It is neither immoral or illegal for Apple to decide that their OS X is tied to their hardware. They are under no moral or legal obligation to support hardware they do not make. They have also every moral and legal right to tie their operating system to their hardware by any means they wish.
If they wanted to be mean and stupid, such as Microsoft, they could institute a similar activation scheme. They could also refuse to sell you a copy of the operating system unless you came up with a valid Mac serial number they have on file. Apple did not do much against the Hackinosh community until Pystar came along. In the end, if Apple should not prevail in court, which is unlikely, but may happen, they may be forced to restrict the sale of their operating system to bona fide Macintosh owners. Then anyone wishing to build a Hackintosh will have to violate copyright law.
...There is hardly any malware for mobile platforms....
That is because there is a huge variety of mutually incompatible devices. Manufacturers of phones also tend to design security in, rather than an afterthought, such as happened with Windows. When a device is hacked, such as jail broken iPhone's, the built in security from the manufacturer is nullified. Even though millions of iPhones have been sold, none of them, except for the jail broken ones have any problems with rogue software. Because Apple checks all programs for the iPhone, no bad programming can ever get through.
Well if it comes down to some careless unloving owner letting their dogs run loose and kill a bunch of chickens or sheep, then the rancher is authorized to get rid of such problem dogs. They shoot cougars and foxes, as well as other predators of their livestock. So far at least, around here, people are still allowed to protect their property.
There should be a steep fine, say $1000 or more for letting a dog run wild. Maybe then careless dog owners would keep a better control of their darling pets. Fewer dogs than would be executed by ranchers and they wouldn't be as many in the pound either.
... Do you really think I would deserve to have my dog shot?....
Maybe not in your city neighborhood, but here in the country, ranchers shoot dogs every day, because these unsupervised darling pets run around in packs at night and kill livestock. Thus, any unsupervised, loose dog is shot on sight. So yes, if you lived in the country, like I do, your dog would be dead meat. Mountain lions get the same treatment.
...Generally when dogs like that "cross the border from one persons property to the next"....
they are simply shot dead. That is what many property owners do around here to stray dogs. Anybody that allows their darling pet to run around free, without supervision, doesn't really love that dog and deserves to have it shot. No law is needed nor is the Sheriff's time wasted.
...Marijuana is the only one that is sure to cause greater societal suffering...
I suppose you want to bring prohibition back? Has it ever been demonstrated that marijuana leaves a person as incapable as the average alcohol drinker? Do you realize there are more people in prison because they were in possession of something they were not to have?
Do you really think that it takes a law to squelch anonymity on the Internet? All it really takes is money and sometimes not even that. Users of the Internet should get over the notion of anonymity. It does not exist. If you are not willing to stand by the statements you make on the Internet, don't make them, because you WILL be found out who you really are, if someone wants to know badly enough.
Unfortunately, he doesn't really say what he means. It's not that he doesn't want Google to index his sites, it's just that he wants Google to pay him a wad of money for the privilege. I think Google should stop indexing them for a while, just to see Murdoch come crawling on his knees begging to have indexing reinstated.
...Killing cancer by poisoning.... I had in mind more than the removal of cancer by surgery and making sure every last cancer cell was gone. If the cancer has metastasized, surgery can no longer reach those cancer cells, but yet somehow, they must be killed. Sin is like a cancer in the human spirit and we are all without a single exception infected by it.
(...Sin is a poor excuse for the troubles that plague humanity...) Unfortunately you are wrong. Sin is the cause of every trouble every person on this planet ever has had and will have, culminating in death. Contrary to the belief of many, death is not extinction of being, but merely a separation. The first separation occurs at physical death, where the spirit or soul is separated from the body. All humans are subject to this, including you and I. The second separation, what the Bible refers to as the second death, occurs when the spirit or soul or separated forever from God.
Right now, good and evil exist side-by-side and will continue to do so until Judgment Day. After that, there will be a place where only evil exists and another place where there is only good. These places are commonly referred to as hell and heaven.
