I would think that this view is the most common among the intellectual crowds. I have worked with hundreds of PHDs over the years, and had some long fun discussions regarding the subject. A few were agnostic, but most believe in a creator without the traditional Religious beliefs. I'd say at least half participated in traditional Religious practices and saw nothing morally wrong with them.
The real problem is that you can not determine what your PC is sending to MS or a 3rd party collection site. Some of the packet contents is plain text, but most is encrypted. It was found back in 95b/98 days that they forwarded numbers that were formatted like credit cards and phone numbers as well as information from users housed on the system, and since then they started encrypting traffic.
You have a company that has a history of colluding with ISPs to push IE and give it "features" that were completely insecure but allowed spying and configuration changes without user knowledge (Active Installer IE 5.5). They are known for draconian policies and don't give a rats ass about anything except their profit margins. You trust that you are only sending them what they tell you?
I'm sorry you fail at Google. No, I'm not going to Google that for you. If you don't trust information from the Google, then put a network sniffer on your home network, load a brand new PC with Windows and make it the only device outside of the sniffer on your network. Watch, and be amazed.
Oh, and no.. I'm not going to explain packet sniffing to you nor am I going to help you set one up. You can Google that also.
Read your EULA from MS and find out that you agree to letting them do it!
Sorry, but Windows has phoned home for at least 10 years, and sent data without user knowledge to 3rd party companies that could be traced to MS. IE may claim to have DNT on by default, but let's be clear. You will still be sending all kinds of tracking information to MS.
Seems to me to be a ploy to make money selling data to Google perhaps that Google gets now on their own.
Oh come on now, he is not doing any calculations. He's not even going to be able to play Warcraft faster than the guy living in the basement next door!
All of us who keep denying that the desktop is dying are ignoring that most people already only use their computer to access "the cloud", even if it is
Lies, all lies. There are some things in the "cloud" or "clouded" but the majority of businesses still use Desktops as Desktops, running.. you know, desktop applications. The large company I'm currently at runs Outlook, Lync, MS Office, and has been locked stupidly in to lots of.net garbage (time software, project planning/tracking, etc..). Before this, it was a large company that ran Windows + Lotus Notes + lots of.net garbage (time software, inventory front ends, project tracking) that they stupidly locked themselves in to. Thankfully, terminal server means I can run Linux and still access my required applications.
People claiming that everything is in the cloud tend to be clueless sales people trying to keep the hype up.
To me, the bigger issue is what we saw on/. earlier with the forced secure boot on all PC based hardware. I personally don't give a rats ass how pretty the screen is. I want something that performs and is stable, hence why I try not to use any version of MS Windows or MS products in general.
"The Greater Good" that you are speaking of is paid for by US citizens, not foreign citizens. There is this horrible mind set in the US that if we hold things from foreign governments we are being evil protectionists. Yet those same governments you wish to give things to are far more protectionist than we are, and provide little in return.
In your view, you should give away all of your wealth and property to those in need? Don't own anything, don't save anything, and surely don't overindulge in anything just to make sure some poor family in China has the means to live in a Government owned home?
That is pretty much the direction of your last sentence. For all I know, maybe you live in the street and don't own anything and visit the library to visit Slashdot. I have met a couple people like this. I strongly doubt it though, since most people want to own things and pass something down to the next generation.
Retraining for Libre or Google, which looks and acts exactly like the MS product pre-Ribbon? Really? There is no retraining needed. MS has already started telling companies that they want to drop support for 2K3, but received enough push back from customers that they are holding for now.
The money in migrating away from MS is really in conversion of data, not retraining people.
There is also international rules involved since this code would be available to those outside of the US as well as within the US. This is where ITAR comes in to play.
I.E. You being an employee may have access under ITAR to an item. Copy that item, and place it in public domain and there is a problem.
Your pretty far out there in your views if you think that anything tax payers pay for in the US should be freely available to someone in Korea for example. Unless Korea is paying the US for the work done, and tax payers are refunded money that is.
Which is fine until you realize how much is not in the tabs at all, or that you have to add tabs to perform basic actions, or how when you perform certain actions the icons in the tabs will change so "fishing" is not always simple. It's very left handed to perform many common tasks, and the constant tab switching is extremely unproductive.
