... the way ISPs (and other utilities) work so that we can actually have real competition. Competition would basically fix this sort of thing, wouldn't it? Droves of people don't want X-ISP because X-ISP is throttling/sniffing/whatever traffic. Y-ISP comes in and advertises they don't do that (and in fact, they don't). Droves of people switch to Y-ISP.
Right now, though, because of the way ISPs share (or don't share) infrastructure and all that, we don't have competition; we have local monopolies. The fact that we allow local monopolies is why we now are struggling to regulate them; regulation may not be required, though, if we actually had competition. By "competition" I mean competition for the same customer using the same - more or less - technology; e.g., one person looking for cable can actually buy from multiple providers.
Maybe I misunderstand how it works right now, but it seems to me that allowing local monopolies is a bad idea and is the only reason we are having to go down the regulation route. Maybe if the infrastructure were public and paid for through $x-per-customer-served by the provider, thus allowing multiple providers access to the same infrastructure at the same cost (and that cost going to the local government, which would be maintaining/improving/whatever the infrastructure), we wouldn't have need for all this?
Christianity was "founded" long before the Roman Catholic Church. And long before Constantinople, for that matter.
I would be interested to know the definition of a "good Christian home" in your view. It is quite possible to claim to be one thing and not be. It's called "hypocrisy" and is unfortunately quite prevalent in humans, and unfortunately, it is thus quite prevalent with many who claim to be Christians.
So I guess it comes down to what exactly Christianity was founded on. I would argue it's supposed to be founded on Christ. If it is founded on something else, then it has problems. Many "Christian" churches and church organizations in "church history" have founded their... for lack of a better word, "brand," on something other than Christ; tradition, philosophy, whatever.
Christ, and the apostles He taught, had a lot to say about violence and depravity. It seems to me that a true Christ-founded Christianity is the only religion that actually asserts human depravity in very strong terms. That is basically half of the point of the "Gospel" in the New Testament; humans are utterly depraved and capable of all manner of horrible things that utterly disgust God. The other half is that Christ has provided a way to break our enslavement to that depravity and live in freedom from it (and, instead of serving said depravity - or sin - serving Christ).
Most people like that whole "you don't go to hell anymore!" Most people don't like the "you have to deny yourself and set Christ as your Lord" part of it; thus, they may claim to be "Christian" but nothing has changed in their life. Including their slave-to-depravity state. Hence the depravity. And hypocrisy.
[citation needed] for the first paragraph. I would like to see these mainstream Christians doing racial violence and murder and claiming it is condoned by God. I say "mainstream" because there are plenty of nutcases out there, but is it really fair to judge based on those? I could find nutcase atheists, muslims, and bhuddists and thus claim that those groups are also murdering and killing with impunity, too...
And you're basically correct with the point about Christ not approving. and about the difference between the label "Christian" and one who actually follows Christ. Remarkably correct, there, in fact.
However, I have to say one thing: just because someone uses the label doesn't mean they fit into the hypocritical category right away. Many people say they are Christian and basically have no idea what they just said, probably never read the Bible, and think that "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is part of the 10 commandments, right up there with "God helps those who help themselves."
That most of the posts here are about the security practices of airports in different countries rather than even commenting on the terrorist attack itself?
You'd think we'd be marginally upset about some individuals blowing up a bunch of other individuals. Maybe even interested in what caused it, where it came from, who did it.
Instead, we just argue about TSA.
Not saying we shouldn't argue about TSA... but perhaps that's not the only thing there is to argue about.
For the most part, I agree... except that I would also argue that if a creator is outside of our science (and yet created our science), then our science is not the highest authority; and, in fact, if our science assumes no God and tries to explain everything from an atheist POV (i.e., everything must be explained naturally), then it could be that science could be wrong.
Generally, I'd argue that science without God has some issues at it's foundation - why science works in the first place, aside from "because that's how it has always worked" (though it's hard to prove that it's always been the way it is now...:) ).
I said nothing about proof. Proof is a pretty big word.:)
Furthermore, what is not tuned for us? The "tuning" seems to refer to the likelihood of other worlds (in other galaxies) evolving life. How is the universe "sub-optimal"... sub-optimal for what? Are you under the understanding that creationists believe God created the entire universe for creatures on earth to live in? As far as I am aware in the Bible, it specifically states that man is to "rule" over the earth. He makes no mention of Mars.
