The people who are disagreeing with you live in much more of a police state than you. As in: The police doesn't come in for a chat, they come in with weapons, armor, and shouting, and your accusations will be forwarded to he media as 'facts', and they will happily comply and publish them as such...
:( I know it is bad in many places, but surely, it is only in the movies it works like that in the US?
... lots of paranoid stuff, I really hope it isn't that bad in the US...
As I said to someone else, this is a somewhat civilised country. Yeah, I might get framed, but the connection doesn't change that. Other than that, the above scenario is very unlikely, to say the least. (Not the email, but it would *laughed* at here. )
What are you going on about? This is about the civilized world, not US:p
Yeah, my reply was us-centric. What does your ISP's AUP say?
It has a lot of stuff about termination times and payments, and the bit about not for commercial use. That's about it, except the usual stuff about civil war, natural disasters and that kind of thing.
It appears to me that the suits referred to in the article are civil suits, so unless Denmark has radically different rules about the level of evidence required for a plaintiff to prevail, you might be more exposed than you think. You might actually have to prove that someone else actually did commit the infringement, not merely that someone else could have.
-Mike
Suing for damages is all but impossible in this country (a practice that the US should really think about adopting). Damages are are reward in cases of incest, rape and child abuse; that's about it. Even in those cases, the maximum is a few thousand dkr... divide by 5.5 to get to dollars.
Not sure if copyright infringement is civil or criminal here, though. Civil cases are mostly about contracts, sales and such.
Not borrowing a screwdriver out because it might be used for a break-in?
I realize you might not be from the US but "borrow" means to "lend from" not "lend to". It's a real problem these days for people, especially in the Midwestern US, to use that term incorrectly and look like a tool.
No I am not from the US, but I thank you for clearing that up. I mostly learned English from reading, so I do get the occasionally word backwards. Any good word for lend to, then?
Oh I wish we did live in such a world, really, I'm not kidding, it would be great.
However you could find yourself arrested, your equipment seized, and stories in the newspaper before anyone had time to believe that is wasn't you who did it, if they ever did.
Those things could happen no matter what I do. It happens to the people dealing with children occasionally, unfortunately, but fortunately the police are usually adamant about being very sure before they go around arresting people for such crimes until they are reasonable sure. For a mathematician such as I, I find it unlikely. If my IP did show up in a log, the local police might visit me for a chat, I'd show him what I could show (which would be a likely timestamp, maybe) and he would be on his way.
Sharing is a good thing, but unconditional sharing a net connection without checks of any kind is asking for your generosity to be abused.
Really? I think you fear your fate too much. In fact, my very open network has only ever been used by one person, and that person is me. What I do is legal, makes the world a bit nicer, harms noone, and the chance of mishaps are small. I'd be a coward for not doing it.
Let me put the risk in perspective for you. The police claims that they monitor several child porn sites. And that lots of lots of people tune in and stays there for more than 1 minute. Yet, charges are rare. Doesn't that tell you something?
I suppose one could argue that you are responsible for what you do *AND* let other people do with your connection. It's either that, or any person who wants to trade child porn or any illegal material only has to leave his wireless network open to be able to claim that it wasn't him but a random person using Wifi. In this particular case, it is unreasonable to ask the state or the plaintiff to show that it was you who downloaded/uploaded illegal things, since there is absolutely no way they could make such a case. At the very least, you should have to produce reliable logs showing that a third-party was logged on your network at the time the infringing material was downloaded. If someone claims it's not him despite convincing evidence (i.e. that his connection was used), *he* has to prove it.
You are wrong. Really, you are innocent until it is reasonable proven that you are guilty. Above, you list why child porno addicts are almost never convicted for downloading (in this country). It is too hard to prove it was really them. Creditcard transactions and possesion are the normal means.
However, since child pornography spreading is considered a major crime, conceivable the police could obtain a permit to install a camera or such to get some hard proof. But I have never heard of a case where that was necessary.
Well, if you get such a letter, you better have a log file to show them it wasn't you. Of course, such log files can also be faked, but I guess you are in a much worse position if you can't show at least some evidence that it wasn't you.
