To be fair, most of the errors of the movie 300 were also in the graphic novel. And while it doesn't portray homosexuality, probably the biggest inaccuracy in the film is the line "Athenian boy-lovers."
I think the question here is whether it would be a better movie if they actually expressed (or displayed) that pederasty. But I can appreciate it as a work of fiction, and I think it works well.
Then again, I wasn't really sure until I saw Firefly that hard science fiction would be as fun to watch. No sound in space, but it uses that silence well.
We wanted a foundation that addresses a full spectrum of software projects, and does so with the licensing and intellectual property needs of commercial software companies in mind.
This seems to imply that there are existing foundations that do so without those licensing and IP needs. Regardless, what do you see as the role of a foundation like yours in addressing the needs of commercial software companies?
I have given you a few pieces of EVIDENCE of why I believe in the message of the Bible and in Jesus Christ.
Hmm... this time, the best you've given me is a link to a short web summary, which I then refuted. Is there anything else? Maybe this book:
There are others who have written thick books on the subject. Here is one of the better ones:
Sounds great! Can you quote a passage here, and save us both some time? I mean, it's obviously convincing to you...
Since it would take considerable investment on my part, I should like to know it would be worth the investment. A quick Google shows several critiques -- the most complete being Jeff Lowder's The Jury Is In -- The Ruling on McDowell's "Evidence". Interestingly, this book is available in its complete form on that very site I've linked, while the original book is only available (as far as I can tell) in printed form, even though Josh McDowell has other books available for free.
Skimming this, I see no obvious flaws, and I see several patterns which have been common to your own arguments here. For example:
As he habitually does throughout this book, McDowell relies here upon the fallacy of appeal to authority, calling in supposed experts whose opinions we are to accept just because McDowell tells us they know what they are talking about. This is something no careful student in any field of study ever does.
Emphasis mine.
While it's a nice diversion, I see no reason I would want to pay money to read an entire book of it, in a format I don't enjoy (I prefer electronic texts), without the opportunity to immediately respond; rather, I would likely end up writing a book myself, one very much like "Jury".
A quick excerpt from Jury:
It will come as no surprise when I confess to having pursued the apologetics racket for some years, both as an eager reader of Inter-Varsity Press books and as a student at a major evangelical Seminary. My experience is not at all unusual. It is repeated again and again. Virtually every radical New Testament scholar one meets turns out to have rejected his or her evangelical past long ago, often after having seen through the same arguments McDowell and company keep retreading and daring the heathen to refute. Why do all those "bigoted" religion professors on secular campuses or liberal seminaries persist in ignoring McDowell and his allies? Simply because they have all been there before. They used to play on the same team McDowell coaches, only, unlike him, they realized long ago it was an unwinnable game.
Again, emphasis mine.
As I said before, the Bible is like a deposition taken from eyewitnesses. The fact that these eyewitnesses lived almost 2000 years ago is immaterial.
On the contrary, the fact that these eyewitnesses lived so long ago is directly relevant -- a lot can happen in two thousand years.
In all your replies, you have stated that you do not believe these witnesses,
I have stated that I am skeptical of the account, for many reasons, among them that I doubt the witnesses themselves existed.
mainly because you do not believe in anything your senses cannot tell you.
Please stop.
If I have ever ascribed to you a view which you do not hold, I apologize, but I certainly don't think I've done so in this exchange. Yet you've done so in virtually every message.
I think I am being extremely polite given how consistently you lie about me.
If I am to be generous, I could say that you are correct, in that I don't tend to believe things which never pass through my senses. That is, I don't tend to believe things which are only fabrications of my own mind. But there are certainly things I believe for which the evidence is indirect.
Yes we can, but do you actually doubt that there are people for which lack of crypto is a deal-breaker? I'd rather not make the effort to track down my crypto-nerd friends unless there's a reason to.
I actually do doubt that there are unpatched security vulnerabilities in Pidgin which the developers refuse to fix. The only place I've ever heard that assertion is from a person who claims Kopete lacks webcam support.
If it wasn't obvious before, it's obvious now that you have an agenda. I am not asking that you abandon it, but that you be aware of it as you read and respond, and try not to let it get in the way of an honest discussion.
Similarly, it is obvious (duh) that you have a set of beliefs. I am not asking that you abandon them, simply identify them and be willing to examine what it might imply if they were not true. At least try to envision the world from my point of view.
I ask this because your post is, as usual, riddled with unproven assertions. I have tried to keep mine free of them -- I do not say "there is no God" or make references to "imaginary friends" every two sentences. I'll expand on this later, but such preaching is insulting to my intelligence. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, don't be surprised if the discussion dissolves into simple "yes he does" and "no he doesn't" shouting, with no reason behind it.
You see, biblical faith is NOT unreasonable. It is based on good historical evidence that would hold up in any law court.
If this were true, you would be able to make a logical argument for it. Yet so far, you've made emotional appeals, appeals to authority, and other attempts to go around a solid, logical, intellectual discussion, and instead "expand my thinking outside the box of my own limited rationality, into the realm of faith."
You've told me several times, and quite clearly, that God does not work within the realm of the scientific method.
In other words, this is your own interpretation. I may not have treated it kindly with the word "unreasonable", but this is why faith is needed.
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your REASONABLE service... Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us REASON together, says Jehovah; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.
Claiming that something is reasonable is not the same as showing that it is reasonable. Why is a living sacrifice reasonable, and why would a loving god demand one?
But the real flaw in this argument is that it can be used against you. If all that is needed to make a reasonable argument is to claim that we should use reason, I could say "Richard Dawkins is more rational than you, and doesn't believe in God. QED."
Simply claiming something is not enough to show that it is true.
Tolkien, CS Lewis, Simon Greenleaf and Lee Strobel are a few of the people I have mentioned who have researched the Christian gospel.
This smells like an appeal to authority, but may be something less. However, I should point out that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchins, and a personal hero, George Hrab, have all concluded publicly that the Christian gospel, along with most other things we'd call religion, is complete bunk -- a delusion.
They have done so through their own reason, and they have done so without condemning all believers -- though they are quick to call out the crazier believers, or the flaws in the belief itself.
