Much of science was originally derived from philosophy. The atomic nature of matter, for example, was (first?) theorised by the Epicureans, as the postulate that matter is not infinitely divisible. The epic poem "On the nature of things" (also translated as "On the nature of the universe") argues this point. While this has since been disproven, for many years this was the accepted scientific theory.
There are many other examples -- psychology, chemistry and physics, for example. All these fields that are now science sprang from the writings of various philosophers. Once the scientific method was applied to them, they transitioned into sciences.
As a side-note, you do not prove logic. It is a closed system, like mathematics. Real world things (physics, for example) may be described in terms of it, but it is not described in terms of anything in the real world.
You obviously have some knowledge of ancient history, just enough to be dangerous, it seems. Cut the personal attacks and nonsensical leaps, and we'll all be better for it.
I'm not even sure what exactly you're arguing. My argument in my grandparent post was directed at the US federal government, trying to answer the question of whether it should be considered a religion or a cult (whereby I said that it is neither).
Yes, I am quite aware that the flat Earth nonsense was taught in Catholic schools. There's a reason we call that time the Dark Ages, because it was a time when, as Benjamin Franklin said, people saw by faith by shutting the eye of reason.
This is somewhat off-topic, but I'm not sure how you plan to defend your assertion that ancient cultures like the Mayans, Gaels and Egyptians were more advanced than ours. Yes, they were advanced for their time and for a long time afterwards, but we surpassed them (I'd say after the Renaissance, but that's a matter of opinion).
Your statement about religions requiring a "channel" is incorrect. Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) believe it is the responsibility of every person to talk to God/Allah through prayer. They believe they are talking directly to their supreme being, not through any channel. While they believe that their holy book (the Qur'an, the Torah or the Bible, respectively) can only be interpreted correctly by someone who has studied it extensively, this is a channel from the supreme being to the person, not the other way around.
In the future, please argue your points more fully and rationally.
Neither, because it does not claim to be a religion (both religions and cults claim to be religions, or a sect of another religion). The government itself is secular and thus has no religious affiliation. Its actions are dictated by the affiliations of its members, and while those actions are increasingly those of conservative Christians, the government itself has no religious affiliation.
Very good point, jfredett. Judaism acts as a kind of meritocracy, where Rabbi gain influence not from a title or any other official hierarchy, but from the respect of their peers. This in itself is a kind of hierarchy, not a rigid one like my example, the Catholic church, but a hierarchy nonetheless. And yes, I definitely consider Judaism a religion. That kind of influence comes only from dedicated study of the Torah.
In Scientology, you do not rise in the hierarchy by becoming more "Clear", you rise up by paying more money to those above you.
Yes, thank you. I was anticipating that objection (that Hubbard believed his stuff), and I was going to pull that exact quote to prove my point.
At first he didn't believe any of it. To him, it was a business, and a very profitable one at that. Only later in life did he go mad and start believing his own stuff. There's also evidence that he never followed all his teachings and used psychoactive drugs up until his death.
Having thought about this myself, whether Scientology should be considered a cult or a religion, and indeed whether "cult" is just a matter of perspective, I think I have an answer.
The difference between a religion and a cult is in the beliefs of its leaders. In a religion such as Catholicism, as you go up in the ranks from the lowly follower all the way up to the Pope, the devotion of its members increases. In a cult, it decreases, because its leadership sees the teachings for what they are: a means of control. Furthermore, whether you believe the teachings of a given religion yourself or not, its leadership believes they are acting in the spiritual interests of its followers. They believe they are bettering their members.
However, in both cases the rewards for being a member increases, and for a cult, this works like a pyramid scheme, siphoning wealth into the upper ranks. So yes, there is a fundamental difference between a "religion" and a "cult", other than the number of followers. Scientology is a prime example today: it was a cult when Hubbard was sailing the Mediterranean under the Sea Org flag, and it's still a cult today.
Seeing as it's a community project, the obvious problem is that the people who know what is significant in a certain field are not making themselves heard.