The other horrid feature is the text preview. Go ahead and select-all in a 10 page doc then try and change the font with preview in default mode. Come back in 20 minutes after your HD burns out caching all the fonts.
The funny thing is, the guy claims MS is consistent and stable. Then talks about how you have to get service packs just to work between versions, and he completely omits the Ribbon fuck up that is preventing most companies from migrating to newer versions of Office.
At a place I recently worked, it was estimated that converting 10,000 users to new office would require well over a million dollars in training and additional head count to support users, in addition to MS licensing and not counting productivity lost. Many small companies have already dumped MS for either Open/Libre or Google.
What you point at in the UK is the same thing we in the US point at when dealing with "Cloud". No matter what the vendor says, when the data is not stored locally there is a huge amount of risk.
One of the reasons I ended up leaving my last employer was that they were insistent on allowing foreigners (India/China) access US controlled data. The amount of time spent trying to find loopholes, lobby congress for law changes, and trying to convince people it was a "great idea!" was disgusting.
I don't think many people have issues with Government stuff being self contained and "SAFE" from foreign hands. This means Egypt's data stays in Egypt, US in the US, Canada in Canada, etc... The few that do are the same dirt bags that have been running our countries in to the ground, or the tagnuts that follow them around.
While I agree with a few of your points there is a problem. Metrics are nearly impossible to apply to IT people. This is not a problem with IT mind you, but rather the demands from MBAs that everything on a graph is true, and if it can not be graphed it must be useless information.
Let me give you the easiest and most common issue: Database crashes, and Financials come to a halt. Nothing is going in or coming out, which means money is being lost.
IT Joe races in from home at 7PM and spends until 4 AM working. What he finds are 2 failed drives that are killing performance, database panicked and started dumping. IT Joe replaces the drives, sync's the volumes back up, makes sure the transactions are spooling. He calls the DBA team, makes sure things are back up and running, then emails the boss to explain what happened.
Is IT Joe rewarded in any way? The answer you will find is a resounding "hell no!". IT Joe should have had a system that prevented this type of thing from happening. Even though management demanded that he cut corners building the RAID device to save a buck against his advice, and of course drive failures are considered unavoidable catastrophes.
Now, what do we see on the graphic for the monthly down time report? Database down for 3 hours in a big red bar. There is no green, so of course IT is not doing their job right? This is the presentation in a nutshell
One more quick example, I often write scripts to do things like validate users, report activity and disk use, etc.. Those reports are used by other people to make all kinds of decisions. It is never seen as "hey, that's great stuff and you saved us money!" but rather seen as "it's your systems, you should know all of this stuff without the reports.".
Logically, it's a broken system. There are virtually no methods of graphing real work for IT people, and no way to place dollars on their work. Currently, the system rewards Sales people that bring in new money, and management that lays off people to save a few bucks in the short term. Business people sometimes get some of those benefits because their graphs were used to make the decision or show the sales numbers.
.
Oh, and one more quick example. When MBA Schleppy McSchmuckSchmuck deletes their own files, it's always those stupid IT peoples fault. I have heard that more often than I can count. "Your system let me do something I should not have done, your system is broken."
What were they supposed to do? Write a novel? Yeah, that's pretty easy to do when you are starving, worried about the landlord kicking you out, and dodging bullets on your way to and from school.
Manage their bank accounts they don't have? Oh wait, maybe use western union on line to pay bills with the cash they have.. Oh wait, you need a bank account for that.
Hmm, go to online courses that they can't afford to get that MBA? Purchase publishing software or graphic art software? Learn to write Java for Enterprise level businesses on their own? Oh, I got it.. they could buy Autocad and become famous designers for the automotive industry that moved overseas... Dang, not those things either..
Maybe the concept of giving someone money or a PC and forgetting about them is not the way to solve the problem. Maybe they need jobs, education, safe areas to live in, and opportunities that go beyond a 500.00 tax write off for someone.
Are you willing to challenge your beliefs - including any belief you have in a creator?
I constantly do, hence the need to read and learn about the theories being presented by Physics and Cosmology as well as Theology, History, Economics, Psychology, Philosophy, etc...
