Current creationist thinking doesn't usually invoke any sort of water or vapor canopy before the Flood. Instead, the primary source of the floodwater is generally taken to be subterranean ("Fountains of the great deep", in the Bible). There are quite a few different creationist hypotheses for how this could have happened.
Also, I don't really think there's a contradiction between saying "God did it" and trying to find a naturalistic explanation. To Christians, God is the ultimate cause of natural processes anyway, so it's sort of six of one and half a dozen of the other.
It wouldn't be wrong, except for the fact they advertised that you could buy a basic unit for a specific price, and then wouldn't sell you just that unit at that price. It's false advertising. If they hadn't advertised the basic unit by itself, that would have been honest and ethical. But since they did advertise it, they had a moral obligation to provide it as long as it was physically possible to do so.
If you think about it, Satan wouldn't have any need to be subtle about it. People will know it matches up with Revelation. They simply won't care because they don't believe the prophecy in the first place --- and perhaps they'll be so hostile to the idea of God that they'll gladly take a mark that shows that hostility. There's no need at all for the meaning to be obfuscated.
Well, sorta; one idea is that the mark of the beast could be an implantable device. But to qualify as the mark of the beast it would need to be in the right hand or forehead, you'd have to have one to be able to buy or sell anything, and you'd have to sell your soul to the devil when you accepted it.
Kids watching power rangers do nothing but fight with each other and when those fights turn violent they are using the "techniques" used on power rangers to fight. (attempted karate i guess you could call it) Kids who watch Barney (as silly and sad as it is) are much calmer, they share with each other, and generally get along well.
Barney? Ugh. I think I'd rather have the kids who watched Power Rangers.
Exactly. I think if one wants to truly be "tolerant" then one must also tolerate other people's intolerance. The fact is that everyone is intolerant of something; the people who make "tolerance" their biggest issue are often the very same people who seek to suppress those who don't agree with their idea of tolerance.
I'm sure the two terms are treated equally when future work is sought.
Why do you think that? If someone is "laid off" it implies that there's something wrong with the company. If he's "fired" it implies there's something wrong with the employee. Companies fire people because they're bad employees; they lay them off for business reasons that often don't have anything at all to do with whether or not the employee is good at his job.
If I were a manager looking to hire someone, if I knew he'd been laid off I wouldn't hold that against him, but if I knew he'd been fired I would be very curious as to the reason.
I thought the best episode was the one where Vala had them running all over the galaxy to retrieve a necklace with which to bribe Wallace Shawn's character for a cure it turned out they didn't need after all.
The only thing that episode lacked was wisecracks from Richard Dean Anderson. Pity they didn't do it when he was still with the show.
On top of that, if you have, say, an elderly patient whose life expectancy is limited anyway, simply slowing down the progress of cancer could easily allow him to live out the remainder of his natural life. And it would certainly give him a higher quality of life than radiation or chemo, either of which would be very harsh on an elderly person.
In real life, I can envision situations where killing is acceptable. I can't imagine any situation at all in which rape or child abuse is acceptable. So there's clearly a difference in real life, and I think there should be one in games as well. If you play as a hero killing the minions of an evil dictator bent on taking over the world, that seems to be a case of justifiable violence. However, there's simply no possible justification for rape, even in a fictional context.
Most people I know have redefined the acronym to mean "Digital Restriction Management", which is very close to the new acronym you suggested. I generally spell out the phrase at least once to emphasize my intended meaning when discussing it.
You're probably quite right about the Intelligent Design movement. The way I interpret Intelligent Design and the way it's promoted by its proponents are probably completely different. And there are quite a few creationists who disagree with the ID movement on tactics. I don't really want creationism taught in government schools; I merely want people taught clearly that science only deals with the material. The argument as I see it is philosophical: science, by definition, does not admit the possibility of the supernatural. I don't have a problem with that, but I do wish that it were clearly and explicitly stated and drilled into everybody's head that science does not and cannot address the question of the supernatural; so if you choose to believe in God, you don't necessarily have to accept the conclusions of science. Make sure people know and understand that, then go ahead and teach the science.
Why does it even have anything to do with ID in the first place? ID merely says that the universe was designed, as opposed to having formed by random chance. That has no bearing at all on how any particular thing works, only on how it got there. Either way, the physical laws that allow the bee to fly are exactly the same and can be known.
