God gave mankind the gift of free will so that they could use that free will to obey him and thus show that they loved him as much as he loved them.
And they were supposed to know that obeying was a good thing to do exactly how?
Remember that by the same myth's claims, God also kept the knowlege of good and evil away from them. They didn't have that until they ate from the tree. So anything they do before that, God should take the blame for because he deliberately kept them ignorant of any concept of morality, by his own plan.
People in the past had free will because AT THE TIME there was nobody who knew precisely what they were going to do. Nobody has the free will to change the past. If there exists an entity for which, right now, everything is "the past", then that does get in the way of free will.
If god's alleged omniscience was reduced to merely being omniscient about what is happening everywhere NOW, rather than For All Time, the problem would go away.
The original was written in a very ambiguous language that could just as well mean either one. To give an analogy to english, consider the two phrases:
"We walked for miles and then turned north"
"we walked four miles and then turned north".
In enlgish you can tell them apart because of the spellings, but imagine if english was completely phonetic - then they'd be spelled the exact same. Hebrew is kind of like that, but then take an additional step - remove the vowels and try to guess them out by context:
"W wlkd fr mls nd thn trnd nrth" That's kind of what written hebrew is like.
The problem, from what I've heard (I don't actually know hebrew) is that the word for just "kill" and the word for "murder" render down into the same spelling in hebrew (although they are different words when pronounced). Can someone who actually knows hebrew confirm or deny this?
then you aren't whom the poster was talking about. People who do actually claim to believe every word in the bible are either (A) lying, or (B) really, really, really dumb. Do you believe people should be stoned to death for wearing a cotton/polyester blend shirt? Leviticus says yes.
And no intelligent designer would wire up its specially chosen people with a photosensitive surface (retina) with the connective signal-carrying wires on the light-facing side of the receptor, especially when doing so then means you have to poke a hole in the receptor to thread the wires through to the processing unit. The intelligent design is to attach them from the back. He wouldn't have just done it with the octopus and that's all.
but explain why your solution is better, since neither one of us can *prove* our assumptions.
By your own admission, you start from an explanation (bible) and try to make what you observe fit into it. We start from what we observe and then try to make an explanation fit it. If you don't believe that's a better approach, then we are at an impasse and I have no choice but to accept that there is a flaw in your ability to reason. (Yes, it's a flaw. I don't subscribe to that wishy-washy "all opinions are equally valid" camp.)
Darwin's theory is still a theory. Please don't pass it off as a scientific law.
There is no such thing as a scientific law. The theory of gravity still uses the vocabulary word "theory" to describe it. Does that mean you should doubt gravity?
"Theory" doesn't mean "unproven supposition" in science. It means "an explanation for something that has been observed." Whether a theory is a true one or a false one doesn't change the fact that the vocbulary word "theory" is still applied to describe it.
The religious aren't asking for ID to be taught as a theory that isn't teneble anymore, like all of the examples you gave are taught. So your analogies are not appropriate.
The definition of "species" is an arbitrarily made-up part of the zoology taxonimy, just the the other levels of definition, like Phylum, genus, and so on. Those levels are human inventions. In reality it's just one big jumbled tree of interconnectedness. The difference between a mutation creating some small variation like a new race and a mutation producing a new species is not a difference of type. It's just a difference of magnitude.
Teach the theories and the evidences for both
That's what already happens. But the ID supporters don't get painted in a good light when you do that. They want their theory to be taught in a noncritical, nonjudgemental way - which is because it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
I too agree - teach creationism *AS* a science and it goes away. But you can bet your ass that if any teacher did it that way, the very same people who forced ID into the science classroom would also have a thing to say about that and it would get that teacher in trouble.
When the freeways are not filled to capacity, then leaving more following room does not slow you down at all, this is true. However "not filled to capacity" does not describe LA freeways in the slightest. If the freeway system has all the cars it can fit, then leaving more following room effectively reduces the carrying capacity of the road, leading to all sorts of other traffic jam problems.
(Consider this example: A 1000 meter section of road, with 6 lanes and each car occupies 15 meters of space, can carry (1000/15)*6 = 296 cars.. but now stretch that out and leave twice as much following distance (so each car occupies 30 meters of road), and now the same chunk of freeway only holds half as many cars (1000/30)*6 = 198 cars.)
Leaving more following distance equals reducing the carrying capacity of the freeway. This is not a problem in cities where traffic isn't congested and the freeway isn't already at its maximum capacity. LA is not in that situtaion, though.
