"One Save" is one of the draws of games like Nethack. It's just a different attitude towards play. It does not work at all in games that aren't randomly generated each time.
Why are atheists so concerned with disproving God if they don't believe God exists and why is it always so focused on the Christian version of God?
I can only speak for myself, but I'm not concerned with disproving something that can't be disproved like your theory, or disproving something that's already been disproved, like the fundie theory. It is an interesting topic for discussion, but hardly a concern.
I think it is disturbing that you relate procreation to programming concepts and further disturbed by your detailed defense of what was supposed to be a humorous remark by including the fork() concept as it relates to programming.
I'd suspected you were a troll for acting disturbed about a software analogy on Slashdot, but if you really are disturbed, I have to wonder why. Do you find the likening of the beautiful and mysterious act of reproduction to cold, lifeless, logical programming concepts offensive, or is it something else?
My point was that God is not a scientific concept nor is it at odds in any fashion with science and falls completely outside the scope of scientific proof, theory, whatnot.
That's true of your concept, and you're implicitly (and correctly) rejecting all the concepts of God that did turn out to be scientific and wrong, though they dominated Western thought for Millenia.
BTW, your particular idea of God is only beyond the realm of science for the moment, it's not inherently so.
As an atheist, I don't demand that God be any one thing or another.
"Personally my view of God as a superior force also includes being able to manage infinitely complex systems."
This is what I mean when I say that all surviving theories of God (held by rational people) are not testable.
The fundie theory has the virtue of being disproved. Your theory can't even do that.
"That being said I think it is almost disturbing that you would relate procreation to recursion. Incidentally you left out all the life forms that actually fork to procreate."
I wasn't the first. This was a problem faced by the ancients. They didn't see how humans could "recurse" indefinitely without divine intervention. If a man's sperm is a little homonculus, or fully formed tiny human as one "godless" theory supposed, how does the homonculus form? Where does the sperm of the son reside when he himself is only sperm? They also weren't aware of reproduction by fission.
This problem wasn't solved until the idea of a genetic code that is distinct from the body and copied in a special process arose in the 19th century and was demonstrated in the 20th.
Theories about God as a motivating force for inexplicable behaviour: How does a whole human form in the womb of another human? Then a third human can form inside the second! This is a recursion problem that seems ordinary to computer types, but was dumbfounding to the ancients. One theory is that God shapes us in the womb. Another is that our children aren't actually whole, that God made Adam and Eve and that there is degradation from one generation to the next, not recursion.
God as origin of species. Why are there different creatures, where did they come from? Were the crafted by a superbeing, each separately?
How do the planets move? Must be God pushing them.
All of these eventually became testable (when suitably well defined) and were disproved. Many theories of God (he gave us an immortal soul) that were not testable are becoming testable and will almost certainly be disproved.
...leading to the possible marginalization of humanity.
The stories of complex biological systems are of increasing power and command of communities of smaller systems at the expense of independence of the smaller systems, to the point where we start thinking of the community as a single unit.
I don't see any reason why the evolution of human society won't follow the same pattern. Those cultures which demand and receive submission to the public good will far surpass (already have?) those that do not.
From the perspective of such a society, human brainpower will probably be for awhile relatively cheap compared to computing power, and there may always be distinct advantages in human thought and mobility over machines. So maybe not marginalization, but we'll have the choice of submitting to advanced societies or living in freer, second tier, easily dominated cultures.
Doesn't this allow indie designers access to the highest quality graphics for free? Doesn't it free up all game designers to make their models more abstract, allowing them to concentrate more on gameplay?
I went back and read through parts of the constitution and it's stated explicitly that the "persons" used to determine representation means persons in state, which is why convicts in Russian prisons don't count. It's also clear layed out, contrary to what I thought, that it does *not* mean persons directly represented. It means anyone (excluding non-tax paying Indians) who lives in the state. In other words, both my post and the parent post were wrong, but the grand-daddy post that said person is all inclusive was correct. It's not ambiguous if you read the whole document.
If "One Citizen, One Vote" were set in stone, you might have a point. But it isn't now, and it was much less so then. The founders were smart enough to write the rule so that it works whether some citizens don't get to vote or some non-citizens do.