To say that the likelihood of life evolving is lower than we thought and claiming that is evidence against a creator makes no sense. The inhabitability of the universe and how likely it is that life would evolve in it is pretty much only a concern if you believe life evolved in the first place. Creationists would expect what this scientist has stated he has found; in fact, creationists expect life to be so complex that it can't evolve, no matter how inhabitable the world is...
The less likely it is life would evolve, the more evidence it is for creation. Stating that life is less likely to evolve and therefore a creator is less needed? That's weird...
Most creation-believing Christians that don't adhere to abiogenesis and billions of years of evolution would, in fact, say that life is clearly a miracle that only God can produce. They have been saying that for many, many years. Your hypothetical quote would not be any sort of twisting; it'd be the same as they have been saying for years. I don't think that would be a case of the creationist twisting an argument, it would be the non-creationist... um, setting up a strawman, in this case, I think would be the right logical fallacy thingy?
So... everyone's religion should reconcile with your view of "a god.":) If it is laughable to fit Him into our understanding of the universe... then how is it we reconcile Him with OUR science? It seems that you basically have asserted that God cannot exist because He cannot fit into our science while maintaining that if He did exist, He would not be able to fit into our science in the first place? So how is it our science can prove or disprove anything about God?
I could, of course, be misreading your post, and I realize that these are vast generalizations. I am also not attempting to say that we should ignore everything science discovers just because it's "science."
Or it suggests that He didn't design the entire universe as a habitation for, at least, the same creatures as those on earth; rather, the earth was for that. Very shocking - a specific habitat was created for specific creatures, rather than the entire universe.
This was my thought, too... the conclusion that this somehow is an argument against a creator would only come if you assume certain ideas from the non-creator view. That is, that having a better chance of *developing* life is better, therefore having a creator create a cosmological constant that does not increase the evolutionary chance of life developing...
Really, it sounds quite mixed up. The low chance of evolving life does not seem to be a good argument against having a creator.
How hard is it to be an expect in the area of English Fiction? I mean, all of English fiction literature is 100% fiction anyway. Anyone can be an expert in that!
I would have thought dolphins would be older on the evolutionary timetable than humans, though...?
What need did humans have? Presumably, they survived a long time without it. In the last 2000 years, many inventions have come about, but how many were necessary for life? Many people lived in the Roman Empire. I'd argue that only pockets of people found various inventions necessary for life.
So it seems to me that we apply different scales. Human necessity = pockets of humanity; cultures, etc. People were getting killed by X culture so they invented guns to fight back. Something simple like that. But we get to dolphins and we only discuss the entire population of dolphins, if that makes sense. I can think of many ways a dolphin might be better protected with some sort of spear. It kinda has one built in, sorta like humans have a built in club; but humans invented bigger clubs do increase their survival; why wouldn't a dolphin invent a bigger spear:)
And no, humans are not "better" because of intelligence or scientific development. I'm a religious nut;) and have other opinions on what gives something worth; science is not it.
Many things are invented not out of necessity, though... but simply because it improves the quality of someone's life. An electric light bulb was not necessary; civilization lasted on torches and gas for quite a while. Electric light bulbs sure improved the quality of people's lives, though, one might argue. It was not necessary. It's a "luxury." You can argue it's necessary now - but only necessary to keep our current living standards and only necessary because we have built upon it and made it necessary. It was not necessary when invented.
... but they don't appear to develop* at all? I haven't seen any dolphin civilizations or "dolphin science" or "dolphin inventions" lately...
* Develop not referring evolutionary development or something like that, but developing things to help them survive better, live better, enjoy life better.
Sarcasm is a rhetorical tool to make a point. Just because he said it sarcastically does not mean he was trying to make a point; it was his underlying point that commodore64 was trying to answer.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but WikiLeaks isn't "the press" is it?
I don't know any government that has told the media that they can publish whatever government secrets they want.
I'm not necessarily supporting nor disparaging the treatment of WikiLeaks. I'm attempting to say it's not fair to pretend that WikiLeaks does the same thing a given journalist does. Maybe they overlap at times, sure.
Furthermore, "the press" does not equal "the media." There's a lot of media that's not "the press."
Slashdot Mirror
They should really reinvent the wheel. Copying Google's wheel isn't fair! ...
... the way ISPs (and other utilities) work so that we can actually have real competition. Competition would basically fix this sort of thing, wouldn't it? Droves of people don't want X-ISP because X-ISP is throttling/sniffing/whatever traffic. Y-ISP comes in and advertises they don't do that (and in fact, they don't). Droves of people switch to Y-ISP.
