Uhm no its not...and I imagine you don't do enterprise level network security with that attitude. Antivirus is a very good defense because just because the code is on your machine doesn't mean it has executed yet. Antivirus mail gateways for example strip things from the email before it gets to the user. Antivirus stops the spread if a machine does get hit. I mentioned before, you can't control every website on the planet, and the "I don't go to bad websites" is a worthless defense because someone could nail CNN and put a nice exploit on the front page and tag you anyways. Good worms and viruses generally require relavitely little action from the user if any at all...that "iloveyou.txt.vbs virus" irritates the hell out of me, because really i don't consider that a virus...I consider that a "I'm too dumb to use a computer, click on everything sent to me without thinking, and gosh I am really happy my boss is sending me a love note at work!" issue:)
Some of it has been covered on previous slashdot articles, just to lazy to dig for it at the moment. The big one that irritated me was losing my information in one of their major data losses. Stolen tapes fiasco.
That is what the alcohol is for. Seriously...the casinos have got their game down. I was out there recently on business and was a little surprised how effective it all is.
Every one of them has super cold AC for 2 main reasons. Hot as hell outside and it draws you in, and it keeps you more awake and aware.
I have also heard rumor that they actually add a bit extra oxygen to help you keep awake and aware
Then once inside...all of the ceiling is painted blue with clouds and such and has sort of projected lighting to simulate daytime...again to keep your body clock fooled and keep you awake and aware.
Now that they have you terribly awake and aware...they fill you with free booze to get your inhibitions down and spending more money.
Quite an organized racket.
Its like a casino in Las Vegas arresting someone for standing outside their doors enjoying the sub zero AC they use to draw people in from the Nevada heat. They leave their doors wide open with their sub zero AC blasting out into the street to draw potential 'customers' in and spend their hard earned cash...
I use AVG and don't really have many problems. As far as operating smart...unplug your computer. I get roughly 10-15 hits from that stupid SQL worm still floating around PER DAY. Obviously its not doing anything because its hitting my linux snort firewall...that and I don't have MSSQL installed anywhere...
Arrogance about the skills of the writers of viruses/worms has gone a long way to get us where we are now. The may be immoral as hell, but they are not stupid. Also the webbrowser (yes some are better than others (cough IE) but all have problems) is an excellent route. "I don't visit bad sites" isn't a defense because with cross site scripting and people just attacking "safe sites" and inserting things can just as easily happen.
I have only really been hit once or twice in years...but I would rather have the AV around saying "By the way, this file is logging keystrokes and trying to send CC numbers off" for those few times, than to find out through a bank statement or credit report. They don't want your comptuter, they don't want your files, they don't want to laugh while you have to rebuild a slow machine...they want your identity and they want your money and being stealthy is the best way to not get caught.
Defense in depth is the only safe solution...smart use is by far at the top of the list, but firewalls, antivirus, intrusion detection are all very high too.
I'm glad you actually RTFA and saw that Vincent the "silver-spoon teenager with an attitude" is actually a 30yr old, and I imagine since the account was in his name, the rep should have been fully aware, given that your DOB is part of your account.
I think any optimization that isn't just some quick hack is probably a good thing. Your comment does make more sense now though. I kinda read the article as the section was a redesign type optimization, and not some quick hack, and that this plan had been some years in the making.
I suppose it depends on where you are and what speed your connection is. I know I can't download that fast on my DSL, but the DSL in this area is neutered anyways. We aren't talking about downloading being a good or bad idea, we are talking about $10 for a download being too much. I think $10 to download a movie that is probably going to be a DRM encumbered mess that will be a headache at best to watch on a TV (so all your beer drinkin budies, or your 10pm girlfriend can huddle up close to your monitor, unless you shelled out for a larger monitor too) is a waste of time and money. I wouldn't buy a download movie until its price is close to rental price.
Incidentally, I was pretty sure there were 1 or 2 internet movie distros that aren't flying so high and they are less than $25 a pop. Oh, and while probably most of slashdot is on DSL/Cable...a hefty chunk of the non geek world is not, many have modems, or no internet at all.
