israelites to kill "everything that breathes" (deut 20:16) in the promised land, and Jesus' instruction to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (luke 6:31) Again, respectfully, I disagree with this idea. Those instructions from God to the Israelites were specific commands to a particular people in a specific time. God knew that those who inhabited the land were irredeemable, and as such, if allowed to live, would have corrupted the Israelites - which they did when the Israelites disobeyed.
in so far any religion teaches love and personal improvement through selflessness, they are the same Philosophically I can agree with this. Theologically, of course, I disagree. For me, theology trumps philosophy. YMMV. Essentially, the problem is at the micro level, not the macro level. Buddhism and Christianity teach that kindness is important. In that, they are the same. When you look at the why of kindness, they are entirely different. In fact, Christianity and Buddhism both teach exclusivity of their belief systems. If they each hold tenets that are contradictory, and each claims exclusivity, how can they both be true? (Or any divergent theological or philosophical systems.)
You then turn to some statements of philosophy: in the sense that any religion teaches hate, intolerance, and violence, it is a perversion.
It is my assertion that the God wants us to be happy, and wants us to live in harmony.
I believe that the primary purpose of spirituality is not to pay homage, but rather to connect us with our fellow man. This leads me to ask yet another important question. On what do you base this belief?
it is a relatively rare theology that posits that we worship God for his sake. Agreed - and it is the theology which I espouse as a follower of Christ.
1. Nightly rsync of my iMac and powerbook to a hard disk connected via firewire to my iMac (runs from cron)
2. Plans to install rsnapshot to shorten the window of exposure from 1 day to 1 hour. Used to use this on Linux with great success, fully expect that this will work well on OS X.
3. I bought 2 firewire/USB drive enclosures, and populated them with PIDE drives. I keep one, and gave my sister one. The enclosures are identical and the drives are partitioned with one Windows partition and one OS X partition. When I see my sister (a few times/year) we trade enclosures. I rsync my home movies/pictures/music to the OS X partition, and she uses the "freeware" SyncBack to back up her data
The only down side to this approach is that I'm limited in backup size to ~140GB unless I'm willing to pony up for a pair of SERIOUS TB sized drives. In general it's not a big deal - I suppose I could end up losing my home movies of my kids - that's what really eats up disk space. Guess I need to archive my tapes to the safe deposit box.:)
The idea that I'll be able to easily recover my data if my house burns down brings me great comfort. The cost is fairly minimal and the level of effort is pretty low, too.
I believe that someone who sees God revealed in creation or conscience will have the opportunity to be introduced to Christ.
I choose to believe that in this world what is really important is that we be good to each other. I don't think it is a coincident that that meshes really well with Jesus' teachings. I also believe that if people are being good to each other how they worship, or that they worship is irrelevant. This is intriguing to me. Why does it matter whether we are good to one another? What is your definition of good?
How do you reconcile the contradictions between Hinduism and Christian teaching? Outside of syncretism I don't see how they can coexist. Either one is accurate and not the other or both are wrong.
Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me." Kind of closes the door on universalism - at least from Jesus' perspective.
My biggest hang-up with the traditional theology you espouse is that a supposedly loving God is perfectly content to let billions of people suffer in eternal hellfire 1. God's desire is for all people to choose relationship with Him. I'm sure that contentment is not the word that God would choose to describe His feelings about the fate of those who reject Him.
because they had the misfortune to be born to the wrong family, or at the wrong time in history, or in the wrong geograph 2. People DO NOT GO TO HELL because they were born in the wrong time or place. People choose hell because they reject God.
In Romans chapter 1, one thing it says is that God is plainly evident as a result of His creation. People who exist have been exposed to Him through their experience in the universe, and have the opportunity to reach out to Him. In Romans chapter 2 it says that God is evident in the conscience of people. People can respond to the image of God in their conscience. Finally, in Romans chapter 3 it says that people can see God in the life of Jesus Christ.
I firmly believe that any person who earnestly desires relationship with God is able to have that relationship with Him. Specifically, though, the discussion is a bit irrelevant about the "person in Africa who has never heard of God's love" Not to put too fine a point on it - what about you - (parent poster) or YOU (other reader) who *has* heard of God's love. How will you respond?