There are different types of floormats. Some have a 'carpety' top surface and some have a 'slick' top surface. I suspect the carpety ones work well and the slick ones not so well.
Rocking back and forth to create a space to give momentum on the way out is a great way of "punching" through the hard spot. Remember that all these moves have to be preprogrammed, and executed without immediate human feedback. The thing you're talking about requires knowing when to reverse direction by feel and doing it immediately at the right time - not with a 10 minute radio signal delay. To make the rocking idea work would require that the rover 'driving' software be programmed to sense when the right time is to reverse direction based on how the wheels' traction "feels" in their divot.
People here are too likeminded to put up with a post like that even though it is 100% true.
Likemindedness is a problem on Slashdot that makes people mod down true statemtns - this is true. Your claim, however, that this is an example of that, is 100% false. The post in question contains the false premise that the mars project budget is being diverted from solving problems here on earth, and that space exploration doesn't help here on earth - both of which are 100% false.
But that's precisely what's wrong with the shuttle. It requires such a massive retrofit between missions that it's a bit of a lie to call it "reusable".
I'd be perfectly happy in a world where everyone could use whatever they prefer and all interoperate well. If that means Microsoft gets 90% of the market, Apple gets 6% and the unixes divy up the other 4%, fine - I don't care. I'd have no problem being part of that 4%. The problem is that *Microsoft* is not happy with such a world and seeks to prevent it. They want to use their position to ensure that there are only two options: 1 - run Microsft, or 2 - not communicate with others. That is their ideal and they are very good at working toward it. And in that ideal, I would not have the freedom to be in that other 4% if I choose.
So I promote open source because the more other people there are that use Microsoft instead, the less I can use open source myself.
And that's the problem with the DMCA. It ends up meaning coporations can censor informative reviews they dislike, since any meaningful data and examples in the review will surely violate DMCA somewhere - as a screenshot, or as an example of how to break something. The only way not to violate it is to not show what it is you're complaining about in any real detail, and then your review is indistinguishable from the rantings of a random lunatic and that's exactly how it will be percieved.
if someone took your personal information (name, social, license, etc.) you wouldn't consider it stealing either?
I would consider *taking* my personal information to be stealing, but I have no idea how that would be possible by any means short of causing me amnesia. What goes on in identity fraud cases is not "taking". It's "copying". The real bad crime happens later, when that copied information is used to perform fradulent transactions that steal my money. In that case the wrong that was commited is (A) fraud against the person the purchase was made against, and (B) theft of my money by use of my copied (not stolen, not taken) identity.
Calling it "identity theft" is a misnomer. If someone purchases $1000 with my credit card pretending to be me they have not stolen my identity. They've stolen my $1000.
I can get your name, your social secuity number, your license number, your credit card number, and if I never use them to pretend to be you and buy something with your money, I have commited no theft. If I never use them to pretend to be you, I have committed no fraud. If you believe merely copying that information DOES constitute theft, then that means automated computer databases are theives, because they DO keep that information, and they do copy it without asking you first.
The MPAA and RIAA have done a wonderfully effective propaganda campaign by trying to paint copying as being the same thing as theft, because the emotional connotation that theft gives. It sucks when someone takes something away from you. It sucks because YOU NO lONGER HAVE IT ANYMORE. The average person is not thinking "gosh theft sure is bad because it disrupts the economy by obtaining something without payment." The average person is thinking "theft sucks because it unfairly deprives you of something you used to own." And that simply is NOT TRUE in the case of copying copyrighted works, and that is why it is very dishonest to try to describe it as theft. I had more symptathy for the MPAA and RIAA until they started their bullshit propaganda campaign that copying should be prosecuted as theft. I don't tolerate dishonesty and rhetoric and that's exactly what it is. And it pisses me off even more when I see evidence that someone has gullibly bought the lie: hook, line, and sinker.
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God gave mankind the gift of free will so that they could use that free will to obey him and thus show that they loved him as much as he loved them.
And they were supposed to know that obeying was a good thing to do exactly how?
Remember that by the same myth's claims, God also kept the knowlege of good and evil away from them. They didn't have that until they ate from the tree. So anything they do before that, God should take the blame for because he deliberately kept them ignorant of any concept of morality, by his own plan.
People in the past had free will because AT THE TIME there was nobody who knew precisely what they were going to do. Nobody has the free will to change the past. If there exists an entity for which, right now, everything is "the past", then that does get in the way of free will.
