To continue the offtopicedness of this, make sure that if one is going to start with Debian (and I'd second that, so long as your willing to take the time to learn), grab the sarge installer. Telling a newb to start with Woodie would not be the best and brightest idea. However with the way the Sarge installer turned out, it would get my recommendation.
Don't want to go too deep into this right now, but with Debian, you'll get a great package manager with easy updating, and a vaste array of packages, a system that actually works quite well and is subject to fairly thorough bug purging, runs on lighter resources than a number of other distros, and plus, perhaps most importantly, is free both in cost, and in ideology. They're not trying to sell you something, just the notion of freedom:-)
I've read a good chunk of the first one, and felt it's really one of the better Linux titles out there, bonus that it's based off of Debian GNU/Linux. Strong emphasis on doing things via command line, but well written even for someone who might usually shy away from that type of thing (not me though har, har!!;-)
Anyhow, if I remember right the author had even released the first edition under a free license, and you were able to find it published online as well. (http://www.dsl.org/cookbook/cookbook_toc.html)
I wonder about this one...
Funny you mention that, I remember one time being in the datacenter of the college I was attending. Most of it was still running NT4. They mentioned how cost-prohibitive upgrading to 2k would be for them. So I mentioned, how about Linux? The head admin and his henchman laughed, and replied "Linux? Heh, we want a REAL operating system."
And yes, this guy makes a ton of money... There the same people whose network was so malconfigured that doing a ghosting operation in a supposedly private subnet, I managed to take down the ENTIRE network. I mean everything, even the remote campuses!
They then told the president of the college that it had been a hacker attacking the system.:-)
You don't even have to do that, you can use wine to install it natively. (wine nclient.exe) Updates work fine too. I find copying the fonts over from windows to you're fake windows directory makes the fonts MUCH better though.
Tad off topic, but since you mentioned it, I have the CX5400 as well. Have had a number of problems getting it to scan properly under linux though. The only distro that I've seen that works really, really good with it though is Mandrake 10.1 which when I turn on the epson, a kooka icon appears automagically on screen and scanning is relatively effortless. I've also noticed in more recent distros, it looks like there's native CX5400 drivers (instead of using the C80 or whatever.) Have you noticed a problem though with the printing being a bit off center though, like on the test page, the right side has more white space than the left? And with scanning, what do you use program/distro wise?
PS. Read my reply about Notes, works fine under Linux, unhappily I have to use it here as well.
Actually, having to use that pos called notes here at my current work as well, under Wine, and sometimes using it in windows as well, I can say that yes, in some ways, it works better in linux. If you copy over your windows fonts in your wine directory, it can look better in linux too. Serious memory hog mind you, and perhaps it's a tad, not sure, faster in Windows, but one thing I've noticed is that scrolling with your mouse wheel actually works much better than in windows. Copy and paste by right clicking sucks however...
"Please don't try to explain how the PS2 is actually a supercomputer but developers haven't been able to unlock its huge potential."
Thank you for saying that! As the happy owner of a GC, I am very fed up with annoying PS2ers going on about the brilliant architecture of their machine, but when faced with the fact that overall while the PS2 is indeed a nice system, cross-platform games on the GC and XBox just tend to look better, they then go on to denounce pathetic devs who are incaple of realizing its true brilliance, and harp for the day when the programmers will finally catch up the PS2. Please. Before that would happen, guess what, PS3 will be out, and people will stop developping for it.
sheesh, that's harsh. Read my reply above. As to Yu-gi-oh, he has a bunch of the cards, we've played an altered version of the game together many a time, and I've read some of the manga, enjoyed it quite a bit.
Is it really so wrong to also share some of the older stuff with a kid? My childhood was actually a pretty happy one, and I'd like to take some of what was good from it, and give it to the kid. Gosh, are you going to say kids shouldn't be exposed to Lord of the Rings too (which he adores, well the movies at least), just because the story was written fifty years ago??
