Most likely he got better equipment. The guy probably didn't have a pc worth 1000GBP(1500,2000$) so he got the better deal out of that.
Direct currency conversion isn't terribly appropriate here; 1000 GBP might not even get you 1500 USD worth of equipment because everything is marked up and taxed higher here. 1200-1500 USD is probably a better estimate.
A platform monopoly is still a monopoly (no matter how small), and this is clearly anti-competitive. Apple needs to be taken to task for it.
Why? There's nothing illegal about having a monopoly. And they're not illegally leveraging their 'monopoly' to prevent competition from Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.
True. I'm just wondering if anyone does actually hold to both opinions and what they would say to the suggestion that it might be contradictory. Playing devil's advocate really since all this seems to be happening the other side of the Atlantic and thus is largely irrelevant to me.
Jack Thompson accuses games of corrupting our youth: results in moral indignation from Slashdot, saying that games don't turn anyone into anytihng.
Schools mod America's Army for educational purposes: results in moral indignation from Slashdot, saying that the military is using games to brainwash people.
Don't know if any individuals hold to both views, but it's interesting how these seem to be vocal opinions.
If a person is able to employ the scientific method, but then fails to do so regardless of the reason, they are not a competent scientist, ipso facto. To practice science is to follow the evidence wherever it may lead; *not* to follow the evidence unless or until your "worldview" supersedes it.
Nonsense. It merely means that it wouldn't be appropriate for them to conduct scientific investigations in that field.
The thesis of creationism is outside the purview of science. It cannot be shown that the universe was not created five minutes ago, with all our memories and apparent history created in-place as they now appear. In that way it is not science.
I never claimed it was and in fact that seems to be very much his point - it's not a misapplication of science, but a worldview that supersedes science.
Concluding, through objectively examining all the available evidence, that the thesis of creationism is a true statement about reality is non sequitur. To reach such a conclusion, one must either be selective about the evidence one considers or use spurious (formally fallacious) logic; in other words, the argument is either invalid or unsound via broken premises or implications. In that way it is not science.
Your logic is severely flawed. The Creationist conclusion requires a particular interpretation of the Bible to be taken and other evidence to then be interpreted in the light of that. It doesn't require anyone to ignore evidence, but rather to interpret it differently. Yes, it's an unscientific manner, but that doesn't make it illogical. At the end of the day, science doesn't tell us anything about reality; all it does is produce models that reproduce observations we take of the world around us. There's nothing to say that scientific models are actually reflective of reality and in theory, if an omniscient being was to reveal the true nature of reality to be different to that suggested by science, that's fine.
Creationism makes a very specific claim about the nature of reality: that it was created according to the will of a deity, through the power of that deity. Scientific investigation indicates this is probably not the case.
Science is able to say nothing about the likelihood of supernatural beings intervening in reality.
Reiss even stated as much in his blog: [I agree with the statement that] "The ideas offered by intelligent design creationists are not the products of scientific reasoning." If you wanted to defend his position, you could have pointed that out instead; why didn't you?
It was unnecessary. His original quote was quite sufficient, if people just read it right.
The point of science is to figure out what reality actually is.
No it's really not. See above. All you can do is build models that are progressively better at reproducing the results of observations. Science can't tell us about the true nature of reality, but that doesn't matter because it doesn't have to.
At best, he seems to be saying that he doesn't think a creationist "worldview" can be shaken and that everyone deserves to have their ideas respected no matter how poor or parochial those ideas might be.
No. He's saying that creationism isn't science, therefore people who believe in it do not do so because they cannot do science, but because they there are sources of truth they value more highly than science. Talking about science isn't going to persuade them to believe in evolution but at the same time, being a creationist isn't going to prevent them being capable scientists. They can do the investigation and reach scientific conclusions, but when it comes to deciding whether the scientific answer represents reality or not, they'll say 'No.'
In this worst case, he thinks creationism should be
And Isaac Newton believed in alchemy. Does that mean that alchemy should be referenced in chemistry class as a valid contemporary "worldview?"
