Probably not. There is evidence that some of what are thought to be constant are not. In order for the present order of things to continue, the relationship between these constants must remain the same.
Our observations of the physical universe are of necessity limited to our physical senses. Technology has greatly extended the scope and sensitivity thereof, but physics is limited in the end to this limitation.
It appears that physics is increasingly bumping up against the interface between the physical dimensions and other realities. Philosophers and theologians have been discussing and arguing about these for centuries. Apart from revelation by sources beyond the reach of our senses, there is no way to learn what lies on that other side. The Holy Bible claims to be a revelation of some of the things that go on in the spiritual dimensions, directly from the Creator Himself. One such intriguing passage concerning Jesus Christ is:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether they are kings, lords, rulers, or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. He himself existed before all things, and by him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)
This passage and others tell us that the parts of reality which are accessible to science are only the shadows cast by the existence of things and intelligences based in other dimensions. Especially intriguing is that last phrase: "by him all things hold together". Physicists probably will discover some aspects of the mechanisms and forces by which the Creator reaches across that somewhat fuzzy divide between our dimensions and those beyond our senses. To me it is unfortunate that many scientists go to such great lengths to exclude God, or any reference to what is usually called 'supernatural'. Many, if not most technological inventions we enjoy today, would have been labeled supernatural by our forbears of long ago.
....Encryption is based on security by obscurity......
It seems that there is confusion by you and others between the difference of encryption and DRM. The purpose of encryption is for a outsiders not to be able to understand the messages between those who are "authorized". In DRM the goal is to allow the recipient of the message to understand the message, but not be able to pass that message or its key on to others. This latter thing can never be prevented by any sort of technology. No technology can ever keep someone from divulging a message they were SUPPOSED to be able to understand. This satellite scheme is only another DRM like scheme.
..... requires differential GPS, which needs fixed receivers and transmitters in relatively close proximity, so it can never cover the whole world.....
So only the small number of applications, such as the military, that need such precision somewhere out in the middle of nowhere will buy the Euro GPS keys. The rest will use fixed stations as needed for precision greater than the free US system provides. Besides this is really just another DRM system to prevent the intended recipient from finding the key. It looks like someone already has found it. Fortunately, the data these satellites send is not copyrighted. Therefore the DMCA type DRM protection laws don't apply.
This is not really any encryption scheme, but more like another hare brained DRM scheme. The receiver of the encrypted data at some point MUST be given the key, so the data is useful to the intended recipient. There is just NO way to keep the key secret from the person who is supped to have it in order to read the message. The goal of true encryption is to keep the key from a third party who is NOT supposed to know the content. That kind of encryption can be made near impossible to crack given a sufficient key-length. The intended recipient is the only one who has the key which will decrypt the message.
In any DRM scheme as well as this satellite system the is no THIRD party from whom the information must be kept. By information theory it is impossible for any DRM NOT to be broken. The content providers know this and that is why their DRM schemes have to be propped up by the legal system with DMCA type laws.
It can be made difficult for a recipient to access the key, but only ONE determined, technically competent person can produce the key or clear-text or both and that DRM is forever broken. That is why anyone who is determined to "pirate" for money will always be able to do so. Therefore, I believe these satellite or other DRM schemes have nothing to with copyright, but control. A customer having legally acquired the data ONCE and for all is not palatable to many data providers. The purveyors of all of these schemes want to be able to re-sell the same information, be it entertainment or GPS data, again and again to the same customers for use in different circumstances and purposes.
...."Well that program doesn't work anymore and there is no similar OS X version......
Actually I was surprised how many OS9 programs did and still work on OSX under classic mode. I have some Mac programs I still use occasionally, that go back to 1989 that still work just fine on my PPC running OS10.4.6. Many programs in the old OS9 App folder still run just fine, including the old IE explorer5, Photoshop 2.5, Filemaker 4, AOL5 still signs on!, MSWord5, Finale2002 and others. All old Mac programs that want to access hardware directly no longer work. This includes most games.
....But, oh, I guess we were discussing my faults. Sorry.....
I did not have anyone's faults in mind. You made reference to what you WILL be doing in 50 years from now. Nobody knows what they will be doing the next day, because there is no guarantee that any of us will get to see the it. Do you fear that God may find some fault with you? If you have always done right, why do you fear or feel guilty? Do you believe God will treat you unfairly? Think through why you might feel guilty before God. Someone who is innocent should have nothing to fear from a righteous judge. In human courts, innocents sometimes do get convicted, but do you think that an all knowing God will make a mistake of justice concerning you? If not, there is no need to feel guilty, unless you know that you are guilty and will receive what you deserve.
Unless you get run over by a truck tomorrow or die any of a million other causes. In that case you will face your Maker and get asked what you have done so far with your life.
.....The cataclysmic apocalypse referred to in the scriptures.....
