This is a very good point. I'm working right now with a seasoned, technically savy C++ developer who has worked in the Microsoft Windows world for the last 10 years, but now is forced to do some work on Linux. He says he feels like he is taking a step backwards because of the increased use of the command-line and the inconsistent look and feel of GUI applications.
I've been using Ubuntu for the last 6 months and I think they're moving in the right direction here by focusing on a clean, GUI based desktop user experience. I predict that in a couple of years, Ubuntu will categorically prove Tom Yager wrong.
In the case of Tolkien, as the stories of Middle Earth developed over the years, they got better. The Lord of the Rings is much richer than The Hobbit, and I think The Hobbit was enriched by the addition of The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion, and the subsequent posthumously published books have further enhanced the Middle Earth world. Unfortunately, as Lucas has continued to mess with the Star Wars story, it has continued to decline (midichlorians for example).
Hi-tech consumer electronics have bad investments for several years now. I always tell people to make electronics buying decisions based on the current capabilities and the current price. Don't worry about what you will be able to buy tomorrow if today's device does what you need today at a price that you're willing to pay today, because you can be pretty sure that in a few months, you will be able to find a better deal.
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 1
That you assumed "religion" is synonomous with Christianity shows complete hubris.
I don't think he is assuming "religion" as synonomous with Christianity, but pointing out the fact that Christianity is especially maligned in games more than other religions. Just like your post especially maligns Christianity more than other religions, e.g. "Most gammers are relativlee intellegent and can see through the hokum".
1. Blame AppleWorks first. Before excel it made spreadsheets like databases.
I believe Lotus 1-2-3 predates AppleWorks. It combined spreadsheet calculation, graphing, and data management into one program. Its success in the marketplace spawned many other "integrated" programs such as AppleWorks. Now that multi-tasking operating systems and inter-application communications are the norm, such integrated applications have dropped to the status of budget-buy suites.
It is much easier for companies to support a whole distribution, rather than your own custom configuration. Even if HP's product does not fit your needs, it could fit a lot of other people's needs, getting Linux on more desktops, and encouraging the development of more applications that might be useful to you.
Well here's another small sample size. I have had two iBooks, and the only problem I've had is a hard drive went bad after over two years on the older one. Apple fixed it in two days.
Maybe I should try selling my HP-32S on Ebay. It's a nice calculator, but I never use it. I have it at work for the purpose of doing base conversions and simple calculations, but I usually just run an interactive Ruby session, where I have better command-line editing, and I don't have to dig the 32S out of my desk drawer. Maybe there's an engineer out there that could put it to good use.
I bought a Mac with OS X about three years ago after being frustrated with some things on Linux. I've been very happy with OS X, which I'm now running on an iBook. However, I needed another computer at home, and I bought a $500 Dell special and threw Fedora Core 1 on it, and I'm delighted at how much things have improved in the Linux world over the last three years. Everything, including sound, video, and USB, was configured automatically by the installer and it's working well. Although there are some things that are nicer on OS X, I think I'm going to like having both systems.
My next project is getting Rendezvous going on Fedora so that it plays nicer with the iBooks.
Fortunately we don't have to be worried about people getting killed by a regex engine.
Including sales tax in the price
on
Making Change
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· Score: 1
Unfortunately, the sales tax rate is not the same everywhere. When I buy a coffee at the Starbucks in Sherman, TX, where I live, it costs $1.51. However, when I drive into Dallas for work and buy the same kind of Starbucks coffee, it costs $1.52. This is because I'm paying an extra DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) tax that I don't pay in Sherman.
If stores were to include the tax into a nice round number, then they will essentially have to charge less for the same product in Dallas than they would in outlying areas.
But if you do make it to the end, the author says "the hundred-year language could, in principle, be designed today". In fact, he is designing a new dialect of Lisp called "Arc" that he hopes will last 100 years.
I read about it, and it certainly would address issues that have kept me from using Lisp. I hope he is able to produce something soon that meets his design goals because it could easily replace Python as my favorite hacking language.