But I do know about Christian theology. It's my understanding that Jews accept Jesus as a teacher, but *not* as God. Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet, but not as God. Of course, I disagree with them. I believe that Jesus was a real, live person walking on earth about 2,000 years ago, and that he was also God of the universe.
Slashdot is not known for editorial accuracy. I doubt that Muslims are the non-Christian "star" of the books. Pragmatically speaking, it seems to me that if all Christians are missing, then the 1.2 billion Muslims will be relatively more prevalent. The blurb reads "muslim-sounding" names - showing how ignorant we Americans are. Since we're the population minority in the world, almost everyone has a "foreign-sounding" name.
According to one line of Christian theology, all Christians are removed from earth by God during what is called the rapture. After this, there are *no* Christians until some people rediscover what the Bible teaches. During this season of time, people can become Christians, and the idea is that these new believers have a compelling reason to challenge others to become Christians, because at the end of that short period of time, everyone who chooses to reject Christ will be separated from all that is good, gentle, loving and peaceful for all of eternity.
Here's the deal. Either Jesus Christ is God, or He's not. If someone teaches that He is not God, according to Christian teaching, and because of the law of non-contradiction, Jesus cannot simultaneously be God and "not God" in the same time and relationship. Since Judaism, Islam, and Christianity teach different things about Jesus, man's relationship to God and how it may be possible to reconcile to God, logically either all three beliefs are wrong, or one is right and the others cannot be right.
Christian tolerance teaches me to tolerate people's rights to choose whatever religious belief they want, even if they are wrong. Christian love teaches me to tell people who God is, and how to reconcile relationship with Him, because I want everyone to have the kind of relationship with God that I have.
Recently the power window in my Grand Caravan failed. I took it to the shop to have it repaired. A sensor needed to be replaced - $370 for parts and labor.
When the handle falls off, I can call JC Whitney and order replacement handles and install them myself in 10 minutes.
Slashdot Mirror
Why dismiss me at this point? Is your religious fervor about evolution blocking you from having an open mind about alternatives?
I'd argue that we have some evidence from those who observed the flood - in the book of Genesis. Additionally there is evidence of a worldwide flood. Ever heard of the cambrian explosion? If there was a worldwide upheaval of water and land, it makes sense that lots of living things were covered with mud and that formed the bulk of fossils we see today. It's all about interpretation of the evidence, no?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
This "general backlash against science" is not because of a rejection of truth. From my perspective, there are good and bad scientists. Some of the scientists are motivated by religious views to try to manipulate science to "say" what they want to convey. This behavior is BAD, whether the scientists are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Atheist.
Science has become the new "TRUTH" engine. "Recent studies show" "Science now says" "research shows" these are all arbiters of truth - people have come to trust in the results from science to "prove" things about their lives. When people manipulate data or cherry pick information to bolster their point of view, it's wrong, and the public is manipulated.
The backlash is against the manipulation of people who don't know any better by those in the powerful office of scientist. Power tends to corrupt, you know.
I'm a fundamentalist Christian who is ALL FOR science. GOOD science, that is. Many of history's greatest scientists were followers of Christ. Christianity and good science are not in opposition, although it's my opinion that when science (which is continually proven wrong as understanding is refined and scientific knowledge increases) and the Bible are in contradiction, science must be wrong.
That having been said, while I recognize that the Bible is not a science textbook, I reject evolution as origin of species. It is clearly observable and repeatable as a mechanism for variation based on genetic preservation of favorable characteristics. I think that the leap is too big to say that all creatures came through this process.
I believe that science is not equipped to address the origin of the universe, because it was not observed, and cannot be repeated. People calling themselves scientists can speculate about origins, but those speculations cannot be tested by the scientific method, and cannot be disproven. This makes those ideas similar to my creationist view of the origin of the universe - because my view cannot be tested or disproven, either.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
so full of themselves as to have 7 kids in this day and age
:)
I have no idea what you're talking about. I have 5 kids and I can certainly say that if nothing else, having five kids makes me a LOT less selfish and self-absorbed. When I had no kids, it was easy for it all to be "about me." Our kids learn it's not all about THEM, too.
Do you have kids?