No. It is not my job to show I am innocent. Heck, some guy in this country was let off intensive sharing of child-pornography on the defense that his computer was riddled with virus.. Or some such. I'll just say "I didn't do it. Since I have an open wireless, it could be anyone in the neighbourhood". Then it would be my word against theirs, and the case would drop. Of course, they might bother me, even ransack my harddisks (which are clean). If they actually took my computer, I would be awarded damages if found innocent, and so forth (not much, of course. But still). Since I would be innocent, I don't really worry that I'll be convicted.
As far as anybody knows, access to your system is forbidden and considered trespass.
Hence the big banner that says "Welcome! You are welcome to use this connection, the password is user and the password is password:D (Well, that is the 2nd part. The first part is the same, but in Danish.
I'm not actually sure if it would be counted as tresspass here. In general, you have to show a clear border... I just don't know. I suppose the courts will have to decide that, should anyone actually press charges. If that happens, I think the accusers would be hard pressed to tell why they didn't at least enable the WEP protocol encryption, since that would clearly indicate to anyone that this is a private network.
I don't think the safe harbor provisions of the dmca would apply to you. The majority of ISPs' AUPs forbid "re-sharing" or re-selling of a subscriber's internet connection. You are a customer, not an ISP.
If you have an account with an ISP that permits you to re-sell the internet access, then you could claim safe harbor. Indeed, the riaa would be left sending you letters for ip-to-user translations.
Try finding a small local ISP and work with them to get re-sellable internet access. Maybe try the neighborhood wireless angle or free hotspot connectivity.
What are you going on about? This is about the civilized world, not US:p
My ISP lets me do anything that is legal and non-commercial, and I sincerely doubt that the non-commercial will really hold up in court. Not that it matters, since I have no intentions to. Providing free wireless is well within those parameters.
very Utopian of you. I'm sure you'd be just fine if someone used your open connection to download child porn.
It will bother me no more and no less than if they'd used any other connection. What's next? Not borrowing a screwdriver out because it might be used for a break-in? I will not let a few deviants destroy all that is good and beautiful about this world, and neither should you. I share my connection freely within reasonable limits.
Couple of problems with their system:
2. It doesn't really prove it was you, it just logs it to an IP address (even if it was your IP, you are running a wireless network, right?)
Exactly. I never illegally downloaded file in my adult life (and likely not before, given that 2400 baud was fast back then), yet I have a wireless (FON) router open to everyone who are near. It's pretty open, you could even print if my printer happens to be turned on. Security doesn't worry me as there is only linux machines on that network, and the internet connection is decently firewalled. But conceivable, someone could drive by, and download the latest Beatles-modern-equivalent file, and I could receive such a letter --- my IP is fixed, so no discussion there. But still, if any ISP is innocent, so am I.
In other words, they have to prove not only what IP did it, but what person. How do you do that? This sounds very much like the naughty-phone-bills case. They had to prove that it was a resident above 18(or 16?) that had called, and if they were unable to (as they were in most cases) they were kicked from court.
I was merely putting out numbers and putting them in perspective. I did not mean to imply anything. I'll let the scientist do the impact calculations, I'm not qualified for that at all.
It might interest you to know, though, that the 70TW is supposed to be available for windpower at 80m, not total wind energy at that level. So for total windpower, the number is much too small; from what I've read, total earth window is in the 1e16W range (but I am not really sure on that one).
I do not agree that there is "no way of predicting" the impact, not without backing from the models tweakers. It might well be entirely predictable, for all I know, and it is very likely predictable by some bracket.
At 80m, it's about 70 TW. So to make one percent, you'd need around 20000 of them at 40MW. On the bright side, that would be about 0.8TW, or almost half of the current electricity consumption of the human world..
At higher altitudes (which this is), the energy is somewhat higher, I understand.
Total energy from the sun is somewhere around 170.000 TW, if I recall correctly.
