To be exact, it restricts your ability to exercise your rights. Your rights can only be restricted by laws, or by contracts you signed. HDCP is neither.
I would suggest that when someone claims themselves to be an atheist that we believe them because they are in a far better position to determine that than we are.
I'm a god. You should believe me, because I'm in a far better position to determine that than you are.
If the Earth does not rotate itself then it becomes especially difficult to explain why the earth is fatter around the equator and flatter on the poles.
Well, that's easy: The universe rotates around the earth, and by doing so it creates an 1/r^2 force on the earth which just happens to look like a centrifugal force. Of course the rotation of the universe also causes the "Coriolis" forces which make the Foucault pendulum change its plane of oscillation. That is, the Foucault pendulum isn't rotating because the earth turns below it, but because the rotating universe around it causes a force acting on it. See Mach's principle.
It's fairly easy to distinguish a rotating reference frame from a non-rotating one since rotation generates phantom centrifugal "forces"(consequently there is only one single absolute, universal non-rotating reference frame).
Wrong. There are infinitely many non-rotating reference frames. They are moving relative to each other at constant speed (but they do not rotate around each other). There's no absolute reference frame, although there are absolutely non-rotating reference frames (although even that is not as clear-cut as soon as you take General Relativity into account; see frame-dragging).
These "forces" are what make a Foucault pendulum appear to rotate.
From the context, "These \"forces\"" can only refer to the centrifugal force. And there you're again wrong: The force which makes the Foucault pendulum turn is the Coriolis force. Like the centrifugal force, this occurs only in the rotating frame of reference, but unlike centrifugal force, it also depends on the velocity of the object in that frame; an object which is in rest in the rotating frame doesn't "feel" that force.
You cannot test that the red sea was parted millennia ago by walking through it today. Otherwise I'll prove the Pangaea claim wrong by not being able to go from Australia to Europe without crossing the ocean.
Since there are no facts in religion, no results need to be returned.
There are a lot of facts in religion. For example, for each Christian confession, it's a fact which version of the Bible they accept as the true one, and then there are lots of facts about what it written in them, and what is not. And yes, those facts are even testable: I can open a bible and check whether at the given position there's really the text claimed to be there.
Quite the opposite. God saw that false prophets were utilizing the Internet, and therefore made Beetle B. find that article, knowing (since He is omniscient) that he would post it to Slashdot, which would case those servers melting away through the Slashdot effect.
Actually, it's your provider who gave you that ad-laden page. If the provider would abide to the rules of DNS, you'd just have gotten a server not found message.
Sadly its always the way that religions get special privileges, their own schools, shops, restaurants, laws and now even search engines.
No one hinders you to start an atheist search engine.
I would happily bet a lot of money that if an atheist search engine was set up, religious sites such as these truth about evolution sites would all be registering themselves as scientific sites.
Nobody forces you to make registering an automatic process. And if you do, you might add an automatic filter which detects religious propaganda (it would not be perfect, but I guess it could reach similar levels as spam filters).
That doesn't describe agnosticism. That's atheism. If god came down and lived here, proving his divinity, then the atheists would know he exists in the same sense as they know Bill Clinton exists.
At that point, they'd stop being an atheists. Except for those who wouldn't believe that what they've seen was really god, and not e.g. some extraterrestrial, very advanced civilization which used their advanced technology to generate a fake god for us.
Even 2+2!=5 depends on a belief that ZFC is consistent.
Not really. If ZFC should turn out inconsistent, the Peano axioms would still work. All you would have lost would be the set-theoretic model of the natural numbers.
Indeed, I consider myself an atheist, and that doesn't mean I have faith in the lack of any gods. I'm not even 100% convinced there are no gods; I merely consider it the best available theory.
You're nice to your gf and she gives you a bj. Hence your gf exists as far as you're concerned.
I didn't notice that. Where can I find her?;-)
Any equivalent for your "God"?
Well, religious people tend to feel relief if they pray to God. So for them, it's: "You pray to God, you receive relief. Hence God exists as far as you're concerned." And yes, the relief may be a sort of placebo effect. But then, the hurt I feel when I hit my thumb with a hammer could also just be due to my expectation that it hurts. It won't hurt any less because of it. If you think pain goes away just because you know it can't hurt, ask anyone with a phantom limb. And that gf giving me a bj very clearly is only imaginary.:-)
If you cannot disprove solipsism, then you cannot disprove anything.
That's wrong. I can disprove that 2+2=5.
Such a world-view is entirely useless, and trying to live by it would lead you straight to the nuthouse.
Such a world-view is no more useless than any other world-view. And I don't know what it would mean to "try to live by it". I rely on many unknown and unproven things in my daily life (like, the next person crossing my way isn't a psychopathic killer who will ram a knife in my back as soon as he passes me) which would affect my life much more than the purely philosophical question if the world is just my imagination. Indeed, I would go straight to the nuthouse if I wouldn't rely on so many unproven things.
The name "believer" doesn't tip you off that you're believing in something that has no provable basis in fact, ie a superstition?
