You quote one sentence, and then completely ignored the next sentence, in which he addressed exactly the issue you are bringing up.
Not all health clubs have a TV facing the exercise gear, and even if they do, the odds that it will be showing something you would want to watch are not terrific.
So his following point is rather meaningless in the context of what we are talking about. (A device which let's you watch your choice of video materials while you are working out on exercise machines.)
That's the problem with kids today, they think their the first ones to ever come up with such questions. Sunday school children have been pestering their teachers with "tough" riddles like that since looooong before you were born. I'm neither a Fundamentalist nor a Catholic, and even I was able to shoot that one down.
"18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
My Fundamentalist friends rely on this line a lot, but the thing I can't get past is that "these things" and "the book of this prophesy" and "this book" clearly can only be speaking of the Book of Revelation.
The entire Bible didn't exist as a single tome at the time those words were written, so if you apply that line to, say for example, any of Paul's letters, you are committing the exact blaspheme which that line is warning against.
Those folks' area of expertise is on matters of religion. You surely wouldn't care about what Professor Stephen Hawking had to say about whether or not the Gospel of Thomas should be included in the Bible, now would you?
Funny you should mention that, since Prof. Hawking once attended a Vatican council on the matter of the Creation of the universe. IIRC, he writes and account of the experience in "A Brief History of Time", though I could be confusing it with one of his other texts. (As has been established in another thread, I seem to have a knack for getting books mixed up today.)
The point is that the Vatican's credibility is pretty much shot based on historical experience. Since their credibility is shot, many Christians tend to ignore their position on scientific matters.
You're making the same mistake that scientologists make about psychiatry.
"Because Freud was so off base about so many things, and because they used to use vibrators to treat women for 'hysteria', the psychiatric community's cretibility is pretty much shot with regards to mental health care."
The fact that some Catholics happened to be wrong about some things doesn't mean that JPII and the Popes who followed haven't been making an honest effort to wrap their heads around modern scientific models of the universe, and ellucidate such information for their followers.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Catholic myself, but I'm also not a fan of ignorant bashing.
Still, a heck of a way to end a five book trilogy. "Perhaps he was dictating."
You were being funny, but that's not far off from the traditional Fundamentalist view (both among Evangelical Christans and some Orthodox Jewish sects.) The idea is that Moses was simply writing down exactly what God told him to write down.
There are at least a few lines in there which can be used to argue that this is how the Torah is meant to be read.
To me, it's not terribly important. I come at Old Testament validity from the opposite angle: Since I happen to believe in the divinity of Christ, and consider Him to also be the greatest Rabbi in history, the fact that He taught from those same scriptures instructs me that they are worth reading and trying to understand.
As a non-Jew, the issue of whether Moses wrote them or not matters about as much to me as the instructions to never eat shellfish, never cut my earlocks, and always wear tassles on the corners of my cloak.
My mistake. It is indeed in the fifth book, but still long before the end of the Torah.
The book goes on to describe Joshua and Caleb leading the next generation of Isrealites into the Promised Land, which Moses never got to see himself.
Then there's the problem of Numbers 12:3...
"Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth."
If Moses wrote that himself, it's hard to make a strong case for his humility, isn't it?
Deuteronomy 34:10 makes it even tougher...
"There has never been another prophet like Moses"
Since most of the Hebrew prophets came after Moses, it seems strange (assuming that it was divinely revealed to Moses what the prophets would be like) that this line would be written in the past tense... unless it was written by somebody else after the time of the prophets.
So, in spite of my getting mixed up on whether his death is recorded in Exodus or Deuteronomy, there's no debate that it happened before the end of the five books, which means that he either recorded his own death (after failing to see the Promised Land himself) and the events which followed (not to mention constant references of things which stand "to this day"), or that somebody else picked up where he left off (some scholars like to say Joshua filled in the gaps), or else it was written by some other person(s) entirely.
Since most people who believe in evolution do not believe in a God who created them
Actually, you are wrong again. The vast majority of scientists who study evolution (at least in Western society) believe in God. This included Darwin himself.
Yeah well, the religious acceptance of such an act is the least of the worries of anyone attempting to commune with the dead.
