My point was to say that religions being outside the scope of materiality (for if they weren't, they'd be subject to scientifical scrutinity), nobody can tell a fellow human being that he's out of his shoes.
I agree with you here, but for a different reason than you give. The reason we can't go after people for being wrong is that we don't have a firm footing ourselves (or there would only be the one religion that could be 'proved' correct). However, when you say that nobody should care about that, because that's the kind of truth you only know when you die or when the end of times comes, it's still a major statement to make: when I say (for example) that Christianity is correct as a religious view, I'm saying - in essence - that everyone who believes otherwise is wrong. When someone else says that Islam is correct as a religious view, they're saying that I'm wrong. Now, there is only one truth here, and it could be either one, the other, or neither, but definitely not both (because they contradict).
It makes no sense to say that the actual truth value of one of these statements depends on the person giving it unless you're saying that the religious truth is based purely on the individual, and most religions (where are reflexive verbs when I need them?) require themselves to be universal.
if you are of this religion, it is the truth. If you're outside, it's false. End of it.
Impossible: perhaps it may be believed to be the truth, but the actual truth value (like I say) is external to the belief. What you're saying is on par to saying that whether the Crusades happened or not depends on what an individual believes about it. If they happened, they happened for everyone! You can't decide whether or not they happened for you as an individual. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but saying that truth depends on the observer is screwed up.
Here's a couple - looks like Peter wrote about it, too. Also note the contrasting verses: "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven." and "masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."
It's an interesting topic. I in no way advocate slavery, but I completely understand the Christian viewpoint that no matter what your position, you're supposed to love your neighbor.
religion is not true or false : you believe it or not, that's the end of it. It then is compatible for one to worship what's making his neighbour smile, none of them being more stupid than the other, both desserving respect.
I'm sure you've gotten another response to this effect, but whatever: religion is a statement of fact. Statements are true or false. Either God exists or He does not. If religion is not true or false, it is no longer something you can believe - belief is a statement of what one thinks is truth. Some religions give incompatible truths. Therefore, (at least) some people are incorrect.
Do note that the Bible addresses it too, among other things instructing slaves to perform their duties well.
Is that in the New Testament? If not, it is irrelevent as it was not a teaching or action of Jesus. Any Christian who attempts to use the Old Testament to justify anything is deeply lacking in what Christianity is about (mainly the teachings and actions of Jesus Christ, with the Old Testament there to provide a sense of historic continuity).
Yes, in one of Paul's letters. Note that I don't think it would be interpreted today as supporting slavery itself, but more as supporting the Christian work ethic (whatever you do, do it well). Ahh, context.
Well, IANAET, but I think the problem with tone is that IM/email is a cross between a phone conversation and writing letters. On the phone, tone isn't a problem because you can hear it. In letters, usually the writer is formal enough so tone isn't a problem, but also it takes enough effort (and enough time) that the receiver can cool down before writing back.
In summary: you can't hear the other person, and it's quick and easy to insult them back.
The problem with gaining writing skills is that it won't help; you're not (usually) writing in third person (Spaceman40 thoughtfully notes), so you don't get the descriptive ability that provides. The writer has to provide a way to figure out the tone (emoticons are great for that), and the reader has to give the benefit of the doubt.
IM/Email is a new form of communication (quick/occasionally dirty/written), and with all types of communication, there are ways to be misunderstood.:)
The start? As soon as phones went from calling people and recieving calls to taking pictures (you know how hard it is to get a phone with just call-related features anymore?), phones had bloat.
It's hard to find a minimalist (in software, at least) phone.
If you buy a 32" TV only to take it home and find it has a 20" screen in an 8.5" bezel, would you feel just a little cheated there? (And although that may sounds extreme, TVs and monitors NEVER actually measure their advertised value for that exact reason, often falling up to a full inch smaller).
You know, they measure sizes of TVs by the size of the projected image. On plasmas and other types of flat panels, the projected image is the same size as the screen, so the measurements are fairly accurate. However, for a CRT-type display, the projection is quite often larger than the viewable screen - making a loophole for them to give you a larger size.
It's just like hard drives: for normal computer people, a KB is 2^10, an MB is 2^20, etc. For crazy hard drive manufacturers, a KB is 1,000 bytes, an MB is 1,000,000 byes, etc. It's a pain, but such is life.