I could also mention that many people highly trained in critical thought -- scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Noam Chomsky, Marie Curie, Crick and Watson, and many others -- hold similar views. While Einstein is debated, he could at best be called a deist and a cultural Jew, and it would be a very conservative sort of deism.
Did that sway you at all?
If not, would you expect mere mention of those who support your own opinion to sway me?
Do you really think that it is wrong to depend on and consult an authority, a source that is more knowledgeable about a given subject?
First of all, let me turn this tactic on you, and appeal to authority. Here is a quote from Bertrand Russel:
Windows Live Messenger can interoperate with people who use Yahoo! Messenger.
Cool! That only leaves gtalk, aim, jabber, gadu-gadu, and a dozen other protocols.
IIRC there are also third party plugins for messenger which will will do crypto.
Cool! Now how about a plugin to filter spim? Or to auto-respond? Or auto-bookmark incoming links? Or run an arbitrary user script on incoming messages? Or auto-translate everything?
In other words: Just how complete is the plugin API?
Pidgin suffers from horrible, not soon to be fixed security holes and the developper refuse to fix them.
Citation needed.
Kopete lacks webcam support completely
Have you bothered to check your facts at all?
I currently use Kopete. It has had webcam support as long as I have used it. If anything, it's Pidgin that lacks webcam support, though that may have changed.
Live Messenger suffers from slow Microsoft servers, but the protocol is reversed engineered like crazy, and the client itself has nothing to do with that.
Other than by only working with those slow Microsoft servers.
Add upon that Linux IM's that do not even enhance the image quality of the webcam
How about Linux Skype? Quality seemed damned good, last I tried.
Crypto is only usefull when you are having something to hide.
Let's see... bullshit. I'm not even going to bother replying to this.
Talking about "OMG where's my privacy then?" and carying a mobile phone with subscription with you everyday
You assume that I send sensitive information over a mobile phone, or that I haven't enabled crypto on that.
Plus I am not an enemy of a dictatorship country so I don't give a fsck.
Your loss, but that is far from the only reason for using crypto.
Regardless, your answer essentially amounts to, "Whoops, it can't use crypto, but I don't care, therefore it must not be important."
See, to many people, lack of crypto is a deal-breaker.
Offering the same software portfolio as Apple has.
I suppose that's the reason for the ads the other poster is claiming...
You're really not making a very good case. You could claim "I like it better," but your claim of "best ever" just fails.
while elegant (which is not the same thing as simple)
It was also, however, quite simple.
was also wrong.
It actually wasn't, just inaccurate. Einstein's relativity was not a replacement, but a refinement of Newtonian physics -- we use Newton's equations far more often than we use Einstein's.
Relativity is also not terribly complex, actually simple enough to explain to a grade-school student. The worst of it is that it's not intuitive -- but "unintuitive" is not the same as "complex".
And as I think I've commented elsewhere, even if we accept these revolutionary ideas as more complex, they are also far rarer than the frequent and subtle refinements that we make to what we know.
Compare the revelation of something like germ theory, for example, to the thousands of pharmaceuticals produced today which obey all known physical laws, and generally do what we'd expect them to.
Now, Occam's Razor does fail with revolutionary ideas, only in that it doesn't predict them. It can certainly be used to evaluate them. The core of Occam's razor is the question "Which is more likely?" At a certain point, the revolutionary idea has so much evidence that it seems far more likely for the idea to be true than for the evidence to be faulty, and certainly, the extravagant complexity of ideas which must be invented to explain such evidence as faulty starts to become much more complex than the idea itself.
For an example, look at evolution by natural selection. The idea is quite simple. The attempts to refute it, aside from being largely magical thinking, are also quite complex, often ludicrous and desperate.
Please try to actually read my post and understand my point of view before responding. You clearly did not, last time.
How can you expect me to come around to your point of view if you won't at least make an effort to understand mine?
Sometimes other people who are smarter than you and I or at least have studied the subject more extensively can come up with better reasons as to why they believe a certain thing.
To take them at their word requires faith. One of the things which supports your faith is these people who have studied the subject more extensively.
Do you see why that would be a problem for me?
If you truly understand their arguments, you should be able to make the same argument here. While I could refer you to actual writings of David Hume, for example, I've instead actually quoted directly or paraphrased where I can. Is it too much to ask that you do the same?
Actually, in that spirit, since you obviously have yet to read the definition of "Argument from Authority", here it is, from Wikipedia:
Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:
Source A says that p. Source A is authoritative. Therefore, p is true.
This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false).
Emphasis mine.
Obviously, it is your right to say whatever you wish, but understand that I will not consider any arguments from authority in this discussion, beyond pointing out that they are, in fact, arguments from authority.
So all the people, millions of them, who believe in Jesus Christ and order their lives accordingly, are all irrational and deluded.
I have not claimed that, only that I am rational. More accurately, I am claiming that my understanding of Christianity is more rational than theirs.
You may think this is splitting hairs, but it is actually an important point: I am not saying that these people are wholly delusional or irrational. In fact, many people are capable of being very rational in most of their lives, but hold a few irrational beliefs.
To take an example: Surely, you would agree with me that homeopathy is absurd. (If not, you should look up the definition of it -- essentially, dissolving whatever agent caused Problem X in the first place to well beyond when Avogadro's Number would predict that a single atom of the original "active ingredient" remains, then selling it as a cure for Problem X.)
Now, I know at least one person who is entirely rational in everyday life, mostly rational about religion, and certainly able to think carefully and critically. Yet he swears by a few homeopathic remedies. He understands fully how absurd it is, yet he claims they work for him, which is good enough for him.
If you still doubt millions of people can be wrong, just look at the American economy right now. Not that this would sway you from this foolish argument, since you are capable of ignoring the truly massive paradigm shifts in undestanding -- millions of people believed that the Earth was flat.
Atheists claim that there is no God because they have never seen him.
That is a gross mischaracterization of the atheist position. Frankly, after our previous discussions, I'm offended -- you should know better.
We claim only that there is not sufficient evidence to justify belief in a God.
