Com'on hit and run AC... come back and fight you yellow belly coward...
"thinks" that the act of using your brain - ID or not, in your case probably not.
Read the rest Further, stotting gazelles have never been seen to be caught that is called "observation". Thinking and Observation are essential components in the advancement of knowledge.
Your star shaped sun is only a sign of your egocentric religious view of creation and not a sign from god. People read all sorts of meaning into everyday events and interpret those sign as directed at them personally. Just like the medieval church had a difficult time believing that man/earth are not the center of creation so are you having a difficult time believing that you are not at the center of gods concern.
Remember the bible code a few years ago. Where some nut takes the spaces and punctuation out the biblical text and arranges the characters in a block and finds all sorts of wonderful meaning and descriptions in the ensuring crossword puzzle. Spooky eh? Err not really, a rational less egocentric mind would immediately think of statistics and probability of vowels and constants and word content and realize that you can do that with any text. In fact some did do that with Moby Dick! The author read in all sorts of was there was none.
Another example? Go to this page and scroll down to the bottom and you will find your star in a perfectly normal situation. It happens and it even has a science based explanation.
One the list of reasons I am not a believer in your religion is that the adherents are gullible, egocentric, deluded and practice deception, faulty logic and are eager to to lie for god.
You have mentioned that you have conducted surgery on yourself - successfully. Impressive! Do you believe that if you were a Thalidomide baby born without arms that you could faith or pray yourself some arms? That would take less energy than moving a mountain.
Optimism in general is good, yes. Optimism in false teachings typical leads one astray. I can be optimistic that slaying a virgin will improve the chances of rain but that optimism is misplaced and wrong.
faith DOES move mountains
Back to the question - What mountain has ever been moved by faith? What bodily limb has ever been restored? What conjoined twin has ever been separated by faith. Things that are observable and verifiable seem to be resistant to changes by faith and prayer for some reason.
While atheism may indeed be an illogical belief system it is better than a stringent literalist belief in a religious system that is demonstratively false. It is better not to believe in god at all, than to believe in a false vision of god that requires, for instance, blood sacrifices, killing of infidels or even egocentric beliefs that god is watching out for you personally.
Agnosticism is really the logical position. The infinitely superior spirit or intellect that created the universe may be unknownable by the puny human mind. One thing I can tell you is that the collection of ancient books that you call the Bible is not a description of the God that created the universe.
But Jesus said that faith can move mountains, and there is no countercheck in the scientific method to compensate for faith. In fact, the placebo effect HAS been documented, but perhaps it has not been given full recognition.
Whoaa there cowboy.... There is a difference between moving mountains and the placebo effect. The placebo effect has an explanation in science - moving mountains via prayer does not. Can you point to single mountain moved? I would settle for a small molehill. Speaking of miracles can you point to a single case where a missing limb was restored and verified medically? Does God abandon amputees?
On the other hand, the Bible IS inconsistent
Err no. The Bible is not consistent. I will put aside all the obvious inconsistencies like who killed Goliath, or how did creepy things like worms get from the Ark to North America or Australia, or how did Judas die, or are ye saved by works or faith, does God change his mind, or why didn't numerous prophesies like the Burden of Egypt or Tyre fail so badly (tell me when Egypt has been uninhabited for forty years or why is Tyre a large existing city today).
No, I will instead point out that the God of OT is not at all the same as the God of NT, very different indeed. The OT God authorized murder and rape (ie the taking of girls that have not been with a man) and rejoices in Psalms at the thought of dashing of ones enemies infants on the rocks, and required blood sacrifices, and thought good of it to offer one daughters to a sex crazed crowd. I am not going to provide references but if you have read the Bible you know what I am talking about.
Contrast that to Jesus telling us to Love our enemies and to treat others like we would want to be treated. The NT God talks about grace. This is not consistent, no matter how you want to play mental game of twister.
Incidently this idea of God requiring you to kill your enemies is the same illogical ideology that plagues the moslm fundamentalist today. If God is omnipotent then why does he need his subjects do his killing for him.