(...If people truly cared about each other...)
Yes of course that is true, but the sin of selfishness in every one of us prevents that. Jesus Christ alone is the cure for sin. Jesus said that a man must be born-again. Everyone who was only born once will die twice but he who is born twice, once in the body and once in spirit, will only die once. A true Christian, one who has been born again, is given the desire and the ability to not sin. That doesn't mean such a person achieve sinless perfection, but truly in their heart desires to please God by not sinning. You can read about what Jesus had to say on the subject in the third chapter of John.
The key is to believe what God says and then out of that belief, like for example a mother Theresa, live a life of service for God and man.
So is a cancer surgeon's opinion in killing every last cancer cell?
That's because you and I live in sin soaked world and have no idea what a perfect and holy God might be like. We are all, without exception infected with the cancer of sin.
The wages of sin is death and because we have all sinned we all die. You can argue with that all you want, but you're going to die.
However, God offers his grace to those who BELIEVE. It's not those who are smart like you, or smooth talkers, good-looking or beautiful, strong and muscular, tall or able to run fast, educated or unschooled, but simply to everyone who believes. Everybody can believe, so that leaves nobody out. Can you think of another criterion that God could have used OTHER than simply believing him?
...that gravity accelerates charged particles with mass...
Until you realize that gravity affects charged particles with mass by an order of 36 magnitude times less than an electrical field. I don't think either you or I can imagine the size of a number one 36 zeros after or in front of it. Gravity, even if you make it 1,000,000 times as big as the sun's, is still insignificant.
Besides, if they were such thing as a black hole in the middle of the galaxy, these charged particles would fall inward toward the middle and be absorbed by all that matter. The radiation produced somewhere in the supposed black hole would never make it out again. No, the only way radiation of the enormous energies we observe can be obtained is by the action of electrical fields over great distances. Gravity is simply too tiny to have any significant effect on charged matter. Gravity, directly or indirectly is too weak a force to be in the radiation generation game.
....It necessarily reduces the ability of the mother to make decisions regarding her own life.....
The mother can make decisions regarding her own life, but she has no right to make decisions for somebody else including her unborn baby, who is another human being with rights just like you and I.
Governments exist primarily to protect one person from another. Unborn children are persons under continuous development into adulthood. The development starts at conception. It is the right and duty of government to make sure that one person does not infringe upon the rights of another person.
There should be no arbitrary right for anyone to decide whether someone innocent should be terminated. The life of the mother weighed against the life of the unborn child should allow the mother to decide, together with her doctor what to do in such a case as well as rape and incest.
The issue is when do HUMAN rights begin. When a baby is conceived, it is a person. The development of such a person is continuous into adulthood in the course of time. Birth is just the time in such a continuous development which marks the point where such a person can exist outside of the womb.
The question of abortion is one of rights between a person, the mother and another person, the baby. Whether the baby is in the womb or outside has no bearing on personhood. It is unscientific and totally nonsensical, to use time as the deciding factor, whether or not that which was conceived is human being with all rights that we normally accord to such.
Whether or not to allow conception to happen is a religious and personal issue and should be kept as such.
If it comes down to a question of the life of the mother versus the life of the unborn child, I would let the mother, if she is able to, make that decision together with her doctor.
You think that you can give a description such as that to a human and then it becomes no longer human? That is what the Nazis did. They labeled Jews as subhuman and then they could justify it to themselves to murder them. You are labeling a human baby a fetus and then you justify murdering a human unborn baby.
....Right and wrong are entirely based on opinion....
Unless you're talking about God's opinion, which in the end is the only opinion that counts. You may not want to believe that you will answer to God's judgment one day, but nevertheless you will.
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment,
You know you can't argue with the first part of this sentence, but apparently you and many others dispute the second part.
.... no matter how scientific the basis, it'll be arbitrary....