Argh. Moral relativism. Hope you don't think that's a new idea - the concept has been around for a while, and really ticks me off. There/is/ an absolute good: you're trying to separate situational moral relativism (the right thing to do in a given situation) with personal moral relativism (the right thing to do in the eyes of a given individual).
Just because the rules of right and wrong don't seem to be simple enough for you to give in a few words doesn't mean it hasn't been done: look at the Golden Rule, expressed not only in Christianity, but also Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Hinduism, even the topic of discussion: Islam.
Look at your "grey" cases: It's wrong to steal a stereo. -> because you wouldn't want anyone else stealing yours. It's not really wrong to steal bread when your child is starving -> because in the conflict between the owner of the bread and your child, you side with your child. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if the owner of the bread followed the ethic and/gave you the bread to begin with/. It's wrong to cheat on your fiance... -> because you wouldn't want to be cheated on. unless he's a jerk and you're on board the Titanic and you meet a guy you dig - then it's romantic. -> hah. It's wrong to kill. -> because you generally don't want to die. But it's not wrong to kill to defend your family. -> because, as in the child example, you side with your family. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if the person trying to kill you followed the ethic...
"11. Wait, how come I don't see these chat features you keep talking about in my Gmail account?
We're rolling the new chat features out in stages, so you may not have them in your account quite yet. Thanks for being patient while you wait for your new and improved Gmail account. And unfortunately, the chat features work only in the US-English interface for now. We know, we know... we're getting to the other languages as fast as we can."
In college, I had a class on ethics where pairs took turns giving lessons on different topics. The topic my friend and I took was software licensing: have you ever read the GPL? Ever read the WinXP license? If so, great! It's a beast. Just in case you were serious about your comment, here's GPL2, simplified:
"If you want to use this software, no problem - you're free to do so. If you want to distribute this software, you must make the source code available to those who you distribute it to, at no cost over the cost of distribution."
He's not in office yet (check the summary), and I hope he won't get elected... Reduce the faith in Texas voters even further below where it currently is.
You would be correct:) However, given Taco's recent article about submission format, I was trying to beat possible grammar/spelling fascists to the punch.
I was wondering what he was talking about - it's an RTS in the article:-P
That's Debian's push, though: be secure and stable. Gentoo isn't pushing to be stable, but to allow the user to be as cutting edge as possible. I'm sure you can be cutting edge in Debian (although I wouldn't know how) or secure and stable on Gentoo, but that's not what those distros work towards, in general.
Luckily, we *nix folks generally have choices for our home boxes.
I thought there was a configuration file that let you set default options for emerge, but after taking a look at the documentation, there appears to be no such file. Shame. What I did was write a script: update_world.sh, that just runs that command, put it in/sbin or something. You could also alias emerge to emerge --ask, but I don't know how much I like that idea.
The problem with --ask being the default is that you can't automate it at all - for home users, the automation is the big deal.
"Except that, if you want to update all your libraries and the like, you probably need "--deep"."
Definitely.
"Plus, there's a few packages under Gentoo that, if upgraded carelessly, break stuff (e.g. grub IIRC), or that refuse to upgrade without manual intervention (e.g. the recent move to Mysql 4.1)."
The former is an example of one of the downsides of upgrading applications automatically with a distribution. The latter is another: major (and even sometimes minor) version upgrades can break existing architecture. I'm not sure of Gentoo's policy as to blocking upgrades, but it seems to be along the lines of "if it could break an existing configuration, don't do it."
I haven't yet had a problem with grub, but perhaps I'm not using it the same way. Apache and Apache2 are seperate installs, and can be emerged side-by-side, which is an interesting way of doing things.
Back on topic, there are ways of updating the system almost completely automatically on pretty much any large Linux distro. It's a non-issue, at this point.
Apology accepted - it's hard not to get riled up when this topic comes up:)
-- "But it is possible to do repeatable experiments on remains that are found. And it is possible to disprove evolutionary theory." --
I'm trying to think of a way to disprove it, but I can't think of anything at the moment. Perhaps if it were shown that it is impossible for random changes of DNA to propagate? I'll take your word for it -- besides, I'm one of those people that I mentioned at the end of my original post. Evolution != No God.
But that's an argument for another time. Thanks for the intelligent discussion. One more thought: usually, scientists ask for a theory to be predictive, too. On Nova last night they were talking about the probability of the Avian Flu evolving into a disease that could spread through the air. The difficulty of computing it was related only to the "cough and sneeze" gene's size and complexity; this was interesting because it meant that apparently, the theory of evolution/is/ predictive.