You forgot the part where you wait hours for the download to complete. Then burn the DVD if allowed and place it in your entertainment system to play. Unless you are using a media setup where you are running TV out from your iTunes computer to your TV, but I have yet to see that work out at a comparable clarity to the dvd player itself. And Walmart is 24/7 in most places.
Of coarse...this is slashdot..."what if it is 10pm on a Friday night and you have a chick over." is an entirely hypothetical situation.
I think you need to define instantly. I am pretty sure I can drive to the local store, buy the DVD, get home, and start watching it before a DVD download from iTunes completes. Unless of coarse the quality of said iTunes download is so low that the download isn't a terribly large DVD sized download. In which case I would still rather pay the $15 for full quality hard copy disc, instead of $10 (why do companies insist on this $9.99 crap, marketing gimickry), and have half or less of the quality of a DVD, DRM encumbered nonsense, and no physical disc.
Absolutely, I don't want efficiency on older hardware. I have 1GB of RAM and a dual core system! I want to see every bit of my RAM in use at all times and my processor at 100% so I know I am getting my moneys worth!
A computer that has faster and more efficient software can do more with its fancy new fast expensive hardware than one that relies on the hardware to carry the weight when the software can make it lighter. That lazy attitude of "let the hardware do it" brings us more and more bloatware and fewer and fewer programmers concerned with good coding practices.
Computer blows up, you want it back up now, not X weeks away of fighting with dell to get them to even send the CD and shipping time. I agree with the restore disk, but when you are military and move often shit gets lost alot unfortunately. Installed pro, has pro disc/key. The problem is its a desktop and has no stupid sticker on it, the key is printed on one of those orange stickers they stick to the white paper CD holders.
My point is that in their crusade against piracy, they have made many of their customers lives much more difficult, and really haven't hindered the pirates in any significant fashion. Do you think the pirates are having problems fighting with MS trying to get support, get updates they are entitled to, etc...hell no. I personally won't touch the OS anymore since that whole "activate windows" crap, where after you install it and feed it a product key (x hours later), you have to get online or call and give them another number (that represents your hardware...like they need to know that...) and have to activate windows...then if you change hardware...you get to reactivate!
My wifes Dell computer shat all over itself...YAY windows... So we couldn't locate her original install disks, so we just slapped windows from anothe source and pressed on. Now that stupid WGA crap popped on and is being a pain. So I call MS "Hey...I have a valid license here, but we had to do an emergency restore before we could find the original disk and key. What can I do to make this thing quit complaining" Their answer (as it is to most windows problems "Reinstall windows". Ok...so you bastards slap some silly bullshit spyware crap on my computer, it starts causing problems, and then your fix action is "Reinstall". So now I can either reinstall, and pray that this XP disk survives all of its updates without being infected, taking days to recover everything that was installed and updating everything, or I can let it go and hope that MS doesn't decide to start disabling things with their silly WGA crap, or I can try the disable hacks and hope that solves the problem.
After this shit MS address space is getting blocked at my firewall. I will download critical updates manually from some other network and bring em on disk, but I am sick of this phone home crap.
Taxes aren't as bad as you would think. They are probably the largest expense in any AVERAGE person's life, However, the average person with some financial responsibility can become very wealthy if they actually manage their assets correctly. Again this kinda goes back to the whole credit easy money thing and the American tendancies to spend like crazy (incidentally, most europeans average saving 7-14% of their income, Americans are around NEGATIVE 1.7%) Ultimately the tax laws do favor business, but that doesn't mean only big business, they favor the little startup shops too. If you manage your finances correctly you can drastically reduce your taxable income while increasing your assets.
They were too frazzled by trying to afford the next gizmo, buying their big screen TV on credit, buying that new 2006 model car on a loan, etc etc. Our economy is only this bad because people let it become this way. Its not some evil corporation thing (Well not most of it anyways). If I make widgets and sell them for $6,000 when they cost me $150 to make, and people whip out the credit cards to buy them...damn right I'm gunna charge $6,000 for it. But if noone is willing to whip out the credit cards for big money purchases and just up their credit lines by making steady payments until doomsday...well...then I have to lower the price of my widget until people start buying it.
