On the other hand, if there were a diet that didn't leave someone feeling hungry all the time, while allowing them to significantly reduce their calorie intake, they could cut 1000 calories a day and lose 2 lbs. a week without spending ANY time on it. And imagine if that same diet left them feeling energized and strong, bounding up stairs wanting to exercise, so that they started going to the gym of their own accord? What would THAT be worth? If only such a diet existed! You could get all the benefits of exercise, along with greatly enhanced weight loss!
Wait, it does exist. It's called carbohydrate reduction. Step 1 is to gain control of blood sugar swings by substantially reducing intake of carbohydrates. Lose some lbs. Feel better. Then we can start talking about exercise. Bottom line is no one is going to exercise consistently if they're so damn tired from blood sugar issues that they can't stand the idea of going to the gym.
The reason diet food tastes like shit is because you're on the wrong diet. I'm a T2 diabetic, and I found that for me (as well as probably 40% of the population) low-carb is the only way to go. My idea of "diet food" is steak! Granted, I occasionally wish I could have bread, but... I have a lot of great-tasting, healthy foods available to me. The biggest problem is the lack of "convenience foods." It's really hard to eat out on my diet.
I've lost over 70 lbs. this way, and still losing, so I know it works. Just got done moving, and went off my diet for 3 weeks--you could even say I went nuts. Didn't put any weight back on. It works.
Dude... in June, I took charge of my health as a Type 2 diabetic, educated myself about diet and nutrition, and started losing weight with a starting weight of 420 lbs. I lose 3.5 lbs. a WEEK without trying hard. When I'm really strict, I can hit 10.
The reason people quit diets is because they don't see results. Give them diets and exercise plans that work, and they'll stick. Nobody wants to be fat.
Have you never seen those pictures of obese mothers in the 3rd world with starving, emaciated children? It's more complicated than calories in, calories out--because under certain circumstances your body CAN'T burn fat (specifically, when insulin levels are kept high by a diet too rich in carbohydrates and too low in protein/fat.) Now, I grant you that in a true starvation diet you'll lose weight--but you have to get to VERY low calorie levels for that to happen.
You've hinted at an important truth here. The law of conservation of energy applies (of course) however where it really plays itself out is at the CELLULAR level. It cannot be applied in a simple way at the level of diet and exercise because there are too many confusing and confounding factors. One you mention is the question of body temperature regulation. Another is the relative efficiency of the body's digestive processes wrt various macronutrients--the body processes carbohydrates far more easily than fats or proteins and far more efficiently. Beyond that, there is the whole issue of "fidgeting"--i.e. small-scale 'exercise' that nonetheless adds up over a day. When someone has lots of energy available to their system, because it hasn't been or can't be stored as fat, they tend to walk around the house more, pace, fidget, stand up, roll over in their sleep etc. Such "micro-exercise" adds up.
The key truth is this: Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation. Insulin is the hormone that allows your body to deposit fat, and carbohydrates are the food that causes your body to make excessive amounts of insulin. That doesn't mean everyone needs to go to Atkins Induction levels of carbohydrate consumption (although many diabetics do!) but many studies have shown that, all else being equal, the more you reduce carbohydrate in the diet the faster you'll lose weight.
Calories in, Calories out--i.e. the Law of Conservation of energy as applied to human diet--just doesn't work, and it NEVER HAS. This sort of "wisdom" is what has given us an obesity epidemic.
"It's an example of the old `dog ate my homework' excuse," says Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework."
When I was in 5th grade or so, a kid in my class brought in her homework (or the remains of her homework) complete with teethmarks. So, yes, it does actually happen.:)
I think the moral of this story, though, is that the hidden costs of running a vulnerable computing environment might be far higher than most of us even thought. I mean... how do you balance the extra $200 or so for a Mac (if it's even a real cost, which I'd dispute) against the possibility of $250,000 in legal bills, losing your job, and, more importantly, losing your freedom? And it's not just kiddie porn... industrial espionage, RIAA lawsuits, "real" espionage...
Yes, I know that Macs are not immune, in theory. Nor is Linux, in theory. But in practice the odds of someone actually cracking my Mac or my Linux box--I have both--and using it as a zombie for any sort of nefarious purpose are exponentially lower than they are on Windows. Not to mention all the other benefits... like say the fact that I fired up my Thinkpad for the first time in a long time today and the once-working wireless adapter wouldn't work. Never have that sort of problem on a Mac! And on Linux, it might be a pain to get it to work but once it worked it would keep working.
There's a reason I don't run Windows, and this sort of thing is the reason.
