I think the reason they're so big is because Bill Gates' mom happened to go to the United Way with a IBM VP. After that, Bill lied about having an OS ready for the new PC platform, and borrowed 50k of his mothers money to buy QDOS. Seems to me it takes a well-connected family, lots of money, and a good capability to lie to make it to the top of the heap. After that, Microsoft was destined to ride IBMs coat tails to monopolydom, and by lying to the public just as they had lied to IBM ("Oh yeah, we have a GUI coming out in just 2 months! better not buy that other guys GUI!" 18 months later they had a GUI.), they were able to once again leverage their position to gain a foothold in PC shells, which they then used in colloberation with their monopoly in OSes to wipe out the shell market completely with Windows 95.
So, in this case, IBM basically handed the monopoly over to MS. This "Try again philosophy" is after the fact, and really, is just the churnings of a company that could likely do whatever the hell they wanted and still make money by the truckload.
I'm glad to hear you invested all your money in Enron. Hey, who the fuck cares how they got all their money? They have all this money in the bank, nothing could go wrong!
Erm...which? I've used more than a few UIs in recent years, and from Gnome to BeOS, most will let you move the bar wherever you'd like it. In fact, Gnome has the most customizable UI there is. It's quite amazing in that respect.
Microsoft only makes tools. Windows? Office? MSC++? Wrench, screwdriver, nailgun. They aren't the only ones who make those tools either. For any given MS tool, there's a dozen alternatives by lesser known companies, which in many cases are better anyway. Real jobs aren't going to dissapear simply because some arrogant company based in some backwater gets slapped for their consistently illegal behaviour.
Also, you seem to miss the greater implications of your statement. By your judgement, we should let car theifs go free, because they directly or indirectly spur new car sales, employ police, and create thousands of jobs in the theft prevention industry and insurance industry. It's that kind of copout that is destroying America.
Then you're alone. Personally, when I bought my laptop, I had no choice -- I had to pay for their copy of winME as well. Now, taking into account all the PCs I've bought pre-built, that's a good 4 or 5 MS licences I didn't want or need(the aforementioned laptop has Mandrake on it right now.), and that's quite a chunk of cash going towards an entity I'd rather not be sending cash to.
In Colossians, the Bible says "Slaves, obey your masters" and "Masters, provide your slaves what is right and fair". That's because Paul wasn't advocating the overthrow of the government - he was telling people how they should act in whatever situation they found themselves in. There may have been many slaves in the church of Colosse.
That passage doesn't praise slavery or say it's right, though - it just tells people how to act when they're in that situation. There are other verses that speak against mistreating others - such as the "Golden Rule" verse which you quoted earlier.
Even then, wouldn't you agree that the idea to abolish slavery completely and decide that slavery itself is wrong was the decision of man? Of people who saw slavery and thought it wasn't right for one man to buy and sell another like cattle?
> How is this different from any of the > morality from religious texts > people conveniently forget about
If people ignore truth, that doesn't make it untrue. It just means they're ignoring the truth.
You say that as if the truth is the same today as it once was. Tell me, should a man be killed for not keeping the sabbath holy? Should women never speak in church? Should we burn wiccas? Archaic wisdom isn't the best. Just as blood letting has been ignored as it's premise and usefulness is ludicrous, so are these lessons learned by all but the most fanatical fundamentalist followers. I feel that in another thousand years, these texts may simply be seen as barbarism, as humanity evolves towards an even more beautiful, equitable world. > your "word of god"
Ah, but it's not mine, and that's what makes it valuable - it wasn't made up by a human.
I beg to differ. It was written by men. Divine scripture wouldn't be so riddled with silly errors of details. Using all the gospels, try to piece together a timeline of Jesus' revival without disregarding any information -- it's not possible. Evidence to me, that god was not involved in the writing. Omniscient beings generally tend to be able to keep events consistent.
Furthermore, why should your book be any more divine and true than the others? If I decided to start worshipping Zeus, God of thunder, or I decided to start blowing up infidels in the name of Allah by joining islam (gotta have those renewable virgins!), or I follow the prophets responsible for buddhism or Taoism, they're going to tell me that THEIR book is divinely inspired, and they're going to tell me that your silly little religion(their words) doesn't have a theological leg to stand on. That theirs is the One True Path(tm). So tell me, what, if anything, makes yours so convincing? Personally, I find the concept of Karma found in Buddhism far more convincing than this One True God idea, so the onus is really on you to provide proof other than some X-filesian "I want to believe".
> Do you think that God didn't want > commoners reading bibles? > Do you think he wanted the bible to only be > availible in Latin?
God wants everyone to read his word.
Then why did this faithful say otherwise? It's a very slippery slope trying to seperate the religion from the church. The church has morphed the religion so much (see in paticular, meetings in the Roman Empire in 300-400AD, just before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, during the reign of Constaine, for a pretty good idea of how much even scripture has changed as a result of the Church), that to disregard the church is to disregard the religion, short of translating original scripture yourself, which isn't really possible.
