It is not that when married you cannot acknowledge that another woman is attractive, or be aroused by another woman. This will happen and is a natural response. If he takes his marriage vows seriously, he acknowledges it for what it is and lets it go. When it moves from acknowledging beauty or arousal into active fantasies about getting it on with that other, then the marriage covenant has already been violated in spirit (and this should not be constued as "shucks, I already broke my vows in spirit, so I might as well go ahead and...").
I have no qualms with masturbation in marriage, provided that it is not a cop out or excuse for fantasizing about someone else, and as long as both parties are okay with it. As to having different sex drives, my wife and I both hold that our bodies are no longer our own. I please her when she needs me. She pleases me when I need her. Most of the time, we are both in sync. Other times, one or the other of us would rather not. When that happens, we either do or don't as we both agree.
That's the thing most people in the West do not understand about marriages like ours. They see marriage as a mutual contract with a variety of benefits for each partner. We see marriage as a disowning of self for the benefit of the other--that we literally and figuratively are no longer two individuals, but "one flesh." Our covenant is to love, honor, and cherish each other, forsaking all others (including those in film, magazine, and fantasy), until death us do part. Do we always hold to the precepts of this covenant flawlessly? No, but we both acknowledge our own humanity (our own selfish natures) and strive, daily, to look to the needs of our spouse before we pursue our own needs. For us, that's made for 14 wonderful years of marriage, with our sights set on 50 more!
To me, no matter how many women you know/you've known who claim to be into porn, I guarantee that, in the confidence of other women, they would admit to different feelings than those you list here. You are projecting a male perspective onto women (regarding porn), and women simply look at the world differently than do men. As always, there will be some who stand as outliers in the sample, but they are not representative of the whole.
I know "jumped the shark" has taken on a cultural context of decline, but did you realize that Happy Days actually posted better ratings after the episode in which the Fonz jumped the shark?
I would argue that more men opt to become doctors rather than nurses because that profession brings more respect (prestige) than does nursing. I would also argue that more women opt for nursing because it is an opportunity to them to function in a caring/nurturing capacity (more so than is done by doctors).
I'm saying that gender differnces exist, but that does not mean they are bad. At the most basic level, men and women have different felt needs. As John Gottman puts it in his book "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail", he distills it down to two differnt needs. For men, it is respect, and for women it is love. There will always be some who do not fit the "norm" for their group, but his insights are particularly keen.
I believe these differing motivational needs may also account for the trend being discussed in this thread. If the fundamental need for women is love, then there is little to be gained by self-directed study of a new technology. For men, however, such a pursuit is in line with a fundamental need for respect (tech cred).
Gottman is not the only one who argues for such fundamental differences. Any HR specialist can tell you that most women place a higher value on a workplace where there is a strong team environment and where there are good working relationships. Most men, however, prefer work environments that pay for performance, offer numerous opportunities for advancement, and prestige.
I'm not writing this to dissuage any woman from pursuing a career in technology, or any man from pursuing a career in nursing. I am just hoping to present the thought that gender differnces do play a fundamental role in the underlying motivations we each carry, and that these underlying factors go far beyond any simple cultural context (when distilled down to the concepts of "love" and "respect", those themes appear to span the vast majority of cultures throughout the world).
I can agree with your view on the handling of the issue. The sentence is out of line. This would have warranted a censure/reprimand/restriction of computer access at best, and that is IF it was the teacher's fault.
I have eight kids. Yes, kids pick up on cues as to whether something is major or not, but among males the mind goes on auto-pilot when exposed to pornography (there's research to support that, too). My response was made to counter the stereotypical views many other comments bantered around concerning people who were "upset" or "concerned" over this exposure. Had it happened to my kids, I damn well would have been one of them.
The children may not be directly harmed, but exposure to pornography at a young age (and yes, seventh graders are young for such exposure) causes them to be awakened to levels of arousal at a time when they are not equipped to handle it. It is not simply a repressed minority that thinks this way, but many educated, well-reasoned people who want to ensure that their children will grow to be healthy, well-adjusted adults who can learn to enjoy sex in an appropriate context of trust and at an age when both parties are mature enough (emotionally and physically) to handle all of the complexities of such relationships.