OK, what causes a particular electron to go through the first slit, or through the second slit?
Damn good question. As far as it can be determined, the act of detection or thinking about the result changes the result. There is a similar problem with quantum computing. Seemingly, thinking about the state changes the state.
A side note: There are numerous studies that show that humans have 6th sense like abilities. One study shows that human tension rose incredibly world wide just prior to 9/11, and they have tracked similar phenomena to other major events both natural and man made. There was a study that showed that humans had a spike in brain activity just prior to seeing erotic images, which hints at some type of precognition and ESP like abilities.
I have yet to find any reason to believe in a creator, but have somehow managed to think about morals and ethics beyond survival instincts.
There is a distinct difference when thinking about a creator, which is that morals and ethics can become a requirement as opposed to the atheist view. Look at the state of the US legal system now compared to, lets say the 1850s and see how big the difference is. Now, laws are mere technicality that people in power can break. Survival of the fittest works in that aspect, just as well as what most people think of in the animal kingdom.
Partially correct, but you are missing the most important thing gone awry in IT today.
Dear company,
While I understand you have vast needs in the IT area, and wish to do less with more there are limits to human capacity. I can not fill the role of Senior Unix Analyst/Engineer/Architect, Network Analyst/Engineer/Architect, MS Windows Analyst/Engineer/Architect, Storage SAN/NAS Analyst/Engineer/Architect, Firewall and Security Analyst/Engineer/Architect any more than you would expect your CPA to be your attorney, business analyst and lead sales person. You need to pick one or two of these things, preferably what I have spent twenty years mastering and allow me to do my job.
I also understand that you have developers that read trade magazines and demand that they have what they read about. This has created workplaces that are impossible to support. There should be no more than three versions of any Operating system on site and those should be limited to not more than 2 types of Linux. One for development, one for production, and one for legacy. Allow your IT staff to keep your development on track, give us the reigns and watch how fast you can go and how far you can drive.
Lastly, contrary to popular belief IT people enjoy time away from work and the office. We do not like to be on call 24/7/365 with no bonuses and no breaks. We expect to be treated with the same respect as the Corporate Lawyer that saves your ass in court, as we often save your ass with our magical IT skills and keep production up and moving even when systems collapse.
This is not defending shitty EULA policies by shitty corporations, but it's worth pointing out that there have been several successful suits overturning terms of a EULA. It is not the best policy of course, the best would be to write agreements that were fair for consumers as well as protecting businesses.
The Wiki does a much better job of describing this than I do, so here you go.
Thanks for bringing this up. It is something that I studied for several years and is a part of the Taoist and Buddhist belief system. I can not say it's wrong or right any more than I can say someone else is right or wrong.
I could never prove to myself that neutrality could exist without good and bad, or positive and negative, which makes the belief extremely difficult to maintain.
If you had not said it the way you did, then someone else would have (and have repeatedly through the thread). I do appreciate the thoughtful and articulate response. Honestly you bring up some great points, to bad this is not the correct format to debate some of those out.
I would have agreed this statement 30 years ago. "While science doesn't disprove God, it doesn't aim to. ". Maybe it's the same now as then, and I'm just old enough to have paid attention, but on TV (NG/DSC/TLC), numerous magazines and science web sites I see quite the opposite. The most famous example would be Hawking in his TV series claiming that there is no God and no need for a God based on his theory of the Multiverse (after years of proclaiming there had to be a God because the Universe is too complex and perfect to have been created accidentally but this perspective was never publicized.)
Numerous publications have warped Einstein's similar thoughts into one of a Godless Universe, and theory after theory gets published with text related to discounting God. It may not be the intent of the Scientist, and not the intent of the "Science", but it is being done.
Then we have the fringe that reads headlines and continually bash those that are not conforming to the atheist belief. Seem to be familiar to anything else in history?
I'm mostly concerned with the bias that your initial post showed. No, I probably won't be able to change the world but that should not prevent me from trying.
No, atheists just shrug and ask, "if it's that God of yours, then what started him moving?"
Haha, funny. Just look at the venom in this thread for anyone that does not believe in Atheism. Also see my comments regarding a paradox above.