Such evidence does not have to be eyesight, as you so ludicrously suggest:
Have you ever seen your brain?... Long before radio waves were discovered...
best messenger ever. Don't even dare to argue with me on that one because you WILL lose this one
I'm game. What makes it so great?
I can give you a list of things it doesn't have, and likely never will, that other messengers do. Towards the top of the list is interoperability. Google Talk uses Jabber to begin with, which is the defacto open standard for IM, so it wins as a network. Pidgin, Kopete, Adium, Trillian, and Meebo all allow connections to most IM networks, including Windows Live, Yahoo, and AIM, and I know for a fact that Pidgin, Kopete, and Adium support Jabber.
Farther down is good AV support. Maybe it's improved, but right now, Skype wins on that front.
And finally, there's the ability to write plugins, or write my own client. For instance, how easy is it to record a history of every message ever sent? Pidgin, Kopete, and Adium all have History plugins, and Google Talk does it server-side automatically, unless you turn it off. How about crypto? Again, Pidgin, Kopete, and Adium have plugins, and Google Talk has an "off the record" feature.
Can Windows Live do either crypto or history at all?
so that they can still make huge amount of profit outside of the Windows OS realm.
How do they make a profit on Windows Live Messenger? I'm curious what the business model there is. I'd always assumed it was a way to suck people into MSN as a whole -- whoops, I mean Windows Live -- and get them to keep using Windows and Microsoft services for more things -- for example, it ties into Hotmail.
But it seems like at least part of its purpose is to support the Windows platform (hence the name), so I can see why they wouldn't want to port it.
Well, no matter what else, they gain marketshare. Right now, they have the best -- or at least, rumored to be the best -- development tools for it (Visual Studio.NET), so it's in their interest to promote the platform as a whole, as that means more people using their tools.
It's the same reason it's in Google's best interest to improve the Internet as a whole, even if that means releasing a bunch of open source stuff which doesn't immediately, directly benefit them. Obvious example: Chrome was the catalyst for all browsers increasing their Javascript performance, thus enabling Google to create even cooler stuff that they might see more direct benefit from, such as Wave.
That's a non-sequitor. Newton has brilliantly shown that very simple answers are often closer to right than the more common, complex, conventional wisdom.
So basicily you are saying life came from anything but what I might believe?
No, I didn't say that either. There are explanations I would accept, and explanations I wouldn't. I gave you four things you hadn't considered, two of which have already been rejected. I personally reject the idea of us living in a simulation as being a useless idea -- even if it were true, it doesn't imply anything useful until it's proven.
do you work so hard to maintain you ambiguity
No, I seem to have to work much harder to explain to someone the very simple concept of not knowing, and what's likely.
Here, let me ask you a simple question: What am I wearing?
You don't know.
You might say something like "Boxers or briefs?" But that's a false dichotomy. I could be wearing nothing at all, or I could be wearing panties, or long johns, or anything in between.
Now, suppose I told you I was getting a blowjob from an incredibly hot brunette curled up under my desk, as I'm typing this.
You'd rightly be skeptical, but you couldn't say for certain that it wasn't happening.
Suppose I said that she was an alien -- that she had green skin, that she shimmers and glows, and that she teleports away the instant anyone walks into the room.
You still couldn't prove that no green-skinned alien babes exist, but you'd probably be even more skeptical. You might say something like "that's impossible". Actually, you'd probably start out assuming I was joking, and you'd think I was a lunatic if I pressed you, insisting I was serious.
Now, how hard did you have to work to develop your ambiguity about what I'm wearing? And do you really work that hard just to make damn sure you rule out alien chicks? I mean, do you actually believe that I could be wearing absolutely anything except a real live alien chick?
That took a weird turn, but I think it's still a valid argument.
Point is: There are infinitely many explanations I'd reject as ridiculous, infinitely many I might accept as possible, and so on, and it's all based on the same common sense that tells you I'm probably wearing boxers or briefs, that I might be naked or commando, but that I'm probably not getting a blowjob, and definitely not fucking an alien.
'Miraculous' is not the same thing as 'impossible'. It simply means 'rare'.
I believe its intended use here is something more along the lines of "a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent." (wordnet)
Given the reality of mediumistic phenomena, psychic healings and 20th/21st century near death experiencers who have reported unexplainable recoveries after being clinically dead?
A quick summary: Mediums are largely a combination of cold reading (deliberate or unintentional) and outright fraud. Psychic healers, pay close attention to what they do when they have medical trouble -- yep, they go right to good old western medicine. Near death experiences can be explained as a psychological phenomenon, and all NDEs are consistent with the culture in which that individual has been brought up. And "unexplainable" recoveries are not unexplainable, but unexplained -- which just says that we don't know everything there is to know about the human body.
Here's a fun challenge: Why won't God heal amputees? You clearly believe he heals people, but he never heals those who have actually lost a limb. Why not?
For a longer explanation, you can find skeptical information about this stuff. It's largely bunk, and James Randi's million dollar prize remains unclaimed. Until very recently, it was available to anyone who could prove anything supernatural in a controlled experiment. While it's disappointing that it's now somewhat restricted (they want TV personalities), they tested many claims, and none made it past the preliminary test.
I will grant that if things like this were everyday occurrences, there wouldn't be much problem with the story -- but it also probably wouldn't have spawned a major religion. It is precisely because it's not an everyday experience that we can say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
So far, there has been no such extraordinary proof.
we should favor the more complicated explanations, they have turned out to be true more often than the simpler ones.
Citations needed.
I think you're seeing the success effect. Yes, every now and then, we get a Newton, or an Einstein, or a Copernicus, or...
Seeing a pattern here? People like that, and discoveries like that, are so rare you know their names.
The history of science is also one giant validation of Occam's razor. How many times have there been strange and wonderful explanations for some phenomenon, involving spirits... hell, Ptolomy required the planets be set in discs and precisely wound up; this was a significantly more complex model than Copernicus... And at the end of the day, it usually ends up being the simple and mundane explanation that is correct.
