Either by ignoring their kids or crushing them with the weight of monitoring and impossible expectations. Sounds like your parents were closer to the latter camp than the middle. Sorry about that.
My job as a dad is to become less and less controlling with my kids - to give them enough lattitude to make errors where the consequences are minimal. I knew a guy in HS whose uncle bought him a Corvette at 16. He totalled it, and his uncle bought him another one! DUMB!
I allow my kids as they mature to have more freedom - when they blow it with bad judgment, I discipline them to help them learn to use better judgment next time.
By the time they leave my house, they should have the skills to operate successfully in the world - personal integrity, honesty, work ethic, compassion for others, operation of basic power tools, operation of a motor vehicle, discipline about sleep, discipline about eating, conflict resolution, know the importance of relationships with others, and the ability to self-educate.
Until that time, I believe strongly in "trust, but verify." I have no issue at all with tracking a kid using my car, my gas, my insurance, living in my house. In general, I will be able to ignore the logs because I have enough RELATIONSHIP with my kids to have a pretty good idea about how trustworthy they are. If the systems I put in place to check up on them show me that my trust is misguided, then I have an opportunity to shapre their character with additional discipline.
Within the bounds of the limits I set up for them, they have complete freedom! They will (and do) get MUCH more by living within the fairly wide open spaces I define for them than they could "get away with" by lying and breaking my rules.
Finally, I'd like to point out that biologically, kids brains are not at full maturity until the early-mid twenties - specifically the part of the brain that influences reasoning and judgment is still in development at 16. This is a BIG factor in kids making good choices, and I need to protect them as they don't yet have the strong skills to navigate the rough waters they are in.
Once again, I apologize for overbearing, critical, controlling parents. They obviously didn't know what they were doing.
Your assertion about safety is not supported by facts - it's mere rationalization by people who want to speed.
I live in a major metropolitan area. I don't drive over the speed limit, and I pass people on the highways regularly. I have not had more "close calls" than I did when I drove aggressively - in fact, my experience is that I have fewer.
I can appreciate where you're coming from with respect to evil done in the name of God. Perhaps we disagree on some points, but I'll stand with you in opposition to things like the rule of the Taliban, the abuses in Ireland, the coverup within the roman catholic church about sexual abuse committed by priests, the way that televangelists take advantage of the stupid, the battles in the Middle East over Israel. And it goes on and on.
Power corrupts. For better or worse, connection to God (or a claim thereof) brings influence, and subsequently brings power of one kind or another.
In spite of standing with you on these issues, I still believe that your worldview leaves unanswered quesstions, some of which are listed below:
1. What if you're wrong? I know on slashdot it's considered trite to bring up Pascal's wager, but - what if Christianity is true, and what you believe is wrong? Would you want to know? Would it make any difference in the way that you choose to live your life?
2. What about the good done in the name of pleasing God? (Under any religion?)
3. Where did matter come from?
4. How do you explain the information density within DNA and our genes? It flies in the face of how we see entropy played out in the rest of the universe.
Well, if you limit your sample size to the Jews and the Muslims in the Middle East, or the Irish protestants and Catholics in Ireland, I think that you can make the case that organized religion is not a good thing.
If, however, you look at the facts - that these battles are more about the politics of power and control than they are about closely following the teachings of the various religious leaders of antiquity - is "religion" to blame there?
Moreover, if you look at the persistence of good done in the name of pleasing God - not just from a Christian perspective, but as expressed in other organized religions as well, I think that you will find far more than is covered in the news. The list of good things goes on and on and on.
Finally, listing the evil done by those who espouse atheism or anarchy would FAR eclipse the good done by those who eschew religion. That is not to suggest that atheists and anachists never do good, just that the logical outcome of their worldview does not intrinsically motivate them to do good, and therefore there tends to be less good done.
But then, your ideas are more wittily expressed in a.sig than mine.
As a pretty faithfully committed and studious Christian, I agree with you that many - perhaps most - people who claim to be Christians are ignorant of the teachings of the Christian faith.
Christianity most certainly claims that the only way to relationship with God - and access to His nature (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control) - comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Anyone who rejects this concept is, by his choice, separated from God and all that is good for all eternity. This is essential to the core of Christianity.
I have an issue with your ideas about tolerance, though. Philosophically speaking, any time anyone claims to speak "truth" they are saying that any idea that disagrees with their premise is "un-true." (Unless you're a relativist, but that brings a whole host of other problems - the law of non-contradiction forces you to discard the idea of relative truth pretty quickly.)
If you insist on opposition to any "intolerant" views, you yourself become intolerant of the views to which you object because you are setting yourself up as a truth standard against which other views are measured. Should we then become intolerant of your intolerance?:)
Also, I'll take issue with your word "intolerance." Christianty is completely tolerant of people who do not accept Christianity. We don't hate ANYONE. Everyone is free to hold whatever views they like, and we will not oppress them (unless it contradicts a core tenet of our world view - like your right to a view which says it's OK to murder me. As a Christian, and as a person, I am pretty intolerant of that.)
I think that clear evidence of this is seen here in the US. Whether the founding fathers were actual Christians or not, the extreme majority of people in the US at the time of the founding of this nation were Christians, and it is fair to say that the Christian values are well represented by our form of government.
This nation demonstrates that people are really free to practice their religious views here. Look at countries where Christian views were not a part of the formation of the culture and the governmental organization - show me a country like that where diversity of religious views flourishes like it does in the US. I would suggest to you that is precisely because of Christian tolerance.
