Slashdot needs to allow posters to embed images into their comments, so they can win over all the hip reddit kids who reply to 90% of posts with a shitty psuedo-"meme" image instead of composing a fucking sentence.
Sweet baby Jesus, can you imagine how many goatse images you'd get?
Or is the thought of using slashdot on a mobile phone about as appealing as typing in boxing gloves while an elephant shits on my head after being force fed prawn vindaloo?
Buddhism is as full of irrational bollocks as any other religion, it is just perceived as being cool in the same way that a lot of geeks like Japanese manga but would laugh at the content if it was in English.
They aren't a fabrication, they're a vocal minority that gets more coverage than they are worth because it helps people like you feel superior.
So the stories I see on slashdot about loony tunes Fundamentalists getting Creationism taught instead of science in schools is just some commie propaganda, is it?
The polls showing that some frighteningly high percentage of people in the US believe that the Earth is 6000 years ago and the literal Bibilical God exists are just made up?
Go and piss up a rope and see if your God saves you from choking.
With science, there's suddenly no need for an interpreter to reality, since you can do the observations yourself.
Oh, please. Do you listen to yourself? When was the last time you had direct observation or measurement of The Big Bang, string theory, fundamental particles, atoms, or even bacteria?
No offence, but that is a truly stupid line of argument.
The Big Bang was in the past, so I can no longer directly observe it any more than I can directly observe my cat eating its dinner yesterday. But that doesn't mean my cat didn't eat its dinner yesterday. By projecting current observations backwards we can come up with sensible models of what has already happened.
String theory is notorious for being impossible to falsify, so you can't really count it as a scientific theory.
Fundamental particles can be tracked with the right equipment, same as you can see atoms or bacteria with the right microscope. Have I personally observed results from the Large Hadron Collider? No. Does that mean that they don't exist? Only if you take an extreme solipsistic view of the universe.
The Dali Llama, the head of a religion that doesn't push faith, is famous for saying "if science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."
He could drop the anti-gay shite he comes out with for a start.
Starting with the assumption that Science is right, you want people to prove God exists using your method
Personally, I'd be happy if believers could come up with any sort of evidence at all. I don't expect some massively documented scientific research project. However, if all you can come up with is "faith" you're never going to persuade me.
Oh, and the true definition of "begging the question" is "God must exist because the Bible says He does, and the Bible is inspired by God".
If by "theory of religion" you are only talking about proving or disproving individual claims like "Noah's Arc=, etc, then those are potentially falsifiable, but I think this is missing the meat of what religion is.
If a religious book says "there is a god, and he did these hundred magical things, which proves there is a god because only a god could do these one hundred magical things" and then you scientifically prove that all one hundred either didn't happen, or could be explained rationally, that doesn't DISPROVE the existence of god, since you can't prove a negative.
But it would make me at least very, very wary of believing in that god or of quoting from that book as though it were divinely inspired..
1) a lot of the Old Testament is obviously mythological, allegorical or whatever, but it's basically true that God created the universe and therefore human beings (albeit in a much more complicated way than modelling A & E out of clay).
2) The New Testament is basically all true, Jesus is God's son who came to Earth to save us all and show us how to live via his teachings.
3) We'll limit Science to material things and just say that you can't prove or disprove Christianity any more than you can prove or disprove Utilitarianism, Keynsian economics or Logical Positivism.
Highly recommended for every atheist - know your enemy...
All the stuff about the "historical" Jesus is totally irrelevant anyway. The only important thing is whether he is the Son of God, and therefore whether God exists.
Even if Biblical scholars discovered the body of Jesus buried in the desert somewhere (yes, I know he went to Heaven...) it would say precisely nothing about his divinity.
The question of whether living by Jesus's rules is a good thing or not is a separate matter entirely from whether his ideas are divinely inspired.
I'm a Christian who believes in evolution. I think that at some point in time long ago humans became sentient and recognized the difference between right and wrong. That was the basis of the story of Genesis - that humans ate from the tree and gained knowledge of good and evil. The writers were just trying to explain something they couldn't understand.
I personally think the meaning of life is self evident. At least it is to me. Maybe it isn't to people who commit suicide. I find life immensely
enjoyable.
Lucky you. I find there is a lot of shit you have to put up with in between the enjoyable bits. The only advantage I can see to believing in god/an afterlife is that it helps put the shitty parts into perspective, although personally I see no reason whatsoever to do so. You just have to put up with it, or cut your throat and find release.