Faith that obvious myths are real, is irrational and delusion at best.
If you are saying that a faith in Genesis as a factual literal scientific account of the creation of the universe is equivalent to what science is revealing about the universe than you are certainly wrong.
However, you are just as wrong as the Babylonian, Summarian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse, Indian, Navaho, Zulu, Hawaiian cultural creation myths. They are all early attempts at explaining existence and are equally wrong.
If you spend any time research the source of some the ideaology and symbols in Genesis you will find that they are borrowed and modified from earlier cultures - just like any good meme.
Science, while at times wrong or incomplete, has this wonderful self-correction mechanism that roots out error by allowing for disagreement and debate - evidence is king. You put your "faith" in science every time you partake in modern medical care, fly in a airplane, drive in your car, or turn on your computer etc.
Religion on the hand other firewalls any disagreement and labels any questioning or doubt as "lacking of faith". Religion often speaks of faith in the unseen as a positive quality. Faith is just superstition all dressed up.
If I was a Mayan fundamentalist and I told you we need to sacrifice a virgin in order to bring rain for good crop production and you told me there is no coorelation between sacrificing virgins and percipitation. By your account I would be justified to say that I have faith in my beliefs and you just have antifaith and the underpinnings of antifaith are just as "shakey" as those of faith so all is equal.
Now if say you have "faith" in Genesis because of some outstanding scientific revelations, that would be rational. If that is the case then bring em on tell me why you have faith in Genesis.
Notice the gross egocentric position of the writer of this poetry.
The stars are an after thought as indicated but the, oh by the way, parenthetical status in the verse.
However as we now know the stars (ie the universe) are of such a grand scale compared to puny earth. This should be tip off for the decerning reader; but nooooo some have to take this poetry (and it is good poety) as a science textbook.
Genesis is myth. Most of what is in Genesis can be traced to other myths of earlier civilizations. For intelligent modern people to confuse a myth with reality is sad. Do your homework - for as Proverbs says "A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps"
Adjusted for inflation, we've spent trillions of dollars since the 50's laying concrete ribbons into the cornfields so smarmy, self-satisfied EXTREMELY subsidized white a-holes could sneer at the cities which funded their existence.
Wow have we not had our coffee yet this morning.
First I assume you are referring to the National Interstate Highway system. This is called infrastructure that is largely responsible for our prosperity and is a national security issue. They were not built so that people could live in the suburbs, which a completely different phenomenom. Europe has a super highway system don't they. Perhaps you should move to a 3rd world country that doesn't make such investments for the future, maybe you will feel more at home.
Since you think that these "smarmy self-satified EXTREMELY subsizided white a-holes" are subsizided by some other group, can you identify that group?
Yes the US is a major underwriter of Israel with no end in sight. At least we get something from that in the form of a staunch ally, economic partner, and technology exchange.
We also pay huge sums to the Palestinians and Egyptians. From what I remember the combination of aid to the Palestinians and Egyptians are of same order of magnitude as we fund Israel. However the Palestinians openly danced for joy on Sept 11 and the Egyptians encourage and foster anti-American sediment in their government operated media outlets.
The jews have contributed disproportionately to science and our understanding and betterment of the world. Think Feynman, Bohr, Feigenbaum, Gell-Mann, von Neumann, Minsky, Von Braun, are just a few that come to mind.
The jews have taken a small strip of the middle east and have started a free society where none existed before, with a elections and a free press to a degree unimagined anywhere else in the area. They have sidelined their radicals where the surrounding areas have elevated their radicals to leadership positions. As a contrast the palestinians teach their children to hate and practice jihad from grade school.
The jews have made their land productive. Today they still make dispropotion contributions to Science, Medicine, Agriculture, Engineering, etc. Check the number of Nobel Peace prize winners as compared to other middle eastern countries.
It was kind of in use before they came back. How was that area more appropriate (ignoring the geopolitical reasonings by the US and what not) for use than any other in terms of letting them set up a government and economy?