Effectively when we write the HTML code by hand we're creating very lightweight pages. I set some colours and a simple background based upon a small sample and I'm good. I came from the K-I-S-S school of web design, which seems to be dying mostly thanks to webapp/webpage development tools. It's like watching people program without a care about optimizing for size or speed. They're paid by the hour, not for the quality of the code.
Why do you set color and background? Let that be up to the user. Structured text with some hyperlinks, that is the way to go! Emphasize text with the em tag, use h1-h3 for headers, and the list tags... maybe the table tag for a simple table, or if extreme vital, a link to a SVG or PNG image (which should be obvious). That should be all you need. If you need personal, do a favicon, or maybe a link to a personal picture.
It's the same reason we're never going to be able to get ALL of our energy from hydro, wind, etc. Putting up significantly more dams or windmills has diminishing returns, as would your scheme, if it were remotely POSSIBLE to begin with.
Intriguing. Looking at this paper, which was what I could find in a hurry, wind power has a theoretical potential around 72TW, at 80m. Enough for electricity (currently, around 2TW), even if only a small fraction is caught.
Total influx from the sun (which is the ultimate limit for wind, solar hydro etc) is about 174.0 PW. Compare to our total energy use, around 14TW. You have about 4 orders of magnitude of leeway there:)
What's that? You are on DSL or Cable and do NOT have a firewall? Spend a few bucks and get one!
That one bears repeating. If you want to run windows, you are simply going to have to run it behind an idenpendent firewall, unless you enough of a security expert to be able to outline a IP packet without looking at the books. If you are too cheap or poor to get one, (k)ubuntu is right over there. CD's to be had for a couple of euros, and with the refund for the windows license, you're even going to save a few dollars or euros.
This goes for Windows up to and including the XP. Never been near Vistas, but from I hear, it's the same deal.
Well, it looks like we've reached an impasse. I'll recap.
You say "atheism is the absence of religion" (as part of the setup for a funny tag, which I do appreciate). That is sort of the definition, yes.
I say "All the atheists I've met practice atheism as a religion" (because I find their non-negotiable base axioms to be indistinguishable from any other religious faith).
You do? Mostly, you quibbled over the meaning of the word "god" (are the fairies blue or red?). There is no axiom in atheism, just the basic conclusion that a prayeraccepting, (miraculously) intervening and/or creating god is (very) unlikely. If you go around calling other peoples conclusions for axioms (which is anything but a conclusion, you just muddle the waters.
You say "Well that does not apply to me and I will accept no argument otherwise" (because you axiomatically define yourself as nonreligious).
As I recall, I easily dissected and removed all your "arguments" (which basically said that "since there is no universally agreed definition of God, and since atheist prefer to label the more common with that name, atheists are religious."
I say "You just proved my point" (true given my axioms, false under yours).
You proved nothing but your preconception led you to think so. From the very beginning, you had your conclusion ready. Nothing I said or did could change that, sadly.
I think now is where we both say, "OK, you're wrong, but I hope that works out for you since you seem like an otherwise reasonable guy".:)
Don't let the facts disturb your viewpoints, to be sure.
If we cannot accept each other's base axioms we cannot construct a mutually acceptable proof.
I used no axioms. You just continually claimed I did. Not quite the same:)
As for what is compatible... religious people tends to be very incompatible, no matter what strain they are brought up with. Thus, the hindus and the muslims are continually fighting in India. I suspect that if 2 people of the same strain were to live on the island, they would schism and end up killing one another.
Still, I agree that I can do no more here. I do hope someday you will cast off the fetters of religion. In any case, I hope you have a good life with love and happiness:)
I think you understood the definition reasonably well. God is indeed the universe.
So an synonym. Saying universe is clearer, and universally (hah!) understood.
God is also everything that is not described by the word "Universe".
Since universe is everything, that is an empty set.
God is not restricted by time or space, those things are just parts of God. God is the all-powerful, all-encompassing, all-knowing all. If your definition of the universe, or of God, has any exclusions, that's not the God I'm talking about. God is all.
(The universe being) all-powerful and all-knowing is logically inconsistent. So that is obviously wrong.