Where's the -1 mod for misunderstanding the parent post? You're right about the NKVD, though. The guy at the rally would have been killed, and the guy at the library would have been sent to the gulag after they tried to force him to denounce some other people.
Life brings death, not the opposite. That is what ID, creationism, or whatever you want to call it states even though it should not have to for people who can detect it every day when a hearse goes by.
But life brings life, as anyone who's seen a baby carriage go by can atest. Where does that lead you?
I used to feel the same way till I found out that his poetry (and his prose) was an immitation of ancient styles. From that perspective, it's all very well written.
The Lord of the Rings is a book I can reread every decade and it grows on me each time, I learn knew words, passages that I skimmed over or thought were boring become my favorites, old characters I thought I knew appear in a different light, some subtlties take on new meaning for me, I come to enjoy this poem or that.
I believe now that the Lord of the Rings is a truly incredible feat of literature. Despite many surface similarities, it is wholy different than any other fantasy I have read, almost none of which could be called great literature.
While you are probably right on all points, there really won't be much discussion of Robert Jordan after today, except once when book 12 comes out. This is a discussion site and a pretty crude one, not a commiseration site. Somewhere the guy should be discussed frankly and Slashdot is a good spot for it.
Maybe it's just me, but when my loved ones die, I avoid reading Slashdot articles about them. There is a place for ripping on the dead, and that place is here, apparantly.
Does the spacecraft shed mirrors periodically or is there a single mirror base station? If it's shedding mirrors then you have a reaction mass you have to carry, if the former, how do you stop the thing?
Slashdot Mirror
"One Save" is one of the draws of games like Nethack. It's just a different attitude towards play. It does not work at all in games that aren't randomly generated each time.
Jupiter's not a system, he's a god ... a scoundrel. He'll smite you for calling him a system.
So you're saying they've turned into Republicans.
Why are atheists so concerned with disproving God if they don't believe God exists and why is it always so focused on the Christian version of God?
I can only speak for myself, but I'm not concerned with disproving something that can't be disproved like your theory, or disproving something that's already been disproved, like the fundie theory. It is an interesting topic for discussion, but hardly a concern.
I think it is disturbing that you relate procreation to programming concepts and further disturbed by your detailed defense of what was supposed to be a humorous remark by including the fork() concept as it relates to programming.
I'd suspected you were a troll for acting disturbed about a software analogy on Slashdot, but if you really are disturbed, I have to wonder why. Do you find the likening of the beautiful and mysterious act of reproduction to cold, lifeless, logical programming concepts offensive, or is it something else?
My point was that God is not a scientific concept nor is it at odds in any fashion with science and falls completely outside the scope of scientific proof, theory, whatnot.
That's true of your concept, and you're implicitly (and correctly) rejecting all the concepts of God that did turn out to be scientific and wrong, though they dominated Western thought for Millenia.
BTW, your particular idea of God is only beyond the realm of science for the moment, it's not inherently so.
Seconded. "What can you tell me about...Voo Doo?"
Any straight man who enjoys playing acting a woman for X hours a day is not straight. Therefore, no straight man plays MMORPGS.
As an atheist, I don't demand that God be any one thing or another.
"Personally my view of God as a superior force also includes being able to manage infinitely complex systems."
This is what I mean when I say that all surviving theories of God (held by rational people) are not testable.
The fundie theory has the virtue of being disproved. Your theory can't even do that.
"That being said I think it is almost disturbing that you would relate procreation to recursion. Incidentally you left out all the life forms that actually fork to procreate."
I wasn't the first. This was a problem faced by the ancients. They didn't see how humans could "recurse" indefinitely without divine intervention. If a man's sperm is a little homonculus, or fully formed tiny human as one "godless" theory supposed, how does the homonculus form? Where does the sperm of the son reside when he himself is only sperm? They also weren't aware of reproduction by fission.
This problem wasn't solved until the idea of a genetic code that is distinct from the body and copied in a special process arose in the 19th century and was demonstrated in the 20th.
Theories about God as a motivating force for inexplicable behaviour: How does a whole human form in the womb of another human? Then a third human can form inside the second! This is a recursion problem that seems ordinary to computer types, but was dumbfounding to the ancients. One theory is that God shapes us in the womb. Another is that our children aren't actually whole, that God made Adam and Eve and that there is degradation from one generation to the next, not recursion.