Tolerance (according to the classic definition) says that I can disagree with your view and tolerate it's existence. In the popular culture today, that word has been twisted to mean if you disagree with another person's idea, you're doing a bad thing. It's total Newspeak. Orwell would be proud.
I've been doing this at a Fortune 500 company for a couple of years now. We have worked with two different packages, and have had some successes.
1. We worked with a major CRM package using it's internal workflow capability. This required a dedicated programmer, and ended up costing about $100,000 per business process to implement, and took a few months per process to get in production. WAAAAAY too expensive and didn't scale. On top of that, the software was VERY hard to get working properly. (We already had the CRM package in place, the workflow was supposed to be a cherry on top, but it clearly was not.)
2. We went with a "workflow lite" vendor. The tool is organized to process orders, and has workflow capability. This is not enterprise workflow like FileNet, but theoretically means that business analysts could do the workflow design.
We've had some success with this. The absolute biggest pain point has not been technical - the problem has been defining the process to be automated. Business process analysis is an entirely different skillset than automation.
Once the process is defined clearly, automation is not terribly painful. Unfortunately it hasn't been the case that analysts could do the automation, but it also doesn't require programmer-level skills, either. We've been able to implement a large number of services.
The tool we picked has been completely immature, and our back end processing costs have been HUGE compared to what the vendor estimated initially.
Overall it's been a good ride, and the tool we used provides the types of metrics you're looking for. It's important to know that whatever path you go will be EXPENSIVE. On top of that, another key lesson learned was that we don't need to model EVERY possible path through the business process. We model the "happy path" and an "exception path" and that provides the Pareto model (80/20)
I'd be happy to converse off line about this if you want to know more about our experience.
I have yet to see an instant-on, but I'll let that one go.
I still can't fit the blasted CF bulbs I have into my fixtures, and you're recommending larger ones?
What about the hazmat issue? I have 4 little kids, and.... things break. Should I risk exposure to mercury to save a few pennies?
What about being able to choose how much light I need based on the task at hand?
I still can't use them in exterior fixtures in the winter because of low temperatures, and because of the lack of light output.
I put in new brighter/whiter 4' bulbs and those are fine for loading the washer and such, but for general purpose fluorescent bulbs aren't "there yet."
I'm glad you're happy with yours. My point is that they are not yet a "like for like" replacement which is energy saving. I agree completely with the energy saving part, but the down sides are too big yet.
I've spent a bunch of time working with and thinking about lower cost lights.
In general the fluorescent bulb light is crap - yellow, green, blue - anything but white light. The light from my halogen lamp is either white or red (as it dims) With incendescent, I can have full brightness, off, and any amount of light in between.
Some issues: CF bulbs are too big to fit in the ceiling fixtures I have - should I go buy new fixtures?
The CF bulb takes a couple of seconds to come on - incandescents come on immediately.
I had a ballast fail in a 4' fixture last weekend - it burned out a couple of bulbs before I realized the root cause. What a pain to replace the fixture!
I had a 4' fluorescent bulb fall from a fixture and smash in my laundry room last weekend. A month or so ago, my kids knocked over a lamp with a CF bulb. Now I've got a hazmat spill in my HOME!
My grandfather replaced his outside lights with fluorescent bulbs long ago to save money. Sure, but the lights don't work when it's cold, and they are too dim.
You "Americans are wasteful and foolish" folks don't get it. I'd like to play in a more energy-efficient sandbox, but the trade offs are too great. The rest of the expensive CF bulbs I have are going in to closets and the attic where there's little good light anyway.
I'll stick with my wasteful bulbs. Those wasters provide great, bright light, are dimmable, are cheap to buy, work in every fixture, work when it's 0F or 100F, and when they break, I sweep up the glass - which is the biggest risk - no threat of poisoning, just getting cut.
This is why they have a producer - to get the content PRODUCED. This is why they release "director's cuts" - because the director was not happy with the original editing decision made by the producer.
We are not talking about compelling organizations to edit content - this is about people who say - "I'd like the content to differ from the original in these ways" and having the freedom, after paying the people who created the content, to make that content differ in ways that please them.
Just as you don't feel people should be able to constrain the content that interests you by "clensing" it, I don't feel that people should be able to constrain the content that interests me by demanding that it contain parts I don't like.
It depends on age and maturity. For example, I saw "Coach Carter." A compelling story. Overall I think that a teenage child could enjoy it - except for the profanity, and (IIRC) there were about two scenes involving sex, drunkenness and drugs that could have been told FAR less explicitly.
If a story is a *good* story, it will hold your interest even when there's not graphic profanity, nudity or explosions.
I could see that film (sans those two scenes, and with language filtered) being appropriate for teenage kids.
There are other examples as well - I think you see my point, though.
I've worked with "enterprise" software for the past 8 years. My experience is that no vendor fixes everything we consider broken, and the largest vendors fix the least for us. The best overall support we get is from a 3-5 person company supporting a custom application they wrote for us. As far as COTS software is concerned, we've been working with an "up and coming" vendor (living on VC cash) who has been pretty responsive. The two largest software companies in the world have been little help to us, in terms of providing fixes to code that we consider broken.
Someone is complaining about RedHat support? And that someone is Oracle? Puh leeze!
I have yet to be impressed with the quality and responsiveness of enterprise vendors.
When I have attempted to defend my point of view, you have refuted with broad assertions that I am obviously wrong. That is not intellectually honest on your part. Intelligent and capable people more informed about Hebrew and translation than you or I have respectfully disagreed about these issues for a long time. For you to scornfully claim that it's obvious that Christian scholars are wrong is... rather uncharitable to say the least.