Really? If you were a Catholic or Fundamentalist, I would think that "this shit is not working" is a considerably less worrisome outcome than "hey, it worked! Now I'm going to burn in Hell forever for practicing witchcraft."
There's a difference, which apparently was important enough to behead people over. Just sayin'.
That kind of reminds me of the episode of "Bless Me, Father" when they had a joint eccumenical service with the local Anglicans. Pardon me for forgetting character names:
Minister: It's so wonderful to see Catholics and Protestants praying together.
Priest: Oh, no no no. We were not praying together at all! For us, worshipping with Protestants is forbidden. We were not praying with you - you were praying with us.
Minister: That's a very subtle distinction.
Priest (with a mischievous grin): I'm glad you can appreciate it.
It's cheaper for someone to just buy a small TV and put it in the room with their exercise equipment than to dish out for a video enabled phone or iPod.
Unless, as most people who use such machines, they don't one one of their own and work out in health clubs.
Also, it's only cheaper to buy a small TV if you don't already own a video enabled phone or an iPod.
Also, there's no need to mark out any letters from "YHWH"
That spelling is already omitting all of the vowel characters (and, if traditional teaching is to be observed, most of the name is omitted here as well. "YHWH" simply means "I am", which was the only part of God's true name for Himself which Moses was premitted to write down.)
Unlike some of the haters here, I believe you are sincere.
That said, you're way off base.
and evolution comes alogn and says that matter is eternal: we've been in an unending cycle of compression and expansion of matter for eternity
Oh, and way out of date, too. That theory has not been the most popular model for a long time now. Even formor advocates of it, such as Stephen Hawking, have abandoned it in favor of the "Big Bang" theory.
See... that's what scientists do. They adjust their theories based on available fact.
Your notion, that the universe was designed, will never change or falter, no matter what facts come along to disrupt it. That makes it religion. Not that religion is a bad thing at all. I'm a believer myself. The point here is that science can not rely on tradition, dogma, or scripture. That which can not be demonstrated or falsified with raw fact alone is completely outside the scope of science.
In other words:
"Things evolve." That's science. We can see it happen, we can see evidence that it has happened.
"Things were designed to evolve by a loving God." That's religion. Until a peer-reviewed journal submits a valid proof of the existence (or non-existence) of God, science is, and must remain, mute on the subject.
Of course, it'd probably be best if fundmentalists actually talked to, say, the rabbis who wrote the whole thing down.
How exactly is that going to happen?
My thought as well. That comment had to be just about the most stupid thing I've seen written about religion in a long time.
To commune with the dead is occultist divination, and considered satanic by Catholics and Fundamentalists alike, so even if they could do it, it would be forbidden.
Video is nothing like this. I can't watch a TV show while I'm driving, exercising or working.
Working, no... but plenty of people commute via bus, train or ferry, so they could watch TV while they ride. (Not me. I drive to work like a regular American, but if I lived in a "dark blue" state where there was a good rail line and inadequite parking, I could see the need to watch episodes of "House" or something while trying not to talk to the people around me.)
A lot of people also use treadmills, stationary bikes, stair machines, etc., while watching TV. There could be money in making some kind of mounting bracket for attaching these gizmos to excercise equipment.
is that movie/ipod-likes screens are too small - 1. strain on eyes and 2. not many people can watch together
1. Hold it closer to your face. At the distance most people hold a paperback novel, it would be about the same relative "size" as looking at a 20" TV set from accross a small living room, which was actually a fairly typical viewing experience once upon a time.
2. Nobody else can hear the sound on your earphones anyway.
I think the video on the iPod is not really all that impressive of a feature, but some of the criticisms of it are downright silly.
Slashdot Mirror
You quote one sentence, and then completely ignored the next sentence, in which he addressed exactly the issue you are bringing up.
Not all health clubs have a TV facing the exercise gear, and even if they do, the odds that it will be showing something you would want to watch are not terrific.
So his following point is rather meaningless in the context of what we are talking about. (A device which let's you watch your choice of video materials while you are working out on exercise machines.)
Not to mention the act of creation itself was one of passive instruction.
"And the Lord said 'Let there be light'"
That descrption sounds more like He created things by simply granting them permission to exist.
Throughout the entire Bible, it would appear that the God of Abraham is not One to get His fingernails dirty. He's got people.
Or how about a track in Esperanto?