Are you replying to the right post, because that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I said? I was pointing out that it's entirely possible to be both a Christian and a great scientist. Do you dispute that? If not, then you don't need to reply. If you do dispute it, you'll need to explain what your last post has to do with the issue, because I see no connection.
The "God of the Gaps" was evicted from quite a few of those gaps between Newton's time and Maxwell's, and between Maxwell's time and ours.
Who's arguing for a "God of the Gaps"? Certainly no Christian scientist that I know. The God of the Bible most definitely is not the God of the Gaps and such an idea hasn't been taken seriously in theological circles for a long time. And again, what does it have to do with what I posted? Or are you just throwing up strawman arguments because you have no genuine case to make?
In my opinion, being religious. let alone a priest, and being a scientist is not compatible unless one manages to keep up some odd kind of schizophrenia.
Pity you weren't around to tell Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell that their evangelicalism were incompatible with them being among the greatest scientists in history.
Anyone who feels that creationism is not a misconception has no place in the direction of such an important scientific body as the Royal Society.
You're doing exactly what the media has done by misunderstanding him. He didn't say it was a misconception, he said it was a bigger more complicated issue. If it was a simple misconception, you could argue that a person's understanding of the scientific method was flawed. As par of a worldview, however, it is possible for someone to understand and be able to employ the scientific method in all areas, except for evolution because here their worldview take priority i.e. they are capable scientists and understand the satnce of scientists on the issue, but reach a different conclusion based on their worldview.
The trouble is that so many people assume that Creationist = can't do science, but the disagreement doesn't necessarily come down to an inability to 'do' science. In fact, your post is an example of the attitudes that prompted him to speak out in the first place.
No, battery is singular. It may be a collective noun, but that doesn't make it plural, just as fleet is plural, despite the fact that refers to a collection of ships. Hence you can have a battery or several batteries.
This makes it sound like 'peering' and 'transit' mean the same thing
That would be because you stopped half way through the sentence. The other half says that they are two mechanisms i.e. not the same thing. The article itself is very clear about the differences.
The Wikipedia article talks about the two relationships of transit and customer, but these are both part of the same mechanism, hence the Ars article only talking about two mechanisms. It's analogous to one article talking about 'friends, husbands and wives' and another about 'friendship and marriage'. They are both in agreement about the numbers.
But it's not arbitrary; it's in the terms and conditions of the contract and on their website, so technically they do have the right to do it. They do warn you up front that your actual speeds will vary depending on use. And to be quite frank, anyone posting on a technology website should realise that it's not possible to guarantee full speed all the time because of contention ratios. It's only 5 hours of the day that the restriction applies (actually, more like 4 1/2 since it would take at least 30 minutes to hit the cap).
If you don't like their service, buy from someone else, just like you've said you have the option to do and make sure you're making an informed decision.
During peak use hours (4pm till midnight apparently)
My mother-in-laws 2mb broadband is throttled to 1 mb to "ensure equality of access"...
Actually, it's 4-9 pm any the throttling only kicks in once you've downloaded 500 MB (in the case of their cheapest package) within that time. The information is on the Virgin website.
Creationists are the laughing stock of everybody who understands science and has a scientific worldview, which is incompatible with evangelical Christian beliefs
Guess somebody better wake Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell up and tell that their evangelicalism was incompatible with them being great scientists. There are current examples as well (e.g. Alistair McGrath and John Lennox, both of Oxford), but none that would exceed them in stature. But then, I doubt there are too many scientists, evangelical or not, who would.
Bottom line, science can "prove" (as far as it is possible to "prove" anything outside of mathematics) that almost everything factual written up in the Bible is wrong.
Is that hyperbole or do you actually mean it? If you actually mean it, well, I'm not sure where to start correcting you because there's a lot of facts there and people keep on findiing evidence to verify said facts. Perhaps we should start with geography and establish the many places named in the Bible exist, then move on the correct distances between them, accuracte depictions of climate, vegetation and wildlife...
Consider for a second that you can't nail a person by the hands - the nails simply slip out when the body weight hangs off the arms. That's been tested numerous times (on fresh cadavers of course.)
