Solomon's father was David, who did not lead a tranquil life - he is the author of most of the Psalms and his life had many crisises such as Absalom's rebellion, etc.
Ahh, the Absolom rebellion. A very trying time for David. Probably a more horrible series of events than any of us have experienced. Do you remember what he said when he was leaving his home and kingdom, after many of his friends had deserted him for Absolom, and he was fleeing for his life with only his clothing and probably a sword around his waist?
This is when he composed the 23 Psalm. He wrote about how his "Cup runneth over" referring to his state of "blessing" and yet he had only a few friends and followers with him and no posessions.
He also said: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." David wrote this down as Absolom was literally gathering a group of soldiers and men who had formerly been loyal to David to follow David into the mountains and to kill him.
From the entire tone of his writing you would assume that this guy was living the easy life, but the exact opposite was true. Ejected from his home, his throne ursurped, betrayed by friends and those he loved and served, about to be killed by the same, and he's talking about how good his life is.
Either he's crazy, or he knows something that many people don't. I think it is the latter, and it can be summed up in this phrase: "I have learned to be satisfied with the things I have and with everything that happens. I know how to live when I am poor, and I know how to live when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens..."
David knew this secret, so did Paul, the guy who wrote that phrase, and to me, THAT is success...the only success that matters.
"the work of 2-5% of the populace is sufficent to fill a supermarket."
Actually the situation in the USA is different than any time in recorded history in that about 5% of the population here can feed all of us and most of the REST OF THE WORLD.
Not only that, but we preserve our food. Ironic that starving people are happy to consume all the BHT we can throw into a can of yams, while obese people here go on "health food" kick.
Another thing to consider is that two people can have the exact same set of circumstances and have different levels of fulfilment.
For example, Solomon's father (from whom Solomon inherited his wealth and kingdon) was quite happy with the things that he had. When Solomon recieved them they only intensified his misery.
Part of this is can be due to the differences in people and their personalities. However, much of this has to do with the thoughts and motivations that circulate in the minds of people on a day to day basis.
Motivation is an oft overlooked piece of the "success" puzzle. How you percieve (what you THINK about) your environment and what drives you to do the things you do can be much more important than the actual actions you take and results you achieve.
In other words, get your head straight. Find out what is important to YOU and act on that motivation. Don't imitate the achievements of others and expect to find happiness.
"To me, his comments seem to be aimed at Genesis. Whether later chapter and verse explains in greater detail is irrelevant, as the hard-core creationists tend to be "strictly Genesis" minded."
So in other words, let's ignore what the Bible really says and stick with what some moron thinks is the right idea. Hmmm.
Sorry, I can't be a party to that kind of behavior. I would rather be corect and alone than stupid with everyone else.
Again, let me try to state this so that everyone can understand. If you think that the Genesis account of creation describes the creation of the universe you are wrong. I don't care if you are a Christian or not. The text says one thing, if you read it wrong due to lack of scholarship that dosen't magically make your mistake the truth. I don't know how much more plain I can make this.
Let's try analogy: If someone tells me that the Whinnie the Pooh book in my daughters room is a physics text, who's the idiot if I read it and try to put together a linear accelerator from the pictures in the book? It's even worse if someone else believes that I should have consulted the page on the honey bees instead of the one on where Pooh gets stuck when I built the magnetic arrays.
This is the way I see the arguments over creation and other "scientific" arguments for the origin of the universe. What's worse, the "Creationists" haven't even studied the Bible enough to know up from down, and the people who are trying to debunk it are arguing the merits of a standard model that hasn't even accounted for the observable phenomena in the universe, much less it's origin.
"I don't think he was belittling their abilities; rather he was acknowledging their limitations.
On the subject of limitations, there are some in the scientific community that believe that humanity does not posess the ability to comprehend the things that we observe in nature, much less the state of events at 10*-20 seconds after the "Big Bang." In other words, frame of reference might not even help US with the secrets of the creation of the universe.
Playing the Devil's advocate here, but maybe you could show me the body of scientific evidence that precludes the creation of the universe by a deity.
To do this, you might want to first create a comprehensive cosmological model of the universe so that you can explain the full spectrum of phenomena observed in the universe, and that also explains the origin and subsequent development of the universal structure we currently see. Oh, by the way, your model will have to account for all future discoveries before they are seen.
Let's look at this from another perspective: After reading a story about how much we DON'T KNOW about the universe, we are discussing the foibles of those who believe that it was created by God.
Does this not seem a little strange?
Here is a subject that is a declared mystery, and you are using it as an opportunity to try to debunk a belief structure that you cannot prove is wrong with the available evidence. In other words, your denial (even labeling!) of a "creation myth" is just as much an expression of faith as said "creation myth" itself. Or, in other words, since there is so much we don't know about the universe, how can you be sure that God did not create it?
It seems folly to me for the scientific community and individuals to embrace multiple and exceptionally disparate theories of the creation of the universe and then unquestioningly reject that one such acceptable theory could be divine in origin.
None of the many theories proposed by science has been shown to be correct, and the multiplicity of theories somehow does not seem to bother some people. However, if you include the words "God" or "Deity" or "supernatural" all of a sudden the theory must be crap and the result of weak minded people.
To me it just seems like these individuals have an agenda and that they are trying to support it with pseudo-scientific reinforcements. Sounds like they are writing their own religion and using the basis of science to strengthen their faith.
Then again, maybe the unstated premise in cosmological studies is: Since God does not exist, how did all this get here? This seems to make more sense in the context, however, since there has never been a single piece of evidence presented to prove the idea that God does not exist, it places the results of anything based upon this premise on shaky ground.
Anyways, I say all this to make the point that it seems strange to me that people will think, "Ya, string theory sounds good" and say "Well, it could have been the Big Bang," and then again state "I bet it's a steady-state regurgitating do-hickie universe!" But the moment you say, "What if God really did create the universe?" They FREAK out on you like you are some sort of Nazi Storm Trooper. Again the curious part is that there is no evidence to prove that either of you is right or wrong, and yet your typical "scientific minded" individual will reject the idea out of mind, all the while calling you a "sheep" or "weak minded" for choosing to believe in something other than a scientist's view of what the universe might have been created like. Never mind that the models presented are acknowledged to be incomplete and unproven, SCIENCE made them so they must be true!
Reminds me of the creationists that doggedly stick by their personal interpretation of what the Bible says, even though the original languages say something entirely different. In other words, people on both sides of the tracks are acting in the same manner: they will deny anything that contradicts their personal beliefs without giving reason or logic a chance to consider the facts.
Karma: Excellent (mostly from refraining from killing all the wankers who are really begging for it)
"I still need help answering this [slashdot.org] question
Can't post in your journal, so I will post it here.
If you are postulating a diety that respects free will of the lesser creation, then your question is irrelevant.
By this I mean that if you have a diety that does something to force you to believe in it, then it is circumventing your free will and ability to decide whether you want to believe in it.
The out for this, of course, is that the individual can reply "Nothing!" However, a truly ultra-powerful(and somewhat smartass) diety could utter the word "Nothing" right back to you in such a nuanced way that it would make you believe in it. Dieties are sooo tricky to deal with, just ask the ancient Greeks!
Now if the diety does not respect the free will of the lesser being, the discussion is moot as well because the diety could use its power to either extract from the mind of the individual the necessary things to say, or change the brain of the being so that he has no choice but to believe.
Furthermore, if the diety is the creating diety (the one who created the lesser being), the question would never come up in this circumstance because the diety would just create a bunch of creatures with locked-in belief structures that would ensure that the creatures believed in it.
"I think the people who take Creation literally is failing to see that God (if we assume there is one) was explaining this to people 2000 years ago. They didn't have any chance to understand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." "It's like trying to explain about having a baby to a kid"
From your comments I gather that you feel that societies of 2000 years ago were deficient in their ability to understand or reason.
Keep in mind that some of the greatest philosophers that ever lived lived at that time.
Furthermore, societies that predate the Romans by millenia created some fantastic wonders of engineering that required levels of rational thought and planning greater than we can probably imagine, especially considering the lack of technological tools they had at their disposal.
My personal belief is that while we have knowledge that ancient societies never dreamed of, some of those ancient societies had secrets we can only guess at as well. Just look at megalithic structures and such.
That being said, the way the Bible is written is anything but "abridged and simple." Case in point, you yourself do not even understand it. Furthermore, the account of the creation of the universe and the Earth is spread out over the entire Bible.