I'm sorry for those of you who view sex as simple recreational activity or way to get off, or those who think pornography is no big deal. I've been with the same woman only (my wife) for almost 15 years now. Sex is far better today than it ever was when we were younger, and much of that improvement comes from having complete confidence in one another and knowing that we are committed to never leave each other. It is quite freeing. I've known other men who didn't think pornography was a big deal, and every time they pulled out the magazines or plugged in the movies they sent an all-too-clear message to their wives: "you're not enough for me." In the end, they ended up losing their wives and families because they were more concerned about their own sexual enjoyment than they were about investing in a relationship. Lie to yourselves as much as you want. [Most] Women are deeply hurt when their partners use pornography. Many play along because of some sense that they will lose their men if the object, or because they have bought a cultural lie that says that all men look at pornography (IT'S NOT TRUE, LADIES!). Men (if you are willing to be men), it can be a struggle to give up the skin rags, but you can live without them. If you do, you may rediscover the reasons why you fell in love in the first place (if you are willing to take on the struggle). Take it from a guy who knows.
This comment is right on the money. Plane crashes scare people because they are so public, yet air travel is nearly the safest mode of transportation out there. This data loss is high visibility, but I would guess that there is more risk of loss at home (or at the office) than there is through a centralized service.
I think it is the publicity angle. Can you imagine a blogger who would not mention getting a free laptop? MS hopes they take a look-see and that perhaps they'll make a few posts regarding their new-found tech toy. Microsoft probably believes its own hype and probably assumes that people will absolutely gush over these things. The more I read about the integrated DRM aspects of Vista, however, the less likely I am to ever use it (where I have a choice--I'm sure the office will have it in a few years).
[On a distantly-related tangent, maybe the FOSS community can adopt AOL's approach and flood the market with OpenOffice or [pick-a-flavor] Linux distros to build their user base.]
I browsed eBay Express over the past month or so, and I was not impressed. It seemed I was seeing the same sellers over and over again in specific categories, and the prices were not great. I wanted to browse for some fishing gear, and my search returned pages and pages of rod building parts, but very little of what I wanted. The Buy It Now feature works for auctions because it assumes someone is already out there looking for a specific product. When it comes to browsing for merchandise, most online stores fall flat. That's one of the shortcomings I see with eBay Express. I stil have much better luck browsing for (non-big-ticket) items in a brick-and-mortar establishment, but if I'm looking for specific items, I usually will start online.
The different faiths and holy books would be equivalent to the different tech components. The problem I see is that not all faiths are saying "Hello World."
If all the holy writings serve the same purpose, shouldn't they all have the same message? Why, then, does the deity of the Christian book (a God who supposedly "emptied himself" of his deity and became human) claim to be the only way? Is God confused? Is it possible that one of these groups is right?
I agree that prevention is the ideal front line, but these tools do help tremendously in the enterprise--they can help keep an outbreak from going replicating like mad in the first few moments. Anything that can be done to slow propagation in my network helps keep things tipped in my favor. No perimeter defense (apart from the Fiskars firewall--cut the cable) is entirely effective, and even trained users might fall for a well-crafted social engineering effort, so I'll err on having these tools available rather than rely on a false confidence that I can protect my network from all things at all times.
Firing guns may not be a factor of our genes, but our fight or flight response is. We teach children the concept of self control so that they don't run away all the time like whipped pups, or so they don't go postal on their schoolmates. I'm just tired of the "you can't teach kids to abstain, so why bother" camp. You'll find that, most of the time, kids will rise to the level of expectations placed upon them. Expect that your kids will be lazy slackers who won't clean their rooms and--surprise, surprise--they grow up to be lazy slackers who won't clean their rooms. Instill and reinforce expectations early and often and most kids rise to the challenge. I don't care whether it's self care or staying out of the sack while young--the concept is the same. Sure, some will try the other path, but they will be the minority. At one time, they were considered bad examples that reinforced the lessons of a common morality. Moral relatism put that in the crapper, though, so the viablity of a return to this type of society is unlikey without seeing a far-reaching moral realignment among the citizenry of much of the world...