Prices of things will only go as high as the market will bear....unfortunately because everyone is so willing to spend on credit those prices stay artificially high. If people quit spending on credit and just being happy with what they have even if it is a few years old...we would all be in a much better situation. But hey...like that is ever gunna happen...next time you see an 19yr old kid driving a new 06 riced out with spinner rims...run up the math in your head on how much it cost...how much he likely makes...and the fact he will be paying on that car until he is 40 and then ask yourself why he has to work 12hrs a day until he is 40 to keep up with the 19% interest rate loan he signed for all of it.
Here is a rathe timeless quote for you.
"Those who would trade essential liberty for a little bit of temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -Benjamin Franklin
There are also countless quotes about the price of freedom and liberty being risk and eternal vigilence. All of these wouldn't be problems if your neighbors would stand up for themselves and watch eachother. It doesn't take massive spying programs by people with agendas. It takes knowing who lives on your block, who has kids, where people work, and actually KNOWING the people who live around you. So when the situation changes you know something is wrong. I remember growing up if one of us kids weren't at home when we should be every parent in a 2 block radius knew to be on the lookout for us. I also remember 4th of July when everyone on the block got together and had a BBQ. (Oh, and god forbid one of those other adults in the area caught you doing something wrong...you were gunna get nailed by them...and then again when you got home and they told your parents what you were doing).
Too many people take the lazy stance of "not my problem". They won't report crimes, they won't watch out for eachother, and they most certainly will not risk anything themselves to help someone out. Society has allowed the government to do this stuff, the majority want this stuff because they want someone to hand them everything and a place to put blame. We, as a society, refuse to police ourselves, so the government is stepping in to do it for us, and most of the populace seems to welcome the change.
What is wrong with you people! This is the sign of the end times! Destroyed hard drives rising from the dead and dissapearing from their final resting place to come up and show people their secrets elsewhere! He has been resurrected! Jesus is coming back in digital form! There was a typo in the Bible..it really said "The GEEK shall inheret the earth!"
I have stated in a number of my posts I don't think 'special creation' as you call it is drivel. I think the 'poof its magic' explanations and the demonizing of science is drivel. Can you tell me why God didn't or wouldn't use evolution to create us? To say he couldn't or wouldn't would sorta be taking away from his abilities as creator of all of existance. He can sorta build existance any way he chooses, doesn't need to explain it to us in detail, or provide a simple way for us to understand it. I don't think evolution is at odds with creationism, its only at odds when people are looking for the simple solution. I am pretty confident, in my view of God, that he is more than capable of planning billions of years of evolutionary patterns given that he sorta created existance in the first place. Theologically you could even go so far as to wonder if God was required to set systems into motion that created us to properly achieve the goal of us being 'in his image' given that 'in his image' is never really explained in any detail, rather than just piling up some dust and saying "poof your alive"
I think its insulting to God to presume humanity has a snowballs chance in hell of understanding what God does, why God does it, or more importantly HOW God does it. I have never understood why science has to be at odds with God. God kinda created all of existance, so I think its safe to assume he created all of the laws of physics, and we are just going along and discovering the mechanisms he put in place to make existance operate. I figure we were given our ability to reason and discover for the same reasons an artist wants people to appreciate all the finer details of a piece of art. We are meant to marvel at the complexity of existance, not use "we just popped into existance and will pop back out at a predetermined time, in the mean time nothing else matters so quit looking at stuff":)
I think we have significanly different views on what ID is, what creationism is, and what fundamentalists are. I think taking genesis 100% literally is pointless and a hallmark of poor reasoning skills. Why does God creating the world have to go against anything scientific? My problem is with the *poof magic* explanations of everything, that God couldn't possibly do something far more complex than we are capable of understanding.
For the record yes...the explanation of the dinosaurs don't exist was because the devil put their fossils in the earth to lead the unfaithful away from God, because of the 'scientific' proof that the earth is only 6000 years old, and its the devil influencing scientists to trick people into believing that its more than 6000 years old. I have heard this from at least half a dozen people...not the same literal explanation, but they have all been variants of the fossils are a trick to make the faithless stray away. And I had a 12yr old go on a rather disturbing rant to me about how his classmates are stupid and his teacher is a sinner for teaching evolution, and how stupid they are for believing any of it because the bible proves all of that wrong. Then watched his parents encourage this and pat him on the back for his wonderful outburst in the school that got him sent to the principal.