Either you cannot or will not consider opinions other than yours. Your tone and word choice are well described by your word - arrogance. Your attitude is speaking so loudly that I cannot hear your intellect at all. I sincerely doubt that you are interested in hearing mine.
Is it possible that your point of view is less than perfect? What evidence would be sufficient to demonstrate to you that Jesus is the Messiah? Is there any evidence that would be sufficient?
Look, I could assert that red is not always red. You could say "yes it is, you moron."
If we took the time to talk about physics, red light, wavelengths and the expanding universe, it could become plain that red is sometimes red-shifted to another color. In order to really determine that we each understand the others' position, we'd need to lay the foundation.
Just because you assert that "the scriptures are far better understood by the Jews" doesn't mean that they really understood what they claimed (or claim) to know. In order for you and I to have a civil, intellectual and meaningful conversation, we have to lay a foundation on which we can agree and which does not use inflammatory language or ad hominem arguments. You make broad claims about what Christians believe. I as a Christian do not believe all of what you assert, but obviously it is pointless to have a reasonable conversation with you because apparently you already know everything.
That's complete and utter tripe. I never said it couldn't be resolved. What I said is that I don't have the time in this forum to work through the issues required for us to come to an understanding. You're using words that *must* have different meanings than I understand them to mean. Since we have to go line upon line, precept upon precept, it would take a great deal of time - probably months - for us to get to the point where you and I fully understand each others' positions - much more time before you and I could begin to reason together to hope to sway one another's thinking toward one view or the other.
It's *not* that you have the "facts." It's that you and I can't even begin to talk about what the facts are until we agree on the meaning of the words we're using. My point exactly is that you are saying that you're not using any special terms, but the "common" terms that you claim to use have different meanings than I understand them to have.
Case in point is your assertion about the meaning of the prophecy in Isaiah. It's true that one of the words can be interpreted to mean "young woman." It also can be interpreted to mean "virgin." It's true that the prophecy was about Hezekiah, but the majority position is that the prophecy addresses both the birth of Hezekiah *and* is a messianic prophecy.
Your assertions are broad, narrowly correct, and also wrong. Go ahead and accuse my position of being baseless and suggest that I'm unable to defend my point of view. You're obviously right and I'm obviously an idiot. Have it your way, though.
With all due respect, the only way that you and I could seriously hope to progress on this topic would be to invest the time to start from the beginning and carefully define each term we intend to use. It's clear to me that your position and mine differ in many substantive ways - in ways that are discernable at the onset, and most likely in ways that are not discernable until we get to the meaning of the words that we use.
Frankly I'm not sure that I understand what you're saying - in some cases you seem to be really clear and precise, and in others you're making sweeping generalizations. Perhaps those generalizations are well founded on much evidence, but I'm not certain of that and can't be without far more time having been invested.
At this point, I think it's probably best to bow out of this discussion because it doesn't seem suitable for this forum (relatively short life span of threads, long posts are discouraged by the page layout, etc) and it seems inefficient to do this here rather than face to face.
I fully support your right to hold whatever views you choose, and I make no claims about the supportability of the arguments you are making. I don't see things the way that you do, and my experience and considerable study on these topics has yielded results that differ greatly from what I believe that you have proposed.
Someone gave you a major line of BS, as far as the Jews are concerned. And there you have it. Of course Jews and Christians disagree about the interpretation of the scriptures. It's all about context, and translation can sometimes be tricky. You can find scholars who say that the Hebrew text meant one thing, and I can find scholars that say it means another. You have to look at the whole package. I have looked at several religious systems, and find Christianity the most compelling world view out there.
Your mileage may vary, that's what makes religion, politics and sex so volitile that in polite society people don't bring them up in public.:)
Of course, I'll also differ with your assertion that Paul is the only NT writer we know for sure by name. And he never met Jesus. First, the documentary evidence of the gospels is sufficient to clearly identify the primary followers of Christ. Secondly, while Paul never contends that he met with the human person of Christ during the 30+ years he physically lived on this planet, Paul's conversion from a zealous Jew to a zealous Jewish Christian was motivated by his encounter with Christ.
I could go on, but time runs short. I'll close with this: the idea that the books contained in the Bible are the ONLY things you need to read to understand Scripture is an idea foreign not only to Judiasm, but even to Christianity itself, at least for the first 1500 years. Until the Sola Scripture heresy began, everyone understood that there were countless other subsidiary texts and traditions one had to know and understand. I beg to differ. Christianity was built on the idea that the Hebrew scriptures were foundational to faith and while the first generation of Christians did not have the whole of the New Testament (because it had not yet been completed) as parts of the NT were available, people referred to that as authoritative.
The whole divide within Christendom about the sufficiency of scripture alone came as a result of the abuses perpetrated by people who decided that they wanted to extend the reach of the church beyond what Christ intended. Interesting that you'd portray that as a heresy. Should I assume that you're a Roman Catholic?
Jesus didn't fulfill any of the actual messianic prophecies Wow - what an opinion. As a follower of Christ, and a student of the Hebrew scriptures, it's my understanding that he fulfilled almost 500 prophecies from them.
I'll take this opportunity to quote from what I consider to be a reliable source:
For example, it was not only prophesied that Christ would be a descendant of Abraham, (Gen.12:1-3), but that He would be from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10) and the house of David (Ps. 110:1); that He would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2), born of a virgin (Isa. 7:1 4), betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12f.), and also that His hands and feet would be pierced (Ps. 22:16). It is noteworthy that this last prediction was made long before crucifixion was invented as a form of capital punishment by the Persians and a thousand years before it was made common by the Romans.