A
Pantheism has existed in many forms for over 2000 years. We don't know when the Chandogya Unpanishad was written, but it is at least that old and perhaps much older. Accusing me of playing semantics, of redefining words, is not useful. I'm using the same definition that various religions in China and India have been continuously using since at least 8 BC. It's a very popular definition among scientists who are religious, because it does not contradict observable phenomena. For example, the problem of evil does not exist for pantheists.
Obviously, the universe is not evil nor good (or logically self-conflicting, for that matter).
I think you might have strong religious beliefs, like every other atheist I've ever met. Perhaps to you, God MUST be an anthropomorphic phantasm - this may be an article of faith to you, just as it is to Christians and Muslims. Are you willing to consider other ideas? If the nature of your non-existent God is not open to debate, that's a religious position, not an open-minded or scientific position.
I have never said so, nor do I believe that. I said that god, as defined commonly defined, is such a fantasy. That you want to use the word as a synonym for a sort of sentient, logically inconsistent universe is not my problem. Hate to tell you less, but nothing suggest that the universe is sentient as such.
If you cannot consider any other form of God, then you do not have an "absence of religion" - far from it.
As I've said many times already: I can consider anything... more than you probably, since my training lies that way. I only said that it is better to say what you mean clearly and unambigiously if possible. If you are in love with the word "god" and want to use it for whatever you should qualify this so that people know what you're talking about. I don't believe this is very difficult to understand, but if it is still not clear, let it lie, since it is just sematics and not very important.
How one defines God is the essence of one's religion. It is the entire point of theology; to know God. I'm not trying to insult you, here, I am quite willing to respect any belief system that doesn't go around murdering people and destroying things in the name of God. Many people who attend my church call themselves atheists and also call themselves members of the UU religion. Many people consider Jains and Buddhists to be atheists. So-called "elite" taoists consider themselves to be religious atheists and are very proud of this.
Since I am not a religious man, I wouldn't know about what is important for a proper delusion of the religious persuasion.
I'm very willing to consider that a person might have a form of atheism that is not religious, but I don't think I've met any yet. All the forms of atheism that I've encountered are centered around unproveable premises, a faith unsupported by objective evidence.
I have unreasonable faith in many things (such as my wife, the basic goodness in most people etc), but I know very well how baseless this faith is. It is not very comparabl
And anyway, there is little evidence that porn is really more damaging for kids than e.g. the Bratz dolls.
You should probably provide some sort of evidence supporting this. I'm not a citation Nazi, but it really is a rather bold claim, especially given that it'd be tough to do a real study that involves exposing children to large amounts of pornography, just like it would be difficult to do a real study that involves exposing children to large amounts of radiation.
You are right that it would be difficult to provide the positive version of my statement due to correlations, which is why I wrote it in the negative.. I haven't seen evidence that porn is more damaging than bratz dolls. I have seen references to studies that finds that porn and bratz dolls correlate slightly with early sexual maturing in girls, and little effect if any on boys. Sorry, no links because a) I'm very tired right now and b) it was in Danish anyway.
I have never seen a study that correlates porn and criminal activities, but again, correlations makes such studies a bloody minefield so I wouldn't be surprised or convinced if a few showed either way. I think we'll have to wait for the meta-studies on that one. Interestingly, though, sexual offenses in Denmark are not high, yet most children at the age of 15 or so claim to have seen porn. But I know, it's just a vague hint, not claiming it proves much.
You haven't defined your God. If you did, it would be easily refuted; otherwise it is refuted by default. That is always the way.
I've defined God several times now, you are just refusing to acknowledge it. I am a pantheist, one of a huge number of pantheists, my philosophy is extensively documented in many languages, it's in every dictionary and encyclopedia, and although there are minor differences in "flavor" between the various kinds of pantheist we all agree on who God is.
You have said you are a pantheist, not defined God. Alright, going from the wikipedia definition then God is simply another name for universe --- how uninteresting. The difference practical difference between that and an atheist must be hair-thin, if there is any: No scripture, no miracles (in the physics-defying sense), no inherit ethics. Terry Pratchett once wrote something like "Everything and nothing; always and never: it's almost the same. " There are wisdom in those words.
