Atheism, Historically has given us relatively nothing and taken so much. Atheism, historically, hasn't played a major role in the world or contributed much because atheists were being persecuted as heretics. If atheism had been allowed, it may very well have offered much.
I believe not because someone told me to, but because it makes sense and I can justify my belief. So you suggest, that living in a Christian society didn't influence you. And based on what you observe and can justify, you would have come to the same beliefs about God that you currently have? I assume then if you had been raised in a Buddhist village in Japan, you still would have grown up to be a Christian, somehow. Huh.
This statement is completely dependent on there not being a god, for if there is a god of some kind, then the atheist is just driving towards a lie. Yes and I suppose if the REAL truth is that we are all governed by all-powerful fish-like beings... then atheists and christians alike are both driving towards a lie. One unprovable theory really is just as good (or bad) as any other unprovable theory... with as much (or as little) reason to actually believe it.
They would use another excuse Yes, I suppose without religion the Spanish Inquisition would have centered around torturing people for their delicious recipes.
God created man as vegetarian And yet I heard the "God created animals for us to eat, so it's ok and not animal cruelty" excuse at least a hundred times. If you don't believe me, ask ANY vegetarian in America if they've ever also been told this by a Christian... go ahead.
Sorry there buddy, science is not an atheistic thing. Atheism and science go hand-in-hand and come from the same mindset. It isn't pure coincidence that "scientist" is the profession with the highest ratio of atheists to theists. Science is about observation, forming a hypothesis, and testing it. And let's not forget how hostile religions have been to science. Remember what the topic of this slashdot post is, after all. *cough*Galileo*cough*
Religion united groups of people of a common mind to create gov't, University, Art, and pretty much every productive part of society. Religion has divided people more than united. Historically, geography has been more of a factor in uniting people. You ignored my comment about art, I'll repeat it: I have a sneaking suspicion that there would have been art anyway, without religion. In fact without religion being the focus of so many works of art, we might have actually had more variety. University, productive society, etc... religion has more often been a hindrance to scientific study, higher learning and engineering.
I am guessing the majority of experience you have had are with Christianity. That's a natural part of living in America. But I have also had a lot of exposure to Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. In general, the Abrahamic religions seem to be the worst (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) but any religion causes problems and keeps people away from rational, scientific thought.
Your opinion of atheism is completely contradictory to how I view it.
I think it does benefit society to be of a mindset that you won't believe any crazy story just because someone else says "because I said so." Rather, you believe things that have been thoughtfully tested and proven, the entire process of which is transparent and available for your inspection, or duplication of the experiment to verify it for yourself.
I think it's marvelous to be driving towards actual truth rather than clouding it up with nonsense.
Religion is not necessary to have in order to care for your fellow humans, or animals, or the planet. In most cases I see people using religion as an excuse to trash on these things, in fact. Why must these people kill those people? Different religion. Why is global warming all a conspiracy? Because God has a plan. And I don't even think I can count how many times I've been told that I am wrong for being a vegetarian (for 12 years now) because, and I'm quoting so so many people here, "but God put animals on the planet for us to do what we want." Let's also not get into religion being used as a weapon of prejudice against blacks and gays.
What good did atheism ever do for society? Helped build up modern science and a realistic understanding of how the world actually works.
What good did religion do for society? Ummm.... well there I'm actually not so sure. I guess I could say "art" but I have a sneaking suspicion that there would have been art anyway, without religion. In fact without religion being the focus of so many works of art, we might have actually had more variety.
Well, I'm personally against the religious nuts and personally all for people leaving their religious faith.
But I think that we can't be ignorant of other cultures and religions of the world. You don't have to believe it (or even, in my opinion, respect it), but you should at least learn about it or be aware of it, as long as it's there.
I always took another view... that of the pedophile realizing he was a danger, and so trying to control or restrict himself by entering a lifestyle that forced him to be celibate.
A (somewhat former) friend of mine is currently attending a seminary to become a Priest. He's not a pedophile, but he is gay, and has had major issues of guilt about this. He was abused as a child, and sort of retreated into his faith, becoming someone who goes there every single day. He's pretty good at self-analysis and he realizes there's a possibility that he was drawn to his faith as a way of running away from dealing with what happened to him, but he still thinks this is the best thing for his life. By entering a celibate lifestyle, he conveniently didn't have to deal with questions about dating or romance anymore, or his sexual orientation.
