I think that an extension of (or the intent of) the intermediary argument is that the Bible, and all other religious traditional info, is in itself an intermediary.
Have you seen this man who walks on water? Actually, you've just read of him in a book. An old book that wasn't even in the language that it was originally written in. In fact, many of the translations are markedly different.
So this is the word of God, in this here book, yet (setting aside that the omnipotent creator chooses not to just comminucate with us all in a non-ambivalent easy understood way) we are supposed to trust the traslators (who somehow avoided the hand of God that was helping them keep his exact wording) with our eternal salvation.
I find it so much more believable that living a good life with good moral direction and learning all that there is to know is the right way (if there is one) than ignoring the logic that I was endowed with and blindly following the life that somebody else has picked out.
How do you know that some guy named Jesus did all of that stuff. He sounds like a great guy, but I've read older books than that and I don't take them literally. Why believe that the Bible is true? Because somebody told you it was? How did they know? You're just as well off finding God your own way than trusting all of those generations of people. That's the biggest problem with revealed religions, you're not just having faith in God, you've got to have a lot of faith in a lot of people. I find that revolting, and I think that a God wouldn't ask that of me.
Not that it's really that good, but the Canadian Fosters isn't half bad compared to the Aussie Fosters shite. That's the only reason Americansd drink it at all, though I've actually never seen anybody drink it...and Americans drink all their rice piss water beer, too.
Any point that I was trying to make seemed to get lost in that rambling...
So your argument is based on the fact that all marriages between men and women result in children, and that that is why the government recognizes marriages?
I understand your point now, but I don't agree with you. Infertile couples are still granted marriages. I don't think that marriages are state recognised for that reason. If that were the case it would make more sense to implement it once a child is born.
I myself am getting married soon (in April). Being the young foolish kids that we are, we're considering not having kids. This, of course, may or may not happen (our parents tell us that we will be having wee ones), but I feel that we should be able to be recognized as a married couple even if we don't have kids.
Marriage grants certain rights that aren't otherwise present in relationships (gay or not). There is implied power of attourney in emergency cases, the ability to visit an ailing spouse at a hospital, financial advantages (and disadvantages), and many other things like that. We enjoy travelling, and my fiancee changed her outlook on taking my name when we travelled as just bf/gf and foreign countries wouldn't recognize our relationship. I know this particular case would probably be awkward for gay people, even if they were legally married, but it just serves as an example. I was in the hospital once for a week, and she wasn't allowed any special privilege visiting me because we weren't married yet. I would hate for gay partners of many years to not be able to visit each other in hospitals and such because our pansy puritan country feels squeamish around ideas we weren't raised with.
If it's some wierd religious-based exclusionary thing, then they could call it something else, but the same rights ought to be retained for both gay and straight couples.
The offense to your religion doesn't matter, either, because in this case "their" rights are considered more important than "your" rights.
I'm pretty sure that people don't have a right to not be offended. It's lucky for the whole country that people aren't forced to abide by the religious doctrine of a religion that they may not even belong to. That's separation of church and state. It's not as if you are being force into a gay marriage. How exactly does a gay relationship involve you? (I bet whatever your answer is could be solved by "mind your own business")
Instead, a small minority have effectively forced their version of morality on the rest of the state through the use of the courts.
And it would be better if a large majority forced their version of morality on the rest of the state through the use of the legislature? Gay marriages aren't infringing on the rights of any other people, therefore they shouldn't be prohibited. The Supreme Court of MA can strike down a law because they are trusted with determinig whether a law is constitutional or not. It is their responsibility to strike down laws which are not constitutional (MA or US constitution). If the majority of the citizens decided that your family should be strung up because there are more of them than you, would that be ok? The majority rules, but not at the cost of the minority's rights. That is the basis of our republic.
Unfortunately the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were dissolved long ago. I'd say an incredible amount of what the Federal gov't is doing goes against those two amendments.
It shouldn't matter how many more precincts the US has. If all of the precincts are roughly the same size, it should take a little more time to add the totals of the precincts up. The bulk of the time is taken up by the precincts themselves counting the votes. As they are all doing this simultaneously, the number of precincts wont affect the rate at which the totals are tallied.
I've found that that works amazingly well. On my [non-technically inclined] family's computers, I installed Moz with the IE theme for mail and web browsing. They never noticed the transition (or at least said nothing of it) and even slowly began calling the web browser Mozilla instead to Internet Explorer.