Such a scenario is, in part, described in the last book of the Bible, where John was transported through time and space to see "the end". This end however is quite different. The ASSUMPTION (belief) of Hawking and most respondents here is that we humans are indeed in charge of our own destiny and there is no external, transcendent God who has other ideas and who is ultimately in charge. If humans are indeed left to their own devices, if there is no "boss", then the outlook as espoused by the majority of opinions expressed here is indeed grim. We are told by Jesus, who is the Lord of all, that mankind will indeed get to the very brink of self extinction, but God himself will intervene to prevent the outcome you have described in very well expressed language. You mention 'satanic' killers. The Bible, especially the last book thereof describes a powerful, incredibly malevolent spirit being, called Satan, bent on destruction of all human life.
When Jesus returns as King, every created being will bow down before Him and acknowledge Him to be supreme. He will stop the destruction, remove Satan, and personally rule this planet. It will be a time of peace and prosperity that has never been before. However it will also be a time where every violator of God's laws (basically the ten commandments) will be immediately caught and dealt with in perfect justice. Because He alone can and does read every human mind like an open book, nobody will get away with even the slightest infraction and everybody will be fully aware of this and behave themselves.
Suppose that even today, it were possible to have a perfect mind reading technology that would make public every thought of every human, good or bad! Anyone who only and always had only good in their mind would have nothing to fear from such a system. Only those who were planning NOT to love their neighbor as themselves, in some manner, would object.
...... If apple ever moves to a position of dominance, like the one MS is in now, the will be just as controlling and monopolistic as MS.....
Since Apple is in the hardware business, they do not need to become another MS. If Apple becomes really huge, they'll be an indirect threat to MS, because for every sale that Dell and other PC makers lose to Apple, means fewer OEM Windows sales. However the fact that Apple's hardware is very good and will also run Windows is a mitigating factor for MS. In all consumer goods, except personal computers, the manufacturer makes and is responsible for the entire product. In computers, it is the software that is most important, not hardware. An Apple computer running Windows can collect just as much malware as any other brand, but when running OSX is mostly safe. Apple alone realizes this and that is why, especially for consumers, is a better choice. I expect more and more consumers to realize this fact and Apple will sell more hardware than ever. I don't expect Apple to pre-install Windows any time soon, but many third party re-sellers already do this and sell dual-boot Macs. Because MS gets full retail price for each Mac installation, they already make more money from each Mac with Windows installed. MS Mac applications business is also nothing to sneeze at.
....This is a freedom which Apple users will likely never fully enjoy....
Agreed, for us geeks a traditional PC box is much better to mess around with. I have one of those for geeking around with new hardware and software, including Linux. If it crashes because of a screw-up of mine or a bug or virus, it doesn't cause me any loss of important data. If someone installs a rootkit or other malware, they don't get sensitive information, because that machine doesn't contain any. My son got and x-bax360 for playing games. The price of the latter and the above PC are about comparable to my Mac.
However for my day to day use, e-mail, surfing, photos, banking etc., I use a Mac. These are simply a better choice when I am not playing the geek and for ordinary users. The chance of getting infected by malware is also non-existent for practical purposes.
I don't think it will ever come to that. What will likely happen is that Macs will rise to maybe 35-40% total computer users. When VISTA finally does arrive, many users will find that their existing software will not work any more and they will also need to learn what is in effect a new computer. The popularity and the penetration of the Apple name, because of the ipod will also drive more Mac sales. Microsoft has promised more security with every OS, but VISTA will still have more malware than the Mac if past history is a guide.
The old excuse, especially in enterprise environments that Apple computers cannot run their special software is also less now because of the Intel switch. Apple makes high quality hardware and businesses will buy Macs since they are cool and well designed. They can run Windows both in dual boot or virtual mode. This will give many Windows users an easy chance to try Mac OSX and many will increasingly use OSX as they notice the difference. They will clamor for the OSX version of their Windows applications, when they find that their Windows partition or virtual machine is infected with all sorts of malware, unless they buy and keep up security software, whereas they have no such worries for OSX.
OSX and other UNIX variants are harder to hack, since they were made for a multi-user environment where the possibility of hackers existed long before the Internet made the spreading of malware so efficient. Windows single user heritage still hobbles it when it comes to hacker resistance.
Are you absolutely sure about that? If there is no God, you are nothing but a cosmic accident that somehow made it out of the primordial ooze. You may do as you please, or at least exhibit any behavior you think you can get away with. Logically you cannot talk about morals or ethics because these, just as you, are only an accidental cosmic joke. That is the logical conclusion of your bold assertion. If there is no God, as the ultimate authority and source of final justice, then Mao certainly was right: "Power belongs to the one with the best guns". Unless that person is you, the one who DOES have the biggest force will decide what morals and ethics you must abide by, or else. This scenario worked for Hitler and his friends until the Allies, with an even bigger gun finally asserted their authority over him and his ilk.
....More interestingly though is that the particular boat/ark/animal/god saving type story is prevalent largely only in the ME, and versions of it pre-date the noah story, but feature different characters and Gods.....