Consider for a second the fact that the Greek word translated 'hand' refers to part of the arm as well and that even in English, the wrist can be spoken of as if it was part of the hand. Do you include linguistics as a science?
Or the fact that historians tell us that the Romans never nailed anybody to a cross, they always (as far as the available data shows consistently) tied them to the cross with ropes.
Flat out wrong.
Or that they didn't let people die on the cross - they were killed beforehand and then tied up as a deterrent.
Again, flat out wrong. Even Wikipedia gets this right and can point you to a number of useful sources.
So... if the central tenet is, umm, untenable, what does that tell you about the reliability of anything that's written in the Bible?
Before you make absurd and unsubstantiated claims, consider for their implications. If no-one was killed by crucifixion and all the details concerning the crucifixion were wrong, how would the gospels have carried so much weight early on when people could have read them and said 'what a load of nonsense, that never happens'? And don't you think that people might have made a bigger deal of it by now?
I think it's demonstrable that belief in God is purely irrational, and born of wishful thinking.
There are plenty of theologians, philosophers and scientists who would disagree with you. In fact if people weigh up evidence and act based on the conclusions they reach, having made good use of their mental faculties, then it could be said that they are acting reasonably. Just because someone else comes to a different conclusion based on the same evidence does not necessitate that one or the other party must be acting irrationally.
When you quiz people on why they believe in God they can't produce anything with real weight
You must not be very well read on the subject to make a comment like that. There are vast numbers of books and reams of scholarship on the very subject of evidence for Christianity. Again, you may draw a different conclusion form the evidence, but that does not mean there is no evidence or that it isn't good evidence.
they can provide absolutely no observation or experience that necessitates the existence or presence of that character.
God being the best solution is not the same as God being the only solution. Sufficient evidence is not the same as absolute proof. By your standard, pretty much all of science would have to be dismissed because it's always possible that every experiment has gone wrong due to faulty equipment or incorrect measurements being taken. Extremely unlikely things, but possible.
It might be the scientist's belief that God is moving that photon, but such a thought has no use in the lab, and is antithetical to science.
Just because God doesn't make a useful scientific hypothesis doesn't mean he isn't real. The thought isn't antithetical to science, but rather irrelevant. There is no way of telling with science whether God moves the photon or if the photon moves itself. It doesn't matter to science and it says nothing to support either viewpoint.
Fact is, we can only understand the true nature of ourselves and reality by letting go of outmoded beliefs like, for example, that the Old Testament version of God is authentic and literally true.
Science has nothing to say about that. And just because a belief is old does not make it false (not that I'm saying you meant that).
I would argue that the most insightful spiritual teachers
What makes a teacher insightful?
including Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha - have emphasized the virtue of skepticism and independent investigation
To a certain extent, Jesus encouraged scepticism - he warned against false teachers, including the teachers of the day. At the same time he taught about the utter reliability of God and the Scriptures he had provided and encouraged faith in both them and himself.
that in fact the highest kind of faith is that which doesn't need to cling to the old mythic tethers, but trusts that "the way has been prepared" for us, and exists in our nature, and our ability to observe the universe scientifically is the proper way to approach questions bearing on material reality, and will ultimately answer many spiritual questions as well.
How can science possibly answer spiritual questions? Christianity makes claims that are utterly untestable by science. In fact, science ultimately tells us very little about reality. All science does is allow us to construct models that fit our observations of reality. These models do not necessarily reflect the workings of reality, but they don't have to as long as the results the models produce line up with the observations we make of reality.
When people say proudly that they believe in God, and that they believe mankind was created in three days just like the Bible says, they are trying to demonstrate
The only down side is that, as far as I can tell, you have to have multiple tabs in the window from which you're dragging. So consolidating two windows into one means you have to Cmd-T in one of them to open another window first, then close it after consolidation. Rather silly - and the preferences don't have an "Always show a tab" option.