The US had very little or nothing, to do with the creation of israel. Secondly the arab population of palestine at the turn of the century was around around half a million, today it is over 4 million.
btw I am not jewish and I do not even know any ethnic jews.
Telephone rings in the halls of power in Tehran
Telephone caller: Hey is the Ahmadinejad dude there?
Ahmadinejad: Yes this is he, may I help you.
Telephone caller: Ahmadinejad it's me the Gaurdian.... And I have some good new and bad news?
Ahmadinejad: Wow! I knew it, I knew it, lay the good news on me!
Telephone caller: I am the Gaurdian and I have returned as promised.
Ahmadinejad: This is so awesome I can't wait to tell Khomeini, he had his doubts you know. Err whats the bad news?
Telephone caller: I calling from New York City!
There are two types of hulls that you'll find in a boat (or kayak) - a planing hull and displacement hull. So this is a planing hull. The fact that it is designed by an MIT graduate using finite element analysis makes this news? And just what criteria are they using to make the claim that it is the "worlds fastest kayak"?
I think he meant more like this Red Tail hawk demonstrating a sort of winglet which provides a small aerodynamic advantage. However the hawk's adaptation may have been more of a stealth improvement (quiet when approaching prey) but efficiency and stealth may have been a mutual benefit in this adaptation.
If you read the PEAR research they are reporting extremely small telekinetic effects. Basically they acquire data from a noise source and devise someway of generating ones and zeros at a 5 hz rate. The "operator" is supposed to think of ones or zeros in an attempt to skew the results. The "success" rate is something like %50.02 from the expected of %50. Not very impressive results and probably explainable by temperature variations, cosmic rays or maybe even the odd neutrino detections.
I think they ought to have a World Wide Telekinetic Westling Federation where they pit two cerebral pro's against each other in ring with a noise generator between them; each combatant would either have with a big 0 or 1 on his jersey. After the bell the cumulative results in big readable digital displays in real-time above their heads.
note you are come at this from a completely western European perspective, and not paying any attention to the wide variety of other cultures or belief systems that have and do exist out there. Very comfortable perspective.
No I think he is coming from a perspective that provides a framework that has a track record of purging false beliefs/superstitions and is accumulating knowledge that can be communicated and extended and tested in a measurable fashion.
Yes, there are a wide variety of other cultures and belief systems out there but all have failed at providing insight and understanding that results in for instance a vaccine, a subatomic model, or an airliner (and unfortunately ICBM's).
I attempted to post the below message last night but was unable due to some problem with slashdot so I saved it to post this morning. I find it a remarkable coincidental that we bulletized the same general paradigm shifts of human thought except my third is different. Must of been telepathy:)
- - - - The urge to confine humans to being just meat machines
The truth is probably even more humbling than that... God loves a humble man and God has given us plenty to be humble about.
There have been three insults to humanity as our knowledge of ourselves expands.
The first insult was the realization that the earth is not the centerpiece of Gods creation but a smallish chunk or rock that orbits an ordinary sun in a typical galaxy.
The second insult, courtesy of Darwin, was the horror in finding that we are nothing special in the animal kingdom but just an interesting primate variant and that we are related to slime mold.
And then Dawkins points out that we are not even meat machines but survival machines that primarily serve the purpose of replicating genes or pieces of information. Genes do not serve us; but we serve genes in their gambit for immortality. The Necker cube inverts much to our displeasure.
Ah no humor here.
NMCI is a bad idea implemented poorly for the wrong reasons. NMCI in a reseach environment is like forcing a course threaded nut on a fine thread bolt.
The Navy research labs maintain a "legacy" network because it is the only network that provides the flexibility to get the job done - so the end result is that there are two networks, two vulnerablities, two system admin expenses, two computers on most desks, and difficulting in getting data from one to the other - all in the name of saving money and being more secure.
I must keep reminding myself that this is government they are going to save money no matter how much it is going to cost.
Wait what is that I hear - the sound of a continuous stream of chairs being violently thrown in the general direction of Business 2.0 Magazine offices.
Slashdot Mirror
In my area (Idaho) there is no market - it is Verizon or the dailup.
