The parent post didn't say he/she thought the whole Bible was just allegorical or poetic; just the creation story as found in Genesis. There are plenty of us Christians who believe that the creation story told in Genesis is simply a simplistic retelling of what happened. For example, the 6 days (+1 of rest) are not actually 24 hours or 1000 years are anything like that - they simply represent periods of time, which could have been millions or billions of years.
And even that should probably not be taken too literally. The big difference between the oldest creation story (Genesis 2) and the more recent one (Genesis 1), is that in Genesis 2, God creates man, plants and animals, whereas in Genesis 1, he creates light, darkness, the stars, time, etc. Basically the entire universe with all its laws of physics. Genesis 1 presents a much greater image of God than the much older story in Genesis 2.
To me, that is the big message of Genesis 1: God isn't just some superman that's a product of our own universe, he created the entire universe with all its laws, machanisms and constants (which are inextricably part of it, if Einstein is to be believed).
In any case, you can accept parts of the Bible as allegorical or poetical (although I'd argue that those are very few)
I'd disagree with you. Poetry is a large part of the bible: Job, Psalms, Song of Songs, and many, many smaller parts in various bible books. The bible opening with a poem (most likely written during the Babylonian exile, by the way) isn't really all that surprising.
By the way, a peom isn't automatically true or false. It's poetic. There's layers of hidden meaning and beauty in it. But that idea is probably more suited to art students than to nerds who tend to think in true-or-false logic. (No offense, I'm just like that myself.)
If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
Who made you the guardian of the word "christian", that you can decide which christians can and can't call themselves christian?
Why you've been modded insightful is a mystery to me. You seem to think the bible only consists of Genesis 1 (and possibly 2), which are the creation stories in the bible, and only a very small part of it.
Genesis 1, the first (and most recent) creation story is quite obviously poetry. I don't see how anyone, not even a self-proclaimed-judge-on-who's-christian-and-who's-not, can not see that. Genesis 2, is a different and much older creation story, is prose, but still most likely allegorical.
Christians do not deny MICRO-evolution. For example, when two different breeds of dog mate, they form something different.
However, we deny that species evolve into other species.
Who is this "we" you speak of? Quite a lot of christians have no problem whatsoever with evolution, natural selection, speciation, or any other aspect of mondern biology.
I've seriously never understood the classical religious position on this stuff. I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
My view is that it's caused by what I call a "small view of God". They don't see God as creator of the entire universe with all its laws and mechanisms (including evolution), they see God as a powerful being within this universe (like superman) that created only this earth and everything on it, but not the rest of the universe.
Personally, I see God as creator of the entire universe and everything in it, and that includes evolution. Like you, I don't understand religious people who are troubled by evolution. They're not just denying science, IMO they're denying the greatness of God.
This guy clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. You can't have more than 1800 watts in a power supply. Not unless you want to install a new, dedicated 20 amp circuit for your computer. Or move to a 240 volt system. None of which the average consumer would be willing to do.
The average consumer doesn't need more than 300 Watt for a PC that's perfectly capable of playing all modern games (as long as the games aren't broken by design).
Can we please kill and bury this tired "PC gaming is dead" meme? It's not, and it won't be as long as the PC itself isn't dead. Games are played on any platform that supports them, and that includes cell phones, iphones, pieces of cardboard and yes, even PCs.
It's not TFA's fault, though. The summary is bad, wrong and desperately sensationalist. TFA doesn't say PC gaming is dead, it just says that it's stupid to have 3 $500 GPUs in your PC is ridiculous, which is kinda obvious in these days where you can get a high end PC for less than $1000.
That's impressively bad. But it gets a lot better if you imagine Craig Charles saying those same lines. And then you have to imagine everything else the way it should have been.
Torchwood got a lot better after the first season (when they realised that 'adult' doesn't just mean sex).
Lost cause, I'm afraid. I was really looking forward to Torchwood, and now I hate it. Captain Jack is still awesome in Dr Who, but in Torchwood he was so boring and stupid that I just can't get myself to watch it anymore.
In general, children haven't watched 40 years of back episodes, and so miss out on the continuity errors and trying to keep track of all of the back story that keeps changing.
I don't think Doctor Who was ever meant to be consistent. Particularly not over such a long time span. Usually I'm happy when a single episode doesn't have any glaring holes in its internal consistency. Comparing with seasons of past decades is just asking for trouble.
Ugh, thank god. As a programmer I could never bring myself to put punctuation inside quotations, even though I was taught that was "correct".
I think the Dutch way also usually puts punctuation inside quotation marks, but even as a kid that felt wrong to me. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. I'm even more pleasantly surprised to see that wikipedia example with punctuation both inside and outside the quotes. Sometimes the quote ends in a period, but it's also the last part of my own sentence.