It was also prophesied that Christ would be crucified with transgressors (Isa. 53:9, 12); that none of His bones would be broken (Ex. 12:46; Ps. 34:20); and that He would cry out from the cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1). Moreover, Christ's resurrection (Ps. 16:8-11), His ascension (Ps. 68:1 8)
The list goes on and on and on. This is not "after the fact" stuff. Your assertion that he fulfilled none of them is not consistent with Christian belief. Perhaps it's consistent with Jewish thought, but this would be where the unity of "Judeo-Christian thought" breaks down.
My hope for relationship with God is the fulfillment of prophecy when Christ, who lived a perfect and holy life, was wrongfully put to death and then rose from the dead. The apostle Paul (a converted Jew) said
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,
(emphasis added)
FWIW - the first major controversy in the Christian church was about Jews. The major question was whether Christ's salvation was available to anyone who wasn't a Jew!:)
I'm a gentile who is fairly familiar with Jews for Jesus.
What they claim is that they are Jews by heritage/nationality who are imperfect. They have placed their faith in Jesus Christ's perfect life and sufficient sacrifice to be saved from eternal separation from a holy and perfect God. They claim that faith in Christ is necessary for all men to have relationship with God, including Jews.
There is no "church of Jews for Jesus." There is nothing unique about their beliefs which substantively differentiates them from mainstream Christianity.
Their mission statement is: "Jews for Jesus exists to make the messiahship of Jesus Christ an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide"
They don't surrender their heritage (and in many cases, their traditions) simply because they follow Christ. They don't believe that they get closer to God if they keep kosher, or any other traditions - they like the traditions they keep. As a gentile follower of Christ, I see much of Christian teaching portrayed in the Seder traditions. Jews for Jesus do too - that's why they invited you to dinner.
For what it's worth, if you want to found or operate an organization teaching people that the pathway to God is conversion to Judiasm, go ahead. I wouldn't call that a cult - I'd call it proselytizing.:) For what it's worth, I'd love to hear a Jew explain to me how the foundation of Christianity - the birth of Christ - is best understood as an extension of what Judaism teaches.
Finally - the name of their organization has JESUS in it. It would be pretty hard for a college student to be tricked into thinking that JFJ isn't a Christian organization.
is the idea that someone would take the time to attempt to draw distinctions between these pejoratives at all. As far as "normals" are concerned it's relatively the equivalent of a Yugo owner and a Chevette owner comparing horsepower and 0-60 times, while they are driving Dodge Vipers
The only thing they ever claimed was "finding the WOW" - one signal in 1977 which could have been explained by a radio signal bouncing off a terrestrial satellite or some space junk.
As far as I know, there have been no other signals detected. SETI seems pretty pointless to me. Their whole basis for study is the "drake equation" which was an estimate, based on 1950's understanding of cosmology and evolutionary biology which estimated the likelihood of finding sentient life. What we know of cosmology has dramatically changed - even in the last few years as discoveries have invalidated long-held theses about planet formation.
It seems to me that the SETI project is a complete waste of time. You can use your computer for whatever you want. I prefer to make investments in scientific research rather than fanciful speculation. (Searching for Mersenne primes is demonstrable science, and will yield technical benefits as well increases in ordered knowledge.)
Gee, the primary components needed for that "fetus" to turn into a "child" is.... a) food b) shelter c) time
I get your point. I *must* be an ignoramus.
Wait - In order for me to be an idiot, you must have a point. Can you explain to me the mysterious process you know of by which a fetus transmogrifies into a child? As far as I can tell, there's no mojo there. Conception is amazing, but in a matter of mere days, the "fetus" is amazingly indistinguishable from a "child."
google reports that "adoption" appears 86,800 times on plannedparenthood.org. Abortion appears 91,000.
It's all about context, of course, but PlannedParenthood makes big money on abortion. a few years ago it grossed $58,554,300 in abortion income. (Planned Parenthood 1998-1999 Annual Report, page 9)
Their gross income was almost $900M last year!
According to their 2003-2004 annual report: Planned Parenthood aborted 138 children for every adoption referral to an outside agency. During Gloria Feldt's first full year as president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (1997), the group's abortion/adoption ratio was 18:1. Throughout her tenure, abortion numbers have consistently increased and adoption referrals have regularly decreased, resulting in the dismal 138:1 statistic.
I think that these statistics (which can be found in under 5 minutes of googling from many sources) belie the concept that adoption is a primary component of the PlannedParenthood agenda.
Let's stick to the facts and not rhetoric when it comes to this issue. If PlannedParenthood really cared about kids, they would spend much of their profit to fund adoptions which are expensive due to governmental oversight. Legal fees are astronomical. As it currently stands, their abortions are a major profit center.
So you think any adult should be able to see any other adults reading history? Why not? What's the big deal?
My reading list includes Rainey, Feldhahn, Lewis, Eggerichs, Piper, Thomas, Luther, Calvin, Smith, Lewis, McGraw, Cussler, Clancy, Grisham, business books, and geek titles. Who cares? What difference does it make? Now that you know this about me, how does it benefit you or harm me?
Look, there's no such thing as privacy anymore. Why should the library insist on a draconian policy? It's a waste of time. Besides, my tax dollars paid for the books, the people, and the processes for checkout. Why shouldn't those records be public?