In fairness, the new system has capabilities that the old system did not. And I also think that there is a certain amount of overhead that necessarily accompanies a serious development effort, especially one that involves more than one person. If I just want to throw something up that will work, I can do it, by myself, without documentation etc., in a matter of weeks. Require documentation, controlled processes, and make me work with a team, and it will take months. The "mythical man month" is an ever-present reality--software projects do NOT grow in a linear fashion, and in fact as you add developers productivity regresses with depressing frequency.
However, I do think this example is a bit of a commentary on the power of the "unix way of doing things": flat files are a fundamentally powerful approach for those applications where they can do the job, and Java, Oracle, and the like will sap productivity in applications where their features are not actually needed. This is why I'm always highly suspicious of any developer who "does everything in [Java|.net|perl|whatever]. You need to pick the right tool for the job.
Back in the 90's, we had a customized patch to Apache to make it forward tickets within our intranet as supplied by our (also customized) Kerberos libraries for our (also customized) build of Lynx. It all had to do with a very robust system for managing customer contacts that ran with virtually no maintenance from 1999 to 2007--and I was the only person who understood it because I wrote it as the SA--when it was scrapped for a "modern" and "supportable" solution that (of course) requires a dozen full-time developers and crashes all the time.
Not really bitching too much, because that platform was a product of the go-go 90's, and IT doctrine has changed for the better. No way should a product be out there with all your customer information that only one person understands. But it was a sweet solution that did its job and did its job well for a LONG time. Better living through the UNIX way of doing things!
But, anyway, I never bothered to contribute any of the patches from that back to the Apache tree (or the other trees) because they really only made sense in that particular context and as a group. If you weren't doing EXACTLY what we were doing, there was no point in the patches, and NOBODY was doing exactly what we were doing.
In the first place, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy is not generally recognized and doesn't make its way into most logic textbooks. In the second place, it's perfectly possible (and even common) for an argument to seem to exhibit and informal fallacy and still be strong. In the third place, the No True Scotsman fallacy--even as defined at infidels.org (who all but invented it as a bludgeon to use on Christians)--only applies if the change in definition is post-hoc. As an Anabaptist, I assure you that my rejection of any Christianity that uses or endorses violence is not post-hoc.
Your other points (e.g. the real causes of Bruno's execution) I've already responded to.
An enormous amount of effort, and I do mean enormous, has gone into producing a critical text that is probably very, very close to the original. When the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered back in the 50's, with a copy of Isaiah several hundred years older than any that was had previously, there were virtually no differences between it and the Masoretic Text (which is the standard, scholarly text of the Hebrew Bible.) With respect to the New Testament, they literally compare thousands of manuscripts, dating them, slicing and dicing them to determine what the earliest text was.
And, let it be said, there are no major doctrinal issues that hang on a textual question. Translational questions, sure (e.g. should be translated "faith in Jesus Christ" or "faith of Jesus Christ" [Romans 3.22]) but not textual questions.
I love King James-ers. Usually what I do is first hand them a scan from a 1611 KJV and ask them to read it. They can't. What people call the "King James" version today is actually the early 19th century revision of the King James version. Second, I have them read the preface to the KJV, which says specifically that new translations will be needed. That usually shuts 'em up.
Well, it's worth saying that it has always been the orthodox Christian position that Genesis and the Bible more generally is not there to reveal cosmology. Augustine for example speaks to it, but I don't have any quotes on hand. Probably you could get some decent quotes if you googled.
I've got a great job, working for a Solaris admin group at a Fortune 100 company as a systems architect. Right now, I'm working on building and maintaining the customized Solaris image that the company installs, but in the past I've done everything from troubleshooting to programming to web design to straight sysadmin work. It's interesting work, and a new challenge every day. I'm a single father, but my management has been very understanding of my needs in that department, I get decent pay and very good benefits. Yes, the corporate mergers, takeovers, outsourcing, insourcing, reorganizations, etc. suck, but then again I've had a stable job since 1999 and so far there's no writing on the wall. Prior to 1999, I had no trouble finding jobs from 1993 on. Once, in 2007, I found a very good job after looking for a whole two weeks, then decided to stay with my current employer when they counter-offered.
I hate to sound harsh, but I wonder whether those who complain about IT aren't really suffering from a skills gap. It seems to me that IT's a great place to work for those who are really good at it, and that (as is the case in most fields) the best don't have trouble finding work. If you're having trouble finding work, always getting laid off, etc., maybe that's a sign that IT isn't really where you belong?