Actually, if you have a one-tab window open and hit SHIFT-CMD-TAB or go to View:Show Tab Bar from the menu, it'll make a tab visible in every window from that point on, allowing you to consolidate windows. They probably should have an option in the Preferences though, not just in the View menu.
So you say that being loving and caring is not commanded in gal 5:14?
Where did I say that? Whether it commands it is irrelevant because it is not defining the requirements to be a Christian there. Paul is stating that the law is fulfilled through loving your neighbour, but has already said in v. 1 that the law is slavery, v. 2 that Christ is of no advantage if you seek salvation through the law, v. 4 that attempting to be justified by the law severs you from Christ and causes you to fall away form grace, v. 5 that the hope for righteousness lies in faith, in v. 6 that Christ is concerned with faith, rather than keeping of the law and v.7 that preoccupation with the law is a deceit.
It is good to keep the law, but impossible to do so perfectly, therefore any attempt to be justified (i.e. made right and acceptable in God's sight) is doomed to failure and separates you from Christ. The law is fulfilled through love, but we cannot be saved i.e. cannot be Christians, simply by being loving, because we cannot be loving enough and must instead be justified through faith in Christ.
Rom 2:14 says that you do not need to know the law, if your heart is pure you will follow the law without knowing it. How can you so completely misread my posting?
I understood what you said, which is why I posted; what you said completely misses Paul's line of argument. He spends the second half of chapter 1 laying out the sinfulness of man and chapter 2 explaining how no-one has any excuse for sinful behaviour because everyone has either received the law from God or has a conscience which means that they know right from wrong, therefore everyone knows when they do something wrong and everyone therefore stands condemned before God and in need of the good news of the gospel. This is made very clear in v. 15-16 - 'their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.'
The argument reaches a famous climax in Romans 3:20 - 'For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.' i.e. the law does not save and does not make a heart pure; rather it condemns us because it reveals the sinfulness that lies within each one of us.
He then switches to talking about how someone may be found right in God's sight i.e. have a pure heart and it is not by law.
'But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.'
As long as you are loving and caring (follow gal 5:14) you can be incorrect about everything else and still be a good christian.
Incorrect. In fact, this is the very point Paul was arguing against - salvation by works. Theoretically, perfect love could justify someone, but the whole reason Jesus died on the cross was that no-one was perfectly loving, therefore no-one could be justified by the law and justification by another means was required. The Galatian heresy effectively nullified the cross.
in the following verses you can read that although christians are allowed to eat anything, sometimes if other christians object, they better can't eat it.
But that isn't a matter of becoming a Christian; it's a matter of living as one. There's a difference between what saves you and how you should live once you are saved. Christians should live a loving life, but that love does not save them; it is the love of Christ that caused him to die on the cross and rise from the dead that saves them.
thats why i say there is more than one way to be a good christian.
There is freedom in how to live as Christian, but only one way to become one.
One wonders, though, what else the translations (and the first bible itself) gets wrong, when it even fails horribly at one of its central parts.
Regarding translations, you're criticising the KJV, which is around 400 years old. Scholarship is somewhat different now. Or should we evaluate science on the basis of Newton's theories and their failings with regard to relativistic speeds? Regarding 'the first Bible,' are you referring to the KJV or this manuscript? The KJV was not the first translation into English, let alone the first Bible. As for the codex, it is merely the earliest complete manuscript; there are fragments or even entire books that predate it. Besides which, it wouldn't say 'kill'; it wouldn't even have the Hebrew since the 10 commandments are in the Old Testament, not the New.
And that's not any central part, it's the part that is supposed to capture the essence in 10 simple sentences. I mean sheesh, how hard would it have been to make it clear and write "murder"?
Hence pretty much every modern translation that uses better manuscripts and better scholarship rendering the word as 'murder' rather than 'kill'.
Anyway, murder isn't a perfect translation either because unlawful killing is by definition murder (or manslaughter), so to say murder is unlawful is virtually a tautology. At the end of the day, the sentence is a summary, as you pointed out. To find out what constitutes murder would require reading of the rest of the law anyway, so putting 'kill' instead isn't a disaster.