A perfect example of how terms hold different meanings--the world of expression and frame-of-reference...
In my circles, "Wally World" has no reference to National Lampoon's Vacation (I don't think anyone in my family ever saw the film--shocking, I know--is it worth watching?). We've been using it for so long, it may pre-date Vacation.
If we have been using it that long, perhaps I have a valid DCMA copyright claim against National Lampoon?
Intel has the idea right (on the business side--I'm not here to argue the socio-economic points of money spent on computers in non-1st world economies), and the track record to know that economies of scale and scope will drop prices.
My question is this? With other players in the laptop market selling machines in the sub-$500 range, why not leverage some of those existing supply chains and commoditize basic laptops (let's set aside the typical supply-chain Wintel duopoly for this discussion), pushing those price points down to the sub $400 range? It just seems that the industry is reinventing the wheel in search of this holy grail of "laptops for the world", incurring additional R&D costs in the process, when they could already move closer to this reality by creating a commodity baseline laptop.
I do acknowledge that in designing cheap laptops for the world there are some key differences in user needs and system requirements, particularly limiting power consumption and minimizing the risk of mechanical failure, but aren't those benefits we all would want to reap in the consumer and enterprise markets as well?
No matter how this is decided on the free speech front, it will only be a matter of time before blocking technologies are bypassed. Look at spam. Once predicted to be dead by this year, it has had a renaissance of sorts, with spam volume doubling this year. The reason? The blocked learned to beat the blockers. People are deceiving themselves if they think there is some sort of technological panacea that will address complex social issues that manifest themselves on the Net.
Your comment is true in one sense, but then consider that Google does not need to cultivate a customer relationship with itself, provide an externally-accessible website for this service, and it does not need to process payments around the transaction. Looking at the entire picture, Google is getting a better return on its own placements. Besides, those placements send users to other Google services which (potentially) generate additional advertising revenue for the company. It is a sweet deal, to be sure, but it is no different that a grocery store placing it's house-brand products on the shelf next to the major brands. Let's use ads that offer services similar to those offered by Microsoft as an example. Those who want Microsoft products will most often select the link for the Microsoft products. Those who want a Microsoft alternative will most often select the link(s) for the Microsoft alternative. In reality, I doubt there are very many people who will really do a comparison between the two, unless the offerings are relatively new or if the user is uneducated.
Re:If you are going to use stock symbols to refer
on
Google's Silent Monopoly
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't believe it fair to characterize as immature those who use assorted replacements for company names. IMO, it's the same as using emoticons--it's another way of compressing meaning into a message. If I type a missive on Microsoft and use M$ in the prose, I give you clear insight into my views of that company. Also, MSFT is actually Microsoft's stock ticker, so I don't see that one as "being cute" in any way.
People do this verbally as well, as some who visit Target stores refer to them as [pronounced] Tarjhay, a pseudo-French pronounciation used to imply their view of that retailer as a purveyer of goods that are in high-style compared to other discounters. When K-mart stores took a dive, some referred to them as K-fart. Wal-Mart is often called "Wally-world" in veneration of the company's founder.
Certainly there are times when such personal meanings should be set aside (e.g., business memos), but in a public forum such personal expression is entirely appropriate.
Yet the evolutionary construct is applied across the animal and plant kingdoms. One could argue for animals' ability to apply intelligence to the process of selection, but how would this apply in the plant kingdom? Then consider the multitude of plant-animal interdependencies. If they did not evolve in concert, neither species would have survived. Humans can cultivate plants to bring forth desirable traits. Should we infer that cultivation is not limited to our species?
Your argument discounts the role human intelligence played in the development of a complex instrument and equally complex masterwork. The piano has gone through numerous iterations, changes, and improvements, but these were the result of applied human intelligence, not a process of natural selection that weeded out the inferior from the superior. Human intelligence made the determination as to which designs, innovations, and improvements would be incorporated in the next generation of instruments.