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I agree with you here, but for a different reason than you give. The reason we can't go after people for being wrong is that we don't have a firm footing ourselves (or there would only be the one religion that could be 'proved' correct). However, when you say that nobody should care about that, because that's the kind of truth you only know when you die or when the end of times comes, it's still a major statement to make: when I say (for example) that Christianity is correct as a religious view, I'm saying - in essence - that everyone who believes otherwise is wrong. When someone else says that Islam is correct as a religious view, they're saying that I'm wrong. Now, there is only one truth here, and it could be either one, the other, or neither, but definitely not both (because they contradict).
It makes no sense to say that the actual truth value of one of these statements depends on the person giving it unless you're saying that the religious truth is based purely on the individual, and most religions (where are reflexive verbs when I need them?) require themselves to be universal.
Impossible: perhaps it may be believed to be the truth, but the actual truth value (like I say) is external to the belief. What you're saying is on par to saying that whether the Crusades happened or not depends on what an individual believes about it. If they happened, they happened for everyone! You can't decide whether or not they happened for you as an individual. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but saying that truth depends on the observer is screwed up.
Here's a couple - looks like Peter wrote about it, too. Also note the contrasting verses: "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven." and "masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."
It's an interesting topic. I in no way advocate slavery, but I completely understand the Christian viewpoint that no matter what your position, you're supposed to love your neighbor.
I'm sure you've gotten another response to this effect, but whatever: religion is a statement of fact. Statements are true or false. Either God exists or He does not. If religion is not true or false, it is no longer something you can believe - belief is a statement of what one thinks is truth. Some religions give incompatible truths. Therefore, (at least) some people are incorrect.
Perhaps you missed the last time this came up...
Kind of interesting parallel to the gov't asking search engines for records a while ago...
Ah, but it's being made, you know :)
I took it as serious - it's funny, though, being on a site full of nerds (myself included), and being made fun of for being different :)
Ah, the wonders of stereotype.
Well, IANAET, but I think the problem with tone is that IM/email is a cross between a phone conversation and writing letters. On the phone, tone isn't a problem because you can hear it. In letters, usually the writer is formal enough so tone isn't a problem, but also it takes enough effort (and enough time) that the receiver can cool down before writing back.
:)
In summary: you can't hear the other person, and it's quick and easy to insult them back.
The problem with gaining writing skills is that it won't help; you're not (usually) writing in third person (Spaceman40 thoughtfully notes), so you don't get the descriptive ability that provides. The writer has to provide a way to figure out the tone (emoticons are great for that), and the reader has to give the benefit of the doubt.
IM/Email is a new form of communication (quick/occasionally dirty/written), and with all types of communication, there are ways to be misunderstood.
The start? As soon as phones went from calling people and recieving calls to taking pictures (you know how hard it is to get a phone with just call-related features anymore?), phones had bloat.
It's hard to find a minimalist (in software, at least) phone.
If you buy a 32" TV only to take it home and find it has a 20" screen in an 8.5" bezel, would you feel just a little cheated there? (And although that may sounds extreme, TVs and monitors NEVER actually measure their advertised value for that exact reason, often falling up to a full inch smaller).
You know, they measure sizes of TVs by the size of the projected image. On plasmas and other types of flat panels, the projected image is the same size as the screen, so the measurements are fairly accurate. However, for a CRT-type display, the projection is quite often larger than the viewable screen - making a loophole for them to give you a larger size.
It's just like hard drives: for normal computer people, a KB is 2^10, an MB is 2^20, etc. For crazy hard drive manufacturers, a KB is 1,000 bytes, an MB is 1,000,000 byes, etc. It's a pain, but such is life.
I respectfully disagree with your assumption that there is an absolute "good".
:)
I can handle that
Argh. Moral relativism. Hope you don't think that's a new idea - the concept has been around for a while, and really ticks me off. There /is/ an absolute good: you're trying to separate situational moral relativism (the right thing to do in a given situation) with personal moral relativism (the right thing to do in the eyes of a given individual).
/gave you the bread to begin with/.
Just because the rules of right and wrong don't seem to be simple enough for you to give in a few words doesn't mean it hasn't been done: look at the Golden Rule, expressed not only in Christianity, but also Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Hinduism, even the topic of discussion: Islam.
Look at your "grey" cases:
It's wrong to steal a stereo. -> because you wouldn't want anyone else stealing yours.