That wasn't my characterization. So your whole argument is trashed. The crusades are a religious problem because they are a mass of religion-justified atrocities. As I have said elsewhere, justifying self defense is no problem. Justifying rape, pillage, infanticide... can't be done. When - as is the case with the crusades - the permission, and not just that, but the instructions, to commit those acts comes from religion... then we have our master criminal identified. Its name is religion.
Awww, damnit, I just can't resist, and I really don't have time.
You're looking at "religion" as an institution--which incidentally screams ex-Catholic. But neither I nor (I suspect) most Christians look at religion as an institution. To me, "The Church" is the invisible bride of Christ, compose of all those who follow the will of God. And, to be brutally frank, I feel no inclination to include institution Medieval Catholicism in that (not that particular Medieval Catholics didn't qualify; I could even name names of some I believe did!)
This mode of looking at religion fails, because it assumes that religious people are mindless drones who will do whatever their priest tells them to do. Speaking as a part-time minister (currently inactive, and I earn my living programming, and no I'm not getting class credit for this!) I could only wish that were the case. Congregations don't take orders from preachers--at best, they draw inspiration. The best you can do as a preacher is to somehow connect your people to God... to somehow encourage them into a place where they'll go to God for themselves. But most of the time they look for rationalization, comfort, and absolution for the sins they're committing anyway. They don't want to change, they just want you to tell them it's okay to remain unchanged. Preachers tell people to be good--or at least most preachers try to--but mostly they're not listening!
The way to test the Christian religion is not on the basis of what any institution has done with it, except insofar as that institution represents a genuine living out of Christian beliefs. The way to test it is on the basis of the beliefs themselves, and on the effect those beliefs have when actually adhered to.
Now, I happen to think that the best, most normative source for Christian doctrine is the Bible, and in particular the New Testament. (Theologically, I believe in progressive revelation, in which the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. Accordingly, I don't believe that the OT is normative for Christians in the same way as the New.) You bring up pedophilia in Catholic priests. Is there one word in the Bible that would make me think that was okay? Nope. (Hell, even Cathollic doctrine said that was wrong--it just wasn't followed.) You bring up the inquisition. One word that suggests we should force people to be doctrinally correct by violence? Crusades? My Bible seems to tell me that I shouldn't do violence at all, ever, to anyone. Now, I do think your account of the errors of the institutional church are overblown, but even if they weren't it doesn't really phase me, because not only do I not feel any allegiance to the institutional church, but the Bible tells me specifically that there WILL be false Christians, those who claim the name of Jesus who he never knew.
In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "Christianity hasn't so much been tried and found wanting as it has been found hard and not tried."
Finally, one last point that I thought of too late... talking about Bruno as an example of a scientist burned at the stake is sort of like talking about Hans Reiser as an example of a Linux developer being thrown in prison. It misses the point.
Don't really have time to waste arguing this, as I move myself and my four children as a single father on Friday, but let it be said that Bruno was executed for his theological heresies, not his scientific opinions--such as denying the virginity of Mary, teaching the transmigration of souls, teaching the Christ was not the son of God, but a magician, and the list could go on. My apologies, I should have said, "scientist qua scientist" or something along those lines. At the very least, if Bruno is your only example, you're guilty of some serious misrepresentation.
In the words of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-1534) had reacted favorably to a talk about Copernicus's theories, rewarding the speaker with a rare manuscript. There is no indication of how Pope Paul III, to whom On the Revolutions was dedicated reacted; however, a trusted advisor, Bartolomeo Spina of Pisa (1474-1546) intended to condemn it but fell ill and died before his plan was carried out. Thus, in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology.
So... let's see... you've got one example, who was burned for religious heresy, not for scientific opinions? Pardon me if I'm unimpressed.
And it sort of underlines my larger point that the church didn't do their own dirty work, they turned him over to the state for execution, don't you think?
Beyond that, I never said that Atheism caused Stalin to engage in pogroms. Only that it's unfair to blame Christianity for pogroms when pogroms demonstrably occur in its absence. You've beaten a strawman.
Just for the record, I'm not a creationist, except in the sense that I believe that God created the Universe ex nihilo. In the words of John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1, ""For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere."
When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. (Genesis 6.1-4 NRSV)
I've always sort of nursed a theory... that maybe Adam and Eve were Homo Sapiens and the Nephilim were Neanderthals. Or something like that. The idea is that Eden was a separate creation from Earth, and that on earth evolution really DID take place... but that after the Fall god turned man out of Eden into the earth.
Absurd of course, and could never be proven. But amusing to speculate.
Christianity, with its history of inquisitions, crusades, witch burnings, pogroms, blood libel, financial parasitism, subjugation of women, repression of science, burning of scientists at the stake, abandonment of adherents, and general pillage... isn't a dangerous cult? Really?