I dunno, maybe Fedora? Personally, I use Ubuntu for my *nix desktops and it blows OSX away.
I recently started using OS X, and I have to agree. Everything that works lightning fast on Linux and Windows is a tedious memory hog on OS X, or at least feels that way. Ofcourse everything that's written specifically for OS X does run well, but it costs money, and I've gotten attached to my open source dev tools.
Since she's essentially playing herself, one must question whether this is is really acting.
This could be argued about most primetime TV actors in the US.
For example, ever noticed how Charlie Sheen always plays a womanizer called Charlie? Not to mention the fact that all Tony Danza's characters are called Tony. I bet there's a million other examples like that.
Yes, well, now add to that the fact that she's also the current girlfriend of the current (but not for long) Doctor - David Tennant.
There was apparently quite the stir in the UK about The Doctor dating The Doctor's Daughter and ZOMG sci-fi incest...(and, at this point, it's all quite old news over there).
Actor who plays the Doctor is dating the real life daughter of actor who plays the Doctor? I wasn't aware of that bit of incest yet.
However, it could explain why she's not going to be a regular. The new Doctor has a tendency to get a bit romantic with his companions, and I can see both the romance with his daughter and the romance with another companion while his daughter-but-actually-his-girlfriend is right there with them, not quite working out all that well. Or it could turn out to be brilliant TV.
I only mentioned Tennant's term coming to an end because he's so terrific; even only seeing most of his first season, he's one of my favorites, and - in that limited sense - his departure is too soon.
I agree. I wouldn't mind seeing Tennant rival Tom Baker's seven seasons.
Eccleston's one + Tennant's four(ish) seasons are still below average.
4 seasons is perfectly average for a Doctor. Ecclestone's one season was a disgrace, though. (In longevity, that it. He was a perfectly good Doctor.)
Switching from singing to acting was a pretty good move on her part, though. I kinda liked Rose, and Billie Piper now has her own series in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". No idea if that's any good, though.
One the one hand, you've got the people in favor of it claiming that abortion isn't "killing" anything because the fetus isn't alive and thinking yet. However, following that logic, then mothers should have the ability to "abort" a child for several months following the birth. Not until several months after birth do memories (a basic building block of sentience) begin to form.
Actually, around the 18th or 20th week of pregnancy, the fetus is already sufficiently aware to form memories. Not conscious memories, obviously, but if the mother sings or plays a tune regularly, then after birth the baby will remember that tune, and it will have a calming and soothing effect on the baby.
I'm generally pro-choice, but the responsible moment to make that choice is before the 20th week. Preferably before the 12th week. Before 12 weeks, the embryo is not fully formed yet, possibly not fully settled in the womb, and there's a huge chance of miscarriage during the first 12 weeks. I have no problem whatsoever with abortions in those first 12 weeks.
After the 12th week there's some grey area IMO, but after 20 weeks you really need a very compelling medical reason to justify an abortion.
And let me be clear, the free ride off men is going to be an option for them either way -- the "get pregnant" way allows her to fuck him once and then get a free ride. She could actually marry him and own half of his shit, but the she'd have to fuck him once a month, minimum. Probably blow him every now and then, too. It's just too much work. So much easier to just pawn the brat off on daycare and public schools.
Now...owning a penis also encourages a lot of bad behavior. I think our right to own penises far outweighs any perceived right to not have to deal with penis owning assholes.
Oh come on. It's only an organ. It's not like you're actually extinguishing a life.
OK but this doesn't *really* have anything to do with the right of people to remain anonymous?
It's relevant to the topic in that it makes anonymity possible but inconvenient. It discourages trolls and fuckwads, but if someone really needs anonymity, the possibility is there. It's a decent balance.
Well I'm pro-abortion, so now you have. The world is overcrowded already, and the people that really need abortions (the type that has six kids within eight years of each other, all under eleven, screaming for candy in WalMart) are the ones that never get them.
I think sterilisation is a better, cheaper and less invasive solution for those people.
I love how this discussion has an explosively controversial issue built right into the discussion, but such that it really has nothing to do with the actual topic at hand. It's like it was written to guarantee the topic of anonymity would get almost no attention at all.
On the contrary. TFA (which I haven't read) presents a pretty balanced, moderate middle ground and a lot of people are talking about anonymity here.
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Where is this stated? Where in the Bible is this alternate time length mentioned?
2 Peter 3:8
Why, precisely, are you bending what was written to justify your belief?
Why are you bending what was written to justify your unbelief?
