Like everything in security, it depends on your threat scenario.
Among other things, leaving the UK is a lot easier and faster than leaving the USA. If the UK loses a warhead, it can be out of the country within a few hours on average. Losing a nuke is bad. Having to recover it out of foreign territory, even of a friendly nation, is a diplomatic nightmare.
You have an extremely... american definition of "us all".
There have been (depending on how you count) around 150-200 wars since 1945. At least 10 mio. people have died in only the 5 largest of these (Korea, Vietnam, Iran-Iraq, Sudan, Congo).
The only parts of the world that have been largely peaceful since WW2 are Western Europe and the USA.
I'm participating on a forum on a linux-based PC that only runs a browser right now. On another tab I have my primary email MUA running - also in a browser. I can fire up another tab and access my P2P software, which is also browser-based. I can access all the same stuff from a windows PC, or my android phone. In some cases I have native apps to provide a cleaner interface, but I always have the web to fall back to, and in most cases it is the primary interface.
*yawn*
I remember that a very similar system was phased out just as I entered university. That was almost 20 years ago. It was called "thin clients". I think that has also been dug out and driven around town a few times in the mean time.
DisplayPDF was supposed to do what Netscape tried and what MS is trying again with Metro - provide a unified display system for the entire system.
I'm not saying it's wrong or stupid - most of the stuff I write is web-based, simply because it means I don't have to worry about the whole I/O part much.
But there's nothing really new here, aside from details, and the idea that your pet solution will replace everything else is as arrogant as it has always been.
I'm participating on a forum on a linux-based PC that only runs a browser right now. On another tab I have my primary email MUA running - also in a browser. I can fire up another tab and access my P2P software, which is also browser-based. I can access all the same stuff from a windows PC, or my android phone. In some cases I have native apps to provide a cleaner interface, but I always have the web to fall back to, and in most cases it is the primary interface.
*yawn*
I remember that a very similar system was phased out just as I entered university. That was almost 20 years ago. It was called "thin clients". I think that has also been dug out and driven around town a few times in the mean time.
DisplayPDF was supposed to do what Netscape tried and what MS is trying again with Metro - provide a unified display system for the entire system.
I'm not saying it's wrong or stupid - most of the stuff I write is web-based, simply because it means I don't have to worry about the whole I/O part much.
But there's nothing really new here, aside from details, and the idea that your pet solution will replace everything else is as arrogant as it has always been.
They said that 10 years ago. The browser was to break the MS monopoly, obsolete the OS, really soon now everything would be running in the browser, yada, yada, yada.
Every few years, someone digs up a dead horse and runs it through town again.
Not that I like them, but that part actually makes sense.
In a real way, in that even if they know they lost documents just like the ones that have now surfaced elsewhere, they would need to carefully read and compare them to the originals in order to confirm that these really are those documents.
And in a legal way, where you always put up all the imaginable defenses even if they seem contradictory. It's tough for geeks with their exclusive-or thinking to wrap their minds around that, but for lawyers, it is perfectly normal to argue at the same time that the client didn't do it and that he was drunk when he did it.
The last time someone rapidly changed China, an estimated fourty million people died. It is a massive country. It has five times the population of the USA. In case anything goes seriously wrong, a million or so civilian casualties could easily happen.
The workers getting their labor rights a few years later is an acceptable price to pay for a million lives in my book.
if you do what he said you'd know it's from God. I've done it, and I know it.
That's a lot better a reason than most.
Still, I spot a flaw there. It is circular logic. He said you will feel it. You feel it. Therefore, what he said is correct.
What you have is evidence, if not proof, that certain things can make you feel a certain way. And that is very likely an experience shared by the guy who wrote that down (John, or whoever really wrote it, doesn't matter). But that is the same kind of touching experience that you can get when you hear a song, for example, and the music and the lyrics just feel as if it was specifically written about something you just experienced. But of course it wasn't - it feels so close and so true because most songs are about very common human experiences - love, loss, sorrow.
Please understand that I don't doubt your experience nor how strong it must feel for you. But I point out that power of emotions is not a guidance for truth. Millions of humans have felt things with absolute certainty that turn out to be 100% bogus. One-sided love is a great example. To those truly in love, it is inconceivable that the other person would not feel the same.
Ordinarily I wouldn't have a problem with discussing this, but it's of a personal nature and I don't really feel that slashdot is the right forum.
I can easily accept that. I do keep most of my private life away from here as well.
I think you'll agree with me when I say that we'll never know everything.
In the strict sense (i.e. total knowledge about everything in the universe), that is a tautology, if only because we lie outside the light cone of some events.
