It might still be a story intended to convey basic ideas or concepts to an unsophisticated people of long ago... but clearly it simply is not the literal truth.
We agree there. I see the Old Testament as more of a story: "Hey, this is what happened before." As much as it may be the word of God, it's been translated by man... and I don't believe in the infallibility of man, divinely inspired or not. To take the Old Testament literally, word for word... well, that's probably where the crazy Christians come from.:oD
Since we can't trust the Bible as a source of knowledge about even basic organic chemistry, then we can't take it as literal truth about anything.
Sorry... I have to disagree with you there. I've got an textbook from my highschool days that references Bernoulli's Principle as the primary reason aircraft fly, that the air moving over the top of the wing speeds up so it "meet up" with the air below it. We now know that to be false. It may be a simplified answer, and it might partially explain lift, but it doesn't do the whole job.
See a pattern here?
Now, just because the textbook can be considered incorrect (at the very least incomplete) in that one location, does it mean I'm going to toss the rest of the book out, since obviously the author has no idea what he's talking about? Nope. There's still a lot of good stuff in that textbook that applies.
Same goes for the Bible. Even if the creation of man (and the rest of the universe) was glossed over, there's still a lot of good stuff in the Bible.
You're missing my point. I complete agree: 1. People (and other organic matter) are not silicon based. 2. There is no transmutation of elements outside suns, supernovae, nuclear reactions, etc. 3. "Anything that formed on the earth, then, was forged out of the same elements that is is now made up of." Well said.
We differ on the use of "dirt". You're using it in a narrow definition: dirt = silicon dioxide. I'm using it in a wide defintion: dirt = pile of some matter of unknown and varied composition.
For example, if the sweepings off my kitchen floor probably contain little silicon dioxide. It's probably composed of dust, bits of food, hair from my cats, etc. If I talk about the activity later, I'm not going to break down the materials. I'm simply going to say "The kitchen floor was dirty. I swept a lot of dirt off of it."
Two definitions of dirt: one specific, one generic. You're using specific, and I'm using generic.
Why would He use the generic term? I figure He's trying to break it down so "everyone" can understand it. Try explaining the concept of an operating system to someone who's never used a computer before. Saying that "Windows is the big program that runs everything else" may not be technically correct, but it's something most people can wrap the heads around until they grow in understanding.
Saying "I made man from dirt" might not be technically correct, but it gets the basic understanding across.
I think I might need to take a different track on this.
Isn't there a well accepted scientific theory that most, if not all, of the heavy elements in existence are the rest of past supernova? At the very least, the matter making up the earth, us, etc., must have been part of the original dust cloud/disk.
It's not a far jump from dust to dirt. Stick a pile of it next to your dirt, then a pile of garden soil next to it (your dirt plus lots of organic material, right?), and the average layman will probably call them all dirt. Some farmers may beg to differ, but to most of us, it's all dirt.
That being said, I'd encourage you to believe whatever you want to believe. I may be right, you may be right, but there's one way we're going to find out, and I'd rather not take that step quite yet;oD. As long as you're not trying to blow me up, we'll get along fine.
Ppppphhhttt. I'm a religion-respecting Christian, and I have no problem believing the rocks are 4.28 billion years old, for the following reasons:
1. God could have created them at that age. For example, if I take my filesystem and slap it onto a CD, preserving the original timestamps... what's the true age (or timestamp) of the files on the CD?
2. If I'm going to try to explain something complex to someone who's incapable of understanding it, I generally break it down into chunks they can understand. So if God's going to explain how he built the universe, and he knows it's beyond our understanding, saying "it was a week's worth of work" might just give us a comparative idea of how much work was involved.
It's rather like the whole evolution versus creationism arguement. I fail to see why both can't be believed in... the Bible says God created man from dirt, if'n I remember correctly. He didn't go about laying all the details out, though. Take all the matter in my body, break it down to its basic molecular compounds, and you've got a pile of mud (dirt and water). Just because the Bible says God made us out of dirt doesn't mean he couldn't have used evolution to build us. Try explaining the concept of evolution to humans still banging rocks together to get fire, and see what you get. Seems to me it'd be simpler to just say "Yep, made you out of dirt."