Shatner stared in the only full-length Esperanto movie, so he could dub himself for that track.
That would be bonega!
Answer: He wouldn't. He might want one, though.
That's the problem with kids today, they think their the first ones to ever come up with such questions. Sunday school children have been pestering their teachers with "tough" riddles like that since looooong before you were born. I'm neither a Fundamentalist nor a Catholic, and even I was able to shoot that one down.
Never mind the fact that it (The Pentateuch) ends with Moses' death.
So who wrote "The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over"?
Or, for that matter, "He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is"?
"18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
My Fundamentalist friends rely on this line a lot, but the thing I can't get past is that "these things" and "the book of this prophesy" and "this book" clearly can only be speaking of the Book of Revelation.
The entire Bible didn't exist as a single tome at the time those words were written, so if you apply that line to, say for example, any of Paul's letters, you are committing the exact blaspheme which that line is warning against.
Yeah, that whole Nazi thing, 'twas a mere tiffle.
Hitler was an occultist. You need to watch more PBS specials.
The Nazis killed lots of Christians in the death camps, too.
Those folks' area of expertise is on matters of religion. You surely wouldn't care about what Professor Stephen Hawking had to say about whether or not the Gospel of Thomas should be included in the Bible, now would you?
Funny you should mention that, since Prof. Hawking once attended a Vatican council on the matter of the Creation of the universe. IIRC, he writes and account of the experience in "A Brief History of Time", though I could be confusing it with one of his other texts. (As has been established in another thread, I seem to have a knack for getting books mixed up today.)
The point is that the Vatican's credibility is pretty much shot based on historical experience. Since their credibility is shot, many Christians tend to ignore their position on scientific matters.
You're making the same mistake that scientologists make about psychiatry.
"Because Freud was so off base about so many things, and because they used to use vibrators to treat women for 'hysteria', the psychiatric community's cretibility is pretty much shot with regards to mental health care."
The fact that some Catholics happened to be wrong about some things doesn't mean that JPII and the Popes who followed haven't been making an honest effort to wrap their heads around modern scientific models of the universe, and ellucidate such information for their followers.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Catholic myself, but I'm also not a fan of ignorant bashing.
Still, a heck of a way to end a five book trilogy. "Perhaps he was dictating."
You were being funny, but that's not far off from the traditional Fundamentalist view (both among Evangelical Christans and some Orthodox Jewish sects.) The idea is that Moses was simply writing down exactly what God told him to write down.
There are at least a few lines in there which can be used to argue that this is how the Torah is meant to be read.
To me, it's not terribly important. I come at Old Testament validity from the opposite angle: Since I happen to believe in the divinity of Christ, and consider Him to also be the greatest Rabbi in history, the fact that He taught from those same scriptures instructs me that they are worth reading and trying to understand.
As a non-Jew, the issue of whether Moses wrote them or not matters about as much to me as the instructions to never eat shellfish, never cut my earlocks, and always wear tassles on the corners of my cloak.
Pun.
Ever.
...
Kudos.My mistake. It is indeed in the fifth book, but still long before the end of the Torah.
The book goes on to describe Joshua and Caleb leading the next generation of Isrealites into the Promised Land, which Moses never got to see himself.
Then there's the problem of Numbers 12:3...
"Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth."
If Moses wrote that himself, it's hard to make a strong case for his humility, isn't it?
Deuteronomy 34:10 makes it even tougher...
"There has never been another prophet like Moses"
Since most of the Hebrew prophets came after Moses, it seems strange (assuming that it was divinely revealed to Moses what the prophets would be like) that this line would be written in the past tense... unless it was written by somebody else after the time of the prophets.
So, in spite of my getting mixed up on whether his death is recorded in Exodus or Deuteronomy, there's no debate that it happened before the end of the five books, which means that he either recorded his own death (after failing to see the Promised Land himself) and the events which followed (not to mention constant references of things which stand "to this day"), or that somebody else picked up where he left off (some scholars like to say Joshua filled in the gaps), or else it was written by some other person(s) entirely.
Since most people who believe in evolution do not believe in a God who created them
Actually, you are wrong again. The vast majority of scientists who study evolution (at least in Western society) believe in God. This included Darwin himself.