However, I am not entirely sure about the natural laws. While we keep discovering deeper layers and more details, nothing makes an infinite regression absolutely necessary. It is possible that the set of natural laws is finite, and thus can be known entirely.
Thus, it's impossible to say that God has never done anything, all that we can say is that we've found no evidence of God having done anything. Which is your point, I realise.
Yes, with one additional point. If god intervenes in ways that do not require his intervention, but could have happened just the same without him, then there is no necessity for him. There is truly random fluctuations at the quantum level, for all we know, and god could, theoretically, be controlling those, and excerting some kind of extremely subtle influence that way. However, he would have to stay within the limits of statistical probabilities or else we would have evidence there in the unlikely events. Pretty much the argument ID is trying to make, except that it doesn't apply to evolution.
But then we are a far cry from any of the gods of any human religion. Basically, "god" would just be a fancy term for random quantum fluctuations.
"Who created the laws of physics?"
My reply would be: "Who created the creator?" - as your god is omnieverything, he can not have a creator (because whoever created god would by necessity be more powerful than god). But if god needs no creator - then why to the laws of physics?
I have to continue later, friends are coming over...
There is no logical flaw in my assertion that science cannot either prove or disprove God.
Only because you put it forth as an axiom.
Formulate it as a hypothesis. I've asked this before, but not as clear: You have a theory there - a meta-science theory on the limits of science. What would convince you that it is false?
If you can not name a criterion for falsification, then you don't have a theory, you have a belief.
How can you set up an experiment to show the existence or nonexistence of God?
You don't need an experiment. I will agree that, due to the way that religion continuously re-defines the features of its assumed "god", no single experiment will ever be accepted as proof of nonexistance.
But here is the argument:
Assume a hypothetical world, say the aquarium in the lobby, just to have a picture in our minds. Formulate a theory that an external entity, say the janitor, subtly influences events inside the aquarium. Imagine you are inside the aquarium, with no way to leave it.
How can you prove or disprove the existence of the janitor?
The answer is: By carefully examining everything inside and looking for clues of outside effects. The more of what is going on inside you can explain entirely by what is inside, the less likely outside interference becomes.
If you can show that everything that has ever happened inside the aquarium would have happened exactly like it did without anyone from the outside interfering, you have proved that there was no outside effect.
In simpler words: If god never does anything, then the question of his existence becomes meaningless.
You, on the other hand, haven't shown much evidence to support your claims to the contrary.
I'm not going to write down the entire body of scientific knowledge into/. comments. That is why I keep asking what evidence you need, which arguments disproving would convince you.
For every theory in my natural world, I can name a criterion for, if not falsification than intense checking. I believe in gravity. The theory of gravity makes specific statements about cause and effect, and they can be investigated. If they suddenly show results different from the expected, the theory would be under scrutiny.
So, once more, what would make you question your faith? Name it, and it shall be provided. If you can't name it, please be so kind and remove any reference to science from your argument and at least have the balls to state that you have simply choosen to belief in something no matter what the evidence.
But you don't care about that. Nothing that I say now is going to affect your viewpoint in any way.
Show me a documented event in the history of the world that can not be explained without accepting the existence of god, and I will change my mind.
This isn't to say we should get complacent - the moment we as a people declare the status quo "good enough", we've lost.
Misery follows if you are unable to follow the status quo as "good enough for now".
Nobody said this would be the status quo forever. But change takes time, and the faster you move something big, the more friction you create. And if you move a country too fast, you can destroy it. Unrest, civil war, massive unemployment, runaway inflation, etc. etc.
It's easy to talk about change on/. - when you are responsible for more than a billion people, you ought to be a lot more careful.
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff.
That's not violent, but it is hostile. They want to take advantage of me, to my detriment and their profit. Whatever term you put on it, I'd call it hostile (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hostile, definition 1c).
People often forget there client card at my super market (AH) and I happily lend them mine. Must give them some interesting stats.
Many years ago, at the Chaos Communications Camp in Berlin, I suggested that people trade their customer cards at random every once in a while, to mess up the profiling.
Unfortunately, back then the whole thing was only starting, and too few people had matching cards to make much of a difference. Maybe someone should re-launch that idea.
Yes, it is similar. There is a difference between the doer and the deed, between the believer and the belief.
Contrary to the fanatics, they can believe all the bullshit they want, as long as they keep it to themselves. When they force it on me, into the schools, into politics, or into an otherwise rational discussion, I get upset. Just like I don't mind gays at all, but I would object to being sexually assaulted by one. Being gay doesn't give you special rights to force your sexuality on others, and being religious shouldn't give you special rights to force your fucked-up belief system on others.