BTW - my wife says our view is consistent with Pro-Choice, (we choose to have babies) it's all natural, and it's survival of the fittest.
Are you saying that you find morally objectionable my opinion about when life begins?
If so, on what platform do you stand to make the judgment that my position is unacceptable and should be ignored?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Does that make masturbation something akin to genocide?
Nope. An embryo is a person, a sperm cell is a cell. The mojo is when the sperm enters the egg. At that point, all that is needed for a BABY to be born is food and shelter.
Look, if the Monty Python song is right "Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." Then every time I have sex and a pregnancy results, I've made God (who designed the system) angry because a couple million of those things die. Sperm cells don't contain the minimum necessary ingredients to make a person - just half of the ingredients.
Mindless scaremongering snipped...
Interesting when I state facts - even facts written by marijuana advocates - that's called mindless and scaremongering.
I lead a good life.
I never said that you are a bad person. I don't know you, but I'll take you at your word. You probably are a decent fellow, and one that I'd appreciate as a next-door-neighbor.
I like to unwind with a little herbal refreshment.
It seems to me that an ongoing desire to not be clear of mind indicates that there is something about your life which you desire to avoid - to escape the mundanity of life, you want to use mind-altering substances. This is your choice, but, for the reasons I listed above, I think that it should continue to be illegal.
I don't want some idiot stoned on ANYTHING killing my wife or kids. FWIW, I would be OK with prohibition of alcohol, and cigarettes too - use of alcohol is so unimportant to my life that the loss of it would be nothing to me. (BTW - by definition, anyone being reckless due to their self-imposed incapacity is an idiot.)
Drugs are not the bogeyman.
But they are not good for you, and one function of the law is to teach - to teach people what is good and bad for them. Another is to protect society - people on drugs do things that are bad for the general population, and laws against drug use serve to protect the populous.
I know we won't agree here, but I do think that your position is unreasonable, and I think that your life would be more rich and full if you dealt with whatever it is emotionally that drives you to self-medicate with drugs.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Not everyone who has "extra" embryos from IFV will donate them for research. I guarantee that scientists will want to create cell lines by creating new embryos. And why not? They are just cells - just stuff in a petri dish, right?
It's morally objectionable and should be banned.
My world view says that a lump of cells is a lump of cells. An IVF failure or abortion is no different than, say, a tumor biopsy or a liposuction.
n abis-stay-in-system.html
Right. So take that biopsy or liposuction and put it in a petri dish - provide nutrients and shelter and see what develops.
Now, take that embryo and provide nutrients and shelter for... I don't know.... 21 days after conception - you have a beating heart. Let that continue for another 21 weeks, and THEN compare your biopsy with the very clearly HUMAN BABY and tell me that they are the same. Ridiculous.
People don't need to play football either. Or dance, or scuba dive
When I stop dancing, playing football, or snorkeling, I don't have negative after effects linger in my body for days. When I engage in physical activity, I'm not then tempted to engage in more behavior altering activities which lead to greater risk.
The fact is that when some (perhaps many) people use marijuana, they decide that life is not worth living without it. Some go even further to more physically and mentally detrimental drugs. Every addict thinks "I'll be the one who can control it. I'm smarter than those junkies."
Marijuana alters the user's perception of the world around them. Their judgment is impaired, and as a result are more likely to engage in behaviors which are not good ideas. The law recognizes a fixed amount of BAC before determining that someone's ability to respond is impaired and they are no longer allowed to operate a vehicle - regardless of their amount of consumption, body weight, tolerance, or natural giftedness which might allow them to be "safe" behind the wheel. People on drugs are much more likely to think that they are "fine" and then do something stupid like operate a car.
On a pro-marijuana site, I found the following quotes:
"Marijuana affects memory, judgment and perception."
"Athletes could find their performance is off; timing, movements, and coordination are all affected by THC. Also, since marijuana can affect judgment and decision making, its use can lead to risky sexual behavior, resulting in exposure to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV"
"regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems."
http://www.ganjabus.com/2006/05/how-long-does-can
Sounds great. Where do I sign up for all of these benefits?
pure fascism
Yeah. I'm a fascist. You've totally convinced me. I bow at your irrefutable rhetoric. Perhaps if you were clear of mind you could make a rational argument which might influence me. Nevertheless, continue in your constitutional right to take illegal drugs. The man is really sticking it to you, isn't he?