Exactly, you could pop in say Joust or Yar's Revenge, and just have fun with it. Or for two players say, Combat, which I can say is great fun to use with the kid. Probably a few reasons for it, it was a newer field, more real innovation, less stifling corporatism. Without having to concern yourself with 3D engines and such, you can actually give more thought, I'd think, to actually making the game fun, instead of just "impressive". Plus with the rather limited architecture of the Atari (study it up sometime, interesting stuff what they did with it), those guys who coded for it in tight assembly really had to know what they were doing.
Oh, and to the posters above, I'll take what you said with a dose of humour, but come on, I'm not locking the kid in a closet. He is fairly aware of the world out there (in a five year old way), and there are some thing of today's popular kid culture I don't have a problem with (and other things which may be more modern though less well known in the larger popular culture, like the Miyazaki films which he loves). Other stuff I do take issue with (just try watching some of the junk kid's are shown on commercial tv as a parent, makes ya cringe). Plus, I just feel that some things from when I was a kid were good enough that even for a kid of today, there still good, like Star Wars which he's seen more times than I could count.
This is neat, but actually I still find myself buying old used carts for my Atari. They aren't hard to find, and are often pretty cheap. One is the nostalgia factor for me, but also, is the fact that I have a five year old who likes games and computers. We also have a game cube, but I've noticed a ton of difference in terms of my son's reactions when playing the different systems. On the GC (and on Windows), my little guy zones out, and often will get angry at some point (like when I tell him to turn it off). When playing on the Atari, I noticed he actually just has fun. I hear him laugh, obviously enjoy himself, and act a lot more positively than with the newer stuff. So, we somewhat strictly limit when and what he can play on the modern machines, but the older one is fine. What the old systems lacked in graphics and sound, they did have a clearer idea what video games are supposed to be about, having fun.
But then I could just be a retro guy. (We also don't get Nicolodean and such garbage in our house. But I have downloaded old episodes of He-man, Smurfs, Gummy Bears, etc., for him. PBS and TVO are both decent however.)
Speaking of which, when will there be a film series based on Foundation? I just finished reading the trilogy, loved it. Then I read I, Robot. Haven't seen the film, but I don't remember reading the part where a Wil Smith type character goes around punching a bunch of robots like in the previews....
I was thinking about the very same film. I remember seeing it late one night in younger days. Loved it. Don't ask me why, but at the time there was something about the film I actually found frightening, like that scene where the 'alien' was chasing after the guy in the elevator, kept me on the edge of my seat. Strange I know, and at the time I used to watch just about every horror film out there (which this certainly wasn't).
Seems to me there were some really good scifi movies made around that time, like Dark Star, Andromeda Strain, ZPO (anyone remember that one!), TXwhatever (minus the naked tv people, call me prude i don't care), etc. Low budgets, great plots. Kind of the opposite of a lot of later science fiction films.
Interesting to see this posted, I just started reading the book behind Blade Runner last night, Do androids dream of electric sheep, by Philip K. Dick. Starting to get into it, but thusfar I can say it has pretty little to do with the movie as such, except for a detective whose job is to go around killing renegade androids (so far I see some of the names are the same though, and maybe I've just not read enough yet). Lots of strangeness, psychedelic spiritual mind trips of empathic union, an odd obsession with animals, and other such oddities, but still I'm starting to get into it. Mind you, P.K. Dick was a little on the edge to say the least himself.
Quite agree. I do the same thing, I still regularly play the original Age of Empires. May be old, but I still find myself enjoying it immensly because it's just a good game. In line with that I bought AoE 2 (though I think I still prefer the original for some reason) After all, people haven't stopped playing Monopoly or checkers, just because they're old and all.
Personally, modern games, though really quite amazing on the graphical level, don't really move me the way they used to. Referring to your Atari ST comment (Amiga!), my gaming days go back to the 80s with Commodores, and earlier consoles starting with the Atari 2600 and going up to the Sega Genesis (though I do now own a Gamecube, mainly the young one plays it though). After all this time, I still find running Defender of the Crown on some emulator really enjoyable, no matter how many times I've become king of England. And still one of my favorite games that I can continue to waste a good amount of time on is Military Madness (Nectaris) originally for the Turbo Graphix 16, now freely available on the net ported over to Windows. Gaming is for me just an enjoyable pastime, when I have the time, if the game is fun in 1994, it should really still be fun in 2004.