> Do you think he cares if you wear a rubber?
Hey, Biblical teachings on birth control! Ah, an excellent topic there... we could go on for days.
Doubt it. For most, it's just a matter of opinion, and some people like to back it up with biblical teach
>>>> For some reason Slashdot won't let me post to our previous discussion... it says that I've moderated the thread. How bizarre. Anyhow:
> advocates owning slaves
Really? How's that?
There are instances where there are lessons on how you're supposed to treat your slaves. The word of god, no less. I'd call that an endorsement of slaves if I ever saw one.:)
Did man deciding anything make it right? What if man decided that slavery was OK again?
I suppose in the eyes of the masses, it would be. How is this different from any of the morality from religious texts people conveniently forget about?
Do you believe Nero existed? Why?
I can't really say. I haven't studied that era or location thoroughly enough.
Because a moral code promulgated by a person is just that - a moral code promulgated by a person. It has no authority.
I hate to break this to you, but neither does any of the morality imposed by the church(your "word of god"). Most, if not all of it is made up on the spot by the church for political reasons. Do you think that God didn't want commoners reading bibles? Do you think that he wanted the bible to only be availible in Latin? Do you think he cares if you wear a rubber? Furthermore, what happens in this "Hell"? Officially, it's not fire and brimstone anymore, but "rest assured, it's very bad". It seems once again man dictated morality to himself, and any supposed deitys aren't holding any real power anyway.
Yup, I too would be happy if a big sign were to appear occasionally. I don't know why God hasn't done that.
It could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe there are no more faithful anymore, so God is going to damn us all, in which case, who cares which religion we choose? It could be that Christianity has been so badly corrupted by man that it's no longer the religion he wanted it to be. It could be that there is no God, and it's we're going to be taking orders from Zeus after we all die. Either way, the evidence, and logic, point to the idea that either there is no god, you're worshipping the wrong one, or he's so indifferent it doesn't really matter. Sorry.
I've been very impressed with my Casio BE-300. After the upgrade to one of the user-created OS mods, it's versatility for the price, along with the backlit colour screen and usable USB port, make it quite a deal, considering it is the cheapest colour PDA available on the market, to the best of my knowlege.
Hm. Are right and wrong based on tradition? There's a long history of slavery in many countries... does that mean slavery is OK?
Bad example. The bible (therefore, God) advocates owning slaves. It was man who decided that all men should be free. Besides which, accepting morality without any thought of the philosophy behind such morality is stupidity.
Has it?
Sure has. In fact, man made morality is what our society is based upon. Think about it. Things that are definitely said to be wrong in scripture which are legal. There are things said to be right in scripture that are very illegal.
Sure, tons of it, the entire Old Testament.
I'm talking New Testament. Duh.:P
Nah, it would be passed off as a hallucination or something.
There would be recordings and scientific data on it this time. Most people try not to blatantly refuse scientific data and hard facts if they can help it, and video cameras don't have hallucinations.
Who does the calling, and whose moral code do we use? Now we're back to how we determine which moral code is right
How does that change if God is the source? Different moral codes exist already-- hell, different religions exist which say that God has told to slaughter infidels(for renewable virgins even!)!
The "mountain into the sea" thing is a metaphor.
And I'm reading it metaphorically. And it still says that all things can be achieved through prayer. To me, that includes minor and major miracles.
Nope, only if the things requested are in God's will.
Well, unless God is manic depressive and hasn't been able to get out of bed for the past millenia or two, the nonexistance of demonstratable miracles is indicative to me of one of a few things Most either pointing to either the idea that the Christian God doesn't exist, The christian religion has been corrupted(quite likely, considering the bible was created by a council in Rome some time after the birth of the religion), or simply that God is too indifferent to affect this era, meaning that this whole conversation is irrelevant anyway.:)
What evidence can you present that man was not created with morality? And if we were not, why would we create morality?
The fact that lesser mammals don't have them.
Invented by God, yes. But not by man.
Yup, philosophy without God is... well... inconclusive.
Perhaps we should agree to disagree on this point. Personally, I keep seeing the diminishing power of God(ie. "well, god might not actually preform miricles any more, but by golly, he's still omnipotent!") in the various modern religions throughout the world as we learn more about our universe as a struggle to keep ancient beliefs created by the Roman empire as a political tool(in the case of Christianity) relevant enough to remain acceptable as peoples beliefs. This in turn makes the claim that God created morality a bit of a stretch, seeing as his influence seems to be revoked every time the church gets a chance...
Right, it's difficult to assert exactly what the first man was like. There are certainly a wide range of opinions on that.
But as a fish will never think twice about killing and eating the worm or the smaller fish, man created morality, and in doing so, asks himself: "How can I justify taking the life of another creature when I myself do not want to be killed?". We were not born as a species(and nor are we born as humans) with an innate knowlege of morality, so we had to create it on our own.