Prizes pander to human ego and superficial pride. A couple of quotes from history.
..."
"Prizes are for children." Charles Ives, quoted upon being awarded, but refusing, the Pulitzer prize.
Or maybe even more apropos is Albert Einstein's quote:
"... But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever
Com'on hit and run AC... come back and fight you yellow belly coward...
"thinks" that the act of using your brain - ID or not, in your case probably not.
Read the rest Further, stotting gazelles have never been seen to be caught that is called "observation". Thinking and Observation are essential components in the advancement of knowledge.
Your star shaped sun is only a sign of your egocentric religious view of creation and not a sign from god. People read all sorts of meaning into everyday events and interpret those sign as directed at them personally. Just like the medieval church had a difficult time believing that man/earth are not the center of creation so are you having a difficult time believing that you are not at the center of gods concern.
Remember the bible code a few years ago. Where some nut takes the spaces and punctuation out the biblical text and arranges the characters in a block and finds all sorts of wonderful meaning and descriptions in the ensuring crossword puzzle. Spooky eh? Err not really, a rational less egocentric mind would immediately think of statistics and probability of vowels and constants and word content and realize that you can do that with any text. In fact some did do that with Moby Dick! The author read in all sorts of was there was none.
Another example? Go to this page and scroll down to the bottom and you will find your star in a perfectly normal situation. It happens and it even has a science based explanation.
One the list of reasons I am not a believer in your religion is that the adherents are gullible, egocentric, deluded and practice deception, faulty logic and are eager to to lie for god.
You have mentioned that you have conducted surgery on yourself - successfully. Impressive! Do you believe that if you were a Thalidomide baby born without arms that you could faith or pray yourself some arms? That would take less energy than moving a mountain.
Optimism in general is good, yes. Optimism in false teachings typical leads one astray. I can be optimistic that slaying a virgin will improve the chances of rain but that optimism is misplaced and wrong.
faith DOES move mountains
Back to the question - What mountain has ever been moved by faith? What bodily limb has ever been restored? What conjoined twin has ever been separated by faith. Things that are observable and verifiable seem to be resistant to changes by faith and prayer for some reason.
While atheism may indeed be an illogical belief system it is better than a stringent literalist belief in a religious system that is demonstratively false. It is better not to believe in god at all, than to believe in a false vision of god that requires, for instance, blood sacrifices, killing of infidels or even egocentric beliefs that god is watching out for you personally.
Agnosticism is really the logical position. The infinitely superior spirit or intellect that created the universe may be unknownable by the puny human mind. One thing I can tell you is that the collection of ancient books that you call the Bible is not a description of the God that created the universe.
How about Plutonfox? - In keep with the spirit of recent historical events.
But Jesus said that faith can move mountains, and there is no countercheck in the scientific method to compensate for faith. In fact, the placebo effect HAS been documented, but perhaps it has not been given full recognition.
Whoaa there cowboy.... There is a difference between moving mountains and the placebo effect. The placebo effect has an explanation in science - moving mountains via prayer does not. Can you point to single mountain moved? I would settle for a small molehill. Speaking of miracles can you point to a single case where a missing limb was restored and verified medically? Does God abandon amputees?
On the other hand, the Bible IS inconsistent
Err no. The Bible is not consistent. I will put aside all the obvious inconsistencies like who killed Goliath, or how did creepy things like worms get from the Ark to North America or Australia, or how did Judas die, or are ye saved by works or faith, does God change his mind, or why didn't numerous prophesies like the Burden of Egypt or Tyre fail so badly (tell me when Egypt has been uninhabited for forty years or why is Tyre a large existing city today).
No, I will instead point out that the God of OT is not at all the same as the God of NT, very different indeed. The OT God authorized murder and rape (ie the taking of girls that have not been with a man) and rejoices in Psalms at the thought of dashing of ones enemies infants on the rocks, and required blood sacrifices, and thought good of it to offer one daughters to a sex crazed crowd. I am not going to provide references but if you have read the Bible you know what I am talking about.