Right now, though, because of the way ISPs share (or don't share) infrastructure and all that, we don't have competition; we have local monopolies. The fact that we allow local monopolies is why we now are struggling to regulate them; regulation may not be required, though, if we actually had competition. By "competition" I mean competition for the same customer using the same - more or less - technology; e.g., one person looking for cable can actually buy from multiple providers.
Maybe I misunderstand how it works right now, but it seems to me that allowing local monopolies is a bad idea and is the only reason we are having to go down the regulation route. Maybe if the infrastructure were public and paid for through $x-per-customer-served by the provider, thus allowing multiple providers access to the same infrastructure at the same cost (and that cost going to the local government, which would be maintaining/improving/whatever the infrastructure), we wouldn't have need for all this?
Christianity was "founded" long before the Roman Catholic Church. And long before Constantinople, for that matter.
I would be interested to know the definition of a "good Christian home" in your view. It is quite possible to claim to be one thing and not be. It's called "hypocrisy" and is unfortunately quite prevalent in humans, and unfortunately, it is thus quite prevalent with many who claim to be Christians.
So I guess it comes down to what exactly Christianity was founded on. I would argue it's supposed to be founded on Christ. If it is founded on something else, then it has problems. Many "Christian" churches and church organizations in "church history" have founded their ... for lack of a better word, "brand," on something other than Christ; tradition, philosophy, whatever.
Christ, and the apostles He taught, had a lot to say about violence and depravity. It seems to me that a true Christ-founded Christianity is the only religion that actually asserts human depravity in very strong terms. That is basically half of the point of the "Gospel" in the New Testament; humans are utterly depraved and capable of all manner of horrible things that utterly disgust God. The other half is that Christ has provided a way to break our enslavement to that depravity and live in freedom from it (and, instead of serving said depravity - or sin - serving Christ).
Most people like that whole "you don't go to hell anymore!" Most people don't like the "you have to deny yourself and set Christ as your Lord" part of it; thus, they may claim to be "Christian" but nothing has changed in their life. Including their slave-to-depravity state. Hence the depravity. And hypocrisy.
[citation needed] for the first paragraph. I would like to see these mainstream Christians doing racial violence and murder and claiming it is condoned by God. I say "mainstream" because there are plenty of nutcases out there, but is it really fair to judge based on those? I could find nutcase atheists, muslims, and bhuddists and thus claim that those groups are also murdering and killing with impunity, too...
And you're basically correct with the point about Christ not approving. and about the difference between the label "Christian" and one who actually follows Christ. Remarkably correct, there, in fact.
However, I have to say one thing: just because someone uses the label doesn't mean they fit into the hypocritical category right away. Many people say they are Christian and basically have no idea what they just said, probably never read the Bible, and think that "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is part of the 10 commandments, right up there with "God helps those who help themselves."
That most of the posts here are about the security practices of airports in different countries rather than even commenting on the terrorist attack itself?
You'd think we'd be marginally upset about some individuals blowing up a bunch of other individuals. Maybe even interested in what caused it, where it came from, who did it.
Instead, we just argue about TSA.
Not saying we shouldn't argue about TSA... but perhaps that's not the only thing there is to argue about.
There are creationists and [anthropomorphic] "global-warming deniers" who read slashdot. FYI. :)
I hate seeing that circle animation
Clearly you're looking at it wrong. Try flipping the phone over, that should fix the problem of seeing the circle animation.
Does a trojan count?
securemac.com should probably be told that they are completely useless, as there is nothing for them to fight against.
For the most part, I agree... except that I would also argue that if a creator is outside of our science (and yet created our science), then our science is not the highest authority; and, in fact, if our science assumes no God and tries to explain everything from an atheist POV (i.e., everything must be explained naturally), then it could be that science could be wrong.
Generally, I'd argue that science without God has some issues at it's foundation - why science works in the first place, aside from "because that's how it has always worked" (though it's hard to prove that it's always been the way it is now... :) ).
Thanks for the brief discussion. :)
I said nothing about proof. Proof is a pretty big word. :)
Furthermore, what is not tuned for us? The "tuning" seems to refer to the likelihood of other worlds (in other galaxies) evolving life. How is the universe "sub-optimal" ... sub-optimal for what? Are you under the understanding that creationists believe God created the entire universe for creatures on earth to live in? As far as I am aware in the Bible, it specifically states that man is to "rule" over the earth. He makes no mention of Mars.