I have been reading Darwin extensively since his complete works became available online. I use the term "random" only in that one could not predict, when looking at earlier forms, the exact nature of eventual developments. My primary point is that the created object could not have developed on its own without the influence of intelligence, and yes, your counterpoint is that such intelligence then must predate everything, including a presumed Creator. It is at that point where faith does divert to the belief of the uncaused cause. If the painting were to have existed on its own without intervention of man or beast, then it would be due special honor, for it existed without cause. To the believer, God is the uncaused cause. I know it is not an argument easily accepted (or defended), but I did state that the complexity of life was enough to convince me that there must be more. Even Darwin asknowledged, in considering the complexity of the eye, that should it prove more comlpex than it was then understood to be, that it would give reason to consider the influence of design. We know far more about the eye and all biology now, and it reinforces my sense that the current level of complexity could not have developed in a set of incremental changes.
Thank you for responding reasonably and with fair questions. It is only through dialogue that two sides will ever come to understand the views of the other.
I applaud you for responding with reason and civility, where many may have simply lambasted my views as foolish or "blinded" by faith.
I fully understand (and at one level agree) with the view that the writings that were canonized were so made by the decisions of men, but whether it was selection or affirmation of already accepted standards is another topic entirely...
As to the complexities of translation, I am in complete agreement. I do believe, however, if one is to consider the scholarly qualifications and documented methodologies for modern translations, one would agree that much care has been given to that point. Scholars use references from other contemporary literature to determine the best translation in each case, and a good English translation (NETBible at bible.org comes to mind) includes notes and references so one can follow the reasoning used for such word choices. That is one reason that leads many to view a literal six-day creation--although the word translated "day" in the Genesis account can, depending on context, carry many meanings, they argue that its appearance there with the words for "evening and morning" indicate a literal 24-hour day, since all other examples of its use in conjunction with those terms refer to literal days. A debate for academics, to be sure, but worth mentioning here since it shows that creationists do have a logical framework through which they make their interpretations.
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It is not that when married you cannot acknowledge that another woman is attractive, or be aroused by another woman. This will happen and is a natural response. If he takes his marriage vows seriously, he acknowledges it for what it is and lets it go. When it moves from acknowledging beauty or arousal into active fantasies about getting it on with that other, then the marriage covenant has already been violated in spirit (and this should not be constued as "shucks, I already broke my vows in spirit, so I might as well go ahead and..."). I have no qualms with masturbation in marriage, provided that it is not a cop out or excuse for fantasizing about someone else, and as long as both parties are okay with it. As to having different sex drives, my wife and I both hold that our bodies are no longer our own. I please her when she needs me. She pleases me when I need her. Most of the time, we are both in sync. Other times, one or the other of us would rather not. When that happens, we either do or don't as we both agree. That's the thing most people in the West do not understand about marriages like ours. They see marriage as a mutual contract with a variety of benefits for each partner. We see marriage as a disowning of self for the benefit of the other--that we literally and figuratively are no longer two individuals, but "one flesh." Our covenant is to love, honor, and cherish each other, forsaking all others (including those in film, magazine, and fantasy), until death us do part. Do we always hold to the precepts of this covenant flawlessly? No, but we both acknowledge our own humanity (our own selfish natures) and strive, daily, to look to the needs of our spouse before we pursue our own needs. For us, that's made for 14 wonderful years of marriage, with our sights set on 50 more! To me, no matter how many women you know/you've known who claim to be into porn, I guarantee that, in the confidence of other women, they would admit to different feelings than those you list here. You are projecting a male perspective onto women (regarding porn), and women simply look at the world differently than do men. As always, there will be some who stand as outliers in the sample, but they are not representative of the whole.
I know "jumped the shark" has taken on a cultural context of decline, but did you realize that Happy Days actually posted better ratings after the episode in which the Fonz jumped the shark?
I would argue that more men opt to become doctors rather than nurses because that profession brings more respect (prestige) than does nursing. I would also argue that more women opt for nursing because it is an opportunity to them to function in a caring/nurturing capacity (more so than is done by doctors).
I'm saying that gender differnces exist, but that does not mean they are bad. At the most basic level, men and women have different felt needs. As John Gottman puts it in his book "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail", he distills it down to two differnt needs. For men, it is respect, and for women it is love. There will always be some who do not fit the "norm" for their group, but his insights are particularly keen.
