A belief is not something which is not understood. A belief is a fabricated reason (with limited, inconclusive evidence if any to support it) that attempts to explain that which is not understood. Scientists call beliefs "hypothesis", and test them until they are either disproven, or until they have done their best to disprove the hypothesis but to no avail.
The irony of everything you say is starting to grate. Do you think you are the only person who truly understands the universe or something? Why are you attempting to even have a debate if you think that applying logical methods to aid learning is no more valid than simply making shit up?
I don't have a belief in god, but neither do I have a belief in no god. It is absurd to hold either belief if there is no compelling evidence for either case. Some individuals take their own limited experience as evidence, and I can understand such superstitious ways of thinking, but anecdotal evidence is often either misinformed or plain old deceit.
You asked if I've read the bible, and yes I've read it twice through completely, as well as hearing thousands of sermons on more specific passages. The bible doesn't say lambs are god, it just describes Jesus as the "lamb of god" metaphorically. I find it tiresome when people try to link different religions together as if they're compatible. Perhaps some are, but the Abramic religions are not compatible with any other, as they claim only one true god.
I was a protestant when I was a Christian, didn't recognize the authority of the Vatican, I have always thought of them in the same way that I think of all religions where people try to change religious teachings to suit themselves.
I get what you're saying about scientists being personally guilty of the same as religious types, and certain theoretical areas such as string theory and quantum mechanics will be especially bad for that I'd think, but the point is that there is a big difference between someone who is truly seeking for truth and being open minded, and someone whow will just accept any answer as long as it agrees with what they want to hear. There are religious people who actually have the balls to question their god and their beliefs (I was one), and there are scientists who are happy with results from poorly designed experiments as long as they match the hoped for conclusion - but I definitely think real lovers of science and learning are far more likely to be open to new ideas and "beliefs" than devout Christians or Muslims for example.
And you seem to have forgotten about indie games. Look at Xbox Live Arcade, the PSN store, Steam, etc. Plenty of small games companies are doing fine, and making high quality games. It's not all about big budgets. It has always been getting easier and easier for amateurs to make high quality 3D graphics on PC, and while consoles aren't quite the same as they often require coding graphics libraries from scratch, it will be very possible for small games studios to keep making decent games.
You also seem to be entirely ignoring Android.. I wouldn't let myself get too locked into iOS if I were you.
Look at big movies compared to kids TV shows if you want simple analogy of PC/console gaming to iPhone gaming. They both have massively different budgets and target markets, and they both can coexist.
Um. I have Angry Birds (ad supported only on Android for some reason, I'd pay 50p or whatever for it). I also have a PS3, an Xbox 360, and a Wii (which I got bored of and gave to my little sister years ago). Angry Birds isn't replacing my blu-rays and big budget games, it only supplements them.
They are not competing. There is a small amount of overlap (especially on tablets), but games on phones do not compete with the PS3 and Xbox any more than the DS and PSP compete with them.
Consoles have always been worse than PC hardware, and they still aren't dead.
I've read, and it's been my experience, that you get more mod points if you're only a moderate poster, rather than someone who visits/posts frequently, or rarely visits at all.
Yes, the concept of religion is open and I understand why it changes, I'm just saying for the actual believers of a religion to try to worm their way around certain obvious teachings in their bible seems dishonest to me. I know why they still all change anyway - because they're not based on any real god.
Women in the church of England and gay marriage are two of the main things I'd think about in this regard, yes.
Honestly, I completely agree with everything you're saying, and you're not telling me anything I don't already know - I've experienced the things you're talking about firsthand, read up about brainwashing and seen how all of this kind of thing is going on all over the world, in religion, sports, schools, Slashdot, etc. I'm not sure why it seems like you're trying to argue with me:P
We covered some set theory at Uni, and I get the concept of triangulation, though I don't know about their history. I'm not saying that science isn't built upon the past, but I'm saying that the concepts in science mean that nothing is sacred. Certain people may treat them as such, as is the human way, but within a generation or two then people will have accepted new ideas if they are well supported. When it comes to religion, sacred is (or at least, should be if the practitioners are being honest with themselves) sacred.
I figured out one day that the reason I always thought Windows felt so flaky compared to for example Amiga OS was due to the awful window rendering.. you got flickery tearing if you tried to move a window around quickly. Also even Windows 7 looks like shit next to Ubuntu, due to what I presume is a lack of anti-aliasing in the fonts and other interface elements. Even at high resolutions it just looks tacky.
What do you mean about the messaging? My Dell Streak has been used a lot more for texting, web browsing , ebook reading and youtube than it has as a phone. Likewise my Xoom doesn't even have anything but wifi.. Android is no more a phone OS than iOS is.
Christianity at least isn't meant to be adaptive. It does happen, but my point is that messing with the basic teachings of your religion is desperation and spitting in the face of your supposed god, whereas science has no such ties to the past or to any supposed universal truth or meaning. It is just a description of things as they are observed. Religion tries to mold the Universe to itself, rather than vice versa.
If any of the Abramic religions were true, then its teachings would be perfect, because they're supposedly divinely inspired. You think an all powerful god would be happy with their prophet getting things wrong? Sure.
At home I have entirely switched (actually right now I'm typing this on an Android tablet), and for say 85% of my work I've switched (pimarily web apps right now), but I still have to deal with Windows servers and users from time to time, and occasional Windows app development..
MS do seem to be heading towards irrelevancy though, which also helps mellow the hate slightly. Ever since Firefox gained popularity, things have been heading cross-platform:) Apple are helping out too, but they're even more restrictive than MS. At least their software works, and they have really inspired the mobile space, but I don't think I'll be buying any of their toys for a while.
The thing with churches and presumably other religious groups is that they also can split even (especially?) when they're small and fanatic. Likewise, large online communities like Slashdot sometimes change my opinion to be more balanced. I actually used to hate Microsoft more until I came here, believe it or not! Though I grew to enjoy Linux more too and ended up switching to it as my primary OS. Slashdot discussions also helped me to reliase that my own religion was a lie by having input from many reasonable (as well as unreasonable) agnostics, Buddhists etc. The internet can spread love just as well as hate. It's bigger and more publicly fanatic, but I don't think it only amplifies negatives.
I'm actually agnostic. And it's not unrelated at all, I was giving an example of how this type of thinking has been around for thousands of years. Yet again, just because it's on a computer some people are claiming it's different.
Not sure if your statement is meant to be insulting or a joke, but: tweaking around supposedly infallible (ie divinely inspired) texts is just moronic. I believed that while I was religious too btw. The difference is that scientific models are intended to be replaced as soon as something better (more accurate) comes along. It's good sense, and it has been very useful. The concept of god(s) can be useful in certain situations, but overall I seriously think we're better off without it by now.
Considering the majority of people seem to be religious or at least vaguely superstitious, it's the non-deluded ones that aren't "normal".. so I don't actually see any authority trying to fix the situation anytime soon!
I think a better ethos would be "if I don't try to make the world better for myself, I can't count on anyone else to do it".
"There is a God. I'm not Him." is a good way of keeping people like me just sitting around waiting for life to change without actually putting any effort in. I'm glad that I changed my attitude.
Hehe. Part of me wants to pick out things that aren't in line with what the bible says, but seeing as I don't believe in it any more, there's no point:P
Their "God" is basically nothing but an abusive prick anyways and yet they keep on worshiping.
Yes. I came to that conclusion while I still believed in god, decided that even if he did exist I wouldn't worship him. According to the bible he has complete and predetermined control over the situation, our genetic make-up and so forth, and therefore he is responsible for the choices we made and make. Punishing billions of souls eternally for such things is daft. It really smacks of some shit that some guys made up to make themselves seem superior to everyone else.
Basically: I think any religion that has a similar concept to hell for non-believers has to either be a bunch of bull, or the god is such a prick that he's not worth worshipping.