The biggest disagreements of events chronicled in the Bible and what modern science tells us concerns time frames. Many of the same events given times in the hundreds or thousands of years in the Bible, are assigned millions or billions by modern science. The foundational "clock" modern science uses is based upon the forces governing the atom, such as radioactivity. Equations governing the atom always contain a "time" unit. The underlying assumption of modern dating is that this clock and its time units have always been what they are today. There is increasing evidence from physics and cosmology that this may NOT be the case. Biblical time reckoning is based on the motion of the celestial bodies, which is controlled by the force of gravity. The equations of gravity do NOT contain any reference to time.
There is evidence that all continents were once contiguous as one, and then the breakup occurred. The continents float on the underlying, semi-liquid layers of the Earth and are in fact still moving slowly. According to the Bible the continental breakup occurred at the beginning of the flood and continued for some time afterwards. According to Genesis, the flood marked the beginning of a catastrophic time period for this planet, not only the flood itself, but also the time afterwards such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra.
To people of Bible times and for some still today, genealogies were very important and they tried their utmost to ensure their accuracy. Along with the names, often comments about the meaning of their names and/or events surrounding their lives are also added in these genealogies. One of these rather cryptic entries is that there was a man named "Peleg" (Gen 10:25)which means "divided". An explanation is given that it was during his lifetime "the earth was divided". Although the writers did not know anything about continental drift or plate tectonics, the idea of a divided earth is not unscientifc. The oldest book of the Bible is about a contemporary of that time. In the book of Job are many references to major upheaval phenomena and descriptions of huge creatures with properties very much like what we call dinosaurs today. Was it this one continent, which was at that time "the whole world" that was totally under water for about a year, prior to the breakup into the present configuration?
Geology is generally considered to be a slowly evolving activity, but cataclysmic events, such as the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1982 show that some geologic processes don't take nearly as much time as previously thought. The erosion structures throughout the Toutle River valley at the base of the mountain are miniatures of the same kinds of formations found in the Grand Canyon. Is it then so inconceivable that the Grand Canyon, for example, was not also formed by a cataclysmic event involving huge quantities of water rushing down a formerly peaceful Colorado River?
We, humans innately, do not like upheaval; personal, political or cosmic. Modern science tends to minimize or totally ignore the large amount of evidence that the earth had a rather violent past or put into a time long before humans existed. The Bible doesn't ignore the violent past, puts humans right in the middle of it and promises an even more violent future, some of it human caused, some of it of earthly and cosmic origin. Do not be so quick to dismiss other voices that tend to go against the prevailing consensus of "accepted" science. Historically it has often been these voices in the wilderness being right after all.
..... and instead living my life according to my own morality and ethics......
Good for you! Now if you have and will continue to do that 100% perfectly, according to the Bible, the perfect and just God will accept you on the basis of His justice. However, unlike baseball, only one miss will strike you out. The only human to ever be able to challenge His opponents to rightly show Him of even one mistake was Jesus Christ.
God has indeed placed within you, as in every human an innate sense of rightness, wrongness, justice and fairness. However, if you are really honest, you know that you have not lived up to your own standard of ethics and morality ALL the time. I certainly have not. That's why God provided the alternate route based on His mercy, rather than His perfect justice. So, if you have not lives a perfect life, I suggest you honestly consider, not religion based on your own effort, but God's mercy offered through Jesus, who suffered the justice of God on our behalf.
..... where is your evidence of a global flood?.....
You cannot name one place on this planet that does NOT show evidence that it was under water at some time. This taken together with the FACT that there is still enough water in the oceans today to cover the whole earth to over 5000 feet if the the earth were smooth. This coupled with evidence that there are many oceans worth of water locked up in the mantle, tends to corroborate that such a flood could have indeed have taken place. The evidence shows the amount of water needed to completely flood the earth is certainly still available, even though we as yet don't know a mechanism that could have released this upon the surface. But then, the interior of the earth is less accessible to investigation than the far side of the moon.
There is other evidence of the consistent ancient legends in diverse cultures of eight people surviving a huge flood. Things have not always been smooth and easy on this planet. There is plenty of evidence of sudden catastrophes of various kinds striking the earth. Meteor strikes, monstrous earthquakes and resulting tsunamis, massive volcanic activity resulting in years without summers and devastating floods.
It is indeed possible that by the random motions of the air molecules in your room that they could, theoretically all move to one corner, opposite you and you then suffocate. However the probability of this happening is essentially zero because of the large number of such molecules in the room. Now if there were only say a dozen or so, then the probability that these would all be only in one side of the room at a given time is quite high. For two particles it would be 50%.
......As with all other cultures at the time, the authors of scriptures thought the world was flat and had real ends.....
Exactly wrong, but the opposite is true. In Job 26:7 we read:
"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."
(....I asked YOU to prove your claim. Can you do it?.....)
Nobody can "prove" anything, but I can provide some strong evidence. Have you ever heard of continental drift? Continents not only move horizontally, but also vertically. Even right now, there is enough water in the present oceans to cover the entire globe over 5000 feet if the earth were perfectly smooth. There is evidence that three or four oceans of water are locked up in the layer of the earth named the mantle.