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Either by ignoring their kids or crushing them with the weight of monitoring and impossible expectations. Sounds like your parents were closer to the latter camp than the middle. Sorry about that.
My job as a dad is to become less and less controlling with my kids - to give them enough lattitude to make errors where the consequences are minimal. I knew a guy in HS whose uncle bought him a Corvette at 16. He totalled it, and his uncle bought him another one! DUMB!
I allow my kids as they mature to have more freedom - when they blow it with bad judgment, I discipline them to help them learn to use better judgment next time.
By the time they leave my house, they should have the skills to operate successfully in the world - personal integrity, honesty, work ethic, compassion for others, operation of basic power tools, operation of a motor vehicle, discipline about sleep, discipline about eating, conflict resolution, know the importance of relationships with others, and the ability to self-educate.
Until that time, I believe strongly in "trust, but verify." I have no issue at all with tracking a kid using my car, my gas, my insurance, living in my house. In general, I will be able to ignore the logs because I have enough RELATIONSHIP with my kids to have a pretty good idea about how trustworthy they are. If the systems I put in place to check up on them show me that my trust is misguided, then I have an opportunity to shapre their character with additional discipline.
Within the bounds of the limits I set up for them, they have complete freedom! They will (and do) get MUCH more by living within the fairly wide open spaces I define for them than they could "get away with" by lying and breaking my rules.
Finally, I'd like to point out that biologically, kids brains are not at full maturity until the early-mid twenties - specifically the part of the brain that influences reasoning and judgment is still in development at 16. This is a BIG factor in kids making good choices, and I need to protect them as they don't yet have the strong skills to navigate the rough waters they are in.
Once again, I apologize for overbearing, critical, controlling parents. They obviously didn't know what they were doing.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
It's true that alomst everyone speeds.
Your assertion about safety is not supported by facts - it's mere rationalization by people who want to speed.
I live in a major metropolitan area. I don't drive over the speed limit, and I pass people on the highways regularly. I have not had more "close calls" than I did when I drove aggressively - in fact, my experience is that I have fewer.
This is slashdot. Finding even 1 girlfriend is statistically unlikely. You can always buy technology, but finding a girlfriend.... priceless :)
I can appreciate where you're coming from with respect to evil done in the name of God. Perhaps we disagree on some points, but I'll stand with you in opposition to things like the rule of the Taliban, the abuses in Ireland, the coverup within the roman catholic church about sexual abuse committed by priests, the way that televangelists take advantage of the stupid, the battles in the Middle East over Israel. And it goes on and on.
Power corrupts. For better or worse, connection to God (or a claim thereof) brings influence, and subsequently brings power of one kind or another.
In spite of standing with you on these issues, I still believe that your worldview leaves unanswered quesstions, some of which are listed below:
1. What if you're wrong? I know on slashdot it's considered trite to bring up Pascal's wager, but - what if Christianity is true, and what you believe is wrong? Would you want to know? Would it make any difference in the way that you choose to live your life?
2. What about the good done in the name of pleasing God? (Under any religion?)
3. Where did matter come from?
4. How do you explain the information density within DNA and our genes? It flies in the face of how we see entropy played out in the rest of the universe.
5. Why are we here?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Well, if you limit your sample size to the Jews and the Muslims in the Middle East, or the Irish protestants and Catholics in Ireland, I think that you can make the case that organized religion is not a good thing.
.sig than mine.
If, however, you look at the facts - that these battles are more about the politics of power and control than they are about closely following the teachings of the various religious leaders of antiquity - is "religion" to blame there?
Moreover, if you look at the persistence of good done in the name of pleasing God - not just from a Christian perspective, but as expressed in other organized religions as well, I think that you will find far more than is covered in the news. The list of good things goes on and on and on.
Finally, listing the evil done by those who espouse atheism or anarchy would FAR eclipse the good done by those who eschew religion. That is not to suggest that atheists and anachists never do good, just that the logical outcome of their worldview does not intrinsically motivate them to do good, and therefore there tends to be less good done.
But then, your ideas are more wittily expressed in a
Respectfully,
Anomaly
I almost wet myself after having beverage spew from my nostrils!
As a pretty faithfully committed and studious Christian, I agree with you that many - perhaps most - people who claim to be Christians are ignorant of the teachings of the Christian faith.
:)
Christianity most certainly claims that the only way to relationship with God - and access to His nature (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control) - comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Anyone who rejects this concept is, by his choice, separated from God and all that is good for all eternity. This is essential to the core of Christianity.
I have an issue with your ideas about tolerance, though. Philosophically speaking, any time anyone claims to speak "truth" they are saying that any idea that disagrees with their premise is "un-true." (Unless you're a relativist, but that brings a whole host of other problems - the law of non-contradiction forces you to discard the idea of relative truth pretty quickly.)
If you insist on opposition to any "intolerant" views, you yourself become intolerant of the views to which you object because you are setting yourself up as a truth standard against which other views are measured. Should we then become intolerant of your intolerance?
Also, I'll take issue with your word "intolerance." Christianty is completely tolerant of people who do not accept Christianity. We don't hate ANYONE. Everyone is free to hold whatever views they like, and we will not oppress them (unless it contradicts a core tenet of our world view - like your right to a view which says it's OK to murder me. As a Christian, and as a person, I am pretty intolerant of that.)
I think that clear evidence of this is seen here in the US. Whether the founding fathers were actual Christians or not, the extreme majority of people in the US at the time of the founding of this nation were Christians, and it is fair to say that the Christian values are well represented by our form of government.