...practically all religions comment on reality and metaphysics[sic]
This is where, I believe, religion differs from spirituality. You're right. Almost all (if not all) religions make silly, often provably wrong, assertions about the real observable universe. In my understanding, spirituality deals with the unobservable universe. This part of the universe may not exist, or it may exist in a state yet to be discovered (see the magic of the lodestone, etc). I don't pretend to know whether a spiritual world exists or not. I accept the fact that I don't know and can't possibly know everything there is to know about the universe. If there are other forces or facets of this universe that we can't sense, I'm not ready to take the leap of faith and positively say that they don't exist.
Now, I brought up that whole spirituality thing to say that if there was a God, it would be nearly impossible to prove or disprove its existence. Of course if that god was sentient and (in the case of most of our religions) of a human-minded persuasion, it would be meddling in our affairs all of the time (I think). The Judeo-Christian god seems to alternate between an overbearing father figure and an infant throwing a temper tantrum. I have a really hard time believing that that god exists. I don't think that a couple of bad god images discounts the possibility of any god. An omniscient, omnipresent god would likely not be sentient (what a bore it all would be!). In general, that sort of god sounds like the entirety of the universe itself (or something like that). Of course, I'm just speculating.
If you do believe in both positions equally, then you should also believe that there is a possibility that an alien is in your room.
I don't believe in both positions equally. Rather, in the absence of definite evidence, I refuse to believe in either one. I don't discount the idea that there is some kind of invisible, ethereal alien in the room with me. Now, I'm not going to give that idea any weight while I live my life, but I wont declare that I know for absolute certain that there is no alien sitting next to me. I just refuse to make [avoidable] decisions based on faith. I refuse to declare positively that there is a god or isn't a god, because that decision requires a leap of faith, either way. I will pospone that decision until there is solid proof either way.
I was referring to the use of 'of', as 'poking fun of' should read 'poking fun at'. I also said conjunction instead of contraction. This is what I get for even mentioning grammar/spelling!
Kenja, I suspect that you may not get that he is poking fun of your use of 'your' in place of 'you're' which is the conjunction for 'you are'.
corbettw: To my own dismay, I've found that when posting to Slastdot (and only then) I find myself making these stupid mistakes, too. I think that it's contagious. (Usually Preview compes to the rescue.)
I would classify myself as and agnostic. I don't think that spirituality and science have any overlap at all. As long as one's religion isn't making preposterous claims about the observable world (read: any organized religion), their spheres of consideration are pretty much mutually exclusive.
I think (and of course this is my own interpretation) that since I cannot prove or disprove the existance of God, it would be foolish to make a stong assertion either way. Believing in God wouldn't help me sleep better at night, and disbelieving doesn't help me in any psychological way, either. I am a pretty ethical person, and I follow the golden rule, so I don't think that any god would have a problem with me if there turned out to be one. If there was one, and it was of the sort that would damn me for not going against my own intuition and believing in it, then I would have myself damned as a statement against it's petty childishness.
The "God fearing" concept is always something that I wonder about. It seems to imply that the wearer of that fear is not really a good person. A good person, who has a consistant system of ethics that are an innate part of that person's personality, will do the "right" thing because it is the the right thing to do. The corrupt person will do the "right" thing, not because they want to do it, but because they fear punishment if they do otherwise.
"God-fearing" seems to me to imply that if God were found to not exist or to be powerless, ethical behavior would go out the window. It seems that to do a "right" thing for fear of retribution is to not understand why it is "right" to begin with.
Ahhh, c'mon. Light hearted teasing about grammar and punctuation doesn't warrant being modded down. Damn whiny moderators...:)
[OT, it feels kinda gross to actually use a smiley...]
I don't see what your point is. Ground clearance is only as high as the lowest hanging part. If there is a part hanging down, it's not going to clear the ground.
Rereading my post, I feel like an arrogant asshole.
My assertion is that you have the freedom to say anything that you like. You have the constitutionally protected right to say damaging false statements about another person. The wronged person has the government granted privilege to collect compensation from you for being wronged.
Your right to make damaging statements is not abridged. You can continue to make the same statements and the court can keep finding that you owe the offended party. You are responsible for the consequences of your speech. You have the right to freedom of speech, but not freedom from responsibility for your speech.
You are free to yell fire in a crowded theater. You will not be arrested for uttering the word 'fire'. You will be arrested for deliberately creating a violent situation (I don't know what the charge is, specifically.
Using your freedom if speech to cause harm to others is punished because you are causing harm. There is a vast difference between freedom of speech and freedom from responsibility for your speech.