Quite, a least I've seen nor heard nothing in the Quran which directly would state that. That is nothing which specifically says, earth inhabitants, you are the only creatures I've made. Other verses might be up to interpretation, the proper interpretation of which would be determined through the hadith literature, as well as cross reference to the Quran itself (at least according to some). Like I mentioned, the hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, and for us Shia, to the 12 Imams as well), do lend credence to the idea of their being life outside of Earth. Actually in my original post I didn't detail all the ones I've come across, such as one that apparently indicates the possibility of instellar space travel by (at least some) of those worlds. There's one apparently that says that Imam Ali (I think) said something about the inhabitants being able to travel by means of light. interesting stuff, since if travel between the stars is actually possible, it would have to be something way out our reach technologically just in considering the sheer distance between one star system to the next. Something like harnessing the quality of light itself actually be the answer (though of course presently only in the realm of sci-fi for us earthlings at this time in our history;-)
One has to be careful however, since it is a fact that in the hadith literature you will come across spurious reports of dubious value. That;s why a vast discipline of determining historical worth for each tradition has developped over the centuries. I add this as a caveat.
Anyhow, to get back to the point, your friend may have been well intentioned, but I daresay misinformed. God knows best.
Well I'm looking forward to seeing this go stable, my experiences with the beta installers were quite good. Really clears out one of the last stereotypical complaints against Debian and all ("installer is an ancient piece of cruft", which really, part of it was.) I'm more of a slackware user these days, but I often list Debian as the "other" distro that I like. But once sarge gets stable, I might just give it another go. Maybe, I might even go ahead an buy a cd set, since on dialup, downloading packages and such can be rather a pain. Anyone have any suggestions of the best place to get debian cds from?
Don't know why I'm responding, maybe on the odd chance somebody will read what you posted and actually think you have a clue.
First off, clever to quote from something, giving reference numbers, without actually specifying what you're quoting. For those who don't know, those sayings were not from the Quran, but rather from a collection of Hadith, looks like Muslim's or Bukhari's. A hadith is a reported saying of the Prophet, transmitted through a line of narrators whose names will usually be given. Why? Because unlike the Quran, the Hadith are subject to questioning in terms of their actual authenticity, and hence value. It's a well known fact that muslim, like everyone else out there, were not immune to fabrications, hence the need to have some safeguard so one can determine the truthfullness of what one is reading.
Now, if you'd read my post a little clearer, you would have noticed, I am a SHIA. What you're quoting is from Sunni books. Sunni books in particular that Shia scholars have thoroughly criticized in terms of the legitimacy of their narrations, not just due to sectarian politics, but due to where clear weaknesses in many of their claims to accuracy.
As to the sayings you quoted, though no, I don't go dipping flies in my food, none the less there is often different ways of understanding things like this anyhow. Like the first one, ever heard of being figurative? God knows best. However, what's interesting is that if you look at one sayings of Imam Ali (there are several others which would back up my point, but I'll stick to a quick one for now), the sucessor to the Prophet for us Shias (for us, the hadith compose of the sayings of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, and the twelve Imams), it's reported that he said that the cause of disease is something so small you cannot see it with one's eyes. But if you could, you would see that it is in fact very small living things. Hmm, maybe don't be so quick with throwing out those antibiotics....
Not sure I follow you about the Torah question. If you're referring to the parent poster, he was quoting from a writing called the book of Moses found in a Mormon collection called the Pearl of Great Price. Rather interesting collections of texts, but as a non-mormon, obviously I don't for an instant believe its really a book of Moses. But enough of that.