Would you say the same of mathematics? Did we create algebra? Or was it always there?
Mathematics and morality are different in one important way: Mathematics exist as an attempt to understand the world, morality exists as an attempt to exert some measure of control over it. Therefore, Matematics are passive, something that could be considered to be both invented and discovered. The truth was always out there, but we invented a way to put it into terms we could understand and express. Morality, on the other hand, was soley invented. Like a vacuum cleaner, it wasn't waiting to be discovered, but was created as a hole in the philosophy of ancient man weighted upon our intellect.
But wait - how can you say what they did was wrong? I mean... by what yardstick are you determining right and wrong?
I'm using the ever popular "killing 6 million innocent jews in the most inhumane, 'lets see how much work we can get done out of them while feeding them next to nothing and let them starve and die of hunger and overexertion' isn't right" morality. That in turn is based on the ever popular "golden rule", which states "do unto others as you would have to do unto them". This social contract, and variations thereof, have, for generations, and without divine intervention, kept people of all sorts of theistic and atheistic faiths from going on rampages. Myself included.
True - but the Bible doesn't claim that Christians will be immune from trouble. This is a fallen world we live in, and Christians are as vulnerable as any.
Mark 16:16,17,18
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
According to the bible, Christians aren't supposed to be vunerable like the rest of us. I could be misreading it(though it would be hard to), but it seems to me that here they are promised powers which make them somewhat less vunerable than a regular man. Here we are presented with tangible ways God's power is supposedly channelled through his faithful, but nothing of the sort exists in the modern world.
> Is love a being? No, it too is an > abstract construct.
You're right... I'm not sure what I was getting at there.
I'm getting at why it cannot be detected. Love, being an abstract concept, isn't 'real', as such. You cannot point to a room and say "there is love there". People inside the room may feel that emotion we call "love" themselves, but there is nothing tangible about it, besides a few well fired neurons and a hormone or two. It cannot change the world on it's own either. Because without something that can love, it does not exist. Much like that other artificial construct, God.
Yup, it'd be nice if God would show up once a month or so and say "look, here I am!". That doesn't seem to be his style, though.
Certainly, a being who wants people to believe in him would do more than send his son to earth(telling nobody literate, it seems, as much of the scripture in the bible is over two hundred years older than Jesus would have been when he died, though admittedly, some of the scripture has been dated at years before jesus' birth)), and rely on a book written four hundred years after his death(by comittee, no less!) to convert people, when all he needs to do is turn the sky red in modern times once, and let the heavens roar "This is god. The god that sent jesus down to earth. Have a nice day", for the entire world to believe in perpetuity in him and his teachings(because we'd be able to record then and there, without waiting 200 years this time, in print, video, and spectrograph, rather than some guy finally writing it down after 200 years of a spoken fable).
If the assumption that God created all things is granted, then it follows that he can do whatever he wants. I realize you don't grant that assumption, just wanted to line that up.
OK, he can do whatever he wants, which means he does nothing. Even if thousands or millions or billions of people are suffering and dying, he does nothing. If God is our model for morality, then the model of morality is telling us to ignore the suffering of others, and to effect no justice in the world. I have my doubts. I rather believe that man, the creators of all justice and injustice in the world, as far as I can see, are also the creators of the moral code they are called upon to live by and di
But a bunch of Germans thought it was OK... did that make it right? Why not?
Did they? I doubt it. Underneath the lies to themselves and such, I'm certain every one of those people knew what they were doing was wrong on a massive scale.
I believe that you believe that.
As you wish. Just remember that no artificial construct is going to save you if something bad happens. And a lot of good christians died on 9/11 without any divine intervention I could see. And the plague. And an infinite number of massacres and disasters throughout history which a supposedly omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient being could have prevented.
Does love have physical properties? Does love exist?
Is love a being? No, it too is an abstract construct. Created by the human mind. Does love have the alleged power to create or destroy worlds, and alter this one according to it's will without human intervention? No. Whenever people speak of the power of love to change the world, it is ALWAYS through a human with love in their heart. Furthermore, love DOES indeed have physical characteristics, which have been studied by scholars and scientists in modern and ancient times. God, on the other hand, seems to be conveniently undetectable in all ways, from the subtlest manipulation to supposed miracles(the only apparant manipulation of the world allowed for, it seems). The laws of physics always state what happens, and in modern times, I have yet to hear of a "miracle" which was anything more than sheer luck(or perhaps even less, falling into statistical inevitability, since we never hear about the thousands of misses for every miracle hit) having circumstances in such a way that the events that unfold are favourable for those involved.
Man did not have morality when Man first took his first steps as a species. That is almost certain. We created it, and we did that through our experiences. Hence, experience defines morality.
> it has been man who has decided > what is good, and what is evil
Doesn't that imply that Hitler and, say, Mother Teresa are morally equivalent?