My definition of God has existed for over 2000 years, so you can't honestly say I'm "hijacking a word". You're dodging. Or trolling.
How nice, but very common for people unable or unwilling to define what they mean. No, I'm not trolling, but since you choose to use a word to mean something else than most, you need to make that explicit rather than just assume that everyone cares or knows about some obscure worldview. You might think that it is all the other ones that are hijacking the word, or that it has a double meaning, but that doesn't really change anything. This is very similar to the "hacker" problem so commonly discussed here on/.
What, precisely, do you not understand about my definition of God? Have you read Wikipedia's entry on Pantheism? Will you accept any of these? If so, which one?
From a quick skim, the "definition" on wikipedia is just made another name for the universe. Do you remember that I don't care for discussing sematics?
You yourself have not offered a definition, so I have to guess that that is what you mean. If this is wrong, the blame is entirely yours.
Slashdot Mirror
:( I know it is bad in many places, but surely, it is only in the movies it works like that in the US?
... lots of paranoid stuff, I really hope it isn't that bad in the US...As I said to someone else, this is a somewhat civilised country. Yeah, I might get framed, but the connection doesn't change that. Other than that, the above scenario is very unlikely, to say the least. (Not the email, but it would *laughed* at here. )
It has a lot of stuff about termination times and payments, and the bit about not for commercial use. That's about it, except the usual stuff about civil war, natural disasters and that kind of thing.
-Mike
Suing for damages is all but impossible in this country (a practice that the US should really think about adopting). Damages are are reward in cases of incest, rape and child abuse; that's about it. Even in those cases, the maximum is a few thousand dkr... divide by 5.5 to get to dollars.
Not sure if copyright infringement is civil or criminal here, though. Civil cases are mostly about contracts, sales and such.
I realize you might not be from the US but "borrow" means to "lend from" not "lend to". It's a real problem these days for people, especially in the Midwestern US, to use that term incorrectly and look like a tool.
No I am not from the US, but I thank you for clearing that up. I mostly learned English from reading, so I do get the occasionally word backwards. Any good word for lend to, then?
Hehe. Point taken, but I meant equivalent in popularity.
However you could find yourself arrested, your equipment seized, and stories in the newspaper before anyone had time to believe that is wasn't you who did it, if they ever did.
Those things could happen no matter what I do. It happens to the people dealing with children occasionally, unfortunately, but fortunately the police are usually adamant about being very sure before they go around arresting people for such crimes until they are reasonable sure. For a mathematician such as I, I find it unlikely. If my IP did show up in a log, the local police might visit me for a chat, I'd show him what I could show (which would be a likely timestamp, maybe) and he would be on his way.
Sharing is a good thing, but unconditional sharing a net connection without checks of any kind is asking for your generosity to be abused.Really? I think you fear your fate too much. In fact, my very open network has only ever been used by one person, and that person is me. What I do is legal, makes the world a bit nicer, harms noone, and the chance of mishaps are small. I'd be a coward for not doing it.
Let me put the risk in perspective for you. The police claims that they monitor several child porn sites. And that lots of lots of people tune in and stays there for more than 1 minute. Yet, charges are rare. Doesn't that tell you something?
You are wrong. Really, you are innocent until it is reasonable proven that you are guilty. Above, you list why child porno addicts are almost never convicted for downloading (in this country). It is too hard to prove it was really them. Creditcard transactions and possesion are the normal means.
However, since child pornography spreading is considered a major crime, conceivable the police could obtain a permit to install a camera or such to get some hard proof. But I have never heard of a case where that was necessary.
No. It is not my job to show I am innocent. Heck, some guy in this country was let off intensive sharing of child-pornography on the defense that his computer was riddled with virus.. Or some such. I'll just say "I didn't do it. Since I have an open wireless, it could be anyone in the neighbourhood". Then it would be my word against theirs, and the case would drop. Of course, they might bother me, even ransack my harddisks (which are clean). If they actually took my computer, I would be awarded damages if found innocent, and so forth (not much, of course. But still). Since I would be innocent, I don't really worry that I'll be convicted.
