I'm going to pick up your response, though I found the anonymous post to be rather harsh.
A Buddhist understands that if he commits an evil against another -- be he man or beast, or even the world itself -- then he will have to atone for it. Not in regret, not in personal suffering, but in action. He will have to MAKE UP FOR the evil he causes, be it in this lifetime or the next.
This is where Buddhism and Christianity are in exact opposition: Christians don't get what they deserve, because Jesus got what heh didn't deserve. Mankind cannot "balance" the good out with the bad because we are so much more bad than good. That sounds crazy to non-believers but it's just a perspective problem. If you only look at man all your life, the average man seems like a decent enough chap. If you look at God for once, and his act for love shown on the cross, you see a different story.
If karmic law were true, I'd "deserve" to be burning in very hot fire right now, because, like all other men, I was made for something better than my pitiful selfishness. I was made to show compassion.
Enlightenment doesn't require perfection, it requires recognizing that your actions affect the world and the lives around you, and for the pains you cause you must cause an equal amount of healing.
I think the notion of enlightenment itself is a reasonable goal for this life, but for a Christian it should be understood that, in the next life, we shall acheive something better.
It is important to always remember that it is because of God, not us, that we can get the strength to show this kind of love. I mean the kind of love that is hard to show. Not just dropping a few nickels in the hobo's bucket. Like, giving a year of your life to feeding the hungry in a desperate part of the world. Like forgiving your spouse for infidelity.
You can be as truly regretful and sorry as you want, but until you get off your ass and do some good in the world, you're going to be stuck.
Faith without works is dead. We're just not saved by our works.
I mean American Buddhism--Buddhism as it is actually practiced is an entirely different matter. There's a lot more to it than meditation and drinking Sobe tea at local coffee shops. There's karmic law, the eightfold path, and much much more. But we Americans don't like challenges, so we've taken Buddhism and made it completely complacent and lifeless. All beliefs we hold about the relevant religions aside.
but belief in Buddhism requires you to live a much more "moral" life than Judeo-Christian religions do.
You're correct, but you've also demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of Christianity.
There are no last-minute contritions in Buddhism, no deathbed conversions. You either live a good, moral life, or you don't.
The question for Buddhism is "do you want to eliminate suffering?" The question for Christianity is "do you want to endure it for the sake of others?" It's easy to acheive salvation, harder to practice than anything else I can think of.
Not to sound mean, but can you please re-read my post? I understand your views on the matter; I even once held them myself. We can argue till the sun goes down about whether or not a given religion is a ridiculous lie or the One True Way, but that would still not convey my point. To do so, you need to understand the perspective of a Christian. You know, put yourself in their shoes.
Umm..it seems like you've completely avoided my point and inserted your own grudge. But yes, sex education and birth control might help control starvation. Many cultures in Africa simply won't allow themselves to use them, so I don't know how effective this would be everywhere.
But what does this have to do with anything? It was an analogy...
When you're around others, how long do you let them go on having fun before you go on and ruin it by slipping into dramatic diatribes and hidden meanings?
He told the kids to use the flat side of the sword so they didn't hurt anyone. And Lewis hadn't yet experienced the feminist movement to know that whenever you write stories for toastgoddess, you have to give "male" responsibilites like war to a few token female characters. And Lewis wasn't attacking women being interested in fashion and men, he was using it as an example for trading ones spirituality for materialism. You know, this world for the next.
Sorry to come down so hard, but I think you're being just a little bit uptight.
Who executes believers? Usually it's the infidels that get executed...
At any rate, I have yet to find anywhere where any popular author, either Christian or Atheist, where the writing proscribes the execution of dissidents.
The United States Government has some strong Christians in it, but Christianity isn't nearly as fundamentalist and strictly adhering to the Bible at this point in time as say much of Islam sticks to the Koran.
To nitpick, stricter adherence to the Bible would forbid discrimination against gays, since the laws given to the Levites do not apply to gentiles, and the New Testament calls all believers to show unmerited favor to nonbelievers, not discrimination.
That's not to say that all Christians who refuse to go along with the American right-wing dude-says-it-so-it-must-be-true political machine also believe that homosexuality is a practice condoned or invented by God.
Have you ever read the prologue to the Lord of the Rings? That's an elaborate theory, but wrong. LoTR is not allegorical, but it is perhaps applicable.
Dude, this is America. Here, when we disagree with eachother, we can entertain and debate our ideas peacefully. I bet you have a lot of ideas about the world and others around you that you want to change, and that you actively support changing them. It's healthy. It's a good thing.
and they never bother you unless you actively want to be bothered.
I can see how Buddhism is attractive to you--it doesn't ever ask you to change. That feels really good. Unfortunately, many truths don't feel very good. For example, it kind of sucks that many humans die each year to starvation. Yet it's true. The sooner we realize that truth, the sooner we can do something about it. Do you like being bothered by people who want to relieve hunger? That knock on your door asking for donations? Even if you are a bit annoyed by them, you can recognize that millions are starving and that you ought to care.