Right - no one will get pregnant to make babies for scientists to kill, but absolutely IVF techniques will be used to create more embyos from which to "harvest" stem cells. Again, my world view says that those are people being killed for research.
Except for the fact that both issues you raise are troublesome.
Medical marijuana is a problem because every place that tries to offer medicinal use of this drug ends up selling it to people who are not sick but just want to get high. In fact, perhaps you can be the first, but I have yet to meet a marijuana proponent who was not also a recreational marijuana user. People don't need to get high. We should not make it legal for people to get wasted just because they want to. I don't need you drunk or stoned and driving the car which ends up killing anyone.
Embryonic stem cell research is more troublesome - it's not just some stoner who is choosing to waste his life on drugs that is the problem. My world view says that a powerless, silent person is killed for every IVF failure and abortion and more would be killed to support the possibility of treatments. That is completely unacceptable.
Californians voted to fund embryonic stem cell research to the tune of $3B, so I'd suggest that federal funding is not the key to success that you seem to believe it to be.
My view is that embryonic research is morally tainted, and adult stem cell research is not, and is already helping people with practical therapies. Why waste time talking about embryonic stem cell research, particularly when we can now get similar cells from amniotic fluid without killing anyone?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
For what it's worth, I agree with you that most people are not passionate about stem cell research. It irritates me that when most people talk of stem cell research they are focusing on embryonic stem cell research. As others have noted, it's not helping anyone these days, and adult stem cell research *is* helping MANY MANY people. I'm hopeful that this recent discovery about amniotic stem cells will kill the debate and people will stop trying to do medical research on *all* products of conception.
I'm not sure that I agree with you about people don't want that right taken from them. Recent surveys show that the majority of Americans find abortion unacceptable for themselves but feel that there is some need for it to be available. Most seem to want to protect the right of others to have abortion.
The following numbers come from recollection - frankly I'm too busy this morning to go look up the actual numbers, but this is pretty close to what I've been reading on this issue:
The number of Americans that think abortion is a bad thing is something like 80+% The number that feel it should be illegal is substantially smaller, but the bottom line is about 10% want it legal under every possible circumstance, about 10% want it illegal in every circumstance, and the other 80% of the population is split just about down the middle with varying circumstances determining the legality.
Essentially about half of the US wants it illegal under some circumstances, and about half of the US wants it legal under some circumstances.
I tire of the meme that a 'religious minority controls the government.' That's crap. If it was true, there are lots of things that would be handled differently.
The fact is that there are a lot of people who disagree with the liberal view that abortion should be legal for all women. Most of those people are not passionate advocates of that position, but when the issue comes up, they stand for what they believe. This is the phenomenon of the "values voters."
The religious minority of which you speak is merely the 'tip of the spear' to speak in military parlance. You see them, the politicians feel them because of their platforms, *and* because of the values voters. Policies are made as a result.
That abortion is still legal in the US shows that there are many near silent people who share your view, and the politicians feel their presence on election day, too.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
You might want to take a look at rsnapshot - perl+rsync gives you hourly, daily, weekly, monthly snapshots - really cool, and simple to set up.
Recovery is quite simple, too.
We had a very smart guy on our team who had little operational experience and a great deal of theoretical knowledge. He set up our suite of unix boxes to share home directories - not a bad idea, right? Except that this brainiac hard mounted the home directories for all users.
The first time that the box hosting the home directories went down for maintenance, no one could log into ANY of the unix boxes - each was waiting for the hard mounted NFS resource to become available.
We switched to soft mounts of home dirs, and life was much less painful for us. (Mail was hosted on a different platform, and few users wrote to their home dirs much so we didn't need to worry much about nfs lock problems.)
As someone up the chain indicated, the law explicitly indicates that I don't have that right. I have the right to the copy I have, and no other copies. If I have the foresight to make an archival copy, then it's acceptable for me to recover from my archival copy. If I don't, then I'm out of luck. Why would that law ever be changed in favor of consumers? I can't imagine a scenario where that would fly.