And on that note, the "Biblical account" of creation that most uninformed individuals refer to in Genesis does not describe the creation of the world or the universe. Both the world and the universe existed for immense spans of time before the creation of man, at least according to the Bible. However since most people do not read past the first chapter (if they read at all), and they don't consider the true meaning of the Bible from the original languages, they don't know that the Genesis account refers strictly to the creation of biological life on Earth. What you think you are reading in the English is not what it really says in the original Hebrew.
The Bible not only says the earth is older than most "Creationists" believe, but it also describes the earth as being packed in ice for a long period of time before man was on the earth. Sound familiar? It does to me, scientists have described evidence of massive Ice ages on the pre-history Earth.
Oh, also, Genesis was not written 2000 years ago. It was most likely written between 1200 and 1500 BC. That's about 3000 to 3500 years.
As an aside, I am horrified that a group of people as supposedly intelligent at the/. crowd would look at the parent post with it's obviously inacurate biological information and then mod it up as if the poster had something good to say. I don't expect him to get the parts right about the Bible, most Christians can't do that, but at least he can get the high school level biology stuff correct.
It is completely impossible to say anything truly intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
...the bastards have our number and there's no way we would be able to carry off a boycott.
Look at how many obviously moronic movies come out and as we watch the trailer we say "That movie looks so stupid, I wouldn't be caught dead in that theat...oooh she's naked!"
Next thing you know, there we are watching an over produced piece of theatrical krap just because some girl takes her top off in it.
They get our cash and we leave pseudo-satisfied enough to come back for more tripe next week.
If they didn't know us better than we know ourselves, if they didn't know how to push our buttons, we wouldn't have media as staple of our society.
Karma: Excellent (Mostly from refraining from kiling all those bastards who are really asking for it.)
I think that the detectors could be useful, but not unless they are set to detect minute levels of radioactive material.
Sure, it's unlikely that someone would transport a nuclear device through a subway, but then again, who has properly predicted the mode of operation of a terrorist or terrorist group?
More importantly, setting the detectors to a high level of sensitivity will allow detection of people who have handled radioactive materials. They would not have to actually have the materials on them, just have been in proximity to them at some recent time.
IANAL, but I am sure that having unusual radiation on your skin or clothes could be probable cause for a warrant to search someone's domocile or car. Sure, they guy could be a smoke detector repairman, but then again, maybe he has components to a dirty bomb in his basement. You may never know, unless you check.
I am actually surprised that they were only strip searched. If someone is radioactive and they fail to provide adequate information establishing the source of the radiation I would be inclined to search more than their body.
SickJoke
Anyways, how bad can it be. I mean these people alredy have CANCER, what's a little strip-search every time they go outside?
/SickJoke
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
My father had polio when he was 10. It wrecked his body. He had a bad case, and as usual it affected one side of his body worse than the other. He lost more use of his right side than his left, but as I said, it was bad.
He woke up out of a coma that he had been in for about a year on his 11th birthday. He had been in an iron lung all that time and was for quite a while after that too.
Doctors said he would NEVER walk again. He got caught up in school from the hospital and after alot of physical therapy was able to get out of the iron lung. He still had lost so much muscle tissue in his chest that he had only 1/3 of regular lung capacity.
He got a wheelchair and went back to school. Then highschool: graduated second in his class.
Went to college at Lamar and then Texas A&M. Earned THREE DEGREES. Computer science, mathematics, and masters in chemical engineering. Lettered in Soccer too! Don't ask!:) He was in a wheelchair the WHOLE TIME! The basketball players he tutored carried him to the upstairs classes he had. (He didn't weigh very much as polio destroys muscle tissue.)
By the end of his college years he had pushed himself so hard that with braces on both legs and crutches, he was able to walk.
After college he went to work for shell oil company in R&D. He retired from there in '92 due to, guess what, health problems.
When I see people that have full use of their arms and legs who are poor and don't have a job, all I can think about is how hard it was for my dad to do what he did. These people don't have half the trouble my father had, and even less of an excuse.
Sure he was smart, but it required more than just being smart to get where he was. Even getting out of bed was a massive chore for him. Yet he went out and kicked ass every day. He realized he was going to have to work twice as hard to get half the recongition and respect, because of his disability.
Physical pain, discrimination, disability, all of these things stood in his way, not to mention the fact that there weren't many handicap accessible places around. (I remember when Shell built him his own ramp to get into the R&D building. They hadn't needed it until then, nor had they thought of it.)
I feel like a heel sometimes, when I look at all he did with what he had to work with. I should be "the freakin' overlord of the planet by now" if I was half the man he was: my legs and arms and lungs work just fine.
Maybe being around him brought me to this thought, but I can't see how anyone can think different: People are what they choose to be, environment has little if nothing to do with where we go in life.
Even if we do help them to achieve self sustaining status, you have not eliminated the circumstances that led them to the problems that they have, and no I am not talking about rain or lack thereof.
Take Ethiopia. During the heyday of the commercials we all saw about how they were all staring in that country, the government of Ethiopia was throwing parties for the heads of state that cost the people of Ethiopia literally millions of dollars. No one points out that other parts of Ethiopia had plenty of food, and those that were starving had political views that were not in line with the ruling powers.
Or take Zimbabwe. These guys had a GREAT farming industry, and in a VERY short period of time they ruined it because of greed and prejudice.
What I am trying to point out is that most of this famine is caused by bad decisions on the part of those in power. Until you eliminate the greed and insensitivity of the governments in these places no amount of aid or help will change the situation.
For me the true test of the best sci-fi is this...RE-READABILITY!
If I can't read it at least two or three times without becoming bored or disgusted it's not worth the paper it is written on. More important is the book that makes you WANT to re-read it the moment you are done. Or the kind that has you begging the writer for a follow up book.
Oddly enough, some of the great books a I have read don't generate in me the desire to re-read them. Asimov's Foundation series is a one example. Loved it, but didn't want to go back there. Some of Heinlein's work was the same way, but most I have read three or four times and still love em.
The works of Niven have withstood my best efforts to wear them out. Probably due to the great central characters he creates, the mystery plots, and the hard sci-fi edge he incorporates into his stories. Integral Trees, Ringworld and the Ringworld Engineers, The Mote in God's Eye and following books, the great short stories, all seem to endure without fail. Truly, in my mind, one of the greatest sci-fi writers ever.
Card is another who wites stories that can be re-read obsessively. Treason is a lesser know favorite of mine. Similarly to Niven, Card creates great central characters. Unlike others, Orson's explores his characters weaknesses as much as thir strengths. And, oddly, some of his characters' strengths ARE their weaknesses. Think about it when next you read Card.
One of my other favorites it Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. Sort of a one hit wonder: it's kinda campy, but the story is so entertaining, and the characters so quirky that it never fails to reel me back in. By the way, this story was originally written as a series of short stories in "Analog" magazine.
Another great series is the Gateway/Heechee series by Fredrick Pohl. Nice hard Sci-Fi with a great cosmoligical twist. Complex, human characters. Describes time dilation from black holes and faster than light travel as an integral part of the story (in my case it was a great way for a ninth grader to be exposed to the concepts).
Last, but not least, Adams. Of course the Hitchiker's Guide and associated books rock, and the humor never ceases to amaze and amuse me. Teatime and Holistic Detective are also wonderful. Worn out a few paperbacks of both!
Oh, The Godmakers, by Herbert(and many others Dune and such included), and Catseye By Norton are also great re-readers.
I haven't included any Tolkien here because I don't consider his books Sci-Fi.
Any suggestions on other books that I can read (and then re-read!) would be helpful. Thanks!
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
Re:Religious paranoid idiots will ban anything
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Don't Stymie Nanotech
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So... you're saying there's a right interpretation and a wrong interpretation? That's... well, that's just stupid. No offense
So you are saying that the statements in the Bible are arbitrary and subject to the "tastes", as you put it, of the reader? I don't think that any serious Bible scholar would agree with you on this subject. Furthermore, the Bible itself states that it has a proper interpretation. By the way, are you one of those people who find truth in the statement: "That may be true for you, but it is not true for me"?
"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." I always enjoyed that part.
You may have enjoyed it, but this passage was not written for enjoyment. It was written to instruct believers in the policy of "a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong." According to the law, the girl you speak of was not to be punnished unless the man that was caught with her in the adulterous relationship was also punished in the same manner. Furthermore, some scholars believe that she was/had been involded in adulterous relationships with others that were in the crowd of stone wielding hypocrites. This was not an injunction against the death penalty, but instruction in the proper way to treat people, and in how NOT to abuse the law to further your own ends. By the way, the reason that the people were bringing her to be stoned to death is that the Old Testament law stated that if people were caught in an adulterous relationship they were to be killed.