You might profit from actually studying the inquisition(s), as I have. With a few much bandied exceptions, they weren't what you portray them as. Crusades? In the first place, I would question whether a crusading Christianity is a true Christianity--or any Christianity that has sold out to secular authority. The crusades were motivated in large measure by the problem of landless second sons and good old-fashioned greed. Religion was a post-hoc rationalization--an attempt to turn that greed towards what was regarded as a good purpose, not a driving force. Not that I agree with that rationalization, but your characterization is flawed. Again, learn some history rather than a parody of history. Witch burnings? Witch burnings mostly came along thanks to a Renaissance fascination with magic and the occult, and were quite rare if not unheard of prior to that time. In fact, the Council of Paderborn condemned the belief in Witches (i.e. that they existed, had power, or could hurt you) as heretical, and that was orthodoxy for the vast bulk of the churches history. And the handbook of witchburners--the Malleus Maleficarum was regarded as a heretical document by most responsible Christians from the time it was published. Pogroms? Hmm... so far as I know, pogroms are hardly a uniquely religious phenomenon. It's been proven to death that Hitler was no Christian, but if that doesn't do it for you you might take a look at how Stalin (an avowed atheist) treated the Jews. Not to mention Claudius' rather vicious suppression of the Jews of Rome in the first century, or the general hatred of Diaspora Jewry throughout the ancient world among the gentiles. Anti-semitism was not a Christian invention. Subjugation of women? Tell me... who the hell DIDN'T subjugate women prior to the invention of industrialized society and The Pill? News flash: economics matter, and when women were tied down by childbirth, breast-feeding, and lack of physical strength, women's lib didn't get very far. Not defending subjugation of women, by any means, but on a whole the Christian church has been a progressive force for women when you compare it to the times, not a repressive one. Again, learn some history, instead of parody of same. Repression of science? Sure, there were examples. But there were also many, many Christian sponsors of science and the arts. You're ignoring half the equation. Galileo got in trouble as much for being a jerk about it as for what he taught. Burning of scientists at the stake? Uhmmm... I'm trying to think of an example. Do you have one? I really can't think of one. Abandonment of adherents? What on EARTH are you talking about? General pillage? Oh, come on. Give me a break. Now you're just name-calling.
Now, let me make another observation here... every single example you bring up is what happens when the church sells out and seeks political power. As an Anabaptist, I believe this is the one thing the church must never do. So, even if your laundry list had merit (it really doesn't... it reads more like a tired list of he-said-she-said from someone who got everything he knows about religion and history from infidels.org) it doesn't apply to me, nor to the millions of Christians who regard Constantinian Christianity as no Christianity at all.
So kindly exercise some discretion and actually learn something before you start flapping your gums and slandering things you know nothing about.
"Jesus Christ, I hate those Christians?" I guess there's no danger of your plane crashing when the rapture comes, huh?:) (For the record, I don't believe in the rapture...)
In fairness to the judges, they did reduce each month of recommended additional sentence to just four days. It would be interesting to see whether that was made up of a lot of judges who struck a middle ground between the recommendation and what their "judicial intuition" told them, or 1/10 judges who just didn't care and took whatever the recommendations said.
The point is that by claiming "orientation" as a motivation, my ex-wife is able to find a community that excuses her heinous actions. And this is not rare--there are many, many cases where men and women have walked out on their spouses and children into the arms of the GLBT community, where they found AFFIRMATION for doing heinous emotional and economic damage to those left behind.
When did sexual satisfaction become more important than caring for your kids and keeping your promises?
I'm most familiar with the question of vaccinations being related to autism, as the father of two autistic children. Let it be said, my autistic twins were clearly "different" from my other two kids before they got any vaccines. And every study that's looked at the question has failed to find a link. But that doesn't stop fear-mongers from you from spreading their dung.
I promise you, the Flu's more dangerous than the vaccine.
How about this: the purpose of marriage as a social contract is to provide for the care, feeding, and raising of children. Children are a product of heterosexual relationships, not homosexual relationships. Public parity for homosexual relationships with heterosexual is part of a larger weakening of the marriage covenant that has had horrible impacts on children.
Real example: my wife abandoned me and our 4 children, two of whom have autism. Her excuse? She wanted to be "free to be bisexual." Does that mean that she went for a stable, committed, bisexual relationship? Is there even such a thing? Hardly. What it really meant was that she didn't want to by a parent anymore and the GLBT community tells her she's a hero for walking out on her kids.
Sorry, but I find the whole thing repulsive. Not because of the "ick factor", but because of the lust factor. Marriage is supposed to be about more than sex, it's supposed to be about children, and gay marriage isn't about that.