If the KJ version of the bible preaches values that match peoples' opinions better than other versions of the bible, then it's the best version. I'm a little surprised that something that old is the most popular one; I'd think a 21st century bible could do even better.
There are very few denominations that would push the KJV as the best translation. In fact, go into a theological college or seminary, bring the topic up, and you'll be likely be pointed towards the New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version or New American Standard Bible, all of which are late 20th/early 21st century translations. You may even be handed a Nestle-Aland 27th edition Greek New Testament and a copy of Duff's 'Elements of N.T. Greek' (or possibly Mounce).
It's not at all curious. It comes about from a belief that the word of God should be accessible to anyone, not just a scholarly elite. At the same time, anyone is free to learn the original languages and read the best available texts. Most denominations would encourage anyone interested to do so and theological colleges and seminaries usually provide courses for people to learn the languages. There are plenty of books on it as well. In addition, there are plenty of commentaries that allow for varying levels of familiarity with the original languages.
No no, that's not a religious view - that's a scientific point of view - something which is the enemy of all religion.
Really? Then why do so many Christian scholars take that very view? And why were Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell two of the greatest ever scientists and yet also evangelical Christians?
Well according to the bible, there are different ways of being a christian that can all be correct.
Not so. If you can read Galatians (the whole letter, rather than one verse without context) and conclude that it's not about how salvation by works is a perversion of the gospel, which is really about faith, then you've completely misread it. That should be plain from 5:4 'You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. ' Similarly with Romans. The point of Romans 2 is not that knowledge of the law saves, but that knowledge of the law condemns because it reveals our sinfulness, therefore we have need of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
Who are we to judge the correctness of anyones believes? My advice is not to worry to much about who is correct and who isn't. As long as you do the right thing.
How can you do the right thing when you don't know what it is? Surely in order to do it, you have to worry about who is correct?
They went so far as to eventually decide which gospels and versions fo gospels were "true" and should be included in what is now the bible.
Actually that decision was taken following a survey of various churches by a guy called Eusebius of Caeserea in the 4th century, in order to ascertain what was regarded as canonical by each congregation. The current canon is a a result of the consensus reached by the survey. Eusebius even included some books he didn't particularly like because weight of opinion by the church was in favour of said books. Everything was put into three categories: books universally acknowledged (4 gospels, Acts of the Apostles, letters of Paul (number not given, would have included Hebrews), the 1st epistle of John and likewise that of Peter, Revelation); disputed books (James, Jude, 2nd Peter, so called 2nd & 3rd John); spurious books (e.g. Shepherd of Hemas).
You're possibly thinking of the Muratorian fragment, which details the views of the Roman church on the their collection of manuscripts in the 2nd century.
Slashdot Mirror
Direct currency conversion isn't terribly appropriate here; 1000 GBP might not even get you 1500 USD worth of equipment because everything is marked up and taxed higher here. 1200-1500 USD is probably a better estimate.
Why? There's nothing illegal about having a monopoly. And they're not illegally leveraging their 'monopoly' to prevent competition from Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.
True. I'm just wondering if anyone does actually hold to both opinions and what they would say to the suggestion that it might be contradictory. Playing devil's advocate really since all this seems to be happening the other side of the Atlantic and thus is largely irrelevant to me.
Jack Thompson accuses games of corrupting our youth: results in moral indignation from Slashdot, saying that games don't turn anyone into anytihng.
Schools mod America's Army for educational purposes: results in moral indignation from Slashdot, saying that the military is using games to brainwash people.
Don't know if any individuals hold to both views, but it's interesting how these seem to be vocal opinions.
Nonsense. It merely means that it wouldn't be appropriate for them to conduct scientific investigations in that field.
I never claimed it was and in fact that seems to be very much his point - it's not a misapplication of science, but a worldview that supersedes science.