No, what he's doing is just bad science pushing more bad science.
He's a magician, not a scientist. You may want to keep that in mind. Nevertheless, he uses methods from science, and while his focus is on the individuals who claim they have psychic or other powers, over time his sample size has become rather large, wouldn't you agree.
The Munich 1987â"1988 study that had 300 dowsers tested showed most were no good, but that 6 deviated away from statistical chance.
First, it was 500, not 300. Two, the results are controversial, with critics showing that considering random deviations, even the 6 most successful cases are only slightly better than chance.
You also ignore that there have been follow-up studies with much clearer results, all of them showing no dowsing abilities in the test subjects whatsoever.
If the Munich tests were correct then he had only a 0.02% chance of finding someone that might possibly prove him wrong.
Around 1%, assuming he picks at random. Which he doesn't. You ignore that if there were dowsers who are reliably successful, then why are they not coming forward? There's a million bucks on the table, after all.
Actually,if you define "God" as "that which created all", then by definition the existence of anything is evidence of God.
Yes, but only of the "God" as defined here, not of any specific god of any religion. If you re-define words at will, you can prove everything from anything, but the words become meaningless.
But even so, it contains an unproven assumption: That there was an active process of creation. That there was a subject (gramatically speaking) to do the creating. If you allow for a passive interpretation, and accept that everything could have come into existence spontaneously, with no prior cause, then "God" is essentially a synonym for "the universe". Which, yes, if viewed as an entity can be considered omnipresent and omniscient. I am willing to accept this definition of "God", but at the same time, it is meaningless because it is just a different word for something that already has a perfectly good word for it.
there is no logical flaw in assuming infinite regressions or spontaneous creation.
According to our current understanding, these are the only reasonable alternatives. Cause and effect has no meaning without time (due to the requirement of satisfying relativity). So the beginning of time can not have a prior cause - pretty much by definition, because there is no "prior" to time itself.
but there is still that nagging question of "but what happened just before that?"
Only in pop science. We have an answer, and the answer is: Nothing happened just before that, because the concept of "before" doesn't have a meaning there.
Some people choose to call the unknown answer "God"
Yes, that is pretty much what I've been saying. "God" is apparently very fond of moving around, because the believers always claim that he's here and there, and every time you open the lid, he's nowhere to be found, moved to the next higher level of abstraction.
I'm with Nietzsche on that one: A thing that has no effect whatsoever on anything external does not have an existence in any meaningful sense of the word.
By doing what you critizise in others: Repeating your statement, with no supporting argument.
You're entitled to your opinion. Ultimately, the only way we'll ever know for sure is once we get there.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. And that's the problem I have with your kind. I don't have a problem with you as a person - I don't even know you, so how could I? - but every argument you've put forth is logically flawed, and you know that if you stop to think. Like the creator of an experiment being entirely not the same as the creator of the universe, unless your experiment is testing whether it has a creator.
And no, the funny thing is that if I am right then we will not know for sure once we get there, because there's nothing to get to, and when you're dead there's no "you" left to know anything.
Surface - so you admit that Microsoft is innovating and trying to create a new market where one didn't previously exist.
I never said they don't try. A shop as big as their tries all sorts of stuff. I've yet to see them succeed, though, because almost all of their "innovations" suck. Microsoft is the China of the computing world - whenever they come up with something original, everyone else cringes. But they're great at stealing your ideas and making a cheap knock-off.
Metro - so you don't deny the fact that Microsoft is the first to make a unified UI from 3" screen to 80" screen and all form factors from phone to tablet to pc to gaming. You thinking it is a bad idea does not change the fact that Microsoft is innovating and not just cloning a competitor after "they're sure a market exists",
In my book, "innovation" includes a little more than "doing something a little different than before". Otherwise, every other time you get out of bed you'd be "innovating". The tricky - and decisive - part of any innovation, invention and progress is never the cute idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen. The important part is making it happen.
The measure on your ability to create a new market is the existence of said market after the fact. Apple didn't invent the tablet as a concept, but they sure created the tablet market. All sales figures of all tablets combined prior to the release of the iPad were dwarved in what? A month?
Show me a case of MS doing the same and I'll eat my words.
Even if it's overwhelmingly likely that my belief is false, it can't be taken as fact that my belief is false
Depends on your definition of the word "fact", but if you define it as "100% proven" then there is very, very little in this world that would be a "fact". In fact, I dare say you would be challenged to find a single "fact".
So at this point, you are playing word-games. By any reasonable definition of "fact", it is a fact that your belief is false.
Even if I'm probably wrong, I might still be right, and it's not right to come along and say "You're wrong, you're an idiot" when that fact cannot be established.