It's not that the question is dangerous, it's that it makes some presuppositions that are not obviously true (e.g. that there was a start to movement).
So your answer is the only logical answer, and even though yours requires a ton of hypothesis just like someone that believes in a named Religion? This is the point that atheists go, I'm familiar with the statement.
Honestly, I do appreciate the civil tone of the response. What I really hope to provide is logical debate on the subject. Your initial "That's because both intelligent design and the existence of creator are inherently non-disprovable statements" should also include the Big-Bang. We will never be able to prove any of them by any means. Each takes theory to come up with because we can only begin to take measurements after the initial event that kicked things off.
Debate, talk, learn, find facts, hell it's all good no matter what your beliefs or who we talk to.
Unfortunately, this is not what we see in society and not what we are teaching people. We are currently teaching that that cosmology theory is factual, that theoretical physics is factual, and that we already have the answers. Worse, we are teaching that thinking and dialogue is bad and that people thinking outside of those theories should be shunned and ridiculed.
There are easy cures for ignorance. Philosophy 110 should cure you of that particular argument. At least this is when we learned about paradoxes and how to resolve this one in particular. Check with your local professor to be sure.
See the brainwash? Probably not, but I'm going to show you how it works.
You have been brainwashed to believe that people that think there is a creator all look to the same source. That is an absolute false belief.
You have been brainwashed to believe that people that think there is a creator do not have any Science. That is absolutely false.
You have been brainwashed to believe that anyone looking in to the question is, in your words "doomed" or that they don't look passed what they are taught. That is absolutely false.
Now, to your last statement, and a point.
A believer is not doomed if they are wrong. Society is not harmed by people trying to do the right things according to Judea Christian beliefs. The worst that would happen is that they would just die after living a life in a relatively peaceful and respectful society.
You on the other hand are doomed if you are wrong. Society is harmed by people that have no belief except for survival of the fittest, and that man is god.
Slashdot Mirror
I would think that this view is the most common among the intellectual crowds. I have worked with hundreds of PHDs over the years, and had some long fun discussions regarding the subject. A few were agnostic, but most believe in a creator without the traditional Religious beliefs. I'd say at least half participated in traditional Religious practices and saw nothing morally wrong with them.
The real problem is that you can not determine what your PC is sending to MS or a 3rd party collection site. Some of the packet contents is plain text, but most is encrypted. It was found back in 95b/98 days that they forwarded numbers that were formatted like credit cards and phone numbers as well as information from users housed on the system, and since then they started encrypting traffic.
You have a company that has a history of colluding with ISPs to push IE and give it "features" that were completely insecure but allowed spying and configuration changes without user knowledge (Active Installer IE 5.5). They are known for draconian policies and don't give a rats ass about anything except their profit margins. You trust that you are only sending them what they tell you?
I'm sorry you fail at Google. No, I'm not going to Google that for you. If you don't trust information from the Google, then put a network sniffer on your home network, load a brand new PC with Windows and make it the only device outside of the sniffer on your network. Watch, and be amazed.
Oh, and no.. I'm not going to explain packet sniffing to you nor am I going to help you set one up. You can Google that also.
Read your EULA from MS and find out that you agree to letting them do it!
Sorry, but Windows has phoned home for at least 10 years, and sent data without user knowledge to 3rd party companies that could be traced to MS. IE may claim to have DNT on by default, but let's be clear. You will still be sending all kinds of tracking information to MS.
Seems to me to be a ploy to make money selling data to Google perhaps that Google gets now on their own.
Oh come on now, he is not doing any calculations. He's not even going to be able to play Warcraft faster than the guy living in the basement next door!
Useless epeen waving..
Someone did not pay him enough!
Hence, we will see an appeal to a Judge that gets paid the right amount of money by the right people.
The more likely answer is: This judge is not corrupted like so many others. It's a refreshing sight!
All of us who keep denying that the desktop is dying are ignoring that most people already only use their computer to access "the cloud", even if it is
Lies, all lies. There are some things in the "cloud" or "clouded" but the majority of businesses still use Desktops as Desktops, running.. you know, desktop applications. The large company I'm currently at runs Outlook, Lync, MS Office, and has been locked stupidly in to lots of .net garbage (time software, project planning/tracking, etc..). Before this, it was a large company that ran Windows + Lotus Notes + lots of .net garbage (time software, inventory front ends, project tracking) that they stupidly locked themselves in to. Thankfully, terminal server means I can run Linux and still access my required applications.