I believe these differing motivational needs may also account for the trend being discussed in this thread. If the fundamental need for women is love, then there is little to be gained by self-directed study of a new technology. For men, however, such a pursuit is in line with a fundamental need for respect (tech cred).
Gottman is not the only one who argues for such fundamental differences. Any HR specialist can tell you that most women place a higher value on a workplace where there is a strong team environment and where there are good working relationships. Most men, however, prefer work environments that pay for performance, offer numerous opportunities for advancement, and prestige.
I'm not writing this to dissuage any woman from pursuing a career in technology, or any man from pursuing a career in nursing. I am just hoping to present the thought that gender differnces do play a fundamental role in the underlying motivations we each carry, and that these underlying factors go far beyond any simple cultural context (when distilled down to the concepts of "love" and "respect", those themes appear to span the vast majority of cultures throughout the world).
I can agree with your view on the handling of the issue. The sentence is out of line. This would have warranted a censure/reprimand/restriction of computer access at best, and that is IF it was the teacher's fault.
I have eight kids. Yes, kids pick up on cues as to whether something is major or not, but among males the mind goes on auto-pilot when exposed to pornography (there's research to support that, too). My response was made to counter the stereotypical views many other comments bantered around concerning people who were "upset" or "concerned" over this exposure. Had it happened to my kids, I damn well would have been one of them.
The children may not be directly harmed, but exposure to pornography at a young age (and yes, seventh graders are young for such exposure) causes them to be awakened to levels of arousal at a time when they are not equipped to handle it. It is not simply a repressed minority that thinks this way, but many educated, well-reasoned people who want to ensure that their children will grow to be healthy, well-adjusted adults who can learn to enjoy sex in an appropriate context of trust and at an age when both parties are mature enough (emotionally and physically) to handle all of the complexities of such relationships.
I'm sorry for those of you who view sex as simple recreational activity or way to get off, or those who think pornography is no big deal. I've been with the same woman only (my wife) for almost 15 years now. Sex is far better today than it ever was when we were younger, and much of that improvement comes from having complete confidence in one another and knowing that we are committed to never leave each other. It is quite freeing. I've known other men who didn't think pornography was a big deal, and every time they pulled out the magazines or plugged in the movies they sent an all-too-clear message to their wives: "you're not enough for me." In the end, they ended up losing their wives and families because they were more concerned about their own sexual enjoyment than they were about investing in a relationship. Lie to yourselves as much as you want. [Most] Women are deeply hurt when their partners use pornography. Many play along because of some sense that they will lose their men if the object, or because they have bought a cultural lie that says that all men look at pornography (IT'S NOT TRUE, LADIES!). Men (if you are willing to be men), it can be a struggle to give up the skin rags, but you can live without them. If you do, you may rediscover the reasons why you fell in love in the first place (if you are willing to take on the struggle). Take it from a guy who knows.
This comment is right on the money. Plane crashes scare people because they are so public, yet air travel is nearly the safest mode of transportation out there. This data loss is high visibility, but I would guess that there is more risk of loss at home (or at the office) than there is through a centralized service.
I think it is the publicity angle. Can you imagine a blogger who would not mention getting a free laptop? MS hopes they take a look-see and that perhaps they'll make a few posts regarding their new-found tech toy. Microsoft probably believes its own hype and probably assumes that people will absolutely gush over these things. The more I read about the integrated DRM aspects of Vista, however, the less likely I am to ever use it (where I have a choice--I'm sure the office will have it in a few years).
[On a distantly-related tangent, maybe the FOSS community can adopt AOL's approach and flood the market with OpenOffice or [pick-a-flavor] Linux distros to build their user base.]
I browsed eBay Express over the past month or so, and I was not impressed. It seemed I was seeing the same sellers over and over again in specific categories, and the prices were not great. I wanted to browse for some fishing gear, and my search returned pages and pages of rod building parts, but very little of what I wanted. The Buy It Now feature works for auctions because it assumes someone is already out there looking for a specific product. When it comes to browsing for merchandise, most online stores fall flat. That's one of the shortcomings I see with eBay Express. I stil have much better luck browsing for (non-big-ticket) items in a brick-and-mortar establishment, but if I'm looking for specific items, I usually will start online.