My belief that a God exists isn't shaken by the very strong likelihood that many biblical stories are allegories that teach a moral message, not a history of the "6000 year-old universe."
But how do you know which are allegories and which are true?
Is Jesus being the Son of God an allegory about genetic responsibility and inheritance, or is it supposed to be true?
If God didn't give Moses the Ten Commandments, what special value do they have?
And then there are the conspiracies we know to be true, but cannot prove: Julian Assange for example, who announced he had an upcoming Wikileak regarding the banking system, and the next thing you know he's wanted on rape charges for consensual sex but supposedly with an aconsensual lack of a condom
The reason he's wanted on rape charges for consensual sex but supposedly with an aconsensual lack of a condom is that in Sweden it is apparently illegal to have consensual sex but with an aconsensual lack of a condom (or with the other person being asleep).
The conspiracy side of things is all in his own head, where he thinks he's going to be extradited from Sweden to the US on totally unrelated charges regarding Wikileaks, as though Sweden is more in America's pocket than the UK.
It saddens me as I used to vote for the Green party but it just seems to fracture into left vs right wing ideologies.
Some things can only be expressed by left vs right wing ideology.
If you think (say)that it is legitimate for the US to pursue its economic interests through war, you are taking a right wing position whether you like it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm using Android 4.1.1 on a Galaxy S3.
Well there's the problem. As this is a tech-forward site, it was assumed that everyone would be using Android 5 on a Galaxy S4.
Invest in better editors that post stories the same day they occur. I don't enjoy reading things I saw on Reddit or Hacker News two days ago.
Maybe not two days later, but within reason I really don't care if slashdot doesn't post a story the microsecond it happens.
The point of slashdot is the comments (or "community" if you're being all web 2.0-y), it was never supposed to be a live news service.
The editors could certainly be better at ensuring articles are not just advertisments, and summaries are not just flamebait. Obviously.
Slashdot needs to allow posters to embed images into their comments, so they can win over all the hip reddit kids who reply to 90% of posts with a shitty psuedo-"meme" image instead of composing a fucking sentence.
Sweet baby Jesus, can you imagine how many goatse images you'd get?
Or is the thought of using slashdot on a mobile phone about as appealing as typing in boxing gloves while an elephant shits on my head after being force fed prawn vindaloo?
Buddhism is as full of irrational bollocks as any other religion, it is just perceived as being cool in the same way that a lot of geeks like Japanese manga but would laugh at the content if it was in English.
being elected to public office,
I wasnt aware that was a heinous crime.
It should be illegal to do so if you hold insane beliefs.
They aren't a fabrication, they're a vocal minority that gets more coverage than they are worth because it helps people like you feel superior.
So the stories I see on slashdot about loony tunes Fundamentalists getting Creationism taught instead of science in schools is just some commie propaganda, is it?
The polls showing that some frighteningly high percentage of people in the US believe that the Earth is 6000 years ago and the literal Bibilical God exists are just made up?
Go and piss up a rope and see if your God saves you from choking.
With science, there's suddenly no need for an interpreter to reality, since you can do the observations yourself.
Oh, please. Do you listen to yourself? When was the last time you had direct observation or measurement of The Big Bang, string theory, fundamental particles, atoms, or even bacteria?
No offence, but that is a truly stupid line of argument.
The Big Bang was in the past, so I can no longer directly observe it any more than I can directly observe my cat eating its dinner yesterday. But that doesn't mean my cat didn't eat its dinner yesterday. By projecting current observations backwards we can come up with sensible models of what has already happened.
String theory is notorious for being impossible to falsify, so you can't really count it as a scientific theory.
Fundamental particles can be tracked with the right equipment, same as you can see atoms or bacteria with the right microscope. Have I personally observed results from the Large Hadron Collider? No. Does that mean that they don't exist? Only if you take an extreme solipsistic view of the universe.
The Dali Llama, the head of a religion that doesn't push faith, is famous for saying "if science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."
He could drop the anti-gay shite he comes out with for a start.
Starting with the assumption that Science is right, you want people to prove God exists using your method
Personally, I'd be happy if believers could come up with any sort of evidence at all. I don't expect some massively documented scientific research project. However, if all you can come up with is "faith" you're never going to persuade me.