I'm not saying belief in a higher power, or our divine creation is a bad thing. I am saying the *poof its magic* explanations and the demonizing of sciences that is typically done by fundamentalists (being the ones that take everything 100% literal)
You are not the model case for everyone. I was raised roughly the same way, and I was also raised by highly analyical parents with good reasoning skills. They impressed the importance of reasoning on me as well as spirituality. Unfortunately that is not the same everywhere. I can't tell you how many 12-18yr olds I have heard rant about how their classmates are so stupid for believing that dinosaurs existed because their parents taught them the world is only 6000 years old. How they rant about how stupid their teachers are and how they lie and are sinners because they teach biology instead of pure fundamentalist creationism. So its not just kneejerk, it really does happen that way out there. I'm not saying all religious people are bad or fall into that, or that religion even causes it, but the people doing it are more often than not fundamentalist religious people.
I'm not sure why you see this as an attack on religion...it isn't. It is an attack on teaching poor reasoning skills that largely are continued on through fundamentalist beliefs. I can't really say which came first...bad reasoning, or attempting to enforce bad reasoning, but ultimately the cycle is carried on a great deal by fundamentalists. As previously stated, I like to think my creator is a little more complex and the methods used aren't something I can easily explain away in such a simplistic fashion. God gave us brains, God made existance a complicated place...kinda gives us something to use our brains on for a long time.
Please check your history. Scopes Monkey Trial was WELL over a year ago. And that falls into the same catagory of pseudo science nonsense. It isn't all religion either...but religious fundamentalists are the worst offenders of using pseudoscience like that.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm no its not...and I imagine you don't do enterprise level network security with that attitude. Antivirus is a very good defense because just because the code is on your machine doesn't mean it has executed yet. Antivirus mail gateways for example strip things from the email before it gets to the user. Antivirus stops the spread if a machine does get hit. I mentioned before, you can't control every website on the planet, and the "I don't go to bad websites" is a worthless defense because someone could nail CNN and put a nice exploit on the front page and tag you anyways. Good worms and viruses generally require relavitely little action from the user if any at all...that "iloveyou.txt.vbs virus" irritates the hell out of me, because really i don't consider that a virus...I consider that a "I'm too dumb to use a computer, click on everything sent to me without thinking, and gosh I am really happy my boss is sending me a love note at work!" issue :)
Some of it has been covered on previous slashdot articles, just to lazy to dig for it at the moment. The big one that irritated me was losing my information in one of their major data losses. Stolen tapes fiasco.
That is what the alcohol is for. Seriously...the casinos have got their game down. I was out there recently on business and was a little surprised how effective it all is.
Every one of them has super cold AC for 2 main reasons. Hot as hell outside and it draws you in, and it keeps you more awake and aware.
I have also heard rumor that they actually add a bit extra oxygen to help you keep awake and aware
Then once inside...all of the ceiling is painted blue with clouds and such and has sort of projected lighting to simulate daytime...again to keep your body clock fooled and keep you awake and aware.
Now that they have you terribly awake and aware...they fill you with free booze to get your inhibitions down and spending more money.
Quite an organized racket.
SUPER ANALOGY!
Its like a casino in Las Vegas arresting someone for standing outside their doors enjoying the sub zero AC they use to draw people in from the Nevada heat. They leave their doors wide open with their sub zero AC blasting out into the street to draw potential 'customers' in and spend their hard earned cash...
I use AVG and don't really have many problems. As far as operating smart...unplug your computer. I get roughly 10-15 hits from that stupid SQL worm still floating around PER DAY. Obviously its not doing anything because its hitting my linux snort firewall...that and I don't have MSSQL installed anywhere...