What event might have caused the release of some of this water is unknown, but the Biblical record states: "In the six hundredth year of Noah' life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Genesis 7:11) Did a sudden stress on the planet release some of this underground water onto the surface? No known laws of science PRECLUDE such a scenario. Like a squeezed sponge releases water and then soaks it up again, so too the deep layers of the mantle spewed forth water onto the surface and then later, when the pressure was released, soaked it up again.
(....no such concepts even existed when the text was written....)
Exactly true, yet the very first verse of the Bible contains the essential elements of our physical universe: "In the beginning (time) God (the cause) created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter-energy)"
(....Unfortunately, the evidence clearly shows that the Earth is billions of years old....)
I was not making any reference to the age of anything. Science can only address what we observe today and how things work now. Somehow we try to explain how things came to be the way they are. You can believe the cosmos created itself, which is absurd, that it has always existed, which modern discoveries showed to be false, or you can hold that a transcendent, eternal Creator is behind the Universe. I happen to believe the latter, but you may believe something else. Anything is indeed possible, but some things are highly improbable. To me, the explanation of an intelligent, powerful creator making a structure such as the human brain is much more probable and believable than any other possibility that does not involve the activity of a mind.
Is it not strange that you should feel threatened by an offer to be allowed to choose mercy, rather than the judgement you KNOW you so richly deserve? Lies do not make people feel threatened, they can just ignore them, like water off a ducks back. It's the truth they don't want to hear that makes them feel threatened, angry and lash out verbally or often physically at the messenger who brings the message they don't like.
.....AllOfMP3 doesn't give money back to the artist.....
When someone records a song off the radio, how much does an artist get from that? Does he/she get anything at all? Do radio stations not pay for being allowed to use content? Is it illegal to record music from any radio station? Why should an artist get more from a download "radio station" than from a conventional old fashioned one? What's different about a radio station that can be programmed by its listeners, song by song by each listener individually?
Is allofpmp3 unwilling to pay artists the same as any other radio station does now?
...... they're treating themselves as if they're a radio station that lets people download whatever they want, whenever they want, and keep it......
Have people not always been able to and still are able to legally record music from any radio station, regardless where on the planet it is located? I can record a short wave broadcast from Brazil or Germany and play these back whenever I wish. I this illegal? Do radio stations not pay the content owners for being allowed to broadcast their content? Is allofmp3.com unwilling to pay content owners the same as any other broadcaster gets paid?
Now the Internet technology has enabled the setting up of two way radio stations, internationally accessible, that allows a listener to program each radio station they are tuned to according to their listening desires, and then listen to and still record the music for later repeated playback. It is simply a by request radio station that allows every single request of every single lister to be played at the instant the listener requests it and the listener can play it back again and again. The listener pays the radio station for the privilege of programming the station to their own liking. As I see it, there is no fundamental difference, other than the technology used to deliver the same content that has been delivered ever since radio was invented. The technology used to distribute content to the listeners should have no bearing on how much an artist gets paid. What goes for radio also holds for television.
.....Russia cannot make sensible use of its huge oil revenue......
They are making pretty god use of their natural resources right now simply because the world, especially Europe NEEDS their oil and natural gas. If you have what somebody else wants badly, it puts you in the driver's seat. Posession is still ninetenths of the law, WTO notwithstanding.
.....The fact that the earth doesn't have corners.....
The original word translated "corners" comes from a navigational term meaning quadrants, as the earth is still divided by navigators.
You name just one continent that was NOT covered by water at some time in the past.
The Bible states in its opening sentence that time, space, matter-energy were all brought into existence out of nothing by God. Scientists have named this event the "Big Bang". God further repeatedly stated after each creation step, that it was "very good". God had made a perfect world, where there was no entropy, decay, death, deterioration, including two perfect humans. Their rebellion against God through unbelief destroyed the then perfect creation. God made some fundamental changes to the laws of physics at that time in order to confine the effects of man's rebellion.
All science is based on observing through our senses of what exists now, since that fundamental discontinuity. Man has was created perfect and has been DEVOLVING ever since.
.....on a side note, the entire functionality is not provided by the OS either.....
If all brand markings were erased from say a dual boot macbook pro running Windows, there would be no way to tell that you were running a product from Apple. Repeat: It is the SOFTWARE that makes a computer perform its function. The hardware allows for that to happen. If you run Windows unprotected on the internet, it will get infected by all sorts of evil software. Running OSX on the SAME hardware will not allow any of that crapware to run. Software is the tail that wags the dog.
Slashdot Mirror
......Are constants constant?.......
Probably not. There is evidence that some of what are thought to be constant are not. In order for the present order of things to continue, the relationship between these constants must remain the same.
Our observations of the physical universe are of necessity limited to our physical senses. Technology has greatly extended the scope and sensitivity thereof, but physics is limited in the end to this limitation.