If god's alleged omniscience was reduced to merely being omniscient about what is happening everywhere NOW, rather than For All Time, the problem would go away.
The original was written in a very ambiguous language that could just as well mean either one. To give an analogy to english, consider the two phrases:
"We walked for miles and then turned north"
"we walked four miles and then turned north".
In enlgish you can tell them apart because of the spellings, but imagine if english was completely phonetic - then they'd be spelled the exact same. Hebrew is kind of like that, but then take an additional step - remove the vowels and try to guess them out by context:
"W wlkd fr mls nd thn trnd nrth"
That's kind of what written hebrew is like.
The problem, from what I've heard (I don't actually know hebrew) is that the word for just "kill" and the word for "murder" render down into the same spelling in hebrew (although they are different words when pronounced). Can someone who actually knows hebrew confirm or deny this?
I do not believe every word to be literal truth
then you aren't whom the poster was talking about.
People who do actually claim to believe every word in the bible are either (A) lying, or (B) really, really, really dumb.
Do you believe people should be stoned to death for wearing a cotton/polyester blend shirt? Leviticus says yes.
And no intelligent designer would wire up its specially chosen people with a photosensitive surface (retina) with the connective signal-carrying wires on the light-facing side of the receptor, especially when doing so then means you have to poke a hole in the receptor to thread the wires through to the processing unit. The intelligent design is to attach them from the back. He wouldn't have just done it with the octopus and that's all.
but explain why your solution is better, since neither one of us can *prove* our assumptions.
By your own admission, you start from an explanation (bible) and try to make what you observe fit into it. We start from what we observe and then try to make an explanation fit it. If you don't believe that's a better approach, then we are at an impasse and I have no choice but to accept that there is a flaw in your ability to reason. (Yes, it's a flaw. I don't subscribe to that wishy-washy "all opinions are equally valid" camp.)
Darwin's theory is still a theory. Please don't pass it off as a scientific law.
There is no such thing as a scientific law. The theory of gravity still uses the vocabulary word "theory" to describe it. Does that mean you should doubt gravity?
"Theory" doesn't mean "unproven supposition" in science. It means "an explanation for something that has been observed." Whether a theory is a true one or a false one doesn't change the fact that the vocbulary word "theory" is still applied to describe it.
when your own president believes that atheists should not be considered as citizens
The quote you're thinking of came from Bush the Older, not Bush the Younger.
This is indistinguishable from "you can't disprove it because it was carefully designed that way by human beings."
And. no, it's not a scientific theory.
The religious aren't asking for ID to be taught as a theory that isn't teneble anymore, like all of the examples you gave are taught. So your analogies are not appropriate.
Pseudoscience is a new term used to describe the attempts of religion to be masked as science
It's not limited to religion. Other pretend sciences count under the term too - like ESP and using crystals to draw out "toxins" and stuff like that.
The definition of "species" is an arbitrarily made-up part of the zoology taxonimy, just the the other levels of definition, like Phylum, genus, and so on. Those levels are human inventions. In reality it's just one big jumbled tree of interconnectedness. The difference between a mutation creating some small variation like a new race and a mutation producing a new species is not a difference of type. It's just a difference of magnitude.
Teach the theories and the evidences for both
That's what already happens. But the ID supporters don't get painted in a good light when you do that. They want their theory to be taught in a noncritical, nonjudgemental way - which is because it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
I too agree - teach creationism *AS* a science and it goes away. But you can bet your ass that if any teacher did it that way, the very same people who forced ID into the science classroom would also have a thing to say about that and it would get that teacher in trouble.
Anyone who thinks the Mars rovers are manned missions is in no position to call someone else a retard.
When the freeways are not filled to capacity, then leaving more following room does not slow you down at all, this is true. However "not filled to capacity" does not describe LA freeways in the slightest. If the freeway system has all the cars it can fit, then leaving more following room effectively reduces the carrying capacity of the road, leading to all sorts of other traffic jam problems.
(Consider this example: A 1000 meter section of road, with 6 lanes and each car occupies 15 meters of space, can carry (1000/15)*6 = 296 cars.. but now stretch that out and leave twice as much following distance (so each car occupies 30 meters of road), and now the same chunk of freeway only holds half as many cars (1000/30)*6 = 198 cars.)