It's not really wrong to steal bread when your child is starving -> because in the conflict between the owner of the bread and your child, you side with your child. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if the owner of the bread followed the ethic and
It's wrong to cheat on your fiance... -> because you wouldn't want to be cheated on.
unless he's a jerk and you're on board the Titanic and you meet a guy you dig - then it's romantic. -> hah.
It's wrong to kill. -> because you generally don't want to die.
But it's not wrong to kill to defend your family. -> because, as in the child example, you side with your family. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if the person trying to kill you followed the ethic...
Sorry, but moral relativism bothers me.
"11. Wait, how come I don't see these chat features you keep talking about in my Gmail account?
We're rolling the new chat features out in stages, so you may not have them in your account quite yet. Thanks for being patient while you wait for your new and improved Gmail account. And unfortunately, the chat features work only in the US-English interface for now. We know, we know... we're getting to the other languages as fast as we can."
In college, I had a class on ethics where pairs took turns giving lessons on different topics. The topic my friend and I took was software licensing: have you ever read the GPL? Ever read the WinXP license? If so, great! It's a beast. Just in case you were serious about your comment, here's GPL2, simplified:
"If you want to use this software, no problem - you're free to do so. If you want to distribute this software, you must make the source code available to those who you distribute it to, at no cost over the cost of distribution."
Just to clear that up.
Aaaand... friended.
He's not in office yet (check the summary), and I hope he won't get elected... Reduce the faith in Texas voters even further below where it currently is.
Do the editors do this on purpose just to mess with my head?
:-P
Actually, it was most likely the submitter - just to mess with your head.
You would be correct :) However, given Taco's recent article about submission format, I was trying to beat possible grammar/spelling fascists to the punch.
:-P
I was wondering what he was talking about - it's an RTS in the article
tern -> turn, the game isn't real (just a funny idea), and the article is the first in a series.
That's Debian's push, though: be secure and stable. Gentoo isn't pushing to be stable, but to allow the user to be as cutting edge as possible. I'm sure you can be cutting edge in Debian (although I wouldn't know how) or secure and stable on Gentoo, but that's not what those distros work towards, in general.
Luckily, we *nix folks generally have choices for our home boxes.
"I'm constantly typing emerge -uDa world."
/sbin or something. You could also alias emerge to emerge --ask, but I don't know how much I like that idea.
I thought there was a configuration file that let you set default options for emerge, but after taking a look at the documentation, there appears to be no such file. Shame. What I did was write a script: update_world.sh, that just runs that command, put it in
The problem with --ask being the default is that you can't automate it at all - for home users, the automation is the big deal.
"Except that, if you want to update all your libraries and the like, you probably need "--deep"."
Definitely.
"Plus, there's a few packages under Gentoo that, if upgraded carelessly, break stuff (e.g. grub IIRC), or that refuse to upgrade without manual intervention (e.g. the recent move to Mysql 4.1)."
The former is an example of one of the downsides of upgrading applications automatically with a distribution. The latter is another: major (and even sometimes minor) version upgrades can break existing architecture. I'm not sure of Gentoo's policy as to blocking upgrades, but it seems to be along the lines of "if it could break an existing configuration, don't do it."
I haven't yet had a problem with grub, but perhaps I'm not using it the same way. Apache and Apache2 are seperate installs, and can be emerged side-by-side, which is an interesting way of doing things.
Back on topic, there are ways of updating the system almost completely automatically on pretty much any large Linux distro. It's a non-issue, at this point.
emerge --update world
As long as your system is configured correctly, pretty much any large Linux distro makes this an easy thing to do.
Apology accepted - it's hard not to get riled up when this topic comes up :)
/is/ predictive.
:)
-- "But it is possible to do repeatable experiments on remains that are found. And it is possible to disprove evolutionary theory." --
I'm trying to think of a way to disprove it, but I can't think of anything at the moment. Perhaps if it were shown that it is impossible for random changes of DNA to propagate? I'll take your word for it -- besides, I'm one of those people that I mentioned at the end of my original post. Evolution != No God.
But that's an argument for another time. Thanks for the intelligent discussion. One more thought: usually, scientists ask for a theory to be predictive, too. On Nova last night they were talking about the probability of the Avian Flu evolving into a disease that could spread through the air. The difficulty of computing it was related only to the "cough and sneeze" gene's size and complexity; this was interesting because it meant that apparently, the theory of evolution
The things you learn...