Typing someone's username into Google and following the second link doesn't mean you have 'Google-Fu'. Making it sound like you have all sorts of personal info means you're a moron.
But LaTeX does not do any such thing. It embeds formatting info in the document.
Only if the author sucks at writing LaTeX, and does things like this:
{\Large This is a heading}\bigskip Here is some text. Here is some {\bf important} text.
When they should be doing things like this:
\section {This is a heading} Here is some text. Here is some \emph {important} text.
A LaTeX document, used properly, does not have any styling information in the document -- that's the job of the document class, and possibly custom commands. Using formatting commands manually in LaTeX is no different than setting formatting (bold, italics, font size) manually in Word documents. You should be using styles to format things document-wide.
Learn to use something effectively next time before you start bashing it.
I just finished second-year, so this is still fairly fresh in my mind. In first year, I lived in a room that looked like this. They were small rooms, and both my roommate and I had girlfriends before Christmas, and yes, it's awkward. Before long, you'll freeze like a deer in headlights to the sound of jingling keys. But, if your roommate was like mine, you'll only be worried about your roommate accidentally walking in, not on purpose. I walked in on my roommate on, I believe, 3 occasions, and he walked in on me on 2. I also woke up one morning (early March, I think) to the two of them having sex on the other side of the room. I just rolled over to face the wall, and tried to go back to sleep.
There were no super singles (double rooms with only one person in them) in my section, so there was no sex bed, but people were known to use the lounge every once in a while. If I saw my roommate going into my room with his girlfriend, I'd try to say something like, "I'll be going to bed at 1AM". He got the idea: I wouldn't disturb them until after 1AM. He did the same thing for me, whenever he was around, and it usually worked out well.
It doesn't work that way for everyone though. My girlfriend, for example, had a roommate that "disapproved" of me sleeping there, so I didn't unless she wasn't there. Part of that problem was that she wasn't dating anyone herself. She was a beautiful girl, and guys were going after her all the time, but she wasn't interested.
Other people had similar problems. Some people would 'claim' the room, without warning, forcing their roommates out. A friend of mine had this happen to her. She put up with it for a while, then after that when she wanted in, she'd just announce something like, "you'd better not be naked!", and open the door wide open. Apparently, she caught them at the worst possible time more than once.
In general though, if you respect your roommate's privacy, they'll respect yours. If they don't, there's always other places to go... top of stairwells (if you're quiet), the Arboretum, lecture halls, library (very common, from what I hear), etc. People use the showers, but in general they're high-traffic areas, and you're bound to be discovered.
Yes, that is a universal constant. People will find a way to fuck, no matter what.
Look into Network Manager, and its interfaces -- KNetworkManager for KDE, for example. It's being integrated into distros now (Dapper will use it by default), but it's available as a package on every distro I've found. It takes care of configuring the WPA supplicant on the fly, connecting and disconnecting from networks (wired and wireless), etc. It's very nice.
If you'd RTFA, you'd realise this guy was working from his home, so there is no such legal requirement. It's up to him to set his own hours. I agree though, it's stupid to sit there for 8 hours, every day, without any significant break.
I am referring only to primary-source material, which is the "word of God" itself, not secondary material such as scriptures based on these.
And yes, Leviticus 18:22, and Leviticus 20:13 (which prescribes the penalty of death for the act), comprise the primary basis for the Christian viewpoint on homosexuality. This is where it is stated explicitly that it is a sin to, as they put it, lie with a man like one would with a woman.
Of course, there is also the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, from Genesis. From reading the story, it appears that what is now called "sodomy" was but one of their sins, and not a major one. The text is vague as to what exactly they were being punished for, but hubris, not homosexuality, seems to be the most significant.
If this is the case, and the men of Sodom were in fact guilty of gross immorality of all kinds, then the term "sodomy" and "sodomite" should refer to gross immoral behaviour in general and one who practises it, respectively. This redefinition resolves the last sticking point I have found: Deuteronomy 23:17, which reads, "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel". To me, this is a warning to the Israeli (and therefore Christian) men, that they must behave in a moral, upright way.
