The medieval warming period followed the so-called "mini-Ice Age" of the 12th century. During this period, the Black Forest in Europe shrunk to smaller than its current size - all due to people cutting down wood for fires. These fires significantly increased the carbon in the atmosphere. The planet warmed up as a result, slowly but at a sustained rate for over a century. The Black Forest later grew back and the carbon was taken out of the air.
Unless of course God chose to reveal Himself differently; we cannot begin to understand His ways, nor divine His intentions with respect to his covenents with us.
I mean, duh. After all, he created the world so that it looked really old, with all that "fossil" light on the way for us, just so that those silly scientists would think the universe was billions of years old instead of the 6000 that it _clearly_ states it is in the Bible...
Sure, will do. Newton devised his theory of calculus while studying motion (particularly orbits). He developed it as a way of analysing numbers, such as astronomical observations. Leibniz developed his theory of calculus while working on geometry. Both built up their theories from the work of others.
Other "natural philosophers" of the day took these theories and ran with them. Some looked to refine the mathematics (neither Newton or Leibniz did very rigorous proofs), others looked to refine the application, particularly for motion analysis (such as the newly emerging field of ballistics). Calculus turned out to be a very useful way of modelling the real world. But how real is calculus? Calculus, particularly differential calculus, is predicated on an continuous curve. Real world curves aren't continuous - they can't be; the building blocks of matter aren't continuous. But at the level we care about, we can _approximate_ the real-world curves as continuous, and apply tools and techniques such as calculus to them.
Naturally, the recognition that a mathematical concept can be a useful tool often drives further elaboration of the concept; there is a natural return on investment that drives it. But it's only a tool. Even something as simple as "1 + 1 = 2" is merely a mathematical concept that just _happens_ to be a good way of keeping track of apples.
Perhaps. OTH, complex numbers are an incredibly useful tool in electrical engineering, yet were deemed so useless when first conceived that they were called imaginary numbers.
At least where I live, most school uniforms are partially subsidised and are typically cheaper than the clothing that would otherwise be provided by the parents.
The kids are going to get clothed anyway. It's not like the uniforms are _extra_ clothes; they're just different clothes.
I dunno, from the FA, it sounds like a school function to me. The kids were let out of class, in the form of entire classes trooping down to see the Olympic torch go through, and with teachers present and supervising. Afterwards, they trooped back to school. Sounds like a school excursion to me, just like if they were on a field trip to go to a museum or a national park.
I'm pretty sure the judge will see it the same way, in which case the kid is going to lose. I'm not even sure why a big gun like Starr would bother with this.
As for uniforms: schools have the right to require uniforms, and the power to enforce that right. Not all schools choose to, but that doesn't stop the right. Courts have repeatedly ruled that students, while at school, have limited rights to self-expression (which includes free speech). This is nothing new. Heck, if the worst your school is doing is requiring a uniform, feel good; your grandparents probably faced flogging as a form of punishment for failure to wear uniforms. Get some perspective.
Finally - the printer thing? If your teacher didn't back you up by pointing out he asked for the network to be hooked up, then he's a dick. If the school official who suspended you did so after being told that the teacher requested it, then she's a dick. Lots of people in this world are dicks, so in this respect it's good exposure to the realities of life - it's unfair and people are dicks. But remember - it's not the school that is taking this action. The school is a building, probably made with bricks. It just sits there. What you are seeing are the actions of a few individuals, probably reflecting the attitudes of the local school board - a school board probably elected by your community. Most high schools in the US have senior students eligible to vote. Very few of them bother (the 18-21 age group is the least likely to vote, and across the board people vote less in local elections than any other). Don't like what they do? Organise your fellow students - the ones old enough to vote, certainly, but don't ignore the younger ones. They can work on their parents or their older siblings (who are only a few years removed from the situation). There's a good chance your school board got elected with only a few hundred votes total. Even if you lose, you'll show them that they can't treat you like a carpet.
What if you are wrong though? Have you truly researched this subject enough given the potential stakes? If there is a fiery hell - it sure would suck to have missed the chance to at least research it.