The point is... convenience. Also, the weight-lifting data doesn't really fit particularly well in a spreadsheet (although you could certainly squeeze it in), and the BG app sinks with a website monitored by my doctor, and the weight app does curve fit to give me my "true weight". Could I do it in excel? Sure. Not worth my time to try, and the interface is everything, especially on a 2 inch screen. Interface, BTW, is why Windows Mobile sucks.
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On the other hand, if there were a diet that didn't leave someone feeling hungry all the time, while allowing them to significantly reduce their calorie intake, they could cut 1000 calories a day and lose 2 lbs. a week without spending ANY time on it. And imagine if that same diet left them feeling energized and strong, bounding up stairs wanting to exercise, so that they started going to the gym of their own accord? What would THAT be worth? If only such a diet existed! You could get all the benefits of exercise, along with greatly enhanced weight loss!
Wait, it does exist. It's called carbohydrate reduction. Step 1 is to gain control of blood sugar swings by substantially reducing intake of carbohydrates. Lose some lbs. Feel better. Then we can start talking about exercise. Bottom line is no one is going to exercise consistently if they're so damn tired from blood sugar issues that they can't stand the idea of going to the gym.
The reason diet food tastes like shit is because you're on the wrong diet. I'm a T2 diabetic, and I found that for me (as well as probably 40% of the population) low-carb is the only way to go. My idea of "diet food" is steak! Granted, I occasionally wish I could have bread, but... I have a lot of great-tasting, healthy foods available to me. The biggest problem is the lack of "convenience foods." It's really hard to eat out on my diet.
I've lost over 70 lbs. this way, and still losing, so I know it works. Just got done moving, and went off my diet for 3 weeks--you could even say I went nuts. Didn't put any weight back on. It works.
Dude... in June, I took charge of my health as a Type 2 diabetic, educated myself about diet and nutrition, and started losing weight with a starting weight of 420 lbs. I lose 3.5 lbs. a WEEK without trying hard. When I'm really strict, I can hit 10.
The reason people quit diets is because they don't see results. Give them diets and exercise plans that work, and they'll stick. Nobody wants to be fat.
Have you never seen those pictures of obese mothers in the 3rd world with starving, emaciated children? It's more complicated than calories in, calories out--because under certain circumstances your body CAN'T burn fat (specifically, when insulin levels are kept high by a diet too rich in carbohydrates and too low in protein/fat.) Now, I grant you that in a true starvation diet you'll lose weight--but you have to get to VERY low calorie levels for that to happen.
You've hinted at an important truth here. The law of conservation of energy applies (of course) however where it really plays itself out is at the CELLULAR level. It cannot be applied in a simple way at the level of diet and exercise because there are too many confusing and confounding factors. One you mention is the question of body temperature regulation. Another is the relative efficiency of the body's digestive processes wrt various macronutrients--the body processes carbohydrates far more easily than fats or proteins and far more efficiently. Beyond that, there is the whole issue of "fidgeting"--i.e. small-scale 'exercise' that nonetheless adds up over a day. When someone has lots of energy available to their system, because it hasn't been or can't be stored as fat, they tend to walk around the house more, pace, fidget, stand up, roll over in their sleep etc. Such "micro-exercise" adds up.
The key truth is this: Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation. Insulin is the hormone that allows your body to deposit fat, and carbohydrates are the food that causes your body to make excessive amounts of insulin. That doesn't mean everyone needs to go to Atkins Induction levels of carbohydrate consumption (although many diabetics do!) but many studies have shown that, all else being equal, the more you reduce carbohydrate in the diet the faster you'll lose weight.
Calories in, Calories out--i.e. the Law of Conservation of energy as applied to human diet--just doesn't work, and it NEVER HAS. This sort of "wisdom" is what has given us an obesity epidemic.
God is by definition uncreated. If you talk about a created God, you don't understand what the word "God" means. See Wittgenstein.
When I was in 5th grade or so, a kid in my class brought in her homework (or the remains of her homework) complete with teethmarks. So, yes, it does actually happen. :)
I think the moral of this story, though, is that the hidden costs of running a vulnerable computing environment might be far higher than most of us even thought. I mean... how do you balance the extra $200 or so for a Mac (if it's even a real cost, which I'd dispute) against the possibility of $250,000 in legal bills, losing your job, and, more importantly, losing your freedom? And it's not just kiddie porn... industrial espionage, RIAA lawsuits, "real" espionage...