"You're saying it's best to execute someone, on the chance that he might do something bad with the remainder of his natural life. Either we're both on solid ground, or we're both just plain wrong. You pick; I can live with either.
Like I said, the argument at best is a wash, meaning it has an equal and opposite corollary that offsets it perfectly, thereby resulting in no benefit from the argument. I also said at worst the argument is a further indictment of the guilty party and supports the idea of capital punnishment. The reason for this is the fact that the party in question is not in the punitive phase of a capital crime trial for handing out food to the homeless; the person obviously has been convicted of a capital crime and therefore has a debt to pay to the victim (some woud say to society, but that's a little impersonal, considering the very personal nature of killing someone).
"Also, your analogy begs the question, accountable to whom? If you're as much of a Bible scholar as you seem to be, you should know that only God can judge a man's actions, for only God can know what was in that man's heart. Where were you, Dread_ed, when He laid the foundations of the Earth?
With regard to capital punishemnt, people are accountable to the laws of their government. Transgression of law carries penalties, and it is not necessary for me to "judge" a person who has been convicted of a crime. The judgement of a court is VERY differnt than the Biblical term "passing judgement," which entalis passing judgement on someone in your mind with regard to their sins/status in life/personality traits or flaws. Also, it is not necessary to know what is in someone's heart when they comit a capital crime. The only thing that is necessary is to ascertain their guilt according to the law.
"Therefore, obviously, it is not a useful concept in deciding at what point a fetus becomes a biologically viable human being.
From a secular point of view, you are correct. From an epistmeological standpoint is has EVERYTHING to do with the believer's understanding of what makes a human being. Let me phrase it this way. Human life = body+soul. Body = genetically formed structure of cells produced from procreation. Soul = Spiritual aspect imputed at birth, by God, to the genetically formed body. If this is true, then there is not a human being in the womb. There is only a genetically formed repository for the soul which has yet to be imputed. Abortion with regard to law is also covered by a number of other doctrines in the Bible. One is the subject of "Crusader arrogance." This is the attempt of a believer to mold the world into a "Christian environment" by legislation, civil disobedience, or even worse, force. See the illustrations of the Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, people who bomb abortion clinics, and the current "religious right." To state it Socratically: Did God stop Satan from comitting the first sin in all creation? Did God stop Eve from biting the apple, or Adam? Since the answers are "No" and "no", who are you to force your spiritual beliefs on others when even God does not do this?
"Here's a little exercise for you. Find a woman who has just suffered a miscarriage. Try, just try, to console her by telling her that her baby wasn't really human because it didn't have a soul. After your bones knit, come back and tell us how it went over
If the person is a believer, they can console themselves through the function of their own priesthood, based upon their own knowledge of doctrine. Furthermore, if you ask someone who has had both 1)a miscarraige and 2)had a child die after the child was born, which is the more painful of the two to endure...I think you get my point. Anyways, if you were to embark on such a course of action to console someone you would find that it is impossible to counsel someone with knowledge and have them the better for it. Invariably you find that people must do their own searching and their own learning to have benefit from the knowledge. Just like the "conversation" we are having: from your point of view, if I am right, you would not be able to acknowledge it withouy doing your own study and investigation.
"the Bible includes a great many factual errors, none of which diminish its value as a book or as a religious symbol. Read on.In the book of Leviticus (11:6) it is said the rabbits chew their cud. This is not correct. Earlier in the same chapter (11:4), it says that camels do not have cloven hooves; they do. The book of Matthew (13:31-32) says that mustard seeds grow into trees
1) Read from the original languages. 2) remove foot from mouth. "Gregory of Nyssa (one of the Cappadocians) held the opinion that life quickens an organism from the first moment of its individual" "St. Thomas Aquinas established his own doctrine of ensoulment:"
Neither of these ideas are supported from the Bible. Just because someone who was famous once said it dosen't make it true. The addition of philisophical ideas or prejudices is without merit in this realm, IF you are a believer. Not trying to make enemies here, but if you compare the Catholic doctrines and the Bible, there are WAY too many discrepancies for me to consider their ideas more than delusions. They reject the sufficency of the work of Christ on the cross. They meld the levitical priesthood structure of the Old Testament with some of the church age doctrines of this age. Their heierarchical system is completely extra-biblical. They just made some stuff up out of thin air it seems. Not a good reference if you are trying to support your opinion from the Bible.
As to the simplicity of the subject, a little direct exposure to the right scriptures, in the original languages, with regard for the context, and translated with in light of the technical vocabulary of the Bible could clear this up. However, as I stated before, people just don't seem to learn without going through the process themselves. Unfortunately, there seems to be a preponderance of people in this world who would rather use the scriptures to reinforce what they already believe, instead of trying to devine what the scriptures actually say. Even then, one must be willing to put aside their arrogance and actually believe what is in the text if it conflicts with their close held worldview.
Re:Religious paranoid idiots will ban anything
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Don't Stymie Nanotech
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· Score: 1
Depends on how you interpret it.
No, it depends upon what it says. Interpretation is not a slippery thing that you can just arbitrarily apply. There is a science to it that involves processes and mechanics to extract and confirm the true meaning. It is rather easily applied once you understand the concept. Anyways, the Bible is quite clear upon the idea of a death penalty and is consistent from cover to cover on this subject. Unfortunately, people do not have the inclination to study (or even check a reference book). They take what they want to use and ignore the context.
The Bible is a big book, and there's a lot of stuff in there that appears to be contradictory at first glance. There's the eye-for-an-eye stuff in the Old Testament, and the turn-the-other-cheek stuff in the New Testament, for example. Reconciling these disparate doctrines is a job for a person with more patience than I have.
I guess I have more patience than you do because I read the entire paragraphs the statements you quoted are in. One refers to the judicial system of the old testament and is a rule for equal and opposite reaction so to speak. "Eye for an eye" prevents overcompensation for the victim and overpunnishment for the violator. The turn-the-other-cheek example is an interpersonal relationship mandate but it is based upon virtue gained through living as a Christian. It is completely seperate from the function of law or government. In the same New Testament as the "turn the other cheek" statement, Jesus tells his friends to carry swords to defend themselves from thieves. Looks contradictory, but if you understand the context and the actual meaning of what you are reading there is no contradiction. Unfortunately you can't just quote someone else who quotes the Bible, you have to study it. If you can't do that don't use it as a reference for an argument.
The chance that a person, duly incarcerated, can commit a crime is slim enough to be acceptable to many people.
Slim enough that they will comit another crime, or that they will comit a crime that might affect them? So is it's ok if we put murderers in prison and they murder other prison inmates, or guards? There will always be people in the periphery of criminals no matter where they are incarcerated. Also, life without parole is not the only punnishment for capital crimes in the US. Someone who comits a capital crime could easily be returned to society and comit other capital crimes. It happens EVERY DAY.
because the argument is based on the idea that it's better to err on the side of caution.
Try an analogy to solve this. A dog that attacks and kills is immediately put to sleep. No reprieve can save them. How much more accountable should a person be for their actions than a dog? Should they not know MUCH better than a dog than to attack another human? And yet when we kill the dog that attacks, we do it to err on the side of caution.
A person imprisoned for life can still do good things. A person executed for his crime is lost forever
A person, as I illustrated above, can also continue to comit crimes and hurt people from prison. Just because YOU feel safe that they are behind bars dosen't assure the safety of your uncle who got convicted of white collar crime and is in teh showers with this guy, or your sister who works in the cafeteria of the prison, or your father who is a prison guard. People escape fom prison too. Just dosen't hold water.
The concept of the "breath of life" is not meaningful in the context of what we now know about human development.
Let me rephrase the idea so you might be able to understand. Physical/genetic life and human life are two different things in the Bible. The human being, as described in the Bible, is not a human being until God adds the soul to it. This is done at the moment of birth. The addition of this additional essence is required to give the genetically formed body the status of a living person. This "soul" is not detectable under a microscope or evident though amniocentesis, and cannot be weighed as a differnce in weight between the unborn fetus and the newborn child. Therefore, ovbiously, it has nothing to do with our understanding of human fetal development.
Few could argue that a baby is not just as alive ten minutes before it is born as it is ten minutes after.