No, because mankind as a whole decided that it was wrong. Without god, ordering the slow, painful slaughter of 12 million people would still be wrong, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain, unless you believe that only god can say there is something wrong with killing 12 million innocent people.
> To believe otherwise is to depreciate > the power of man
Exactly right. To depreciate the power of man and acknowledge the power of God.
God is an artificial theological construct created by superstitious humans in a time when they needed an explanation for the world around them. This artifical theological construct is in the same arena as minitaurs and goblins and dragons, but through sheer coincidence, it can't really be completely disproven like the former because the physical property of this creation is that it has no physical properties. Like ghosts, only moreso. ("You see that little speck in the picture, that's not a ghost, as we previously thought, that's god!")
I assure you, man, the greatest species ever to roam the earth, and the only one to leave it alive, is far greater, and far more powerful, than the gods and goblins we made up a couple thousand years ago.
What law? all men are born with eyes to see, ears to hear, a toungue to taste, and various ways to sense touch. If you kick a man, he will feel pain and will not like it(sexual undertones excepted). We all live the same experience, and though our lives may harden us or soften us, pain and pleasure define our experiences, and thus, our morality.
You know, you're not a floating brain in a jar. The human experience is what defines morality. If being killed or having your freinds and family killed was a good thing, and didn't hurt like hell, maybe it wouldn't be considered wrong. As it stands though, it's blatantly obvious that the creators of the major religions were just men, and they created rules based on things somewhat less divine than you'd think. The way they'd like to live, the things they'd like not to happen to them or their close ones, and other things like that. This source of morality is just as relevant as any divinely inspired ones, because all men are created equal. We all feel the same pain, we all feel the same joy. That is the way the law is developed. That is the reason we all decide to follow it.
Without God, can we make any determinations about good and evil?
We are greater than gods. We are men. So long as a man can cry when cut, so long as a man may smile when happy, good and evil shall always be in our eyes, and our eyes alone. Through all the spirits, phantoms, and gods we've created for ourselves throughout the ages, it has been man who has decided what is good, and what is evil, or, what is desired behaviour and what isn't. To believe otherwise is to depreciate the power of man and the value of our beliefs.
...And stalin would be entertained greatly by your stupidity. I never said anything about locking ANYONE up. Besides the fact that your entire premise is flawed(oh no! SIMULATED VIOLENCE?! We should keep track of people who watch TV and play sports too! Lets get those freaky karate people too! They spend their time entertaining themselves with REAL VIOLENCE!!! Hell, hunters? They entertain themselves by KILLING THINGS!!!!! What better way to desensitize yourself to killing than by killing? and soldiers, we should lock them up right away, since their JOB is KILLING PEOPLE!!!), there are better ways to stop statistically relevant people from committing crimes, but closing your ears and going "that's RACIST! I'm not going to listen to you! LALALALALA!" isn't one of them. By coming out of your little fantasy world, we can save the costs involved with "keeping an eye on" TENS OF MILLIONS OF GAMERS, and possibly make some neighbourhoods just a little safer.
For a "PhysicsGenius", you have a pitiful understanding of statistics. statistically speaking, a poor minority living in a violent neibourhood is far more likely to join a gang, commit murder, or another serious crime than a middle class white boy who plays video games. Far more, as in a thousand to one. So quit being such a paranoid baby and let law enforcement deal with people whose socioeconomic factors actually point to them actually committing a crime, rather than people idiot scare mongers would like you to believe are more likely to.
I'm afraid you're the one thinking wishfully. "Better" never meant "more popular", as the deaths of many, many, many nice desktop operating systems for the PC shows. Hell, OSX could come out for the PC tomorrow, and it would probably spell the end of Apple. Such is the uncompetitive market we live in. The only reason they've made it this far is because they control their own hardware platform, thus shutting their main competitor out of their market to some degree. Linux has a similar advantage, where the viral nature of Open Source Software(not in the sense that SCO wants you to believe, but every time a person uses linux or it's kin, there's a chance either that that person will do some work on it, evangelize it, or just give copies to his frends.)
Actually, I was insinuating that the culture of what I like to call "the cult of stupidity" starts with labels like nerd or geek, and I was more proving the point that genetics aren't the only way to make someone stupid. I hate to have to make the point in that way, but after this whole WMD debacle and such, it is stupidity to continue to believe anything coming out of this administration -- especially without question.
A recent poll shows 66% of Americans believe Saddam worked in conjunction with Osama bin Laden. Since I haven't been convinced fully that bin Laden was even involved(their proof was far than convincing back in 2001), and there is zero (0) proof that saddam was involved, even from the spin doctors who tried to convince the world that Saddam had all these weapons of mass destruction.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, Ideas that are ahead of their time....
like the internet...
