Well, the only way to REALLY increase grades is to increase the number of graded assignments/quizzes/etc. Or maybe to have more students, since that would also result in an increase in grades. In order to increase test scores, all you have to do is give more tests!
Oh, you meant improve grades and raise test scores?
Spirits have been known to escape from their bottles during shipping.
Even if they did escape, surely they would leave some sort of mark or essence in the water, right? Actually, perhaps the seller could dilute a bottle with a few Olympic-sized swimming pools of water and sell it as homeopathic ghost water!
I'd be thrilled if Google could do a music player analogue of Picasa. I've always hated iPhoto, and Picasa is great. A similar product to displace iTunes would be incredibly welcome (and yes, I've tried Songbird; maybe someday, but it's not there yet).
How true is that, though? According to the research cited by the Snopes article referred to above, that belief is much less common than you seem to be saying it is (emphasis on "seem"). The more common motivation for rape by HIV positive people in South Africa seems to be anger and despair.
Speaking as a life-long Christian with a Master's in theology: No, it doesn't.
If you stop at the word "created," you're good. The second half of your first sentence may be believed by some Christians, but it is not "clearly stated" anywhere. In fact, the majority of the Christian churches in the world do in fact believe evolution is a fact of history (the Catholic Church being only the biggest and most obvious choice). Christians believe the universe was created in the sense that it was brought about by the Creator, but as to the mechanics of its origin... well, that's why we have the physical sciences.
You seem not to have actually read the "slanted article with an agenda" very thoroughly (I assume you refer to the article in First Things). The author does not recommend "[abandoning] condom use" (and actually explicitly says the opposite), but details how HIV reduction and prevention campaigns based on promoting condom use have been consistently ineffective in Africa, and in at least one case have resulted in increased transmissions.
Both that and the Washington Post article were written by Edward C. Green, the director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (the third link I gave). He's not "pushing a moral agenda," he's describing what actually has worked over the past 20-30 years. That the most effective prevention is abstinence or monogomy may not be what people want to hear, but that's what the actual numbers show.
Oh, after that, they say that condoms are allowed in marriages with one of the partners having HIV.
Of course, the Church has said nothing of the sort. There are some bishops who argue that way, but that is not what constitutes the Church's decision. Like it or not, condoms are not approved of by the Catholic Church in any situation.
More to the point, the Pope's statement that in Africa condoms may make the HIV epidemic worse seems to be supportedbyevidence. This is reality, not an ideal "what if" scenario.
I'm sure you meant this, but it's important to be clear that ID should be refuted by any good scientific way possible. Good science, with patience and good will, against bad science. Mockery and disdain will win no minds for the side of science.
I say this as someone who grew up in a 6000-year creationist home, and was convinced against creationism by a college biology professor who treated the subject with respect and firm but gentle argumentation. If the acceptance of good science by the general population is the goal, it's an important distinction to make.
As a rule I don't reply to anons, but you seem both sincere and intelligent so I'll make an exception.
I didn't, and wouldn't, say that all atheists are ignorant of religion. I have atheist friends who are quite conversant in various religions from around the world. I think your experience is a bit skewed if it is really true that more atheists you know have read the Bible than religious (I assume you mean Christian) people, but I'll certainly allow that it could be an unusual but accurate assessment of people around you (then again, maybe you don't know many religious people well enough to make that statement?).
I'm certainly not qualified to make in-depth theological critiques of all of the world's religions, but I have a masters degree in theology and have a certain level and depth of knowledge--enough to know that the typical/. picture of all religious people as blithering idiots unacquainted with rational thought is ridiculous, and is rooted mainly in a complete failure to even attempt to fairly understand what one would critique.
And yes, there have been some great and difficult questions posed by atheists (including my atheist friends and colleagues) that should be taken seriously. If, however, the same consideration is not reciprocated, any semblance of a higher moral ground disappears pretty quickly--e.g., "sky wizard" and flat earth comments, which have manifestly failed to engage with actual (and ancient) Christian teaching and belief. By all means ask hard questions, but do so perhaps a bit less disingenuously.
You're hoping for some empirical basis for religious belief, I think, something that would pass muster in the lab. You won't find anything quite like that, but then again (as almost touched on by KGill) you won't find it for many things you already believe.