The fallacy in Pascal's wager is that you've got several religions to choose from, not just one. What grounds, other than it is the religion you were brought up in, do you have for Christianity (and the flavour thereof that you follow) being the "One True Path" that gets you into the good afterlife and lets you avoid the bad one?
How would you feel if it turns out that you should have converted to Islam? Or that you were out of luck if you weren't born a Jew in the first place? (there's some evidence to suggest that Jesus only ever extended the salvation to the Jews, and that Paul expanded on the message when he started to try to convert the Romans). Maybe Joseph Smith _didn't_ pull Mormanism out of his posterior and it really was revealed to him by God. Or you perhaps should be worshipping Brahman (possibly in one of the many sub-aspects, such as Vishnu, Shiva, or Shakti)? Mind you, if the last one turns out to be correct, you'll get another turn on the Wheel later to try again, so that's probably not worth the risk the first time around.
The point here is that, most likely, the only reason you are a Christian is that you were born into a Christian family. If you'd been born in Iran, you'd probably be Muslim. I repeat - how do you choose which religion to follow?
As for the Bible not contradicting itself, that's flat out wrong. Both the Old and the New Testament are full of contradictions, both within each Testament and between them. Heck, arguably the most important story in the New Testament, the story of the birth of Jesus, is completely different between Matthew and Luke.
I'm not saying that the Catholic and Orthodox churches have documents that prove or disprove the existence of Jesus. What I said is that they haven't released any. My personal belief is that they don't have any such document, nor have they had any since being formally established.
What I said is that there is insufficient evidence to convincingly prove his existence. There is enough to take it as the default hypothesis, but there is room for alternatives. Personally, I don't care either way, but there are some serious Biblical scholars who do.
Want one alternative theory? Sure, here's one. One solid theory about the New Testament is that the Gospels were heavily edited, retrospectively, to make the life of Jesus fit Biblical prophecy. One obvious point is the whole Virgin birth - this is linked back to Old Testament prophecy, which the Jews actually didn't make; the Jewish version of the prophecy has the Messiah being born by a young woman, not a virgin, in the town of David (Bethlehem). Furthermore, this mistranslation occurred during a translation from Aramaic (spoken by the Jews at the time) to Greek (which the Gospels were written in after expanding out of Palestine). The various Gospels, BTW, don't agree on why Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem in the first place - an artefact of this revisionist process.
If the editing process can alter the life of Jesus so much, who says that it couldn't have done more? One theory (with some evidence behind it) is that Jesus was actually a pseudonym used by the Apostles themselves, and that the character of Jesus was completely fictional. In essence, Jesus becomes a fictional figurehead of one of the many breakaway Jewish sects, allowing the real leaders of the sect to move around in some degree of safety. This tactic _was_ used by other sects, so there is a chance it was used by the sect that became Christianity. Personally, I think this is reaching at straws, but it is logically consistent, and it shows that Jesus, as a person, really may not have existed.
By comparison, there is a lot of evidence for the existence of the various Apostles, including records of many of their court trials (including James, brother of Jesus).
All that said, the default position of most Biblical scholars is that Jesus, the person, probably did exist, and he probably was crucified for the crime of rebelling against the Romans and their Jewish proxies.
Actually, the very historicity of Jesus is subject to challenge. However, that's not unusual for history; many historical issues are unclear. However, they are generally presented as being unclear. When it comes to Jesus, however, the very debate tends to get suppressed.
Take the cruci-fiction (spelling deliberate). The Romans kept very good records of criminal trials and executions. Many, but not all, of these records survive today. That the Romans did use crucifixion in Palestine as a form of capital punishment is historical fact. That a Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi called Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, during the Passover celebrations, sometime between 20BC and 50AD, is not - the dated records don't survive. Neither the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church, both of which are old enough to _have_ the documentary evidence, are prepared to release any.
Now, there is good secondary evidence to suggest that Jesus lived, and that he was crucified. But there is sufficient doubt, along with enough supporting material for alternative theories, that teaching the Crucifixion as historical fact is intellectually dishonest.