Of course, I'm tired, it's late at night, and I might not have explained myself well enough. If that's the case, then simply take the above as evidence that some of us Christians are still relatively sane, if a little eccentric;o)
There's a family who regularly sets off model rockets in a local park. They're not huge, multi-stage rockets, but simple models that reach a height of a few hundred feet.
Oddly enough, this is the same park where model aircraft are encouraged, as long as you're not stupid enough to hover a glow-powered helicopter above the backyards of the neighbors. Assuming you're over the park itself, both eletric and glow powered models are welcome. The management allegedly asked some modelers if we'd like a runway put in.
On the other hand, maybe something weird and unnatural is occurring in the park, causing most people to be unreasonably happy and generally agreeable. This is in New York, where such attitudes are extremely rare. Maybe we ought to be examining the undergrowth for hidden marijuana plants;o).
I've noticed that Time Warner is handing out Netgear WGR614v7 routers... or so they appear. Look closely, and the model number has a -VC or something close to it appended.
Try to upgrade the firmware off Netgear's website, and the normal WGR614 firmware doesn't apply... the router kicks it out, saying that the firmware's for the wrong device.
P.S.: I'm doing this from memory, so I may have the wrong model number listed above. My apologies if so.
Add me to the list. The Grandparent poster and the rest of the country can sit back and watch their rights drain away if they want to sit in the corner with their security blanket, but I won't.
I'll be the guy raising a fuss and throwing a fit. It'll happen at the border, then in court. And if someone wants to slap one of those "letters of security" on me, they may as well send me right to jail... 'cause that letter won't keep me quiet regarding any injustice placed upon me.
If standing up for my rights "ruins" my life, then that "life" wasn't worth jack to begin with.
I suppose it helps that I'm religious, too... those religious fanatics got that right, at least. When you're looking forward to a long eternity, the time spent here isn't worth getting your rights trampled over.
That being said, I don't imagine it'll be too long before the black suit guys show up for me;o).
God obviously exerted effort in creating the universe. Effort is a relative concept, however... when I exert effort to do something, it's not necessarily the same amount of effort somebody else uses to perform the same task. For example, I can replace the brake pads on my car within a few hours. If I took it to a garage, the mechanic could probably do it in half an hour. Same job, different amount of exertion.
Say God wants to give us an idea of how much effort it took him (I'll refer to God as he for convenience), we have to have some common frame of reference. So God looks at it like this: It wasn't easy for me to create the universe... it took some effort. On the other hand, it wasn't *too* difficult. Call it a project. Converting it to a human frame of reference, it was about a week's worth of tilling the fields, building a house, etc. It wasn't something you could've slapped together in an hour and called it done (and done well). This required thought and planning. But didn't take a huge amount of effort... this wasn't like building the pyramids, requiring years and lots of resources.
That's my take on it. Obviously, there's different interpretations out there. I tend towards the Unitarian side of things sometimes, so go ahead and believe what you will... I'll try to convince you of my way, since I think it's better, but there's only one way we're all gonna find out who's right. See you on the other side;o)
Here's a quick study for you. Type without your pinkies, and now type with your pinkies - a bit faster, no? You don't need a study to see why pinky fingers are useful.
Disclaimer: For those of you who suffer from sensitivity to "Too Much Information", now would be a good time to skip this post and continue on. All others, feel free to read on...
Personal anecdote: I'm uncircumcised. Still got my foreskin, and nobody's taking it from me. Does it serve a purpose? You betcha. I ended up snapping my frenulum several years ago. I simply bandaged it up for a few days, and it healed nicely. However, this required me to pull the foreskin back and keep it there for the duration.