This nation demonstrates that people are really free to practice their religious views here. Look at countries where Christian views were not a part of the formation of the culture and the governmental organization - show me a country like that where diversity of religious views flourishes like it does in the US. I would suggest to you that is precisely because of Christian tolerance.
Tolerance (according to the classic definition) says that I can disagree with your view and tolerate it's existence. In the popular culture today, that word has been twisted to mean if you disagree with another person's idea, you're doing a bad thing. It's total Newspeak. Orwell would be proud.
I've been doing this at a Fortune 500 company for a couple of years now. We have worked with two different packages, and have had some successes.
1. We worked with a major CRM package using it's internal workflow capability. This required a dedicated programmer, and ended up costing about $100,000 per business process to implement, and took a few months per process to get in production. WAAAAAY too expensive and didn't scale. On top of that, the software was VERY hard to get working properly. (We already had the CRM package in place, the workflow was supposed to be a cherry on top, but it clearly was not.)
2. We went with a "workflow lite" vendor. The tool is organized to process orders, and has workflow capability. This is not enterprise workflow like FileNet, but theoretically means that business analysts could do the workflow design.
We've had some success with this. The absolute biggest pain point has not been technical - the problem has been defining the process to be automated. Business process analysis is an entirely different skillset than automation.
Once the process is defined clearly, automation is not terribly painful. Unfortunately it hasn't been the case that analysts could do the automation, but it also doesn't require programmer-level skills, either. We've been able to implement a large number of services.
The tool we picked has been completely immature, and our back end processing costs have been HUGE compared to what the vendor estimated initially.
Overall it's been a good ride, and the tool we used provides the types of metrics you're looking for. It's important to know that whatever path you go will be EXPENSIVE. On top of that, another key lesson learned was that we don't need to model EVERY possible path through the business process. We model the "happy path" and an "exception path" and that provides the Pareto model (80/20)
I'd be happy to converse off line about this if you want to know more about our experience.
Regards,
Anomaly
I have yet to see an instant-on, but I'll let that one go.
I still can't fit the blasted CF bulbs I have into my fixtures, and you're recommending larger ones?
What about the hazmat issue? I have 4 little kids, and.... things break. Should I risk exposure to mercury to save a few pennies?
What about being able to choose how much light I need based on the task at hand?
I still can't use them in exterior fixtures in the winter because of low temperatures, and because of the lack of light output.
I put in new brighter/whiter 4' bulbs and those are fine for loading the washer and such, but for general purpose fluorescent bulbs aren't "there yet."
I'm glad you're happy with yours. My point is that they are not yet a "like for like" replacement which is energy saving. I agree completely with the energy saving part, but the down sides are too big yet.
I've spent a bunch of time working with and thinking about lower cost lights.
In general the fluorescent bulb light is crap - yellow, green, blue - anything but white light. The light from my halogen lamp is either white or red (as it dims) With incendescent, I can have full brightness, off, and any amount of light in between.
Some issues:
CF bulbs are too big to fit in the ceiling fixtures I have - should I go buy new fixtures?
The CF bulb takes a couple of seconds to come on - incandescents come on immediately.
I had a ballast fail in a 4' fixture last weekend - it burned out a couple of bulbs before I realized the root cause. What a pain to replace the fixture!
I had a 4' fluorescent bulb fall from a fixture and smash in my laundry room last weekend. A month or so ago, my kids knocked over a lamp with a CF bulb. Now I've got a hazmat spill in my HOME!
My grandfather replaced his outside lights with fluorescent bulbs long ago to save money. Sure, but the lights don't work when it's cold, and they are too dim.
You "Americans are wasteful and foolish" folks don't get it. I'd like to play in a more energy-efficient sandbox, but the trade offs are too great. The rest of the expensive CF bulbs I have are going in to closets and the attic where there's little good light anyway.
I'll stick with my wasteful bulbs. Those wasters provide great, bright light, are dimmable, are cheap to buy, work in every fixture, work when it's 0F or 100F, and when they break, I sweep up the glass - which is the biggest risk - no threat of poisoning, just getting cut.
Call me when the technology is better.
This is why they have a producer - to get the content PRODUCED. This is why they release "director's cuts" - because the director was not happy with the original editing decision made by the producer.
.02
We are not talking about compelling organizations to edit content - this is about people who say - "I'd like the content to differ from the original in these ways" and having the freedom, after paying the people who created the content, to make that content differ in ways that please them.
Just as you don't feel people should be able to constrain the content that interests you by "clensing" it, I don't feel that people should be able to constrain the content that interests me by demanding that it contain parts I don't like.
Just my
It depends on age and maturity. For example, I saw "Coach Carter." A compelling story. Overall I think that a teenage child could enjoy it - except for the profanity, and (IIRC) there were about two scenes involving sex, drunkenness and drugs that could have been told FAR less explicitly.
If a story is a *good* story, it will hold your interest even when there's not graphic profanity, nudity or explosions.
I could see that film (sans those two scenes, and with language filtered) being appropriate for teenage kids.
There are other examples as well - I think you see my point, though.
I've worked with "enterprise" software for the past 8 years. My experience is that no vendor fixes everything we consider broken, and the largest vendors fix the least for us. The best overall support we get is from a 3-5 person company supporting a custom application they wrote for us. As far as COTS software is concerned, we've been working with an "up and coming" vendor (living on VC cash) who has been pretty responsive. The two largest software companies in the world have been little help to us, in terms of providing fixes to code that we consider broken.