Your logic is severely flawed. The Creationist conclusion requires a particular interpretation of the Bible to be taken and other evidence to then be interpreted in the light of that. It doesn't require anyone to ignore evidence, but rather to interpret it differently. Yes, it's an unscientific manner, but that doesn't make it illogical. At the end of the day, science doesn't tell us anything about reality; all it does is produce models that reproduce observations we take of the world around us. There's nothing to say that scientific models are actually reflective of reality and in theory, if an omniscient being was to reveal the true nature of reality to be different to that suggested by science, that's fine.
Science is able to say nothing about the likelihood of supernatural beings intervening in reality.
It was unnecessary. His original quote was quite sufficient, if people just read it right.
No it's really not. See above. All you can do is build models that are progressively better at reproducing the results of observations. Science can't tell us about the true nature of reality, but that doesn't matter because it doesn't have to.
No. He's saying that creationism isn't science, therefore people who believe in it do not do so because they cannot do science, but because they there are sources of truth they value more highly than science. Talking about science isn't going to persuade them to believe in evolution but at the same time, being a creationist isn't going to prevent them being capable scientists. They can do the investigation and reach scientific conclusions, but when it comes to deciding whether the scientific answer represents reality or not, they'll say 'No.'
Are you replying to the right post, because that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I said? I was pointing out that it's entirely possible to be both a Christian and a great scientist. Do you dispute that? If not, then you don't need to reply. If you do dispute it, you'll need to explain what your last post has to do with the issue, because I see no connection.
Who's arguing for a "God of the Gaps"? Certainly no Christian scientist that I know. The God of the Bible most definitely is not the God of the Gaps and such an idea hasn't been taken seriously in theological circles for a long time. And again, what does it have to do with what I posted? Or are you just throwing up strawman arguments because you have no genuine case to make?
Pity you weren't around to tell Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell that their evangelicalism were incompatible with them being among the greatest scientists in history.
You're doing exactly what the media has done by misunderstanding him. He didn't say it was a misconception, he said it was a bigger more complicated issue. If it was a simple misconception, you could argue that a person's understanding of the scientific method was flawed. As par of a worldview, however, it is possible for someone to understand and be able to employ the scientific method in all areas, except for evolution because here their worldview take priority i.e. they are capable scientists and understand the satnce of scientists on the issue, but reach a different conclusion based on their worldview.
The trouble is that so many people assume that Creationist = can't do science, but the disagreement doesn't necessarily come down to an inability to 'do' science. In fact, your post is an example of the attitudes that prompted him to speak out in the first place.
Oops. That is indeed what I meant.
No, battery is singular. It may be a collective noun, but that doesn't make it plural, just as fleet is plural, despite the fact that refers to a collection of ships. Hence you can have a battery or several batteries.
That would be because you stopped half way through the sentence. The other half says that they are two mechanisms i.e. not the same thing. The article itself is very clear about the differences.
The Wikipedia article talks about the two relationships of transit and customer, but these are both part of the same mechanism, hence the Ars article only talking about two mechanisms. It's analogous to one article talking about 'friends, husbands and wives' and another about 'friendship and marriage'. They are both in agreement about the numbers.
But it's not arbitrary; it's in the terms and conditions of the contract and on their website, so technically they do have the right to do it. They do warn you up front that your actual speeds will vary depending on use. And to be quite frank, anyone posting on a technology website should realise that it's not possible to guarantee full speed all the time because of contention ratios. It's only 5 hours of the day that the restriction applies (actually, more like 4 1/2 since it would take at least 30 minutes to hit the cap).
If you don't like their service, buy from someone else, just like you've said you have the option to do and make sure you're making an informed decision.
Actually, it's 4-9 pm any the throttling only kicks in once you've downloaded 500 MB (in the case of their cheapest package) within that time. The information is on the Virgin website.
Of course you have to remember that Occam's Razor is in no way a guarantee or proof and that testability is not a requirement of truth.
Guess somebody better wake Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell up and tell that their evangelicalism was incompatible with them being great scientists. There are current examples as well (e.g. Alistair McGrath and John Lennox, both of Oxford), but none that would exceed them in stature. But then, I doubt there are too many scientists, evangelical or not, who would.