The science in the article is good; it's a pity they had to throw in the gratutious creationist-bashing.
"Actually I was even shocked at the way the depicted Christmas (as being "the time when Santa Claus brings presents")."
It occurred to me that the first king of Narnia was a human (see Magician's Nephew) and therefore could have easily instituted Christmas in Narnia. That doesn't explain Santa Claus, of course, but then again there are an awful lot of fantasy beings given life in Narnia, so why not Santa?
""Christian apologist" implies that Christians have something to apologize for. I am a Christian, and I have no need to apologize for anything relating to my faith."
The word "apologist" has been used for quite a long time without negative connotations. It is not meant to carry the meaning of "apology", although many people do think that when they first encounter it.
Aslan says in one book "I have another name in your world, and you need to learn to know me there." That's as close as it gets to explicitly saying "Aslan is Jesus" in the books themselves. But Lewis had said in some of his letters that the idea was to create a world parallel to earth in which Jesus appeared as a lion rather than a human. So it shouldn't really be looked at as allegory; rather, it should be looked at as a parallel world that operates according to the same moral principles as Lewis' concept of the real world.
As a Christian I've always found the parallels to be obvious. Jesus died to save mankind from the penalty of our sin (eternal death). Aslan died to save Edmund from the penalty of his sin (physical death). Jesus was the son of God; Aslan was the son of the Emperor-Over-The-Sea. Both were led to their deaths willingly; both were mocked and humiliated, and did not resist. Both were resurrected.
I don't know, maybe it isn't obvious if you aren't looking for it. I read the books when I was a kid. I don't remember if it was obvious to me then, although I do remember making the connection between Aslan dying and coming back, and Jesus. But I was very familiar with the Jesus story by that time, too.
As far as Narnia is concerned, I'd chalk up a lot of the disparity in reviews to people's familiarity with and preconceptions about the story. People who have read the books often have a strong opinion one way or the other because of the association with Christianity. Everyone knows how passionate people can be about religion. So there are likely quite a few reviewers who were biased either for or against the movie from the outset. (That isn't necessarily a bad thing --- reviews are always opinion, after all, and any opinion of a movie can be useful as long as it's well thought out and explained. "I disagree with what the movie is trying to say" is a perfectly valid opinion.)
"I guess the difference is there wasn't an immediate need to justify the plot by defining those unknowns. I mean, what reason did they have to trust Aslan over the White Witch? Because the Beavers told them so?"
That's exactly what Edmund thought. Of course, he found out the hard way exactly why they should trust Aslan over the Witch. So even in the context of the book itself someone thought the way you do --- at least until he discovered for himself that the witch was evil.
Anyway, in the book it's more clear from the beginning that Aslan is the ultimate good guy. They toned that aspect down a bit in the movie, so I guess it might also have the effect of making it less than entirely clear that Aslan is the ultimate force of good in the world of Narnia.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, I don't really think there's a contradiction between saying "God did it" and trying to find a naturalistic explanation. To Christians, God is the ultimate cause of natural processes anyway, so it's sort of six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Really, that's a trivial point. Wouldn't anyone who saw one of these hypothetical common ancestors naturally call it an "ape"?
Major label releases are already mostly noise.
It wouldn't be wrong, except for the fact they advertised that you could buy a basic unit for a specific price, and then wouldn't sell you just that unit at that price. It's false advertising. If they hadn't advertised the basic unit by itself, that would have been honest and ethical. But since they did advertise it, they had a moral obligation to provide it as long as it was physically possible to do so.
If you think about it, Satan wouldn't have any need to be subtle about it. People will know it matches up with Revelation. They simply won't care because they don't believe the prophecy in the first place --- and perhaps they'll be so hostile to the idea of God that they'll gladly take a mark that shows that hostility. There's no need at all for the meaning to be obfuscated.
Well, sorta; one idea is that the mark of the beast could be an implantable device. But to qualify as the mark of the beast it would need to be in the right hand or forehead, you'd have to have one to be able to buy or sell anything, and you'd have to sell your soul to the devil when you accepted it.
Barney? Ugh. I think I'd rather have the kids who watched Power Rangers.
Exactly. I think if one wants to truly be "tolerant" then one must also tolerate other people's intolerance. The fact is that everyone is intolerant of something; the people who make "tolerance" their biggest issue are often the very same people who seek to suppress those who don't agree with their idea of tolerance.