Sometimes, it's the simple and extraordinary that is correct -- for example, Newton. Revolutionary? Yes. More complex? Well, which is more complex: That the entire universe follows a set of simple mathematical laws, or that some things are "Heavenly" and float for some unknown reason, while other things fall?
Only very, very occasionally is it something that's completely strange and unintuitive, yet still surprisingly simple -- Relativity, for example.
And as I said in the beginning: This is the success effect. How many strange and complex ideas were ultimately found to be wrong? Kepler's attempt to use the geometric solids to hold up the heavens; worries about encountering sea monsters at the edge of the world; all manner of psychic and otherwise supernatural claims which don't stand up to the slightest hint of scientific rigor...
A few crazy ideas turned out to be right, but it wasn't "more often", and certainly, the saner your idea was, the more likely it was to be correct.
I'll let that slide, though I notice you haven't mentioned it in Mirriam-Webster or anything similar. At least none of those are Urban Dictionary.
In my experience, only Creationists actually use the term "Evolutionist", whereas the people who actually do the work refer to themselves as "Scientists" or "Evolutionary Biologists".
When you'd rather attack the messenger, than debate
Did I attack you? I don't actually see it anywhere, except the use of the word "Fail". Your use of the word "evolutionist" could be taken in the same spirit.
There was also the general statement I made: "those who reject evolution tend not to have a very good understanding of it." You could take this personally, but it was meant as a simple observation.
you don't have much of anything to stand on, do you?
Maybe just the entire rest of my post?
I find it interesting that you chose exactly that point to attack, not anything of substance. In fact, I find it deeply ironic that you decided to pick this one part, and make precisely the same attack on me that you accuse me of making, rather than attempting to refute a single one of my actual points.
It's possible I'm wrong, however. Maybe you have found a bunny in the Cambrian.
That's almost a relief. Still, I'm surprised you have yet to cash in on any of my offers. Read on, you might just get some cash!
you BELIEVE, you dont know for sure BUT you are almost positive the big bang just happened from nothing
I will PayPal you $10 if you can find me saying this.
No, I have never expressed any belief or opinion, one way or the other, about what the cause of the Big Bang was, or what happened before it. I just don't see any reason whatsoever to assume that it was an intelligence at all, let alone that it was the Christian god.
Other possibilities you haven't considered include:
Perhaps there was a Big Crunch before the Big Bang, and that was the cause.
Space-time might be shaped something like a sphere, such that asking what caused the Big Bang is like asking what's North of the North Pole -- a meaningless question.
The Universe, including the Big Bang, is entirely an artificial construct set in a virtual world, making it again a meaningless question.
Even crazier ideas -- look up M-Theory.
Two of these have actually been disproved, I think, to the extent that they can be. The point is that you've created a false dichotomy -- either I believe your imaginary friend created the Universe, or I must believe it "just happened". There are infinitely many possibilities in between.
We do not have solid evidence for all events that happened in the natural world.
That is true. In "should", here, I don't mean to imply that "it follows", but rather, "we would expect."
scientific studies have shown that prayer does have effect.
Citation, please.
because this effect is repeatable, it suggests that it might not be God at work here, but some natural phenomenon.
Were these studies properly controlled? That is, did those receiving prayer all know whether or not they were being prayed for? If so, it could be a simple psychological effect, something as simple as the Placebo.
You seem to think that science is the be-all and end-all and has the ultimate grasp on our all of reality.
No, but as you've heard me say many times before, it is the most reliable tool we have for understanding the world.
it is quite valid to appeal to a higher authority
Not in a logical argument, which is why it is a logical fallacy. If you have an argument to make, you should be able to make it yourself.
All the billions of Christians that have lived and are living on this world are are wrong, deceived, foolish and you are a brilliant intellectual in your beliefs.
I don't claim to be brilliant, only rational. And billions of people once thought the Earth was flat, and that the sun and the stars revolved around the earth.
Now, we can find ways in which they are right. We still speak of sunrise, after all, and the sun does still appear to move around the world.
Religion has nothing so obvious as its source, but I think many people are still drawn to it for two main reasons: A sense of awe (a spiritual high) and a sense of community. These are good things to have, but we can have them without the baggage of religion, just as we can use that useful metaphor of the sun rising and setting, while understanding that it is the Earth spinning, instead.
I watched a few interviews with John Campbell lately, who made a life's work out of studying myths and legends from around the world. He concluded that all myths are true in a sense, but they are not literally true -- and he included the Bible in this. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do agree that those who take any myth literally are missing the point -- and he argued that there is a much deeper meaning to the Jesus story which you are missing by taking it literally.
The fact that the Bible, to you, nothing but a pack of lies at worst, or fairytales at best, is the most translated and distributed book on earth means nothing.
Correct. Consider, also, that at various times throughout the history of this country, more people have known who one particular sports star, actor, or other celebrity is than know who the president is. Popularity is obviously not any indication of what is true, or even of what is important.
I would also guess that in the United States, during the year Return of the King was released, it probably sold more tickets than there were Bibles sold. I would guess this is probably true even if you count the Gideons and other such bibles, so rarely read at all. And The Lord of the Rings could certainly be taken as a narrative woven from a collection of eyewitness accounts.
Indeed, I would guess (though I haven't backed this up) that if you were to take any one translation of the Bible, and look at other works of fiction produced during that time. How many Bibles were sold, versus Harry Potter books? What about Twilight books, lately?
For that matter, Gor is quite popular itself, having spawned something of a religion in people attempting to follow its lifestyle...
To you, all these other books are fiction, but the Bible is fact. It deserves a special place, either because it is very popular, or because you have a deep emotional bond to it. Moreover, your faith in the principles behind it is so strong that there is no evidence I could present which would sway it. I think that is a dangerous position, but regardless, it is certainly not a logical argument.
There are three places for humans to be. There is earth, heaven and hell.
One of which actually exists.
The rest of your post is not an argument, but preaching. Unfortunately for you, I am not the choir, and you've neglected the bulk of the points I made in order for another chance to preach at me.
It's worth mentioning, you started out with this interesting attempt at a logical argument. Look how quickly you've abandoned it for an emotional one. You began this discussion claiming to offer proof, and all you can offer now is dogma.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair, most of the errors of the movie 300 were also in the graphic novel. And while it doesn't portray homosexuality, probably the biggest inaccuracy in the film is the line "Athenian boy-lovers."