This is but a reinterpretation of the literal "word of God". Everyone interprets the Bible their own way, and there is no reason why a homosexual could not interpret it like I have described. This is why I believe homosexuality and Christianity are compatible.
Whether the Bible is or is not the "word of God" is not the issue. I personally think it is a work of fiction and history, but that is not what DrXym or myself were arguing about. I pointed out that Christians pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow, to suit the church's will.
Oh, yeah, don't get me started on people who say, "how can you have morals when you don't believe in God?":)
If the only reason you act morally is the threat of supernatural fury and eternal damnation, then you are not a moral person. A truly moral person is one who behaves ethically for entirely internal reasons. External reasons, such as threat of punishment, etc. are not a good basis for a moral code.
The justification Christian churches use when they declare homosexuality to be a sin is from Leviticus 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination". Sounds fair. That means Homosexuality is bad, doesn't it?
Well, what about Leviticus 21:5, "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh"? That means shaving is a sin. Similarly, other passages from this book prohibit tattoos, eating of shellfish and pork, clothes made of more than one fabric, and other common activities.
Since these other passages are commonly ignored by Christians out of convenience, all a gay Christian has to do is ignore one more, 18:22, and they're in the clear. It's extremely hypocritical for Christian churches to pick and choose parts of this book to obey or disobey. If you're going to consider Leviticus holy, abide by the whole thing. If you're going to ignore it, ignore the whole damned book. You can't have it both ways.
Exactly! I was talking about universal human senses. Obviously, some people lose or are born without one or more senses, but no other sense is missing from such a large class of humans than a sense of style:)
Slashdot Mirror
Much of science was originally derived from philosophy. The atomic nature of matter, for example, was (first?) theorised by the Epicureans, as the postulate that matter is not infinitely divisible. The epic poem "On the nature of things" (also translated as "On the nature of the universe") argues this point. While this has since been disproven, for many years this was the accepted scientific theory.
There are many other examples -- psychology, chemistry and physics, for example. All these fields that are now science sprang from the writings of various philosophers. Once the scientific method was applied to them, they transitioned into sciences.
As a side-note, you do not prove logic. It is a closed system, like mathematics. Real world things (physics, for example) may be described in terms of it, but it is not described in terms of anything in the real world.
You obviously have some knowledge of ancient history, just enough to be dangerous, it seems. Cut the personal attacks and nonsensical leaps, and we'll all be better for it.
I'm not even sure what exactly you're arguing. My argument in my grandparent post was directed at the US federal government, trying to answer the question of whether it should be considered a religion or a cult (whereby I said that it is neither).
Yes, I am quite aware that the flat Earth nonsense was taught in Catholic schools. There's a reason we call that time the Dark Ages, because it was a time when, as Benjamin Franklin said, people saw by faith by shutting the eye of reason.
This is somewhat off-topic, but I'm not sure how you plan to defend your assertion that ancient cultures like the Mayans, Gaels and Egyptians were more advanced than ours. Yes, they were advanced for their time and for a long time afterwards, but we surpassed them (I'd say after the Renaissance, but that's a matter of opinion).
Your statement about religions requiring a "channel" is incorrect. Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) believe it is the responsibility of every person to talk to God/Allah through prayer. They believe they are talking directly to their supreme being, not through any channel. While they believe that their holy book (the Qur'an, the Torah or the Bible, respectively) can only be interpreted correctly by someone who has studied it extensively, this is a channel from the supreme being to the person, not the other way around.
In the future, please argue your points more fully and rationally.
Neither, because it does not claim to be a religion (both religions and cults claim to be religions, or a sect of another religion). The government itself is secular and thus has no religious affiliation. Its actions are dictated by the affiliations of its members, and while those actions are increasingly those of conservative Christians, the government itself has no religious affiliation.