Hehe:) In that case it means I've shifted my faith from Christianity to Parkour, which isn't even a religion! I've said before that I take my beliefs very seriously, even when I don't have any. My brother has pointed out that anything I do, I do it "enthusiastically". I try to be more open minded these days about the human mind, and understand how brainwashing/cultural/social conditioning affects people. It's impossible to be truly objective, but I try to be aware of the idea that there are different points of view, and different ways of thinking, etc. I've even experience the change from one way of thinking to another myself, so it's easier to be sympathetic of religious types, but I still find closed minded ways of thinking very tiresome and frustrating at times.
I'm not sure that splitting people into "true believers" and not-"true believers" is that useful. I think that every human has ingrained conditioning that can only be changed by the basic pathways of brainwashing (for example I even consider Slashdot to be slowly brainwashing me to its general groupthink values of humour and geekiness), which are indeed more open when someone is having a personal crisis. It happened to me, though it wasn't quite a "Road to Damascus" type epiphany, it took months of painful self examination and questioning the meaning of existence and all that crap.
Of course the idea that a god existing makes anything more meaningful is also pretty funny if you think about it.
What would then be the "reason" for that god existing for example?
In the end there is no meaning other than what you create for yourself. Most find it easier to copy their meanings from others - and the larger a group is, the more convincing their meanings appear..
Slashdot Mirror
Mostly water, with a bit of protein and gristle thrown in.
I love to climb trees, rocks and walls. I spend on average 10 hours a week doing Parkour. I also like bacon, it's tasty.
That doesn't mean I don't value logic however. If logic were not valid, you wouldn't be using a working computer right now.
Scientists didn't invent chainsaws, a Doctor did..
You are just as brainwashed as the rest of us, though apparently also quite misinformed and opinionated. Not a good combination.
A belief is not something which is not understood. A belief is a fabricated reason (with limited, inconclusive evidence if any to support it) that attempts to explain that which is not understood. Scientists call beliefs "hypothesis", and test them until they are either disproven, or until they have done their best to disprove the hypothesis but to no avail.
The irony of everything you say is starting to grate. Do you think you are the only person who truly understands the universe or something? Why are you attempting to even have a debate if you think that applying logical methods to aid learning is no more valid than simply making shit up?
I don't have a belief in god, but neither do I have a belief in no god. It is absurd to hold either belief if there is no compelling evidence for either case. Some individuals take their own limited experience as evidence, and I can understand such superstitious ways of thinking, but anecdotal evidence is often either misinformed or plain old deceit.
You asked if I've read the bible, and yes I've read it twice through completely, as well as hearing thousands of sermons on more specific passages. The bible doesn't say lambs are god, it just describes Jesus as the "lamb of god" metaphorically. I find it tiresome when people try to link different religions together as if they're compatible. Perhaps some are, but the Abramic religions are not compatible with any other, as they claim only one true god.
I was a protestant when I was a Christian, didn't recognize the authority of the Vatican, I have always thought of them in the same way that I think of all religions where people try to change religious teachings to suit themselves.
I get what you're saying about scientists being personally guilty of the same as religious types, and certain theoretical areas such as string theory and quantum mechanics will be especially bad for that I'd think, but the point is that there is a big difference between someone who is truly seeking for truth and being open minded, and someone whow will just accept any answer as long as it agrees with what they want to hear. There are religious people who actually have the balls to question their god and their beliefs (I was one), and there are scientists who are happy with results from poorly designed experiments as long as they match the hoped for conclusion - but I definitely think real lovers of science and learning are far more likely to be open to new ideas and "beliefs" than devout Christians or Muslims for example.
And you seem to have forgotten about indie games. Look at Xbox Live Arcade, the PSN store, Steam, etc. Plenty of small games companies are doing fine, and making high quality games. It's not all about big budgets. It has always been getting easier and easier for amateurs to make high quality 3D graphics on PC, and while consoles aren't quite the same as they often require coding graphics libraries from scratch, it will be very possible for small games studios to keep making decent games.
You also seem to be entirely ignoring Android.. I wouldn't let myself get too locked into iOS if I were you.
Look at big movies compared to kids TV shows if you want simple analogy of PC/console gaming to iPhone gaming. They both have massively different budgets and target markets, and they both can coexist.
Yeesh, you seem to be quite out of the loop! It feels like it happened in the last 6 months, but apparently it was in 2009.