Now, here's where I shoot you with that Point of View gun in Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (didn't read the book, just saw the movie yesterday). Put yourself in the perspective of a Christian, where there's a whole world out there starving for the Gospel. Where the spiritual death people experience is worse than the physical death of starvation.
I'm not asking you to believe anything, just empathize with those who do.
I think that the double standard people have to refusing to read or watch a piece of fiction because the author is a Christian is quickly becoming one of the greatest pieces of evidence in favor of the Christian world view.
I haven't yet read that series, but I believe your mistaking Lewis' liberal theology with universalism--while his beliefs were, for the most part, mainline Christianity, two beliefs more than any others separated him from todays "fundamentalists."
He didn't believe in Biblical inerrancy; that is to say, although he believed that the 66 books contained in the Bible are in fact divinely inspired, he didn't believe that all of them were historically accurate. He didn't believe, for example, that Jonah actually got swallowed by the whale, or that the earth is only 8,000 years old. They are scriptures in the sense that they are divine teachings, but they are also myth (according to his line of thinking).
God works "in cognito" in other societies where the Christian gospel is not heard in order to promote his values. Lewis agreed that no one could make it to heaven without believing in Christ, but he also believed that many who never crossed paths with a Christian were given revelation about God through their own mythology. After death, according to Lewis, those who rejected Jesus during their lifetime would surely bring hell upon themselves because they really wouldn't want to spend eternity with a God they hated.
I personally wish more men like Lewis would lead the American church today, because in the absence of reason, superstition has become more and more powerful.
Your state also lets people operate a motor vehicle with no fundamental understanding of or experience with controlling understeer, oversteer, or panic braking.
You seem like an expert. What do you think of downshifting to supplement braking? Especially when your in danger or hitting something, shifting into second gear at 45mph+ will have a noticeable impact on your momentum. I'm wondering if it's safe for the car, though.
I pretty much regulate all minor speed changes with gear shifting anyways--my hands and feet naturally move to shift whenever I want to brake.
Still, you claimed that it could take up to two seconds to look over your shoulder. For me, looking over my shoulder doesn't take nearly that long. I can easily get distracted for the same gap of time looking at a sign or something (granted, having brake lights in your field of vision is better than not).
I agree with most of what you've written. I have an ugly vehicle, but I still point the mirror so I can see the side because otherwise I can't seem to trust the mirror. I need to be able to glance at the mirror and quickly be able to get my "bearings" as to where the objects I'm looking at are, and how far they are away from me.
I must admit I've all but abandoned my right mirror for my shoulder because of that issue right there.
I think the big problem is people who look over their shoulder, see a vehicle coming by, and stay looking over their shoulder waiting for the opening.
Okay, so we're supposed to hate this kind of bill here. Fine. However, regardless of the merit of this bill itself, I like that states can decide this for themselves. It's better than Washington resolving the issue for everyone at once.
The FAQ doesn't say why Rosetta isn't open source. I find this shocking because Ubuntu has traditionally maintained a strong stance in favor of free software. I don't suppose you'd happen to know why?
Of course Equilibrium has been done before a billion times. It's not cool for its plot, although I do like the way that same old dystopia is presented in the movie. It's nothing new, just a pleasent backdrop for the cool action and interesting character developments.
He wasn't supposed to fight with his partner for very long, because his partner wasn't nearly as good.
He *was* supposed to have a massive fight with the chubby British guy, which is what they didn't have the budget for, but I thought it turned out pretty well anyway. Apparently the fight they had planned is going to show up in Ultraviolet.
Ahh. I knew the movie was missing a big end fight scene. By the British guy, do you mean the guy that played Robert the Bruce in Braveheart? I thought it would have made more sense if he were merely the brains behind it all, and couldn't fight.
There was at least five minutes more movie after that fight...
Anyway, the movie did have a low budget. It shows in places, but it's still awesome.
Hmm...I'll have to go back and watch it again. Say, what's this whole Ultraviolet thing?
That movie was hardcore up until the end. *SPOILER ALERT* You know, where he and his partner were supposed to fight for like twenty minutes but it was over in twenty seconds. And then the abrupt credits rolling right afterwards. Its as if they just lost all their budget right there.
Other than that, totally hardcore movie, even in spite of having a done-to-death plot.
You can take any distro and compile whatever you want and turn it into something "notorious for its speed" by compiling things for your system.
No, you cannot. First of all, almost all modern distributions are pretty well optimized for the target hardware. The CMOV instruction (which separates i686 binaries from i586) doesn't give you a huge speed boost, but you can optimize your instructions for i686 whilst still keeping the binaries i386 compatible. If you really want to see a speedup, try turning off all of the services in a stock fedora or debian installation. You'll reach pretty comparable speeds that way.