I think the question here is whether it would be a better movie if they actually expressed (or displayed) that pederasty. But I can appreciate it as a work of fiction, and I think it works well.
Then again, I wasn't really sure until I saw Firefly that hard science fiction would be as fun to watch. No sound in space, but it uses that silence well.
From your FAQ:
We wanted a foundation that addresses a full spectrum of software projects, and does so with the licensing and intellectual property needs of commercial software companies in mind.
This seems to imply that there are existing foundations that do so without those licensing and IP needs. Regardless, what do you see as the role of a foundation like yours in addressing the needs of commercial software companies?
Will priority be given to those using Microsoft tools, or can anyone play?
I have given you a few pieces of EVIDENCE of why I believe in the message of the Bible and in Jesus Christ.
Hmm... this time, the best you've given me is a link to a short web summary, which I then refuted. Is there anything else? Maybe this book:
There are others who have written thick books on the subject. Here is one of the better ones:
Sounds great! Can you quote a passage here, and save us both some time? I mean, it's obviously convincing to you...
Since it would take considerable investment on my part, I should like to know it would be worth the investment. A quick Google shows several critiques -- the most complete being Jeff Lowder's The Jury Is In -- The Ruling on McDowell's "Evidence". Interestingly, this book is available in its complete form on that very site I've linked, while the original book is only available (as far as I can tell) in printed form, even though Josh McDowell has other books available for free.
Skimming this, I see no obvious flaws, and I see several patterns which have been common to your own arguments here. For example:
As he habitually does throughout this book, McDowell relies here upon the fallacy of appeal to authority, calling in supposed experts whose opinions we are to accept just because McDowell tells us they know what they are talking about. This is something no careful student in any field of study ever does.
Emphasis mine.
While it's a nice diversion, I see no reason I would want to pay money to read an entire book of it, in a format I don't enjoy (I prefer electronic texts), without the opportunity to immediately respond; rather, I would likely end up writing a book myself, one very much like "Jury".
A quick excerpt from Jury:
It will come as no surprise when I confess to having pursued the apologetics racket for some years, both as an eager reader of Inter-Varsity Press books and as a student at a major evangelical Seminary. My experience is not at all unusual. It is repeated again and again. Virtually every radical New Testament scholar one meets turns out to have rejected his or her evangelical past long ago, often after having seen through the same arguments McDowell and company keep retreading and daring the heathen to refute. Why do all those "bigoted" religion professors on secular campuses or liberal seminaries persist in ignoring McDowell and his allies? Simply because they have all been there before. They used to play on the same team McDowell coaches, only, unlike him, they realized long ago it was an unwinnable game.
Again, emphasis mine.
As I said before, the Bible is like a deposition taken from eyewitnesses. The fact that these eyewitnesses lived almost 2000 years ago is immaterial.
On the contrary, the fact that these eyewitnesses lived so long ago is directly relevant -- a lot can happen in two thousand years.
In all your replies, you have stated that you do not believe these witnesses,
I have stated that I am skeptical of the account, for many reasons, among them that I doubt the witnesses themselves existed.
mainly because you do not believe in anything your senses cannot tell you.
Please stop.
If I have ever ascribed to you a view which you do not hold, I apologize, but I certainly don't think I've done so in this exchange. Yet you've done so in virtually every message.
I think I am being extremely polite given how consistently you lie about me.
If I am to be generous, I could say that you are correct, in that I don't tend to believe things which never pass through my senses. That is, I don't tend to believe things which are only fabrications of my own mind. But there are certainly things I believe for which the evidence is indirect.
Yes we can, but do you actually doubt that there are people for which lack of crypto is a deal-breaker? I'd rather not make the effort to track down my crypto-nerd friends unless there's a reason to.
I actually do doubt that there are unpatched security vulnerabilities in Pidgin which the developers refuse to fix. The only place I've ever heard that assertion is from a person who claims Kopete lacks webcam support.
If it wasn't obvious before, it's obvious now that you have an agenda. I am not asking that you abandon it, but that you be aware of it as you read and respond, and try not to let it get in the way of an honest discussion.
Similarly, it is obvious (duh) that you have a set of beliefs. I am not asking that you abandon them, simply identify them and be willing to examine what it might imply if they were not true. At least try to envision the world from my point of view.
I ask this because your post is, as usual, riddled with unproven assertions. I have tried to keep mine free of them -- I do not say "there is no God" or make references to "imaginary friends" every two sentences. I'll expand on this later, but such preaching is insulting to my intelligence. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, don't be surprised if the discussion dissolves into simple "yes he does" and "no he doesn't" shouting, with no reason behind it.
You see, biblical faith is NOT unreasonable. It is based on good historical evidence that would hold up in any law court.
If this were true, you would be able to make a logical argument for it. Yet so far, you've made emotional appeals, appeals to authority, and other attempts to go around a solid, logical, intellectual discussion, and instead "expand my thinking outside the box of my own limited rationality, into the realm of faith."
You've told me several times, and quite clearly, that God does not work within the realm of the scientific method.
In other words, this is your own interpretation. I may not have treated it kindly with the word "unreasonable", but this is why faith is needed.
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your REASONABLE service...
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us REASON together, says Jehovah; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.
Claiming that something is reasonable is not the same as showing that it is reasonable. Why is a living sacrifice reasonable, and why would a loving god demand one?
But the real flaw in this argument is that it can be used against you. If all that is needed to make a reasonable argument is to claim that we should use reason, I could say "Richard Dawkins is more rational than you, and doesn't believe in God. QED."
Simply claiming something is not enough to show that it is true.
Tolkien, CS Lewis, Simon Greenleaf and Lee Strobel are a few of the people I have mentioned who have researched the Christian gospel.
This smells like an appeal to authority, but may be something less. However, I should point out that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchins, and a personal hero, George Hrab, have all concluded publicly that the Christian gospel, along with most other things we'd call religion, is complete bunk -- a delusion.