Arrogance about the skills of the writers of viruses/worms has gone a long way to get us where we are now. The may be immoral as hell, but they are not stupid. Also the webbrowser (yes some are better than others (cough IE) but all have problems) is an excellent route. "I don't visit bad sites" isn't a defense because with cross site scripting and people just attacking "safe sites" and inserting things can just as easily happen.
I have only really been hit once or twice in years...but I would rather have the AV around saying "By the way, this file is logging keystrokes and trying to send CC numbers off" for those few times, than to find out through a bank statement or credit report. They don't want your comptuter, they don't want your files, they don't want to laugh while you have to rebuild a slow machine...they want your identity and they want your money and being stealthy is the best way to not get caught.
Defense in depth is the only safe solution...smart use is by far at the top of the list, but firewalls, antivirus, intrusion detection are all very high too.
I would look into similar options elsewhere given Bank of Americas attitude and actions as of late.
I'm glad you actually RTFA and saw that Vincent the "silver-spoon teenager with an attitude" is actually a 30yr old, and I imagine since the account was in his name, the rep should have been fully aware, given that your DOB is part of your account.
If you don't have antivirus installed, how exactly do you know you have no viruses on the machine?
Holistic Computer Repair?
I think any optimization that isn't just some quick hack is probably a good thing. Your comment does make more sense now though. I kinda read the article as the section was a redesign type optimization, and not some quick hack, and that this plan had been some years in the making.
I suppose it depends on where you are and what speed your connection is. I know I can't download that fast on my DSL, but the DSL in this area is neutered anyways. We aren't talking about downloading being a good or bad idea, we are talking about $10 for a download being too much. I think $10 to download a movie that is probably going to be a DRM encumbered mess that will be a headache at best to watch on a TV (so all your beer drinkin budies, or your 10pm girlfriend can huddle up close to your monitor, unless you shelled out for a larger monitor too) is a waste of time and money. I wouldn't buy a download movie until its price is close to rental price.
Incidentally, I was pretty sure there were 1 or 2 internet movie distros that aren't flying so high and they are less than $25 a pop. Oh, and while probably most of slashdot is on DSL/Cable...a hefty chunk of the non geek world is not, many have modems, or no internet at all.
You forgot the part where you wait hours for the download to complete. Then burn the DVD if allowed and place it in your entertainment system to play. Unless you are using a media setup where you are running TV out from your iTunes computer to your TV, but I have yet to see that work out at a comparable clarity to the dvd player itself. And Walmart is 24/7 in most places.
Of coarse...this is slashdot..."what if it is 10pm on a Friday night and you have a chick over." is an entirely hypothetical situation.
I think you need to define instantly. I am pretty sure I can drive to the local store, buy the DVD, get home, and start watching it before a DVD download from iTunes completes. Unless of coarse the quality of said iTunes download is so low that the download isn't a terribly large DVD sized download. In which case I would still rather pay the $15 for full quality hard copy disc, instead of $10 (why do companies insist on this $9.99 crap, marketing gimickry), and have half or less of the quality of a DVD, DRM encumbered nonsense, and no physical disc.
Absolutely, I don't want efficiency on older hardware. I have 1GB of RAM and a dual core system! I want to see every bit of my RAM in use at all times and my processor at 100% so I know I am getting my moneys worth!
A computer that has faster and more efficient software can do more with its fancy new fast expensive hardware than one that relies on the hardware to carry the weight when the software can make it lighter. That lazy attitude of "let the hardware do it" brings us more and more bloatware and fewer and fewer programmers concerned with good coding practices.
Computer blows up, you want it back up now, not X weeks away of fighting with dell to get them to even send the CD and shipping time. I agree with the restore disk, but when you are military and move often shit gets lost alot unfortunately. Installed pro, has pro disc/key. The problem is its a desktop and has no stupid sticker on it, the key is printed on one of those orange stickers they stick to the white paper CD holders.
My point is that in their crusade against piracy, they have made many of their customers lives much more difficult, and really haven't hindered the pirates in any significant fashion. Do you think the pirates are having problems fighting with MS trying to get support, get updates they are entitled to, etc...hell no. I personally won't touch the OS anymore since that whole "activate windows" crap, where after you install it and feed it a product key (x hours later), you have to get online or call and give them another number (that represents your hardware...like they need to know that...) and have to activate windows...then if you change hardware...you get to reactivate!