I will agree that he is long winded. (I wonder if his textbooks are like his web writing.) He seems to value brevity of code, but that doesn't seem to apply to his words!;)
I liked Turbo Pascal too, but before that, my first programming environment outside of BASIC was Apple II Pascal. When I got that, my Apple II finally felt like a real computer.
However, after a while the limitations of Pascal did become a pain, and when I got to use C on BSD Unix in college, I never wanted to go back to Pascal. I do sometimes have a little nostalgia for it, though. If I needed to dive into some Delphi or Kylix project someday, it might be fun.
Most atheists I know would not change their convictions on the basis of a SciFi movie. Maybe you meant Agnostic?
Star Wars opened my fourteen year old mind to the possibility of the existance of a mystical reality in the midst of a technological world. Up until that point, I had believed the idea that religion and science were incompatible. Star Wars did not prove this to me, nor did I base my life on it, but it did communicate the possibility.
Would you mind sharing the "objective reasons" for the Bible's credibility?
Yes, because there is a lot of it, and it would take a lot of work to stick it in a Slashdot post. I don't think you sincerely want to know, but are just looking for things to shoot down. If you are truly interested, I recommend Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.
You seem to be jumping from one set of beliefs to another, getting hooked then disenchanted. Is it just you or does it point to a deeper flaw in Christianity (or perhaps in religion in general)?
What it shows is the vastness of the reality of God. If you were to look at the theologies I listed, you would see that they go from a more simplistic to more comprehensive expressions of the same central truth of Christ. They also go backwards in time, with Catholic theology being the oldest. Calvinism is a reaction against Catholicism, and fundamentalism is a reaction against Protestant liberalism. Although each movement had some valid points, they tended to overreact and throw out the baby with the bathwater. However, these problems are not apparant on the surface. I suppose that if I had started in the fullness of Catholic thought, I would have stayed there.
Sounds like a self-imposed limitation. Why not evaluate non-Christian beliefs as well.
I am interested in non-Christian beliefs. The best of some non-Christian theoligies are closer to the truth than the worst of Christian theologies. Jesus Christ is the creator of all of mankind, and His Spirit permeates the world. Non-Christians who seek the truth are seeking Christ, even if they don't know it. When they reveal truth, it is Christ that they are revealing.
Science strives to arrive at objective truths. However, the number of question that objective truths can answer is relatively small.
That is my point. There is much more to life than what science can show us, including the most important questions of life. You seem to be saying that the answers to these questions are neither true or false because they cannot be determined scientifically. Well I'm not content with giving up at that point. If you are truly interested in seeing if there is truth in beauty, love, faith, and morals, then I can help you. But as long as you insist that there isn't, I don't have much basis on which to argue with you.
And for the record, I think society would do a lot better to reject the romantic idea that there are realities "outside the limits of science", which is not to say we should reject ideas we don't have the means to understand scientifically, but to reject the notion of transcendence.
And for the record, I think the exact opposite. I'll see you at the finish line.;)
Which theological or philosophical systems are more true than the others?
What objective criteria was used to arrive at that conclusion.
If it were that easy, philosophy and theology wouldn't be much fun, would it? We're talking about an infinite God and the meaning of life. These things can't be distilled down to a Slashdot post. The most important thing to know is that the pursuit of truth is a journey. Any finite human being who says that he has all the answers is either deluded or lying. You must keep seeking the truth your whole life. It is too easy to give up and claim that there is no such thing.
I was an atheist until I saw Star Wars, almost 26 years ago. That awoke in me the possibility that there is something that transcends this physical universe. My plan was to investigate the major world religions, but I soon became convinced that the Bible was a supernatural book with a message from God. Although there were objective reasons for me to believe the credibility of the Bible, there was also a deep subjective knowledge of its truth.
In college, I became dissatisfied with the Bible-fundamentalism that I first encountered in High School, and I moved into Calvinism. I found Calvin more satisfying than 20th century Christian fundamentalism because it was more comprehensive and rational. However, after a few years I became dissenchanted with the inconsistancies of that system, and I gave up on theology for about ten years.