Yes, I know that Macs are not immune, in theory. Nor is Linux, in theory. But in practice the odds of someone actually cracking my Mac or my Linux box--I have both--and using it as a zombie for any sort of nefarious purpose are exponentially lower than they are on Windows. Not to mention all the other benefits... like say the fact that I fired up my Thinkpad for the first time in a long time today and the once-working wireless adapter wouldn't work. Never have that sort of problem on a Mac! And on Linux, it might be a pain to get it to work but once it worked it would keep working.
There's a reason I don't run Windows, and this sort of thing is the reason.
In fairness, the new system has capabilities that the old system did not. And I also think that there is a certain amount of overhead that necessarily accompanies a serious development effort, especially one that involves more than one person. If I just want to throw something up that will work, I can do it, by myself, without documentation etc., in a matter of weeks. Require documentation, controlled processes, and make me work with a team, and it will take months. The "mythical man month" is an ever-present reality--software projects do NOT grow in a linear fashion, and in fact as you add developers productivity regresses with depressing frequency.
However, I do think this example is a bit of a commentary on the power of the "unix way of doing things": flat files are a fundamentally powerful approach for those applications where they can do the job, and Java, Oracle, and the like will sap productivity in applications where their features are not actually needed. This is why I'm always highly suspicious of any developer who "does everything in [Java|.net|perl|whatever]. You need to pick the right tool for the job.
Back in the 90's, we had a customized patch to Apache to make it forward tickets within our intranet as supplied by our (also customized) Kerberos libraries for our (also customized) build of Lynx. It all had to do with a very robust system for managing customer contacts that ran with virtually no maintenance from 1999 to 2007--and I was the only person who understood it because I wrote it as the SA--when it was scrapped for a "modern" and "supportable" solution that (of course) requires a dozen full-time developers and crashes all the time.
Not really bitching too much, because that platform was a product of the go-go 90's, and IT doctrine has changed for the better. No way should a product be out there with all your customer information that only one person understands. But it was a sweet solution that did its job and did its job well for a LONG time. Better living through the UNIX way of doing things!
But, anyway, I never bothered to contribute any of the patches from that back to the Apache tree (or the other trees) because they really only made sense in that particular context and as a group. If you weren't doing EXACTLY what we were doing, there was no point in the patches, and NOBODY was doing exactly what we were doing.
In the first place, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy is not generally recognized and doesn't make its way into most logic textbooks. In the second place, it's perfectly possible (and even common) for an argument to seem to exhibit and informal fallacy and still be strong. In the third place, the No True Scotsman fallacy--even as defined at infidels.org (who all but invented it as a bludgeon to use on Christians)--only applies if the change in definition is post-hoc. As an Anabaptist, I assure you that my rejection of any Christianity that uses or endorses violence is not post-hoc.
Your other points (e.g. the real causes of Bruno's execution) I've already responded to.
An enormous amount of effort, and I do mean enormous, has gone into producing a critical text that is probably very, very close to the original. When the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered back in the 50's, with a copy of Isaiah several hundred years older than any that was had previously, there were virtually no differences between it and the Masoretic Text (which is the standard, scholarly text of the Hebrew Bible.) With respect to the New Testament, they literally compare thousands of manuscripts, dating them, slicing and dicing them to determine what the earliest text was.
And, let it be said, there are no major doctrinal issues that hang on a textual question. Translational questions, sure (e.g. should be translated "faith in Jesus Christ" or "faith of Jesus Christ" [Romans 3.22]) but not textual questions.
I love King James-ers. Usually what I do is first hand them a scan from a 1611 KJV and ask them to read it. They can't. What people call the "King James" version today is actually the early 19th century revision of the King James version. Second, I have them read the preface to the KJV, which says specifically that new translations will be needed. That usually shuts 'em up.
Well, it's worth saying that it has always been the orthodox Christian position that Genesis and the Bible more generally is not there to reveal cosmology. Augustine for example speaks to it, but I don't have any quotes on hand. Probably you could get some decent quotes if you googled.
I've got a great job, working for a Solaris admin group at a Fortune 100 company as a systems architect. Right now, I'm working on building and maintaining the customized Solaris image that the company installs, but in the past I've done everything from troubleshooting to programming to web design to straight sysadmin work. It's interesting work, and a new challenge every day. I'm a single father, but my management has been very understanding of my needs in that department, I get decent pay and very good benefits. Yes, the corporate mergers, takeovers, outsourcing, insourcing, reorganizations, etc. suck, but then again I've had a stable job since 1999 and so far there's no writing on the wall. Prior to 1999, I had no trouble finding jobs from 1993 on. Once, in 2007, I found a very good job after looking for a whole two weeks, then decided to stay with my current employer when they counter-offered.