I just think the Priesthood naturally attracts people with complicated issues and guilt and self-loathing. I discussed this theory with my friend and he somewhat agreed it's probably true.
If the celibacy requirement was lifted, the pedophiles (as well as gay people who can't deal with being gay, such as my friend) would probably just not be drawn to the Priesthood in the firstplace. It's an escape.
I went to public school, and am an atheist... but I was brought up Lutheran (ELCA) and we actually learned about other religions a little bit as part of our weekly Confirmation classes. We even went on a field trip to a Jewish Synagogue and my Pastor put on a Yarmulke and we were learning about the Torah and how they do their service from the Rabbi. Before I was Confirmed, I met with the Pastor, and he asked me if I really believed in it, and I said yeah of course, even though I didn't quite. I didn't pay that much attention in Church but it always seemed to me that the ELCA attitude, or at least at my Church, which is a fairly large one, was that it's OK to not believe in God: if you're overall a good person then you go to heaven, and if you're a bad person overall then you go to hell.
That being said, we did also cover religions of the world quite a lot at my public school in my 8th grade Social Studies class. We split into teams and each had to make a big presentation about one of the world's major religions. (This was in MN.)
Yeah, learning to read and write devanagari took just a couple of days. I can't imagine trying to read Chinese. I went to China and the only word I was able to recgonize were the symbols for "Beijing". At least in Delhi I had no problem telling the difference between a sign marking a toilet and a sign marking a bus stop.
As an English speaker, I had some troubles at first (still do) with the aspirated/unaspirated sounds. I just can't hear the difference, even when I'm speaking it correctly.
I also think the dental sounds for "d" and "t" sound most like the usual American alveolar "d" and "t"... but everyone from India, whether North or South, seems to think the retroflex "d" and "t" sound more like the American versions. So when they speak English they do a substitution with the retroflex sounds, which I think creates a stronger accent. Although the other option might sound like a lisp.
But even Hindi at least isn't tonal... In Mandarin I wasn't taught to say "Nee" I had to say "NeeEE" with a lowering and then a raising of the tone.
Speaking of importing words... a few years ago I learned that the word "animation" is English, and then was borrowed by Japanese (and changed slightly) as "anime", which has now been borrowed back into English to mean "Japanese animation". Weird.
There's actually a lot of different ideas about what countries are part of what continents... and even about how many continents there are. What's printed in your school textbook varies a lot based upon what country you're living in.
In a practical sense India and surrounding areas are usually called "South Asia" as opposed to "Southeast Asia" such as the Vietnam/Thai/etc. area and when you talk about just "Asia" people usually assume you mean around China/Japan/Korea and are not talking all the way west until you're almost in eastern Europe. China and India share a border, but culturally and ethnically they are quite separate and distinct thanks to those mountains.
However, most people from India you meet will have some knowledge of Hindi if they're not completely fluent. It's an official language and the language of most of their major films. So if you're going after a common tongue, Hindi is probably the safest bet.
If you know specifically what city you want to go to, or you know specifically that you will be dealing with people who hail from one particular city, then obviously go with that language (I seem to recall a lot of Tamil speakers at school).
I took 2 semesters of Hindi as an undergrad CS major, and although I'm far from fluent... it's nice being able to pick up pieces of conversation among my Indian co-workers (this is here in USA)... rather than have it all just be completely foreign.
I suppose Mandarin Chinese might be almost as useful, but from the short time I tried to learn a little bit of Mandarin I can say that Hindi is probably way easier to learn if you're a native English speaker such as myself.
You obviously have to use your freon-less refrigerator which works by blowing air over blocks of ice you harvest in winter and store in a specially insulated chamber of your house.
I love my Unicomp that I use at home. I got the 104-key USB version and I think it's very solid. It was well worth it.
At work I use an IBM 101-key PS/2 with the built-in mouse that I got at the university surplus for $1. I finally had to stop using that one though because it's so loud and was possibly annoying my co-workers. One of them did say that the sound of that keyboard made me sound very productive, like I was typing at the speed of light.
The problem is my fingers are so used to that exact key spacing now that I really suck at typing on the Dell keyboard that came with my work computer. Although I do like the volume knob.
That's not quite the same thing, though it is cool. This person scanned some records and then optically converted those scans to sound.
What was suggested here was someone make a 3-D model of a record (with grooves) and a 3-D model of a record player, that interact with each other in such a way that it actually works.