You are still arguing as if the chances were even, or roughly even. But they aren't. Mentally replace the "god" question by, say, a lottery drawing. At the end of the week, a random number between 1 and 1 million will be drawn. There are two tickets you can buy. One contains the number 42. The other contains all other numbers. Both tickets cost the same - half your life savings.
What would you call someone who buys the ticket with the 42, if he is not named Arthur Dent?
I'd argue that there is much evidence for the existence of a God.
Pics or it didn't happen. We don't need to have a long discussion. Simply put forth your absolute best piece of evidence. Then watch it being ripped to shreds. Assume if that happens to your best evidence, all the other "evidence" will do worse.
On/. I prefer to assert that, completely from a scientific point of view that it is impossible to prove or disprove God's existence. I think that's not an unreasonable presumption.
The "god theory" has been thoroughly disproven, as it has failed every test ever attempted. More importantly, it adds nothing to existing theories. There is nothing in the world that is explained better with a god than without one. As such, god is simply not required.
From a scientific point of view, god has been disproven. You can step out of science - nothing can force you to accept the scientific principle as "valid" - and assert your faith there. But then, by god, have the balls to say so!
How is the fact of existence proof of anything (aside from existence, a tautology)?
Your sentence is a claim, and lacks supporting argument. Note that I didn't say "evidence". We can have this discussion on non-scientific terms, no problem.
Oh, you mean your personal faith? But that is the fallacy. You believe that the slate was cleaned when you joined the club, but that is not how it works. Your personal faith really isn't, unless you have created it entirely from nothing. Which I am very certain you haven't. The Nazi party, or the CoS or that haven of cannibals, or your local sports club or really anything you join up with, organized or not, does not "reset" with every new member.
More importantly, and more specific, your faith is an active hindrance to the progress of mankind.
What I can't accept is your assertion that my belief is false, when there is in fact no scientific evidence to support either viewpoint.
Wrong. Old strawman argument.
All scientific evidence points in overwhelming abundance to there not being any god, godlike, or otherwise supernatural entity. Now the way that science works is that it never entirely rules out any possibility except those that were explicitly tested. Ever since science started tackling the works of god(s), religion has been on the retreat. God was nowhere to be found where the religions claimed he would. Today, we have an abstract concept of god as some kind of virtual omnipresence - that was not always the case. Before science came along, gods presence was assumed to be real and very physical.
Just because we can not entirely rule out god in a scientific way does not mean the chances are even. We do not have scientific evidence that there is a moon made entirely out of swiss cheese orbiting Alpha Centauri, but the chances are ridiculously low (especially due to the "swiss" part).
Same for god. Putting all scientific evidence together, the chances that I'm wrong and you are right are so dramatically in my favour that I'd bet my entire posessions against five bucks. Except, of course, that you will dodge any actual falsification, just like all fraudsters do.
If there was a big bang, it doesn't mean there isn't a God.
Actually, it does. You need to acquire more knowledge about the big bang theory than pop science.
Also, the existence of bad faiths and religions doesn't imply that good ones can't exist.
By definition, all religion is bad. If a vital part of your existence is based on a lie and a fraud, how can that possibly be anything but bad?
You will now predictibly say something about ethics and morale. But modern humans are ethical beings despite, not because of, religion. 300 years of enlightenment have done more for ethics than 3000 years of religion.
The dousers, from what I know of this particular case, did not mind the test conditions and claimed they could easily get their claimed results under those conditions. At least prior to the test.
Watch the video of him debunking James Hydrik. Where he asks multiple times if this material is ok, if that method is acceptable, if this would interfere in any way with the claimed psychic power.
Or the one where he debunks the aura seer. Where he explicitly asks him if he can clearly see the auras through the screens he put up, and the poor deluded fool says "yes, I can see them quite clearly".
If anything, Randi make really sure that he doesn't leave them a way out. And that means doing the tests according to whatever they claim to be the limits of their abilities. If the dousers had said that there can be 50 feet of rock inbetween, but somehow 5 feet of air block their sensing, I am sure Randi would've set the experiment up so it fits.
Slashdot Mirror
This is how you're supposed to do it.
Like everything in security, it depends on your threat scenario.
Among other things, leaving the UK is a lot easier and faster than leaving the USA. If the UK loses a warhead, it can be out of the country within a few hours on average. Losing a nuke is bad. Having to recover it out of foreign territory, even of a friendly nation, is a diplomatic nightmare.
and forced peace upon us all,
You have an extremely... american definition of "us all".