I think you missed the point, or didn't understand. Let me try to rephrase for you, again. The Bible states that there is no human life in the womb. The soul is imputed to the body at the moment of birth. Therefore, there is no human life in the womb. Now the next logical conclusion is this: IF you believe in the Bible, you should not consider the fetus in the womb human life. Again, this has nothing to do with biological life, it has to do with the belief system of the Bible with regard to what actually makes "human" life.
It's quite another thing to use it as a science textbook.
First, the Bible is accurate with regard to the "scientific" thigs that it makes reference to. However, the issue of life in the womb is not a scientific question with regard to the Bible. It is a spiritual one. Again, the definition of human life in the Bible includes more than just biology, it includes a spiritual aspect. Now, that is not to say that this concept should be used to help or hinder laws regarding abortion. All I am saying is that if someone is a Christian they should keep in mind what God has stated about human life and keep their mouth shut about the issue. Period. It has no bearing on someone who is not a Christian. It has no bearing on the law, except for the fact that Christians should not try to legislate against abortion. I has no bearing on those who are unbelievers because the concept of spiritual imputation at birth is irrelevant to them.
But the Bible should not be taken literally on matters about which biblical authors knew nothing
As the issue is described in the Bible, it is a spiritual issue. It started in the Garden of Eden when God breathed life into the body of man, and the same mechanics happen at each birth. The principle is repeated throughout the Bible in other circumstances, adn is evident in corrolary applications that are described in the Bible. Therefore, in this context, it is something that the writers of the Bible were quite well informed about.
Re:Religious paranoid idiots will ban anything
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Don't Stymie Nanotech
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Thought I might chime in with a perspective that is straight from the Bible. Keep reading, you might be surprised at what I have to say.
Quoted... "Capital punishment, for example, is morally wrong because the question of the time of a man's death is a choice that only God can make, and choosing to kill a man is to place oneself in the position of God, which is blasphemy, which is wrong."
Oddly enough, the Bible advocates a different stance to this. The concept of an eye for an eye also equates to a life for a life. Also, if taken at it's word, the Bible says that the authority system of government has the right to end the life of a member of society that infringes upon the right to life of other members of society. This is a basic outgrowth of what are called in the Bible "establishment principles." As described in the Bible, these principles are the set of moral rules that lead to a society that is free for everyone (not just Christians/believers). These rules have nothing to do with being a good Christian person. They have everythig to do with the function of a good government. In essence they are the Bible's form of perfect government. This is where the religious right people in the United States have really shown their ignorance of the text that they hold in such high esteem. I say this because the "establishment principles" the Bible describes preclude a form of government where religious doctrines are coded into law. Instead, the principles of sanctitiy of life, property, privacy, and freedom (for everyone in society!) are supposed to be the focus of government. In fact there is a Biblical injunction against legislating morality, and those who embark upon a crusade to do so are considered evil. The term that is used in the Bible to describe those who try to legislate thir morality is Moral Degeneracy, meaning that they are degenerate in their arrogance in their attempts to destroy the freedom of the members of sociey that do not believe exactly as they do.
Oh, by the way, your ethical argument against capital punnishment is faulty because the person could also do unspeakable things if they live. It could be argued that they are much more likely to comit crimes rather than do good because they have already shown a propensity in the past for breaking the law in heinous ways. At best the argumenbt as stated is a wash and therefore inconsequential. At worst it proves the opposite of what you used it for.
Anyways, religious principles should not be used to create legislation, but ethical and moral (morality being defined as sanctity of life, liberty, property, privacy) considerations are essential.
One last addition that addresses some things in this thread. As to the idea of abortion/stem cell research with regard to the Bible: There is no reason that any person that believes in the Bible should have anything to do with the abortion issue. The text is quite clear that God imputes life to the genetically formed body of a person at the moment of birth. The term "pneuma" in the Greek is used to describe the "breath of life" that is given by God at the monent of birth. In light of the spiritual aspects of humantiy that are described in the Bible, it is folly and arrogance for the Christian person to thing that humans create life through procreation. In other words, the Bible states clearly that until God imputes this additional, spiritual aspect into the body at birth, there is no "life." In addition, to bomb abortion clinics, or to harass doctors or people who are involved in the process, or to manipulate the judicial system to restrict abortion (see above) violates so many other Biblical principles that it is pathetic and ridiculous to even consider these people ambassadors of the Christian life that is described in the Bible.
The new BMW 7 series and the new Z4 use fiber in the airbag deployment system. This has a real world effect on the safety of the automobile.
Due to the fact that most collisions are over in a matter os miliseconds, electrically controlled airbag systems are kind of like cap-guns. In other words, as soon as they detect that one of their deployment parameters has been breached they must immediately go off. If they don't they will be too late to be effective.
The fiber in the BMW's ISIS system allows the car to gather data from many sensors around the vehicle that help it to get a "picture" of the way the accident is developing. Not only what direction the collison is coming from, but how fast it is propigating through the crumple-zones, etc. The system then calculates the optimal deployment timing for the airbags and sets them off according to the plan it has developed. Without fiber there would not be enough time for the car to design and implement the deployment plan. Now consider, the new 7 series BMW has two front airbags, side airbags for all four outboard seats, head airbags for all four outboard seats, and knee airbags for the front occupants. Furthermore, the front airbags have multiple deployment types depending on the severity of the collision and whether the front occupants have their belts on or not. There are also pre-tensioners on the seatbelts that help make sure the driver and passenger are properly situated in the seat to recieve the front airbag deployment. ALL of this is controlled by the ISIS system.
In addition, the 7 series has an optical entertainment bus that cotrols the stereo components, phone system, navigation system, and the DVD system. It is upgradable and expandable.
Fiber is great for cars, no emf problems, dosen't corrode, more reliable than electrical components (no shorts), but the neatest thing that may be coming for BMW is the possible addition of Blue Tooth technology for the phone system. This would allow ANYONE in the car with a compatible phone system to use the boosted transmitter/antenna system in the car along with voice activated/handsfree operation.
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ET: Nice to meet you...by the way, the entrance requirement for our ultra-powerful interglalactic league of creatures is the ability to properly model the folding characteristics of protein molecules...have you done this? Earth: Well...um...uh...see, we were looking for you, and well...we kinda put that aside for a... ET: Oh I see, well then we will just have to destroy you. Fire the "laser beam"! Earth: SPLAT!
Yet another illustration that it is not a good idea to put the cart in front of the horse, nor to rely on others to solve your problems.
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We could be lookng at one of those random mutations that dosen't end up in the genetic legacy. A cul de'sac in the evolutionary roadmap per se.
Or, if you ever read _Childhood's_End_ by Arthur C. Clarke, maybe we should check to see if they are telepatic and the world is going to get eaten by them when they melt it down for fuel for their trip to the galactic amalgam god on some far away planet.
Hmmm, on second thought, it's probably something in the water.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
This guy made his own decisions. They led to his death. No one shot him, no one stabbed him, no one did anything to him. He did this of his own volition. To himself.
You want me to be sorry for someone who kiled himself throgh bad decisions and stupidity?
My apologies, but my sympathy is all used up on the people in this world who legitimately deserve it.
"I was referring to hawking radiation. Look it up."
From a site describing Hawking radiation:
"The accretion disk is heated to x-ray emitting temperatures by the release of gravitational energy as the gas spirals toward the black hole (or neutron star). The Hawking radiation from the black hole is exquisitely tiny by comparison. "
and:
"Hawking radiation is not very bright - the black hole emits roughly one photon every light crossing time of the black hole. "
Therefore, compared to the emission of a typical star a black hole, again, emits signifigantly(understated) less of it's mass. So much is the difference that it could be considered that the emissions from a black hole are negligible. Tell me again how hawking radiation could result is a significant loss of mass for a black hole?
"Black holes don't necessarily have more mass than regular stars, they are just more dense"
I did not state there that they did. I simply stated that because of their density, their gravitational force and therefore, their escape velocity is greater.
You can surmise from this that over time a black hole will gain mass more quickly than a star would. Again, all I was sayng is that over time a black hole will act in a manner that is different from a regular star with regard to its continuity of gravitational force.
Slashdot Mirror
Solomon's father was David, who did not lead a tranquil life - he is the author of most of the Psalms and his life had many crisises such as Absalom's rebellion, etc.