To say that the likelihood of life evolving is lower than we thought and claiming that is evidence against a creator makes no sense. The inhabitability of the universe and how likely it is that life would evolve in it is pretty much only a concern if you believe life evolved in the first place. Creationists would expect what this scientist has stated he has found; in fact, creationists expect life to be so complex that it can't evolve, no matter how inhabitable the world is...
The less likely it is life would evolve, the more evidence it is for creation. Stating that life is less likely to evolve and therefore a creator is less needed? That's weird...
Most creation-believing Christians that don't adhere to abiogenesis and billions of years of evolution would, in fact, say that life is clearly a miracle that only God can produce. They have been saying that for many, many years. Your hypothetical quote would not be any sort of twisting; it'd be the same as they have been saying for years. I don't think that would be a case of the creationist twisting an argument, it would be the non-creationist ... um, setting up a strawman, in this case, I think would be the right logical fallacy thingy?
So ... everyone's religion should reconcile with your view of "a god." :) If it is laughable to fit Him into our understanding of the universe ... then how is it we reconcile Him with OUR science? It seems that you basically have asserted that God cannot exist because He cannot fit into our science while maintaining that if He did exist, He would not be able to fit into our science in the first place? So how is it our science can prove or disprove anything about God?
I could, of course, be misreading your post, and I realize that these are vast generalizations. I am also not attempting to say that we should ignore everything science discovers just because it's "science."
Or it suggests that He didn't design the entire universe as a habitation for, at least, the same creatures as those on earth; rather, the earth was for that. Very shocking - a specific habitat was created for specific creatures, rather than the entire universe.
This was my thought, too... the conclusion that this somehow is an argument against a creator would only come if you assume certain ideas from the non-creator view. That is, that having a better chance of *developing* life is better, therefore having a creator create a cosmological constant that does not increase the evolutionary chance of life developing ...
Really, it sounds quite mixed up. The low chance of evolving life does not seem to be a good argument against having a creator.
... CAN throw rocks?
network devices, I believe, are what need approval.
How hard is it to be an expect in the area of English Fiction? I mean, all of English fiction literature is 100% fiction anyway. Anyone can be an expert in that!
I would have thought dolphins would be older on the evolutionary timetable than humans, though...?
What need did humans have? Presumably, they survived a long time without it. In the last 2000 years, many inventions have come about, but how many were necessary for life? Many people lived in the Roman Empire. I'd argue that only pockets of people found various inventions necessary for life.
So it seems to me that we apply different scales. Human necessity = pockets of humanity; cultures, etc. People were getting killed by X culture so they invented guns to fight back. Something simple like that. But we get to dolphins and we only discuss the entire population of dolphins, if that makes sense. I can think of many ways a dolphin might be better protected with some sort of spear. It kinda has one built in, sorta like humans have a built in club; but humans invented bigger clubs do increase their survival; why wouldn't a dolphin invent a bigger spear :)
And no, humans are not "better" because of intelligence or scientific development. I'm a religious nut ;) and have other opinions on what gives something worth; science is not it.
Many things are invented not out of necessity, though... but simply because it improves the quality of someone's life. An electric light bulb was not necessary; civilization lasted on torches and gas for quite a while. Electric light bulbs sure improved the quality of people's lives, though, one might argue. It was not necessary. It's a "luxury." You can argue it's necessary now - but only necessary to keep our current living standards and only necessary because we have built upon it and made it necessary. It was not necessary when invented.
... but they don't appear to develop* at all? I haven't seen any dolphin civilizations or "dolphin science" or "dolphin inventions" lately...
* Develop not referring evolutionary development or something like that, but developing things to help them survive better, live better, enjoy life better.
A couple quotes down from what you linked (stupid copy/paste bug...) is a quote that specifically says Houston, we've had a problem.
Sarcasm is a rhetorical tool to make a point. Just because he said it sarcastically does not mean he was trying to make a point; it was his underlying point that commodore64 was trying to answer.
Oops. definitely redundant. Sigh. Note to self: click the "more comments" buttons first...
Auto insurance is only necessary if you want to drive.
Health insurance is necessary, under the new law, if you're a human.
There's a big, big difference there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but WikiLeaks isn't "the press" is it?
I don't know any government that has told the media that they can publish whatever government secrets they want.
I'm not necessarily supporting nor disparaging the treatment of WikiLeaks. I'm attempting to say it's not fair to pretend that WikiLeaks does the same thing a given journalist does. Maybe they overlap at times, sure.
Furthermore, "the press" does not equal "the media." There's a lot of media that's not "the press."