I hate to sound harsh, but I wonder whether those who complain about IT aren't really suffering from a skills gap. It seems to me that IT's a great place to work for those who are really good at it, and that (as is the case in most fields) the best don't have trouble finding work. If you're having trouble finding work, always getting laid off, etc., maybe that's a sign that IT isn't really where you belong?
Awww, damnit, I just can't resist, and I really don't have time.
You're looking at "religion" as an institution--which incidentally screams ex-Catholic. But neither I nor (I suspect) most Christians look at religion as an institution. To me, "The Church" is the invisible bride of Christ, compose of all those who follow the will of God. And, to be brutally frank, I feel no inclination to include institution Medieval Catholicism in that (not that particular Medieval Catholics didn't qualify; I could even name names of some I believe did!)
This mode of looking at religion fails, because it assumes that religious people are mindless drones who will do whatever their priest tells them to do. Speaking as a part-time minister (currently inactive, and I earn my living programming, and no I'm not getting class credit for this!) I could only wish that were the case. Congregations don't take orders from preachers--at best, they draw inspiration. The best you can do as a preacher is to somehow connect your people to God... to somehow encourage them into a place where they'll go to God for themselves. But most of the time they look for rationalization, comfort, and absolution for the sins they're committing anyway. They don't want to change, they just want you to tell them it's okay to remain unchanged. Preachers tell people to be good--or at least most preachers try to--but mostly they're not listening!
The way to test the Christian religion is not on the basis of what any institution has done with it, except insofar as that institution represents a genuine living out of Christian beliefs. The way to test it is on the basis of the beliefs themselves, and on the effect those beliefs have when actually adhered to.
Now, I happen to think that the best, most normative source for Christian doctrine is the Bible, and in particular the New Testament. (Theologically, I believe in progressive revelation, in which the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. Accordingly, I don't believe that the OT is normative for Christians in the same way as the New.) You bring up pedophilia in Catholic priests. Is there one word in the Bible that would make me think that was okay? Nope. (Hell, even Cathollic doctrine said that was wrong--it just wasn't followed.) You bring up the inquisition. One word that suggests we should force people to be doctrinally correct by violence? Crusades? My Bible seems to tell me that I shouldn't do violence at all, ever, to anyone. Now, I do think your account of the errors of the institutional church are overblown, but even if they weren't it doesn't really phase me, because not only do I not feel any allegiance to the institutional church, but the Bible tells me specifically that there WILL be false Christians, those who claim the name of Jesus who he never knew.
In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "Christianity hasn't so much been tried and found wanting as it has been found hard and not tried."
Finally, one last point that I thought of too late... talking about Bruno as an example of a scientist burned at the stake is sort of like talking about Hans Reiser as an example of a Linux developer being thrown in prison. It misses the point.
Don't really have time to waste arguing this, as I move myself and my four children as a single father on Friday, but let it be said that Bruno was executed for his theological heresies, not his scientific opinions--such as denying the virginity of Mary, teaching the transmigration of souls, teaching the Christ was not the son of God, but a magician, and the list could go on. My apologies, I should have said, "scientist qua scientist" or something along those lines. At the very least, if Bruno is your only example, you're guilty of some serious misrepresentation.
In the words of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
So... let's see... you've got one example, who was burned for religious heresy, not for scientific opinions? Pardon me if I'm unimpressed.
And it sort of underlines my larger point that the church didn't do their own dirty work, they turned him over to the state for execution, don't you think?
Beyond that, I never said that Atheism caused Stalin to engage in pogroms. Only that it's unfair to blame Christianity for pogroms when pogroms demonstrably occur in its absence. You've beaten a strawman.
Just for the record, I'm not a creationist, except in the sense that I believe that God created the Universe ex nihilo. In the words of John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1, ""For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere."
I've always sort of nursed a theory... that maybe Adam and Eve were Homo Sapiens and the Nephilim were Neanderthals. Or something like that. The idea is that Eden was a separate creation from Earth, and that on earth evolution really DID take place... but that after the Fall god turned man out of Eden into the earth.
Absurd of course, and could never be proven. But amusing to speculate.
Let the flames begin!