There have been (depending on how you count) around 150-200 wars since 1945. At least 10 mio. people have died in only the 5 largest of these (Korea, Vietnam, Iran-Iraq, Sudan, Congo).
The only parts of the world that have been largely peaceful since WW2 are Western Europe and the USA.
(posted with wrong quoting the first time, sorry)
I'm participating on a forum on a linux-based PC that only runs a browser right now. On another tab I have my primary email MUA running - also in a browser. I can fire up another tab and access my P2P software, which is also browser-based. I can access all the same stuff from a windows PC, or my android phone. In some cases I have native apps to provide a cleaner interface, but I always have the web to fall back to, and in most cases it is the primary interface.
*yawn*
I remember that a very similar system was phased out just as I entered university. That was almost 20 years ago. It was called "thin clients". I think that has also been dug out and driven around town a few times in the mean time.
DisplayPDF was supposed to do what Netscape tried and what MS is trying again with Metro - provide a unified display system for the entire system.
I'm not saying it's wrong or stupid - most of the stuff I write is web-based, simply because it means I don't have to worry about the whole I/O part much.
But there's nothing really new here, aside from details, and the idea that your pet solution will replace everything else is as arrogant as it has always been.
I'm participating on a forum on a linux-based PC that only runs a browser right now. On another tab I have my primary email MUA running - also in a browser. I can fire up another tab and access my P2P software, which is also browser-based. I can access all the same stuff from a windows PC, or my android phone. In some cases I have native apps to provide a cleaner interface, but I always have the web to fall back to, and in most cases it is the primary interface.
*yawn*
I remember that a very similar system was phased out just as I entered university. That was almost 20 years ago. It was called "thin clients". I think that has also been dug out and driven around town a few times in the mean time.
DisplayPDF was supposed to do what Netscape tried and what MS is trying again with Metro - provide a unified display system for the entire system.
I'm not saying it's wrong or stupid - most of the stuff I write is web-based, simply because it means I don't have to worry about the whole I/O part much.
But there's nothing really new here, aside from details, and the idea that your pet solution will replace everything else is as arrogant as it has always been.
Geek solution.
Lawyer solution: "Hello, Mrs. Secretary. Please compare these two documents and mark any differences you find."
I am serious. I once had to show the personal assistants of the C-level the Word functionality for versioning.
They said that 10 years ago. The browser was to break the MS monopoly, obsolete the OS, really soon now everything would be running in the browser, yada, yada, yada.
Every few years, someone digs up a dead horse and runs it through town again.
Not that I like them, but that part actually makes sense.
In a real way, in that even if they know they lost documents just like the ones that have now surfaced elsewhere, they would need to carefully read and compare them to the originals in order to confirm that these really are those documents.
And in a legal way, where you always put up all the imaginable defenses even if they seem contradictory. It's tough for geeks with their exclusive-or thinking to wrap their minds around that, but for lawyers, it is perfectly normal to argue at the same time that the client didn't do it and that he was drunk when he did it.
That is a cover-up itself.
Religion has always been a tool for control and power. As far back as we have even guesses to the role of religion in society.
Claiming that religion is a victim of other interests is the hyena crying wolf.
You're an idiot, and a dangerous one at that.
The last time someone rapidly changed China, an estimated fourty million people died. It is a massive country. It has five times the population of the USA. In case anything goes seriously wrong, a million or so civilian casualties could easily happen.
The workers getting their labor rights a few years later is an acceptable price to pay for a million lives in my book.
if you do what he said you'd know it's from God. I've done it, and I know it.
That's a lot better a reason than most.
Still, I spot a flaw there. It is circular logic. He said you will feel it. You feel it. Therefore, what he said is correct.
What you have is evidence, if not proof, that certain things can make you feel a certain way. And that is very likely an experience shared by the guy who wrote that down (John, or whoever really wrote it, doesn't matter).
But that is the same kind of touching experience that you can get when you hear a song, for example, and the music and the lyrics just feel as if it was specifically written about something you just experienced. But of course it wasn't - it feels so close and so true because most songs are about very common human experiences - love, loss, sorrow.
Please understand that I don't doubt your experience nor how strong it must feel for you. But I point out that power of emotions is not a guidance for truth. Millions of humans have felt things with absolute certainty that turn out to be 100% bogus. One-sided love is a great example. To those truly in love, it is inconceivable that the other person would not feel the same.
Ordinarily I wouldn't have a problem with discussing this, but it's of a personal nature and I don't really feel that slashdot is the right forum.
I can easily accept that. I do keep most of my private life away from here as well.
I think you'll agree with me when I say that we'll never know everything.