They have done so through their own reason, and they have done so without condemning all believers -- though they are quick to call out the crazier believers, or the flaws in the belief itself.
I could also mention that many people highly trained in critical thought -- scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Noam Chomsky, Marie Curie, Crick and Watson, and many others -- hold similar views. While Einstein is debated, he could at best be called a deist and a cultural Jew, and it would be a very conservative sort of deism.
Did that sway you at all?
If not, would you expect mere mention of those who support your own opinion to sway me?
Do you really think that it is wrong to depend on and consult an authority, a source that is more knowledgeable about a given subject?
First of all, let me turn this tactic on you, and appeal to authority. Here is a quote from Bertrand Russel:
[I]t is n
Windows Live Messenger can interoperate with people who use Yahoo! Messenger.
Cool! That only leaves gtalk, aim, jabber, gadu-gadu, and a dozen other protocols.
IIRC there are also third party plugins for messenger which will will do crypto.
Cool! Now how about a plugin to filter spim? Or to auto-respond? Or auto-bookmark incoming links? Or run an arbitrary user script on incoming messages? Or auto-translate everything?
In other words: Just how complete is the plugin API?
Oh come on! Number please!
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Pidgin suffers from horrible, not soon to be fixed security holes and the developper refuse to fix them.
Citation needed.
Kopete lacks webcam support completely
Have you bothered to check your facts at all?
I currently use Kopete. It has had webcam support as long as I have used it. If anything, it's Pidgin that lacks webcam support, though that may have changed.
Live Messenger suffers from slow Microsoft servers, but the protocol is reversed engineered like crazy, and the client itself has nothing to do with that.
Other than by only working with those slow Microsoft servers.
Add upon that Linux IM's that do not even enhance the image quality of the webcam
How about Linux Skype? Quality seemed damned good, last I tried.
Crypto is only usefull when you are having something to hide.
Let's see... bullshit. I'm not even going to bother replying to this.
Talking about "OMG where's my privacy then?" and carying a mobile phone with subscription with you everyday
You assume that I send sensitive information over a mobile phone, or that I haven't enabled crypto on that.
Plus I am not an enemy of a dictatorship country so I don't give a fsck.
Your loss, but that is far from the only reason for using crypto.
Regardless, your answer essentially amounts to, "Whoops, it can't use crypto, but I don't care, therefore it must not be important."
See, to many people, lack of crypto is a deal-breaker.
Offering the same software portfolio as Apple has.
I suppose that's the reason for the ads the other poster is claiming...
You're really not making a very good case. You could claim "I like it better," but your claim of "best ever" just fails.
Smartphones.
while elegant (which is not the same thing as simple)
It was also, however, quite simple.
was also wrong.
It actually wasn't, just inaccurate. Einstein's relativity was not a replacement, but a refinement of Newtonian physics -- we use Newton's equations far more often than we use Einstein's.
Relativity is also not terribly complex, actually simple enough to explain to a grade-school student. The worst of it is that it's not intuitive -- but "unintuitive" is not the same as "complex".
And as I think I've commented elsewhere, even if we accept these revolutionary ideas as more complex, they are also far rarer than the frequent and subtle refinements that we make to what we know.
Compare the revelation of something like germ theory, for example, to the thousands of pharmaceuticals produced today which obey all known physical laws, and generally do what we'd expect them to.
Now, Occam's Razor does fail with revolutionary ideas, only in that it doesn't predict them. It can certainly be used to evaluate them. The core of Occam's razor is the question "Which is more likely?" At a certain point, the revolutionary idea has so much evidence that it seems far more likely for the idea to be true than for the evidence to be faulty, and certainly, the extravagant complexity of ideas which must be invented to explain such evidence as faulty starts to become much more complex than the idea itself.
For an example, look at evolution by natural selection. The idea is quite simple. The attempts to refute it, aside from being largely magical thinking, are also quite complex, often ludicrous and desperate.
Please try to actually read my post and understand my point of view before responding. You clearly did not, last time.
How can you expect me to come around to your point of view if you won't at least make an effort to understand mine?
Sometimes other people who are smarter than you and I or at least have studied the subject more extensively can come up with better reasons as to why they believe a certain thing.
To take them at their word requires faith. One of the things which supports your faith is these people who have studied the subject more extensively.
Do you see why that would be a problem for me?
If you truly understand their arguments, you should be able to make the same argument here. While I could refer you to actual writings of David Hume, for example, I've instead actually quoted directly or paraphrased where I can. Is it too much to ask that you do the same?
Actually, in that spirit, since you obviously have yet to read the definition of "Argument from Authority", here it is, from Wikipedia:
Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:
Source A says that p.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.
This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false).
Emphasis mine.
Obviously, it is your right to say whatever you wish, but understand that I will not consider any arguments from authority in this discussion, beyond pointing out that they are, in fact, arguments from authority.
So all the people, millions of them, who believe in Jesus Christ and order their lives accordingly, are all irrational and deluded.
I have not claimed that, only that I am rational. More accurately, I am claiming that my understanding of Christianity is more rational than theirs.
You may think this is splitting hairs, but it is actually an important point: I am not saying that these people are wholly delusional or irrational. In fact, many people are capable of being very rational in most of their lives, but hold a few irrational beliefs.
To take an example: Surely, you would agree with me that homeopathy is absurd. (If not, you should look up the definition of it -- essentially, dissolving whatever agent caused Problem X in the first place to well beyond when Avogadro's Number would predict that a single atom of the original "active ingredient" remains, then selling it as a cure for Problem X.)
Now, I know at least one person who is entirely rational in everyday life, mostly rational about religion, and certainly able to think carefully and critically. Yet he swears by a few homeopathic remedies. He understands fully how absurd it is, yet he claims they work for him, which is good enough for him.
If you still doubt millions of people can be wrong, just look at the American economy right now. Not that this would sway you from this foolish argument, since you are capable of ignoring the truly massive paradigm shifts in undestanding -- millions of people believed that the Earth was flat.
Atheists claim that there is no God because they have never seen him.
That is a gross mischaracterization of the atheist position. Frankly, after our previous discussions, I'm offended -- you should know better.