Hence the big banner that says "Welcome! You are welcome to use this connection, the password is user and the password is password :D (Well, that is the 2nd part. The first part is the same, but in Danish.
I'm not actually sure if it would be counted as tresspass here. In general, you have to show a clear border... I just don't know. I suppose the courts will have to decide that, should anyone actually press charges. If that happens, I think the accusers would be hard pressed to tell why they didn't at least enable the WEP protocol encryption, since that would clearly indicate to anyone that this is a private network.
I don't think the safe harbor provisions of the dmca would apply to you. The majority of ISPs' AUPs forbid "re-sharing" or re-selling of a subscriber's internet connection. You are a customer, not an ISP.
If you have an account with an ISP that permits you to re-sell the internet access, then you could claim safe harbor. Indeed, the riaa would be left sending you letters for ip-to-user translations.
Try finding a small local ISP and work with them to get re-sellable internet access. Maybe try the neighborhood wireless angle or free hotspot connectivity.
What are you going on about? This is about the civilized world, not US :p
My ISP lets me do anything that is legal and non-commercial, and I sincerely doubt that the non-commercial will really hold up in court. Not that it matters, since I have no intentions to. Providing free wireless is well within those parameters.
It will bother me no more and no less than if they'd used any other connection. What's next? Not borrowing a screwdriver out because it might be used for a break-in? I will not let a few deviants destroy all that is good and beautiful about this world, and neither should you. I share my connection freely within reasonable limits.
2. It doesn't really prove it was you, it just logs it to an IP address (even if it was your IP, you are running a wireless network, right?)
Exactly. I never illegally downloaded file in my adult life (and likely not before, given that 2400 baud was fast back then), yet I have a wireless (FON) router open to everyone who are near. It's pretty open, you could even print if my printer happens to be turned on. Security doesn't worry me as there is only linux machines on that network, and the internet connection is decently firewalled. But conceivable, someone could drive by, and download the latest Beatles-modern-equivalent file, and I could receive such a letter --- my IP is fixed, so no discussion there. But still, if any ISP is innocent, so am I.
In other words, they have to prove not only what IP did it, but what person. How do you do that? This sounds very much like the naughty-phone-bills case. They had to prove that it was a resident above 18(or 16?) that had called, and if they were unable to (as they were in most cases) they were kicked from court.
Well, and what perspective would that be?
I did not mean to imply anything.
Sure you did.
You seem to be in denial of reality, and I have no time for religious types. PLONK.
I was merely putting out numbers and putting them in perspective. I did not mean to imply anything. I'll let the scientist do the impact calculations, I'm not qualified for that at all.
It might interest you to know, though, that the 70TW is supposed to be available for windpower at 80m, not total wind energy at that level. So for total windpower, the number is much too small; from what I've read, total earth window is in the 1e16W range (but I am not really sure on that one).
I do not agree that there is "no way of predicting" the impact, not without backing from the models tweakers. It might well be entirely predictable, for all I know, and it is very likely predictable by some bracket.
At 80m, it's about 70 TW. So to make one percent, you'd need around 20000 of them at 40MW. On the bright side, that would be about 0.8TW, or almost half of the current electricity consumption of the human world..
At higher altitudes (which this is), the energy is somewhat higher, I understand.
Total energy from the sun is somewhere around 170.000 TW, if I recall correctly.
Ehm. You do know it was a joke? Hence the ";)" at the end :)
Anyway, the grandparent forswore stylesheets, too (they were too complicated, I think)
Effectively when we write the HTML code by hand we're creating very lightweight pages. I set some colours and a simple background based upon a small sample and I'm good. I came from the K-I-S-S school of web design, which seems to be dying mostly thanks to webapp/webpage development tools. It's like watching people program without a care about optimizing for size or speed. They're paid by the hour, not for the quality of the code.
Why do you set color and background? Let that be up to the user. Structured text with some hyperlinks, that is the way to go! Emphasize text with the em tag, use h1-h3 for headers, and the list tags... maybe the table tag for a simple table, or if extreme vital, a link to a SVG or PNG image (which should be obvious). That should be all you need. If you need personal, do a favicon, or maybe a link to a personal picture.