In the strict sense (i.e. total knowledge about everything in the universe), that is a tautology, if only because we lie outside the light cone of some events.
However, I am not entirely sure about the natural laws. While we keep discovering deeper layers and more details, nothing makes an infinite regression absolutely necessary. It is possible that the set of natural laws is finite, and thus can be known entirely.
Thus, it's impossible to say that God has never done anything, all that we can say is that we've found no evidence of God having done anything. Which is your point, I realise.
Yes, with one additional point. If god intervenes in ways that do not require his intervention, but could have happened just the same without him, then there is no necessity for him. There is truly random fluctuations at the quantum level, for all we know, and god could, theoretically, be controlling those, and excerting some kind of extremely subtle influence that way. However, he would have to stay within the limits of statistical probabilities or else we would have evidence there in the unlikely events. Pretty much the argument ID is trying to make, except that it doesn't apply to evolution.
But then we are a far cry from any of the gods of any human religion. Basically, "god" would just be a fancy term for random quantum fluctuations.
"Who created the laws of physics?"
My reply would be: "Who created the creator?" - as your god is omnieverything, he can not have a creator (because whoever created god would by necessity be more powerful than god).
But if god needs no creator - then why to the laws of physics?
I have to continue later, friends are coming over...
There is no logical flaw in my assertion that science cannot either prove or disprove God.
Only because you put it forth as an axiom.
Formulate it as a hypothesis. I've asked this before, but not as clear: You have a theory there - a meta-science theory on the limits of science. What would convince you that it is false?
If you can not name a criterion for falsification, then you don't have a theory, you have a belief.
How can you set up an experiment to show the existence or nonexistence of God?
You don't need an experiment. I will agree that, due to the way that religion continuously re-defines the features of its assumed "god", no single experiment will ever be accepted as proof of nonexistance.
But here is the argument:
Assume a hypothetical world, say the aquarium in the lobby, just to have a picture in our minds.
Formulate a theory that an external entity, say the janitor, subtly influences events inside the aquarium.
Imagine you are inside the aquarium, with no way to leave it.
How can you prove or disprove the existence of the janitor?
The answer is: By carefully examining everything inside and looking for clues of outside effects. The more of what is going on inside you can explain entirely by what is inside, the less likely outside interference becomes.
If you can show that everything that has ever happened inside the aquarium would have happened exactly like it did without anyone from the outside interfering, you have proved that there was no outside effect.
In simpler words: If god never does anything, then the question of his existence becomes meaningless.
You, on the other hand, haven't shown much evidence to support your claims to the contrary.
I'm not going to write down the entire body of scientific knowledge into /. comments. That is why I keep asking what evidence you need, which arguments disproving would convince you.
For every theory in my natural world, I can name a criterion for, if not falsification than intense checking. I believe in gravity. The theory of gravity makes specific statements about cause and effect, and they can be investigated. If they suddenly show results different from the expected, the theory would be under scrutiny.
So, once more, what would make you question your faith? Name it, and it shall be provided. If you can't name it, please be so kind and remove any reference to science from your argument and at least have the balls to state that you have simply choosen to belief in something no matter what the evidence.
But you don't care about that. Nothing that I say now is going to affect your viewpoint in any way.
Show me a documented event in the history of the world that can not be explained without accepting the existence of god, and I will change my mind.
This isn't to say we should get complacent - the moment we as a people declare the status quo "good enough", we've lost.
Misery follows if you are unable to follow the status quo as "good enough for now".
Nobody said this would be the status quo forever. But change takes time, and the faster you move something big, the more friction you create. And if you move a country too fast, you can destroy it. Unrest, civil war, massive unemployment, runaway inflation, etc. etc.
It's easy to talk about change on /. - when you are responsible for more than a billion people, you ought to be a lot more careful.
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff.
That's not violent, but it is hostile. They want to take advantage of me, to my detriment and their profit. Whatever term you put on it, I'd call it hostile (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hostile, definition 1c).
People often forget there client card at my super market (AH) and I happily lend them mine. Must give them some interesting stats.
Many years ago, at the Chaos Communications Camp in Berlin, I suggested that people trade their customer cards at random every once in a while, to mess up the profiling.
Unfortunately, back then the whole thing was only starting, and too few people had matching cards to make much of a difference. Maybe someone should re-launch that idea.
Yes, it is similar. There is a difference between the doer and the deed, between the believer and the belief.
Contrary to the fanatics, they can believe all the bullshit they want, as long as they keep it to themselves. When they force it on me, into the schools, into politics, or into an otherwise rational discussion, I get upset. Just like I don't mind gays at all, but I would object to being sexually assaulted by one. Being gay doesn't give you special rights to force your sexuality on others, and being religious shouldn't give you special rights to force your fucked-up belief system on others.