We claim only that there is not sufficient evidence to justify belief in a God.
Such evidence does not have to be eyesight, as you so ludicrously suggest:
Have you ever seen your brain?... Long before radio waves were discovered...
Nor do we claim
That's kind of fascinating, because they were dominating not very long ago.
I wonder what happened...
best messenger ever. Don't even dare to argue with me on that one because you WILL lose this one
I'm game. What makes it so great?
I can give you a list of things it doesn't have, and likely never will, that other messengers do. Towards the top of the list is interoperability. Google Talk uses Jabber to begin with, which is the defacto open standard for IM, so it wins as a network. Pidgin, Kopete, Adium, Trillian, and Meebo all allow connections to most IM networks, including Windows Live, Yahoo, and AIM, and I know for a fact that Pidgin, Kopete, and Adium support Jabber.
Farther down is good AV support. Maybe it's improved, but right now, Skype wins on that front.
And finally, there's the ability to write plugins, or write my own client. For instance, how easy is it to record a history of every message ever sent? Pidgin, Kopete, and Adium all have History plugins, and Google Talk does it server-side automatically, unless you turn it off. How about crypto? Again, Pidgin, Kopete, and Adium have plugins, and Google Talk has an "off the record" feature.
Can Windows Live do either crypto or history at all?
so that they can still make huge amount of profit outside of the Windows OS realm.
How do they make a profit on Windows Live Messenger? I'm curious what the business model there is. I'd always assumed it was a way to suck people into MSN as a whole -- whoops, I mean Windows Live -- and get them to keep using Windows and Microsoft services for more things -- for example, it ties into Hotmail.
But it seems like at least part of its purpose is to support the Windows platform (hence the name), so I can see why they wouldn't want to port it.
Well, no matter what else, they gain marketshare. Right now, they have the best -- or at least, rumored to be the best -- development tools for it (Visual Studio .NET), so it's in their interest to promote the platform as a whole, as that means more people using their tools.
It's the same reason it's in Google's best interest to improve the Internet as a whole, even if that means releasing a bunch of open source stuff which doesn't immediately, directly benefit them. Obvious example: Chrome was the catalyst for all browsers increasing their Javascript performance, thus enabling Google to create even cooler stuff that they might see more direct benefit from, such as Wave.
That's a non-sequitor. Newton has brilliantly shown that very simple answers are often closer to right than the more common, complex, conventional wisdom.
...also, holy shit, did I just Rule 34 Carl Sagan's Dragon in the Garage? I think I did!
So basicily you are saying life came from anything but what I might believe?
No, I didn't say that either. There are explanations I would accept, and explanations I wouldn't. I gave you four things you hadn't considered, two of which have already been rejected. I personally reject the idea of us living in a simulation as being a useless idea -- even if it were true, it doesn't imply anything useful until it's proven.
do you work so hard to maintain you ambiguity
No, I seem to have to work much harder to explain to someone the very simple concept of not knowing, and what's likely.
Here, let me ask you a simple question: What am I wearing?
You don't know.
You might say something like "Boxers or briefs?" But that's a false dichotomy. I could be wearing nothing at all, or I could be wearing panties, or long johns, or anything in between.
Now, suppose I told you I was getting a blowjob from an incredibly hot brunette curled up under my desk, as I'm typing this.
You'd rightly be skeptical, but you couldn't say for certain that it wasn't happening.
Suppose I said that she was an alien -- that she had green skin, that she shimmers and glows, and that she teleports away the instant anyone walks into the room.
You still couldn't prove that no green-skinned alien babes exist, but you'd probably be even more skeptical. You might say something like "that's impossible". Actually, you'd probably start out assuming I was joking, and you'd think I was a lunatic if I pressed you, insisting I was serious.
Now, how hard did you have to work to develop your ambiguity about what I'm wearing? And do you really work that hard just to make damn sure you rule out alien chicks? I mean, do you actually believe that I could be wearing absolutely anything except a real live alien chick?
That took a weird turn, but I think it's still a valid argument.
Point is: There are infinitely many explanations I'd reject as ridiculous, infinitely many I might accept as possible, and so on, and it's all based on the same common sense that tells you I'm probably wearing boxers or briefs, that I might be naked or commando, but that I'm probably not getting a blowjob, and definitely not fucking an alien.
'Miraculous' is not the same thing as 'impossible'. It simply means 'rare'.
I believe its intended use here is something more along the lines of "a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent." (wordnet)
Given the reality of mediumistic phenomena, psychic healings and 20th/21st century near death experiencers who have reported unexplainable recoveries after being clinically dead?
A quick summary: Mediums are largely a combination of cold reading (deliberate or unintentional) and outright fraud. Psychic healers, pay close attention to what they do when they have medical trouble -- yep, they go right to good old western medicine. Near death experiences can be explained as a psychological phenomenon, and all NDEs are consistent with the culture in which that individual has been brought up. And "unexplainable" recoveries are not unexplainable, but unexplained -- which just says that we don't know everything there is to know about the human body.
Here's a fun challenge: Why won't God heal amputees? You clearly believe he heals people, but he never heals those who have actually lost a limb. Why not?
For a longer explanation, you can find skeptical information about this stuff. It's largely bunk, and James Randi's million dollar prize remains unclaimed. Until very recently, it was available to anyone who could prove anything supernatural in a controlled experiment. While it's disappointing that it's now somewhat restricted (they want TV personalities), they tested many claims, and none made it past the preliminary test.
I will grant that if things like this were everyday occurrences, there wouldn't be much problem with the story -- but it also probably wouldn't have spawned a major religion. It is precisely because it's not an everyday experience that we can say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
So far, there has been no such extraordinary proof.
we should favor the more complicated explanations, they have turned out to be true more often than the simpler ones.
Citations needed.
I think you're seeing the success effect. Yes, every now and then, we get a Newton, or an Einstein, or a Copernicus, or...
Seeing a pattern here? People like that, and discoveries like that, are so rare you know their names.
