Could you admit that there may be movement within the Christian faith that is good, true, and pure. That follows the command to "Love thy neighbor as thyself." That doesn't support censorship or the surpression of science.
I totally agree. In fact, when I was growing up, I thought pretty much all Christians were like that. I viewed them as lovable eccentrics. In those days, there was often some bishop on the TV saying entirely reasonable things (that would probably have got him crucified as a liberal in the US).
The Bible is a mixed bag, but I have to admit there's some good stuff in there. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." is sheer genius. All the world's problems solved in 5 words. Of course, following it through is the difficult part!
I found deep meaning in "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Any time I buy anything, I become a little more complicit in an endless global chain of oppression. Every coin in my wallet is stained with suffering. It is nice that Christians have a solution, ie. forgiveness, that works for them. Pity about all the baggage that comes with it.
It is truly unfortunate that Christianity has received the miserable reputation that it has in the eyes of so many.
I would not call it unfortunate, so much as inevitable. Authoritarianism runs through the very core of the religion. Even modern American Christians, who have somewhere acquired the surely blasphemous notion of a "personal relationship with Jesus", still fall back on authoritarian language of "obedience".
On the other hand, resistance to authority is a core human virtue. Conflict is inevitable.
From authoritarianism comes a hierarchical church. Those at the top will struggle to maintain their position by resisting change. Those at the bottom will mostly obey them. Hence, conservatism.
People like me hate conservatism because we have seen the future, and it is way cool. People with no vested interests want change, because it can only bring good. Conflict is inevitable.
What I can't say is why the Church of my boyhood, which was ever so reasonable, respectable and inclusive, has mutated in a few short years into a savage right-wing bulldog. Has the Church caught rabies?
We are called to social activism, I believe, thus my request to have offensive material removed. However, I wouldn't dare impose on your right to view the material.
This is disingenious. If you and a million others succeed in persuading stores not to stock the swimsuit issue, it will lose money, and Sports Illustrated will stop running it. The people who want to view it will not be able to, because it will no longer exist.
Look at Hollywood movies. Pro-censorship pressure groups have successfully made the NC-17 rating commercial suicide, so any major motion picture can have at most an R rating. Full frontal nudity without sexual content will generally earn a "12" rating in the UK, except that this almost never happens because by the time films come to the UK, they've already been censored by the MPAA!
What's worse is that films made anywhere in the world targeting a broad international audience will be censored to American standards with the hope of selling into the huge US market. In places like the UK, it's not even viable to produce a film purely for the domestic market. The net effect is that US pressure groups have effectively managed to censor the entire global film industry!
The usual response to such complaints is "well, if you want to see naked ladies, why don't you just watch porn?" I don't want to watch porn. Porn is crap. I want to watch good films. No, I want to watch great films. I want to be surprised. I want to be delighted. I want to be moved to tears by the beauty of it all. The only tears you'll get from a porn film are tears of despair.
If you and I cannot agree on the terms of communications, ie, I say God and you say fairytale, then what point is further communication?
I would argue that if we cannot agree on the terms of communications, then we are not communicating at all. Just yelling at each other in the dark.
For the record, it was actually the Bible I was referring to as a collection of fairytales. No, scratch that, it's the oral tradition of modern Christianity I was criticising. Half the stuff that Christians claim to believe isn't even in the Bible.
I can admit that there is much deception about God. Can you admit there might be (some) truth in the tale?
I could. It's entirely possible that there was a historical Jesus around which the legend grew. But why expend the energy to admit the possibility when it's far more likely that there was not? The tendency of secular society to allow the pretense that Jesus existed gives the Christians power. People who've always heard Jesus treated as historical fact are ripe for recruiting. Once recruited, they will further the Christians' political agenda of authoritarianism, censorship and the suppression of science.
So, yes, I could take the easy road and admit that Jesus might have existed. But if I do not stand up for the Truth, it will be taken from me. If I love Truth, I am morally bound to state there was no Jesus.
You should have seen the look on the Best Buy cashier's face (a guy), when I demanded that he remove the SI software/magazine display from the counter. It was offensive. He thought I was kidding. I was not. It was a priceless look.
Congratulations, you're a loon. You could have just had a crafty wank and not bothered anyone, but instead you had to go and make it everyone else's problem.
As your reward, you can now be ridiculed on the internets!
Secret data can be stolen, since its value is inversely proportional to the number of people who know it. Personal data is a strange subcase of this, as it is used to verify our identity, and thus is "a secret", but we are expected to give it out to anyone who asks, and they may take no care to protect it.
Since it's not really practical to get an NDA any time you give someone your address, I think privacy laws are the only practical way forward. Europe has it right here.
Re:To put this in perspective for non-go players..
on
Computer Cracks 5x5 Go
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· Score: 1
I can't help thinking that if you spend 18 months learning to beat a computer at Go you're still gonna get your ass handed to you the first time you play an actual human being. Even if the computer players are strong, don't they lack "personality"?
I suppose I have a hard time understanding why someone would devote that much time to learning to play against humans, much less a computer. Not that I'm claiming I spend my time any better (which would be absurd, seeing as I'm posting on Slashdot!), but what is it that you get from playing Go?