Ahh, the Absolom rebellion. A very trying time for David. Probably a more horrible series of events than any of us have experienced. Do you remember what he said when he was leaving his home and kingdom, after many of his friends had deserted him for Absolom, and he was fleeing for his life with only his clothing and probably a sword around his waist?
This is when he composed the 23 Psalm. He wrote about how his "Cup runneth over" referring to his state of "blessing" and yet he had only a few friends and followers with him and no posessions.
He also said: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." David wrote this down as Absolom was literally gathering a group of soldiers and men who had formerly been loyal to David to follow David into the mountains and to kill him.
From the entire tone of his writing you would assume that this guy was living the easy life, but the exact opposite was true. Ejected from his home, his throne ursurped, betrayed by friends and those he loved and served, about to be killed by the same, and he's talking about how good his life is.
Either he's crazy, or he knows something that many people don't. I think it is the latter, and it can be summed up in this phrase: "I have learned to be satisfied with the things I have and with everything that happens. I know how to live when I am poor, and I know how to live when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens..."
David knew this secret, so did Paul, the guy who wrote that phrase, and to me, THAT is success...the only success that matters.
"the work of 2-5% of the populace is sufficent to fill a supermarket."
Actually the situation in the USA is different than any time in recorded history in that about 5% of the population here can feed all of us and most of the REST OF THE WORLD.
Not only that, but we preserve our food. Ironic that starving people are happy to consume all the BHT we can throw into a can of yams, while obese people here go on "health food" kick.
Nice post.
Another thing to consider is that two people can have the exact same set of circumstances and have different levels of fulfilment.
For example, Solomon's father (from whom Solomon inherited his wealth and kingdon) was quite happy with the things that he had. When Solomon recieved them they only intensified his misery.
Part of this is can be due to the differences in people and their personalities. However, much of this has to do with the thoughts and motivations that circulate in the minds of people on a day to day basis.
Motivation is an oft overlooked piece of the "success" puzzle. How you percieve (what you THINK about) your environment and what drives you to do the things you do can be much more important than the actual actions you take and results you achieve.
In other words, get your head straight. Find out what is important to YOU and act on that motivation. Don't imitate the achievements of others and expect to find happiness.
"To me, his comments seem to be aimed at Genesis. Whether later chapter and verse explains in greater detail is irrelevant, as the hard-core creationists tend to be "strictly Genesis" minded."
So in other words, let's ignore what the Bible really says and stick with what some moron thinks is the right idea. Hmmm.
Sorry, I can't be a party to that kind of behavior. I would rather be corect and alone than stupid with everyone else.
Again, let me try to state this so that everyone can understand. If you think that the Genesis account of creation describes the creation of the universe you are wrong. I don't care if you are a Christian or not. The text says one thing, if you read it wrong due to lack of scholarship that dosen't magically make your mistake the truth. I don't know how much more plain I can make this.
Let's try analogy: If someone tells me that the Whinnie the Pooh book in my daughters room is a physics text, who's the idiot if I read it and try to put together a linear accelerator from the pictures in the book? It's even worse if someone else believes that I should have consulted the page on the honey bees instead of the one on where Pooh gets stuck when I built the magnetic arrays.
This is the way I see the arguments over creation and other "scientific" arguments for the origin of the universe. What's worse, the "Creationists" haven't even studied the Bible enough to know up from down, and the people who are trying to debunk it are arguing the merits of a standard model that hasn't even accounted for the observable phenomena in the universe, much less it's origin.
"I don't think he was belittling their abilities; rather he was acknowledging their limitations.
On the subject of limitations, there are some in the scientific community that believe that humanity does not posess the ability to comprehend the things that we observe in nature, much less the state of events at 10*-20 seconds after the "Big Bang." In other words, frame of reference might not even help US with the secrets of the creation of the universe.
Playing the Devil's advocate here, but maybe you could show me the body of scientific evidence that precludes the creation of the universe by a deity.
To do this, you might want to first create a comprehensive cosmological model of the universe so that you can explain the full spectrum of phenomena observed in the universe, and that also explains the origin and subsequent development of the universal structure we currently see. Oh, by the way, your model will have to account for all future discoveries before they are seen.
Let's look at this from another perspective: After reading a story about how much we DON'T KNOW about the universe, we are discussing the foibles of those who believe that it was created by God.
Does this not seem a little strange?
Here is a subject that is a declared mystery, and you are using it as an opportunity to try to debunk a belief structure that you cannot prove is wrong with the available evidence. In other words, your denial (even labeling!) of a "creation myth" is just as much an expression of faith as said "creation myth" itself. Or, in other words, since there is so much we don't know about the universe, how can you be sure that God did not create it?
It seems folly to me for the scientific community and individuals to embrace multiple and exceptionally disparate theories of the creation of the universe and then unquestioningly reject that one such acceptable theory could be divine in origin.
None of the many theories proposed by science has been shown to be correct, and the multiplicity of theories somehow does not seem to bother some people. However, if you include the words "God" or "Deity" or "supernatural" all of a sudden the theory must be crap and the result of weak minded people.
To me it just seems like these individuals have an agenda and that they are trying to support it with pseudo-scientific reinforcements. Sounds like they are writing their own religion and using the basis of science to strengthen their faith.
Then again, maybe the unstated premise in cosmological studies is: Since God does not exist, how did all this get here? This seems to make more sense in the context, however, since there has never been a single piece of evidence presented to prove the idea that God does not exist, it places the results of anything based upon this premise on shaky ground.
Anyways, I say all this to make the point that it seems strange to me that people will think, "Ya, string theory sounds good" and say "Well, it could have been the Big Bang," and then again state "I bet it's a steady-state regurgitating do-hickie universe!" But the moment you say, "What if God really did create the universe?" They FREAK out on you like you are some sort of Nazi Storm Trooper. Again the curious part is that there is no evidence to prove that either of you is right or wrong, and yet your typical "scientific minded" individual will reject the idea out of mind, all the while calling you a "sheep" or "weak minded" for choosing to believe in something other than a scientist's view of what the universe might have been created like. Never mind that the models presented are acknowledged to be incomplete and unproven, SCIENCE made them so they must be true!
Reminds me of the creationists that doggedly stick by their personal interpretation of what the Bible says, even though the original languages say something entirely different. In other words, people on both sides of the tracks are acting in the same manner: they will deny anything that contradicts their personal beliefs without giving reason or logic a chance to consider the facts.
Karma: Excellent (mostly from refraining from killing all the wankers who are really begging for it)
"I still need help answering this [slashdot.org] question
;)
Can't post in your journal, so I will post it here.
If you are postulating a diety that respects free will of the lesser creation, then your question is irrelevant.
By this I mean that if you have a diety that does something to force you to believe in it, then it is circumventing your free will and ability to decide whether you want to believe in it.
The out for this, of course, is that the individual can reply "Nothing!" However, a truly ultra-powerful(and somewhat smartass) diety could utter the word "Nothing" right back to you in such a nuanced way that it would make you believe in it. Dieties are sooo tricky to deal with, just ask the ancient Greeks!
Now if the diety does not respect the free will of the lesser being, the discussion is moot as well because the diety could use its power to either extract from the mind of the individual the necessary things to say, or change the brain of the being so that he has no choice but to believe.
Furthermore, if the diety is the creating diety (the one who created the lesser being), the question would never come up in this circumstance because the diety would just create a bunch of creatures with locked-in belief structures that would ensure that the creatures believed in it.
The only problem is there's no fun in that!
"I think the people who take Creation literally is failing to see that God (if we assume there is one) was explaining this to people 2000 years ago. They didn't have any chance to understand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
/. crowd would look at the parent post with it's obviously inacurate biological information and then mod it up as if the poster had something good to say. I don't expect him to get the parts right about the Bible, most Christians can't do that, but at least he can get the high school level biology stuff correct.
"It's like trying to explain about having a baby to a kid"
From your comments I gather that you feel that societies of 2000 years ago were deficient in their ability to understand or reason.
Keep in mind that some of the greatest philosophers that ever lived lived at that time.
Furthermore, societies that predate the Romans by millenia created some fantastic wonders of engineering that required levels of rational thought and planning greater than we can probably imagine, especially considering the lack of technological tools they had at their disposal.
My personal belief is that while we have knowledge that ancient societies never dreamed of, some of those ancient societies had secrets we can only guess at as well. Just look at megalithic structures and such.
That being said, the way the Bible is written is anything but "abridged and simple." Case in point, you yourself do not even understand it. Furthermore, the account of the creation of the universe and the Earth is spread out over the entire Bible.