No, what he's doing is just bad science pushing more bad science.
He's a magician, not a scientist. You may want to keep that in mind. Nevertheless, he uses methods from science, and while his focus is on the individuals who claim they have psychic or other powers, over time his sample size has become rather large, wouldn't you agree.
The Munich 1987â"1988 study that had 300 dowsers tested showed most were no good, but that 6 deviated away from statistical chance.
First, it was 500, not 300. Two, the results are controversial, with critics showing that considering random deviations, even the 6 most successful cases are only slightly better than chance.
You also ignore that there have been follow-up studies with much clearer results, all of them showing no dowsing abilities in the test subjects whatsoever.
If the Munich tests were correct then he had only a 0.02% chance of finding someone that might possibly prove him wrong.
Around 1%, assuming he picks at random. Which he doesn't. You ignore that if there were dowsers who are reliably successful, then why are they not coming forward? There's a million bucks on the table, after all.
Actually,if you define "God" as "that which created all", then by definition the existence of anything is evidence of God.
Yes, but only of the "God" as defined here, not of any specific god of any religion. If you re-define words at will, you can prove everything from anything, but the words become meaningless.
But even so, it contains an unproven assumption: That there was an active process of creation. That there was a subject (gramatically speaking) to do the creating. If you allow for a passive interpretation, and accept that everything could have come into existence spontaneously, with no prior cause, then "God" is essentially a synonym for "the universe". Which, yes, if viewed as an entity can be considered omnipresent and omniscient. I am willing to accept this definition of "God", but at the same time, it is meaningless because it is just a different word for something that already has a perfectly good word for it.
there is no logical flaw in assuming infinite regressions or spontaneous creation.
According to our current understanding, these are the only reasonable alternatives. Cause and effect has no meaning without time (due to the requirement of satisfying relativity). So the beginning of time can not have a prior cause - pretty much by definition, because there is no "prior" to time itself.
but there is still that nagging question of "but what happened just before that?"
Only in pop science. We have an answer, and the answer is: Nothing happened just before that, because the concept of "before" doesn't have a meaning there.
Some people choose to call the unknown answer "God"
Yes, that is pretty much what I've been saying. "God" is apparently very fond of moving around, because the believers always claim that he's here and there, and every time you open the lid, he's nowhere to be found, moved to the next higher level of abstraction.
I'm with Nietzsche on that one: A thing that has no effect whatsoever on anything external does not have an existence in any meaningful sense of the word.
I'm getting very tired of this discussion.
That doesn't change any arguments.
I reject both these statements of yours.
By doing what you critizise in others: Repeating your statement, with no supporting argument.
You're entitled to your opinion. Ultimately, the only way we'll ever know for sure is once we get there.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. And that's the problem I have with your kind. I don't have a problem with you as a person - I don't even know you, so how could I? - but every argument you've put forth is logically flawed, and you know that if you stop to think. Like the creator of an experiment being entirely not the same as the creator of the universe, unless your experiment is testing whether it has a creator.
And no, the funny thing is that if I am right then we will not know for sure once we get there, because there's nothing to get to, and when you're dead there's no "you" left to know anything.
Surface - so you admit that Microsoft is innovating and trying to create a new market where one didn't previously exist.
I never said they don't try. A shop as big as their tries all sorts of stuff. I've yet to see them succeed, though, because almost all of their "innovations" suck. Microsoft is the China of the computing world - whenever they come up with something original, everyone else cringes. But they're great at stealing your ideas and making a cheap knock-off.
Metro - so you don't deny the fact that Microsoft is the first to make a unified UI from 3" screen to 80" screen and all form factors from phone to tablet to pc to gaming. You thinking it is a bad idea does not change the fact that Microsoft is innovating and not just cloning a competitor after "they're sure a market exists",
In my book, "innovation" includes a little more than "doing something a little different than before". Otherwise, every other time you get out of bed you'd be "innovating". The tricky - and decisive - part of any innovation, invention and progress is never the cute idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen. The important part is making it happen.
The measure on your ability to create a new market is the existence of said market after the fact. Apple didn't invent the tablet as a concept, but they sure created the tablet market. All sales figures of all tablets combined prior to the release of the iPad were dwarved in what? A month?
Show me a case of MS doing the same and I'll eat my words.
Big Brother, meet Really Insanely Huge Brother.
Seriously, if you have ever said one word against government surveilance, you should be out there in a protest march.