Then about 5 years ago, I began following a trail that has lead to Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Roman Catholic theology, and there I have found a richness that is far beyond anything I saw in Protestantism. I have learned from the Orthodox the problem of trying to reduce God to a system, which is a mistake many Protestants make. The Orthodox stress the mystery of God, and so I have learned to not expect to find a perfect system.
I'm not completely against systems, however. It is a way that we can organize what we do know. I want to study St. Thomas Aquinas someday soon. I'm about to read a book by a 20th century Catholic theologian named Hans Urs Von Baltazar.
Through all of my searching, the person of Jesus Christ has become more and more important. It really has been a process of getting to know Him personally. It makes sense, because He did say that He is the truth. So now my primary criteria for evaluating theological and philosophical systems is if they will help me, or others, grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. So according to that criteria, I rate Plato a little higher than Aristotle, because Plato focuses on a transcendant reality, but Aristotle is very "earth bound". However, Aristotle's disciplined method is very powerful, and can be quite useful in a Christian context, as Aquinas demonstrates.
This is probably not what you wanted, but it is what I have to give. I wish you well in your journey.
act (observations) and belief have done me just fine, so far. Science can't do anything with unobservable reality, but neither can I.
There are a lot of things that are somewhat observable, but cannot be scientifically verified. We still have to make truth judgments for many of these things, even if science can't answer the question. The original article was in the context of courts of law. A court has to judge the truth of an accusation, even if it can't be scientifically proved. It would be nice if every case could be proved scientifically, but that's not reality. Society can't afford to ignore all questions that are outside of the limits of science.
Science is a wonderful discipline, and humanity has benefited greatly from it. It is not all-powerful, however, although many are religiously devoted to it. For myself, I've chosen a bigger God.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Hitler would have no problem with human embryonic experimentation.
ID is not the same as creationism. There is no timeline for ID, just criticism of evolution through random mutation.
This is a very good point. I'm working right now with a seasoned, technically savy C++ developer who has worked in the Microsoft Windows world for the last 10 years, but now is forced to do some work on Linux. He says he feels like he is taking a step backwards because of the increased use of the command-line and the inconsistent look and feel of GUI applications.
I've been using Ubuntu for the last 6 months and I think they're moving in the right direction here by focusing on a clean, GUI based desktop user experience. I predict that in a couple of years, Ubuntu will categorically prove Tom Yager wrong.
In the case of Tolkien, as the stories of Middle Earth developed over the years, they got better. The Lord of the Rings is much richer than The Hobbit, and I think The Hobbit was enriched by the addition of The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion, and the subsequent posthumously published books have further enhanced the Middle Earth world. Unfortunately, as Lucas has continued to mess with the Star Wars story, it has continued to decline (midichlorians for example).
I would suspect that he would, since he is himself a Lisp hacker. I think he would agree that Lisp is to Python as Python is to Java.
Hi-tech consumer electronics have bad investments for several years now. I always tell people to make electronics buying decisions based on the current capabilities and the current price. Don't worry about what you will be able to buy tomorrow if today's device does what you need today at a price that you're willing to pay today, because you can be pretty sure that in a few months, you will be able to find a better deal.
I don't think he is assuming "religion" as synonomous with Christianity, but pointing out the fact that Christianity is especially maligned in games more than other religions. Just like your post especially maligns Christianity more than other religions, e.g. "Most gammers are relativlee intellegent and can see through the hokum".
1. Blame AppleWorks first. Before excel it made spreadsheets like databases.
I believe Lotus 1-2-3 predates AppleWorks. It combined spreadsheet calculation, graphing, and data management into one program. Its success in the marketplace spawned many other "integrated" programs such as AppleWorks. Now that multi-tasking operating systems and inter-application communications are the norm, such integrated applications have dropped to the status of budget-buy suites.
It is much easier for companies to support a whole distribution, rather than your own custom configuration. Even if HP's product does not fit your needs, it could fit a lot of other people's needs, getting Linux on more desktops, and encouraging the development of more applications that might be useful to you.