As for Easter - yes, you'd want to say that it's a secular holiday based on the Christian tradition of remembrance of the Crucifixion of Jesus. That is fact, even if the Crucifixion itself isn't. You may then want to say that, because the country you live in was a strong Christian tradition, some of the Christian holy days have become secular holidays (and then segue into the etymology of the word). You may then want to point out that Easter should coincide with the Jewish Passover celebrations (which it doesn't any more - well, the Orthodox Christian Easter still does). While you're at it, you may want to point out that Christmas was picked as a date rather arbitrarily.
While you're at it, you may want to point out that Thanksgiving is an old celebration imported from Europe, and it is all about being thankful that you've got enough food put aside that you'll survive the winter. The fact that this original purpose is now mostly irrelevant (it's been a long time in a Western country since widespread famine in winter and Spring was a problem) doesn't mean that the holiday doesn't have a modern reason to continue.
They would be wrong, however, to assume that the computer programmer had always existed, and was omniscient and omnipotent. The computer programmer was an outcome of a Darwinian evolution process.
Dawkins actually makes the same point - the universe may actually have a creator, but said creator would have a cause, and would also be an outcome of a Darwinian evolution process. Because Darwinian evolution is the only theory ever put forward which can explain that degree of complexity.
Not quite... what the grandparent did was say that unthinking obedience to an ideology - such as that typically asked for in a religion - is the root of all evil. They then pointed out non-religious examples of same.
Repeat after me: B is bad. B is a subset of A. A is also bad. This does not mean that B is no longer bad. Or did I lose you with big words like 'subset'?
What makes you think these early Christians knew anything about the life of Jesus first hand. The persecution of Christians for being Christian (as opposed to political activists) started about 200AD; nobody in a position to know either Jesus or the apostles was still alive. Everything was already fifth-hand information.
As to why these early Christians didn't recant when faced with death? They genuinely believed that their faith was the key to a better after-life. Giving it up to avoid pain and suffering in this life would cost them (they believed) an eternity of suffering. Ergo, they faced death. However, just because they believed this, doesn't mean that the belief was correct.
Jesus said love your enemies and forgive them. We don't. Jesus said don't kill and don't seek revenge (well, not directly, but...). We don't.
Jesus also preached that the Jewish priests, being corrupt puppets of the Romans, should be slaughtered in their beds. He regularly started riots inside temples as part of this belief.
It's a nice fad at the moment to believe in the namby-pampy Jesus described above. The New Testament has lots of other examples of Jesus having a few more balls.
Christ didn't start the Catholic church. The line of Popes traces backwards fairly well until you get something like a dozen anonymous Popes (because of the Roman oppression), followed by the first Pope - Peter the disciple, who founded it with Paul. Of course, they don't have the documentary evidence for that (or, if they do, they won't reveal it), so this has to be taken with a grain of salt.
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus instructed Peter to found the Church. Of course, the Gospel of Luke is flatly contradicted by the other 3 Gospels in literally thousands of places (well, they all contradict each other), and the Gospel of Luke was heavily edited as part of the canonization of the New Testament; Luke, more than the other Gospels, goes out of the way to claim that Jesus fulfilled Biblical prophecy.
As for Adam, according to Genesis, Adam died at the age of 930. Sure, you can say that the ageing only started when he got kicked out if you want, but the Bible says 930 - nowhere does it say that the years in Eden didn't count. So Adam died, accordingly to the Bible, some 930 years and 5 days after the creation of the Earth.
And finally, as for the dating of the age of the Earth - the 6000 year figure was produced by James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. As a Protestant, he does technically count as a heretic, but:
a) most creationists are also Protestant; b) the Catholic church accepted the general gist of the calculations (there were disputes over the arithmetic) up until the 19th century, when, in a sudden shift, the Catholic church started backing away from the Bible being the literal word of God but instead metaphor - with the story of Genesis held up as the prime example of biblical metaphor.
Three quotes from Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism - "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has", and "Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason", and "Reason should be destroyed in all Christians".