Sinner writes "Do you have any information on games that can be played by myself? I am disabled from the neck up, and have a hard-on to access the Internet, nudge-nudge-wink-wink-say-no-more. To get an idea of my stupidity, I have almost the same injuries that American Pie guy had. Can you point me in the direction of similar would-be gayers and lube users? Also do you have any information on games that may work with this tent-pole I have here?"
Disclaimer
No offence intended. Unless you're offended by the term "knob-on", in which case, you're weird. Please join my crusade to get the term "knob-on" on the front page of Slashdot! Or mod me offtopic, whichever works for you. Thanks.
You've just got one problem here. You used that word. The N-word. No, the other one. The one President Bush can't pronounce. You can't use that word. You need a nice, smiley, happy name for it. How about the iRocket?
Getting Frakes and Sirtis to reprise their best-known roles is not "stunt casting". If you got Paris Hilton and Carrottop to play Troy and Riker, that would be stunt casting.
Re:the real big shit
on
Is IRC All Bad?
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
I did a real big shit earlier. It was great! I totally recommend it.
*go into Hardware > Device Manager , tries to change hardware settings -- ACCESS DENIED*
True story... at my last job, I had a new Toshiba laptop running Windows 2000. One day, I needed to change a BIOS setting, so I used the handy Windows BIOS editing utility provided. Then I remembered that I happened to be logged in as "Guest".
My workmates never understood why I was laughing so hard. Windows users, eh?
The difference is, Linux marketshare has been growing continuously for the past 10 years. Amiga marketshare has been dwindling continuously for the past 10 years.
Smith may not be aware of all the details of what happened previously
Oh, do pay attention:
Agent Smith: It's all happening exactly as before... Agent Smith Clone: Well, not exactly...
It would be fair to comment as a counterpoint that this is not actually consistent with the events of the first movie.
Smith is bugfuck crazy. He will filter out any data that doesn't agree with his psychosis.
Interesting theory. I've got another one: Smith is a mindless automaton, who does whatever the plot requires him to do, even if it bears no relation whatsoever to the character established in the original movie.
Actually, the best way to explain it may be that Agent Smith isn't the character from the original movie. He's something else, masquerading as Smith.
I find it interesting that you insist that the movie "makes no fucking sense" and then tell me to look at the pretty pictures on the Animatrix DVD.
My point is simple: there is still value to be had in the Matrix films as eye candy. But the first few minutes of The Matrix Reloaded confirmed that the original film was just a happy accident. Those of us, myself included, who saw something more in it, were mistaken.
Interesting theory. Complete bollocks, of course, but interesting. The Smith-virus thing never happened before. If you actually pay attention to what Smith says, this is perfectly clear. The Architect scene doesn't contain ALL the exposition.
I think all you Matrix fanboys now have the exact same problem that religious adherents have had throughout the ages. You're having to ignore some bits and invent other bits just to turn it into a coherent narrative, whereas your time would be better served if you just accepted that it makes no fucking sense and bought the Animatrix DVD, which has some cool shit on it.
Hate is hate, no matter how you try to justify it.
So, I shouldn't be allowed to hate Mondays? I might hurt their feelings?
I'll agree that abitrarily hating people based on some real or assumed attribute leads to much evil, but he wasn't talking about people. He was talking about lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
I totally agree. In fact, when I was growing up, I thought pretty much all Christians were like that. I viewed them as lovable eccentrics. In those days, there was often some bishop on the TV saying entirely reasonable things (that would probably have got him crucified as a liberal in the US).
The Bible is a mixed bag, but I have to admit there's some good stuff in there. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." is sheer genius. All the world's problems solved in 5 words. Of course, following it through is the difficult part!
I found deep meaning in "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Any time I buy anything, I become a little more complicit in an endless global chain of oppression. Every coin in my wallet is stained with suffering. It is nice that Christians have a solution, ie. forgiveness, that works for them. Pity about all the baggage that comes with it.
I would not call it unfortunate, so much as inevitable. Authoritarianism runs through the very core of the religion. Even modern American Christians, who have somewhere acquired the surely blasphemous notion of a "personal relationship with Jesus", still fall back on authoritarian language of "obedience".
On the other hand, resistance to authority is a core human virtue. Conflict is inevitable.
From authoritarianism comes a hierarchical church. Those at the top will struggle to maintain their position by resisting change. Those at the bottom will mostly obey them. Hence, conservatism.
People like me hate conservatism because we have seen the future, and it is way cool. People with no vested interests want change, because it can only bring good. Conflict is inevitable.
What I can't say is why the Church of my boyhood, which was ever so reasonable, respectable and inclusive, has mutated in a few short years into a savage right-wing bulldog. Has the Church caught rabies?
This is disingenious. If you and a million others succeed in persuading stores not to stock the swimsuit issue, it will lose money, and Sports Illustrated will stop running it. The people who want to view it will not be able to, because it will no longer exist.