Someone is complaining about RedHat support? And that someone is Oracle? Puh leeze!
I have yet to be impressed with the quality and responsiveness of enterprise vendors.
No. It's not that I can't.
When I have attempted to defend my point of view, you have refuted with broad assertions that I am obviously wrong. That is not intellectually honest on your part. Intelligent and capable people more informed about Hebrew and translation than you or I have respectfully disagreed about these issues for a long time. For you to scornfully claim that it's obvious that Christian scholars are wrong is... rather uncharitable to say the least.
Either you cannot or will not consider opinions other than yours. Your tone and word choice are well described by your word - arrogance. Your attitude is speaking so loudly that I cannot hear your intellect at all. I sincerely doubt that you are interested in hearing mine.
Is it possible that your point of view is less than perfect? What evidence would be sufficient to demonstrate to you that Jesus is the Messiah? Is there any evidence that would be sufficient?
Look, I could assert that red is not always red. You could say "yes it is, you moron."
If we took the time to talk about physics, red light, wavelengths and the expanding universe, it could become plain that red is sometimes red-shifted to another color. In order to really determine that we each understand the others' position, we'd need to lay the foundation.
Just because you assert that "the scriptures are far better understood by the Jews" doesn't mean that they really understood what they claimed (or claim) to know. In order for you and I to have a civil, intellectual and meaningful conversation, we have to lay a foundation on which we can agree and which does not use inflammatory language or ad hominem arguments. You make broad claims about what Christians believe. I as a Christian do not believe all of what you assert, but obviously it is pointless to have a reasonable conversation with you because apparently you already know everything.
I'm done here. Thanks for your time.
That's complete and utter tripe. I never said it couldn't be resolved. What I said is that I don't have the time in this forum to work through the issues required for us to come to an understanding. You're using words that *must* have different meanings than I understand them to mean. Since we have to go line upon line, precept upon precept, it would take a great deal of time - probably months - for us to get to the point where you and I fully understand each others' positions - much more time before you and I could begin to reason together to hope to sway one another's thinking toward one view or the other.
It's *not* that you have the "facts." It's that you and I can't even begin to talk about what the facts are until we agree on the meaning of the words we're using. My point exactly is that you are saying that you're not using any special terms, but the "common" terms that you claim to use have different meanings than I understand them to have.
Case in point is your assertion about the meaning of the prophecy in Isaiah. It's true that one of the words can be interpreted to mean "young woman." It also can be interpreted to mean "virgin." It's true that the prophecy was about Hezekiah, but the majority position is that the prophecy addresses both the birth of Hezekiah *and* is a messianic prophecy.
Your assertions are broad, narrowly correct, and also wrong. Go ahead and accuse my position of being baseless and suggest that I'm unable to defend my point of view. You're obviously right and I'm obviously an idiot. Have it your way, though.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
With all due respect, the only way that you and I could seriously hope to progress on this topic would be to invest the time to start from the beginning and carefully define each term we intend to use. It's clear to me that your position and mine differ in many substantive ways - in ways that are discernable at the onset, and most likely in ways that are not discernable until we get to the meaning of the words that we use.
Frankly I'm not sure that I understand what you're saying - in some cases you seem to be really clear and precise, and in others you're making sweeping generalizations. Perhaps those generalizations are well founded on much evidence, but I'm not certain of that and can't be without far more time having been invested.
At this point, I think it's probably best to bow out of this discussion because it doesn't seem suitable for this forum (relatively short life span of threads, long posts are discouraged by the page layout, etc) and it seems inefficient to do this here rather than face to face.
I fully support your right to hold whatever views you choose, and I make no claims about the supportability of the arguments you are making. I don't see things the way that you do, and my experience and considerable study on these topics has yielded results that differ greatly from what I believe that you have proposed.
Thanks much for your time.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Someone gave you a major line of BS, as far as the Jews are concerned.
:)
And there you have it. Of course Jews and Christians disagree about the interpretation of the scriptures. It's all about context, and translation can sometimes be tricky. You can find scholars who say that the Hebrew text meant one thing, and I can find scholars that say it means another. You have to look at the whole package. I have looked at several religious systems, and find Christianity the most compelling world view out there.
Your mileage may vary, that's what makes religion, politics and sex so volitile that in polite society people don't bring them up in public.
Of course, I'll also differ with your assertion that Paul is the only NT writer we know for sure by name. And he never met Jesus.
First, the documentary evidence of the gospels is sufficient to clearly identify the primary followers of Christ. Secondly, while Paul never contends that he met with the human person of Christ during the 30+ years he physically lived on this planet, Paul's conversion from a zealous Jew to a zealous Jewish Christian was motivated by his encounter with Christ.
I could go on, but time runs short. I'll close with this: the idea that the books contained in the Bible are the ONLY things you need to read to understand Scripture is an idea foreign not only to Judiasm, but even to Christianity itself, at least for the first 1500 years. Until the Sola Scripture heresy began, everyone understood that there were countless other subsidiary texts and traditions one had to know and understand.
I beg to differ. Christianity was built on the idea that the Hebrew scriptures were foundational to faith and while the first generation of Christians did not have the whole of the New Testament (because it had not yet been completed) as parts of the NT were available, people referred to that as authoritative.
The whole divide within Christendom about the sufficiency of scripture alone came as a result of the abuses perpetrated by people who decided that they wanted to extend the reach of the church beyond what Christ intended. Interesting that you'd portray that as a heresy. Should I assume that you're a Roman Catholic?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Wow - what an opinion. As a follower of Christ, and a student of the Hebrew scriptures, it's my understanding that he fulfilled almost 500 prophecies from them.