Drawing the line at conception is both scientific and non-arbitrary. After conception, at which time human development has begun, it continues into adulthood. Birth does not interrupt this continuous development, but merely means that the person is now not dependent on the mother in the same way as when that person was still in the womb. The scientific fact of the matter is that after conception there is a real developing person in existence. Destroying such a person any time after conception is homicide. The research article is another piece of evidence that this is true.
....The abortion debate is about the very complicated question of whether it harms another person or not....
Obviously, an abortion harms a person, the developing baby. When a baby is conceived, it is a person. The development of such a person is continuous into adulthood in the course of time. Birth is just the time in such a continuous development which marks the point where such a person can exist outside of the womb. The question of abortion is one of rights between a person, the mother and another person, the baby. Whether the baby is in the womb or outside has no bearing on personhood.
In order for the Nazis to justify killing Jews and others, they first declared them as nonpersons, (Untermenschen) literally under human. Abortionists do the same thing by declaring that the developing baby is only a bunch of developing cells, but not a person with rights of personhood. Justifying abortion on that basis is pure evil.
One of the reasons for existence of government, if not the major reason, is to protect one person from another. In the case of abortion, the rights of the person of the mother must be weighed against the rights of the person of the child. Most if not all governments have laws against killing another human being. Therefore it is curious to me and doesn't make sense at all, that abortionists would approve killing before the purely artificial point of birth and not afterwards. The birth of a human being does not interrupt in any way shape or form, the process of continuous development into adulthood.
...Babies get excited and kick when there's commotion outside too....
This is nothing new. This was written in the Bible almost 2000 years ago:
Luke 1:40 And she entered into the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. Luke 1:41 And it happened as Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,
This seems to indicate however that it is the mother's hearing that somehow communicated to the baby in her womb. It is not unreasonable to expect there to be a communications channel between a mother and her unborn child. Apparently, the mother does more than only supply whatever nutrients a baby needs before it is born.
...Actually I will unconsciously start speaking in broken English...
I once consciously spoke in broken English, while visiting Germany, even though I can speak German without any accent. The reason was that I wanted to get out of a traffic ticket and it worked.
....Besides, you have special insight into me that you know I never truly believed....
I was only going by the information you provided it in that you wanted to be an atheist. If you were truly born-again, that becomes impossible, just as it becomes impossible for you not to be the son of your earthly father.
Jesus chided his disciples and others around him time after time, for not believing at times. However, with the exception of Judas, the other disciples were all born-again sons of God.
All true Christians, born of the Spirit, are at times assailed by doubts. Jesus' disciples, especially Thomas, was in the same boat you are. Even Peter, though he denied Jesus Christ three times, could not undo his sonship and the fact that he was a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not throw him away but dealt with Peter in gentle love.
Jesus is willing and able to forgive any sin, including the sin of doubt. If you are a truly born-again Christian, a son of God, you never can get out of being one unless you do what is written in Mark 3:28-29
If you are a son of God, you will have the Holy Spirit within you as it says in Romans 8:14-16.
True faith is not about mystical experiences or healings but about believing God's Word. You must remember, that Christians have an enemy, Satan, who first tempted and succeeded with the temptation of doubt way back in the garden.
So yes, I will pray for you, that the waves of doubt will subside and that you will be given the strength to simply believe God's Word.
....there shouldn't be a tax exemption for church's...
The problem is that constitutionally the government is not allowed to treat churches any different than other nonprofits. If they eliminate church tax deductions, they would have to eliminate all charitable deductions. There are churches who have lost their tax-deductible status because of political statements or actions.
Slashdot Mirror
...in general we are arguing morals here,....
It is neither immoral or illegal for Apple to decide that their OS X is tied to their hardware. They are under no moral or legal obligation to support hardware they do not make. They have also every moral and legal right to tie their operating system to their hardware by any means they wish.