Can you quote the scripture where there is a call to be consistent and rational? Having read the Bible a few times myself, I can't say I'm familiar with such a line. OTH, I'm more than familiar with such reason-defying snippets such as a famous mistranslation from "young woman" to "virgin" during the first translations from Aramaic to Greek. (I'll let you figure out the context).
Let's say you started a company that builds televisions. Do you think you could build a television without encroaching on a patent held by any of the other television makers?
No, but... I wouldn't expect the people who buy the televisions I build to be liable for the patent infringement I do.
In no sane world should the _users_ of Linux systems be liable for patent infringements. The individual people who committed the infringing code may be, but the users shouldn't be. Simply possessing the infringing source code shouldn't be counted as infringing.
Copyright violation is not theft. Nor is it stealing. This does not mean it is not a crime, or morally wrong, or anything similar (though it doesn't mean that it is, either).
Copyright violation is actually closer to trespassing than theft. If I trespass, I do not necessarily inflict any harm on the property owner, anymore than I inflict harm on a musician by copying a song I didn't intend to buy.
The current copyright laws in the US are not geared to encourage creativity, or to engender economic growth. They are intended to protect the rights of the large copyright holders - and don't think for a second that these people represent the artists.
Calling copyright violation theft is a deliberate tactic of the various copyright holders which is intended to push emotional buttons. Don't go along with it.
Agreed. The Japanese knew the US only had a few atomic weapons available; one reason for the destruction of Nagasaki was to prove that Hiroshima wasn't a one-off. Nagasaki did not trigger the surrender - that was triggered by the Russians deciding to join the game. Surrendering to the US before an invasion was deemed to be more acceptable than surrending to the Russians _after_ an invasion. And yes, the Russians would have invaded before the US got enough troops in theater to matter.
Indeed, the whole point of having such a large number of missiles is to make the pre-emptive strike harder. The reason to have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over is so that you can lose 90% of them in a first strike, and still be able to retaliate and kill - Mutual Assured Destruction at its finest.
The Soviets had a lot of mobile launchers on trucks and trains. The US had launchers on subs. Both sides had hardened missiles silos. The point was to make it impossible to kill all of these at once.
a) You do not have to adjust prices. Increased demand allows you to increase prices, it doesn't require it.
b) The problem with this model is that demand for fuel only changes by a very small amount over the short- and medium-terms. So price fluctuations don't affect demand. Large scale investment is required to produce a significant shift in the demand for fuel; investment which just happens to be going on in a lot of industrial sectors.
c) There is no reason to invest in new oilfield development at the moment; worldwide refining capacity is about at its max (which is why there was such a large spike in refined oil prices after Katrina). Sure, you can argue that we need to increase that, but that is a different argument.
d) Remember point b)? One side effect is that demand doesn't go _up_ very much with lower prices. Therefore, there is little economic incentive to increase supply - it costs a lot of money to build a new refinery or develop an oil field, but there would be no increase in sales. Breaking up the current companies wouldn't help, either - 20 years or so ago, there were a lot more oil companies. They've undergone a large series of mergers because there are massive advantages to scaling up.
e) The free market isn't always the solution. In particular, in industries where there are large economies of scale, "free market" economics will encourage suppliers to merge (to get better economies of scale), thus reducing the competition pool to only a few entries, with a very large barrier to entry. In this situation, the handful of suppliers will realise they can make more money by co-operating than competiting - a perfectly legitimate tactic of the free market (which is, after all, free, and doesn't prohibit price fixing). Forcing artificial limits on company size, or prohibiting price fixing, are actually interventionist tactics taken by goverments because the free market does not work!
You also have to look at what the taxes go towards. Here in Australia, the major portion of tax from fuel sales goes towards road maintainence - after all, the more fuel being used, the more the roads need work.
No, what the judge had to do was acknowledge he had no jurisdiction over Spamhaus in the first place. That was the law.
Some local US judges seem to do this sort of thing regularly - maybe it's a side effect of being an elected official (and thus trying to be popular with your electorate) instead of being an appointed official, and thus only interested (supposedly) in upholding the law?