I'll take this opportunity to quote from what I consider to be a reliable source:
The list goes on and on and on. This is not "after the fact" stuff. Your assertion that he fulfilled none of them is not consistent with Christian belief. Perhaps it's consistent with Jewish thought, but this would be where the unity of "Judeo-Christian thought" breaks down.
My hope for relationship with God is the fulfillment of prophecy when Christ, who lived a perfect and holy life, was wrongfully put to death and then rose from the dead. The apostle Paul (a converted Jew) said
(emphasis added)
FWIW - the first major controversy in the Christian church was about Jews. The major question was whether Christ's salvation was available to anyone who wasn't a Jew!
Respectfully,
Anomaly
I'm a gentile who is fairly familiar with Jews for Jesus.
:) For what it's worth, I'd love to hear a Jew explain to me how the foundation of Christianity - the birth of Christ - is best understood as an extension of what Judaism teaches.
What they claim is that they are Jews by heritage/nationality who are imperfect. They have placed their faith in Jesus Christ's perfect life and sufficient sacrifice to be saved from eternal separation from a holy and perfect God. They claim that faith in Christ is necessary for all men to have relationship with God, including Jews.
There is no "church of Jews for Jesus." There is nothing unique about their beliefs which substantively differentiates them from mainstream Christianity.
Their mission statement is:
"Jews for Jesus exists to make the messiahship of Jesus Christ an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide"
They don't surrender their heritage (and in many cases, their traditions) simply because they follow Christ. They don't believe that they get closer to God if they keep kosher, or any other traditions - they like the traditions they keep. As a gentile follower of Christ, I see much of Christian teaching portrayed in the Seder traditions. Jews for Jesus do too - that's why they invited you to dinner.
For what it's worth, if you want to found or operate an organization teaching people that the pathway to God is conversion to Judiasm, go ahead. I wouldn't call that a cult - I'd call it proselytizing.
Finally - the name of their organization has JESUS in it. It would be pretty hard for a college student to be tricked into thinking that JFJ isn't a Christian organization.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
is the idea that someone would take the time to attempt to draw distinctions between these pejoratives at all. As far as "normals" are concerned it's relatively the equivalent of a Yugo owner and a Chevette owner comparing horsepower and 0-60 times, while they are driving Dodge Vipers
The only thing they ever claimed was "finding the WOW" - one signal in 1977 which could have been explained by a radio signal bouncing off a terrestrial satellite or some space junk.
As far as I know, there have been no other signals detected. SETI seems pretty pointless to me. Their whole basis for study is the "drake equation" which was an estimate, based on 1950's understanding of cosmology and evolutionary biology which estimated the likelihood of finding sentient life. What we know of cosmology has dramatically changed - even in the last few years as discoveries have invalidated long-held theses about planet formation.
It seems to me that the SETI project is a complete waste of time. You can use your computer for whatever you want. I prefer to make investments in scientific research rather than fanciful speculation. (Searching for Mersenne primes is demonstrable science, and will yield technical benefits as well increases in ordered knowledge.)
YMMV
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Gee, the primary components needed for that "fetus" to turn into a "child" is....
a) food
b) shelter
c) time
I get your point. I *must* be an ignoramus.
Wait - In order for me to be an idiot, you must have a point. Can you explain to me the mysterious process you know of by which a fetus transmogrifies into a child? As far as I can tell, there's no mojo there. Conception is amazing, but in a matter of mere days, the "fetus" is amazingly indistinguishable from a "child."
Thanks for playing.
Anomaly
google reports that "adoption" appears 86,800 times on plannedparenthood.org. Abortion appears 91,000.
It's all about context, of course, but PlannedParenthood makes big money on abortion.
a few years ago it grossed $58,554,300 in abortion income. (Planned Parenthood 1998-1999 Annual Report, page 9)
Their gross income was almost $900M last year!
According to their 2003-2004 annual report:
Planned Parenthood aborted 138 children for every adoption referral to an outside agency. During Gloria Feldt's first full year as president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (1997), the group's abortion/adoption ratio was 18:1. Throughout her tenure, abortion numbers have consistently increased and adoption referrals have regularly decreased, resulting in the dismal 138:1 statistic.
I think that these statistics (which can be found in under 5 minutes of googling from many sources) belie the concept that adoption is a primary component of the PlannedParenthood agenda.
Let's stick to the facts and not rhetoric when it comes to this issue. If PlannedParenthood really cared about kids, they would spend much of their profit to fund adoptions which are expensive due to governmental oversight. Legal fees are astronomical. As it currently stands, their abortions are a major profit center.
My money goes to Hope for Orphans, a church adoption ministry
and the Rockville Pregnancy Center.
Good thing for those of you reading this that your bio-mom chose to let you live rather than "terminating her pregnancy"
Respectfully,
Anomaly
So you think any adult should be able to see any other adults reading history?
Why not? What's the big deal?
My reading list includes Rainey, Feldhahn, Lewis, Eggerichs, Piper, Thomas, Luther, Calvin, Smith, Lewis, McGraw, Cussler, Clancy, Grisham, business books, and geek titles. Who cares? What difference does it make? Now that you know this about me, how does it benefit you or harm me?
Look, there's no such thing as privacy anymore. Why should the library insist on a draconian policy? It's a waste of time. Besides, my tax dollars paid for the books, the people, and the processes for checkout. Why shouldn't those records be public?