Do you believe that anything beyond your own mind actually exists? That people around you are real minds and that your experiences of the world represent genuine interaction with genuine things? What about something even more basic: that truth is preferable than falsehood, or even knowable at all? These things you cannot prove empirically, you have to take them on faith as starting points in order to get to empirical thinking in the first place. Anything beyond the most clean-lined solipsism is faith.
And speaking of empiricism and reason, a strictly mechanical naturalism is itself irrational, as it depends upon a logical fallacy. If you rely strictly upon empirical evidence to determine what is true, you must discard empiricism itself out of hand as being beyond empirical proof. If you take its principles as your starting point without first proving them, you are inconsistent. If you attempt by empirical means to prove empiricism, you beg the question. If, on the other hand, you accept empiricism as a useful tool for testing questions, you must allow for other means of knowing, or at least strongly suspecting, something to be true.
I have my reasons for what I believe, and they certainly do not include repeating dogma to myself over and over until I forget to question it. As Dostoevsky said, "It is not as a child that I believe and confess Christ Jesus. My Hosanna is born in a furnace of doubt." Long periods of my life have been spent navigating doubt, which is not (as is often said) the opposite of faith, for faith makes room for doubt even as it seeks to understand more deeply and more clearly. I have experienced small miracles and glimpses of mysteries that have been given as assurances to me when I needed them most, but none of these are matters either amenable to or requiring empirical investigation on my part, no more than I feel the need to investigate my wife's spontaneous kisses or gifts or her motivations in giving them.
Beware of buying into the horrible simplistic view of faith often promulgated in the media, here in comments on Slashdot, or from the loud obnoxious people on street corners. The vast majority of religious believers (Christian or otherwise) do not fit that stereotype, and many find it rather offensive. There are literally billions of Christians alone, and billions more of other faiths, all over the world, who deserve more consideration than to be painted with the same broad and inaccurate brush.
Who, we might note, they happily took money from directly when he was alive.
Which should lead everyone to the conclusion that it is not, in fact, the association with his name or reputation that lead to them declining the donation, as they themselves say and as so many here are alleging.
An atheist on Slashdot is characterized by their remarkable ability to build and knock down ridiculous straw men for a religion of which they remain willfully and almost entirely ignorant, and yet continue to claim rationality as their guiding light.
A similar level of ignorance of any other subject on which one would claim to speak intelligibly would rightly result in that person laughed out of the room. Only here can we be so anal about parsing code correctly in joke posts and yet admire ourselves for so completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting all religious belief, belief which has claimed the adherence of many of the greatest minds the world has known.
Paint 'em all dumb, I guess, if it allows me to feel special and earn the fleeting respect of my fellow/.ers.
Speaking as a doctoral student in music composition, I'll say that both I and several of my fellow students use Macbooks for pretty serious AV work (interactive electoacoustic music, live sound processing, etc), mostly through firewire audio interfaces. It's the best interface if you want high resolution audio I/O with low latency.
The computers are fine for it if you know how to program your work economically (and have a decent amount of RAM). The lack of firewire would be a deal-breaker, though.
FWIW, I've been an Apple user for 10 or 12 years (on my sixth overall, fourth laptop), and I've never had a hard drive fail. Nobody I know has, either, although several were bitten by the infamous logic board problem in the old iBooks (which I managed to evade somehow). I've had to have my Macbook palm rest panel replaced due to cracking--that's it, out of all of my Macs over the years.
The verse actually speaks quite clearly to both matters: neither the origin nor the correct interpretation is of human origin. Not to mention that the sort of interpretation you suggest ("putting on the mind of Christ," as some people claim) has lead only to multiplying schismatic groups all claiming the true interpretation, none of which accords with the early Church documents which we actually have, dating from the late 1st century. And what is "knowing" or "putting on the mind of" Christ? That changes from group to group--as long as your interpretation agrees with theirs, you "know" Christ?
This may not sway you from your way of interpretation, but be aware that you will search in vain for its appearance before the Protestant schism. The early Church knew nothing of that kind of individualistic religion, and the example of the Bereans does not mean what you think it does.
Regarding the Bereans, it was not for their searching the scriptures, but for their openness that they were commended. Read it again. They were "more receptive" (or noble, depending on the translation) "for they welcomed the message very eagerly," not because of their searching the scriptures. This is compared to the Thessalonicans, who rejected and jealously mistreated the Apostle. The Thessalonicans also searched the scriptures at length (which were not the Gospels, as you seem to be assuming, but rather the Septuagint--the Gospels did not yet exist in written form), but had not been open to the new (oral) teaching from Paul as the Bereans were. Remember, neither the Bereans nor the Thessalonicans being discussed in these passages were Christians. They were both Jewish communities to whom Paul came preaching out of the Jewish scriptures.