The parent post didn't say he/she thought the whole Bible was just allegorical or poetic; just the creation story as found in Genesis. There are plenty of us Christians who believe that the creation story told in Genesis is simply a simplistic retelling of what happened. For example, the 6 days (+1 of rest) are not actually 24 hours or 1000 years are anything like that - they simply represent periods of time, which could have been millions or billions of years.
And even that should probably not be taken too literally. The big difference between the oldest creation story (Genesis 2) and the more recent one (Genesis 1), is that in Genesis 2, God creates man, plants and animals, whereas in Genesis 1, he creates light, darkness, the stars, time, etc. Basically the entire universe with all its laws of physics. Genesis 1 presents a much greater image of God than the much older story in Genesis 2.
To me, that is the big message of Genesis 1: God isn't just some superman that's a product of our own universe, he created the entire universe with all its laws, machanisms and constants (which are inextricably part of it, if Einstein is to be believed).
In any case, you can accept parts of the Bible as allegorical or poetical (although I'd argue that those are very few)
I'd disagree with you. Poetry is a large part of the bible: Job, Psalms, Song of Songs, and many, many smaller parts in various bible books. The bible opening with a poem (most likely written during the Babylonian exile, by the way) isn't really all that surprising.
By the way, a peom isn't automatically true or false. It's poetic. There's layers of hidden meaning and beauty in it. But that idea is probably more suited to art students than to nerds who tend to think in true-or-false logic. (No offense, I'm just like that myself.)
If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
Who made you the guardian of the word "christian", that you can decide which christians can and can't call themselves christian?
Why you've been modded insightful is a mystery to me. You seem to think the bible only consists of Genesis 1 (and possibly 2), which are the creation stories in the bible, and only a very small part of it.
Genesis 1, the first (and most recent) creation story is quite obviously poetry. I don't see how anyone, not even a self-proclaimed-judge-on-who's-christian-and-who's-not, can not see that. Genesis 2, is a different and much older creation story, is prose, but still most likely allegorical.
Christians do not deny MICRO-evolution. For example, when two different breeds of dog mate, they form something different.
However, we deny that species evolve into other species.
Who is this "we" you speak of? Quite a lot of christians have no problem whatsoever with evolution, natural selection, speciation, or any other aspect of mondern biology.
The only places in the United states, that are worth living in, are on the East and West coasts. :)
Austin is rumoured to be pretty cool too. And that's Texas!
I've seriously never understood the classical religious position on this stuff. I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
My view is that it's caused by what I call a "small view of God". They don't see God as creator of the entire universe with all its laws and mechanisms (including evolution), they see God as a powerful being within this universe (like superman) that created only this earth and everything on it, but not the rest of the universe.
Personally, I see God as creator of the entire universe and everything in it, and that includes evolution. Like you, I don't understand religious people who are troubled by evolution. They're not just denying science, IMO they're denying the greatness of God.
This guy clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. You can't have more than 1800 watts in a power supply. Not unless you want to install a new, dedicated 20 amp circuit for your computer. Or move to a 240 volt system. None of which the average consumer would be willing to do.
The average consumer doesn't need more than 300 Watt for a PC that's perfectly capable of playing all modern games (as long as the games aren't broken by design).
was there ever a PC game that *required* more than one gfx card?
Crysis. And then they wonder why the game doesn't sell.
Can we please kill and bury this tired "PC gaming is dead" meme? It's not, and it won't be as long as the PC itself isn't dead. Games are played on any platform that supports them, and that includes cell phones, iphones, pieces of cardboard and yes, even PCs.
It's not TFA's fault, though. The summary is bad, wrong and desperately sensationalist. TFA doesn't say PC gaming is dead, it just says that it's stupid to have 3 $500 GPUs in your PC is ridiculous, which is kinda obvious in these days where you can get a high end PC for less than $1000.
You mean this?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KwymOX6ey_g the red dwarf us pilot
That's impressively bad. But it gets a lot better if you imagine Craig Charles saying those same lines. And then you have to imagine everything else the way it should have been.
Torchwood got a lot better after the first season (when they realised that 'adult' doesn't just mean sex).
Lost cause, I'm afraid. I was really looking forward to Torchwood, and now I hate it. Captain Jack is still awesome in Dr Who, but in Torchwood he was so boring and stupid that I just can't get myself to watch it anymore.
In general, children haven't watched 40 years of back episodes, and so miss out on the continuity errors and trying to keep track of all of the back story that keeps changing.
I don't think Doctor Who was ever meant to be consistent. Particularly not over such a long time span. Usually I'm happy when a single episode doesn't have any glaring holes in its internal consistency. Comparing with seasons of past decades is just asking for trouble.
Ugh, thank god. As a programmer I could never bring myself to put punctuation inside quotations, even though I was taught that was "correct".