I think the reason they're so big is because Bill Gates' mom happened to go to the United Way with a IBM VP. After that, Bill lied about having an OS ready for the new PC platform, and borrowed 50k of his mothers money to buy QDOS. Seems to me it takes a well-connected family, lots of money, and a good capability to lie to make it to the top of the heap. After that, Microsoft was destined to ride IBMs coat tails to monopolydom, and by lying to the public just as they had lied to IBM ("Oh yeah, we have a GUI coming out in just 2 months! better not buy that other guys GUI!" 18 months later they had a GUI.), they were able to once again leverage their position to gain a foothold in PC shells, which they then used in colloberation with their monopoly in OSes to wipe out the shell market completely with Windows 95.
So, in this case, IBM basically handed the monopoly over to MS. This "Try again philosophy" is after the fact, and really, is just the churnings of a company that could likely do whatever the hell they wanted and still make money by the truckload.
I'm glad to hear you invested all your money in Enron. Hey, who the fuck cares how they got all their money? They have all this money in the bank, nothing could go wrong!
But I ordered a cheeseburger.
This is a bookstore.
Erm...which? I've used more than a few UIs in recent years, and from Gnome to BeOS, most will let you move the bar wherever you'd like it. In fact, Gnome has the most customizable UI there is. It's quite amazing in that respect.
I think you mistake the tools for the jobs.
Microsoft only makes tools. Windows? Office? MSC++? Wrench, screwdriver, nailgun. They aren't the only ones who make those tools either. For any given MS tool, there's a dozen alternatives by lesser known companies, which in many cases are better anyway. Real jobs aren't going to dissapear simply because some arrogant company based in some backwater gets slapped for their consistently illegal behaviour.
Also, you seem to miss the greater implications of your statement. By your judgement, we should let car theifs go free, because they directly or indirectly spur new car sales, employ police, and create thousands of jobs in the theft prevention industry and insurance industry. It's that kind of copout that is destroying America.
Then you're alone. Personally, when I bought my laptop, I had no choice -- I had to pay for their copy of winME as well. Now, taking into account all the PCs I've bought pre-built, that's a good 4 or 5 MS licences I didn't want or need(the aforementioned laptop has Mandrake on it right now.), and that's quite a chunk of cash going towards an entity I'd rather not be sending cash to.
> I'd call that an endorsement of slaves
In Colossians, the Bible says "Slaves, obey your masters" and "Masters, provide your slaves what is right and fair". That's because Paul wasn't advocating the overthrow of the government - he was telling people how they should act in whatever situation they found themselves in. There may have been many slaves in the church of Colosse.
That passage doesn't praise slavery or say it's right, though - it just tells people how to act when they're in that situation. There are other verses that speak against mistreating others - such as the "Golden Rule" verse which you quoted earlier.
Even then, wouldn't you agree that the idea to abolish slavery completely and decide that slavery itself is wrong was the decision of man? Of people who saw slavery and thought it wasn't right for one man to buy and sell another like cattle?
> How is this different from any of the
> morality from religious texts
> people conveniently forget about
If people ignore truth, that doesn't make it untrue. It just means they're ignoring the truth.
You say that as if the truth is the same today as it once was. Tell me, should a man be killed for not keeping the sabbath holy? Should women never speak in church? Should we burn wiccas? Archaic wisdom isn't the best. Just as blood letting has been ignored as it's premise and usefulness is ludicrous, so are these lessons learned by all but the most fanatical fundamentalist followers. I feel that in another thousand years, these texts may simply be seen as barbarism, as humanity evolves towards an even more beautiful, equitable world.
> your "word of god"
Ah, but it's not mine, and that's what makes it valuable - it wasn't made up by a human.
I beg to differ. It was written by men. Divine scripture wouldn't be so riddled with silly errors of details. Using all the gospels, try to piece together a timeline of Jesus' revival without disregarding any information -- it's not possible. Evidence to me, that god was not involved in the writing. Omniscient beings generally tend to be able to keep events consistent.
Furthermore, why should your book be any more divine and true than the others? If I decided to start worshipping Zeus, God of thunder, or I decided to start blowing up infidels in the name of Allah by joining islam (gotta have those renewable virgins!), or I follow the prophets responsible for buddhism or Taoism, they're going to tell me that THEIR book is divinely inspired, and they're going to tell me that your silly little religion(their words) doesn't have a theological leg to stand on. That theirs is the One True Path(tm). So tell me, what, if anything, makes yours so convincing? Personally, I find the concept of Karma found in Buddhism far more convincing than this One True God idea, so the onus is really on you to provide proof other than some X-filesian "I want to believe".
> Do you think that God didn't want
> commoners reading bibles?
> Do you think he wanted the bible to only be
> availible in Latin?
God wants everyone to read his word.
Then why did this faithful say otherwise? It's a very slippery slope trying to seperate the religion from the church. The church has morphed the religion so much (see in paticular, meetings in the Roman Empire in 300-400AD, just before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, during the reign of Constaine, for a pretty good idea of how much even scripture has changed as a result of the Church), that to disregard the church is to disregard the religion, short of translating original scripture yourself, which isn't really possible.