My wifes Dell computer shat all over itself...YAY windows... So we couldn't locate her original install disks, so we just slapped windows from anothe source and pressed on. Now that stupid WGA crap popped on and is being a pain. So I call MS "Hey...I have a valid license here, but we had to do an emergency restore before we could find the original disk and key. What can I do to make this thing quit complaining" Their answer (as it is to most windows problems "Reinstall windows". Ok...so you bastards slap some silly bullshit spyware crap on my computer, it starts causing problems, and then your fix action is "Reinstall". So now I can either reinstall, and pray that this XP disk survives all of its updates without being infected, taking days to recover everything that was installed and updating everything, or I can let it go and hope that MS doesn't decide to start disabling things with their silly WGA crap, or I can try the disable hacks and hope that solves the problem.
After this shit MS address space is getting blocked at my firewall. I will download critical updates manually from some other network and bring em on disk, but I am sick of this phone home crap.
Taxes aren't as bad as you would think. They are probably the largest expense in any AVERAGE person's life, However, the average person with some financial responsibility can become very wealthy if they actually manage their assets correctly. Again this kinda goes back to the whole credit easy money thing and the American tendancies to spend like crazy (incidentally, most europeans average saving 7-14% of their income, Americans are around NEGATIVE 1.7%) Ultimately the tax laws do favor business, but that doesn't mean only big business, they favor the little startup shops too. If you manage your finances correctly you can drastically reduce your taxable income while increasing your assets.
They were too frazzled by trying to afford the next gizmo, buying their big screen TV on credit, buying that new 2006 model car on a loan, etc etc. Our economy is only this bad because people let it become this way. Its not some evil corporation thing (Well not most of it anyways). If I make widgets and sell them for $6,000 when they cost me $150 to make, and people whip out the credit cards to buy them...damn right I'm gunna charge $6,000 for it. But if noone is willing to whip out the credit cards for big money purchases and just up their credit lines by making steady payments until doomsday...well...then I have to lower the price of my widget until people start buying it.
Prices of things will only go as high as the market will bear....unfortunately because everyone is so willing to spend on credit those prices stay artificially high. If people quit spending on credit and just being happy with what they have even if it is a few years old...we would all be in a much better situation. But hey...like that is ever gunna happen...next time you see an 19yr old kid driving a new 06 riced out with spinner rims...run up the math in your head on how much it cost...how much he likely makes...and the fact he will be paying on that car until he is 40 and then ask yourself why he has to work 12hrs a day until he is 40 to keep up with the 19% interest rate loan he signed for all of it.
Here is a rathe timeless quote for you.
"Those who would trade essential liberty for a little bit of temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -Benjamin Franklin
There are also countless quotes about the price of freedom and liberty being risk and eternal vigilence. All of these wouldn't be problems if your neighbors would stand up for themselves and watch eachother. It doesn't take massive spying programs by people with agendas. It takes knowing who lives on your block, who has kids, where people work, and actually KNOWING the people who live around you. So when the situation changes you know something is wrong. I remember growing up if one of us kids weren't at home when we should be every parent in a 2 block radius knew to be on the lookout for us. I also remember 4th of July when everyone on the block got together and had a BBQ. (Oh, and god forbid one of those other adults in the area caught you doing something wrong...you were gunna get nailed by them...and then again when you got home and they told your parents what you were doing). Too many people take the lazy stance of "not my problem". They won't report crimes, they won't watch out for eachother, and they most certainly will not risk anything themselves to help someone out. Society has allowed the government to do this stuff, the majority want this stuff because they want someone to hand them everything and a place to put blame. We, as a society, refuse to police ourselves, so the government is stepping in to do it for us, and most of the populace seems to welcome the change.
What is wrong with you people! This is the sign of the end times! Destroyed hard drives rising from the dead and dissapearing from their final resting place to come up and show people their secrets elsewhere! He has been resurrected! Jesus is coming back in digital form! There was a typo in the Bible..it really said "The GEEK shall inheret the earth!"