Slashdot Mirror
The medieval warming period followed the so-called "mini-Ice Age" of the 12th century. During this period, the Black Forest in Europe shrunk to smaller than its current size - all due to people cutting down wood for fires. These fires significantly increased the carbon in the atmosphere. The planet warmed up as a result, slowly but at a sustained rate for over a century. The Black Forest later grew back and the carbon was taken out of the air.
Exactly. The only certain effect here is that the scammers will find a way to either create or emulate the green light.
I mean, duh. After all, he created the world so that it looked really old, with all that "fossil" light on the way for us, just so that those silly scientists would think the universe was billions of years old instead of the 6000 that it _clearly_ states it is in the Bible...
Sure, will do. Newton devised his theory of calculus while studying motion (particularly orbits). He developed it as a way of analysing numbers, such as astronomical observations. Leibniz developed his theory of calculus while working on geometry. Both built up their theories from the work of others.
Other "natural philosophers" of the day took these theories and ran with them. Some looked to refine the mathematics (neither Newton or Leibniz did very rigorous proofs), others looked to refine the application, particularly for motion analysis (such as the newly emerging field of ballistics). Calculus turned out to be a very useful way of modelling the real world. But how real is calculus? Calculus, particularly differential calculus, is predicated on an continuous curve. Real world curves aren't continuous - they can't be; the building blocks of matter aren't continuous. But at the level we care about, we can _approximate_ the real-world curves as continuous, and apply tools and techniques such as calculus to them.
Naturally, the recognition that a mathematical concept can be a useful tool often drives further elaboration of the concept; there is a natural return on investment that drives it. But it's only a tool. Even something as simple as "1 + 1 = 2" is merely a mathematical concept that just _happens_ to be a good way of keeping track of apples.
Because mathematics doesn't deal with the real world. Physics does.
People take mathematical tools and models and apply them to the real world because they are useful. However, that usefulness is a lucky accident.
Perhaps. OTH, complex numbers are an incredibly useful tool in electrical engineering, yet were deemed so useless when first conceived that they were called imaginary numbers.
At least where I live, most school uniforms are partially subsidised and are typically cheaper than the clothing that would otherwise be provided by the parents.
The kids are going to get clothed anyway. It's not like the uniforms are _extra_ clothes; they're just different clothes.
I dunno, from the FA, it sounds like a school function to me. The kids were let out of class, in the form of entire classes trooping down to see the Olympic torch go through, and with teachers present and supervising. Afterwards, they trooped back to school. Sounds like a school excursion to me, just like if they were on a field trip to go to a museum or a national park.
I'm pretty sure the judge will see it the same way, in which case the kid is going to lose. I'm not even sure why a big gun like Starr would bother with this.
As for uniforms: schools have the right to require uniforms, and the power to enforce that right. Not all schools choose to, but that doesn't stop the right. Courts have repeatedly ruled that students, while at school, have limited rights to self-expression (which includes free speech). This is nothing new. Heck, if the worst your school is doing is requiring a uniform, feel good; your grandparents probably faced flogging as a form of punishment for failure to wear uniforms. Get some perspective.
Finally - the printer thing? If your teacher didn't back you up by pointing out he asked for the network to be hooked up, then he's a dick. If the school official who suspended you did so after being told that the teacher requested it, then she's a dick. Lots of people in this world are dicks, so in this respect it's good exposure to the realities of life - it's unfair and people are dicks. But remember - it's not the school that is taking this action. The school is a building, probably made with bricks. It just sits there. What you are seeing are the actions of a few individuals, probably reflecting the attitudes of the local school board - a school board probably elected by your community. Most high schools in the US have senior students eligible to vote. Very few of them bother (the 18-21 age group is the least likely to vote, and across the board people vote less in local elections than any other). Don't like what they do? Organise your fellow students - the ones old enough to vote, certainly, but don't ignore the younger ones. They can work on their parents or their older siblings (who are only a few years removed from the situation). There's a good chance your school board got elected with only a few hundred votes total. Even if you lose, you'll show them that they can't treat you like a carpet.
In other words - stop bitching, and start fixing.