Why do you think that? If someone is "laid off" it implies that there's something wrong with the company. If he's "fired" it implies there's something wrong with the employee. Companies fire people because they're bad employees; they lay them off for business reasons that often don't have anything at all to do with whether or not the employee is good at his job.
If I were a manager looking to hire someone, if I knew he'd been laid off I wouldn't hold that against him, but if I knew he'd been fired I would be very curious as to the reason.
When the laws are those of an enemy nation of which you are not a citizen, I see no moral imperative to obey them.
I would consider this a bad thing.
The only thing that episode lacked was wisecracks from Richard Dean Anderson. Pity they didn't do it when he was still with the show.
On top of that, if you have, say, an elderly patient whose life expectancy is limited anyway, simply slowing down the progress of cancer could easily allow him to live out the remainder of his natural life. And it would certainly give him a higher quality of life than radiation or chemo, either of which would be very harsh on an elderly person.
In real life, I can envision situations where killing is acceptable. I can't imagine any situation at all in which rape or child abuse is acceptable. So there's clearly a difference in real life, and I think there should be one in games as well. If you play as a hero killing the minions of an evil dictator bent on taking over the world, that seems to be a case of justifiable violence. However, there's simply no possible justification for rape, even in a fictional context.
Most people I know have redefined the acronym to mean "Digital Restriction Management", which is very close to the new acronym you suggested. I generally spell out the phrase at least once to emphasize my intended meaning when discussing it.
That was exquisitely worded. Kudos to you.
I'm having a really hard time envisioning doing it the other way...
You're probably quite right about the Intelligent Design movement. The way I interpret Intelligent Design and the way it's promoted by its proponents are probably completely different. And there are quite a few creationists who disagree with the ID movement on tactics. I don't really want creationism taught in government schools; I merely want people taught clearly that science only deals with the material. The argument as I see it is philosophical: science, by definition, does not admit the possibility of the supernatural. I don't have a problem with that, but I do wish that it were clearly and explicitly stated and drilled into everybody's head that science does not and cannot address the question of the supernatural; so if you choose to believe in God, you don't necessarily have to accept the conclusions of science. Make sure people know and understand that, then go ahead and teach the science.
The science in the article is good; it's a pity they had to throw in the gratutious creationist-bashing.
It occurred to me that the first king of Narnia was a human (see Magician's Nephew) and therefore could have easily instituted Christmas in Narnia. That doesn't explain Santa Claus, of course, but then again there are an awful lot of fantasy beings given life in Narnia, so why not Santa?
The word "apologist" has been used for quite a long time without negative connotations. It is not meant to carry the meaning of "apology", although many people do think that when they first encounter it.
As a Christian I've always found the parallels to be obvious. Jesus died to save mankind from the penalty of our sin (eternal death). Aslan died to save Edmund from the penalty of his sin (physical death). Jesus was the son of God; Aslan was the son of the Emperor-Over-The-Sea. Both were led to their deaths willingly; both were mocked and humiliated, and did not resist. Both were resurrected.
I don't know, maybe it isn't obvious if you aren't looking for it. I read the books when I was a kid. I don't remember if it was obvious to me then, although I do remember making the connection between Aslan dying and coming back, and Jesus. But I was very familiar with the Jesus story by that time, too.
As far as Narnia is concerned, I'd chalk up a lot of the disparity in reviews to people's familiarity with and preconceptions about the story. People who have read the books often have a strong opinion one way or the other because of the association with Christianity. Everyone knows how passionate people can be about religion. So there are likely quite a few reviewers who were biased either for or against the movie from the outset. (That isn't necessarily a bad thing --- reviews are always opinion, after all, and any opinion of a movie can be useful as long as it's well thought out and explained. "I disagree with what the movie is trying to say" is a perfectly valid opinion.)
My goodness, what do they teach them in these schools?
That's exactly what Edmund thought. Of course, he found out the hard way exactly why they should trust Aslan over the Witch. So even in the context of the book itself someone thought the way you do --- at least until he discovered for himself that the witch was evil.
Anyway, in the book it's more clear from the beginning that Aslan is the ultimate good guy. They toned that aspect down a bit in the movie, so I guess it might also have the effect of making it less than entirely clear that Aslan is the ultimate force of good in the world of Narnia.