Woooeeee... lemme tell you, sensitive doesn't even begin to describe it. Y'all circumcised guys might have grown used to it, since you "don't know any better" (assuming they cut on you at birth), but my glans was constantly rubbing, and it drove me crazy. I couldn't wait for it to heal, so I could cover it back up again.
For any gals that might be reading, my wife mentioned it must be like taking a dry cloth and rubbing against your clitoris all day long. Heaven forbid a dry finger come into contact with her clit... cotton or denim? Ha! There's reasons the foreskin and labia exist... and separating the sensitive bits from the irritants sounds like a good reason to me.
I disagree. If the creators of the Bill of Rights wanted to specify a "well regulated militia" had the right to exist... they would've simply kept the wording at that, without introducing the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms".
In the context of the times, I can see them stating that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an essential detail in keeping a well regulated militia... which, in turn, is an essential detail in keeping a "free state".
Define free state as you will, but by the time I need to pull the gun(s) out of my cabinet for use in a "campaign" on my homeland... I'm fairly sure I'll be able to tell you what it ain't.;oD
On the other hand, how much noxious gas is a defective battery going to throw off? I'm no chemist, so I have no idea of the amount. I do realize that a pressurized aircraft is not a place where you'd want to introduce nasty gas (pun intended)... it's not like you can just pop the windows open at >10,000 MSL and stick your head outside.
I do realize that even if a battery went off, those emergency oxygen masks will drop and should give everyone enough time for the pilot to descend far enough to vent the cabin, but I imagine it's not a risk that the airlines would like to take. Everybody seems to be sue happy these days...
Ha! I've got a patent on digital devices. As you must have used a digital device to read the GP, and you must have used one to reply to it, you must have TWO digital devices. Logically, you owe twice the original fine.
I can safely assume that he means it missed the Earth by a relative small distance. Otherwise I would've heard about the impact, and known that he meant that it hit the Earth.
Assuming, of course, it was a relatively large impact. Otherwise, all of this is simply nit-picking.;o)
Now before you go berating me for using Vista... I have to know it for my job, since my clientele use it. Knowing it means using it on a semi-regular basis.
Anyway, I picked up a cheap webcam for use under Vista. The box didn't say anything about Vista, but this was a few months after Vista came out... box designs were in the process of switching over. I didn't think anything of it... just assumed it'd work under Vista, since the majority of webcams seem to pander to that segment of the computer users.
I don't think I need to say that it didn't work... some incompatibility between the drivers and Vista. Thankfully, the retailer allowed me to return it. Now if they hadn't, and simply said "Gee, you're out of luck, guess you should've known it before you tried to use it on Vista", I would've been irritated more than slightly. Probably like one of these guys who just rendered their fancy iPhone borken.
"Your computer was locked to Windows when you made the purchase. You knew that. You still bought it.
You didn't like that, so you install Linux. Then you applied the BIOS update and broke your computer.
This is not the manufacturer's fault. It is not Microsoft's fault. It is your fault. The issue is yours, not Microsoft's."
Funny when you swap a few words around, isn't it? Kinda puts things in perspective.
When I buy a phone, I ought to be able to put it on any carrier I choose. When I buy a car, I don't have to go to a single branded garage, nor drive on a single type of road, or even put a certain brand gas in it. When I buy a TV, I don't have to plug it into only one company's cable service.
So would you mind explaining why some big corporation should be able to lock me into their service when I buy a certain phone?
And don't tell me to exercise my right not to buy it... I'm already doing that.
Slashdot Mirror
Ppppphhhhhhttttt.
I've found it's simply safer to spend it just after it hits my bank account. Then I don't have to worry about having it stolen. ;oD
Extend, embrace, and extinguish?
It might still be a story intended to convey basic ideas or concepts to an unsophisticated people of long ago ... but clearly it simply is not the literal truth.