There's a much fuller explanation of all of this at this page, if you're interested. The whole idea of "sola scriptura" does not enter the equation, and was never read into that passage until Protestants decided they needed to reinterpret scripture to meet their needs.
Whether it is the majority I don't know, but it is certainly many.
You have been substantially misled if that is your understanding. The history of the KJV is somewhat interesting, although I admit to having tired long ago of the debates over its continued and/or exclusive use.
Long story almost criminally shortened, there were problems with the available English translations at the time. In response to complaints to that effect from the clergy, King James proposed, authorized, and funded a project to produce a new interpretation for use in the Church of England. There is no "God told me to fix the Bible" about it, and King James himself took no hand in the translation work. There certainly are controversies and problems around the project, but it was not as you have been lead to believe.
Fair enough. And beyond writers' (or interpreters') assumptions, in the context of a prophetic passage in the Hebrew scriptures the language is very often symbolic (the same is true of prophetic passages in the Christian New Testament). Interpretation of prophecy is tricky business, which is why St. Peter specifically says it should not be left up to individual opinion to do so. Where the authority to do so is located is a much larger question, but not one I would undertake where it is likely to be unappreciated (such as where one would rather expect to find "News for Nerds"). Here is an interesting article on the subject if anyone's interested, though (particularly parts II and III).
Of course, all of this could open a whole other can of worms, especially among the crazier elements of contemporary American Evangelicals who are convinced that the Book of Revelations is a literal account of what will happen (soon, according to some), or that the world is 6,000 years old. Despite their relative vocality, these are decidedly the minority of those who identify themselves as "Christian."
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the only way to REALLY increase grades is to increase the number of graded assignments/quizzes/etc. Or maybe to have more students, since that would also result in an increase in grades. In order to increase test scores, all you have to do is give more tests!
Oh, you meant improve grades and raise test scores?
Or not: http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp
I believe that should read "39% choosing 'X' does not mean 61% choosing 'Not X.'"
Even if they did escape, surely they would leave some sort of mark or essence in the water, right? Actually, perhaps the seller could dilute a bottle with a few Olympic-sized swimming pools of water and sell it as homeopathic ghost water!
I'd be thrilled if Google could do a music player analogue of Picasa. I've always hated iPhoto, and Picasa is great. A similar product to displace iTunes would be incredibly welcome (and yes, I've tried Songbird; maybe someday, but it's not there yet).
How true is that, though? According to the research cited by the Snopes article referred to above, that belief is much less common than you seem to be saying it is (emphasis on "seem"). The more common motivation for rape by HIV positive people in South Africa seems to be anger and despair.
Speaking as a life-long Christian with a Master's in theology: No, it doesn't.
If you stop at the word "created," you're good. The second half of your first sentence may be believed by some Christians, but it is not "clearly stated" anywhere. In fact, the majority of the Christian churches in the world do in fact believe evolution is a fact of history (the Catholic Church being only the biggest and most obvious choice). Christians believe the universe was created in the sense that it was brought about by the Creator, but as to the mechanics of its origin... well, that's why we have the physical sciences.
Am I missing something? What is "ack'da maintenance?"
Sounds like someone's watched the new Star Trek a few times too many...
You seem not to have actually read the "slanted article with an agenda" very thoroughly (I assume you refer to the article in First Things). The author does not recommend "[abandoning] condom use" (and actually explicitly says the opposite), but details how HIV reduction and prevention campaigns based on promoting condom use have been consistently ineffective in Africa, and in at least one case have resulted in increased transmissions.
Both that and the Washington Post article were written by Edward C. Green, the director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (the third link I gave). He's not "pushing a moral agenda," he's describing what actually has worked over the past 20-30 years. That the most effective prevention is abstinence or monogomy may not be what people want to hear, but that's what the actual numbers show.
Of course, the Church has said nothing of the sort. There are some bishops who argue that way, but that is not what constitutes the Church's decision. Like it or not, condoms are not approved of by the Catholic Church in any situation.
More to the point, the Pope's statement that in Africa condoms may make the HIV epidemic worse seems to be supported by evidence. This is reality, not an ideal "what if" scenario.