And on that note, the "Biblical account" of creation that most uninformed individuals refer to in Genesis does not describe the creation of the world or the universe. Both the world and the universe existed for immense spans of time before the creation of man, at least according to the Bible. However since most people do not read past the first chapter (if they read at all), and they don't consider the true meaning of the Bible from the original languages, they don't know that the Genesis account refers strictly to the creation of biological life on Earth. What you think you are reading in the English is not what it really says in the original Hebrew.
The Bible not only says the earth is older than most "Creationists" believe, but it also describes the earth as being packed in ice for a long period of time before man was on the earth. Sound familiar? It does to me, scientists have described evidence of massive Ice ages on the pre-history Earth.
Oh, also, Genesis was not written 2000 years ago. It was most likely written between 1200 and 1500 BC. That's about 3000 to 3500 years.
As an aside, I am horrified that a group of people as supposedly intelligent at the
It is completely impossible to say anything truly intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
...the bastards have our number and there's no way we would be able to carry off a boycott.
Look at how many obviously moronic movies come out and as we watch the trailer we say "That movie looks so stupid, I wouldn't be caught dead in that theat...oooh she's naked!"
Next thing you know, there we are watching an over produced piece of theatrical krap just because some girl takes her top off in it.
They get our cash and we leave pseudo-satisfied enough to come back for more tripe next week.
If they didn't know us better than we know ourselves, if they didn't know how to push our buttons, we wouldn't have media as staple of our society.
Karma: Excellent (Mostly from refraining from kiling all those bastards who are really asking for it.)
Damn!
I thought you were talking about the airspeed of unladen swallows.
Sure, it's unlikely that someone would transport a nuclear device through a subway, but then again, who has properly predicted the mode of operation of a terrorist or terrorist group?
More importantly, setting the detectors to a high level of sensitivity will allow detection of people who have handled radioactive materials. They would not have to actually have the materials on them, just have been in proximity to them at some recent time.
IANAL, but I am sure that having unusual radiation on your skin or clothes could be probable cause for a warrant to search someone's domocile or car. Sure, they guy could be a smoke detector repairman, but then again, maybe he has components to a dirty bomb in his basement. You may never know, unless you check.
I am actually surprised that they were only strip searched. If someone is radioactive and they fail to provide adequate information establishing the source of the radiation I would be inclined to search more than their body.
SickJoke
Anyways, how bad can it be. I mean these people alredy have CANCER, what's a little strip-search every time they go outside?
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
My father had polio when he was 10. It wrecked his body. He had a bad case, and as usual it affected one side of his body worse than the other. He lost more use of his right side than his left, but as I said, it was bad.
:) He was in a wheelchair the WHOLE TIME! The basketball players he tutored carried him to the upstairs classes he had. (He didn't weigh very much as polio destroys muscle tissue.)
He woke up out of a coma that he had been in for about a year on his 11th birthday. He had been in an iron lung all that time and was for quite a while after that too.
Doctors said he would NEVER walk again. He got caught up in school from the hospital and after alot of physical therapy was able to get out of the iron lung. He still had lost so much muscle tissue in his chest that he had only 1/3 of regular lung capacity.
He got a wheelchair and went back to school. Then highschool: graduated second in his class.
Went to college at Lamar and then Texas A&M. Earned THREE DEGREES. Computer science, mathematics, and masters in chemical engineering. Lettered in Soccer too! Don't ask!
By the end of his college years he had pushed himself so hard that with braces on both legs and crutches, he was able to walk.
After college he went to work for shell oil company in R&D. He retired from there in '92 due to, guess what, health problems.
When I see people that have full use of their arms and legs who are poor and don't have a job, all I can think about is how hard it was for my dad to do what he did. These people don't have half the trouble my father had, and even less of an excuse.
Sure he was smart, but it required more than just being smart to get where he was. Even getting out of bed was a massive chore for him. Yet he went out and kicked ass every day. He realized he was going to have to work twice as hard to get half the recongition and respect, because of his disability.
Physical pain, discrimination, disability, all of these things stood in his way, not to mention the fact that there weren't many handicap accessible places around. (I remember when Shell built him his own ramp to get into the R&D building. They hadn't needed it until then, nor had they thought of it.)
I feel like a heel sometimes, when I look at all he did with what he had to work with. I should be "the freakin' overlord of the planet by now" if I was half the man he was: my legs and arms and lungs work just fine.
Maybe being around him brought me to this thought, but I can't see how anyone can think different: People are what they choose to be, environment has little if nothing to do with where we go in life.
Even if we do help them to achieve self sustaining status, you have not eliminated the circumstances that led them to the problems that they have, and no I am not talking about rain or lack thereof.
Take Ethiopia. During the heyday of the commercials we all saw about how they were all staring in that country, the government of Ethiopia was throwing parties for the heads of state that cost the people of Ethiopia literally millions of dollars. No one points out that other parts of Ethiopia had plenty of food, and those that were starving had political views that were not in line with the ruling powers.
Or take Zimbabwe. These guys had a GREAT farming industry, and in a VERY short period of time they ruined it because of greed and prejudice.
What I am trying to point out is that most of this famine is caused by bad decisions on the part of those in power. Until you eliminate the greed and insensitivity of the governments in these places no amount of aid or help will change the situation.
For me the true test of the best sci-fi is this...RE-READABILITY!
If I can't read it at least two or three times without becoming bored or disgusted it's not worth the paper it is written on. More important is the book that makes you WANT to re-read it the moment you are done. Or the kind that has you begging the writer for a follow up book.
Oddly enough, some of the great books a I have read don't generate in me the desire to re-read them. Asimov's Foundation series is a one example. Loved it, but didn't want to go back there. Some of Heinlein's work was the same way, but most I have read three or four times and still love em.
The works of Niven have withstood my best efforts to wear them out. Probably due to the great central characters he creates, the mystery plots, and the hard sci-fi edge he incorporates into his stories. Integral Trees, Ringworld and the Ringworld Engineers, The Mote in God's Eye and following books, the great short stories, all seem to endure without fail. Truly, in my mind, one of the greatest sci-fi writers ever.
Card is another who wites stories that can be re-read obsessively. Treason is a lesser know favorite of mine. Similarly to Niven, Card creates great central characters. Unlike others, Orson's explores his characters weaknesses as much as thir strengths. And, oddly, some of his characters' strengths ARE their weaknesses. Think about it when next you read Card.
One of my other favorites it Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. Sort of a one hit wonder: it's kinda campy, but the story is so entertaining, and the characters so quirky that it never fails to reel me back in. By the way, this story was originally written as a series of short stories in "Analog" magazine.
Another great series is the Gateway/Heechee series by Fredrick Pohl. Nice hard Sci-Fi with a great cosmoligical twist. Complex, human characters. Describes time dilation from black holes and faster than light travel as an integral part of the story (in my case it was a great way for a ninth grader to be exposed to the concepts).
Last, but not least, Adams. Of course the Hitchiker's Guide and associated books rock, and the humor never ceases to amaze and amuse me. Teatime and Holistic Detective are also wonderful. Worn out a few paperbacks of both!
Oh, The Godmakers, by Herbert(and many others Dune and such included), and Catseye By Norton are also great re-readers.
I haven't included any Tolkien here because I don't consider his books Sci-Fi.
Any suggestions on other books that I can read (and then re-read!) would be helpful. Thanks!
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
So... you're saying there's a right interpretation and a wrong interpretation? That's... well, that's just stupid. No offense
So you are saying that the statements in the Bible are arbitrary and subject to the "tastes", as you put it, of the reader? I don't think that any serious Bible scholar would agree with you on this subject. Furthermore, the Bible itself states that it has a proper interpretation. By the way, are you one of those people who find truth in the statement: "That may be true for you, but it is not true for me"?
"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." I always enjoyed that part.
You may have enjoyed it, but this passage was not written for enjoyment. It was written to instruct believers in the policy of "a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong." According to the law, the girl you speak of was not to be punnished unless the man that was caught with her in the adulterous relationship was also punished in the same manner. Furthermore, some scholars believe that she was/had been involded in adulterous relationships with others that were in the crowd of stone wielding hypocrites. This was not an injunction against the death penalty, but instruction in the proper way to treat people, and in how NOT to abuse the law to further your own ends. By the way, the reason that the people were bringing her to be stoned to death is that the Old Testament law stated that if people were caught in an adulterous relationship they were to be killed.