I think the Dutch way also usually puts punctuation inside quotation marks, but even as a kid that felt wrong to me. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. I'm even more pleasantly surprised to see that wikipedia example with punctuation both inside and outside the quotes. Sometimes the quote ends in a period, but it's also the last part of my own sentence.
'"How about a *nix that's as good as OSX?". '
I dunno, maybe Fedora? Personally, I use Ubuntu for my *nix desktops and it blows OSX away.
I recently started using OS X, and I have to agree. Everything that works lightning fast on Linux and Windows is a tedious memory hog on OS X, or at least feels that way. Ofcourse everything that's written specifically for OS X does run well, but it costs money, and I've gotten attached to my open source dev tools.
Since she's essentially playing herself, one must question whether this is is really acting.
This could be argued about most primetime TV actors in the US.
For example, ever noticed how Charlie Sheen always plays a womanizer called Charlie? Not to mention the fact that all Tony Danza's characters are called Tony. I bet there's a million other examples like that.
Yes, well, now add to that the fact that she's also the current girlfriend of the current (but not for long) Doctor - David Tennant.
There was apparently quite the stir in the UK about The Doctor dating The Doctor's Daughter and ZOMG sci-fi incest...(and, at this point, it's all quite old news over there).
Actor who plays the Doctor is dating the real life daughter of actor who plays the Doctor? I wasn't aware of that bit of incest yet.
However, it could explain why she's not going to be a regular. The new Doctor has a tendency to get a bit romantic with his companions, and I can see both the romance with his daughter and the romance with another companion while his daughter-but-actually-his-girlfriend is right there with them, not quite working out all that well. Or it could turn out to be brilliant TV.
I only mentioned Tennant's term coming to an end because he's so terrific; even only seeing most of his first season, he's one of my favorites, and - in that limited sense - his departure is too soon.
I agree. I wouldn't mind seeing Tennant rival Tom Baker's seven seasons.
Eccleston's one + Tennant's four(ish) seasons are still below average.
4 seasons is perfectly average for a Doctor. Ecclestone's one season was a disgrace, though. (In longevity, that it. He was a perfectly good Doctor.)
Nobody was expecting much from her.
Switching from singing to acting was a pretty good move on her part, though. I kinda liked Rose, and Billie Piper now has her own series in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". No idea if that's any good, though.
One the one hand, you've got the people in favor of it claiming that abortion isn't "killing" anything because the fetus isn't alive and thinking yet.
However, following that logic, then mothers should have the ability to "abort" a child for several months following the birth. Not until several months after birth do memories (a basic building block of sentience) begin to form.
Actually, around the 18th or 20th week of pregnancy, the fetus is already sufficiently aware to form memories. Not conscious memories, obviously, but if the mother sings or plays a tune regularly, then after birth the baby will remember that tune, and it will have a calming and soothing effect on the baby.
I'm generally pro-choice, but the responsible moment to make that choice is before the 20th week. Preferably before the 12th week. Before 12 weeks, the embryo is not fully formed yet, possibly not fully settled in the womb, and there's a huge chance of miscarriage during the first 12 weeks. I have no problem whatsoever with abortions in those first 12 weeks.
After the 12th week there's some grey area IMO, but after 20 weeks you really need a very compelling medical reason to justify an abortion.
And let me be clear, the free ride off men is going to be an option for them either way -- the "get pregnant" way allows her to fuck him once and then get a free ride. She could actually marry him and own half of his shit, but the she'd have to fuck him once a month, minimum. Probably blow him every now and then, too. It's just too much work. So much easier to just pawn the brat off on daycare and public schools.
You're such a romantic.
Now...owning a penis also encourages a lot of bad behavior. I think our right to own penises far outweighs any perceived right to not have to deal with penis owning assholes.
Oh come on. It's only an organ. It's not like you're actually extinguishing a life.
I'm not saying it's practical, just that secrecy, and therefore people voting their own choice, is not guaranteed.
OK but this doesn't *really* have anything to do with the right of people to remain anonymous?
It's relevant to the topic in that it makes anonymity possible but inconvenient. It discourages trolls and fuckwads, but if someone really needs anonymity, the possibility is there. It's a decent balance.
Well I'm pro-abortion, so now you have. The world is overcrowded already, and the people that really need abortions (the type that has six kids within eight years of each other, all under eleven, screaming for candy in WalMart) are the ones that never get them.
I think sterilisation is a better, cheaper and less invasive solution for those people.
I love how this discussion has an explosively controversial issue built right into the discussion, but such that it really has nothing to do with the actual topic at hand. It's like it was written to guarantee the topic of anonymity would get almost no attention at all.
On the contrary. TFA (which I haven't read) presents a pretty balanced, moderate middle ground and a lot of people are talking about anonymity here.