I'm sure you meant this, but it's important to be clear that ID should be refuted by any good scientific way possible. Good science, with patience and good will, against bad science. Mockery and disdain will win no minds for the side of science.
I say this as someone who grew up in a 6000-year creationist home, and was convinced against creationism by a college biology professor who treated the subject with respect and firm but gentle argumentation. If the acceptance of good science by the general population is the goal, it's an important distinction to make.
Do you really mean this? Is the obverse true as well? News sources that publicly endorsed Obama have no credibility in criticizing Republicans?
I'm not loving on Fox (or any other news source, for that matter), but unless I've misunderstood you, your statement seems pretty wildly unfair.
I got 25 cents until I was a teenager, when I got a raise up to a whole dollar per week. $100 is crazy talk!
(My wife's a leftie)
Man, this is why we need a "+1 Awesome" mod option!
While I am shocked, I am not that surprised at all.
...and I am puzzled as to how that works out!
As a rule I don't reply to anons, but you seem both sincere and intelligent so I'll make an exception.
/. picture of all religious people as blithering idiots unacquainted with rational thought is ridiculous, and is rooted mainly in a complete failure to even attempt to fairly understand what one would critique.
I didn't, and wouldn't, say that all atheists are ignorant of religion. I have atheist friends who are quite conversant in various religions from around the world. I think your experience is a bit skewed if it is really true that more atheists you know have read the Bible than religious (I assume you mean Christian) people, but I'll certainly allow that it could be an unusual but accurate assessment of people around you (then again, maybe you don't know many religious people well enough to make that statement?).
I'm certainly not qualified to make in-depth theological critiques of all of the world's religions, but I have a masters degree in theology and have a certain level and depth of knowledge--enough to know that the typical
And yes, there have been some great and difficult questions posed by atheists (including my atheist friends and colleagues) that should be taken seriously. If, however, the same consideration is not reciprocated, any semblance of a higher moral ground disappears pretty quickly--e.g., "sky wizard" and flat earth comments, which have manifestly failed to engage with actual (and ancient) Christian teaching and belief. By all means ask hard questions, but do so perhaps a bit less disingenuously.
You're hoping for some empirical basis for religious belief, I think, something that would pass muster in the lab. You won't find anything quite like that, but then again (as almost touched on by KGill) you won't find it for many things you already believe.
Do you believe that anything beyond your own mind actually exists? That people around you are real minds and that your experiences of the world represent genuine interaction with genuine things? What about something even more basic: that truth is preferable than falsehood, or even knowable at all? These things you cannot prove empirically, you have to take them on faith as starting points in order to get to empirical thinking in the first place. Anything beyond the most clean-lined solipsism is faith.
And speaking of empiricism and reason, a strictly mechanical naturalism is itself irrational, as it depends upon a logical fallacy. If you rely strictly upon empirical evidence to determine what is true, you must discard empiricism itself out of hand as being beyond empirical proof. If you take its principles as your starting point without first proving them, you are inconsistent. If you attempt by empirical means to prove empiricism, you beg the question. If, on the other hand, you accept empiricism as a useful tool for testing questions, you must allow for other means of knowing, or at least strongly suspecting, something to be true.
I have my reasons for what I believe, and they certainly do not include repeating dogma to myself over and over until I forget to question it. As Dostoevsky said, "It is not as a child that I believe and confess Christ Jesus. My Hosanna is born in a furnace of doubt." Long periods of my life have been spent navigating doubt, which is not (as is often said) the opposite of faith, for faith makes room for doubt even as it seeks to understand more deeply and more clearly. I have experienced small miracles and glimpses of mysteries that have been given as assurances to me when I needed them most, but none of these are matters either amenable to or requiring empirical investigation on my part, no more than I feel the need to investigate my wife's spontaneous kisses or gifts or her motivations in giving them.
Beware of buying into the horrible simplistic view of faith often promulgated in the media, here in comments on Slashdot, or from the loud obnoxious people on street corners. The vast majority of religious believers (Christian or otherwise) do not fit that stereotype, and many find it rather offensive. There are literally billions of Christians alone, and billions more of other faiths, all over the world, who deserve more consideration than to be painted with the same broad and inaccurate brush.
Who, we might note, they happily took money from directly when he was alive.
Which should lead everyone to the conclusion that it is not, in fact, the association with his name or reputation that lead to them declining the donation, as they themselves say and as so many here are alleging.