What we believe is this though, as God had sent prophets and warners to all people in the past, God sent man a number of books through some of the prophets in history for the guidance of humanity. Of these, a few receive repeated mention (there are said to have been others though), the Torah with Moses, the Zabur with David, the Injeel with Jesus, and the Quran with Muhammad, peace and blessings on them all. As such, we have to believe in all that God has sent. However, we also believe that though the essential message of God has been the same through all prophets, none the less, other matters, particularly laws for instance, may only be valid for the time of those revalations and their authority. I.e., we do not consider ourselves bound by the specific laws found in the Torah as such, though of course there does exist a good deal of similarity between the Islamic Shariah, and what Jews might refer to a Halachic laws. (if I'm getting that latter right). Yes we are bound to follow it, in the sense of believing in it, the original, uncorrupted scripture, not necessarily though in following what people carry around though calling the Bible today though.
Another point to know, is that most Muslims also believe that the former scriptures as we now have them are incomplete and/or corrupted, through the passage of time, and the hands of men, often by men of "religion" leading their people astray. This was in fact one of the points behind the Quran, to set matters straight, where men had forgotten.
There isn't a passage in the Quran which quite says what you were quoting, but here's a few different ones mentioning the Torah I found for you:
He hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture with truth, confirming that which was (revealed) before it, even as He revealed the Torah and the Gospel.
Lo! We did reveal the Torah, wherein is guidance and a light, by which the prophets who surrendered (unto God) judged the Jews, and the rabbis and the priests (judged) by such of God's Scripture as they were bidden to observe, and thereunto were they witnesses. So fear not mankind, but fear Me. And sell not My revelations for a little gain. Whoso judgeth not by that which God hath revealed: such are disbelievers. And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation for him. Whoso judgeth not by that which God hath revealed: such are wrong-doers.
And We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow in their footsteps, confirming that which was (revealed) before him in the Torah, and We bestowed on him the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light, confirming that which was (revealed) before it in the Torah - a guidance and an admonition unto those who ward off (evil). And unto thee have We revealed the Scripture with the truth, confirming whatever Scripture was before it, and a watcher over it. So judge between them by that which God hath revealed, and follow not their desires away from the truth which hath come unto thee. For each We have appointed a divine law and a traced-out way. Had God willed He could have made you one community. But that He may try you by that which He hath given you (He hath made you as ye are). So vie one with another in good works. Unto God you will all return, and He will then inform you of that wherein you differ.
If they had observed the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto them from their Lord, they would surely have been nourished from above them and from beneath their feet. Am
I'm afraid I don't follow your logic. How does being free from sin make one God's equal? Do babies sin? Is a mouse God's equal? A worm? I really can't think of how they have disobeyed their Creator. If sin is inherent, where do we inherit it from? If you say Adam, I'm afraid I don't get that either. Why should I be damned for someone else's fault? Would a God of love be like that?
Personally, I agree with you on the pervasiveness of sin, but don't look to our ancestor for the blame. Rather human beings have a (limited) power to choose the course of their lives. Many, most, of us screw up in those decisions somewhere along the way. That's where one sees the mercy of God, in forgiving that of us if we just have the humility to ask it. I don't believe God expects perfection of us error-prone beings, after all, He did not create us that way. That's why as muslims we say that what we are judged by are our intentions, not necessarily (at least not strictly) by our actions. As such, a question of the necessity of a god-man dying for our sins just doesn't make sense. God is powerful, and compassionate, enough that He can forgive us, no blood required.
Some though, I believe, can live their lives without sin. For most of us, that time is only when we're babies. But for a select few, (I emphasize the word 'select') the truth of God's power and reality is so pervasive and real, sinning to them would be as ridiculous as one of us jumping into a burning fire. In that, I'm speaking of prophets and saints.
Anyway, I do enjoy the conversation, regardless of the differences in points of view.
Slashdot Mirror
To continue the offtopicedness of this, make sure that if one is going to start with Debian (and I'd second that, so long as your willing to take the time to learn), grab the sarge installer. Telling a newb to start with Woodie would not be the best and brightest idea. However with the way the Sarge installer turned out, it would get my recommendation.