The history of science is also one giant validation of Occam's razor. How many times have there been strange and wonderful explanations for some phenomenon, involving spirits... hell, Ptolomy required the planets be set in discs and precisely wound up; this was a significantly more complex model than Copernicus... And at the end of the day, it usually ends up being the simple and mundane explanation that is correct.
Sometimes, it's the simple and extraordinary that is correct -- for example, Newton. Revolutionary? Yes. More complex? Well, which is more complex: That the entire universe follows a set of simple mathematical laws, or that some things are "Heavenly" and float for some unknown reason, while other things fall?
Only very, very occasionally is it something that's completely strange and unintuitive, yet still surprisingly simple -- Relativity, for example.
And as I said in the beginning: This is the success effect. How many strange and complex ideas were ultimately found to be wrong? Kepler's attempt to use the geometric solids to hold up the heavens; worries about encountering sea monsters at the edge of the world; all manner of psychic and otherwise supernatural claims which don't stand up to the slightest hint of scientific rigor...
A few crazy ideas turned out to be right, but it wasn't "more often", and certainly, the saner your idea was, the more likely it was to be correct.
I'll let that slide, though I notice you haven't mentioned it in Mirriam-Webster or anything similar. At least none of those are Urban Dictionary.
In my experience, only Creationists actually use the term "Evolutionist", whereas the people who actually do the work refer to themselves as "Scientists" or "Evolutionary Biologists".
When you'd rather attack the messenger, than debate
Did I attack you? I don't actually see it anywhere, except the use of the word "Fail". Your use of the word "evolutionist" could be taken in the same spirit.
There was also the general statement I made: "those who reject evolution tend not to have a very good understanding of it." You could take this personally, but it was meant as a simple observation.
you don't have much of anything to stand on, do you?
Maybe just the entire rest of my post?
I find it interesting that you chose exactly that point to attack, not anything of substance. In fact, I find it deeply ironic that you decided to pick this one part, and make precisely the same attack on me that you accuse me of making, rather than attempting to refute a single one of my actual points.
It's possible I'm wrong, however. Maybe you have found a bunny in the Cambrian.
this is the last thing I will say...
That's almost a relief. Still, I'm surprised you have yet to cash in on any of my offers. Read on, you might just get some cash!
you BELIEVE, you dont know for sure BUT you are almost positive the big bang just happened from nothing
I will PayPal you $10 if you can find me saying this.
No, I have never expressed any belief or opinion, one way or the other, about what the cause of the Big Bang was, or what happened before it. I just don't see any reason whatsoever to assume that it was an intelligence at all, let alone that it was the Christian god.
Other possibilities you haven't considered include:
Two of these have actually been disproved, I think, to the extent that they can be. The point is that you've created a false dichotomy -- either I believe your imaginary friend created the Universe, or I must believe it "just happened". There are infinitely many possibilities in between.
Though they do say "for better performance, install Silverlight."
We do not have solid evidence for all events that happened in the natural world.
That is true. In "should", here, I don't mean to imply that "it follows", but rather, "we would expect."
scientific studies have shown that prayer does have effect.
Citation, please.
because this effect is repeatable, it suggests that it might not be God at work here, but some natural phenomenon.
Were these studies properly controlled? That is, did those receiving prayer all know whether or not they were being prayed for? If so, it could be a simple psychological effect, something as simple as the Placebo.
Why is that?
You seem to think that science is the be-all and end-all and has the ultimate grasp on our all of reality.
No, but as you've heard me say many times before, it is the most reliable tool we have for understanding the world.
it is quite valid to appeal to a higher authority
Not in a logical argument, which is why it is a logical fallacy. If you have an argument to make, you should be able to make it yourself.
All the billions of Christians that have lived and are living on this world are are wrong, deceived, foolish and you are a brilliant intellectual in your beliefs.
I don't claim to be brilliant, only rational. And billions of people once thought the Earth was flat, and that the sun and the stars revolved around the earth.
Now, we can find ways in which they are right. We still speak of sunrise, after all, and the sun does still appear to move around the world.
Religion has nothing so obvious as its source, but I think many people are still drawn to it for two main reasons: A sense of awe (a spiritual high) and a sense of community. These are good things to have, but we can have them without the baggage of religion, just as we can use that useful metaphor of the sun rising and setting, while understanding that it is the Earth spinning, instead.
I watched a few interviews with John Campbell lately, who made a life's work out of studying myths and legends from around the world. He concluded that all myths are true in a sense, but they are not literally true -- and he included the Bible in this. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do agree that those who take any myth literally are missing the point -- and he argued that there is a much deeper meaning to the Jesus story which you are missing by taking it literally.
The fact that the Bible, to you, nothing but a pack of lies at worst, or fairytales at best, is the most translated and distributed book on earth means nothing.
Correct. Consider, also, that at various times throughout the history of this country, more people have known who one particular sports star, actor, or other celebrity is than know who the president is. Popularity is obviously not any indication of what is true, or even of what is important.
I would also guess that in the United States, during the year Return of the King was released, it probably sold more tickets than there were Bibles sold. I would guess this is probably true even if you count the Gideons and other such bibles, so rarely read at all. And The Lord of the Rings could certainly be taken as a narrative woven from a collection of eyewitness accounts.
Indeed, I would guess (though I haven't backed this up) that if you were to take any one translation of the Bible, and look at other works of fiction produced during that time. How many Bibles were sold, versus Harry Potter books? What about Twilight books, lately?
For that matter, Gor is quite popular itself, having spawned something of a religion in people attempting to follow its lifestyle...
To you, all these other books are fiction, but the Bible is fact. It deserves a special place, either because it is very popular, or because you have a deep emotional bond to it. Moreover, your faith in the principles behind it is so strong that there is no evidence I could present which would sway it. I think that is a dangerous position, but regardless, it is certainly not a logical argument.
There are three places for humans to be. There is earth, heaven and hell.
One of which actually exists.
The rest of your post is not an argument, but preaching. Unfortunately for you, I am not the choir, and you've neglected the bulk of the points I made in order for another chance to preach at me.
It's worth mentioning, you started out with this interesting attempt at a logical argument. Look how quickly you've abandoned it for an emotional one. You began this discussion claiming to offer proof, and all you can offer now is dogma.