Even if it's overwhelmingly likely that my belief is false, it can't be taken as fact that my belief is false
Depends on your definition of the word "fact", but if you define it as "100% proven" then there is very, very little in this world that would be a "fact". In fact, I dare say you would be challenged to find a single "fact".
So at this point, you are playing word-games. By any reasonable definition of "fact", it is a fact that your belief is false.
Even if I'm probably wrong, I might still be right, and it's not right to come along and say "You're wrong, you're an idiot" when that fact cannot be established.
You are still arguing as if the chances were even, or roughly even. But they aren't. Mentally replace the "god" question by, say, a lottery drawing. At the end of the week, a random number between 1 and 1 million will be drawn. There are two tickets you can buy. One contains the number 42. The other contains all other numbers. Both tickets cost the same - half your life savings.
What would you call someone who buys the ticket with the 42, if he is not named Arthur Dent?
I'd argue that there is much evidence for the existence of a God.
Pics or it didn't happen. We don't need to have a long discussion. Simply put forth your absolute best piece of evidence. Then watch it being ripped to shreds. Assume if that happens to your best evidence, all the other "evidence" will do worse.
On /. I prefer to assert that, completely from a scientific point of view that it is impossible to prove or disprove God's existence. I think that's not an unreasonable presumption.
The "god theory" has been thoroughly disproven, as it has failed every test ever attempted. More importantly, it adds nothing to existing theories. There is nothing in the world that is explained better with a god than without one. As such, god is simply not required.
From a scientific point of view, god has been disproven. You can step out of science - nothing can force you to accept the scientific principle as "valid" - and assert your faith there. But then, by god, have the balls to say so!
The fact of existence is proof of the divine.
Non sequitor.
How is the fact of existence proof of anything (aside from existence, a tautology)?
Your sentence is a claim, and lacks supporting argument. Note that I didn't say "evidence". We can have this discussion on non-scientific terms, no problem.
What has my faith done to you?
Do you want an itemized list? It will be long.
Oh, you mean your personal faith? But that is the fallacy. You believe that the slate was cleaned when you joined the club, but that is not how it works. Your personal faith really isn't, unless you have created it entirely from nothing. Which I am very certain you haven't. The Nazi party, or the CoS or that haven of cannibals, or your local sports club or really anything you join up with, organized or not, does not "reset" with every new member.
More importantly, and more specific, your faith is an active hindrance to the progress of mankind.
What I can't accept is your assertion that my belief is false, when there is in fact no scientific evidence to support either viewpoint.
Wrong. Old strawman argument.
All scientific evidence points in overwhelming abundance to there not being any god, godlike, or otherwise supernatural entity. Now the way that science works is that it never entirely rules out any possibility except those that were explicitly tested. Ever since science started tackling the works of god(s), religion has been on the retreat. God was nowhere to be found where the religions claimed he would. Today, we have an abstract concept of god as some kind of virtual omnipresence - that was not always the case. Before science came along, gods presence was assumed to be real and very physical.
Just because we can not entirely rule out god in a scientific way does not mean the chances are even. We do not have scientific evidence that there is a moon made entirely out of swiss cheese orbiting Alpha Centauri, but the chances are ridiculously low (especially due to the "swiss" part).
Same for god. Putting all scientific evidence together, the chances that I'm wrong and you are right are so dramatically in my favour that I'd bet my entire posessions against five bucks. Except, of course, that you will dodge any actual falsification, just like all fraudsters do.
If there was a big bang, it doesn't mean there isn't a God.
Actually, it does. You need to acquire more knowledge about the big bang theory than pop science.
Also, the existence of bad faiths and religions doesn't imply that good ones can't exist.
By definition, all religion is bad. If a vital part of your existence is based on a lie and a fraud, how can that possibly be anything but bad?
You will now predictibly say something about ethics and morale. But modern humans are ethical beings despite, not because of, religion. 300 years of enlightenment have done more for ethics than 3000 years of religion.
It's called a controlled test environment.
The dousers, from what I know of this particular case, did not mind the test conditions and claimed they could easily get their claimed results under those conditions. At least prior to the test.
Watch the video of him debunking James Hydrik. Where he asks multiple times if this material is ok, if that method is acceptable, if this would interfere in any way with the claimed psychic power.
Or the one where he debunks the aura seer. Where he explicitly asks him if he can clearly see the auras through the screens he put up, and the poor deluded fool says "yes, I can see them quite clearly".
If anything, Randi make really sure that he doesn't leave them a way out. And that means doing the tests according to whatever they claim to be the limits of their abilities. If the dousers had said that there can be 50 feet of rock inbetween, but somehow 5 feet of air block their sensing, I am sure Randi would've set the experiment up so it fits.