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/Don't want to go too deep into this right now, but with Debian, you'll get a great package manager with easy updating, and a vaste array of packages, a system that actually works quite well and is subject to fairly thorough bug purging, runs on lighter resources than a number of other distros, and plus, perhaps most importantly, is free both in cost, and in ideology. They're not trying to sell you something, just the notion of freedom :-)
I've read a good chunk of the first one, and felt it's really one of the better Linux titles out there, bonus that it's based off of Debian GNU/Linux. Strong emphasis on doing things via command line, but well written even for someone who might usually shy away from that type of thing (not me though har, har!! ;-)
Anyhow, if I remember right the author had even released the first edition under a free license, and you were able to find it published online as well. (http://www.dsl.org/cookbook/cookbook_toc.html)
I wonder about this one...
Funny you mention that, I remember one time being in the datacenter of the college I was attending. Most of it was still running NT4. They mentioned how cost-prohibitive upgrading to 2k would be for them. So I mentioned, how about Linux? The head admin and his henchman laughed, and replied "Linux? Heh, we want a REAL operating system."
:-)
And yes, this guy makes a ton of money... There the same people whose network was so malconfigured that doing a ghosting operation in a supposedly private subnet, I managed to take down the ENTIRE network. I mean everything, even the remote campuses!
They then told the president of the college that it had been a hacker attacking the system.
You don't even have to do that, you can use wine to install it natively. (wine nclient.exe) Updates work fine too. I find copying the fonts over from windows to you're fake windows directory makes the fonts MUCH better though.
Mind you I'm using R5 here, might be different.
Tad off topic, but since you mentioned it, I have the CX5400 as well. Have had a number of problems getting it to scan properly under linux though. The only distro that I've seen that works really, really good with it though is Mandrake 10.1 which when I turn on the epson, a kooka icon appears automagically on screen and scanning is relatively effortless. I've also noticed in more recent distros, it looks like there's native CX5400 drivers (instead of using the C80 or whatever.) Have you noticed a problem though with the printing being a bit off center though, like on the test page, the right side has more white space than the left? And with scanning, what do you use program/distro wise?
PS. Read my reply about Notes, works fine under Linux, unhappily I have to use it here as well.
Actually, having to use that pos called notes here at my current work as well, under Wine, and sometimes using it in windows as well, I can say that yes, in some ways, it works better in linux. If you copy over your windows fonts in your wine directory, it can look better in linux too. Serious memory hog mind you, and perhaps it's a tad, not sure, faster in Windows, but one thing I've noticed is that scrolling with your mouse wheel actually works much better than in windows. Copy and paste by right clicking sucks however...
wow, that's going back. now you're bringing up memories of the ibm junior (?) and such... Meh, I was a commodore man (well, boy really).
You can also go here:
n =/mandrakesoft/actions/2522
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/briefs?
and here:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/lcc/faq
"Please don't try to explain how the PS2 is actually a supercomputer but developers haven't been able to unlock its huge potential."
Thank you for saying that! As the happy owner of a GC, I am very fed up with annoying PS2ers going on about the brilliant architecture of their machine, but when faced with the fact that overall while the PS2 is indeed a nice system, cross-platform games on the GC and XBox just tend to look better, they then go on to denounce pathetic devs who are incaple of realizing its true brilliance, and harp for the day when the programmers will finally catch up the PS2. Please. Before that would happen, guess what, PS3 will be out, and people will stop developping for it.
Alright, enough ranting for now...
sounds about right on that figure, I work in Rochester, it was on the local radio this morning.
sheesh, that's harsh. Read my reply above. As to Yu-gi-oh, he has a bunch of the cards, we've played an altered version of the game together many a time, and I've read some of the manga, enjoyed it quite a bit.
Is it really so wrong to also share some of the older stuff with a kid? My childhood was actually a pretty happy one, and I'd like to take some of what was good from it, and give it to the kid. Gosh, are you going to say kids shouldn't be exposed to Lord of the Rings too (which he adores, well the movies at least), just because the story was written fifty years ago??