"You're saying it's best to execute someone, on the chance that he might do something bad with the remainder of his natural life. Either we're both on solid ground, or we're both just plain wrong. You pick; I can live with either.
Like I said, the argument at best is a wash, meaning it has an equal and opposite corollary that offsets it perfectly, thereby resulting in no benefit from the argument. I also said at worst the argument is a further indictment of the guilty party and supports the idea of capital punnishment. The reason for this is the fact that the party in question is not in the punitive phase of a capital crime trial for handing out food to the homeless; the person obviously has been convicted of a capital crime and therefore has a debt to pay to the victim (some woud say to society, but that's a little impersonal, considering the very personal nature of killing someone).
"Also, your analogy begs the question, accountable to whom? If you're as much of a Bible scholar as you seem to be, you should know that only God can judge a man's actions, for only God can know what was in that man's heart. Where were you, Dread_ed, when He laid the foundations of the Earth?
With regard to capital punishemnt, people are accountable to the laws of their government. Transgression of law carries penalties, and it is not necessary for me to "judge" a person who has been convicted of a crime. The judgement of a court is VERY differnt than the Biblical term "passing judgement," which entalis passing judgement on someone in your mind with regard to their sins/status in life/personality traits or flaws. Also, it is not necessary to know what is in someone's heart when they comit a capital crime. The only thing that is necessary is to ascertain their guilt according to the law.
"Therefore, obviously, it is not a useful concept in deciding at what point a fetus becomes a biologically viable human being.
From a secular point of view, you are correct. From an epistmeological standpoint is has EVERYTHING to do with the believer's understanding of what makes a human being. Let me phrase it this way.
Human life = body+soul.
Body = genetically formed structure of cells produced from procreation.
Soul = Spiritual aspect imputed at birth, by God, to the genetically formed body.
If this is true, then there is not a human being in the womb. There is only a genetically formed repository for the soul which has yet to be imputed.
Abortion with regard to law is also covered by a number of other doctrines in the Bible. One is the subject of "Crusader arrogance." This is the attempt of a believer to mold the world into a "Christian environment" by legislation, civil disobedience, or even worse, force. See the illustrations of the Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, people who bomb abortion clinics, and the current "religious right." To state it Socratically: Did God stop Satan from comitting the first sin in all creation? Did God stop Eve from biting the apple, or Adam? Since the answers are "No" and "no", who are you to force your spiritual beliefs on others when even God does not do this?
"Here's a little exercise for you. Find a woman who has just suffered a miscarriage. Try, just try, to console her by telling her that her baby wasn't really human because it didn't have a soul. After your bones knit, come back and tell us how it went over
If the person is a believer, they can console themselves through the function of their own priesthood, based upon their own knowledge of doctrine. Furthermore, if you ask someone who has had both 1)a miscarraige and 2)had a child die after the child was born, which is the more painful of the two to endure...I think you get my point. Anyways, if you were to embark on such a course of action to console someone you would find that it is impossible to counsel someone with knowledge and have them the better for it. Invariably you find that people must do their own searching and their own learning to have benefit from the knowledge. Just like the "conversation" we are having: from your point of view, if I am right, you would not be able to acknowledge it withouy doing your own study and investigation.
"the Bible includes a great many factual errors, none of which diminish its value as a book or as a religious symbol. Read on.In the book of Leviticus (11:6) it is said the rabbits chew their cud. This is not correct. Earlier in the same chapter (11:4), it says that camels do not have cloven hooves; they do. The book of Matthew (13:31-32) says that mustard seeds grow into trees
1) Read from the original languages.
2) remove foot from mouth.
"Gregory of Nyssa (one of the Cappadocians) held the opinion that life quickens an organism from the first moment of its individual"
"St. Thomas Aquinas established his own doctrine of ensoulment:"
Neither of these ideas are supported from the Bible. Just because someone who was famous once said it dosen't make it true. The addition of philisophical ideas or prejudices is without merit in this realm, IF you are a believer. Not trying to make enemies here, but if you compare the Catholic doctrines and the Bible, there are WAY too many discrepancies for me to consider their ideas more than delusions. They reject the sufficency of the work of Christ on the cross. They meld the levitical priesthood structure of the Old Testament with some of the church age doctrines of this age. Their heierarchical system is completely extra-biblical. They just made some stuff up out of thin air it seems. Not a good reference if you are trying to support your opinion from the Bible.
As to the simplicity of the subject, a little direct exposure to the right scriptures, in the original languages, with regard for the context, and translated with in light of the technical vocabulary of the Bible could clear this up. However, as I stated before, people just don't seem to learn without going through the process themselves. Unfortunately, there seems to be a preponderance of people in this world who would rather use the scriptures to reinforce what they already believe, instead of trying to devine what the scriptures actually say. Even then, one must be willing to put aside their arrogance and actually believe what is in the text if it conflicts with their close held worldview.
Depends on how you interpret it.
No, it depends upon what it says. Interpretation is not a slippery thing that you can just arbitrarily apply. There is a science to it that involves processes and mechanics to extract and confirm the true meaning. It is rather easily applied once you understand the concept. Anyways, the Bible is quite clear upon the idea of a death penalty and is consistent from cover to cover on this subject. Unfortunately, people do not have the inclination to study (or even check a reference book). They take what they want to use and ignore the context.
The Bible is a big book, and there's a lot of stuff in there that appears to be contradictory at first glance. There's the eye-for-an-eye stuff in the Old Testament, and the turn-the-other-cheek stuff in the New Testament, for example. Reconciling these disparate doctrines is a job for a person with more patience than I have.
I guess I have more patience than you do because I read the entire paragraphs the statements you quoted are in. One refers to the judicial system of the old testament and is a rule for equal and opposite reaction so to speak. "Eye for an eye" prevents overcompensation for the victim and overpunnishment for the violator. The turn-the-other-cheek example is an interpersonal relationship mandate but it is based upon virtue gained through living as a Christian. It is completely seperate from the function of law or government. In the same New Testament as the "turn the other cheek" statement, Jesus tells his friends to carry swords to defend themselves from thieves. Looks contradictory, but if you understand the context and the actual meaning of what you are reading there is no contradiction. Unfortunately you can't just quote someone else who quotes the Bible, you have to study it. If you can't do that don't use it as a reference for an argument.
The chance that a person, duly incarcerated, can commit a crime is slim enough to be acceptable to many people.
Slim enough that they will comit another crime, or that they will comit a crime that might affect them? So is it's ok if we put murderers in prison and they murder other prison inmates, or guards? There will always be people in the periphery of criminals no matter where they are incarcerated. Also, life without parole is not the only punnishment for capital crimes in the US. Someone who comits a capital crime could easily be returned to society and comit other capital crimes. It happens EVERY DAY.
because the argument is based on the idea that it's better to err on the side of caution.
Try an analogy to solve this. A dog that attacks and kills is immediately put to sleep. No reprieve can save them. How much more accountable should a person be for their actions than a dog? Should they not know MUCH better than a dog than to attack another human? And yet when we kill the dog that attacks, we do it to err on the side of caution.
A person imprisoned for life can still do good things. A person executed for his crime is lost forever
A person, as I illustrated above, can also continue to comit crimes and hurt people from prison. Just because YOU feel safe that they are behind bars dosen't assure the safety of your uncle who got convicted of white collar crime and is in teh showers with this guy, or your sister who works in the cafeteria of the prison, or your father who is a prison guard. People escape fom prison too. Just dosen't hold water.
The concept of the "breath of life" is not meaningful in the context of what we now know about human development.
Let me rephrase the idea so you might be able to understand. Physical/genetic life and human life are two different things in the Bible. The human being, as described in the Bible, is not a human being until God adds the soul to it. This is done at the moment of birth. The addition of this additional essence is required to give the genetically formed body the status of a living person. This "soul" is not detectable under a microscope or evident though amniocentesis, and cannot be weighed as a differnce in weight between the unborn fetus and the newborn child. Therefore, ovbiously, it has nothing to do with our understanding of human fetal development.
Few could argue that a baby is not just as alive ten minutes before it is born as it is ten minutes after.
I think you missed the point, or didn't understand. Let me try to rephrase for you, again. The Bible states that there is no human life in the womb. The soul is imputed to the body at the moment of birth. Therefore, there is no human life in the womb. Now the next logical conclusion is this: IF you believe in the Bible, you should not consider the fetus in the womb human life. Again, this has nothing to do with biological life, it has to do with the belief system of the Bible with regard to what actually makes "human" life.