It appears that physics is increasingly bumping up against the interface between the physical dimensions and other realities. Philosophers and theologians have been discussing and arguing about these for centuries. Apart from revelation by sources beyond the reach of our senses, there is no way to learn what lies on that other side. The Holy Bible claims to be a revelation of some of the things that go on in the spiritual dimensions, directly from the Creator Himself. One such intriguing passage concerning Jesus Christ is:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether they are kings, lords, rulers, or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. He himself existed before all things, and by him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)
This passage and others tell us that the parts of reality which are accessible to science are only the shadows cast by the existence of things and intelligences based in other dimensions. Especially intriguing is that last phrase: "by him all things hold together". Physicists probably will discover some aspects of the mechanisms and forces by which the Creator reaches across that somewhat fuzzy divide between our dimensions and those beyond our senses. To me it is unfortunate that many scientists go to such great lengths to exclude God, or any reference to what is usually called 'supernatural'. Many, if not most technological inventions we enjoy today, would have been labeled supernatural by our forbears of long ago.
....Encryption is based on security by obscurity......
It seems that there is confusion by you and others between the difference of encryption and DRM. The purpose of encryption is for a outsiders not to be able to understand the messages between those who are "authorized". In DRM the goal is to allow the recipient of the message to understand the message, but not be able to pass that message or its key on to others. This latter thing can never be prevented by any sort of technology. No technology can ever keep someone from divulging a message they were SUPPOSED to be able to understand. This satellite scheme is only another DRM like scheme.
.....use this cracked satellite data in the US due to DMCA......
Geophysical data cannot be copyrighted. Therefore copyright protection laws do no apply
..... requires differential GPS, which needs fixed receivers and transmitters in relatively close proximity, so it can never cover the whole world.....
So only the small number of applications, such as the military, that need such precision somewhere out in the middle of nowhere will buy the Euro GPS keys. The rest will use fixed stations as needed for precision greater than the free US system provides. Besides this is really just another DRM system to prevent the intended recipient from finding the key. It looks like someone already has found it. Fortunately, the data these satellites send is not copyrighted. Therefore the DMCA type DRM protection laws don't apply.
......Encryption will always be crackable,......
This is not really any encryption scheme, but more like another hare brained DRM scheme. The receiver of the encrypted data at some point MUST be given the key, so the data is useful to the intended recipient. There is just NO way to keep the key secret from the person who is supped to have it in order to read the message. The goal of true encryption is to keep the key from a third party who is NOT supposed to know the content. That kind of encryption can be made near impossible to crack given a sufficient key-length. The intended recipient is the only one who has the key which will decrypt the message.
In any DRM scheme as well as this satellite system the is no THIRD party from whom the information must be kept. By information theory it is impossible for any DRM NOT to be broken. The content providers know this and that is why their DRM schemes have to be propped up by the legal system with DMCA type laws.
It can be made difficult for a recipient to access the key, but only ONE determined, technically competent person can produce the key or clear-text or both and that DRM is forever broken. That is why anyone who is determined to "pirate" for money will always be able to do so. Therefore, I believe these satellite or other DRM schemes have nothing to with copyright, but control. A customer having legally acquired the data ONCE and for all is not palatable to many data providers. The purveyors of all of these schemes want to be able to re-sell the same information, be it entertainment or GPS data, again and again to the same customers for use in different circumstances and purposes.
...."Well that program doesn't work anymore and there is no similar OS X version......
Actually I was surprised how many OS9 programs did and still work on OSX under classic mode. I have some Mac programs I still use occasionally, that go back to 1989 that still work just fine on my PPC running OS10.4.6. Many programs in the old OS9 App folder still run just fine, including the old IE explorer5, Photoshop 2.5, Filemaker 4, AOL5 still signs on!, MSWord5, Finale2002 and others. All old Mac programs that want to access hardware directly no longer work. This includes most games.
....But, oh, I guess we were discussing my faults. Sorry.....
I did not have anyone's faults in mind. You made reference to what you WILL be doing in 50 years from now. Nobody knows what they will be doing the next day, because there is no guarantee that any of us will get to see the it. Do you fear that God may find some fault with you? If you have always done right, why do you fear or feel guilty? Do you believe God will treat you unfairly? Think through why you might feel guilty before God. Someone who is innocent should have nothing to fear from a righteous judge. In human courts, innocents sometimes do get convicted, but do you think that an all knowing God will make a mistake of justice concerning you? If not, there is no need to feel guilty, unless you know that you are guilty and will receive what you deserve.
....Guilt works, when used properly....
Why do people feel guilty? Could it be because they are? Btw. I never said a word about guilt!
......where I will be in 50 years....
Unless you get run over by a truck tomorrow or die any of a million other causes. In that case you will face your Maker and get asked what you have done so far with your life.
.....The cataclysmic apocalypse referred to in the scriptures.....