;)
Intriguing. Looking at this paper, which was what I could find in a hurry, wind power has a theoretical potential around 72TW, at 80m. Enough for electricity (currently, around 2TW), even if only a small fraction is caught.
Total influx from the sun (which is the ultimate limit for wind, solar hydro etc) is about 174.0 PW. Compare to our total energy use, around 14TW. You have about 4 orders of magnitude of leeway there :)
How, exactly, do you make a popup message without javascript? ducks
That one bears repeating. If you want to run windows, you are simply going to have to run it behind an idenpendent firewall, unless you enough of a security expert to be able to outline a IP packet without looking at the books. If you are too cheap or poor to get one, (k)ubuntu is right over there. CD's to be had for a couple of euros, and with the refund for the windows license, you're even going to save a few dollars or euros.
This goes for Windows up to and including the XP. Never been near Vistas, but from I hear, it's the same deal.
You say "atheism is the absence of religion" (as part of the setup for a funny tag, which I do appreciate). That is sort of the definition, yes. I say "All the atheists I've met practice atheism as a religion" (because I find their non-negotiable base axioms to be indistinguishable from any other religious faith).
You do? Mostly, you quibbled over the meaning of the word "god" (are the fairies blue or red?). There is no axiom in atheism, just the basic conclusion that a prayeraccepting, (miraculously) intervening and/or creating god is (very) unlikely. If you go around calling other peoples conclusions for axioms (which is anything but a conclusion, you just muddle the waters.
You say "Well that does not apply to me and I will accept no argument otherwise" (because you axiomatically define yourself as nonreligious).As I recall, I easily dissected and removed all your "arguments" (which basically said that "since there is no universally agreed definition of God, and since atheist prefer to label the more common with that name, atheists are religious."
I say "You just proved my point" (true given my axioms, false under yours).You proved nothing but your preconception led you to think so. From the very beginning, you had your conclusion ready. Nothing I said or did could change that, sadly.
I think now is where we both say, "OK, you're wrong, but I hope that works out for you since you seem like an otherwise reasonable guy".Don't let the facts disturb your viewpoints, to be sure.
If we cannot accept each other's base axioms we cannot construct a mutually acceptable proof.I used no axioms. You just continually claimed I did. Not quite the same :)
As for what is compatible... religious people tends to be very incompatible, no matter what strain they are brought up with. Thus, the hindus and the muslims are continually fighting in India. I suspect that if 2 people of the same strain were to live on the island, they would schism and end up killing one another.
Still, I agree that I can do no more here. I do hope someday you will cast off the fetters of religion. In any case, I hope you have a good life with love and happiness :)
I think you understood the definition reasonably well. God is indeed the universe.
So an synonym. Saying universe is clearer, and universally (hah!) understood.
God is also everything that is not described by the word "Universe".
Since universe is everything, that is an empty set.
God is not restricted by time or space, those things are just parts of God. God is the all-powerful, all-encompassing, all-knowing all. If your definition of the universe, or of God, has any exclusions, that's not the God I'm talking about. God is all.
(The universe being) all-powerful and all-knowing is logically inconsistent. So that is obviously wrong.
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Pantheism has existed in many forms for over 2000 years. We don't know when the Chandogya Unpanishad was written, but it is at least that old and perhaps much older. Accusing me of playing semantics, of redefining words, is not useful. I'm using the same definition that various religions in China and India have been continuously using since at least 8 BC. It's a very popular definition among scientists who are religious, because it does not contradict observable phenomena. For example, the problem of evil does not exist for pantheists.
Obviously, the universe is not evil nor good (or logically self-conflicting, for that matter).
I think you might have strong religious beliefs, like every other atheist I've ever met. Perhaps to you, God MUST be an anthropomorphic phantasm - this may be an article of faith to you, just as it is to Christians and Muslims. Are you willing to consider other ideas? If the nature of your non-existent God is not open to debate, that's a religious position, not an open-minded or scientific position.