Oh, and I can't say this enough times: civil suits and criminal trials are very different beasts. Slander isn't illegal, but the slandered party is entitled to compensation. Slandering somebody is not even in the same boat as assaulting them, for instance. Civil vs criminal is a concept that the vast (vocal) majority of Slashdot doesn't grasp. To be sure, most (US) citizens don't either.
You can sue for libel or slander even if it does not specifically address you
There must be a specific victim to sue for libel or slander, and they are not criminal offences but civil. It is not illegal to make false statements. If you do damages to another person in the process of making false statements, though, they may be entitled to compensation. You cannot sue for libel or slander on behalf of another person and expect to collect compensation for it.
Hate crime laws aside (which I'm not sure I agree with), it is not illegal to say things which may offend other people. It is illegal to harass or assault another person, but to use the grandparent's example, to say that all Jews are faggots is not by itself illegal. It is certainly not a nice thing to say, but unless somebody can show damage resulting from that statement it does no harm (being offended does not and should not constitute damages). Some hate crime laws contradict this, and I think that they are unconstitutional. Freedom of speech except for possibly offensive speech is not freedom of speech.
The KKK can say things in private meetings that are not allowed to be said in public places.
Unless the things that they are saying are illegal (inciting violence, harassing or deliberately intimidating people, slandering people), they can say them wherever they please. They cannot cause a nuisance (yelling with a bullhorn), obstruct traffic, or commit any other illegal activities. They can say what they please, as long as it causes no actual damage.
I do not endorse the KKK or any other hateful group or cause. I do however respect the rights of others... even if I don't agree with them. I'm going to have to agree with a post above. Perhaps you need to review some of your thoughts before you post.
I'd say that one of the most difficult (and dangerous (getting caught-wise)) aspects of getting info off of a network is actually getting yourself into the network. Having a wireless link in removes a great deal of the danger (of getting caught), and leaves the intruder plenty of time to do the job more efficiently (making security's job harder).
A big fat lock on the door keeps most intruders out. (and WEP and MAC filtering don't count as locks)
Diesel buses and trucks are not terribly polluting. Natural gas is better, but the filthy cloud emitted from diesel exhaust is mostly just soot, and they are much cleaner than similarly sized gasoline vehicles.
The soot does make a mess, but until natural gas or electric powered vehicles come into the scene, dirty-looking diesel is much better than clean-looking gasoline.
In my drive, and every other CD-RW wrive that I have used, you can blank a CDRW in a few different ways, the 'fast' way taking less than a minute (at 4x): (from cdrecord - dupes removed)
Blanking options:
all - blank the entire disk
fast - minimally blank the entire disk (PMA, TOC, pregap)
track - blank a track
unreserve - unreserve a track
trtail - blank a track tail
unclose - unclose last session
session - blank last session
I've been testing an SVCD here just now and have blanked a single disc over 10 times in the last hour (using fast blanking). The last time I used packet writing on a CDRW, I remember it taking a long time to format the disc. I would think that you would only have to do that once, though, if you intended to keep the disc in a packet-writing format.
If you're writing data to a CD at 12x and it's taking you 45 minutes, then you're dealing with some pretty damn big CDs (45min x 12 = 540min = 4.7GB).
Slashdot Mirror
Have you seen this man who walks on water? Actually, you've just read of him in a book. An old book that wasn't even in the language that it was originally written in. In fact, many of the translations are markedly different.
So this is the word of God, in this here book, yet (setting aside that the omnipotent creator chooses not to just comminucate with us all in a non-ambivalent easy understood way) we are supposed to trust the traslators (who somehow avoided the hand of God that was helping them keep his exact wording) with our eternal salvation.
I find it so much more believable that living a good life with good moral direction and learning all that there is to know is the right way (if there is one) than ignoring the logic that I was endowed with and blindly following the life that somebody else has picked out.
How do you know that some guy named Jesus did all of that stuff. He sounds like a great guy, but I've read older books than that and I don't take them literally. Why believe that the Bible is true? Because somebody told you it was? How did they know? You're just as well off finding God your own way than trusting all of those generations of people. That's the biggest problem with revealed religions, you're not just having faith in God, you've got to have a lot of faith in a lot of people. I find that revolting, and I think that a God wouldn't ask that of me.
Any point that I was trying to make seemed to get lost in that rambling...
I understand your point now, but I don't agree with you. Infertile couples are still granted marriages. I don't think that marriages are state recognised for that reason. If that were the case it would make more sense to implement it once a child is born.
I myself am getting married soon (in April). Being the young foolish kids that we are, we're considering not having kids. This, of course, may or may not happen (our parents tell us that we will be having wee ones), but I feel that we should be able to be recognized as a married couple even if we don't have kids.