People claiming that everything is in the cloud tend to be clueless sales people trying to keep the hype up.
To me, the bigger issue is what we saw on /. earlier with the forced secure boot on all PC based hardware. I personally don't give a rats ass how pretty the screen is. I want something that performs and is stable, hence why I try not to use any version of MS Windows or MS products in general.
"The Greater Good" that you are speaking of is paid for by US citizens, not foreign citizens. There is this horrible mind set in the US that if we hold things from foreign governments we are being evil protectionists. Yet those same governments you wish to give things to are far more protectionist than we are, and provide little in return.
In your view, you should give away all of your wealth and property to those in need? Don't own anything, don't save anything, and surely don't overindulge in anything just to make sure some poor family in China has the means to live in a Government owned home?
That is pretty much the direction of your last sentence. For all I know, maybe you live in the street and don't own anything and visit the library to visit Slashdot. I have met a couple people like this. I strongly doubt it though, since most people want to own things and pass something down to the next generation.
Retraining for Libre or Google, which looks and acts exactly like the MS product pre-Ribbon? Really? There is no retraining needed. MS has already started telling companies that they want to drop support for 2K3, but received enough push back from customers that they are holding for now.
The money in migrating away from MS is really in conversion of data, not retraining people.
There is also international rules involved since this code would be available to those outside of the US as well as within the US. This is where ITAR comes in to play.
I.E. You being an employee may have access under ITAR to an item. Copy that item, and place it in public domain and there is a problem.
Your pretty far out there in your views if you think that anything tax payers pay for in the US should be freely available to someone in Korea for example. Unless Korea is paying the US for the work done, and tax payers are refunded money that is.
Which is fine until you realize how much is not in the tabs at all, or that you have to add tabs to perform basic actions, or how when you perform certain actions the icons in the tabs will change so "fishing" is not always simple. It's very left handed to perform many common tasks, and the constant tab switching is extremely unproductive.
The other horrid feature is the text preview. Go ahead and select-all in a 10 page doc then try and change the font with preview in default mode. Come back in 20 minutes after your HD burns out caching all the fonts.
The funny thing is, the guy claims MS is consistent and stable. Then talks about how you have to get service packs just to work between versions, and he completely omits the Ribbon fuck up that is preventing most companies from migrating to newer versions of Office.
At a place I recently worked, it was estimated that converting 10,000 users to new office would require well over a million dollars in training and additional head count to support users, in addition to MS licensing and not counting productivity lost. Many small companies have already dumped MS for either Open/Libre or Google.
Sure looks like a Shill to me!
Probably because you keep repeating the same thing in every reply. Maybe you need to understand what redundant means?
What you point at in the UK is the same thing we in the US point at when dealing with "Cloud". No matter what the vendor says, when the data is not stored locally there is a huge amount of risk.
One of the reasons I ended up leaving my last employer was that they were insistent on allowing foreigners (India/China) access US controlled data. The amount of time spent trying to find loopholes, lobby congress for law changes, and trying to convince people it was a "great idea!" was disgusting.
I don't think many people have issues with Government stuff being self contained and "SAFE" from foreign hands. This means Egypt's data stays in Egypt, US in the US, Canada in Canada, etc... The few that do are the same dirt bags that have been running our countries in to the ground, or the tagnuts that follow them around.
While I agree with a few of your points there is a problem. Metrics are nearly impossible to apply to IT people. This is not a problem with IT mind you, but rather the demands from MBAs that everything on a graph is true, and if it can not be graphed it must be useless information.
Let me give you the easiest and most common issue: Database crashes, and Financials come to a halt. Nothing is going in or coming out, which means money is being lost.
IT Joe races in from home at 7PM and spends until 4 AM working. What he finds are 2 failed drives that are killing performance, database panicked and started dumping. IT Joe replaces the drives, sync's the volumes back up, makes sure the transactions are spooling. He calls the DBA team, makes sure things are back up and running, then emails the boss to explain what happened.