That being said, "lighter" distros like crux, slack, and lfs are much easier to admin because they're kept simple. The overhead in complexity gui config tools seem to bring is ridiculous.
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You, for whining to the GP when you could be spending your time feeding the homeless.
Again, I forgot to specify that I was talking about the American "feel-good" variety of Buddhism.
I'm going to pick up your response, though I found the anonymous post to be rather harsh.
A Buddhist understands that if he commits an evil against another -- be he man or beast, or even the world itself -- then he will have to atone for it. Not in regret, not in personal suffering, but in action. He will have to MAKE UP FOR the evil he causes, be it in this lifetime or the next.
This is where Buddhism and Christianity are in exact opposition: Christians don't get what they deserve, because Jesus got what heh didn't deserve. Mankind cannot "balance" the good out with the bad because we are so much more bad than good. That sounds crazy to non-believers but it's just a perspective problem. If you only look at man all your life, the average man seems like a decent enough chap. If you look at God for once, and his act for love shown on the cross, you see a different story.
If karmic law were true, I'd "deserve" to be burning in very hot fire right now, because, like all other men, I was made for something better than my pitiful selfishness. I was made to show compassion.
Enlightenment doesn't require perfection, it requires recognizing that your actions affect the world and the lives around you, and for the pains you cause you must cause an equal amount of healing.
I think the notion of enlightenment itself is a reasonable goal for this life, but for a Christian it should be understood that, in the next life, we shall acheive something better.
It is important to always remember that it is because of God, not us, that we can get the strength to show this kind of love. I mean the kind of love that is hard to show. Not just dropping a few nickels in the hobo's bucket. Like, giving a year of your life to feeding the hungry in a desperate part of the world. Like forgiving your spouse for infidelity.
You can be as truly regretful and sorry as you want, but until you get off your ass and do some good in the world, you're going to be stuck.
Faith without works is dead. We're just not saved by our works.
I mean American Buddhism--Buddhism as it is actually practiced is an entirely different matter. There's a lot more to it than meditation and drinking Sobe tea at local coffee shops. There's karmic law, the eightfold path, and much much more. But we Americans don't like challenges, so we've taken Buddhism and made it completely complacent and lifeless. All beliefs we hold about the relevant religions aside.
but belief in Buddhism requires you to live a much more "moral" life than Judeo-Christian religions do.
You're correct, but you've also demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of Christianity.
There are no last-minute contritions in Buddhism, no deathbed conversions. You either live a good, moral life, or you don't.
The question for Buddhism is "do you want to eliminate suffering?" The question for Christianity is "do you want to endure it for the sake of others?" It's easy to acheive salvation, harder to practice than anything else I can think of.
Not to sound mean, but can you please re-read my post? I understand your views on the matter; I even once held them myself. We can argue till the sun goes down about whether or not a given religion is a ridiculous lie or the One True Way, but that would still not convey my point. To do so, you need to understand the perspective of a Christian. You know, put yourself in their shoes.
But what does this have to do with anything? It was an analogy...
He told the kids to use the flat side of the sword so they didn't hurt anyone. And Lewis hadn't yet experienced the feminist movement to know that whenever you write stories for toastgoddess, you have to give "male" responsibilites like war to a few token female characters. And Lewis wasn't attacking women being interested in fashion and men, he was using it as an example for trading ones spirituality for materialism. You know, this world for the next.
Sorry to come down so hard, but I think you're being just a little bit uptight.
At any rate, I have yet to find anywhere where any popular author, either Christian or Atheist, where the writing proscribes the execution of dissidents.
The United States Government has some strong Christians in it, but Christianity isn't nearly as fundamentalist and strictly adhering to the Bible at this point in time as say much of Islam sticks to the Koran.
To nitpick, stricter adherence to the Bible would forbid discrimination against gays, since the laws given to the Levites do not apply to gentiles, and the New Testament calls all believers to show unmerited favor to nonbelievers, not discrimination.
That's not to say that all Christians who refuse to go along with the American right-wing dude-says-it-so-it-must-be-true political machine also believe that homosexuality is a practice condoned or invented by God.
Have you ever read the prologue to the Lord of the Rings? That's an elaborate theory, but wrong. LoTR is not allegorical, but it is perhaps applicable.
and they never bother you unless you actively want to be bothered.
I can see how Buddhism is attractive to you--it doesn't ever ask you to change. That feels really good. Unfortunately, many truths don't feel very good. For example, it kind of sucks that many humans die each year to starvation. Yet it's true. The sooner we realize that truth, the sooner we can do something about it. Do you like being bothered by people who want to relieve hunger? That knock on your door asking for donations? Even if you are a bit annoyed by them, you can recognize that millions are starving and that you ought to care.