I am very solidly certain, however, that no matter what official policy of the BSA may be, I think openly gay scouts are going to have a hard time fitting into Scouting.
And should they have a hard time fitting in? Is your position helping improve the situation, or reinforcing a bad situation?
At $4 a gallon it takes about $160 to fill up from empty. But I also get about 17mpg and fill up about once a month as I don't drive it every day. My car gets about 28mpg, but gets driven nearly every day.
I don't think you're really arguing against the person you replied to.
So instead of renting a truck when you need it, and using a sensible car the rest of the time; you use a truck that you own when you need it, and use a sensible car the rest of the time. I don't think the person you replied to would find much fault with that. I guess it's nice if you have the money.
The thing that's dumb is when people drive trucks who REALLY have no need to drive trucks every day. And despite how much land is rural, most people in America don't live there. In the 2000 census, 222,360,539 live in urban areas and 59,061,367 live in rural areas. And not every truck/SUV owner in those urban areas owns a landscaping company or something like that.
A lot of people who hear anti-truck/SUV talk, who own one, get offended and think we naysayers are dumb because they have some valid reason to own their truck/SUV... but if you do have a good reason to own one, we are not criticizing you. Even if you own a truck/SUV and have a good reason for ownership, you should still be reasonable enough to see that most idiots who own one have no reason to own one, and it's just pure wasteful living.
The assertion that units can't be plural was just wrong. That's all.
It's not natural sounding, it's not how people talk, it's not even how it's presented in classrooms and textbooks and scientific papers. It was just someone trying to sound smart, and ended up being too clever by half.
Slashdot Mirror
Atheism, Historically has given us relatively nothing and taken so much.
Atheism, historically, hasn't played a major role in the world or contributed much because atheists were being persecuted as heretics. If atheism had been allowed, it may very well have offered much.
I believe not because someone told me to, but because it makes sense and I can justify my belief.
So you suggest, that living in a Christian society didn't influence you. And based on what you observe and can justify, you would have come to the same beliefs about God that you currently have? I assume then if you had been raised in a Buddhist village in Japan, you still would have grown up to be a Christian, somehow. Huh.
This statement is completely dependent on there not being a god, for if there is a god of some kind, then the atheist is just driving towards a lie.
Yes and I suppose if the REAL truth is that we are all governed by all-powerful fish-like beings... then atheists and christians alike are both driving towards a lie. One unprovable theory really is just as good (or bad) as any other unprovable theory... with as much (or as little) reason to actually believe it.
They would use another excuse
Yes, I suppose without religion the Spanish Inquisition would have centered around torturing people for their delicious recipes.
God created man as vegetarian
And yet I heard the "God created animals for us to eat, so it's ok and not animal cruelty" excuse at least a hundred times. If you don't believe me, ask ANY vegetarian in America if they've ever also been told this by a Christian... go ahead.
Sorry there buddy, science is not an atheistic thing.
Atheism and science go hand-in-hand and come from the same mindset. It isn't pure coincidence that "scientist" is the profession with the highest ratio of atheists to theists. Science is about observation, forming a hypothesis, and testing it. And let's not forget how hostile religions have been to science. Remember what the topic of this slashdot post is, after all. *cough*Galileo*cough*
Religion united groups of people of a common mind to create gov't, University, Art, and pretty much every productive part of society.
Religion has divided people more than united. Historically, geography has been more of a factor in uniting people.
You ignored my comment about art, I'll repeat it: I have a sneaking suspicion that there would have been art anyway, without religion. In fact without religion being the focus of so many works of art, we might have actually had more variety.
University, productive society, etc... religion has more often been a hindrance to scientific study, higher learning and engineering.
I am guessing the majority of experience you have had are with Christianity.
That's a natural part of living in America. But I have also had a lot of exposure to Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. In general, the Abrahamic religions seem to be the worst (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) but any religion causes problems and keeps people away from rational, scientific thought.
"Unfortunately in Christianity there are a lot more ignorant people out there making me look bad than I would like."
I don't think you need any help from them in that matter, to be honest with you.
Your opinion of atheism is completely contradictory to how I view it.
I think it does benefit society to be of a mindset that you won't believe any crazy story just because someone else says "because I said so." Rather, you believe things that have been thoughtfully tested and proven, the entire process of which is transparent and available for your inspection, or duplication of the experiment to verify it for yourself.