Is IT Joe rewarded in any way? The answer you will find is a resounding "hell no!". IT Joe should have had a system that prevented this type of thing from happening. Even though management demanded that he cut corners building the RAID device to save a buck against his advice, and of course drive failures are considered unavoidable catastrophes.
Now, what do we see on the graphic for the monthly down time report? Database down for 3 hours in a big red bar. There is no green, so of course IT is not doing their job right? This is the presentation in a nutshell
One more quick example, I often write scripts to do things like validate users, report activity and disk use, etc.. Those reports are used by other people to make all kinds of decisions. It is never seen as "hey, that's great stuff and you saved us money!" but rather seen as "it's your systems, you should know all of this stuff without the reports.".
Logically, it's a broken system. There are virtually no methods of graphing real work for IT people, and no way to place dollars on their work. Currently, the system rewards Sales people that bring in new money, and management that lays off people to save a few bucks in the short term. Business people sometimes get some of those benefits because their graphs were used to make the decision or show the sales numbers.
. Oh, and one more quick example. When MBA Schleppy McSchmuckSchmuck deletes their own files, it's always those stupid IT peoples fault. I have heard that more often than I can count. "Your system let me do something I should not have done, your system is broken."
What were they supposed to do? Write a novel? Yeah, that's pretty easy to do when you are starving, worried about the landlord kicking you out, and dodging bullets on your way to and from school.
Manage their bank accounts they don't have? Oh wait, maybe use western union on line to pay bills with the cash they have.. Oh wait, you need a bank account for that.
Hmm, go to online courses that they can't afford to get that MBA? Purchase publishing software or graphic art software? Learn to write Java for Enterprise level businesses on their own? Oh, I got it.. they could buy Autocad and become famous designers for the automotive industry that moved overseas... Dang, not those things either..
Maybe the concept of giving someone money or a PC and forgetting about them is not the way to solve the problem. Maybe they need jobs, education, safe areas to live in, and opportunities that go beyond a 500.00 tax write off for someone.
Are you willing to challenge your beliefs - including any belief you have in a creator?
I constantly do, hence the need to read and learn about the theories being presented by Physics and Cosmology as well as Theology, History, Economics, Psychology, Philosophy, etc...
OK, what causes a particular electron to go through the first slit, or through the second slit?
Damn good question. As far as it can be determined, the act of detection or thinking about the result changes the result. There is a similar problem with quantum computing. Seemingly, thinking about the state changes the state.
A side note: There are numerous studies that show that humans have 6th sense like abilities. One study shows that human tension rose incredibly world wide just prior to 9/11, and they have tracked similar phenomena to other major events both natural and man made. There was a study that showed that humans had a spike in brain activity just prior to seeing erotic images, which hints at some type of precognition and ESP like abilities.
I have yet to find any reason to believe in a creator, but have somehow managed to think about morals and ethics beyond survival instincts.
There is a distinct difference when thinking about a creator, which is that morals and ethics can become a requirement as opposed to the atheist view. Look at the state of the US legal system now compared to, lets say the 1850s and see how big the difference is. Now, laws are mere technicality that people in power can break. Survival of the fittest works in that aspect, just as well as what most people think of in the animal kingdom.
Partially correct, but you are missing the most important thing gone awry in IT today.
Dear company,
While I understand you have vast needs in the IT area, and wish to do less with more there are limits to human capacity. I can not fill the role of Senior Unix Analyst/Engineer/Architect, Network Analyst/Engineer/Architect, MS Windows Analyst/Engineer/Architect, Storage SAN/NAS Analyst/Engineer/Architect, Firewall and Security Analyst/Engineer/Architect any more than you would expect your CPA to be your attorney, business analyst and lead sales person. You need to pick one or two of these things, preferably what I have spent twenty years mastering and allow me to do my job.
I also understand that you have developers that read trade magazines and demand that they have what they read about. This has created workplaces that are impossible to support. There should be no more than three versions of any Operating system on site and those should be limited to not more than 2 types of Linux. One for development, one for production, and one for legacy. Allow your IT staff to keep your development on track, give us the reigns and watch how fast you can go and how far you can drive.