Very good point, jfredett. Judaism acts as a kind of meritocracy, where Rabbi gain influence not from a title or any other official hierarchy, but from the respect of their peers. This in itself is a kind of hierarchy, not a rigid one like my example, the Catholic church, but a hierarchy nonetheless. And yes, I definitely consider Judaism a religion. That kind of influence comes only from dedicated study of the Torah.
In Scientology, you do not rise in the hierarchy by becoming more "Clear", you rise up by paying more money to those above you.
Yes, thank you. I was anticipating that objection (that Hubbard believed his stuff), and I was going to pull that exact quote to prove my point.
At first he didn't believe any of it. To him, it was a business, and a very profitable one at that. Only later in life did he go mad and start believing his own stuff. There's also evidence that he never followed all his teachings and used psychoactive drugs up until his death.
Having thought about this myself, whether Scientology should be considered a cult or a religion, and indeed whether "cult" is just a matter of perspective, I think I have an answer.
The difference between a religion and a cult is in the beliefs of its leaders. In a religion such as Catholicism, as you go up in the ranks from the lowly follower all the way up to the Pope, the devotion of its members increases. In a cult, it decreases, because its leadership sees the teachings for what they are: a means of control. Furthermore, whether you believe the teachings of a given religion yourself or not, its leadership believes they are acting in the spiritual interests of its followers. They believe they are bettering their members.
However, in both cases the rewards for being a member increases, and for a cult, this works like a pyramid scheme, siphoning wealth into the upper ranks. So yes, there is a fundamental difference between a "religion" and a "cult", other than the number of followers. Scientology is a prime example today: it was a cult when Hubbard was sailing the Mediterranean under the Sea Org flag, and it's still a cult today.
Seeing as it's a community project, the obvious problem is that the people who know what is significant in a certain field are not making themselves heard.
When your objective is to capture the entirety of human knowledge, "problems" like that aren't important.
Ever heard of a recall?
What else would I be doing? Something social, you say?
Slashdot's social, right?
That may be a lot of money, but it's still better for Microsoft than losing the entire European market.
Typing someone's username into Google and following the second link doesn't mean you have 'Google-Fu'. Making it sound like you have all sorts of personal info means you're a moron.
Only if the author sucks at writing LaTeX, and does things like this:
When they should be doing things like this:
A LaTeX document, used properly, does not have any styling information in the document -- that's the job of the document class, and possibly custom commands. Using formatting commands manually in LaTeX is no different than setting formatting (bold, italics, font size) manually in Word documents. You should be using styles to format things document-wide.
Learn to use something effectively next time before you start bashing it.
I go here, and I had a similar experience.
I just finished second-year, so this is still fairly fresh in my mind. In first year, I lived in a room that looked like this. They were small rooms, and both my roommate and I had girlfriends before Christmas, and yes, it's awkward. Before long, you'll freeze like a deer in headlights to the sound of jingling keys. But, if your roommate was like mine, you'll only be worried about your roommate accidentally walking in, not on purpose. I walked in on my roommate on, I believe, 3 occasions, and he walked in on me on 2. I also woke up one morning (early March, I think) to the two of them having sex on the other side of the room. I just rolled over to face the wall, and tried to go back to sleep.
There were no super singles (double rooms with only one person in them) in my section, so there was no sex bed, but people were known to use the lounge every once in a while. If I saw my roommate going into my room with his girlfriend, I'd try to say something like, "I'll be going to bed at 1AM". He got the idea: I wouldn't disturb them until after 1AM. He did the same thing for me, whenever he was around, and it usually worked out well.
It doesn't work that way for everyone though. My girlfriend, for example, had a roommate that "disapproved" of me sleeping there, so I didn't unless she wasn't there. Part of that problem was that she wasn't dating anyone herself. She was a beautiful girl, and guys were going after her all the time, but she wasn't interested.