Look at Hollywood movies. Pro-censorship pressure groups have successfully made the NC-17 rating commercial suicide, so any major motion picture can have at most an R rating. Full frontal nudity without sexual content will generally earn a "12" rating in the UK, except that this almost never happens because by the time films come to the UK, they've already been censored by the MPAA!
What's worse is that films made anywhere in the world targeting a broad international audience will be censored to American standards with the hope of selling into the huge US market. In places like the UK, it's not even viable to produce a film purely for the domestic market. The net effect is that US pressure groups have effectively managed to censor the entire global film industry!
The usual response to such complaints is "well, if you want to see naked ladies, why don't you just watch porn?" I don't want to watch porn. Porn is crap. I want to watch good films. No, I want to watch great films. I want to be surprised. I want to be delighted. I want to be moved to tears by the beauty of it all. The only tears you'll get from a porn film are tears of despair.
I would not shed a tear i
For the record, it was actually the Bible I was referring to as a collection of fairytales. No, scratch that, it's the oral tradition of modern Christianity I was criticising. Half the stuff that Christians claim to believe isn't even in the Bible.
I could. It's entirely possible that there was a historical Jesus around which the legend grew. But why expend the energy to admit the possibility when it's far more likely that there was not? The tendency of secular society to allow the pretense that Jesus existed gives the Christians power. People who've always heard Jesus treated as historical fact are ripe for recruiting. Once recruited, they will further the Christians' political agenda of authoritarianism, censorship and the suppression of science.So, yes, I could take the easy road and admit that Jesus might have existed. But if I do not stand up for the Truth, it will be taken from me. If I love Truth, I am morally bound to state there was no Jesus.
If they're not going to vaccinate you anyway, what's the point in doing the test in the first place?
As your reward, you can now be ridiculed on the internets!
Secret data can be stolen, since its value is inversely proportional to the number of people who know it. Personal data is a strange subcase of this, as it is used to verify our identity, and thus is "a secret", but we are expected to give it out to anyone who asks, and they may take no care to protect it.
Since it's not really practical to get an NDA any time you give someone your address, I think privacy laws are the only practical way forward. Europe has it right here.
Food for thought.
I can't help thinking that if you spend 18 months learning to beat a computer at Go you're still gonna get your ass handed to you the first time you play an actual human being. Even if the computer players are strong, don't they lack "personality"?
I suppose I have a hard time understanding why someone would devote that much time to learning to play against humans, much less a computer. Not that I'm claiming I spend my time any better (which would be absurd, seeing as I'm posting on Slashdot!), but what is it that you get from playing Go?
Sinner writes "Do you have any information on games that can be played by myself? I am disabled from the neck up, and have a hard-on to access the Internet, nudge-nudge-wink-wink-say-no-more. To get an idea of my stupidity, I have almost the same injuries that American Pie guy had. Can you point me in the direction of similar would-be gayers and lube users? Also do you have any information on games that may work with this tent-pole I have here?" Disclaimer No offence intended. Unless you're offended by the term "knob-on", in which case, you're weird. Please join my crusade to get the term "knob-on" on the front page of Slashdot! Or mod me offtopic, whichever works for you. Thanks.
You've just got one problem here. You used that word. The N-word. No, the other one. The one President Bush can't pronounce. You can't use that word. You need a nice, smiley, happy name for it. How about the iRocket?
Getting Frakes and Sirtis to reprise their best-known roles is not "stunt casting". If you got Paris Hilton and Carrottop to play Troy and Riker, that would be stunt casting.
I did a real big shit earlier. It was great! I totally recommend it.
Or were you talking about something else?
My workmates never understood why I was laughing so hard. Windows users, eh?
The difference is, Linux marketshare has been growing continuously for the past 10 years. Amiga marketshare has been dwindling continuously for the past 10 years.
Jesus, get over it already.
Agent Smith: It's all happening exactly as before...
Agent Smith Clone: Well, not exactly...
It would be fair to comment as a counterpoint that this is not actually consistent with the events of the first movie.
Interesting theory. I've got another one: Smith is a mindless automaton, who does whatever the plot requires him to do, even if it bears no relation whatsoever to the character established in the original movie.Actually, the best way to explain it may be that Agent Smith isn't the character from the original movie. He's something else, masquerading as Smith.
My point is simple: there is still value to be had in the Matrix films as eye candy. But the first few minutes of The Matrix Reloaded confirmed that the original film was just a happy accident. Those of us, myself included, who saw something more in it, were mistaken.Interesting theory. Complete bollocks, of course, but interesting. The Smith-virus thing never happened before. If you actually pay attention to what Smith says, this is perfectly clear. The Architect scene doesn't contain ALL the exposition.
I think all you Matrix fanboys now have the exact same problem that religious adherents have had throughout the ages. You're having to ignore some bits and invent other bits just to turn it into a coherent narrative, whereas your time would be better served if you just accepted that it makes no fucking sense and bought the Animatrix DVD, which has some cool shit on it.
I'll agree that abitrarily hating people based on some real or assumed attribute leads to much evil, but he wasn't talking about people. He was talking about lawyers.