Ok - so I mis-spoke. The distinction (for lawyers) is significant when I use the word license to mean "right to copy." It's an error, and I understand your response.
:)
However, my understanding of copyright law is that I have the legal right to produce archival copies for personal use in the event that my original media is destroyed. In the case of the original post (to which I replied) the situation was that the person whose media was destroyed during Katrina had failed to make an archival copy of his media, and felt it was acceptable to download copies of the music he paid for originally. I suppose he considers it a retroactive archival copy. I'd suggest that this is not in the letter of the law, but may be within the spirit of the law.
Your quote about "No...rights to.. reproduce additional copies" may be inaccurate. I believe that the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 allows unlimited personal copies of music. As I said, IANAL, so you might want to check with one before making any copies of anything.
A couple of points:
While you are correct that the courts determine the outcome, the parent poster was attempting to justify behavior which is clearly in conflict with the laws of the US.
Also, I'd suggest that opinions about moral behavior are quite relevant. Legal systems are a societal attempt to codify moral behavior.
You *must* be trolling, right? If so, I guess I'm falling for it.
He bought a legitimate license, lost his original copies in a natural disaster, and then downloaded replacements - and that's the moral equivalent of your download without purchasing any license? I don't see it.
In his model, the money was paid to the copyright holder, and presumably some of that money made its way to the artist. When he downloaded replacements, he cost the copyright holder nothing, and only deprived them of the opportunity to charge him for an additional copy.
I'm not saying what he did was morally right, but it's a darn close to acceptable in my book. I'm frankly uncertain of what I'd do in that situation. I keep an off site mp3 version of all of my legitimately purchased music, so I'm less exposed in the case of a natural disaster. It seems ridiculous to suggest that he should pay full price to have access to something he already paid full price for.
I think it would be a good idea for you to pay for music. After all, if no one pays for music, there's no money to pay artists at all, regardless of the fairness of the contracts and the distribution mechanisms.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Ok. You're right. That means that 2 hours of employee time make up for the cost of one Windows XP license.
Please don't misunderstand - F/OSS provides LOTS of great software, but I don't see any way you can pencil the cost of Linux as a desktop replacement for Windows. Linux makes just about everything possible. (FWIW, I have been a daily Linux user since 1994.) Just because it's possible doesn't make it a good idea. Just because it's cool doesn't make it make any business sense, either.
All of the software/hardware vendors work their butts off to make sure that Windows compatibility is met. This doesn't mean that they do it well, but they don't care about any other OS. You can care, and if you select peripherals well, it won't be any issue at all. What happens when one of your "important" users goes out and finds a great deal on a digital camera/printer/trackpad/some other device which is completely unsupported in Linux?
It's not worth fighting the battle for the desktop. Linux is not complete enough yet for non-technical users to have. Linux on the server makes great sense, and I highly recommend it. (Although at home I just migrated all of my services to OS X.)
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Why shut down your home system? Why not have it available as a server to make your life easier? I agree with other posters about using "offline" mode of Thunderbird and like clients.
In case you're thinking that you have a particularly repressive ISP...
My ISP blocks ports 80 and 25 - particularly irritating, if you ask me. My ISPs TOS, if read to the letter, would mean that multiple browser windows or tabbed browsing are inappropriate because it's more than one session over the broadband pipe.
I agree that it would be ideal if I could use every port I want, block the ones I want to firewall - but I'm too cheap to pay for that kind of access.
So I work around it. I use dyndns [dyndns.com] to create a pointer to my dynamic IP address. My ISP does not block https or ssh ports, so I leverage those to get what I want.
I use cron, fetchmail [berlios.de],
procmail [procmail.org],
spamassassin [apache.org], and
postfix [postfix.org] to bring mail from my ISP to my local system.
I use uw-imapd [washington.edu] to share my mail with other computers on my home network
I use ssh and pine, or apache+php+MySQL+https (self-signed cert) with roundcube [roundcube.net] to get remote access to my IMAP server.
I use WinSCP [winscp.net] to get access to my files at home when I'm at work. My data is *MINE* and I easily back it up (nightly and offsite qurterly - snapshot backups coming soon thanks to rsnapshot [rsnapshot.org], perl and rsync)
Every tool that I use is free of charge and as free as the GPL and apache licenses are free (zealots can feel free to argue with someone else about the relative freedom of the GPL, thanks.)