We agree there. I see the Old Testament as more of a story: "Hey, this is what happened before." As much as it may be the word of God, it's been translated by man... and I don't believe in the infallibility of man, divinely inspired or not. To take the Old Testament literally, word for word... well, that's probably where the crazy Christians come from. :oD
Since we can't trust the Bible as a source of knowledge about even basic organic chemistry, then we can't take it as literal truth about anything.
Sorry... I have to disagree with you there. I've got an textbook from my highschool days that references Bernoulli's Principle as the primary reason aircraft fly, that the air moving over the top of the wing speeds up so it "meet up" with the air below it. We now know that to be false. It may be a simplified answer, and it might partially explain lift, but it doesn't do the whole job.
See a pattern here?
Now, just because the textbook can be considered incorrect (at the very least incomplete) in that one location, does it mean I'm going to toss the rest of the book out, since obviously the author has no idea what he's talking about? Nope. There's still a lot of good stuff in that textbook that applies.
Same goes for the Bible. Even if the creation of man (and the rest of the universe) was glossed over, there's still a lot of good stuff in the Bible.
You're missing my point. I complete agree:
1. People (and other organic matter) are not silicon based.
2. There is no transmutation of elements outside suns, supernovae, nuclear reactions, etc.
3. "Anything that formed on the earth, then, was forged out of the same elements that is is now made up of." Well said.
We differ on the use of "dirt". You're using it in a narrow definition: dirt = silicon dioxide. I'm using it in a wide defintion: dirt = pile of some matter of unknown and varied composition.
For example, if the sweepings off my kitchen floor probably contain little silicon dioxide. It's probably composed of dust, bits of food, hair from my cats, etc. If I talk about the activity later, I'm not going to break down the materials. I'm simply going to say "The kitchen floor was dirty. I swept a lot of dirt off of it."
Two definitions of dirt: one specific, one generic. You're using specific, and I'm using generic.
Why would He use the generic term? I figure He's trying to break it down so "everyone" can understand it. Try explaining the concept of an operating system to someone who's never used a computer before. Saying that "Windows is the big program that runs everything else" may not be technically correct, but it's something most people can wrap the heads around until they grow in understanding.
Saying "I made man from dirt" might not be technically correct, but it gets the basic understanding across.
Does that make sense?
I think I might need to take a different track on this.
Isn't there a well accepted scientific theory that most, if not all, of the heavy elements in existence are the rest of past supernova? At the very least, the matter making up the earth, us, etc., must have been part of the original dust cloud/disk.
It's not a far jump from dust to dirt. Stick a pile of it next to your dirt, then a pile of garden soil next to it (your dirt plus lots of organic material, right?), and the average layman will probably call them all dirt. Some farmers may beg to differ, but to most of us, it's all dirt.
That being said, I'd encourage you to believe whatever you want to believe. I may be right, you may be right, but there's one way we're going to find out, and I'd rather not take that step quite yet ;oD. As long as you're not trying to blow me up, we'll get along fine.
Ppppphhhttt. I'm a religion-respecting Christian, and I have no problem believing the rocks are 4.28 billion years old, for the following reasons:
1. God could have created them at that age. For example, if I take my filesystem and slap it onto a CD, preserving the original timestamps... what's the true age (or timestamp) of the files on the CD?
2. If I'm going to try to explain something complex to someone who's incapable of understanding it, I generally break it down into chunks they can understand. So if God's going to explain how he built the universe, and he knows it's beyond our understanding, saying "it was a week's worth of work" might just give us a comparative idea of how much work was involved.
It's rather like the whole evolution versus creationism arguement. I fail to see why both can't be believed in... the Bible says God created man from dirt, if'n I remember correctly. He didn't go about laying all the details out, though. Take all the matter in my body, break it down to its basic molecular compounds, and you've got a pile of mud (dirt and water). Just because the Bible says God made us out of dirt doesn't mean he couldn't have used evolution to build us. Try explaining the concept of evolution to humans still banging rocks together to get fire, and see what you get. Seems to me it'd be simpler to just say "Yep, made you out of dirt."