A lot of atheists believe they are not alone in the world, and whatever they see is not just a figment of their imagination (i.e. they are not solipsists). This has no provable basis in fact (you cannot disprove solipsism).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, it clearly shows that OSS cannot compensate stupidity from the planners, and that it is very easy to put the blame on Linux instead.
To be exact, it restricts your ability to exercise your rights. Your rights can only be restricted by laws, or by contracts you signed. HDCP is neither.
I'm a god. You should believe me, because I'm in a far better position to determine that than you are.
OK, let's try:
God is the one who defined the laws of nature and set the universe's starting conditions.
Well, that's easy: The universe rotates around the earth, and by doing so it creates an 1/r^2 force on the earth which just happens to look like a centrifugal force. Of course the rotation of the universe also causes the "Coriolis" forces which make the Foucault pendulum change its plane of oscillation. That is, the Foucault pendulum isn't rotating because the earth turns below it, but because the rotating universe around it causes a force acting on it. See Mach's principle.
Wrong. There are infinitely many non-rotating reference frames. They are moving relative to each other at constant speed (but they do not rotate around each other). There's no absolute reference frame, although there are absolutely non-rotating reference frames (although even that is not as clear-cut as soon as you take General Relativity into account; see frame-dragging).
From the context, "These \"forces\"" can only refer to the centrifugal force. And there you're again wrong: The force which makes the Foucault pendulum turn is the Coriolis force. Like the centrifugal force, this occurs only in the rotating frame of reference, but unlike centrifugal force, it also depends on the velocity of the object in that frame; an object which is in rest in the rotating frame doesn't "feel" that force.
The usual: Bad Slashdot summary. The facts: Police said the e-mail to the US president was full of abusive language.
And that qualifies for banning a teen for the rest of his life from going to U.S.?
You cannot test that the red sea was parted millennia ago by walking through it today. Otherwise I'll prove the Pangaea claim wrong by not being able to go from Australia to Europe without crossing the ocean.
Oil is a source of carbon. Diamond is made of carbon. Therefore the answer is obvious: The oil was beamed up to form the diamond star.
Maybe people going insane is God's way to come to earth :-)
If God manages to create a complete world, stop the sun and split the Red Sea, He really should be able to manipulate a few HTTP headers.
If you can manage to believe a model with god in it, then why not do it?
There are a lot of facts in religion. For example, for each Christian confession, it's a fact which version of the Bible they accept as the true one, and then there are lots of facts about what it written in them, and what is not. And yes, those facts are even testable: I can open a bible and check whether at the given position there's really the text claimed to be there.
Quite the opposite. God saw that false prophets were utilizing the Internet, and therefore made Beetle B. find that article, knowing (since He is omniscient) that he would post it to Slashdot, which would case those servers melting away through the Slashdot effect.
How would you test it?
Actually, it's your provider who gave you that ad-laden page. If the provider would abide to the rules of DNS, you'd just have gotten a server not found message.
No one hinders you to start an atheist search engine.
Nobody forces you to make registering an automatic process. And if you do, you might add an automatic filter which detects religious propaganda (it would not be perfect, but I guess it could reach similar levels as spam filters).
At that point, they'd stop being an atheists. Except for those who wouldn't believe that what they've seen was really god, and not e.g. some extraterrestrial, very advanced civilization which used their advanced technology to generate a fake god for us.
Not really. If ZFC should turn out inconsistent, the Peano axioms would still work. All you would have lost would be the set-theoretic model of the natural numbers.
Then you're agnostic.
I didn't notice that. Where can I find her? ;-)
Well, religious people tend to feel relief if they pray to God. So for them, it's: "You pray to God, you receive relief. Hence God exists as far as you're concerned." And yes, the relief may be a sort of placebo effect. But then, the hurt I feel when I hit my thumb with a hammer could also just be due to my expectation that it hurts. It won't hurt any less because of it. If you think pain goes away just because you know it can't hurt, ask anyone with a phantom limb. And that gf giving me a bj very clearly is only imaginary. :-)
That's wrong. I can disprove that 2+2=5.
Such a world-view is no more useless than any other world-view. And I don't know what it would mean to "try to live by it". I rely on many unknown and unproven things in my daily life (like, the next person crossing my way isn't a psychopathic killer who will ram a knife in my back as soon as he passes me) which would affect my life much more than the purely philosophical question if the world is just my imagination. Indeed, I would go straight to the nuthouse if I wouldn't rely on so many unproven things.
I imagine that the Creationist version of Wolfram Alpha would be very easy to implement:
Q: [anything, really]
A: God did it.
And then someone enters "Who did the most evil thing ever?" :-)
The sites are not down. They are just self-protecting against the infidels. The true believers still can access them. :-)
The name "believer" doesn't tip you off that you're believing in something that has no provable basis in fact, ie a superstition?
A lot of atheists believe they are not alone in the world, and whatever they see is not just a figment of their imagination (i.e. they are not solipsists). This has no provable basis in fact (you cannot disprove solipsism).