I have never said so, nor do I believe that. I said that god, as defined commonly defined, is such a fantasy. That you want to use the word as a synonym for a sort of sentient, logically inconsistent universe is not my problem. Hate to tell you less, but nothing suggest that the universe is sentient as such.
If you cannot consider any other form of God, then you do not have an "absence of religion" - far from it.
As I've said many times already: I can consider anything... more than you probably, since my training lies that way. I only said that it is better to say what you mean clearly and unambigiously if possible. If you are in love with the word "god" and want to use it for whatever you should qualify this so that people know what you're talking about. I don't believe this is very difficult to understand, but if it is still not clear, let it lie, since it is just sematics and not very important.
How one defines God is the essence of one's religion. It is the entire point of theology; to know God. I'm not trying to insult you, here, I am quite willing to respect any belief system that doesn't go around murdering people and destroying things in the name of God. Many people who attend my church call themselves atheists and also call themselves members of the UU religion. Many people consider Jains and Buddhists to be atheists. So-called "elite" taoists consider themselves to be religious atheists and are very proud of this.
Since I am not a religious man, I wouldn't know about what is important for a proper delusion of the religious persuasion.
I'm very willing to consider that a person might have a form of atheism that is not religious, but I don't think I've met any yet. All the forms of atheism that I've encountered are centered around unproveable premises, a faith unsupported by objective evidence.
I have unreasonable faith in many things (such as my wife, the basic goodness in most people etc), but I know very well how baseless this faith is. It is not very comparabl
You should probably provide some sort of evidence supporting this. I'm not a citation Nazi, but it really is a rather bold claim, especially given that it'd be tough to do a real study that involves exposing children to large amounts of pornography, just like it would be difficult to do a real study that involves exposing children to large amounts of radiation.
You are right that it would be difficult to provide the positive version of my statement due to correlations, which is why I wrote it in the negative.. I haven't seen evidence that porn is more damaging than bratz dolls. I have seen references to studies that finds that porn and bratz dolls correlate slightly with early sexual maturing in girls, and little effect if any on boys. Sorry, no links because a) I'm very tired right now and b) it was in Danish anyway.
I have never seen a study that correlates porn and criminal activities, but again, correlations makes such studies a bloody minefield so I wouldn't be surprised or convinced if a few showed either way. I think we'll have to wait for the meta-studies on that one. Interestingly, though, sexual offenses in Denmark are not high, yet most children at the age of 15 or so claim to have seen porn. But I know, it's just a vague hint, not claiming it proves much.
I've defined God several times now, you are just refusing to acknowledge it. I am a pantheist, one of a huge number of pantheists, my philosophy is extensively documented in many languages, it's in every dictionary and encyclopedia, and although there are minor differences in "flavor" between the various kinds of pantheist we all agree on who God is.
You have said you are a pantheist, not defined God. Alright, going from the wikipedia definition then God is simply another name for universe --- how uninteresting. The difference practical difference between that and an atheist must be hair-thin, if there is any: No scripture, no miracles (in the physics-defying sense), no inherit ethics. Terry Pratchett once wrote something like "Everything and nothing; always and never: it's almost the same. " There are wisdom in those words.
My definition of God has existed for over 2000 years, so you can't honestly say I'm "hijacking a word". You're dodging. Or trolling.How nice, but very common for people unable or unwilling to define what they mean. No, I'm not trolling, but since you choose to use a word to mean something else than most, you need to make that explicit rather than just assume that everyone cares or knows about some obscure worldview. You might think that it is all the other ones that are hijacking the word, or that it has a double meaning, but that doesn't really change anything. This is very similar to the "hacker" problem so commonly discussed here on /.
What, precisely, do you not understand about my definition of God? Have you read Wikipedia's entry on Pantheism? Will you accept any of these? If so, which one?From a quick skim, the "definition" on wikipedia is just made another name for the universe. Do you remember that I don't care for discussing sematics?
You yourself have not offered a definition, so I have to guess that that is what you mean. If this is wrong, the blame is entirely yours.