I think it's marvelous to be driving towards actual truth rather than clouding it up with nonsense.
Religion is not necessary to have in order to care for your fellow humans, or animals, or the planet. In most cases I see people using religion as an excuse to trash on these things, in fact. Why must these people kill those people? Different religion. Why is global warming all a conspiracy? Because God has a plan. And I don't even think I can count how many times I've been told that I am wrong for being a vegetarian (for 12 years now) because, and I'm quoting so so many people here, "but God put animals on the planet for us to do what we want." Let's also not get into religion being used as a weapon of prejudice against blacks and gays.
What good did atheism ever do for society? Helped build up modern science and a realistic understanding of how the world actually works.
What good did religion do for society? Ummm.... well there I'm actually not so sure. I guess I could say "art" but I have a sneaking suspicion that there would have been art anyway, without religion. In fact without religion being the focus of so many works of art, we might have actually had more variety.
It's rubbish.
Well, I'm personally against the religious nuts and personally all for people leaving their religious faith.
But I think that we can't be ignorant of other cultures and religions of the world. You don't have to believe it (or even, in my opinion, respect it), but you should at least learn about it or be aware of it, as long as it's there.
"the stories of religion are personified representations of the equations of a scientist"
I think you're giving the story tellers too much credit.
I always took another view... that of the pedophile realizing he was a danger, and so trying to control or restrict himself by entering a lifestyle that forced him to be celibate.
A (somewhat former) friend of mine is currently attending a seminary to become a Priest. He's not a pedophile, but he is gay, and has had major issues of guilt about this. He was abused as a child, and sort of retreated into his faith, becoming someone who goes there every single day. He's pretty good at self-analysis and he realizes there's a possibility that he was drawn to his faith as a way of running away from dealing with what happened to him, but he still thinks this is the best thing for his life. By entering a celibate lifestyle, he conveniently didn't have to deal with questions about dating or romance anymore, or his sexual orientation.
I just think the Priesthood naturally attracts people with complicated issues and guilt and self-loathing. I discussed this theory with my friend and he somewhat agreed it's probably true.
If the celibacy requirement was lifted, the pedophiles (as well as gay people who can't deal with being gay, such as my friend) would probably just not be drawn to the Priesthood in the firstplace. It's an escape.
I went to public school, and am an atheist... but I was brought up Lutheran (ELCA) and we actually learned about other religions a little bit as part of our weekly Confirmation classes. We even went on a field trip to a Jewish Synagogue and my Pastor put on a Yarmulke and we were learning about the Torah and how they do their service from the Rabbi. Before I was Confirmed, I met with the Pastor, and he asked me if I really believed in it, and I said yeah of course, even though I didn't quite. I didn't pay that much attention in Church but it always seemed to me that the ELCA attitude, or at least at my Church, which is a fairly large one, was that it's OK to not believe in God: if you're overall a good person then you go to heaven, and if you're a bad person overall then you go to hell.
That being said, we did also cover religions of the world quite a lot at my public school in my 8th grade Social Studies class. We split into teams and each had to make a big presentation about one of the world's major religions. (This was in MN.)
Yeah, learning to read and write devanagari took just a couple of days. I can't imagine trying to read Chinese. I went to China and the only word I was able to recgonize were the symbols for "Beijing". At least in Delhi I had no problem telling the difference between a sign marking a toilet and a sign marking a bus stop.
As an English speaker, I had some troubles at first (still do) with the aspirated/unaspirated sounds. I just can't hear the difference, even when I'm speaking it correctly.
I also think the dental sounds for "d" and "t" sound most like the usual American alveolar "d" and "t"... but everyone from India, whether North or South, seems to think the retroflex "d" and "t" sound more like the American versions. So when they speak English they do a substitution with the retroflex sounds, which I think creates a stronger accent. Although the other option might sound like a lisp.
But even Hindi at least isn't tonal... In Mandarin I wasn't taught to say "Nee" I had to say "NeeEE" with a lowering and then a raising of the tone.
Speaking of importing words... a few years ago I learned that the word "animation" is English, and then was borrowed by Japanese (and changed slightly) as "anime", which has now been borrowed back into English to mean "Japanese animation". Weird.
There's actually a lot of different ideas about what countries are part of what continents... and even about how many continents there are. What's printed in your school textbook varies a lot based upon what country you're living in.