If they wanted to be mean and stupid, such as Microsoft, they could institute a similar activation scheme. They could also refuse to sell you a copy of the operating system unless you came up with a valid Mac serial number they have on file. Apple did not do much against the Hackinosh community until Pystar came along. In the end, if Apple should not prevail in court, which is unlikely, but may happen, they may be forced to restrict the sale of their operating system to bona fide Macintosh owners. Then anyone wishing to build a Hackintosh will have to violate copyright law.
.....You can buy MacOS at apple.com....
only for computers built by Apple.
...There is hardly any malware for mobile platforms....
That is because there is a huge variety of mutually incompatible devices. Manufacturers of phones also tend to design security in, rather than an afterthought, such as happened with Windows. When a device is hacked, such as jail broken iPhone's, the built in security from the manufacturer is nullified. Even though millions of iPhones have been sold, none of them, except for the jail broken ones have any problems with rogue software. Because Apple checks all programs for the iPhone, no bad programming can ever get through.
... the animal, who didn't know any better...
Well if it comes down to some careless unloving owner letting their dogs run loose and kill a bunch of chickens or sheep, then the rancher is authorized to get rid of such problem dogs. They shoot cougars and foxes, as well as other predators of their livestock. So far at least, around here, people are still allowed to protect their property.
There should be a steep fine, say $1000 or more for letting a dog run wild. Maybe then careless dog owners would keep a better control of their darling pets. Fewer dogs than would be executed by ranchers and they wouldn't be as many in the pound either.
... Do you really think I would deserve to have my dog shot?....
Maybe not in your city neighborhood, but here in the country, ranchers shoot dogs every day, because these unsupervised darling pets run around in packs at night and kill livestock. Thus, any unsupervised, loose dog is shot on sight. So yes, if you lived in the country, like I do, your dog would be dead meat. Mountain lions get the same treatment.
...Generally when dogs like that "cross the border from one persons property to the next"....
they are simply shot dead. That is what many property owners do around here to stray dogs. Anybody that allows their darling pet to run around free, without supervision, doesn't really love that dog and deserves to have it shot. No law is needed nor is the Sheriff's time wasted.
...Marijuana is the only one that is sure to cause greater societal suffering ...
I suppose you want to bring prohibition back? Has it ever been demonstrated that marijuana leaves a person as incapable as the average alcohol drinker? Do you realize there are more people in prison because they were in possession of something they were not to have?
...names on the internet should be revealed....
Do you really think that it takes a law to squelch anonymity on the Internet? All it really takes is money and sometimes not even that. Users of the Internet should get over the notion of anonymity. It does not exist. If you are not willing to stand by the statements you make on the Internet, don't make them, because you WILL be found out who you really are, if someone wants to know badly enough.
....If you have a mac....
Why not use the built in keychain program? Are they key chains not encrypted when locked? It has been working pretty well for me.
...Then, upload robots.txt and retire...
Unfortunately, he doesn't really say what he means. It's not that he doesn't want Google to index his sites, it's just that he wants Google to pay him a wad of money for the privilege. I think Google should stop indexing them for a while, just to see Murdoch come crawling on his knees begging to have indexing reinstated.
...Killing cancer by poisoning....
I had in mind more than the removal of cancer by surgery and making sure every last cancer cell was gone. If the cancer has metastasized, surgery can no longer reach those cancer cells, but yet somehow, they must be killed. Sin is like a cancer in the human spirit and we are all without a single exception infected by it.
(...Sin is a poor excuse for the troubles that plague humanity...)
Unfortunately you are wrong. Sin is the cause of every trouble every person on this planet ever has had and will have, culminating in death. Contrary to the belief of many, death is not extinction of being, but merely a separation. The first separation occurs at physical death, where the spirit or soul is separated from the body. All humans are subject to this, including you and I. The second separation, what the Bible refers to as the second death, occurs when the spirit or soul or separated forever from God.
Right now, good and evil exist side-by-side and will continue to do so until Judgment Day. After that, there will be a place where only evil exists and another place where there is only good. These places are commonly referred to as hell and heaven.