> Do you think he cares if you wear a rubber?
Hey, Biblical teachings on birth control! Ah, an excellent topic there... we could go on for days.
Doubt it. For most, it's just a matter of opinion, and some people like to back it up with biblical teach
>>>> For some reason Slashdot won't let me post to our previous discussion... it says that I've moderated the thread. How bizarre. Anyhow:
:)
:-)
:)
> advocates owning slaves
Really? How's that?
There are instances where there are lessons on how you're supposed to treat your slaves. The word of god, no less. I'd call that an endorsement of slaves if I ever saw one.
Did man deciding anything make it right? What if man decided that slavery was OK again?
I suppose in the eyes of the masses, it would be. How is this different from any of the morality from religious texts people conveniently forget about?
Do you believe Nero existed? Why?
I can't really say. I haven't studied that era or location thoroughly enough.
Because a moral code promulgated by a person is just that - a moral code promulgated by a person. It has no authority.
I hate to break this to you, but neither does any of the morality imposed by the church(your "word of god"). Most, if not all of it is made up on the spot by the church for political reasons. Do you think that God didn't want commoners reading bibles? Do you think that he wanted the bible to only be availible in Latin? Do you think he cares if you wear a rubber? Furthermore, what happens in this "Hell"? Officially, it's not fire and brimstone anymore, but "rest assured, it's very bad". It seems once again man dictated morality to himself, and any supposed deitys aren't holding any real power anyway.
Yup, I too would be happy if a big sign were to appear occasionally. I don't know why God hasn't done that.
It could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe there are no more faithful anymore, so God is going to damn us all, in which case, who cares which religion we choose? It could be that Christianity has been so badly corrupted by man that it's no longer the religion he wanted it to be. It could be that there is no God, and it's we're going to be taking orders from Zeus after we all die. Either way, the evidence, and logic, point to the idea that either there is no god, you're worshipping the wrong one, or he's so indifferent it doesn't really matter. Sorry.
throw new StackOverflowException();
LMAO! You've got that right!
I've been very impressed with my Casio BE-300. After the upgrade to one of the user-created OS mods, it's versatility for the price, along with the backlit colour screen and usable USB port, make it quite a deal, considering it is the cheapest colour PDA available on the market, to the best of my knowlege.
Hm. Are right and wrong based on tradition? There's a long history of slavery in many countries... does that mean slavery is OK?
:P
:)
Bad example. The bible (therefore, God) advocates owning slaves. It was man who decided that all men should be free. Besides which, accepting morality without any thought of the philosophy behind such morality is stupidity.
Has it?
Sure has. In fact, man made morality is what our society is based upon. Think about it. Things that are definitely said to be wrong in scripture which are legal. There are things said to be right in scripture that are very illegal.
Sure, tons of it, the entire Old Testament.
I'm talking New Testament. Duh.
Nah, it would be passed off as a hallucination or something.
There would be recordings and scientific data on it this time. Most people try not to blatantly refuse scientific data and hard facts if they can help it, and video cameras don't have hallucinations.
Who does the calling, and whose moral code do we use? Now we're back to how we determine which moral code is right
How does that change if God is the source? Different moral codes exist already-- hell, different religions exist which say that God has told to slaughter infidels(for renewable virgins even!)!
The "mountain into the sea" thing is a metaphor.
And I'm reading it metaphorically. And it still says that all things can be achieved through prayer. To me, that includes minor and major miracles.
Nope, only if the things requested are in God's will.
Well, unless God is manic depressive and hasn't been able to get out of bed for the past millenia or two, the nonexistance of demonstratable miracles is indicative to me of one of a few things Most either pointing to either the idea that the Christian God doesn't exist, The christian religion has been corrupted(quite likely, considering the bible was created by a council in Rome some time after the birth of the religion), or simply that God is too indifferent to affect this era, meaning that this whole conversation is irrelevant anyway.
Who created physics?
Who created God?
What evidence can you present that man was not created with morality? And if we were not, why would we create morality?
The fact that lesser mammals don't have them.
Invented by God, yes. But not by man.
Yup, philosophy without God is... well... inconclusive.
Perhaps we should agree to disagree on this point. Personally, I keep seeing the diminishing power of God(ie. "well, god might not actually preform miricles any more, but by golly, he's still omnipotent!") in the various modern religions throughout the world as we learn more about our universe as a struggle to keep ancient beliefs created by the Roman empire as a political tool(in the case of Christianity) relevant enough to remain acceptable as peoples beliefs. This in turn makes the claim that God created morality a bit of a stretch, seeing as his influence seems to be revoked every time the church gets a chance...
Right, it's difficult to assert exactly what the first man was like. There are certainly a wide range of opinions on that.