Exactly, you could pop in say Joust or Yar's Revenge, and just have fun with it. Or for two players say, Combat, which I can say is great fun to use with the kid. Probably a few reasons for it, it was a newer field, more real innovation, less stifling corporatism. Without having to concern yourself with 3D engines and such, you can actually give more thought, I'd think, to actually making the game fun, instead of just "impressive". Plus with the rather limited architecture of the Atari (study it up sometime, interesting stuff what they did with it), those guys who coded for it in tight assembly really had to know what they were doing.
Oh, and to the posters above, I'll take what you said with a dose of humour, but come on, I'm not locking the kid in a closet. He is fairly aware of the world out there (in a five year old way), and there are some thing of today's popular kid culture I don't have a problem with (and other things which may be more modern though less well known in the larger popular culture, like the Miyazaki films which he loves). Other stuff I do take issue with (just try watching some of the junk kid's are shown on commercial tv as a parent, makes ya cringe). Plus, I just feel that some things from when I was a kid were good enough that even for a kid of today, there still good, like Star Wars which he's seen more times than I could count.
This is neat, but actually I still find myself buying old used carts for my Atari. They aren't hard to find, and are often pretty cheap. One is the nostalgia factor for me, but also, is the fact that I have a five year old who likes games and computers. We also have a game cube, but I've noticed a ton of difference in terms of my son's reactions when playing the different systems. On the GC (and on Windows), my little guy zones out, and often will get angry at some point (like when I tell him to turn it off). When playing on the Atari, I noticed he actually just has fun. I hear him laugh, obviously enjoy himself, and act a lot more positively than with the newer stuff. So, we somewhat strictly limit when and what he can play on the modern machines, but the older one is fine. What the old systems lacked in graphics and sound, they did have a clearer idea what video games are supposed to be about, having fun.
But then I could just be a retro guy. (We also don't get Nicolodean and such garbage in our house. But I have downloaded old episodes of He-man, Smurfs, Gummy Bears, etc., for him. PBS and TVO are both decent however.)
Speaking of which, when will there be a film series based on Foundation? I just finished reading the trilogy, loved it. Then I read I, Robot. Haven't seen the film, but I don't remember reading the part where a Wil Smith type character goes around punching a bunch of robots like in the previews....
I was thinking about the very same film. I remember seeing it late one night in younger days. Loved it. Don't ask me why, but at the time there was something about the film I actually found frightening, like that scene where the 'alien' was chasing after the guy in the elevator, kept me on the edge of my seat. Strange I know, and at the time I used to watch just about every horror film out there (which this certainly wasn't).
Seems to me there were some really good scifi movies made around that time, like Dark Star, Andromeda Strain, ZPO (anyone remember that one!), TXwhatever (minus the naked tv people, call me prude i don't care), etc. Low budgets, great plots. Kind of the opposite of a lot of later science fiction films.
Interesting to see this posted, I just started reading the book behind Blade Runner last night, Do androids dream of electric sheep, by Philip K. Dick. Starting to get into it, but thusfar I can say it has pretty little to do with the movie as such, except for a detective whose job is to go around killing renegade androids (so far I see some of the names are the same though, and maybe I've just not read enough yet). Lots of strangeness, psychedelic spiritual mind trips of empathic union, an odd obsession with animals, and other such oddities, but still I'm starting to get into it. Mind you, P.K. Dick was a little on the edge to say the least himself.
Quite agree. I do the same thing, I still regularly play the original Age of Empires. May be old, but I still find myself enjoying it immensly because it's just a good game. In line with that I bought AoE 2 (though I think I still prefer the original for some reason) After all, people haven't stopped playing Monopoly or checkers, just because they're old and all. Personally, modern games, though really quite amazing on the graphical level, don't really move me the way they used to. Referring to your Atari ST comment (Amiga!), my gaming days go back to the 80s with Commodores, and earlier consoles starting with the Atari 2600 and going up to the Sega Genesis (though I do now own a Gamecube, mainly the young one plays it though). After all this time, I still find running Defender of the Crown on some emulator really enjoyable, no matter how many times I've become king of England. And still one of my favorite games that I can continue to waste a good amount of time on is Military Madness (Nectaris) originally for the Turbo Graphix 16, now freely available on the net ported over to Windows. Gaming is for me just an enjoyable pastime, when I have the time, if the game is fun in 1994, it should really still be fun in 2004.