Now, here's where I shoot you with that Point of View gun in Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (didn't read the book, just saw the movie yesterday). Put yourself in the perspective of a Christian, where there's a whole world out there starving for the Gospel. Where the spiritual death people experience is worse than the physical death of starvation.
I'm not asking you to believe anything, just empathize with those who do.
I think that the double standard people have to refusing to read or watch a piece of fiction because the author is a Christian is quickly becoming one of the greatest pieces of evidence in favor of the Christian world view.
He didn't believe in Biblical inerrancy; that is to say, although he believed that the 66 books contained in the Bible are in fact divinely inspired, he didn't believe that all of them were historically accurate. He didn't believe, for example, that Jonah actually got swallowed by the whale, or that the earth is only 8,000 years old. They are scriptures in the sense that they are divine teachings, but they are also myth (according to his line of thinking).
God works "in cognito" in other societies where the Christian gospel is not heard in order to promote his values. Lewis agreed that no one could make it to heaven without believing in Christ, but he also believed that many who never crossed paths with a Christian were given revelation about God through their own mythology. After death, according to Lewis, those who rejected Jesus during their lifetime would surely bring hell upon themselves because they really wouldn't want to spend eternity with a God they hated.
I personally wish more men like Lewis would lead the American church today, because in the absence of reason, superstition has become more and more powerful.
Thanks for the informative post. I'll try and attempt the heel-and-toe stuff next time I'm...all by myself :)
Your state also lets people operate a motor vehicle with no fundamental understanding of or experience with controlling understeer, oversteer, or panic braking.
You seem like an expert. What do you think of downshifting to supplement braking? Especially when your in danger or hitting something, shifting into second gear at 45mph+ will have a noticeable impact on your momentum. I'm wondering if it's safe for the car, though.
I pretty much regulate all minor speed changes with gear shifting anyways--my hands and feet naturally move to shift whenever I want to brake.
I agree with most of what you've written. I have an ugly vehicle, but I still point the mirror so I can see the side because otherwise I can't seem to trust the mirror. I need to be able to glance at the mirror and quickly be able to get my "bearings" as to where the objects I'm looking at are, and how far they are away from me.
I must admit I've all but abandoned my right mirror for my shoulder because of that issue right there.
I think the big problem is people who look over their shoulder, see a vehicle coming by, and stay looking over their shoulder waiting for the opening.
Okay, so we're supposed to hate this kind of bill here. Fine. However, regardless of the merit of this bill itself, I like that states can decide this for themselves. It's better than Washington resolving the issue for everyone at once.
I think he was trying to describe the "mood" of the software shop--why no one cared about copyright violation.
The FAQ doesn't say why Rosetta isn't open source. I find this shocking because Ubuntu has traditionally maintained a strong stance in favor of free software. I don't suppose you'd happen to know why?
Of course Equilibrium has been done before a billion times. It's not cool for its plot, although I do like the way that same old dystopia is presented in the movie. It's nothing new, just a pleasent backdrop for the cool action and interesting character developments.
I never understood this "invented character X in story A could kick the crap out of invented character Y in story B" nonsense.
I mean, how about I create a character called UBERBRAWLFIST 3000 and claim that he is so powerful he could take Marv out in one blow?
I think these statements actually mean "I like character X more than character Y."
He wasn't supposed to fight with his partner for very long, because his partner wasn't nearly as good.
He *was* supposed to have a massive fight with the chubby British guy, which is what they didn't have the budget for, but I thought it turned out pretty well anyway. Apparently the fight they had planned is going to show up in Ultraviolet.
Ahh. I knew the movie was missing a big end fight scene. By the British guy, do you mean the guy that played Robert the Bruce in Braveheart? I thought it would have made more sense if he were merely the brains behind it all, and couldn't fight.
There was at least five minutes more movie after that fight...
Anyway, the movie did have a low budget. It shows in places, but it's still awesome.
Hmm...I'll have to go back and watch it again. Say, what's this whole Ultraviolet thing?
Other than that, totally hardcore movie, even in spite of having a done-to-death plot.
You can take any distro and compile whatever you want and turn it into something "notorious for its speed" by compiling things for your system.
No, you cannot. First of all, almost all modern distributions are pretty well optimized for the target hardware. The CMOV instruction (which separates i686 binaries from i586) doesn't give you a huge speed boost, but you can optimize your instructions for i686 whilst still keeping the binaries i386 compatible. If you really want to see a speedup, try turning off all of the services in a stock fedora or debian installation. You'll reach pretty comparable speeds that way.
That being said, "lighter" distros like crux, slack, and lfs are much easier to admin because they're kept simple. The overhead in complexity gui config tools seem to bring is ridiculous.
We can finally watch Episode 1 without Jar Jar in it!
In your temporal lobe?