Lastly, contrary to popular belief IT people enjoy time away from work and the office. We do not like to be on call 24/7/365 with no bonuses and no breaks. We expect to be treated with the same respect as the Corporate Lawyer that saves your ass in court, as we often save your ass with our magical IT skills and keep production up and moving even when systems collapse.
This is not defending shitty EULA policies by shitty corporations, but it's worth pointing out that there have been several successful suits overturning terms of a EULA. It is not the best policy of course, the best would be to write agreements that were fair for consumers as well as protecting businesses.
The Wiki does a much better job of describing this than I do, so here you go.
Thanks for bringing this up. It is something that I studied for several years and is a part of the Taoist and Buddhist belief system. I can not say it's wrong or right any more than I can say someone else is right or wrong.
I could never prove to myself that neutrality could exist without good and bad, or positive and negative, which makes the belief extremely difficult to maintain.
If you had not said it the way you did, then someone else would have (and have repeatedly through the thread). I do appreciate the thoughtful and articulate response. Honestly you bring up some great points, to bad this is not the correct format to debate some of those out.
I would have agreed this statement 30 years ago. "While science doesn't disprove God, it doesn't aim to. ". Maybe it's the same now as then, and I'm just old enough to have paid attention, but on TV (NG/DSC/TLC), numerous magazines and science web sites I see quite the opposite. The most famous example would be Hawking in his TV series claiming that there is no God and no need for a God based on his theory of the Multiverse (after years of proclaiming there had to be a God because the Universe is too complex and perfect to have been created accidentally but this perspective was never publicized.)
Numerous publications have warped Einstein's similar thoughts into one of a Godless Universe, and theory after theory gets published with text related to discounting God. It may not be the intent of the Scientist, and not the intent of the "Science", but it is being done.
Then we have the fringe that reads headlines and continually bash those that are not conforming to the atheist belief. Seem to be familiar to anything else in history?
I'm mostly concerned with the bias that your initial post showed. No, I probably won't be able to change the world but that should not prevent me from trying.
No, atheists just shrug and ask, "if it's that God of yours, then what started him moving?"
Haha, funny. Just look at the venom in this thread for anyone that does not believe in Atheism. Also see my comments regarding a paradox above.
It's not that the question is dangerous, it's that it makes some presuppositions that are not obviously true (e.g. that there was a start to movement).
So your answer is the only logical answer, and even though yours requires a ton of hypothesis just like someone that believes in a named Religion? This is the point that atheists go, I'm familiar with the statement.
Honestly, I do appreciate the civil tone of the response. What I really hope to provide is logical debate on the subject. Your initial "That's because both intelligent design and the existence of creator are inherently non-disprovable statements" should also include the Big-Bang. We will never be able to prove any of them by any means. Each takes theory to come up with because we can only begin to take measurements after the initial event that kicked things off.
Debate, talk, learn, find facts, hell it's all good no matter what your beliefs or who we talk to.
Unfortunately, this is not what we see in society and not what we are teaching people. We are currently teaching that that cosmology theory is factual, that theoretical physics is factual, and that we already have the answers. Worse, we are teaching that thinking and dialogue is bad and that people thinking outside of those theories should be shunned and ridiculed.
There are easy cures for ignorance. Philosophy 110 should cure you of that particular argument. At least this is when we learned about paradoxes and how to resolve this one in particular. Check with your local professor to be sure.
See the brainwash? Probably not, but I'm going to show you how it works.
You have been brainwashed to believe that people that think there is a creator all look to the same source. That is an absolute false belief.
You have been brainwashed to believe that people that think there is a creator do not have any Science. That is absolutely false.
You have been brainwashed to believe that anyone looking in to the question is, in your words "doomed" or that they don't look passed what they are taught. That is absolutely false.
Now, to your last statement, and a point.
A believer is not doomed if they are wrong. Society is not harmed by people trying to do the right things according to Judea Christian beliefs. The worst that would happen is that they would just die after living a life in a relatively peaceful and respectful society.
You on the other hand are doomed if you are wrong. Society is harmed by people that have no belief except for survival of the fittest, and that man is god.
You should be weeping for yourself.