You're describing Pascal's wager.
The fallacy in Pascal's wager is that you've got several religions to choose from, not just one. What grounds, other than it is the religion you were brought up in, do you have for Christianity (and the flavour thereof that you follow) being the "One True Path" that gets you into the good afterlife and lets you avoid the bad one?
How would you feel if it turns out that you should have converted to Islam? Or that you were out of luck if you weren't born a Jew in the first place? (there's some evidence to suggest that Jesus only ever extended the salvation to the Jews, and that Paul expanded on the message when he started to try to convert the Romans). Maybe Joseph Smith _didn't_ pull Mormanism out of his posterior and it really was revealed to him by God. Or you perhaps should be worshipping Brahman (possibly in one of the many sub-aspects, such as Vishnu, Shiva, or Shakti)? Mind you, if the last one turns out to be correct, you'll get another turn on the Wheel later to try again, so that's probably not worth the risk the first time around.
The point here is that, most likely, the only reason you are a Christian is that you were born into a Christian family. If you'd been born in Iran, you'd probably be Muslim. I repeat - how do you choose which religion to follow?
As for the Bible not contradicting itself, that's flat out wrong. Both the Old and the New Testament are full of contradictions, both within each Testament and between them. Heck, arguably the most important story in the New Testament, the story of the birth of Jesus, is completely different between Matthew and Luke.
I'm not saying that the Catholic and Orthodox churches have documents that prove or disprove the existence of Jesus. What I said is that they haven't released any. My personal belief is that they don't have any such document, nor have they had any since being formally established.
What I said is that there is insufficient evidence to convincingly prove his existence. There is enough to take it as the default hypothesis, but there is room for alternatives. Personally, I don't care either way, but there are some serious Biblical scholars who do.
Want one alternative theory? Sure, here's one. One solid theory about the New Testament is that the Gospels were heavily edited, retrospectively, to make the life of Jesus fit Biblical prophecy. One obvious point is the whole Virgin birth - this is linked back to Old Testament prophecy, which the Jews actually didn't make; the Jewish version of the prophecy has the Messiah being born by a young woman, not a virgin, in the town of David (Bethlehem). Furthermore, this mistranslation occurred during a translation from Aramaic (spoken by the Jews at the time) to Greek (which the Gospels were written in after expanding out of Palestine). The various Gospels, BTW, don't agree on why Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem in the first place - an artefact of this revisionist process.
If the editing process can alter the life of Jesus so much, who says that it couldn't have done more? One theory (with some evidence behind it) is that Jesus was actually a pseudonym used by the Apostles themselves, and that the character of Jesus was completely fictional. In essence, Jesus becomes a fictional figurehead of one of the many breakaway Jewish sects, allowing the real leaders of the sect to move around in some degree of safety. This tactic _was_ used by other sects, so there is a chance it was used by the sect that became Christianity. Personally, I think this is reaching at straws, but it is logically consistent, and it shows that Jesus, as a person, really may not have existed.
By comparison, there is a lot of evidence for the existence of the various Apostles, including records of many of their court trials (including James, brother of Jesus).
All that said, the default position of most Biblical scholars is that Jesus, the person, probably did exist, and he probably was crucified for the crime of rebelling against the Romans and their Jewish proxies.
Actually, the very historicity of Jesus is subject to challenge. However, that's not unusual for history; many historical issues are unclear. However, they are generally presented as being unclear. When it comes to Jesus, however, the very debate tends to get suppressed.
Take the cruci-fiction (spelling deliberate). The Romans kept very good records of criminal trials and executions. Many, but not all, of these records survive today. That the Romans did use crucifixion in Palestine as a form of capital punishment is historical fact. That a Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi called Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, during the Passover celebrations, sometime between 20BC and 50AD, is not - the dated records don't survive. Neither the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church, both of which are old enough to _have_ the documentary evidence, are prepared to release any.
Now, there is good secondary evidence to suggest that Jesus lived, and that he was crucified. But there is sufficient doubt, along with enough supporting material for alternative theories, that teaching the Crucifixion as historical fact is intellectually dishonest.