Leaving more following distance equals reducing the carrying capacity of the freeway. This is not a problem in cities where traffic isn't congested and the freeway isn't already at its maximum capacity. LA is not in that situtaion, though.
There are different types of floormats. Some have a 'carpety' top surface and some have a 'slick' top surface. I suspect the carpety ones work well and the slick ones not so well.
Rocking back and forth to create a space to give momentum on the way out is a great way of "punching" through the hard spot.
Remember that all these moves have to be preprogrammed, and executed without immediate human feedback. The thing you're talking about requires knowing when to reverse direction by feel and doing it immediately at the right time - not with a 10 minute radio signal delay. To make the rocking idea work would require that the rover 'driving' software be programmed to sense when the right time is to reverse direction based on how the wheels' traction "feels" in their divot.
no matter how much science or math they know, they might need a creative mind's help.
You don't become a scientist in the first place without one.
People here are too likeminded to put up with a post like that even though it is 100% true.
Likemindedness is a problem on Slashdot that makes people mod down true statemtns - this is true.
Your claim, however, that this is an example of that, is 100% false.
The post in question contains the false premise that the mars project budget is being diverted from solving problems here on earth, and that space exploration doesn't help here on earth - both of which are 100% false.
But that's precisely what's wrong with the shuttle. It requires such a massive retrofit between missions that it's a bit of a lie to call it "reusable".
I'd be perfectly happy in a world where everyone could use whatever they prefer and all interoperate well. If that means Microsoft gets 90% of the market, Apple gets 6% and the unixes divy up the other 4%, fine - I don't care. I'd have no problem being part of that 4%. The problem is that *Microsoft* is not happy with such a world and seeks to prevent it. They want to use their position to ensure that there are only two options: 1 - run Microsft, or 2 - not communicate with others. That is their ideal and they are very good at working toward it. And in that ideal, I would not have the freedom to be in that other 4% if I choose.
So I promote open source because the more other people there are that use Microsoft instead, the less I can use open source myself.
And that's the problem with the DMCA. It ends up meaning coporations can censor informative reviews they dislike, since any meaningful data and examples in the review will surely violate DMCA somewhere - as a screenshot, or as an example of how to break something. The only way not to violate it is to not show what it is you're complaining about in any real detail, and then your review is indistinguishable from the rantings of a random lunatic and that's exactly how it will be percieved.
In the alternate universe where I claimed copying was not illegal, your above statement would have made sense.
I never said it was legal. I said it wasn't theft. Theft is not the only kind of illegal activity that exists.
Take your strawman bullshit and shove it.
if someone took your personal information (name, social, license, etc.) you wouldn't consider it stealing either?
I would consider *taking* my personal information to be stealing, but I have no idea how that would be possible by any means short of causing me amnesia. What goes on in identity fraud cases is not "taking". It's "copying". The real bad crime happens later, when that copied information is used to perform fradulent transactions that steal my money. In that case the wrong that was commited is (A) fraud against the person the purchase was made against, and (B) theft of my money by use of my copied (not stolen, not taken) identity.
Calling it "identity theft" is a misnomer. If someone purchases $1000 with my credit card pretending to be me they have not stolen my identity. They've stolen my $1000.
I can get your name, your social secuity number, your license number, your credit card number, and if I never use them to pretend to be you and buy something with your money, I have commited no theft. If I never use them to pretend to be you, I have committed no fraud. If you believe merely copying that information DOES constitute theft, then that means automated computer databases are theives, because they DO keep that information, and they do copy it without asking you first.
The MPAA and RIAA have done a wonderfully effective propaganda campaign by trying to paint copying as being the same thing as theft, because the emotional connotation that theft gives. It sucks when someone takes something away from you. It sucks because YOU NO lONGER HAVE IT ANYMORE. The average person is not thinking "gosh theft sure is bad because it disrupts the economy by obtaining something without payment." The average person is thinking "theft sucks because it unfairly deprives you of something you used to own." And that simply is NOT TRUE in the case of copying copyrighted works, and that is why it is very dishonest to try to describe it as theft. I had more symptathy for the MPAA and RIAA until they started their bullshit propaganda campaign that copying should be prosecuted as theft. I don't tolerate dishonesty and rhetoric and that's exactly what it is. And it pisses me off even more when I see evidence that someone has gullibly bought the lie: hook, line, and sinker.
You apparently don't know what the word "steal" means. Don't worry. You're in good company. The RIAA uses the same broken definition that you do.