Such a scenario is, in part, described in the last book of the Bible, where John was transported through time and space to see "the end". This end however is quite different. The ASSUMPTION (belief) of Hawking and most respondents here is that we humans are indeed in charge of our own destiny and there is no external, transcendent God who has other ideas and who is ultimately in charge. If humans are indeed left to their own devices, if there is no "boss", then the outlook as espoused by the majority of opinions expressed here is indeed grim. We are told by Jesus, who is the Lord of all, that mankind will indeed get to the very brink of self extinction, but God himself will intervene to prevent the outcome you have described in very well expressed language. You mention 'satanic' killers. The Bible, especially the last book thereof describes a powerful, incredibly malevolent spirit being, called Satan, bent on destruction of all human life.
When Jesus returns as King, every created being will bow down before Him and acknowledge Him to be supreme. He will stop the destruction, remove Satan, and personally rule this planet. It will be a time of peace and prosperity that has never been before. However it will also be a time where every violator of God's laws (basically the ten commandments) will be immediately caught and dealt with in perfect justice. Because He alone can and does read every human mind like an open book, nobody will get away with even the slightest infraction and everybody will be fully aware of this and behave themselves.
Suppose that even today, it were possible to have a perfect mind reading technology that would make public every thought of every human, good or bad! Anyone who only and always had only good in their mind would have nothing to fear from such a system. Only those who were planning NOT to love their neighbor as themselves, in some manner, would object.
...... If apple ever moves to a position of dominance, like the one MS is in now, the will be just as controlling and monopolistic as MS.....
Since Apple is in the hardware business, they do not need to become another MS. If Apple becomes really huge, they'll be an indirect threat to MS, because for every sale that Dell and other PC makers lose to Apple, means fewer OEM Windows sales. However the fact that Apple's hardware is very good and will also run Windows is a mitigating factor for MS. In all consumer goods, except personal computers, the manufacturer makes and is responsible for the entire product. In computers, it is the software that is most important, not hardware. An Apple computer running Windows can collect just as much malware as any other brand, but when running OSX is mostly safe. Apple alone realizes this and that is why, especially for consumers, is a better choice. I expect more and more consumers to realize this fact and Apple will sell more hardware than ever. I don't expect Apple to pre-install Windows any time soon, but many third party re-sellers already do this and sell dual-boot Macs. Because MS gets full retail price for each Mac installation, they already make more money from each Mac with Windows installed. MS Mac applications business is also nothing to sneeze at.
....WinDOS: The nature of Microsoft engineering still resides within XP.....
After VISTA ships you'll have to add that to your sig
....This is a freedom which Apple users will likely never fully enjoy....
Agreed, for us geeks a traditional PC box is much better to mess around with. I have one of those for geeking around with new hardware and software, including Linux. If it crashes because of a screw-up of mine or a bug or virus, it doesn't cause me any loss of important data. If someone installs a rootkit or other malware, they don't get sensitive information, because that machine doesn't contain any. My son got and x-bax360 for playing games. The price of the latter and the above PC are about comparable to my Mac.
However for my day to day use, e-mail, surfing, photos, banking etc., I use a Mac. These are simply a better choice when I am not playing the geek and for ordinary users. The chance of getting infected by malware is also non-existent for practical purposes.
......and as soon as everyone uses ONE OS......
I don't think it will ever come to that. What will likely happen is that Macs will rise to maybe 35-40% total computer users. When VISTA finally does arrive, many users will find that their existing software will not work any more and they will also need to learn what is in effect a new computer. The popularity and the penetration of the Apple name, because of the ipod will also drive more Mac sales. Microsoft has promised more security with every OS, but VISTA will still have more malware than the Mac if past history is a guide.
The old excuse, especially in enterprise environments that Apple computers cannot run their special software is also less now because of the Intel switch. Apple makes high quality hardware and businesses will buy Macs since they are cool and well designed. They can run Windows both in dual boot or virtual mode. This will give many Windows users an easy chance to try Mac OSX and many will increasingly use OSX as they notice the difference. They will clamor for the OSX version of their Windows applications, when they find that their Windows partition or virtual machine is infected with all sorts of malware, unless they buy and keep up security software, whereas they have no such worries for OSX.
OSX and other UNIX variants are harder to hack, since they were made for a multi-user environment where the possibility of hackers existed long before the Internet made the spreading of malware so efficient. Windows single user heritage still hobbles it when it comes to hacker resistance.
....as there is no god.....
Are you absolutely sure about that? If there is no God, you are nothing but a cosmic accident that somehow made it out of the primordial ooze. You may do as you please, or at least exhibit any behavior you think you can get away with. Logically you cannot talk about morals or ethics because these, just as you, are only an accidental cosmic joke. That is the logical conclusion of your bold assertion. If there is no God, as the ultimate authority and source of final justice, then Mao certainly was right: "Power belongs to the one with the best guns". Unless that person is you, the one who DOES have the biggest force will decide what morals and ethics you must abide by, or else. This scenario worked for Hitler and his friends until the Allies, with an even bigger gun finally asserted their authority over him and his ilk.