It's quite another thing to use it as a science textbook.
First, the Bible is accurate with regard to the "scientific" thigs that it makes reference to. However, the issue of life in the womb is not a scientific question with regard to the Bible. It is a spiritual one. Again, the definition of human life in the Bible includes more than just biology, it includes a spiritual aspect. Now, that is not to say that this concept should be used to help or hinder laws regarding abortion. All I am saying is that if someone is a Christian they should keep in mind what God has stated about human life and keep their mouth shut about the issue. Period. It has no bearing on someone who is not a Christian. It has no bearing on the law, except for the fact that Christians should not try to legislate against abortion. I has no bearing on those who are unbelievers because the concept of spiritual imputation at birth is irrelevant to them.
But the Bible should not be taken literally on matters about which biblical authors knew nothing
As the issue is described in the Bible, it is a spiritual issue. It started in the Garden of Eden when God breathed life into the body of man, and the same mechanics happen at each birth. The principle is repeated throughout the Bible in other circumstances, adn is evident in corrolary applications that are described in the Bible. Therefore, in this context, it is something that the writers of the Bible were quite well informed about.
Quoted...
"Capital punishment, for example, is morally wrong because the question of the time of a man's death is a choice that only God can make, and choosing to kill a man is to place oneself in the position of God, which is blasphemy, which is wrong."
Oddly enough, the Bible advocates a different stance to this. The concept of an eye for an eye also equates to a life for a life. Also, if taken at it's word, the Bible says that the authority system of government has the right to end the life of a member of society that infringes upon the right to life of other members of society. This is a basic outgrowth of what are called in the Bible "establishment principles." As described in the Bible, these principles are the set of moral rules that lead to a society that is free for everyone (not just Christians/believers). These rules have nothing to do with being a good Christian person. They have everythig to do with the function of a good government. In essence they are the Bible's form of perfect government. This is where the religious right people in the United States have really shown their ignorance of the text that they hold in such high esteem. I say this because the "establishment principles" the Bible describes preclude a form of government where religious doctrines are coded into law. Instead, the principles of sanctitiy of life, property, privacy, and freedom (for everyone in society!) are supposed to be the focus of government. In fact there is a Biblical injunction against legislating morality, and those who embark upon a crusade to do so are considered evil. The term that is used in the Bible to describe those who try to legislate thir morality is Moral Degeneracy, meaning that they are degenerate in their arrogance in their attempts to destroy the freedom of the members of sociey that do not believe exactly as they do.
Oh, by the way, your ethical argument against capital punnishment is faulty because the person could also do unspeakable things if they live. It could be argued that they are much more likely to comit crimes rather than do good because they have already shown a propensity in the past for breaking the law in heinous ways. At best the argumenbt as stated is a wash and therefore inconsequential. At worst it proves the opposite of what you used it for.
Anyways, religious principles should not be used to create legislation, but ethical and moral (morality being defined as sanctity of life, liberty, property, privacy) considerations are essential.
One last addition that addresses some things in this thread. As to the idea of abortion/stem cell research with regard to the Bible: There is no reason that any person that believes in the Bible should have anything to do with the abortion issue. The text is quite clear that God imputes life to the genetically formed body of a person at the moment of birth. The term "pneuma" in the Greek is used to describe the "breath of life" that is given by God at the monent of birth. In light of the spiritual aspects of humantiy that are described in the Bible, it is folly and arrogance for the Christian person to thing that humans create life through procreation. In other words, the Bible states clearly that until God imputes this additional, spiritual aspect into the body at birth, there is no "life." In addition, to bomb abortion clinics, or to harass doctors or people who are involved in the process, or to manipulate the judicial system to restrict abortion (see above) violates so many other Biblical principles that it is pathetic and ridiculous to even consider these people ambassadors of the Christian life that is described in the Bible.
The new BMW 7 series and the new Z4 use fiber in the airbag deployment system. This has a real world effect on the safety of the automobile.
Due to the fact that most collisions are over in a matter os miliseconds, electrically controlled airbag systems are kind of like cap-guns. In other words, as soon as they detect that one of their deployment parameters has been breached they must immediately go off. If they don't they will be too late to be effective.
The fiber in the BMW's ISIS system allows the car to gather data from many sensors around the vehicle that help it to get a "picture" of the way the accident is developing. Not only what direction the collison is coming from, but how fast it is propigating through the crumple-zones, etc. The system then calculates the optimal deployment timing for the airbags and sets them off according to the plan it has developed. Without fiber there would not be enough time for the car to design and implement the deployment plan. Now consider, the new 7 series BMW has two front airbags, side airbags for all four outboard seats, head airbags for all four outboard seats, and knee airbags for the front occupants. Furthermore, the front airbags have multiple deployment types depending on the severity of the collision and whether the front occupants have their belts on or not. There are also pre-tensioners on the seatbelts that help make sure the driver and passenger are properly situated in the seat to recieve the front airbag deployment. ALL of this is controlled by the ISIS system.
In addition, the 7 series has an optical entertainment bus that cotrols the stereo components, phone system, navigation system, and the DVD system. It is upgradable and expandable.
Fiber is great for cars, no emf problems, dosen't corrode, more reliable than electrical components (no shorts), but the neatest thing that may be coming for BMW is the possible addition of Blue Tooth technology for the phone system. This would allow ANYONE in the car with a compatible phone system to use the boosted transmitter/antenna system in the car along with voice activated/handsfree operation.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
Or maybe like this...
ET: Nice to meet you...by the way, the entrance requirement for our ultra-powerful interglalactic league of creatures is the ability to properly model the folding characteristics of protein molecules...have you done this?
Earth: Well...um...uh...see, we were looking for you, and well...we kinda put that aside for a...
ET: Oh I see, well then we will just have to destroy you. Fire the "laser beam"!
Earth: SPLAT!
Yet another illustration that it is not a good idea to put the cart in front of the horse, nor to rely on others to solve your problems.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
We could be lookng at one of those random mutations that dosen't end up in the genetic legacy. A cul de'sac in the evolutionary roadmap per se.
Or, if you ever read _Childhood's_End_ by Arthur C. Clarke, maybe we should check to see if they are telepatic and the world is going to get eaten by them when they melt it down for fuel for their trip to the galactic amalgam god on some far away planet.
Hmmm, on second thought, it's probably something in the water.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
This guy made his own decisions. They led to his death. No one shot him, no one stabbed him, no one did anything to him. He did this of his own volition. To himself.
You want me to be sorry for someone who kiled himself throgh bad decisions and stupidity?
My apologies, but my sympathy is all used up on the people in this world who legitimately deserve it.
In other news, a man was zapped to death today when he ran around his home for two hours in woolen socks, and then reached for his doorknob...
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
"I was referring to hawking radiation. Look it up."
From a site describing Hawking radiation:
"The accretion disk is heated to x-ray emitting temperatures by the release of gravitational energy as the gas spirals toward the black hole (or neutron star). The Hawking radiation from the black hole is exquisitely tiny by comparison. "
and:
"Hawking radiation is not very bright - the black hole emits roughly one photon every light crossing time of the black hole. "
Therefore, compared to the emission of a typical star a black hole, again, emits signifigantly(understated) less of it's mass. So much is the difference that it could be considered that the emissions from a black hole are negligible. Tell me again how hawking radiation could result is a significant loss of mass for a black hole?
"Black holes don't necessarily have more mass than regular stars, they are just more dense"
I did not state there that they did. I simply stated that because of their density, their gravitational force and therefore, their escape velocity is greater.
You can surmise from this that over time a black hole will gain mass more quickly than a star would. Again, all I was sayng is that over time a black hole will act in a manner that is different from a regular star with regard to its continuity of gravitational force.
"You seem to have learning confused with cognitive thought or symbolic reasoning."
You seem to have confused something programmed to manipulate data in a certain way with something that can spontaneously learn.
More importantly, you seem to have confused my dry sense of humor with a serious post.
It is completely impossible to say anything enlightening or intelligent in a space this size, excep
AI== artificial intelligence
I think what we have here in a chess program is AS.
AS== artificial specilization. Ask that fuckin machine to do calculus or conjugate verbs and it's worthless.
IMHO, AI is not 'specilization.' AI is the attempt to create INTELLIGENCE in a machine. Rigid specilization is antithetical to intelligence.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
"there are chess programs with libraries of games that add games they are playing to the library - doesn't that count as learning from mistakes? "
No, that counts as adding to the library.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep