If the god is so impotent that mere personal electronics can cause him not to be heard, he might not be worth listening to.
It's not a matter of God not being heard, but of people not listening or paying attention. My sect has a hymn entitled Know this, that every soul is free. God will not force anyone to heaven, nor will he force anyone to hell; YOU choose where you'll be. Of course, if you can't disconnect for a few minutes a day, you might not be worth having as a follower.
A. For it's part, it's not about safety - so, what is it about? A publicity stunt?
It's about giving the consumer what they want. If using non-genetically-modified corn for their cornstarch and corn syrup doesn't cost (much) more and improves the company's image, then go for it.
So, General Mills is switching the cornstarch and sugar, so that they don't come from GMO'd crops. Great.
There is noi DNA, nor protein, nor anything that might be GMOed in either cornstarch or sugar. So much for the big change; it's an absolute unevent.
Corn starch comes from corn. There is GM corn available (most notably Monsanto's RoundUp resistant stuff). Does Cheerios use corn syrup for its sweeteners?
I've spent time in a Mormon cult, worshipped in the great religions of old, evangelize as a Latter Day Saint, and even spend significant time as one of those Pagans we all love to hate.
Most Mormon sects can't be classified as cults; only some of the Fundamentalists meet the accepted criteria. The two largest sects of the Mormon denomination are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often abbreviated LDS) and The Community of Christ (formerly The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, abbreviated RLDS).
Since you mention belonging to a Mormon cult and evangelizing as a Latter Day Saint, does that mean you were FLDS at one point and LDS at another? I don't see many Fundamentalist Mormons entering into maintream Mormonism.
If a group of two or more people want to enter some kind of legal relationship they can voluntarily sign a contract which defines the rules by which they will operate and how the relationship will one day be severed. These contracts could even be standardized - the way real estate contracts often are.
People already can and do have kids and own property jointly without a contract, so the law would still have to handle those situations.
A couple needs to register to give their relationship / partnership legal standing. Indeed, it may be as simple as signing a contract with a notary public (verification that both parties enter the relationship willingly and understand the terms of the contract). Even the contracts we sign to buy real estate or cars are registered with the government.
I think the point, though I'm not the original poster, is that marriage can and arguably should be separated from the legal rights of 'registered couples'. For example, if two close friends or siblings live together in later life then why should they be unable to share pensions etc just because their relationship never included physical attraction.
Churches, synagogues etc could still hold marriage ceremonies as could not religious institutions but a government official would register the couple as part of that process.
Utah has a Civil Unions. Any two consenting adults may register with the state to receive the same legal benefits of being legally married. The very cases you mention (close friends or relatives) were key in drafting this legislation. Conversely, Utah's Constitution defines marriage as being between one man and one woman (one condition of statehood was explicitly not recognizing polygamy).
I fear that my sect (and others) may be in legal jeopardy if they don't perform religious marriage ceremonies for those who don't fit the sect's definition. In case you think this is in jest, remember that in the 1970s the federal government was considering taking possession of the LdS Church's assets because Blacks were (generally) not given the Priesthood.
There is very little that the Government needs to regulate when it comes to marriage, and most of that we would think is common sense. The only two to be concerned with are that the couple must be far enough away in the blood line that their kids are not born with defects, and limit the quantity of husbands and wives to ensure society can progress.
Church handles most of that regulation so that the Government does not have to (with Judea Christian's at least/minus Mormons).
"Mormon" is a broad term which can be applied to over 150 sects within the denomination. The largest sect, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stopped sanctioning new polygamous marriages in 1890. The second largest sect, The Community of Christ, never sanctioned polygamous marriages. Most other sects have also stopped the practice (the largest counter-example being the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Please don't confuse mainstream Mormonism with the small splinter groups.
On that note, non-printing characters should be allowed as part of a password. E.g. "12345" is a bad password. But why shouldn't we be able to use "12356[backspace][backspace]45"?
How do you enter those non-printing characters? Even some printing characters (such as [enter] or [tab]) are a beast to enter in a web form ([tab] goes to the next field; [enter] submits the form). How should the field know if a particular [backspace] is you correcting a previously entered character or part of your password? BTW, my favorite non-printing character is \0 as it messes up most string functions.
Cable only comes in at 720p. Blu-rays and game consoles are 1080p. For 4k I'd have to go buy all new movies and a 4k player...and that's not even including how close I'd need to be to the TV to see the difference.
Sony and Panasonic are working on a new physical disc, as is the Blu-ray Disc Association. HDMI 2.0 supports 4k resolution at 60fps, 30 channels of audio, etc. I would wait for these standards to mature - I don't want to suffer the same "HDTV ready" fiasco from yesteryear.
Wash the food, not the bag. If you assume food is clean at time of purchase, you're woefully ignorant.
So, does your local grocer provide a sink for you to wash the produce before bagging it?
We obviously wash produce before eating it, but if the bag doesn't get washed it serves as a potential vector for cross-contamination. Many chefs even have separate cutting boards for meat, poultry, and vegetables.
It is a bit weird if you think about it, to just keep using plastic bags when you could take your own. I wonder who started the whole deal.
I have 2 reusable bags, but I almost always forget to take them with me anywhere. I used one last week, but that was the first time in months. Keeping one in the car would probably be a good start.
I seem to remember a report from a few months back how people forget to wash these reusable bags, so they would inadvertently contaminate their purchases. If this wasn't./ I would do an actual Google for the citation.
Right. SInce when has the smell of something been illegal? And how the fuck would I know what marijuana smells, it's illegal and I haven't had any contact with it whatsoever. Yeah the car I bought had a funny smell, but should I know what some forbidden substance smells like?
I bet the driver had pockets also. Hidden compartments for transferring crack right there!
Every month the Honolulu Police Department would raid the Ko'olau Mountains looking for pakalolo farms and burn the crops at the Kahuku station (which is separated from Kahuku High School by a chain link fence) during school hours. We *ALL* know what marijuana smells like.
Plus how the hell is falling out of a tree any less dangerous than being in a car crash? I'd rather be surrounded by steel and air-bags if something hard is going to be slammed into my body.. uh, well, that sounded a bit wrong, but whatever.
People generally only fall a few feet from a tree - not nearly high enough to gain the velocities experienced during most injury-causing automobile crashes.
Most religious and spiritual matters can't be empirically or objectively measured.
In the Hawaiian mythos, the soul is called "ha" (the breath of life). This is the same "ha" found in the words "Hawaii" (breath of life in the waters), "aloha" (may the divine breathe a blessing upon thy face), and "haoli" (without breath / without a soul). The Book of Genesis says that God gave Adam the breath of life, and he (Adam) became a living soul.
I'm not sure we could come up with a definition of soul that all Christians would agree upon. It is a fuzzy concept which normally includes the non-tangible part of ourselves (such as personality, knowledge, ethics) which survives after the physical body dies. How can you objectively measure that? How could you set up an experiment using the scientific method (reproducibility is paramount) to see if humans and / or animals have such a soul?
I use science for other parts of my life. I research the best dietary supplements, cars, computers, even the best cloth for my clothes. The programs I write for work certainly aren't faith based. When it comes to religion, though, I go off of what best meshes with my experiences.
I only just watched this episode last week as ABC is doing a episode a day of at least the last 2-3 seasons of Dr Who in the leadup to the new special next week...
Ah, sorry, I go the name wrong. Of course it was Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (much better than Snakes on a Plane, FWIW). A bit silly, but most episodes of the Doctor are.
It's really more of an inverse "no true Scotsman." There are plenty of people who claim "No true Christian believes X, because Christianity is defined [by me] as people who believe Y." But the GP's thesis was that "Different flavors of Christianity believe everything from A to Z." If you define "Christianity" broadly as "people who believe in the New Testament," you will find a great deal of variance.
Bingo! The term Christian is too broad to imply much of anything. Individual sects within Christianity may apply "no true Scotsman", each claiming to be the only true Christians.
I can speak with authority on what my sect believes, but for every doctrine you will find at least 20% of other sects will disagree on any given point. Six literal 24-hour periods in the Creation or was this a complex story expressed in a way that man could understand it way back when? Sola scriptura, or are modern prophets allowed? Is baptism required, or just an outward sign? Should baptism be by sprinkling or immersion? Was the flood truly universal - covering all dry land on the planet, or was it a localized flood just covering that land (a la Atlantis)? Did the flood last a literal forty days and forty nights, or is this a case where the Jews used the number forty to mean "a lot"?
For what it's worth, my sect believes that all animals have souls.
[1] Ref 1989 - Confraternity of Christian Doctrine class - incidentally the very topic that convinced me finally that "they just made all this up", and convinced me, much to my mother's dismay, that I was done with CCD and religion.
No single person or organization speaks for all of Christianity. There are thousands of sects divided into hundreds of denominations. And why is Christianity divided? Because they don't agree on how to interpret the Scriptures.
My insurance company offers this, but my broker told me it wouldn't help in my case. I commute 26 miles each way to work, and this "safe driver program" is graduated based on average mileage per month. Because I drive 1000 miles a month (to say nothing of weekend trips) even with perfect driving wouldn't even save a dollar a month. I also live and commute in an area with a large urban deer population. The deer appear out of nowhere and enter the roadway unexpectedly. This leads to many abrupt stops and quick swerves. These monitoring devices just know what the car tells them, not the external circumstances. This is even before I object to it over privacy rights.
I don't want a record of everywhere I drive. If the insurance company stores this data, it is likely that law enforcement (including the alphabet soup) will have access to it. Will I be marked a person of interest because I ate at a Pakistani restaurant? Will I be targeted because I frequent the state liquor store (I enjoy cooking with wine, but don't drink)? I have a big yard, so I go to a nursery and buy fertilizer on a regular basis - am I threat? Do I want the government to know that I visit with non-citizens on a daily basis?
How long until this voluntary participation becomes mandatory?
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If the god is so impotent that mere personal electronics can cause him not to be heard, he might not be worth listening to.
It's not a matter of God not being heard, but of people not listening or paying attention. My sect has a hymn entitled Know this, that every soul is free. God will not force anyone to heaven, nor will he force anyone to hell; YOU choose where you'll be. Of course, if you can't disconnect for a few minutes a day, you might not be worth having as a follower.
A. For it's part, it's not about safety - so, what is it about? A publicity stunt?
It's about giving the consumer what they want. If using non-genetically-modified corn for their cornstarch and corn syrup doesn't cost (much) more and improves the company's image, then go for it.
So, General Mills is switching the cornstarch and sugar, so that they don't come from GMO'd crops. Great.
There is noi DNA, nor protein, nor anything that might be GMOed in either cornstarch or sugar. So much for the big change; it's an absolute unevent.
Corn starch comes from corn. There is GM corn available (most notably Monsanto's RoundUp resistant stuff). Does Cheerios use corn syrup for its sweeteners?
I've spent time in a Mormon cult, worshipped in the great religions of old, evangelize as a Latter Day Saint, and even spend significant time as one of those Pagans we all love to hate.
Most Mormon sects can't be classified as cults; only some of the Fundamentalists meet the accepted criteria. The two largest sects of the Mormon denomination are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often abbreviated LDS) and The Community of Christ (formerly The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, abbreviated RLDS). Since you mention belonging to a Mormon cult and evangelizing as a Latter Day Saint, does that mean you were FLDS at one point and LDS at another? I don't see many Fundamentalist Mormons entering into maintream Mormonism.
Why the need for "registered couples?"
If a group of two or more people want to enter some kind of legal relationship they can voluntarily sign a contract which defines the rules by which they will operate and how the relationship will one day be severed. These contracts could even be standardized - the way real estate contracts often are.
People already can and do have kids and own property jointly without a contract, so the law would still have to handle those situations.
A couple needs to register to give their relationship / partnership legal standing. Indeed, it may be as simple as signing a contract with a notary public (verification that both parties enter the relationship willingly and understand the terms of the contract). Even the contracts we sign to buy real estate or cars are registered with the government.
I think the point, though I'm not the original poster, is that marriage can and arguably should be separated from the legal rights of 'registered couples'. For example, if two close friends or siblings live together in later life then why should they be unable to share pensions etc just because their relationship never included physical attraction.
Churches, synagogues etc could still hold marriage ceremonies as could not religious institutions but a government official would register the couple as part of that process.
Utah has a Civil Unions. Any two consenting adults may register with the state to receive the same legal benefits of being legally married. The very cases you mention (close friends or relatives) were key in drafting this legislation. Conversely, Utah's Constitution defines marriage as being between one man and one woman (one condition of statehood was explicitly not recognizing polygamy).
I fear that my sect (and others) may be in legal jeopardy if they don't perform religious marriage ceremonies for those who don't fit the sect's definition. In case you think this is in jest, remember that in the 1970s the federal government was considering taking possession of the LdS Church's assets because Blacks were (generally) not given the Priesthood.
There is very little that the Government needs to regulate when it comes to marriage, and most of that we would think is common sense. The only two to be concerned with are that the couple must be far enough away in the blood line that their kids are not born with defects, and limit the quantity of husbands and wives to ensure society can progress.
Church handles most of that regulation so that the Government does not have to (with Judea Christian's at least/minus Mormons).
"Mormon" is a broad term which can be applied to over 150 sects within the denomination. The largest sect, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stopped sanctioning new polygamous marriages in 1890. The second largest sect, The Community of Christ, never sanctioned polygamous marriages. Most other sects have also stopped the practice (the largest counter-example being the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Please don't confuse mainstream Mormonism with the small splinter groups.
On that note, non-printing characters should be allowed as part of a password. E.g. "12345" is a bad password. But why shouldn't we be able to use "12356[backspace][backspace]45"?
How do you enter those non-printing characters? Even some printing characters (such as [enter] or [tab]) are a beast to enter in a web form ([tab] goes to the next field; [enter] submits the form). How should the field know if a particular [backspace] is you correcting a previously entered character or part of your password? BTW, my favorite non-printing character is \0 as it messes up most string functions.
Cable only comes in at 720p. Blu-rays and game consoles are 1080p. For 4k I'd have to go buy all new movies and a 4k player...and that's not even including how close I'd need to be to the TV to see the difference.
Sony and Panasonic are working on a new physical disc, as is the Blu-ray Disc Association. HDMI 2.0 supports 4k resolution at 60fps, 30 channels of audio, etc. I would wait for these standards to mature - I don't want to suffer the same "HDTV ready" fiasco from yesteryear.
Wash the food, not the bag. If you assume food is clean at time of purchase, you're woefully ignorant.
So, does your local grocer provide a sink for you to wash the produce before bagging it?
We obviously wash produce before eating it, but if the bag doesn't get washed it serves as a potential vector for cross-contamination. Many chefs even have separate cutting boards for meat, poultry, and vegetables.
It is a bit weird if you think about it, to just keep using plastic bags when you could take your own. I wonder who started the whole deal.
I have 2 reusable bags, but I almost always forget to take them with me anywhere. I used one last week, but that was the first time in months. Keeping one in the car would probably be a good start.
I seem to remember a report from a few months back how people forget to wash these reusable bags, so they would inadvertently contaminate their purchases. If this wasn't ./ I would do an actual Google for the citation.
Right. SInce when has the smell of something been illegal? And how the fuck would I know what marijuana smells, it's illegal and I haven't had any contact with it whatsoever. Yeah the car I bought had a funny smell, but should I know what some forbidden substance smells like?
I bet the driver had pockets also. Hidden compartments for transferring crack right there!
Every month the Honolulu Police Department would raid the Ko'olau Mountains looking for pakalolo farms and burn the crops at the Kahuku station (which is separated from Kahuku High School by a chain link fence) during school hours. We *ALL* know what marijuana smells like.
"Then again, we have another law that lets women go topless on hot days." You need a law that let you do things? That is scary.
In most places, a topless woman would be classified as "indecent exposure", except in cases of breast feeding.
Manioc (also known as cassava) is NOT a variety of sweet potato.
D'oh! I fell victim to the cursed typo
Absolutely! I'm in my 50s, and I've taken antibiotics twice, both preventative after dental work. Cuts and scrapes get soap and bandages.
Doesn't your soup contain antibiotics? If your soap doesn't kill microbes, what good is it?
Plus how the hell is falling out of a tree any less dangerous than being in a car crash? I'd rather be surrounded by steel and air-bags if something hard is going to be slammed into my body.. uh, well, that sounded a bit wrong, but whatever.
People generally only fall a few feet from a tree - not nearly high enough to gain the velocities experienced during most injury-causing automobile crashes.
Most religious and spiritual matters can't be empirically or objectively measured. In the Hawaiian mythos, the soul is called "ha" (the breath of life). This is the same "ha" found in the words "Hawaii" (breath of life in the waters), "aloha" (may the divine breathe a blessing upon thy face), and "haoli" (without breath / without a soul). The Book of Genesis says that God gave Adam the breath of life, and he (Adam) became a living soul. I'm not sure we could come up with a definition of soul that all Christians would agree upon. It is a fuzzy concept which normally includes the non-tangible part of ourselves (such as personality, knowledge, ethics) which survives after the physical body dies. How can you objectively measure that? How could you set up an experiment using the scientific method (reproducibility is paramount) to see if humans and / or animals have such a soul? I use science for other parts of my life. I research the best dietary supplements, cars, computers, even the best cloth for my clothes. The programs I write for work certainly aren't faith based. When it comes to religion, though, I go off of what best meshes with my experiences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs_on_a_Spaceship
I only just watched this episode last week as ABC is doing a episode a day of at least the last 2-3 seasons of Dr Who in the leadup to the new special next week...
Ah, sorry, I go the name wrong. Of course it was Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (much better than Snakes on a Plane, FWIW). A bit silly, but most episodes of the Doctor are.
It's really more of an inverse "no true Scotsman." There are plenty of people who claim "No true Christian believes X, because Christianity is defined [by me] as people who believe Y." But the GP's thesis was that "Different flavors of Christianity believe everything from A to Z." If you define "Christianity" broadly as "people who believe in the New Testament," you will find a great deal of variance.
Bingo! The term Christian is too broad to imply much of anything. Individual sects within Christianity may apply "no true Scotsman", each claiming to be the only true Christians.
I can speak with authority on what my sect believes, but for every doctrine you will find at least 20% of other sects will disagree on any given point. Six literal 24-hour periods in the Creation or was this a complex story expressed in a way that man could understand it way back when? Sola scriptura, or are modern prophets allowed? Is baptism required, or just an outward sign? Should baptism be by sprinkling or immersion? Was the flood truly universal - covering all dry land on the planet, or was it a localized flood just covering that land (a la Atlantis)? Did the flood last a literal forty days and forty nights, or is this a case where the Jews used the number forty to mean "a lot"?
For what it's worth, my sect believes that all animals have souls.
There was actually a Doctor Who episode about Dinosaurs in Space.
Nuh uh. Animals don't have souls[1]
[1] Ref 1989 - Confraternity of Christian Doctrine class - incidentally the very topic that convinced me finally that "they just made all this up", and convinced me, much to my mother's dismay, that I was done with CCD and religion.
No single person or organization speaks for all of Christianity. There are thousands of sects divided into hundreds of denominations. And why is Christianity divided? Because they don't agree on how to interpret the Scriptures.
What does a cooled, frozen dessert-like Mars taste like?
Battered and deep-fried Mars is much better.
What was used to _build_ maven?
My guess would be Hudson was somehow involved.
My insurance company offers this, but my broker told me it wouldn't help in my case. I commute 26 miles each way to work, and this "safe driver program" is graduated based on average mileage per month. Because I drive 1000 miles a month (to say nothing of weekend trips) even with perfect driving wouldn't even save a dollar a month. I also live and commute in an area with a large urban deer population. The deer appear out of nowhere and enter the roadway unexpectedly. This leads to many abrupt stops and quick swerves. These monitoring devices just know what the car tells them, not the external circumstances. This is even before I object to it over privacy rights. I don't want a record of everywhere I drive. If the insurance company stores this data, it is likely that law enforcement (including the alphabet soup) will have access to it. Will I be marked a person of interest because I ate at a Pakistani restaurant? Will I be targeted because I frequent the state liquor store (I enjoy cooking with wine, but don't drink)? I have a big yard, so I go to a nursery and buy fertilizer on a regular basis - am I threat? Do I want the government to know that I visit with non-citizens on a daily basis? How long until this voluntary participation becomes mandatory?