Is that hyperbole or do you actually mean it? If you actually mean it, well, I'm not sure where to start correcting you because there's a lot of facts there and people keep on findiing evidence to verify said facts. Perhaps we should start with geography and establish the many places named in the Bible exist, then move on the correct distances between them, accuracte depictions of climate, vegetation and wildlife...
Consider for a second the fact that the Greek word translated 'hand' refers to part of the arm as well and that even in English, the wrist can be spoken of as if it was part of the hand. Do you include linguistics as a science?
Flat out wrong.
Again, flat out wrong. Even Wikipedia gets this right and can point you to a number of useful sources.
Before you make absurd and unsubstantiated claims, consider for their implications. If no-one was killed by crucifixion and all the details concerning the crucifixion were wrong, how would the gospels have carried so much weight early on when people could have read them and said 'what a load of nonsense, that never happens'? And don't you think that people might have made a bigger deal of it by now?
There are plenty of theologians, philosophers and scientists who would disagree with you. In fact if people weigh up evidence and act based on the conclusions they reach, having made good use of their mental faculties, then it could be said that they are acting reasonably. Just because someone else comes to a different conclusion based on the same evidence does not necessitate that one or the other party must be acting irrationally.
You must not be very well read on the subject to make a comment like that. There are vast numbers of books and reams of scholarship on the very subject of evidence for Christianity. Again, you may draw a different conclusion form the evidence, but that does not mean there is no evidence or that it isn't good evidence.
God being the best solution is not the same as God being the only solution. Sufficient evidence is not the same as absolute proof. By your standard, pretty much all of science would have to be dismissed because it's always possible that every experiment has gone wrong due to faulty equipment or incorrect measurements being taken. Extremely unlikely things, but possible.
Just because God doesn't make a useful scientific hypothesis doesn't mean he isn't real. The thought isn't antithetical to science, but rather irrelevant. There is no way of telling with science whether God moves the photon or if the photon moves itself. It doesn't matter to science and it says nothing to support either viewpoint.
Science has nothing to say about that. And just because a belief is old does not make it false (not that I'm saying you meant that).
What makes a teacher insightful?
To a certain extent, Jesus encouraged scepticism - he warned against false teachers, including the teachers of the day. At the same time he taught about the utter reliability of God and the Scriptures he had provided and encouraged faith in both them and himself.
How can science possibly answer spiritual questions? Christianity makes claims that are utterly untestable by science. In fact, science ultimately tells us very little about reality. All science does is allow us to construct models that fit our observations of reality. These models do not necessarily reflect the workings of reality, but they don't have to as long as the results the models produce line up with the observations we make of reality.
Actually, if you have a one-tab window open and hit SHIFT-CMD-TAB or go to View:Show Tab Bar from the menu, it'll make a tab visible in every window from that point on, allowing you to consolidate windows. They probably should have an option in the Preferences though, not just in the View menu.
Where did I say that? Whether it commands it is irrelevant because it is not defining the requirements to be a Christian there. Paul is stating that the law is fulfilled through loving your neighbour, but has already said in v. 1 that the law is slavery, v. 2 that Christ is of no advantage if you seek salvation through the law, v. 4 that attempting to be justified by the law severs you from Christ and causes you to fall away form grace, v. 5 that the hope for righteousness lies in faith, in v. 6 that Christ is concerned with faith, rather than keeping of the law and v.7 that preoccupation with the law is a deceit.
It is good to keep the law, but impossible to do so perfectly, therefore any attempt to be justified (i.e. made right and acceptable in God's sight) is doomed to failure and separates you from Christ. The law is fulfilled through love, but we cannot be saved i.e. cannot be Christians, simply by being loving, because we cannot be loving enough and must instead be justified through faith in Christ.
I understood what you said, which is why I posted; what you said completely misses Paul's line of argument. He spends the second half of chapter 1 laying out the sinfulness of man and chapter 2 explaining how no-one has any excuse for sinful behaviour because everyone has either received the law from God or has a conscience which means that they know right from wrong, therefore everyone knows when they do something wrong and everyone therefore stands condemned before God and in need of the good news of the gospel. This is made very clear in v. 15-16 - 'their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.'