You might profit from actually studying the inquisition(s), as I have. With a few much bandied exceptions, they weren't what you portray them as. Crusades? In the first place, I would question whether a crusading Christianity is a true Christianity--or any Christianity that has sold out to secular authority. The crusades were motivated in large measure by the problem of landless second sons and good old-fashioned greed. Religion was a post-hoc rationalization--an attempt to turn that greed towards what was regarded as a good purpose, not a driving force. Not that I agree with that rationalization, but your characterization is flawed. Again, learn some history rather than a parody of history. Witch burnings? Witch burnings mostly came along thanks to a Renaissance fascination with magic and the occult, and were quite rare if not unheard of prior to that time. In fact, the Council of Paderborn condemned the belief in Witches (i.e. that they existed, had power, or could hurt you) as heretical, and that was orthodoxy for the vast bulk of the churches history. And the handbook of witchburners--the Malleus Maleficarum was regarded as a heretical document by most responsible Christians from the time it was published. Pogroms? Hmm... so far as I know, pogroms are hardly a uniquely religious phenomenon. It's been proven to death that Hitler was no Christian, but if that doesn't do it for you you might take a look at how Stalin (an avowed atheist) treated the Jews. Not to mention Claudius' rather vicious suppression of the Jews of Rome in the first century, or the general hatred of Diaspora Jewry throughout the ancient world among the gentiles. Anti-semitism was not a Christian invention. Subjugation of women? Tell me... who the hell DIDN'T subjugate women prior to the invention of industrialized society and The Pill? News flash: economics matter, and when women were tied down by childbirth, breast-feeding, and lack of physical strength, women's lib didn't get very far. Not defending subjugation of women, by any means, but on a whole the Christian church has been a progressive force for women when you compare it to the times, not a repressive one. Again, learn some history, instead of parody of same. Repression of science? Sure, there were examples. But there were also many, many Christian sponsors of science and the arts. You're ignoring half the equation. Galileo got in trouble as much for being a jerk about it as for what he taught. Burning of scientists at the stake? Uhmmm... I'm trying to think of an example. Do you have one? I really can't think of one. Abandonment of adherents? What on EARTH are you talking about? General pillage? Oh, come on. Give me a break. Now you're just name-calling.
Now, let me make another observation here... every single example you bring up is what happens when the church sells out and seeks political power. As an Anabaptist, I believe this is the one thing the church must never do. So, even if your laundry list had merit (it really doesn't... it reads more like a tired list of he-said-she-said from someone who got everything he knows about religion and history from infidels.org) it doesn't apply to me, nor to the millions of Christians who regard Constantinian Christianity as no Christianity at all.
So kindly exercise some discretion and actually learn something before you start flapping your gums and slandering things you know nothing about.
"Jesus Christ, I hate those Christians?" I guess there's no danger of your plane crashing when the rapture comes, huh? :) (For the record, I don't believe in the rapture...)
In fairness to the judges, they did reduce each month of recommended additional sentence to just four days. It would be interesting to see whether that was made up of a lot of judges who struck a middle ground between the recommendation and what their "judicial intuition" told them, or 1/10 judges who just didn't care and took whatever the recommendations said.
The point is that by claiming "orientation" as a motivation, my ex-wife is able to find a community that excuses her heinous actions. And this is not rare--there are many, many cases where men and women have walked out on their spouses and children into the arms of the GLBT community, where they found AFFIRMATION for doing heinous emotional and economic damage to those left behind.
When did sexual satisfaction become more important than caring for your kids and keeping your promises?
I'm most familiar with the question of vaccinations being related to autism, as the father of two autistic children. Let it be said, my autistic twins were clearly "different" from my other two kids before they got any vaccines. And every study that's looked at the question has failed to find a link. But that doesn't stop fear-mongers from you from spreading their dung.
I promise you, the Flu's more dangerous than the vaccine.
How about this: the purpose of marriage as a social contract is to provide for the care, feeding, and raising of children. Children are a product of heterosexual relationships, not homosexual relationships. Public parity for homosexual relationships with heterosexual is part of a larger weakening of the marriage covenant that has had horrible impacts on children.
Real example: my wife abandoned me and our 4 children, two of whom have autism. Her excuse? She wanted to be "free to be bisexual." Does that mean that she went for a stable, committed, bisexual relationship? Is there even such a thing? Hardly. What it really meant was that she didn't want to by a parent anymore and the GLBT community tells her she's a hero for walking out on her kids.
Sorry, but I find the whole thing repulsive. Not because of the "ick factor", but because of the lust factor. Marriage is supposed to be about more than sex, it's supposed to be about children, and gay marriage isn't about that.
The point is... convenience. Also, the weight-lifting data doesn't really fit particularly well in a spreadsheet (although you could certainly squeeze it in), and the BG app sinks with a website monitored by my doctor, and the weight app does curve fit to give me my "true weight". Could I do it in excel? Sure. Not worth my time to try, and the interface is everything, especially on a 2 inch screen. Interface, BTW, is why Windows Mobile sucks.