In a practical sense India and surrounding areas are usually called "South Asia" as opposed to "Southeast Asia" such as the Vietnam/Thai/etc. area and when you talk about just "Asia" people usually assume you mean around China/Japan/Korea and are not talking all the way west until you're almost in eastern Europe. China and India share a border, but culturally and ethnically they are quite separate and distinct thanks to those mountains.
However, most people from India you meet will have some knowledge of Hindi if they're not completely fluent. It's an official language and the language of most of their major films. So if you're going after a common tongue, Hindi is probably the safest bet.
If you know specifically what city you want to go to, or you know specifically that you will be dealing with people who hail from one particular city, then obviously go with that language (I seem to recall a lot of Tamil speakers at school).
I took 2 semesters of Hindi as an undergrad CS major, and although I'm far from fluent... it's nice being able to pick up pieces of conversation among my Indian co-workers (this is here in USA)... rather than have it all just be completely foreign.
I suppose Mandarin Chinese might be almost as useful, but from the short time I tried to learn a little bit of Mandarin I can say that Hindi is probably way easier to learn if you're a native English speaker such as myself.
You obviously have to use your freon-less refrigerator which works by blowing air over blocks of ice you harvest in winter and store in a specially insulated chamber of your house.
This machine will tell us the precise identity of the optimal Vice Presidential candidate.
[punches stuff in] [ticket comes out]
It says, "I won't tell, that would be... cheating."
I am now telling the computer that if it will tell me the answer, I will gladly share with it the grand prize.
[punches stuff in] [ticket comes out]
He says, "Why would a computer care about being able to say, 'I called it?'"
I am not telling the computer EXACTLY what he can do with the ability to say, "I called it!"
I love my Unicomp that I use at home. I got the 104-key USB version and I think it's very solid. It was well worth it.
At work I use an IBM 101-key PS/2 with the built-in mouse that I got at the university surplus for $1. I finally had to stop using that one though because it's so loud and was possibly annoying my co-workers. One of them did say that the sound of that keyboard made me sound very productive, like I was typing at the speed of light.
The problem is my fingers are so used to that exact key spacing now that I really suck at typing on the Dell keyboard that came with my work computer. Although I do like the volume knob.
Merge facebook and myspace? Yes! Everyone will want to come on MyFace!
That's not quite the same thing, though it is cool. This person scanned some records and then optically converted those scans to sound.
What was suggested here was someone make a 3-D model of a record (with grooves) and a 3-D model of a record player, that interact with each other in such a way that it actually works.
I would actually love to see this done.
I don't know... David Bowie also turned down a knighthood, I believe... and he married a supermodel.
A 9 Volt battery which you would, obviously, simply never say puts out 9 Volts of electricity?
Hmmm.
And should they have a hard time fitting in? Is your position helping improve the situation, or reinforcing a bad situation?
I don't think you're really arguing against the person you replied to.
So instead of renting a truck when you need it, and using a sensible car the rest of the time; you use a truck that you own when you need it, and use a sensible car the rest of the time. I don't think the person you replied to would find much fault with that. I guess it's nice if you have the money.
The thing that's dumb is when people drive trucks who REALLY have no need to drive trucks every day. And despite how much land is rural, most people in America don't live there. In the 2000 census, 222,360,539 live in urban areas and 59,061,367 live in rural areas. And not every truck/SUV owner in those urban areas owns a landscaping company or something like that.
A lot of people who hear anti-truck/SUV talk, who own one, get offended and think we naysayers are dumb because they have some valid reason to own their truck/SUV... but if you do have a good reason to own one, we are not criticizing you. Even if you own a truck/SUV and have a good reason for ownership, you should still be reasonable enough to see that most idiots who own one have no reason to own one, and it's just pure wasteful living.
But Doc Brown spoke of GigaWatts.
Volts. Ohms. Watts. Amps. Joules. Coulombs. Newtons.
The assertion that units can't be plural was just wrong. That's all.
It's not natural sounding, it's not how people talk, it's not even how it's presented in classrooms and textbooks and scientific papers. It was just someone trying to sound smart, and ended up being too clever by half.
I knew it all along.
It really all suddenly doesn't matter when you stop to realize that it's all made up.
Well to be fair, I did see it yesterday and it was a good movie. Actually well above my expectations. But it was definitely jumping the gun a bit.
(P.S. It's lame to call things gay.)