....More interestingly though is that the particular boat/ark/animal/god saving type story is prevalent largely only in the ME, and versions of it pre-date the noah story, but feature different characters and Gods.....
The biggest disagreements of events chronicled in the Bible and what modern science tells us concerns time frames. Many of the same events given times in the hundreds or thousands of years in the Bible, are assigned millions or billions by modern science. The foundational "clock" modern science uses is based upon the forces governing the atom, such as radioactivity. Equations governing the atom always contain a "time" unit. The underlying assumption of modern dating is that this clock and its time units have always been what they are today. There is increasing evidence from physics and cosmology that this may NOT be the case. Biblical time reckoning is based on the motion of the celestial bodies, which is controlled by the force of gravity. The equations of gravity do NOT contain any reference to time.
There is evidence that all continents were once contiguous as one, and then the breakup occurred. The continents float on the underlying, semi-liquid layers of the Earth and are in fact still moving slowly. According to the Bible the continental breakup occurred at the beginning of the flood and continued for some time afterwards. According to Genesis, the flood marked the beginning of a catastrophic time period for this planet, not only the flood itself, but also the time afterwards such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra.
To people of Bible times and for some still today, genealogies were very important and they tried their utmost to ensure their accuracy. Along with the names, often comments about the meaning of their names and/or events surrounding their lives are also added in these genealogies. One of these rather cryptic entries is that there was a man named "Peleg" (Gen 10:25)which means "divided". An explanation is given that it was during his lifetime "the earth was divided". Although the writers did not know anything about continental drift or plate tectonics, the idea of a divided earth is not unscientifc. The oldest book of the Bible is about a contemporary of that time. In the book of Job are many references to major upheaval phenomena and descriptions of huge creatures with properties very much like what we call dinosaurs today. Was it this one continent, which was at that time "the whole world" that was totally under water for about a year, prior to the breakup into the present configuration?
Geology is generally considered to be a slowly evolving activity, but cataclysmic events, such as the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1982 show that some geologic processes don't take nearly as much time as previously thought. The erosion structures throughout the Toutle River valley at the base of the mountain are miniatures of the same kinds of formations found in the Grand Canyon. Is it then so inconceivable that the Grand Canyon, for example, was not also formed by a cataclysmic event involving huge quantities of water rushing down a formerly peaceful Colorado River?
We, humans innately, do not like upheaval; personal, political or cosmic. Modern science tends to minimize or totally ignore the large amount of evidence that the earth had a rather violent past or put into a time long before humans existed. The Bible doesn't ignore the violent past, puts humans right in the middle of it and promises an even more violent future, some of it human caused, some of it of earthly and cosmic origin. Do not be so quick to dismiss other voices that tend to go against the prevailing consensus of "accepted" science. Historically it has often been these voices in the wilderness being right after all.
..... and instead living my life according to my own morality and ethics......
Good for you! Now if you have and will continue to do that 100% perfectly, according to the Bible, the perfect and just God will accept you on the basis of His justice. However, unlike baseball, only one miss will strike you out. The only human to ever be able to challenge His opponents to rightly show Him of even one mistake was Jesus Christ.
God has indeed placed within you, as in every human an innate sense of rightness, wrongness, justice and fairness. However, if you are really honest, you know that you have not lived up to your own standard of ethics and morality ALL the time. I certainly have not. That's why God provided the alternate route based on His mercy, rather than His perfect justice. So, if you have not lives a perfect life, I suggest you honestly consider, not religion based on your own effort, but God's mercy offered through Jesus, who suffered the justice of God on our behalf.
..... where is your evidence of a global flood?.....
You cannot name one place on this planet that does NOT show evidence that it was under water at some time. This taken together with the FACT that there is still enough water in the oceans today to cover the whole earth to over 5000 feet if the the earth were smooth. This coupled with evidence that there are many oceans worth of water locked up in the mantle, tends to corroborate that such a flood could have indeed have taken place. The evidence shows the amount of water needed to completely flood the earth is certainly still available, even though we as yet don't know a mechanism that could have released this upon the surface. But then, the interior of the earth is less accessible to investigation than the far side of the moon.
There is other evidence of the consistent ancient legends in diverse cultures of eight people surviving a huge flood. Things have not always been smooth and easy on this planet. There is plenty of evidence of sudden catastrophes of various kinds striking the earth. Meteor strikes, monstrous earthquakes and resulting tsunamis, massive volcanic activity resulting in years without summers and devastating floods.
It is indeed possible that by the random motions of the air molecules in your room that they could, theoretically all move to one corner, opposite you and you then suffocate. However the probability of this happening is essentially zero because of the large number of such molecules in the room. Now if there were only say a dozen or so, then the probability that these would all be only in one side of the room at a given time is quite high. For two particles it would be 50%.
......As with all other cultures at the time, the authors of scriptures thought the world was flat and had real ends.....
1 7071316.htm
Exactly wrong, but the opposite is true. In Job 26:7 we read:
"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."