Well here's another small sample size. I have had two iBooks, and the only problem I've had is a hard drive went bad after over two years on the older one. Apple fixed it in two days.
Maybe I should try selling my HP-32S on Ebay. It's a nice calculator, but I never use it. I have it at work for the purpose of doing base conversions and simple calculations, but I usually just run an interactive Ruby session, where I have better command-line editing, and I don't have to dig the 32S out of my desk drawer. Maybe there's an engineer out there that could put it to good use.
I bought a Mac with OS X about three years ago after being frustrated with some things on Linux. I've been very happy with OS X, which I'm now running on an iBook. However, I needed another computer at home, and I bought a $500 Dell special and threw Fedora Core 1 on it, and I'm delighted at how much things have improved in the Linux world over the last three years. Everything, including sound, video, and USB, was configured automatically by the installer and it's working well. Although there are some things that are nicer on OS X, I think I'm going to like having both systems.
My next project is getting Rendezvous going on Fedora so that it plays nicer with the iBooks.
It should also be based on reality. If there is a personal God, then transcending that concept would miss reality.
Fortunately we don't have to be worried about people getting killed by a regex engine.
Unfortunately, the sales tax rate is not the same everywhere. When I buy a coffee at the Starbucks in Sherman, TX, where I live, it costs $1.51. However, when I drive into Dallas for work and buy the same kind of Starbucks coffee, it costs $1.52. This is because I'm paying an extra DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) tax that I don't pay in Sherman.
If stores were to include the tax into a nice round number, then they will essentially have to charge less for the same product in Dallas than they would in outlying areas.
But if you do make it to the end, the author says "the hundred-year language could, in principle, be designed today". In fact, he is designing a new dialect of Lisp called "Arc" that he hopes will last 100 years.
;)
I read about it, and it certainly would address issues that have kept me from using Lisp. I hope he is able to produce something soon that meets his design goals because it could easily replace Python as my favorite hacking language.
I will agree that he is long winded. (I wonder if his textbooks are like his web writing.) He seems to value brevity of code, but that doesn't seem to apply to his words!
It's very portable since everything will be running Linux by then. :)
Bill Gates will weep blood, not tears! Death to the Microsoft infidels! ;)
Maybe it's blood, and that's why Mars is red. What would you expect from the god of war? ;)
I liked Turbo Pascal too, but before that, my first programming environment outside of BASIC was Apple II Pascal. When I got that, my Apple II finally felt like a real computer.
However, after a while the limitations of Pascal did become a pain, and when I got to use C on BSD Unix in college, I never wanted to go back to Pascal. I do sometimes have a little nostalgia for it, though. If I needed to dive into some Delphi or Kylix project someday, it might be fun.
Most atheists I know would not change their convictions on the basis of a SciFi movie. Maybe you meant Agnostic?
Star Wars opened my fourteen year old mind to the possibility of the existance of a mystical reality in the midst of a technological world. Up until that point, I had believed the idea that religion and science were incompatible. Star Wars did not prove this to me, nor did I base my life on it, but it did communicate the possibility.
Would you mind sharing the "objective reasons" for the Bible's credibility?
Yes, because there is a lot of it, and it would take a lot of work to stick it in a Slashdot post. I don't think you sincerely want to know, but are just looking for things to shoot down. If you are truly interested, I recommend Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.
You seem to be jumping from one set of beliefs to another, getting hooked then disenchanted. Is it just you or does it point to a deeper flaw in Christianity (or perhaps in religion in general)?
What it shows is the vastness of the reality of God. If you were to look at the theologies I listed, you would see that they go from a more simplistic to more comprehensive expressions of the same central truth of Christ. They also go backwards in time, with Catholic theology being the oldest. Calvinism is a reaction against Catholicism, and fundamentalism is a reaction against Protestant liberalism. Although each movement had some valid points, they tended to overreact and throw out the baby with the bathwater. However, these problems are not apparant on the surface. I suppose that if I had started in the fullness of Catholic thought, I would have stayed there.