The different faiths and holy books would be equivalent to the different tech components. The problem I see is that not all faiths are saying "Hello World."
If all the holy writings serve the same purpose, shouldn't they all have the same message? Why, then, does the deity of the Christian book (a God who supposedly "emptied himself" of his deity and became human) claim to be the only way? Is God confused? Is it possible that one of these groups is right?
I agree that prevention is the ideal front line, but these tools do help tremendously in the enterprise--they can help keep an outbreak from going replicating like mad in the first few moments. Anything that can be done to slow propagation in my network helps keep things tipped in my favor. No perimeter defense (apart from the Fiskars firewall--cut the cable) is entirely effective, and even trained users might fall for a well-crafted social engineering effort, so I'll err on having these tools available rather than rely on a false confidence that I can protect my network from all things at all times.
That's the beauty of it, eh...I was originally a flatlander, then a cheesehead, but now I'm Minnesotan by choice. Go BEARS!!! Go BREWERS!!! Go WILD!!!
And if I really cared about sports, that last part might be funny...
Firing guns may not be a factor of our genes, but our fight or flight response is. We teach children the concept of self control so that they don't run away all the time like whipped pups, or so they don't go postal on their schoolmates. I'm just tired of the "you can't teach kids to abstain, so why bother" camp. You'll find that, most of the time, kids will rise to the level of expectations placed upon them. Expect that your kids will be lazy slackers who won't clean their rooms and--surprise, surprise--they grow up to be lazy slackers who won't clean their rooms. Instill and reinforce expectations early and often and most kids rise to the challenge. I don't care whether it's self care or staying out of the sack while young--the concept is the same. Sure, some will try the other path, but they will be the minority. At one time, they were considered bad examples that reinforced the lessons of a common morality. Moral relatism put that in the crapper, though, so the viablity of a return to this type of society is unlikey without seeing a far-reaching moral realignment among the citizenry of much of the world...
And if everyone does switch, then it will only be a matter of time before the hucksters change tactics to leverage the new O/S-du-jour...
Best Buy Stores may (as you say) suck, but the corporate offices are looking like one sweet gig here in Minnesotah--yah der don'tcha know...
I guess lame attempts at humor are harder to spot than lame humor itself...
A perfect example of how terms hold different meanings--the world of expression and frame-of-reference...
In my circles, "Wally World" has no reference to National Lampoon's Vacation (I don't think anyone in my family ever saw the film--shocking, I know--is it worth watching?). We've been using it for so long, it may pre-date Vacation.
If we have been using it that long, perhaps I have a valid DCMA copyright claim against National Lampoon?
Intel has the idea right (on the business side--I'm not here to argue the socio-economic points of money spent on computers in non-1st world economies), and the track record to know that economies of scale and scope will drop prices.
My question is this? With other players in the laptop market selling machines in the sub-$500 range, why not leverage some of those existing supply chains and commoditize basic laptops (let's set aside the typical supply-chain Wintel duopoly for this discussion), pushing those price points down to the sub $400 range? It just seems that the industry is reinventing the wheel in search of this holy grail of "laptops for the world", incurring additional R&D costs in the process, when they could already move closer to this reality by creating a commodity baseline laptop.
I do acknowledge that in designing cheap laptops for the world there are some key differences in user needs and system requirements, particularly limiting power consumption and minimizing the risk of mechanical failure, but aren't those benefits we all would want to reap in the consumer and enterprise markets as well?
Meek's Law states:
If technology can be exploited, it will be.
Meek's Corollary states:
All technology can be exploited
No matter how this is decided on the free speech front, it will only be a matter of time before blocking technologies are bypassed. Look at spam. Once predicted to be dead by this year, it has had a renaissance of sorts, with spam volume doubling this year. The reason? The blocked learned to beat the blockers. People are deceiving themselves if they think there is some sort of technological panacea that will address complex social issues that manifest themselves on the Net.