Of course, I'm tired, it's late at night, and I might not have explained myself well enough. If that's the case, then simply take the above as evidence that some of us Christians are still relatively sane, if a little eccentric ;o)
Seriously, that was nasty. I needed to watch an hour's worth of softcore porn just to wash the image out of my head.
There's a family who regularly sets off model rockets in a local park. They're not huge, multi-stage rockets, but simple models that reach a height of a few hundred feet.
Oddly enough, this is the same park where model aircraft are encouraged, as long as you're not stupid enough to hover a glow-powered helicopter above the backyards of the neighbors. Assuming you're over the park itself, both eletric and glow powered models are welcome. The management allegedly asked some modelers if we'd like a runway put in.
On the other hand, maybe something weird and unnatural is occurring in the park, causing most people to be unreasonably happy and generally agreeable. This is in New York, where such attitudes are extremely rare. Maybe we ought to be examining the undergrowth for hidden marijuana plants ;o).
A fucking parrot can do that.
Yes... but what about a parrot that's probably pining for the fjords?
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
I've noticed that Time Warner is handing out Netgear WGR614v7 routers... or so they appear. Look closely, and the model number has a -VC or something close to it appended.
Try to upgrade the firmware off Netgear's website, and the normal WGR614 firmware doesn't apply... the router kicks it out, saying that the firmware's for the wrong device.
P.S.: I'm doing this from memory, so I may have the wrong model number listed above. My apologies if so.
Add me to the list. The Grandparent poster and the rest of the country can sit back and watch their rights drain away if they want to sit in the corner with their security blanket, but I won't.
;o).
I'll be the guy raising a fuss and throwing a fit. It'll happen at the border, then in court. And if someone wants to slap one of those "letters of security" on me, they may as well send me right to jail... 'cause that letter won't keep me quiet regarding any injustice placed upon me.
If standing up for my rights "ruins" my life, then that "life" wasn't worth jack to begin with.
I suppose it helps that I'm religious, too... those religious fanatics got that right, at least. When you're looking forward to a long eternity, the time spent here isn't worth getting your rights trampled over.
That being said, I don't imagine it'll be too long before the black suit guys show up for me
Give them enough time for the apoplectic fit to wear off...
I've got a different interpretation of Genesis.
;o)
God obviously exerted effort in creating the universe. Effort is a relative concept, however... when I exert effort to do something, it's not necessarily the same amount of effort somebody else uses to perform the same task. For example, I can replace the brake pads on my car within a few hours. If I took it to a garage, the mechanic could probably do it in half an hour. Same job, different amount of exertion.
Say God wants to give us an idea of how much effort it took him (I'll refer to God as he for convenience), we have to have some common frame of reference. So God looks at it like this: It wasn't easy for me to create the universe... it took some effort. On the other hand, it wasn't *too* difficult. Call it a project. Converting it to a human frame of reference, it was about a week's worth of tilling the fields, building a house, etc. It wasn't something you could've slapped together in an hour and called it done (and done well). This required thought and planning. But didn't take a huge amount of effort... this wasn't like building the pyramids, requiring years and lots of resources.
That's my take on it. Obviously, there's different interpretations out there. I tend towards the Unitarian side of things sometimes, so go ahead and believe what you will... I'll try to convince you of my way, since I think it's better, but there's only one way we're all gonna find out who's right. See you on the other side
Suddenly, I feel much much smaller.
Here's a quick study for you. Type without your pinkies, and now type with your pinkies - a bit faster, no? You don't need a study to see why pinky fingers are useful.
Disclaimer: For those of you who suffer from sensitivity to "Too Much Information", now would be a good time to skip this post and continue on. All others, feel free to read on...
Personal anecdote: I'm uncircumcised. Still got my foreskin, and nobody's taking it from me. Does it serve a purpose? You betcha. I ended up snapping my frenulum several years ago. I simply bandaged it up for a few days, and it healed nicely. However, this required me to pull the foreskin back and keep it there for the duration.