You forgot one:
An atheist on Slashdot is characterized by their remarkable ability to build and knock down ridiculous straw men for a religion of which they remain willfully and almost entirely ignorant, and yet continue to claim rationality as their guiding light.
A similar level of ignorance of any other subject on which one would claim to speak intelligibly would rightly result in that person laughed out of the room. Only here can we be so anal about parsing code correctly in joke posts and yet admire ourselves for so completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting all religious belief, belief which has claimed the adherence of many of the greatest minds the world has known.
Paint 'em all dumb, I guess, if it allows me to feel special and earn the fleeting respect of my fellow /.ers.
Speaking as a doctoral student in music composition, I'll say that both I and several of my fellow students use Macbooks for pretty serious AV work (interactive electoacoustic music, live sound processing, etc), mostly through firewire audio interfaces. It's the best interface if you want high resolution audio I/O with low latency.
The computers are fine for it if you know how to program your work economically (and have a decent amount of RAM). The lack of firewire would be a deal-breaker, though.
FWIW, I've been an Apple user for 10 or 12 years (on my sixth overall, fourth laptop), and I've never had a hard drive fail. Nobody I know has, either, although several were bitten by the infamous logic board problem in the old iBooks (which I managed to evade somehow). I've had to have my Macbook palm rest panel replaced due to cracking--that's it, out of all of my Macs over the years.
The verse actually speaks quite clearly to both matters: neither the origin nor the correct interpretation is of human origin. Not to mention that the sort of interpretation you suggest ("putting on the mind of Christ," as some people claim) has lead only to multiplying schismatic groups all claiming the true interpretation, none of which accords with the early Church documents which we actually have, dating from the late 1st century. And what is "knowing" or "putting on the mind of" Christ? That changes from group to group--as long as your interpretation agrees with theirs, you "know" Christ?
This may not sway you from your way of interpretation, but be aware that you will search in vain for its appearance before the Protestant schism. The early Church knew nothing of that kind of individualistic religion, and the example of the Bereans does not mean what you think it does.
Regarding the Bereans, it was not for their searching the scriptures, but for their openness that they were commended. Read it again. They were "more receptive" (or noble, depending on the translation) "for they welcomed the message very eagerly," not because of their searching the scriptures. This is compared to the Thessalonicans, who rejected and jealously mistreated the Apostle. The Thessalonicans also searched the scriptures at length (which were not the Gospels, as you seem to be assuming, but rather the Septuagint--the Gospels did not yet exist in written form), but had not been open to the new (oral) teaching from Paul as the Bereans were. Remember, neither the Bereans nor the Thessalonicans being discussed in these passages were Christians. They were both Jewish communities to whom Paul came preaching out of the Jewish scriptures.
There's a much fuller explanation of all of this at this page, if you're interested. The whole idea of "sola scriptura" does not enter the equation, and was never read into that passage until Protestants decided they needed to reinterpret scripture to meet their needs.
Whether it is the majority I don't know, but it is certainly many.
You have been substantially misled if that is your understanding. The history of the KJV is somewhat interesting, although I admit to having tired long ago of the debates over its continued and/or exclusive use.
Long story almost criminally shortened, there were problems with the available English translations at the time. In response to complaints to that effect from the clergy, King James proposed, authorized, and funded a project to produce a new interpretation for use in the Church of England. There is no "God told me to fix the Bible" about it, and King James himself took no hand in the translation work. There certainly are controversies and problems around the project, but it was not as you have been lead to believe.
Fair enough. And beyond writers' (or interpreters') assumptions, in the context of a prophetic passage in the Hebrew scriptures the language is very often symbolic (the same is true of prophetic passages in the Christian New Testament). Interpretation of prophecy is tricky business, which is why St. Peter specifically says it should not be left up to individual opinion to do so. Where the authority to do so is located is a much larger question, but not one I would undertake where it is likely to be unappreciated (such as where one would rather expect to find "News for Nerds"). Here is an interesting article on the subject if anyone's interested, though (particularly parts II and III).
Of course, all of this could open a whole other can of worms, especially among the crazier elements of contemporary American Evangelicals who are convinced that the Book of Revelations is a literal account of what will happen (soon, according to some), or that the world is 6,000 years old. Despite their relative vocality, these are decidedly the minority of those who identify themselves as "Christian."