(...If people truly cared about each other...)
Yes of course that is true, but the sin of selfishness in every one of us prevents that. Jesus Christ alone is the cure for sin. Jesus said that a man must be born-again. Everyone who was only born once will die twice but he who is born twice, once in the body and once in spirit, will only die once. A true Christian, one who has been born again, is given the desire and the ability to not sin. That doesn't mean such a person achieve sinless perfection, but truly in their heart desires to please God by not sinning. You can read about what Jesus had to say on the subject in the third chapter of John.
The key is to believe what God says and then out of that belief, like for example a mother Theresa, live a life of service for God and man.
...So gods perfect opinion is killing people...
So is a cancer surgeon's opinion in killing every last cancer cell?
That's because you and I live in sin soaked world and have no idea what a perfect and holy God might be like. We are all, without exception infected with the cancer of sin.
The wages of sin is death and because we have all sinned we all die. You can argue with that all you want, but you're going to die.
However, God offers his grace to those who BELIEVE. It's not those who are smart like you, or smooth talkers, good-looking or beautiful, strong and muscular, tall or able to run fast, educated or unschooled, but simply to everyone who believes. Everybody can believe, so that leaves nobody out. Can you think of another criterion that God could have used OTHER than simply believing him?
...that gravity accelerates charged particles with mass...
Until you realize that gravity affects charged particles with mass by an order of 36 magnitude times less than an electrical field. I don't think either you or I can imagine the size of a number one 36 zeros after or in front of it. Gravity, even if you make it 1,000,000 times as big as the sun's, is still insignificant.
Besides, if they were such thing as a black hole in the middle of the galaxy, these charged particles would fall inward toward the middle and be absorbed by all that matter. The radiation produced somewhere in the supposed black hole would never make it out again. No, the only way radiation of the enormous energies we observe can be obtained is by the action of electrical fields over great distances. Gravity is simply too tiny to have any significant effect on charged matter. Gravity, directly or indirectly is too weak a force to be in the radiation generation game.
....Or he can choose not pay for the bills and go to prison.....
So you are proposing that we return to the ancient practice of sending debtors to prison? How about selling them as slaves to work off the debt?
....It necessarily reduces the ability of the mother to make decisions regarding her own life. ....
The mother can make decisions regarding her own life, but she has no right to make decisions for somebody else including her unborn baby, who is another human being with rights just like you and I.
Governments exist primarily to protect one person from another. Unborn children are persons under continuous development into adulthood. The development starts at conception. It is the right and duty of government to make sure that one person does not infringe upon the rights of another person.
There should be no arbitrary right for anyone to decide whether someone innocent should be terminated. The life of the mother weighed against the life of the unborn child should allow the mother to decide, together with her doctor what to do in such a case as well as rape and incest.
...when a life becomes sentient/aware...
The issue is when do HUMAN rights begin. When a baby is conceived, it is a person. The development of such a person is continuous into adulthood in the course of time. Birth is just the time in such a continuous development which marks the point where such a person can exist outside of the womb.
The question of abortion is one of rights between a person, the mother and another person, the baby. Whether the baby is in the womb or outside has no bearing on personhood. It is unscientific and totally nonsensical, to use time as the deciding factor, whether or not that which was conceived is human being with all rights that we normally accord to such.
Whether or not to allow conception to happen is a religious and personal issue and should be kept as such.
If it comes down to a question of the life of the mother versus the life of the unborn child, I would let the mother, if she is able to, make that decision together with her doctor.
....trumps the rights of a fetus...
You think that you can give a description such as that to a human and then it becomes no longer human? That is what the Nazis did. They labeled Jews as subhuman and then they could justify it to themselves to murder them. You are labeling a human baby a fetus and then you justify murdering a human unborn baby.
...the penalty is meted out...
To unborn innocent children? Some of the same people who are willing to murder innocent unborn, will protest the execution of serial killers.