You've been spitting that drink alot today haven't you? ;-)
Quite, a least I've seen nor heard nothing in the Quran which directly would state that. That is nothing which specifically says, earth inhabitants, you are the only creatures I've made. Other verses might be up to interpretation, the proper interpretation of which would be determined through the hadith literature, as well as cross reference to the Quran itself (at least according to some). Like I mentioned, the hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, and for us Shia, to the 12 Imams as well), do lend credence to the idea of their being life outside of Earth. Actually in my original post I didn't detail all the ones I've come across, such as one that apparently indicates the possibility of instellar space travel by (at least some) of those worlds. There's one apparently that says that Imam Ali (I think) said something about the inhabitants being able to travel by means of light. interesting stuff, since if travel between the stars is actually possible, it would have to be something way out our reach technologically just in considering the sheer distance between one star system to the next. Something like harnessing the quality of light itself actually be the answer (though of course presently only in the realm of sci-fi for us earthlings at this time in our history ;-)
One has to be careful however, since it is a fact that in the hadith literature you will come across spurious reports of dubious value. That;s why a vast discipline of determining historical worth for each tradition has developped over the centuries. I add this as a caveat.
Anyhow, to get back to the point, your friend may have been well intentioned, but I daresay misinformed. God knows best.
actually, what would be REALLY good if anyone knows, a dvd set anywhere I could eventually purchase?
:-)
Yeah, a dvd set, with all the umpteen debs on it all my disposal, that would be hard to argue against
Well I'm looking forward to seeing this go stable, my experiences with the beta installers were quite good. Really clears out one of the last stereotypical complaints against Debian and all ("installer is an ancient piece of cruft", which really, part of it was.) I'm more of a slackware user these days, but I often list Debian as the "other" distro that I like. But once sarge gets stable, I might just give it another go. Maybe, I might even go ahead an buy a cd set, since on dialup, downloading packages and such can be rather a pain. Anyone have any suggestions of the best place to get debian cds from?
Don't know why I'm responding, maybe on the odd chance somebody will read what you posted and actually think you have a clue.
First off, clever to quote from something, giving reference numbers, without actually specifying what you're quoting. For those who don't know, those sayings were not from the Quran, but rather from a collection of Hadith, looks like Muslim's or Bukhari's. A hadith is a reported saying of the Prophet, transmitted through a line of narrators whose names will usually be given. Why? Because unlike the Quran, the Hadith are subject to questioning in terms of their actual authenticity, and hence value. It's a well known fact that muslim, like everyone else out there, were not immune to fabrications, hence the need to have some safeguard so one can determine the truthfullness of what one is reading.
Now, if you'd read my post a little clearer, you would have noticed, I am a SHIA. What you're quoting is from Sunni books. Sunni books in particular that Shia scholars have thoroughly criticized in terms of the legitimacy of their narrations, not just due to sectarian politics, but due to where clear weaknesses in many of their claims to accuracy.
As to the sayings you quoted, though no, I don't go dipping flies in my food, none the less there is often different ways of understanding things like this anyhow. Like the first one, ever heard of being figurative? God knows best. However, what's interesting is that if you look at one sayings of Imam Ali (there are several others which would back up my point, but I'll stick to a quick one for now), the sucessor to the Prophet for us Shias (for us, the hadith compose of the sayings of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, and the twelve Imams), it's reported that he said that the cause of disease is something so small you cannot see it with one's eyes. But if you could, you would see that it is in fact very small living things. Hmm, maybe don't be so quick with throwing out those antibiotics....
Not sure I follow you about the Torah question. If you're referring to the parent poster, he was quoting from a writing called the book of Moses found in a Mormon collection called the Pearl of Great Price. Rather interesting collections of texts, but as a non-mormon, obviously I don't for an instant believe its really a book of Moses. But enough of that.