Woooeeee... lemme tell you, sensitive doesn't even begin to describe it. Y'all circumcised guys might have grown used to it, since you "don't know any better" (assuming they cut on you at birth), but my glans was constantly rubbing, and it drove me crazy. I couldn't wait for it to heal, so I could cover it back up again.
For any gals that might be reading, my wife mentioned it must be like taking a dry cloth and rubbing against your clitoris all day long. Heaven forbid a dry finger come into contact with her clit... cotton or denim? Ha! There's reasons the foreskin and labia exist... and separating the sensitive bits from the irritants sounds like a good reason to me.
I disagree. If the creators of the Bill of Rights wanted to specify a "well regulated militia" had the right to exist... they would've simply kept the wording at that, without introducing the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms".
;oD
In the context of the times, I can see them stating that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an essential detail in keeping a well regulated militia... which, in turn, is an essential detail in keeping a "free state".
Define free state as you will, but by the time I need to pull the gun(s) out of my cabinet for use in a "campaign" on my homeland... I'm fairly sure I'll be able to tell you what it ain't.
Never seen a company that charges monthly rates go DOWN when introducing change.
;o)
It happens... just rarely. Netflix did it a while back (twice, according to the article). It was rare enough that I remembered it
On the other hand, how much noxious gas is a defective battery going to throw off? I'm no chemist, so I have no idea of the amount. I do realize that a pressurized aircraft is not a place where you'd want to introduce nasty gas (pun intended)... it's not like you can just pop the windows open at >10,000 MSL and stick your head outside.
I do realize that even if a battery went off, those emergency oxygen masks will drop and should give everyone enough time for the pilot to descend far enough to vent the cabin, but I imagine it's not a risk that the airlines would like to take. Everybody seems to be sue happy these days...
Ha! I've got a patent on digital devices. As you must have used a digital device to read the GP, and you must have used one to reply to it, you must have TWO digital devices. Logically, you owe twice the original fine.
Only if they're different in the same way. See, they've gotta be different in different ways to be different, otherwise they'd be the same.
I can safely assume that he means it missed the Earth by a relative small distance. Otherwise I would've heard about the impact, and known that he meant that it hit the Earth.
;o)
Assuming, of course, it was a relatively large impact. Otherwise, all of this is simply nit-picking.
Could be that only a portion of the jury were idiots... and the rest agreed to avoid having to listen to them...
Heck, for that matter, Vista.
Now before you go berating me for using Vista... I have to know it for my job, since my clientele use it. Knowing it means using it on a semi-regular basis.
Anyway, I picked up a cheap webcam for use under Vista. The box didn't say anything about Vista, but this was a few months after Vista came out... box designs were in the process of switching over. I didn't think anything of it... just assumed it'd work under Vista, since the majority of webcams seem to pander to that segment of the computer users.
I don't think I need to say that it didn't work... some incompatibility between the drivers and Vista. Thankfully, the retailer allowed me to return it. Now if they hadn't, and simply said "Gee, you're out of luck, guess you should've known it before you tried to use it on Vista", I would've been irritated more than slightly. Probably like one of these guys who just rendered their fancy iPhone borken.
"Your computer was locked to Windows when you made the purchase. You knew that. You still bought it. You didn't like that, so you install Linux. Then you applied the BIOS update and broke your computer. This is not the manufacturer's fault. It is not Microsoft's fault. It is your fault. The issue is yours, not Microsoft's."
Funny when you swap a few words around, isn't it? Kinda puts things in perspective.
When I buy a phone, I ought to be able to put it on any carrier I choose. When I buy a car, I don't have to go to a single branded garage, nor drive on a single type of road, or even put a certain brand gas in it. When I buy a TV, I don't have to plug it into only one company's cable service.
So would you mind explaining why some big corporation should be able to lock me into their service when I buy a certain phone?
And don't tell me to exercise my right not to buy it... I'm already doing that.