God as origin of species. Why are there different creatures, where did they come from? Were the crafted by a superbeing, each separately?
How do the planets move? Must be God pushing them.
All of these eventually became testable (when suitably well defined) and were disproved. Many theories of God (he gave us an immortal soul) that were not testable are becoming testable and will almost certainly be disproved.
...leading to the possible marginalization of humanity.
The stories of complex biological systems are of increasing power and command of communities of smaller systems at the expense of independence of the smaller systems, to the point where we start thinking of the community as a single unit.
I don't see any reason why the evolution of human society won't follow the same pattern. Those cultures which demand and receive submission to the public good will far surpass (already have?) those that do not.
From the perspective of such a society, human brainpower will probably be for awhile relatively cheap compared to computing power, and there may always be distinct advantages in human thought and mobility over machines. So maybe not marginalization, but we'll have the choice of submitting to advanced societies or living in freer, second tier, easily dominated cultures.
Science never have and never will prove or disprove God.
That's a polite way of saying that all testable theories of God have been disproved, but plenty of untestable ones remain.
My lord, you are like a stream of bat's piss...
Oscar Wilde Sketch
Doesn't this allow indie designers access to the highest quality graphics for free? Doesn't it free up all game designers to make their models more abstract, allowing them to concentrate more on gameplay?
I went back and read through parts of the constitution and it's stated explicitly that the "persons" used to determine representation means persons in state, which is why convicts in Russian prisons don't count. It's also clear layed out, contrary to what I thought, that it does *not* mean persons directly represented. It means anyone (excluding non-tax paying Indians) who lives in the state. In other words, both my post and the parent post were wrong, but the grand-daddy post that said person is all inclusive was correct. It's not ambiguous if you read the whole document.
If "One Citizen, One Vote" were set in stone, you might have a point. But it isn't now, and it was much less so then. The founders were smart enough to write the rule so that it works whether some citizens don't get to vote or some non-citizens do.
If a person can't vote, they aren't represented.
No kidding. Half the Hooters girls are men now.
Where's the -1 mod for misunderstanding the parent post? You're right about the NKVD, though. The guy at the rally would have been killed, and the guy at the library would have been sent to the gulag after they tried to force him to denounce some other people.
Nope, which only proves I'm human, not that anything is possible.
Doughnut ewe mean they're?
Life brings death, not the opposite. That is what ID, creationism, or whatever you want to call it states even though it should not have to for people who can detect it every day when a hearse goes by.
But life brings life, as anyone who's seen a baby carriage go by can atest. Where does that lead you?
Put three or four mirrors on the moon and you should be okay earth side.
You might be able to do something similar with Martian moons, but at least Mars is atmosphere is much thinner for surface mirrors.
Some Lagrange points are supposed to be stable, but I have no idea how much delta v you can take before you get knocked out of one.
Shouldn't the photons increase in frequency for decelerating ships and decrease in frequency for accelerating ships?
I used to feel the same way till I found out that his poetry (and his prose) was an immitation of ancient styles. From that perspective, it's all very well written.
The Lord of the Rings is a book I can reread every decade and it grows on me each time, I learn knew words, passages that I skimmed over or thought were boring become my favorites, old characters I thought I knew appear in a different light, some subtlties take on new meaning for me, I come to enjoy this poem or that.
I believe now that the Lord of the Rings is a truly incredible feat of literature. Despite many surface similarities, it is wholy different than any other fantasy I have read, almost none of which could be called great literature.
While you are probably right on all points, there really won't be much discussion of Robert Jordan after today, except once when book 12 comes out. This is a discussion site and a pretty crude one, not a commiseration site. Somewhere the guy should be discussed frankly and Slashdot is a good spot for it.
Maybe it's just me, but when my loved ones die, I avoid reading Slashdot articles about them. There is a place for ripping on the dead, and that place is here, apparantly.
Does the spacecraft shed mirrors periodically or is there a single mirror base station? If it's shedding mirrors then you have a reaction mass you have to carry, if the former, how do you stop the thing?