Marriage grants certain rights that aren't otherwise present in relationships (gay or not). There is implied power of attourney in emergency cases, the ability to visit an ailing spouse at a hospital, financial advantages (and disadvantages), and many other things like that. We enjoy travelling, and my fiancee changed her outlook on taking my name when we travelled as just bf/gf and foreign countries wouldn't recognize our relationship. I know this particular case would probably be awkward for gay people, even if they were legally married, but it just serves as an example. I was in the hospital once for a week, and she wasn't allowed any special privilege visiting me because we weren't married yet. I would hate for gay partners of many years to not be able to visit each other in hospitals and such because our pansy puritan country feels squeamish around ideas we weren't raised with.
If it's some wierd religious-based exclusionary thing, then they could call it something else, but the same rights ought to be retained for both gay and straight couples.
Of course the turn signals in most cars these days don't seem to work at all. Go figure.
I'm pretty sure that people don't have a right to not be offended. It's lucky for the whole country that people aren't forced to abide by the religious doctrine of a religion that they may not even belong to. That's separation of church and state. It's not as if you are being force into a gay marriage. How exactly does a gay relationship involve you? (I bet whatever your answer is could be solved by "mind your own business")
And it would be better if a large majority forced their version of morality on the rest of the state through the use of the legislature? Gay marriages aren't infringing on the rights of any other people, therefore they shouldn't be prohibited. The Supreme Court of MA can strike down a law because they are trusted with determinig whether a law is constitutional or not. It is their responsibility to strike down laws which are not constitutional (MA or US constitution). If the majority of the citizens decided that your family should be strung up because there are more of them than you, would that be ok? The majority rules, but not at the cost of the minority's rights. That is the basis of our republic.
Unfortunately the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were dissolved long ago. I'd say an incredible amount of what the Federal gov't is doing goes against those two amendments.
Whoops.
Interesting. That must be what it feels like to have a 'real' job. I ignore it if it's my work calling and answer it if it's my gf or friends.
It shouldn't matter how many more precincts the US has. If all of the precincts are roughly the same size, it should take a little more time to add the totals of the precincts up. The bulk of the time is taken up by the precincts themselves counting the votes. As they are all doing this simultaneously, the number of precincts wont affect the rate at which the totals are tallied.
I've found that that works amazingly well. On my [non-technically inclined] family's computers, I installed Moz with the IE theme for mail and web browsing. They never noticed the transition (or at least said nothing of it) and even slowly began calling the web browser Mozilla instead to Internet Explorer.
This is where, I believe, religion differs from spirituality. You're right. Almost all (if not all) religions make silly, often provably wrong, assertions about the real observable universe. In my understanding, spirituality deals with the unobservable universe. This part of the universe may not exist, or it may exist in a state yet to be discovered (see the magic of the lodestone, etc). I don't pretend to know whether a spiritual world exists or not. I accept the fact that I don't know and can't possibly know everything there is to know about the universe. If there are other forces or facets of this universe that we can't sense, I'm not ready to take the leap of faith and positively say that they don't exist.
Now, I brought up that whole spirituality thing to say that if there was a God, it would be nearly impossible to prove or disprove its existence. Of course if that god was sentient and (in the case of most of our religions) of a human-minded persuasion, it would be meddling in our affairs all of the time (I think). The Judeo-Christian god seems to alternate between an overbearing father figure and an infant throwing a temper tantrum. I have a really hard time believing that that god exists. I don't think that a couple of bad god images discounts the possibility of any god. An omniscient, omnipresent god would likely not be sentient (what a bore it all would be!). In general, that sort of god sounds like the entirety of the universe itself (or something like that). Of course, I'm just speculating.
I don't believe in both positions equally. Rather, in the absence of definite evidence, I refuse to believe in either one. I don't discount the idea that there is some kind of invisible, ethereal alien in the room with me. Now, I'm not going to give that idea any weight while I live my life, but I wont declare that I know for absolute certain that there is no alien sitting next to me. I just refuse to make [avoidable] decisions based on faith. I refuse to declare positively that there is a god or isn't a god, because that decision requires a leap of faith, either way. I will pospone that decision until there is solid proof either way.
I was referring to the use of 'of', as 'poking fun of' should read 'poking fun at'. I also said conjunction instead of contraction. This is what I get for even mentioning grammar/spelling!
See, it happened already.
corbettw: To my own dismay, I've found that when posting to Slastdot (and only then) I find myself making these stupid mistakes, too. I think that it's contagious. (Usually Preview compes to the rescue.)