Oh, and the true definition of "begging the question" is "God must exist because the Bible says He does, and the Bible is inspired by God".
If by "theory of religion" you are only talking about proving or disproving individual claims like "Noah's Arc=, etc, then those are potentially falsifiable, but I think this is missing the meat of what religion is.
If a religious book says "there is a god, and he did these hundred magical things, which proves there is a god because only a god could do these one hundred magical things" and then you scientifically prove that all one hundred either didn't happen, or could be explained rationally, that doesn't DISPROVE the existence of god, since you can't prove a negative.
But it would make me at least very, very wary of believing in that god or of quoting from that book as though it were divinely inspired..
1) a lot of the Old Testament is obviously mythological, allegorical or whatever, but it's basically true that God created the universe and therefore human beings (albeit in a much more complicated way than modelling A & E out of clay).
2) The New Testament is basically all true, Jesus is God's son who came to Earth to save us all and show us how to live via his teachings.
3) We'll limit Science to material things and just say that you can't prove or disprove Christianity any more than you can prove or disprove Utilitarianism, Keynsian economics or Logical Positivism.
Highly recommended for every atheist - know your enemy...
All the stuff about the "historical" Jesus is totally irrelevant anyway. The only important thing is whether he is the Son of God, and therefore whether God exists.
Even if Biblical scholars discovered the body of Jesus buried in the desert somewhere (yes, I know he went to Heaven...) it would say precisely nothing about his divinity.
The question of whether living by Jesus's rules is a good thing or not is a separate matter entirely from whether his ideas are divinely inspired.
I'm a Christian who believes in evolution. I think that at some point in time long ago humans became sentient and recognized the difference between right and wrong. That was the basis of the story of Genesis - that humans ate from the tree and gained knowledge of good and evil. The writers were just trying to explain something they couldn't understand.
So why is there any need for God then?
I personally think the meaning of life is self evident. At least it is to me. Maybe it isn't to people who commit suicide. I find life immensely enjoyable.
Lucky you. I find there is a lot of shit you have to put up with in between the enjoyable bits. The only advantage I can see to believing in god/an afterlife is that it helps put the shitty parts into perspective, although personally I see no reason whatsoever to do so. You just have to put up with it, or cut your throat and find release.
Why take the Bible on faith over something like the Book of Mormon or Lord of the Rings?
It's funnier?
My belief that a God exists isn't shaken by the very strong likelihood that many biblical stories are allegories that teach a moral message, not a history of the "6000 year-old universe."
But how do you know which are allegories and which are true?
Is Jesus being the Son of God an allegory about genetic responsibility and inheritance, or is it supposed to be true?
If God didn't give Moses the Ten Commandments, what special value do they have?
And so on.
The slight flaw in your argument is that "Adam" and "Eve" lived 20,000 years apart and there is no evidence that either was created from dust by God.
Do you really believe in God, or is it just a good way of meeting girls?
There is no such thing as man made global warming, nor is there any 'global warming' occurring at the moment.
Oh, well that's all right then.
I've long since stopped discussing the 9-11 "conspiracy theories" but one undeniable "truth" is that the greatest crime ever perpetrated on U.S. soil
The American Civil War was the greatest crime ever perpetrated on US soil, caused by the pro-slavery side.
and yeah, I know I sound elitistic here
No, don't worry, you sound as stupid as everyone else who can't use a fucking dictionary.
And then there are the conspiracies we know to be true, but cannot prove: Julian Assange for example, who announced he had an upcoming Wikileak regarding the banking system, and the next thing you know he's wanted on rape charges for consensual sex but supposedly with an aconsensual lack of a condom
The reason he's wanted on rape charges for consensual sex but supposedly with an aconsensual lack of a condom is that in Sweden it is apparently illegal to have consensual sex but with an aconsensual lack of a condom (or with the other person being asleep).
The conspiracy side of things is all in his own head, where he thinks he's going to be extradited from Sweden to the US on totally unrelated charges regarding Wikileaks, as though Sweden is more in America's pocket than the UK.
It saddens me as I used to vote for the Green party but it just seems to fracture into left vs right wing ideologies.
Some things can only be expressed by left vs right wing ideology.
If you think (say)that it is legitimate for the US to pursue its economic interests through war, you are taking a right wing position whether you like it or not.
While you're ad hominem stereotyping is no doubt amusing to you and your fellow neo Nazis, it says nothing about the actual issues involved.