Sounds like a self-imposed limitation. Why not evaluate non-Christian beliefs as well.
I am interested in non-Christian beliefs. The best of some non-Christian theoligies are closer to the truth than the worst of Christian theologies. Jesus Christ is the creator of all of mankind, and His Spirit permeates the world. Non-Christians who seek the truth are seeking Christ, even if they don't know it. When they reveal truth, it is Christ that they are revealing.
Science strives to arrive at objective truths. However, the number of question that objective truths can answer is relatively small.
That is my point. There is much more to life than what science can show us, including the most important questions of life. You seem to be saying that the answers to these questions are neither true or false because they cannot be determined scientifically. Well I'm not content with giving up at that point. If you are truly interested in seeing if there is truth in beauty, love, faith, and morals, then I can help you. But as long as you insist that there isn't, I don't have much basis on which to argue with you.
And for the record, I think society would do a lot better to reject the romantic idea that there are realities "outside the limits of science", which is not to say we should reject ideas we don't have the means to understand scientifically, but to reject the notion of transcendence.
And for the record, I think the exact opposite. I'll see you at the finish line. ;)
Fair enough. Please answer these two questions:
If it were that easy, philosophy and theology wouldn't be much fun, would it? We're talking about an infinite God and the meaning of life. These things can't be distilled down to a Slashdot post. The most important thing to know is that the pursuit of truth is a journey. Any finite human being who says that he has all the answers is either deluded or lying. You must keep seeking the truth your whole life. It is too easy to give up and claim that there is no such thing.
I was an atheist until I saw Star Wars, almost 26 years ago. That awoke in me the possibility that there is something that transcends this physical universe. My plan was to investigate the major world religions, but I soon became convinced that the Bible was a supernatural book with a message from God. Although there were objective reasons for me to believe the credibility of the Bible, there was also a deep subjective knowledge of its truth.
In college, I became dissatisfied with the Bible-fundamentalism that I first encountered in High School, and I moved into Calvinism. I found Calvin more satisfying than 20th century Christian fundamentalism because it was more comprehensive and rational. However, after a few years I became dissenchanted with the inconsistancies of that system, and I gave up on theology for about ten years.
Then about 5 years ago, I began following a trail that has lead to Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Roman Catholic theology, and there I have found a richness that is far beyond anything I saw in Protestantism. I have learned from the Orthodox the problem of trying to reduce God to a system, which is a mistake many Protestants make. The Orthodox stress the mystery of God, and so I have learned to not expect to find a perfect system.
I'm not completely against systems, however. It is a way that we can organize what we do know. I want to study St. Thomas Aquinas someday soon. I'm about to read a book by a 20th century Catholic theologian named Hans Urs Von Baltazar.
Through all of my searching, the person of Jesus Christ has become more and more important. It really has been a process of getting to know Him personally. It makes sense, because He did say that He is the truth. So now my primary criteria for evaluating theological and philosophical systems is if they will help me, or others, grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. So according to that criteria, I rate Plato a little higher than Aristotle, because Plato focuses on a transcendant reality, but Aristotle is very "earth bound". However, Aristotle's disciplined method is very powerful, and can be quite useful in a Christian context, as Aquinas demonstrates.
This is probably not what you wanted, but it is what I have to give. I wish you well in your journey.
act (observations) and belief have done me just fine, so far. Science can't do anything with unobservable reality, but neither can I.
There are a lot of things that are somewhat observable, but cannot be scientifically verified. We still have to make truth judgments for many of these things, even if science can't answer the question. The original article was in the context of courts of law. A court has to judge the truth of an accusation, even if it can't be scientifically proved. It would be nice if every case could be proved scientifically, but that's not reality. Society can't afford to ignore all questions that are outside of the limits of science.
Science is a wonderful discipline, and humanity has benefited greatly from it. It is not all-powerful, however, although many are religiously devoted to it. For myself, I've chosen a bigger God.