I really am bored today.
I have stated in a number of my posts I don't think 'special creation' as you call it is drivel. I think the 'poof its magic' explanations and the demonizing of science is drivel. Can you tell me why God didn't or wouldn't use evolution to create us? To say he couldn't or wouldn't would sorta be taking away from his abilities as creator of all of existance. He can sorta build existance any way he chooses, doesn't need to explain it to us in detail, or provide a simple way for us to understand it. I don't think evolution is at odds with creationism, its only at odds when people are looking for the simple solution. I am pretty confident, in my view of God, that he is more than capable of planning billions of years of evolutionary patterns given that he sorta created existance in the first place. Theologically you could even go so far as to wonder if God was required to set systems into motion that created us to properly achieve the goal of us being 'in his image' given that 'in his image' is never really explained in any detail, rather than just piling up some dust and saying "poof your alive"
I think its insulting to God to presume humanity has a snowballs chance in hell of understanding what God does, why God does it, or more importantly HOW God does it. I have never understood why science has to be at odds with God. God kinda created all of existance, so I think its safe to assume he created all of the laws of physics, and we are just going along and discovering the mechanisms he put in place to make existance operate. I figure we were given our ability to reason and discover for the same reasons an artist wants people to appreciate all the finer details of a piece of art. We are meant to marvel at the complexity of existance, not use "we just popped into existance and will pop back out at a predetermined time, in the mean time nothing else matters so quit looking at stuff" :)
I think we have significanly different views on what ID is, what creationism is, and what fundamentalists are. I think taking genesis 100% literally is pointless and a hallmark of poor reasoning skills. Why does God creating the world have to go against anything scientific? My problem is with the *poof magic* explanations of everything, that God couldn't possibly do something far more complex than we are capable of understanding.
For the record yes...the explanation of the dinosaurs don't exist was because the devil put their fossils in the earth to lead the unfaithful away from God, because of the 'scientific' proof that the earth is only 6000 years old, and its the devil influencing scientists to trick people into believing that its more than 6000 years old. I have heard this from at least half a dozen people...not the same literal explanation, but they have all been variants of the fossils are a trick to make the faithless stray away. And I had a 12yr old go on a rather disturbing rant to me about how his classmates are stupid and his teacher is a sinner for teaching evolution, and how stupid they are for believing any of it because the bible proves all of that wrong. Then watched his parents encourage this and pat him on the back for his wonderful outburst in the school that got him sent to the principal.
I'm not saying belief in a higher power, or our divine creation is a bad thing. I am saying the *poof its magic* explanations and the demonizing of sciences that is typically done by fundamentalists (being the ones that take everything 100% literal)
You are not the model case for everyone. I was raised roughly the same way, and I was also raised by highly analyical parents with good reasoning skills. They impressed the importance of reasoning on me as well as spirituality. Unfortunately that is not the same everywhere. I can't tell you how many 12-18yr olds I have heard rant about how their classmates are so stupid for believing that dinosaurs existed because their parents taught them the world is only 6000 years old. How they rant about how stupid their teachers are and how they lie and are sinners because they teach biology instead of pure fundamentalist creationism. So its not just kneejerk, it really does happen that way out there. I'm not saying all religious people are bad or fall into that, or that religion even causes it, but the people doing it are more often than not fundamentalist religious people.
I'm not sure why you see this as an attack on religion...it isn't. It is an attack on teaching poor reasoning skills that largely are continued on through fundamentalist beliefs. I can't really say which came first...bad reasoning, or attempting to enforce bad reasoning, but ultimately the cycle is carried on a great deal by fundamentalists. As previously stated, I like to think my creator is a little more complex and the methods used aren't something I can easily explain away in such a simplistic fashion. God gave us brains, God made existance a complicated place...kinda gives us something to use our brains on for a long time.
Wasn't arguging, was just trying to clarify what I meant.
Please check your history. Scopes Monkey Trial was WELL over a year ago. And that falls into the same catagory of pseudo science nonsense. It isn't all religion either...but religious fundamentalists are the worst offenders of using pseudoscience like that.