Your comment is true in one sense, but then consider that Google does not need to cultivate a customer relationship with itself, provide an externally-accessible website for this service, and it does not need to process payments around the transaction. Looking at the entire picture, Google is getting a better return on its own placements. Besides, those placements send users to other Google services which (potentially) generate additional advertising revenue for the company. It is a sweet deal, to be sure, but it is no different that a grocery store placing it's house-brand products on the shelf next to the major brands. Let's use ads that offer services similar to those offered by Microsoft as an example. Those who want Microsoft products will most often select the link for the Microsoft products. Those who want a Microsoft alternative will most often select the link(s) for the Microsoft alternative. In reality, I doubt there are very many people who will really do a comparison between the two, unless the offerings are relatively new or if the user is uneducated.
I don't believe it fair to characterize as immature those who use assorted replacements for company names. IMO, it's the same as using emoticons--it's another way of compressing meaning into a message. If I type a missive on Microsoft and use M$ in the prose, I give you clear insight into my views of that company. Also, MSFT is actually Microsoft's stock ticker, so I don't see that one as "being cute" in any way.
People do this verbally as well, as some who visit Target stores refer to them as [pronounced] Tarjhay, a pseudo-French pronounciation used to imply their view of that retailer as a purveyer of goods that are in high-style compared to other discounters. When K-mart stores took a dive, some referred to them as K-fart. Wal-Mart is often called "Wally-world" in veneration of the company's founder.
Certainly there are times when such personal meanings should be set aside (e.g., business memos), but in a public forum such personal expression is entirely appropriate.
Yet the evolutionary construct is applied across the animal and plant kingdoms. One could argue for animals' ability to apply intelligence to the process of selection, but how would this apply in the plant kingdom? Then consider the multitude of plant-animal interdependencies. If they did not evolve in concert, neither species would have survived. Humans can cultivate plants to bring forth desirable traits. Should we infer that cultivation is not limited to our species?
Your argument discounts the role human intelligence played in the development of a complex instrument and equally complex masterwork. The piano has gone through numerous iterations, changes, and improvements, but these were the result of applied human intelligence, not a process of natural selection that weeded out the inferior from the superior. Human intelligence made the determination as to which designs, innovations, and improvements would be incorporated in the next generation of instruments.
I have been reading Darwin extensively since his complete works became available online. I use the term "random" only in that one could not predict, when looking at earlier forms, the exact nature of eventual developments. My primary point is that the created object could not have developed on its own without the influence of intelligence, and yes, your counterpoint is that such intelligence then must predate everything, including a presumed Creator. It is at that point where faith does divert to the belief of the uncaused cause. If the painting were to have existed on its own without intervention of man or beast, then it would be due special honor, for it existed without cause. To the believer, God is the uncaused cause. I know it is not an argument easily accepted (or defended), but I did state that the complexity of life was enough to convince me that there must be more. Even Darwin asknowledged, in considering the complexity of the eye, that should it prove more comlpex than it was then understood to be, that it would give reason to consider the influence of design. We know far more about the eye and all biology now, and it reinforces my sense that the current level of complexity could not have developed in a set of incremental changes.
Thank you for responding reasonably and with fair questions. It is only through dialogue that two sides will ever come to understand the views of the other.
I applaud you for responding with reason and civility, where many may have simply lambasted my views as foolish or "blinded" by faith.
I fully understand (and at one level agree) with the view that the writings that were canonized were so made by the decisions of men, but whether it was selection or affirmation of already accepted standards is another topic entirely...
As to the complexities of translation, I am in complete agreement. I do believe, however, if one is to consider the scholarly qualifications and documented methodologies for modern translations, one would agree that much care has been given to that point. Scholars use references from other contemporary literature to determine the best translation in each case, and a good English translation (NETBible at bible.org comes to mind) includes notes and references so one can follow the reasoning used for such word choices. That is one reason that leads many to view a literal six-day creation--although the word translated "day" in the Genesis account can, depending on context, carry many meanings, they argue that its appearance there with the words for "evening and morning" indicate a literal 24-hour day, since all other examples of its use in conjunction with those terms refer to literal days. A debate for academics, to be sure, but worth mentioning here since it shows that creationists do have a logical framework through which they make their interpretations.