The argument reaches a famous climax in Romans 3:20 - 'For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.' i.e. the law does not save and does not make a heart pure; rather it condemns us because it reveals the sinfulness that lies within each one of us.
He then switches to talking about how someone may be found right in God's sight i.e. have a pure heart and it is not by law. 'But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.'
Incorrect. In fact, this is the very point Paul was arguing against - salvation by works. Theoretically, perfect love could justify someone, but the whole reason Jesus died on the cross was that no-one was perfectly loving, therefore no-one could be justified by the law and justification by another means was required. The Galatian heresy effectively nullified the cross.
But that isn't a matter of becoming a Christian; it's a matter of living as one. There's a difference between what saves you and how you should live once you are saved. Christians should live a loving life, but that love does not save them; it is the love of Christ that caused him to die on the cross and rise from the dead that saves them.
There is freedom in how to live as Christian, but only one way to become one.
Regarding translations, you're criticising the KJV, which is around 400 years old. Scholarship is somewhat different now. Or should we evaluate science on the basis of Newton's theories and their failings with regard to relativistic speeds? Regarding 'the first Bible,' are you referring to the KJV or this manuscript? The KJV was not the first translation into English, let alone the first Bible. As for the codex, it is merely the earliest complete manuscript; there are fragments or even entire books that predate it. Besides which, it wouldn't say 'kill'; it wouldn't even have the Hebrew since the 10 commandments are in the Old Testament, not the New.
Hence pretty much every modern translation that uses better manuscripts and better scholarship rendering the word as 'murder' rather than 'kill'.
Anyway, murder isn't a perfect translation either because unlawful killing is by definition murder (or manslaughter), so to say murder is unlawful is virtually a tautology. At the end of the day, the sentence is a summary, as you pointed out. To find out what constitutes murder would require reading of the rest of the law anyway, so putting 'kill' instead isn't a disaster.
There are very few denominations that would push the KJV as the best translation. In fact, go into a theological college or seminary, bring the topic up, and you'll be likely be pointed towards the New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version or New American Standard Bible, all of which are late 20th/early 21st century translations. You may even be handed a Nestle-Aland 27th edition Greek New Testament and a copy of Duff's 'Elements of N.T. Greek' (or possibly Mounce).
It's not at all curious. It comes about from a belief that the word of God should be accessible to anyone, not just a scholarly elite. At the same time, anyone is free to learn the original languages and read the best available texts. Most denominations would encourage anyone interested to do so and theological colleges and seminaries usually provide courses for people to learn the languages. There are plenty of books on it as well. In addition, there are plenty of commentaries that allow for varying levels of familiarity with the original languages.
Really? Then why do so many Christian scholars take that very view? And why were Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell two of the greatest ever scientists and yet also evangelical Christians?
Not so. If you can read Galatians (the whole letter, rather than one verse without context) and conclude that it's not about how salvation by works is a perversion of the gospel, which is really about faith, then you've completely misread it. That should be plain from 5:4 'You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. ' Similarly with Romans. The point of Romans 2 is not that knowledge of the law saves, but that knowledge of the law condemns because it reveals our sinfulness, therefore we have need of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
How can you do the right thing when you don't know what it is? Surely in order to do it, you have to worry about who is correct?
Actually that decision was taken following a survey of various churches by a guy called Eusebius of Caeserea in the 4th century, in order to ascertain what was regarded as canonical by each congregation. The current canon is a a result of the consensus reached by the survey. Eusebius even included some books he didn't particularly like because weight of opinion by the church was in favour of said books. Everything was put into three categories: books universally acknowledged (4 gospels, Acts of the Apostles, letters of Paul (number not given, would have included Hebrews), the 1st epistle of John and likewise that of Peter, Revelation); disputed books (James, Jude, 2nd Peter, so called 2nd & 3rd John); spurious books (e.g. Shepherd of Hemas).
You're possibly thinking of the Muratorian fragment, which details the views of the Roman church on the their collection of manuscripts in the 2nd century.