But as a fish will never think twice about killing and eating the worm or the smaller fish, man created morality, and in doing so, asks himself: "How can I justify taking the life of another creature when I myself do not want to be killed?". We were not born as a species(and nor are we born as humans) with an innate knowlege of morality, so we had to create it on our own.
Would you say the same of mathematics? Did we create algebra? Or was it always there?
Mathematics and morality are different in one important way: Mathematics exist as an attempt to understand the world, morality exists as an attempt to exert some measure of control over it. Therefore, Matematics are passive, something that could be considered to be both invented and discovered. The truth was always out there, but we invented a way to put it into terms we could understand and express. Morality, on the other hand, was soley invented. Like a vacuum cleaner, it wasn't waiting to be discovered, but was created as a hole in the philosophy of ancient man weighted upon our intellect.
But wait - how can you say what they did was wrong? I mean... by what yardstick are you determining right and wrong?
I'm using the ever popular "killing 6 million innocent jews in the most inhumane, 'lets see how much work we can get done out of them while feeding them next to nothing and let them starve and die of hunger and overexertion' isn't right" morality. That in turn is based on the ever popular "golden rule", which states "do unto others as you would have to do unto them". This social contract, and variations thereof, have, for generations, and without divine intervention, kept people of all sorts of theistic and atheistic faiths from going on rampages. Myself included.
True - but the Bible doesn't claim that Christians will be immune from trouble. This is a fallen world we live in, and Christians are as vulnerable as any.
Mark 16:16,17,18
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues
they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
According to the bible, Christians aren't supposed to be vunerable like the rest of us. I could be misreading it(though it would be hard to), but it seems to me that here they are promised powers which make them somewhat less vunerable than a regular man. Here we are presented with tangible ways God's power is supposedly channelled through his faithful, but nothing of the sort exists in the modern world.
> Is love a being? No, it too is an
> abstract construct.
You're right... I'm not sure what I was getting at there.
I'm getting at why it cannot be detected. Love, being an abstract concept, isn't 'real', as such. You cannot point to a room and say "there is love there". People inside the room may feel that emotion we call "love" themselves, but there is nothing tangible about it, besides a few well fired neurons and a hormone or two. It cannot change the world on it's own either. Because without something that can love, it does not exist. Much like that other artificial construct, God.
Yup, it'd be nice if God would show up once a month or so and say "look, here I am!". That doesn't seem to be his style, though.
Certainly, a being who wants people to believe in him would do more than send his son to earth(telling nobody literate, it seems, as much of the scripture in the bible is over two hundred years older than Jesus would have been when he died, though admittedly, some of the scripture has been dated at years before jesus' birth)), and rely on a book written four hundred years after his death(by comittee, no less!) to convert people, when all he needs to do is turn the sky red in modern times once, and let the heavens roar "This is god. The god that sent jesus down to earth. Have a nice day", for the entire world to believe in perpetuity in him and his teachings(because we'd be able to record then and there, without waiting 200 years this time, in print, video, and spectrograph, rather than some guy finally writing it down after 200 years of a spoken fable).
If the assumption that God created all things is granted, then it follows that he can do whatever he wants. I realize you don't grant that assumption, just wanted to line that up.
OK, he can do whatever he wants, which means he does nothing. Even if thousands or millions or billions of people are suffering and dying, he does nothing. If God is our model for morality, then the model of morality is telling us to ignore the suffering of others, and to effect no justice in the world. I have my doubts. I rather believe that man, the creators of all justice and injustice in the world, as far as I can see, are also the creators of the moral code they are called upon to live by and di
But a bunch of Germans thought it was OK... did that make it right? Why not?
Did they? I doubt it. Underneath the lies to themselves and such, I'm certain every one of those people knew what they were doing was wrong on a massive scale.
I believe that you believe that.
As you wish. Just remember that no artificial construct is going to save you if something bad happens. And a lot of good christians died on 9/11 without any divine intervention I could see. And the plague. And an infinite number of massacres and disasters throughout history which a supposedly omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient being could have prevented.
Does love have physical properties? Does love exist?
Is love a being? No, it too is an abstract construct. Created by the human mind. Does love have the alleged power to create or destroy worlds, and alter this one according to it's will without human intervention? No. Whenever people speak of the power of love to change the world, it is ALWAYS through a human with love in their heart. Furthermore, love DOES indeed have physical characteristics, which have been studied by scholars and scientists in modern and ancient times. God, on the other hand, seems to be conveniently undetectable in all ways, from the subtlest manipulation to supposed miracles(the only apparant manipulation of the world allowed for, it seems). The laws of physics always state what happens, and in modern times, I have yet to hear of a "miracle" which was anything more than sheer luck(or perhaps even less, falling into statistical inevitability, since we never hear about the thousands of misses for every miracle hit) having circumstances in such a way that the events that unfold are favourable for those involved.
Man did not have morality when Man first took his first steps as a species. That is almost certain. We created it, and we did that through our experiences. Hence, experience defines morality.