....Right and wrong are entirely based on opinion....
Unless you're talking about God's opinion, which in the end is the only opinion that counts. You may not want to believe that you will answer to God's judgment one day, but nevertheless you will.
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment,
You know you can't argue with the first part of this sentence, but apparently you and many others dispute the second part.
.... no matter how scientific the basis, it'll be arbitrary....
Drawing the line at conception is both scientific and non-arbitrary. After conception, at which time human development has begun, it continues into adulthood. Birth does not interrupt this continuous development, but merely means that the person is now not dependent on the mother in the same way as when that person was still in the womb. The scientific fact of the matter is that after conception there is a real developing person in existence. Destroying such a person any time after conception is homicide. The research article is another piece of evidence that this is true.
....The abortion debate is about the very complicated question of whether it harms another person or not....
Obviously, an abortion harms a person, the developing baby. When a baby is conceived, it is a person. The development of such a person is continuous into adulthood in the course of time. Birth is just the time in such a continuous development which marks the point where such a person can exist outside of the womb. The question of abortion is one of rights between a person, the mother and another person, the baby. Whether the baby is in the womb or outside has no bearing on personhood.
In order for the Nazis to justify killing Jews and others, they first declared them as nonpersons, (Untermenschen) literally under human. Abortionists do the same thing by declaring that the developing baby is only a bunch of developing cells, but not a person with rights of personhood. Justifying abortion on that basis is pure evil.
One of the reasons for existence of government, if not the major reason, is to protect one person from another. In the case of abortion, the rights of the person of the mother must be weighed against the rights of the person of the child. Most if not all governments have laws against killing another human being. Therefore it is curious to me and doesn't make sense at all, that abortionists would approve killing before the purely artificial point of birth and not afterwards. The birth of a human being does not interrupt in any way shape or form, the process of continuous development into adulthood.
...Babies get excited and kick when there's commotion outside too....
This is nothing new. This was written in the Bible almost 2000 years ago:
Luke 1:40 And she entered into the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.
Luke 1:41 And it happened as Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,
This seems to indicate however that it is the mother's hearing that somehow communicated to the baby in her womb. It is not unreasonable to expect there to be a communications channel between a mother and her unborn child. Apparently, the mother does more than only supply whatever nutrients a baby needs before it is born.
...Actually I will unconsciously start speaking in broken English...
I once consciously spoke in broken English, while visiting Germany, even though I can speak German without any accent. The reason was that I wanted to get out of a traffic ticket and it worked.
....Besides, you have special insight into me that you know I never truly believed....
I was only going by the information you provided it in that you wanted to be an atheist. If you were truly born-again, that becomes impossible, just as it becomes impossible for you not to be the son of your earthly father.
Jesus chided his disciples and others around him time after time, for not believing at times. However, with the exception of Judas, the other disciples were all born-again sons of God.
All true Christians, born of the Spirit, are at times assailed by doubts. Jesus' disciples, especially Thomas, was in the same boat you are. Even Peter, though he denied Jesus Christ three times, could not undo his sonship and the fact that he was a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not throw him away but dealt with Peter in gentle love.
Jesus is willing and able to forgive any sin, including the sin of doubt. If you are a truly born-again Christian, a son of God, you never can get out of being one unless you do what is written in Mark 3:28-29
If you are a son of God, you will have the Holy Spirit within you as it says in Romans 8:14-16.
True faith is not about mystical experiences or healings but about believing God's Word. You must remember, that Christians have an enemy, Satan, who first tempted and succeeded with the temptation of doubt way back in the garden.
So yes, I will pray for you, that the waves of doubt will subside and that you will be given the strength to simply believe God's Word.
....there shouldn't be a tax exemption for church's ...
The problem is that constitutionally the government is not allowed to treat churches any different than other nonprofits. If they eliminate church tax deductions, they would have to eliminate all charitable deductions. There are churches who have lost their tax-deductible status because of political statements or actions.