I certainly could pay for more open TOS with an ISP - I could even host my applications at an ISP. I'm cheap, and this solution works well enough for me.
Hope you find a solution that works for you!
Respectfully,
Anomaly
My ISP blocks ports 80 and 25 - particularly irritating, if you ask me. My ISPs TOS, if read to the letter, would mean that multiple browser windows or tabbed browsing are inappropriate because it's more than one session over the broadband pipe.
I agree that it would be ideal if I could use every port I want, block the ones I want to firewall - but I'm too cheap to pay for that kind of access.
So I work around it. I use dyndns to create a pointer to my dynamic IP address. My ISP does not block https or ssh ports, so I leverage those to get what I want.
I use cron, fetchmail,
procmail,
spamassassin, and
postfix to bring mail from my ISP to my local system.
I use uw-imapd to share my mail with other computers on my home network
I use ssh and pine, or apache+php+MySQL+https (self-signed cert) with roundcube to get remote access to my IMAP server.
I use WinSCP to get access to my files at home when I'm at work. My data is *MINE* and I easily back it up (nightly and offsite qurterly - snapshot backups coming soon thanks to rsnapshot, perl and rsync)
Every tool that I use is free of charge and as free as the GPL and apache licenses are free (zealots can feel free to argue with someone else about the relative freedom of the GPL, thanks.)
I certainly could pay for more open TOS with an ISP - I could even host my applications at an ISP. I'm cheap, and this solution works well enough for me.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
I'd like to ask you to clarify this statement:
Well, first I believe that it is impossible for anyone to understand the nature or motives of God.
On what do you base that belief? I don't mean to be difficult - this is a serious inquiry - how can you *know* that you *can't know*?
my God is better, because I don't force him to live in my god box.
With all due respect, have you not created a different box in which to place your god?
Can your really tell me that there are more similarities between Yahweh and God the Father, than there are between Yahweh and Allah?
In fact, yes I can. The first comparison is simple, because they are the same. The second comparison is one of a personal God with one who is impersonal - fundamentally different in type.
there is a substantial disconnect between Yahweh instructing the Israelites to kill "everything that breathes" (deut 20:16) in the promised land, and Jesus' instruction to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (luke 6:31)
Again, respectfully, I disagree with this idea. Those instructions from God to the Israelites were specific commands to a particular people in a specific time. God knew that those who inhabited the land were irredeemable, and as such, if allowed to live, would have corrupted the Israelites - which they did when the Israelites disobeyed.
in so far any religion teaches love and personal improvement through selflessness, they are the same
Philosophically I can agree with this. Theologically, of course, I disagree. For me, theology trumps philosophy. YMMV. Essentially, the problem is at the micro level, not the macro level. Buddhism and Christianity teach that kindness is important. In that, they are the same. When you look at the why of kindness, they are entirely different. In fact, Christianity and Buddhism both teach exclusivity of their belief systems. If they each hold tenets that are contradictory, and each claims exclusivity, how can they both be true? (Or any divergent theological or philosophical systems.)
You then turn to some statements of philosophy:
in the sense that any religion teaches hate, intolerance, and violence, it is a perversion.
It is my assertion that the God wants us to be happy, and wants us to live in harmony.
I believe that the primary purpose of spirituality is not to pay homage, but rather to connect us with our fellow man.
This leads me to ask yet another important question. On what do you base this belief?
it is a relatively rare theology that posits that we worship God for his sake.
Agreed - and it is the theology which I espouse as a follower of Christ.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
I have a "system" for backups which includes:
:)
1. Nightly rsync of my iMac and powerbook to a hard disk connected via firewire to my iMac (runs from cron)
2. Plans to install rsnapshot to shorten the window of exposure from 1 day to 1 hour. Used to use this on Linux with great success, fully expect that this will work well on OS X.