Other people had similar problems. Some people would 'claim' the room, without warning, forcing their roommates out. A friend of mine had this happen to her. She put up with it for a while, then after that when she wanted in, she'd just announce something like, "you'd better not be naked!", and open the door wide open. Apparently, she caught them at the worst possible time more than once.
In general though, if you respect your roommate's privacy, they'll respect yours. If they don't, there's always other places to go... top of stairwells (if you're quiet), the Arboretum, lecture halls, library (very common, from what I hear), etc. People use the showers, but in general they're high-traffic areas, and you're bound to be discovered.
Yes, that is a universal constant. People will find a way to fuck, no matter what.
Look into Network Manager, and its interfaces -- KNetworkManager for KDE, for example. It's being integrated into distros now (Dapper will use it by default), but it's available as a package on every distro I've found. It takes care of configuring the WPA supplicant on the fly, connecting and disconnecting from networks (wired and wireless), etc. It's very nice.
It doesn't.
Case closed.
s/average/normal/
It's a definition. They just picked a reference point; in this case, the average visual acuity at 20ft.
If you'd RTFA, you'd realise this guy was working from his home, so there is no such legal requirement. It's up to him to set his own hours. I agree though, it's stupid to sit there for 8 hours, every day, without any significant break.
And this, folks, is the sound of a joke going right over someone's head... *WHOOSH*
I am referring only to primary-source material, which is the "word of God" itself, not secondary material such as scriptures based on these.
And yes, Leviticus 18:22, and Leviticus 20:13 (which prescribes the penalty of death for the act), comprise the primary basis for the Christian viewpoint on homosexuality. This is where it is stated explicitly that it is a sin to, as they put it, lie with a man like one would with a woman.
Of course, there is also the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, from Genesis. From reading the story, it appears that what is now called "sodomy" was but one of their sins, and not a major one. The text is vague as to what exactly they were being punished for, but hubris, not homosexuality, seems to be the most significant.
If this is the case, and the men of Sodom were in fact guilty of gross immorality of all kinds, then the term "sodomy" and "sodomite" should refer to gross immoral behaviour in general and one who practises it, respectively. This redefinition resolves the last sticking point I have found: Deuteronomy 23:17, which reads, "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel". To me, this is a warning to the Israeli (and therefore Christian) men, that they must behave in a moral, upright way.
This is but a reinterpretation of the literal "word of God". Everyone interprets the Bible their own way, and there is no reason why a homosexual could not interpret it like I have described. This is why I believe homosexuality and Christianity are compatible.
Whether the Bible is or is not the "word of God" is not the issue. I personally think it is a work of fiction and history, but that is not what DrXym or myself were arguing about. I pointed out that Christians pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow, to suit the church's will.
Okay, so it's a sin to be sexually immoral. But, where is "sexually immoral" defined unambiguously to include homosexuality?
Oh, yeah, don't get me started on people who say, "how can you have morals when you don't believe in God?" :)
If the only reason you act morally is the threat of supernatural fury and eternal damnation, then you are not a moral person. A truly moral person is one who behaves ethically for entirely internal reasons. External reasons, such as threat of punishment, etc. are not a good basis for a moral code.
I don't normally feed trolls, but here goes.
The justification Christian churches use when they declare homosexuality to be a sin is from Leviticus 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination". Sounds fair. That means Homosexuality is bad, doesn't it?
Well, what about Leviticus 21:5, "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh"? That means shaving is a sin. Similarly, other passages from this book prohibit tattoos, eating of shellfish and pork, clothes made of more than one fabric, and other common activities.
Since these other passages are commonly ignored by Christians out of convenience, all a gay Christian has to do is ignore one more, 18:22, and they're in the clear. It's extremely hypocritical for Christian churches to pick and choose parts of this book to obey or disobey. If you're going to consider Leviticus holy, abide by the whole thing. If you're going to ignore it, ignore the whole damned book. You can't have it both ways.
Exactly! I was talking about universal human senses. Obviously, some people lose or are born without one or more senses, but no other sense is missing from such a large class of humans than a sense of style :)