I think (and of course this is my own interpretation) that since I cannot prove or disprove the existance of God, it would be foolish to make a stong assertion either way. Believing in God wouldn't help me sleep better at night, and disbelieving doesn't help me in any psychological way, either. I am a pretty ethical person, and I follow the golden rule, so I don't think that any god would have a problem with me if there turned out to be one. If there was one, and it was of the sort that would damn me for not going against my own intuition and believing in it, then I would have myself damned as a statement against it's petty childishness.
"God-fearing" seems to me to imply that if God were found to not exist or to be powerless, ethical behavior would go out the window. It seems that to do a "right" thing for fear of retribution is to not understand why it is "right" to begin with.
[OT, it feels kinda gross to actually use a smiley...]
I don't see what your point is. Ground clearance is only as high as the lowest hanging part. If there is a part hanging down, it's not going to clear the ground.
My assertion is that you have the freedom to say anything that you like. You have the constitutionally protected right to say damaging false statements about another person. The wronged person has the government granted privilege to collect compensation from you for being wronged.
Your right to make damaging statements is not abridged. You can continue to make the same statements and the court can keep finding that you owe the offended party. You are responsible for the consequences of your speech. You have the right to freedom of speech, but not freedom from responsibility for your speech.
You are free to yell fire in a crowded theater. You will not be arrested for uttering the word 'fire'. You will be arrested for deliberately creating a violent situation (I don't know what the charge is, specifically.
Using your freedom if speech to cause harm to others is punished because you are causing harm. There is a vast difference between freedom of speech and freedom from responsibility for your speech.
Oh, and I can't say this enough times: civil suits and criminal trials are very different beasts. Slander isn't illegal, but the slandered party is entitled to compensation. Slandering somebody is not even in the same boat as assaulting them, for instance. Civil vs criminal is a concept that the vast (vocal) majority of Slashdot doesn't grasp. To be sure, most (US) citizens don't either.
Ugh. Why do I even try?
There must be a specific victim to sue for libel or slander, and they are not criminal offences but civil. It is not illegal to make false statements. If you do damages to another person in the process of making false statements, though, they may be entitled to compensation. You cannot sue for libel or slander on behalf of another person and expect to collect compensation for it.
Hate crime laws aside (which I'm not sure I agree with), it is not illegal to say things which may offend other people. It is illegal to harass or assault another person, but to use the grandparent's example, to say that all Jews are faggots is not by itself illegal. It is certainly not a nice thing to say, but unless somebody can show damage resulting from that statement it does no harm (being offended does not and should not constitute damages). Some hate crime laws contradict this, and I think that they are unconstitutional. Freedom of speech except for possibly offensive speech is not freedom of speech.
Unless the things that they are saying are illegal (inciting violence, harassing or deliberately intimidating people, slandering people), they can say them wherever they please. They cannot cause a nuisance (yelling with a bullhorn), obstruct traffic, or commit any other illegal activities. They can say what they please, as long as it causes no actual damage.
I do not endorse the KKK or any other hateful group or cause. I do however respect the rights of others... even if I don't agree with them. I'm going to have to agree with a post above. Perhaps you need to review some of your thoughts before you post.
I'd say that one of the most difficult (and dangerous (getting caught-wise)) aspects of getting info off of a network is actually getting yourself into the network. Having a wireless link in removes a great deal of the danger (of getting caught), and leaves the intruder plenty of time to do the job more efficiently (making security's job harder).
A big fat lock on the door keeps most intruders out. (and WEP and MAC filtering don't count as locks)
Do you run a search for that phrase every so often, or just happen to notice it when it comes up?
Diesel buses and trucks are not terribly polluting. Natural gas is better, but the filthy cloud emitted from diesel exhaust is mostly just soot, and they are much cleaner than similarly sized gasoline vehicles.
The soot does make a mess, but until natural gas or electric powered vehicles come into the scene, dirty-looking diesel is much better than clean-looking gasoline.
I'm done with my nitpick, now.
In my drive, and every other CD-RW wrive that I have used, you can blank a CDRW in a few different ways, the 'fast' way taking less than a minute (at 4x): (from cdrecord - dupes removed)
I've been testing an SVCD here just now and have blanked a single disc over 10 times in the last hour (using fast blanking). The last time I used packet writing on a CDRW, I remember it taking a long time to format the disc. I would think that you would only have to do that once, though, if you intended to keep the disc in a packet-writing format.If you're writing data to a CD at 12x and it's taking you 45 minutes, then you're dealing with some pretty damn big CDs (45min x 12 = 540min = 4.7GB).