As for Easter - yes, you'd want to say that it's a secular holiday based on the Christian tradition of remembrance of the Crucifixion of Jesus. That is fact, even if the Crucifixion itself isn't. You may then want to say that, because the country you live in was a strong Christian tradition, some of the Christian holy days have become secular holidays (and then segue into the etymology of the word). You may then want to point out that Easter should coincide with the Jewish Passover celebrations (which it doesn't any more - well, the Orthodox Christian Easter still does). While you're at it, you may want to point out that Christmas was picked as a date rather arbitrarily.
While you're at it, you may want to point out that Thanksgiving is an old celebration imported from Europe, and it is all about being thankful that you've got enough food put aside that you'll survive the winter. The fact that this original purpose is now mostly irrelevant (it's been a long time in a Western country since widespread famine in winter and Spring was a problem) doesn't mean that the holiday doesn't have a modern reason to continue.
They would be wrong, however, to assume that the computer programmer had always existed, and was omniscient and omnipotent. The computer programmer was an outcome of a Darwinian evolution process.
Dawkins actually makes the same point - the universe may actually have a creator, but said creator would have a cause, and would also be an outcome of a Darwinian evolution process. Because Darwinian evolution is the only theory ever put forward which can explain that degree of complexity.
Not quite... what the grandparent did was say that unthinking obedience to an ideology - such as that typically asked for in a religion - is the root of all evil. They then pointed out non-religious examples of same.
Repeat after me: B is bad. B is a subset of A. A is also bad. This does not mean that B is no longer bad. Or did I lose you with big words like 'subset'?
What makes you think these early Christians knew anything about the life of Jesus first hand. The persecution of Christians for being Christian (as opposed to political activists) started about 200AD; nobody in a position to know either Jesus or the apostles was still alive. Everything was already fifth-hand information.
As to why these early Christians didn't recant when faced with death? They genuinely believed that their faith was the key to a better after-life. Giving it up to avoid pain and suffering in this life would cost them (they believed) an eternity of suffering. Ergo, they faced death. However, just because they believed this, doesn't mean that the belief was correct.
I'll invoke the Bible here - the Golden Rule, to be precise. We are merely doing unto them as they have done onto us. :)
More seriously, while Creationists actively try to get science out of scientific museums, I think we're entitled to at least make fun of their musuem.
Jesus also preached that the Jewish priests, being corrupt puppets of the Romans, should be slaughtered in their beds. He regularly started riots inside temples as part of this belief.
It's a nice fad at the moment to believe in the namby-pampy Jesus described above. The New Testament has lots of other examples of Jesus having a few more balls.
Christ didn't start the Catholic church. The line of Popes traces backwards fairly well until you get something like a dozen anonymous Popes (because of the Roman oppression), followed by the first Pope - Peter the disciple, who founded it with Paul. Of course, they don't have the documentary evidence for that (or, if they do, they won't reveal it), so this has to be taken with a grain of salt.
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus instructed Peter to found the Church. Of course, the Gospel of Luke is flatly contradicted by the other 3 Gospels in literally thousands of places (well, they all contradict each other), and the Gospel of Luke was heavily edited as part of the canonization of the New Testament; Luke, more than the other Gospels, goes out of the way to claim that Jesus fulfilled Biblical prophecy.
As for Adam, according to Genesis, Adam died at the age of 930. Sure, you can say that the ageing only started when he got kicked out if you want, but the Bible says 930 - nowhere does it say that the years in Eden didn't count. So Adam died, accordingly to the Bible, some 930 years and 5 days after the creation of the Earth.
And finally, as for the dating of the age of the Earth - the 6000 year figure was produced by James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. As a Protestant, he does technically count as a heretic, but:
a) most creationists are also Protestant;
b) the Catholic church accepted the general gist of the calculations (there were disputes over the arithmetic) up until the 19th century, when, in a sudden shift, the Catholic church started backing away from the Bible being the literal word of God but instead metaphor - with the story of Genesis held up as the prime example of biblical metaphor.