Yeah well, the religious acceptance of such an act is the least of the worries of anyone attempting to commune with the dead.
Really? If you were a Catholic or Fundamentalist, I would think that "this shit is not working" is a considerably less worrisome outcome than "hey, it worked! Now I'm going to burn in Hell forever for practicing witchcraft."
There's a difference, which apparently was important enough to behead people over. Just sayin'.
That kind of reminds me of the episode of "Bless Me, Father" when they had a joint eccumenical service with the local Anglicans. Pardon me for forgetting character names:
Minister: It's so wonderful to see Catholics and Protestants praying together.
Priest: Oh, no no no. We were not praying together at all! For us, worshipping with Protestants is forbidden. We were not praying with you - you were praying with us.
Minister: That's a very subtle distinction.
Priest (with a mischievous grin): I'm glad you can appreciate it.
If I recall corectly, the Pentateuch was writen by Moses as dictated to him by God.
Which, if true, must have been very depressing to Moses, since his death is recorded in the second of the the five books.
It's cheaper for someone to just buy a small TV and put it in the room with their exercise equipment than to dish out for a video enabled phone or iPod.
Unless, as most people who use such machines, they don't one one of their own and work out in health clubs.
Also, it's only cheaper to buy a small TV if you don't already own a video enabled phone or an iPod.
Also, there's no need to mark out any letters from "YHWH"
That spelling is already omitting all of the vowel characters (and, if traditional teaching is to be observed, most of the name is omitted here as well. "YHWH" simply means "I am", which was the only part of God's true name for Himself which Moses was premitted to write down.)
Unlike some of the haters here, I believe you are sincere.
That said, you're way off base.
and evolution comes alogn and says that matter is eternal: we've been in an unending cycle of compression and expansion of matter for eternity
Oh, and way out of date, too. That theory has not been the most popular model for a long time now. Even formor advocates of it, such as Stephen Hawking, have abandoned it in favor of the "Big Bang" theory.
See... that's what scientists do. They adjust their theories based on available fact.
Your notion, that the universe was designed, will never change or falter, no matter what facts come along to disrupt it. That makes it religion. Not that religion is a bad thing at all. I'm a believer myself. The point here is that science can not rely on tradition, dogma, or scripture. That which can not be demonstrated or falsified with raw fact alone is completely outside the scope of science.
In other words:
"Things evolve." That's science. We can see it happen, we can see evidence that it has happened.
"Things were designed to evolve by a loving God." That's religion. Until a peer-reviewed journal submits a valid proof of the existence (or non-existence) of God, science is, and must remain, mute on the subject.
Of course, it'd probably be best if fundmentalists actually talked to, say, the rabbis who wrote the whole thing down.
How exactly is that going to happen?
My thought as well. That comment had to be just about the most stupid thing I've seen written about religion in a long time.
To commune with the dead is occultist divination, and considered satanic by Catholics and Fundamentalists alike, so even if they could do it, it would be forbidden.
My point being movie as opposed to music is a group activity
Don't ever sit near me in a theater. K, thanks.
Some people have no sense of humor at all.
Video is nothing like this. I can't watch a TV show while I'm driving, exercising or working.
Working, no... but plenty of people commute via bus, train or ferry, so they could watch TV while they ride. (Not me. I drive to work like a regular American, but if I lived in a "dark blue" state where there was a good rail line and inadequite parking, I could see the need to watch episodes of "House" or something while trying not to talk to the people around me.)
A lot of people also use treadmills, stationary bikes, stair machines, etc., while watching TV. There could be money in making some kind of mounting bracket for attaching these gizmos to excercise equipment.
is that movie/ipod-likes screens are too small - 1. strain on eyes and 2. not many people can watch together
1. Hold it closer to your face. At the distance most people hold a paperback novel, it would be about the same relative "size" as looking at a 20" TV set from accross a small living room, which was actually a fairly typical viewing experience once upon a time.
2. Nobody else can hear the sound on your earphones anyway.
I think the video on the iPod is not really all that impressive of a feature, but some of the criticisms of it are downright silly.
Well, let's see...
The Original Series
The Animated Series
The Next Generation
Deep Space Nine
No, actually, that's only four. There were only four Star Trek TV series ever made. I don't see where you people are getting five, let alone six.
LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!!