(....I asked YOU to prove your claim. Can you do it?.....)
Nobody can "prove" anything, but I can provide some strong evidence. Have you ever heard of continental drift? Continents not only move horizontally, but also vertically. Even right now, there is enough water in the present oceans to cover the entire globe over 5000 feet if the earth were perfectly smooth. There is evidence that three or four oceans of water are locked up in the layer of the earth named the mantle.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/12/9712
http://www.ldolphin.org/deepwaters.html
What event might have caused the release of some of this water is unknown, but the Biblical record states: "In the six hundredth year of Noah' life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Genesis 7:11) Did a sudden stress on the planet release some of this underground water onto the surface? No known laws of science PRECLUDE such a scenario. Like a squeezed sponge releases water and then soaks it up again, so too the deep layers of the mantle spewed forth water onto the surface and then later, when the pressure was released, soaked it up again.
(....no such concepts even existed when the text was written....)
Exactly true, yet the very first verse of the Bible contains the essential elements of our physical universe: "In the beginning (time) God (the cause) created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter-energy)"
(....Unfortunately, the evidence clearly shows that the Earth is billions of years old....)
I was not making any reference to the age of anything. Science can only address what we observe today and how things work now. Somehow we try to explain how things came to be the way they are. You can believe the cosmos created itself, which is absurd, that it has always existed, which modern discoveries showed to be false, or you can hold that a transcendent, eternal Creator is behind the Universe. I happen to believe the latter, but you may believe something else. Anything is indeed possible, but some things are highly improbable. To me, the explanation of an intelligent, powerful creator making a structure such as the human brain is much more probable and believable than any other possibility that does not involve the activity of a mind.
....Don't threaten me, you deluded fool.....
Is it not strange that you should feel threatened by an offer to be allowed to choose mercy, rather than the judgement you KNOW you so richly deserve? Lies do not make people feel threatened, they can just ignore them, like water off a ducks back. It's the truth they don't want to hear that makes them feel threatened, angry and lash out verbally or often physically at the messenger who brings the message they don't like.
.....AllOfMP3 doesn't give money back to the artist.....
When someone records a song off the radio, how much does an artist get from that? Does he/she get anything at all? Do radio stations not pay for being allowed to use content? Is it illegal to record music from any radio station? Why should an artist get more from a download "radio station" than from a conventional old fashioned one? What's different about a radio station that can be programmed by its listeners, song by song by each listener individually?
Is allofpmp3 unwilling to pay artists the same as any other radio station does now?
...... they're treating themselves as if they're a radio station that lets people download whatever they want, whenever they want, and keep it......
Have people not always been able to and still are able to legally record music from any radio station, regardless where on the planet it is located? I can record a short wave broadcast from Brazil or Germany and play these back whenever I wish. I this illegal? Do radio stations not pay the content owners for being allowed to broadcast their content? Is allofmp3.com unwilling to pay content owners the same as any other broadcaster gets paid?
Now the Internet technology has enabled the setting up of two way radio stations, internationally accessible, that allows a listener to program each radio station they are tuned to according to their listening desires, and then listen to and still record the music for later repeated playback. It is simply a by request radio station that allows every single request of every single lister to be played at the instant the listener requests it and the listener can play it back again and again. The listener pays the radio station for the privilege of programming the station to their own liking. As I see it, there is no fundamental difference, other than the technology used to deliver the same content that has been delivered ever since radio was invented. The technology used to distribute content to the listeners should have no bearing on how much an artist gets paid. What goes for radio also holds for television.
.....Russia cannot make sensible use of its huge oil revenue ......
They are making pretty god use of their natural resources right now simply because the world, especially Europe NEEDS their oil and natural gas. If you have what somebody else wants badly, it puts you in the driver's seat. Posession is still ninetenths of the law, WTO notwithstanding.
.....The fact that the earth doesn't have corners.....
The original word translated "corners" comes from a navigational term meaning quadrants, as the earth is still divided by navigators.
You name just one continent that was NOT covered by water at some time in the past.
The Bible states in its opening sentence that time, space, matter-energy were all brought into existence out of nothing by God. Scientists have named this event the "Big Bang". God further repeatedly stated after each creation step, that it was "very good". God had made a perfect world, where there was no entropy, decay, death, deterioration, including two perfect humans. Their rebellion against God through unbelief destroyed the then perfect creation. God made some fundamental changes to the laws of physics at that time in order to confine the effects of man's rebellion.
All science is based on observing through our senses of what exists now, since that fundamental discontinuity. Man has was created perfect and has been DEVOLVING ever since.
.....on a side note, the entire functionality is not provided by the OS either.....
If all brand markings were erased from say a dual boot macbook pro running Windows, there would be no way to tell that you were running a product from Apple. Repeat: It is the SOFTWARE that makes a computer perform its function. The hardware allows for that to happen. If you run Windows unprotected on the internet, it will get infected by all sorts of evil software. Running OSX on the SAME hardware will not allow any of that crapware to run. Software is the tail that wags the dog.