Contrast that to Jesus telling us to Love our enemies and to treat others like we would want to be treated. The NT God talks about grace. This is not consistent, no matter how you want to play mental game of twister.
Incidently this idea of God requiring you to kill your enemies is the same illogical ideology that plagues the moslm fundamentalist today. If God is omnipotent then why does he need his subjects do his killing for him.
Faith that obvious myths are real, is irrational and delusion at best.
If you are saying that a faith in Genesis as a factual literal scientific account of the creation of the universe is equivalent to what science is revealing about the universe than you are certainly wrong.
However, you are just as wrong as the Babylonian, Summarian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse, Indian, Navaho, Zulu, Hawaiian cultural creation myths. They are all early attempts at explaining existence and are equally wrong.
If you spend any time research the source of some the ideaology and symbols in Genesis you will find that they are borrowed and modified from earlier cultures - just like any good meme.
Science, while at times wrong or incomplete, has this wonderful self-correction mechanism that roots out error by allowing for disagreement and debate - evidence is king. You put your "faith" in science every time you partake in modern medical care, fly in a airplane, drive in your car, or turn on your computer etc.
Religion on the hand other firewalls any disagreement and labels any questioning or doubt as "lacking of faith". Religion often speaks of faith in the unseen as a positive quality. Faith is just superstition all dressed up.
If I was a Mayan fundamentalist and I told you we need to sacrifice a virgin in order to bring rain for good crop production and you told me there is no coorelation between sacrificing virgins and percipitation. By your account I would be justified to say that I have faith in my beliefs and you just have antifaith and the underpinnings of antifaith are just as "shakey" as those of faith so all is equal.
Now if say you have "faith" in Genesis because of some outstanding scientific revelations, that would be rational. If that is the case then bring em on tell me why you have faith in Genesis.
Notice the gross egocentric position of the writer of this poetry. The stars are an after thought as indicated but the, oh by the way, parenthetical status in the verse. However as we now know the stars (ie the universe) are of such a grand scale compared to puny earth. This should be tip off for the decerning reader; but nooooo some have to take this poetry (and it is good poety) as a science textbook.
Genesis is myth. Most of what is in Genesis can be traced to other myths of earlier civilizations. For intelligent modern people to confuse a myth with reality is sad. Do your homework - for as Proverbs says "A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps"
Adjusted for inflation, we've spent trillions of dollars since the 50's laying concrete ribbons into the cornfields so smarmy, self-satisfied EXTREMELY subsidized white a-holes could sneer at the cities which funded their existence.
Wow have we not had our coffee yet this morning.
First I assume you are referring to the National Interstate Highway system. This is called infrastructure that is largely responsible for our prosperity and is a national security issue. They were not built so that people could live in the suburbs, which a completely different phenomenom. Europe has a super highway system don't they. Perhaps you should move to a 3rd world country that doesn't make such investments for the future, maybe you will feel more at home.
Since you think that these "smarmy self-satified EXTREMELY subsizided white a-holes" are subsizided by some other group, can you identify that group?
Yes the US is a major underwriter of Israel with no end in sight. At least we get something from that in the form of a staunch ally, economic partner, and technology exchange.
We also pay huge sums to the Palestinians and Egyptians. From what I remember the combination of aid to the Palestinians and Egyptians are of same order of magnitude as we fund Israel. However the Palestinians openly danced for joy on Sept 11 and the Egyptians encourage and foster anti-American sediment in their government operated media outlets.
What makes the Jews more special
I can think of a few...
The jews have contributed disproportionately to science and our understanding and betterment of the world. Think Feynman, Bohr, Feigenbaum, Gell-Mann, von Neumann, Minsky, Von Braun, are just a few that come to mind.
The jews have taken a small strip of the middle east and have started a free society where none existed before, with a elections and a free press to a degree unimagined anywhere else in the area. They have sidelined their radicals where the surrounding areas have elevated their radicals to leadership positions. As a contrast the palestinians teach their children to hate and practice jihad from grade school.
The jews have made their land productive. Today they still make dispropotion contributions to Science, Medicine, Agriculture, Engineering, etc. Check the number of Nobel Peace prize winners as compared to other middle eastern countries.