> it has been man who has decided
> what is good, and what is evil
Doesn't that imply that Hitler and, say, Mother Teresa are morally equivalent?
No, because mankind as a whole decided that it was wrong. Without god, ordering the slow, painful slaughter of 12 million people would still be wrong, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain, unless you believe that only god can say there is something wrong with killing 12 million innocent people.
> To believe otherwise is to depreciate
> the power of man
Exactly right. To depreciate the power of man and acknowledge the power of God.
God is an artificial theological construct created by superstitious humans in a time when they needed an explanation for the world around them. This artifical theological construct is in the same arena as minitaurs and goblins and dragons, but through sheer coincidence, it can't really be completely disproven like the former because the physical property of this creation is that it has no physical properties. Like ghosts, only moreso. ("You see that little speck in the picture, that's not a ghost, as we previously thought, that's god!")
I assure you, man, the greatest species ever to roam the earth, and the only one to leave it alive, is far greater, and far more powerful, than the gods and goblins we made up a couple thousand years ago.
What law? all men are born with eyes to see, ears to hear, a toungue to taste, and various ways to sense touch. If you kick a man, he will feel pain and will not like it(sexual undertones excepted). We all live the same experience, and though our lives may harden us or soften us, pain and pleasure define our experiences, and thus, our morality.
You know, you're not a floating brain in a jar. The human experience is what defines morality. If being killed or having your freinds and family killed was a good thing, and didn't hurt like hell, maybe it wouldn't be considered wrong. As it stands though, it's blatantly obvious that the creators of the major religions were just men, and they created rules based on things somewhat less divine than you'd think. The way they'd like to live, the things they'd like not to happen to them or their close ones, and other things like that. This source of morality is just as relevant as any divinely inspired ones, because all men are created equal. We all feel the same pain, we all feel the same joy. That is the way the law is developed. That is the reason we all decide to follow it.
Without God, can we make any determinations about good and evil?
We are greater than gods. We are men. So long as a man can cry when cut, so long as a man may smile when happy, good and evil shall always be in our eyes, and our eyes alone. Through all the spirits, phantoms, and gods we've created for ourselves throughout the ages, it has been man who has decided what is good, and what is evil, or, what is desired behaviour and what isn't. To believe otherwise is to depreciate the power of man and the value of our beliefs.
No they won't, they're religious. They'll just change their religion to suit the facts, as they have before. As they will do again.
...And stalin would be entertained greatly by your stupidity. I never said anything about locking ANYONE up. Besides the fact that your entire premise is flawed(oh no! SIMULATED VIOLENCE?! We should keep track of people who watch TV and play sports too! Lets get those freaky karate people too! They spend their time entertaining themselves with REAL VIOLENCE!!! Hell, hunters? They entertain themselves by KILLING THINGS!!!!! What better way to desensitize yourself to killing than by killing? and soldiers, we should lock them up right away, since their JOB is KILLING PEOPLE!!!), there are better ways to stop statistically relevant people from committing crimes, but closing your ears and going "that's RACIST! I'm not going to listen to you! LALALALALA!" isn't one of them. By coming out of your little fantasy world, we can save the costs involved with "keeping an eye on" TENS OF MILLIONS OF GAMERS, and possibly make some neighbourhoods just a little safer.
For a "PhysicsGenius", you have a pitiful understanding of statistics. statistically speaking, a poor minority living in a violent neibourhood is far more likely to join a gang, commit murder, or another serious crime than a middle class white boy who plays video games. Far more, as in a thousand to one. So quit being such a paranoid baby and let law enforcement deal with people whose socioeconomic factors actually point to them actually committing a crime, rather than people idiot scare mongers would like you to believe are more likely to.
I'm afraid you're the one thinking wishfully. "Better" never meant "more popular", as the deaths of many, many, many nice desktop operating systems for the PC shows. Hell, OSX could come out for the PC tomorrow, and it would probably spell the end of Apple. Such is the uncompetitive market we live in. The only reason they've made it this far is because they control their own hardware platform, thus shutting their main competitor out of their market to some degree. Linux has a similar advantage, where the viral nature of Open Source Software(not in the sense that SCO wants you to believe, but every time a person uses linux or it's kin, there's a chance either that that person will do some work on it, evangelize it, or just give copies to his frends.)
Actually, I was insinuating that the culture of what I like to call "the cult of stupidity" starts with labels like nerd or geek, and I was more proving the point that genetics aren't the only way to make someone stupid. I hate to have to make the point in that way, but after this whole WMD debacle and such, it is stupidity to continue to believe anything coming out of this administration -- especially without question.
A recent poll shows 66% of Americans believe Saddam worked in conjunction with Osama bin Laden. Since I haven't been convinced fully that bin Laden was even involved(their proof was far than convincing back in 2001), and there is zero (0) proof that saddam was involved, even from the spin doctors who tried to convince the world that Saddam had all these weapons of mass destruction.