3. I bought 2 firewire/USB drive enclosures, and populated them with PIDE drives. I keep one, and gave my sister one. The enclosures are identical and the drives are partitioned with one Windows partition and one OS X partition. When I see my sister (a few times/year) we trade enclosures. I rsync my home movies/pictures/music to the OS X partition, and she uses the "freeware" SyncBack to back up her data
The only down side to this approach is that I'm limited in backup size to ~140GB unless I'm willing to pony up for a pair of SERIOUS TB sized drives. In general it's not a big deal - I suppose I could end up losing my home movies of my kids - that's what really eats up disk space. Guess I need to archive my tapes to the safe deposit box.
The idea that I'll be able to easily recover my data if my house burns down brings me great comfort. The cost is fairly minimal and the level of effort is pretty low, too.
I believe that someone who sees God revealed in creation or conscience will have the opportunity to be introduced to Christ.
I choose to believe that in this world what is really important is that we be good to each other. I don't think it is a coincident that that meshes really well with Jesus' teachings. I also believe that if people are being good to each other how they worship, or that they worship is irrelevant.
This is intriguing to me. Why does it matter whether we are good to one another?
What is your definition of good?
How do you reconcile the contradictions between Hinduism and Christian teaching? Outside of syncretism I don't see how they can coexist. Either one is accurate and not the other or both are wrong.
Can you shed some light here?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me." Kind of closes the door on universalism - at least from Jesus' perspective.
My biggest hang-up with the traditional theology you espouse is that a supposedly loving God is perfectly content to let billions of people suffer in eternal hellfire
1. God's desire is for all people to choose relationship with Him. I'm sure that contentment is not the word that God would choose to describe His feelings about the fate of those who reject Him.
because they had the misfortune to be born to the wrong family, or at the wrong time in history, or in the wrong geograph
2. People DO NOT GO TO HELL because they were born in the wrong time or place. People choose hell because they reject God.
In Romans chapter 1, one thing it says is that God is plainly evident as a result of His creation. People who exist have been exposed to Him through their experience in the universe, and have the opportunity to reach out to Him. In Romans chapter 2 it says that God is evident in the conscience of people. People can respond to the image of God in their conscience. Finally, in Romans chapter 3 it says that people can see God in the life of Jesus Christ.
I firmly believe that any person who earnestly desires relationship with God is able to have that relationship with Him. Specifically, though, the discussion is a bit irrelevant about the "person in Africa who has never heard of God's love" Not to put too fine a point on it - what about you - (parent poster) or YOU (other reader) who *has* heard of God's love. How will you respond?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But I do know about Christian theology. It's my understanding that Jews accept Jesus as a teacher, but *not* as God. Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet, but not as God. Of course, I disagree with them. I believe that Jesus was a real, live person walking on earth about 2,000 years ago, and that he was also God of the universe.
Slashdot is not known for editorial accuracy. I doubt that Muslims are the non-Christian "star" of the books. Pragmatically speaking, it seems to me that if all Christians are missing, then the 1.2 billion Muslims will be relatively more prevalent. The blurb reads "muslim-sounding" names - showing how ignorant we Americans are. Since we're the population minority in the world, almost everyone has a "foreign-sounding" name.
According to one line of Christian theology, all Christians are removed from earth by God during what is called the rapture. After this, there are *no* Christians until some people rediscover what the Bible teaches. During this season of time, people can become Christians, and the idea is that these new believers have a compelling reason to challenge others to become Christians, because at the end of that short period of time, everyone who chooses to reject Christ will be separated from all that is good, gentle, loving and peaceful for all of eternity.
Here's the deal. Either Jesus Christ is God, or He's not. If someone teaches that He is not God, according to Christian teaching, and because of the law of non-contradiction, Jesus cannot simultaneously be God and "not God" in the same time and relationship. Since Judaism, Islam, and Christianity teach different things about Jesus, man's relationship to God and how it may be possible to reconcile to God, logically either all three beliefs are wrong, or one is right and the others cannot be right.
Christian tolerance teaches me to tolerate people's rights to choose whatever religious belief they want, even if they are wrong. Christian love teaches me to tell people who God is, and how to reconcile relationship with Him, because I want everyone to have the kind of relationship with God that I have.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Recently the power window in my Grand Caravan failed. I took it to the shop to have it repaired. A sensor needed to be replaced - $370 for parts and labor.
When the handle falls off, I can call JC Whitney and order replacement handles and install them myself in 10 minutes.
Simple is good. Geezer indeed.