What we believe is this though, as God had sent prophets and warners to all people in the past, God sent man a number of books through some of the prophets in history for the guidance of humanity. Of these, a few receive repeated mention (there are said to have been others though), the Torah with Moses, the Zabur with David, the Injeel with Jesus, and the Quran with Muhammad, peace and blessings on them all. As such, we have to believe in all that God has sent. However, we also believe that though the essential message of God has been the same through all prophets, none the less, other matters, particularly laws for instance, may only be valid for the time of those revalations and their authority. I.e., we do not consider ourselves bound by the specific laws found in the Torah as such, though of course there does exist a good deal of similarity between the Islamic Shariah, and what Jews might refer to a Halachic laws. (if I'm getting that latter right). Yes we are bound to follow it, in the sense of believing in it, the original, uncorrupted scripture, not necessarily though in following what people carry around though calling the Bible today though.
Another point to know, is that most Muslims also believe that the former scriptures as we now have them are incomplete and/or corrupted, through the passage of time, and the hands of men, often by men of "religion" leading their people astray. This was in fact one of the points behind the Quran, to set matters straight, where men had forgotten.
There isn't a passage in the Quran which quite says what you were quoting, but here's a few different ones mentioning the Torah I found for you:
He hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture with truth, confirming that which was (revealed) before it, even as He revealed the Torah and the Gospel.
Lo! We did reveal the Torah, wherein is guidance and a light, by which the prophets who surrendered (unto God) judged the Jews, and the rabbis and the priests (judged) by such of God's Scripture as they were bidden to observe, and thereunto were they witnesses. So fear not mankind, but fear Me. And sell not My revelations for a little gain. Whoso judgeth not by that which God hath revealed: such are disbelievers.
And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation for him. Whoso judgeth not by that which God hath revealed: such are wrong-doers.
And We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow in their footsteps, confirming that which was (revealed) before him in the Torah, and We bestowed on him the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light, confirming that which was (revealed) before it in the Torah - a guidance and an admonition unto those who ward off (evil).
And unto thee have We revealed the Scripture with the truth, confirming whatever Scripture was before it, and a watcher over it. So judge between them by that which God hath revealed, and follow not their desires away from the truth which hath come unto thee. For each We have appointed a divine law and a traced-out way. Had God willed He could have made you one community. But that He may try you by that which He hath given you (He hath made you as ye are). So vie one with another in good works. Unto God you will all return, and He will then inform you of that wherein you differ.
If they had observed the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto them from their Lord, they would surely have been nourished from above them and from beneath their feet. Am
heh, got me there...
I'm afraid I don't follow your logic. How does being free from sin make one God's equal? Do babies sin? Is a mouse God's equal? A worm? I really can't think of how they have disobeyed their Creator. If sin is inherent, where do we inherit it from? If you say Adam, I'm afraid I don't get that either. Why should I be damned for someone else's fault? Would a God of love be like that?
Personally, I agree with you on the pervasiveness of sin, but don't look to our ancestor for the blame. Rather human beings have a (limited) power to choose the course of their lives. Many, most, of us screw up in those decisions somewhere along the way. That's where one sees the mercy of God, in forgiving that of us if we just have the humility to ask it. I don't believe God expects perfection of us error-prone beings, after all, He did not create us that way. That's why as muslims we say that what we are judged by are our intentions, not necessarily (at least not strictly) by our actions. As such, a question of the necessity of a god-man dying for our sins just doesn't make sense. God is powerful, and compassionate, enough that He can forgive us, no blood required.
Some though, I believe, can live their lives without sin. For most of us, that time is only when we're babies. But for a select few, (I emphasize the word 'select') the truth of God's power and reality is so pervasive and real, sinning to them would be as ridiculous as one of us jumping into a burning fire. In that, I'm speaking of prophets and saints.
Anyway, I do enjoy the conversation, regardless of the differences in points of view.