Three quotes from Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism - "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has", and "Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason", and "Reason should be destroyed in all Christians".
Can you quote the scripture where there is a call to be consistent and rational? Having read the Bible a few times myself, I can't say I'm familiar with such a line. OTH, I'm more than familiar with such reason-defying snippets such as a famous mistranslation from "young woman" to "virgin" during the first translations from Aramaic to Greek. (I'll let you figure out the context).
No, but... I wouldn't expect the people who buy the televisions I build to be liable for the patent infringement I do.
In no sane world should the _users_ of Linux systems be liable for patent infringements. The individual people who committed the infringing code may be, but the users shouldn't be. Simply possessing the infringing source code shouldn't be counted as infringing.
Copyright violation is not theft. Nor is it stealing. This does not mean it is not a crime, or morally wrong, or anything similar (though it doesn't mean that it is, either).
Copyright violation is actually closer to trespassing than theft. If I trespass, I do not necessarily inflict any harm on the property owner, anymore than I inflict harm on a musician by copying a song I didn't intend to buy.
The current copyright laws in the US are not geared to encourage creativity, or to engender economic growth. They are intended to protect the rights of the large copyright holders - and don't think for a second that these people represent the artists.
Calling copyright violation theft is a deliberate tactic of the various copyright holders which is intended to push emotional buttons. Don't go along with it.
Agreed. The Japanese knew the US only had a few atomic weapons available; one reason for the destruction of Nagasaki was to prove that Hiroshima wasn't a one-off. Nagasaki did not trigger the surrender - that was triggered by the Russians deciding to join the game. Surrendering to the US before an invasion was deemed to be more acceptable than surrending to the Russians _after_ an invasion. And yes, the Russians would have invaded before the US got enough troops in theater to matter.
Indeed, the whole point of having such a large number of missiles is to make the pre-emptive strike harder. The reason to have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over is so that you can lose 90% of them in a first strike, and still be able to retaliate and kill - Mutual Assured Destruction at its finest.
The Soviets had a lot of mobile launchers on trucks and trains. The US had launchers on subs. Both sides had hardened missiles silos. The point was to make it impossible to kill all of these at once.
a) You do not have to adjust prices. Increased demand allows you to increase prices, it doesn't require it.
b) The problem with this model is that demand for fuel only changes by a very small amount over the short- and medium-terms. So price fluctuations don't affect demand. Large scale investment is required to produce a significant shift in the demand for fuel; investment which just happens to be going on in a lot of industrial sectors.
c) There is no reason to invest in new oilfield development at the moment; worldwide refining capacity is about at its max (which is why there was such a large spike in refined oil prices after Katrina). Sure, you can argue that we need to increase that, but that is a different argument.
d) Remember point b)? One side effect is that demand doesn't go _up_ very much with lower prices. Therefore, there is little economic incentive to increase supply - it costs a lot of money to build a new refinery or develop an oil field, but there would be no increase in sales. Breaking up the current companies wouldn't help, either - 20 years or so ago, there were a lot more oil companies. They've undergone a large series of mergers because there are massive advantages to scaling up.
e) The free market isn't always the solution. In particular, in industries where there are large economies of scale, "free market" economics will encourage suppliers to merge (to get better economies of scale), thus reducing the competition pool to only a few entries, with a very large barrier to entry. In this situation, the handful of suppliers will realise they can make more money by co-operating than competiting - a perfectly legitimate tactic of the free market (which is, after all, free, and doesn't prohibit price fixing). Forcing artificial limits on company size, or prohibiting price fixing, are actually interventionist tactics taken by goverments because the free market does not work!
You also have to look at what the taxes go towards. Here in Australia, the major portion of tax from fuel sales goes towards road maintainence - after all, the more fuel being used, the more the roads need work.
No, what the judge had to do was acknowledge he had no jurisdiction over Spamhaus in the first place. That was the law.
Some local US judges seem to do this sort of thing regularly - maybe it's a side effect of being an elected official (and thus trying to be popular with your electorate) instead of being an appointed official, and thus only interested (supposedly) in upholding the law?