It was kind of in use before they came back. How was that area more appropriate (ignoring the geopolitical reasonings by the US and what not) for use than any other in terms of letting them set up a government and economy?
The US had very little or nothing, to do with the creation of israel. Secondly the arab population of palestine at the turn of the century was around around half a million, today it is over 4 million.
btw I am not jewish and I do not even know any ethnic jews.
Telephone rings in the halls of power in Tehran Telephone caller: Hey is the Ahmadinejad dude there? Ahmadinejad: Yes this is he, may I help you. Telephone caller: Ahmadinejad it's me the Gaurdian.... And I have some good new and bad news? Ahmadinejad: Wow! I knew it, I knew it, lay the good news on me! Telephone caller: I am the Gaurdian and I have returned as promised. Ahmadinejad: This is so awesome I can't wait to tell Khomeini, he had his doubts you know. Err whats the bad news? Telephone caller: I calling from New York City!
And just where is the blue screen of death
There are two types of hulls that you'll find in a boat (or kayak) - a planing hull and displacement hull. So this is a planing hull. The fact that it is designed by an MIT graduate using finite element analysis makes this news? And just what criteria are they using to make the claim that it is the "worlds fastest kayak"?
If you are an AJAX coder from the darkside, then this is for you.
Notable quote "Ajax has introduced a huge attack surface"
Ya know I wish there were some SCO shrills around to explain this.
SCO claims that IBM toke their code from SCO Unix, even if it was thru some long forgotten version of Dynix or AIX, into contributed into Linux.
But they have SCO Unix source and they have Linux source so simple show the connection and be done with it.
I think he meant more like this Red Tail hawk demonstrating a sort of winglet which provides a small aerodynamic advantage. However the hawk's adaptation may have been more of a stealth improvement (quiet when approaching prey) but efficiency and stealth may have been a mutual benefit in this adaptation.
If you read the PEAR research they are reporting extremely small telekinetic effects. Basically they acquire data from a noise source and devise someway of generating ones and zeros at a 5 hz rate. The "operator" is supposed to think of ones or zeros in an attempt to skew the results. The "success" rate is something like %50.02 from the expected of %50. Not very impressive results and probably explainable by temperature variations, cosmic rays or maybe even the odd neutrino detections.
I think they ought to have a World Wide Telekinetic Westling Federation where they pit two cerebral pro's against each other in ring with a noise generator between them; each combatant would either have with a big 0 or 1 on his jersey. After the bell the cumulative results in big readable digital displays in real-time above their heads.
note you are come at this from a completely western European perspective, and not paying any attention to the wide variety of other cultures or belief systems that have and do exist out there. Very comfortable perspective.
No I think he is coming from a perspective that provides a framework that has a track record of purging false beliefs/superstitions and is accumulating knowledge that can be communicated and extended and tested in a measurable fashion.
Yes, there are a wide variety of other cultures and belief systems out there but all have failed at providing insight and understanding that results in for instance a vaccine, a subatomic model, or an airliner (and unfortunately ICBM's).
So I think his perspective is justified.
- - - -
The urge to confine humans to being just meat machines
The truth is probably even more humbling than that... God loves a humble man and God has given us plenty to be humble about.
There have been three insults to humanity as our knowledge of ourselves expands.
Ah no humor here. NMCI is a bad idea implemented poorly for the wrong reasons. NMCI in a reseach environment is like forcing a course threaded nut on a fine thread bolt. The Navy research labs maintain a "legacy" network because it is the only network that provides the flexibility to get the job done - so the end result is that there are two networks, two vulnerablities, two system admin expenses, two computers on most desks, and difficulting in getting data from one to the other - all in the name of saving money and being more secure. I must keep reminding myself that this is government they are going to save money no matter how much it is going to cost.
Wait what is that I hear - the sound of a continuous stream of chairs being violently
thrown in the general direction of Business 2.0 Magazine offices.
It is Irreproducible Complex and therefore must be Intelligently Designed