Um. I have Angry Birds (ad supported only on Android for some reason, I'd pay 50p or whatever for it). I also have a PS3, an Xbox 360, and a Wii (which I got bored of and gave to my little sister years ago). Angry Birds isn't replacing my blu-rays and big budget games, it only supplements them.
They are not competing. There is a small amount of overlap (especially on tablets), but games on phones do not compete with the PS3 and Xbox any more than the DS and PSP compete with them.
Consoles have always been worse than PC hardware, and they still aren't dead.
I've read, and it's been my experience, that you get more mod points if you're only a moderate poster, rather than someone who visits/posts frequently, or rarely visits at all.
instead the camera is designed for medical endoscopic procedures in hard to reach regions of the human anatomy.
By that they really just mean "up-skirt" shots.
Yes, the concept of religion is open and I understand why it changes, I'm just saying for the actual believers of a religion to try to worm their way around certain obvious teachings in their bible seems dishonest to me. I know why they still all change anyway - because they're not based on any real god.
Women in the church of England and gay marriage are two of the main things I'd think about in this regard, yes.
Honestly, I completely agree with everything you're saying, and you're not telling me anything I don't already know - I've experienced the things you're talking about firsthand, read up about brainwashing and seen how all of this kind of thing is going on all over the world, in religion, sports, schools, Slashdot, etc. I'm not sure why it seems like you're trying to argue with me :P
We covered some set theory at Uni, and I get the concept of triangulation, though I don't know about their history. I'm not saying that science isn't built upon the past, but I'm saying that the concepts in science mean that nothing is sacred. Certain people may treat them as such, as is the human way, but within a generation or two then people will have accepted new ideas if they are well supported. When it comes to religion, sacred is (or at least, should be if the practitioners are being honest with themselves) sacred.
I figured out one day that the reason I always thought Windows felt so flaky compared to for example Amiga OS was due to the awful window rendering.. you got flickery tearing if you tried to move a window around quickly. Also even Windows 7 looks like shit next to Ubuntu, due to what I presume is a lack of anti-aliasing in the fonts and other interface elements. Even at high resolutions it just looks tacky.
What do you mean about the messaging? My Dell Streak has been used a lot more for texting, web browsing , ebook reading and youtube than it has as a phone. Likewise my Xoom doesn't even have anything but wifi.. Android is no more a phone OS than iOS is.
Christianity at least isn't meant to be adaptive. It does happen, but my point is that messing with the basic teachings of your religion is desperation and spitting in the face of your supposed god, whereas science has no such ties to the past or to any supposed universal truth or meaning. It is just a description of things as they are observed. Religion tries to mold the Universe to itself, rather than vice versa.
If any of the Abramic religions were true, then its teachings would be perfect, because they're supposedly divinely inspired. You think an all powerful god would be happy with their prophet getting things wrong? Sure.
At home I have entirely switched (actually right now I'm typing this on an Android tablet), and for say 85% of my work I've switched (pimarily web apps right now), but I still have to deal with Windows servers and users from time to time, and occasional Windows app development..
MS do seem to be heading towards irrelevancy though, which also helps mellow the hate slightly. Ever since Firefox gained popularity, things have been heading cross-platform :) Apple are helping out too, but they're even more restrictive than MS. At least their software works, and they have really inspired the mobile space, but I don't think I'll be buying any of their toys for a while.
Yeah, don't think this guy has actually kissed a girl yet!
As a bonus, the YouTube ads I got were for home STD testing kits. When they make a real kissing sim, those ads will start to become irrelevant!
The thing with churches and presumably other religious groups is that they also can split even (especially?) when they're small and fanatic. Likewise, large online communities like Slashdot sometimes change my opinion to be more balanced. I actually used to hate Microsoft more until I came here, believe it or not! Though I grew to enjoy Linux more too and ended up switching to it as my primary OS. Slashdot discussions also helped me to reliase that my own religion was a lie by having input from many reasonable (as well as unreasonable) agnostics, Buddhists etc. The internet can spread love just as well as hate. It's bigger and more publicly fanatic, but I don't think it only amplifies negatives.
I'm actually agnostic. And it's not unrelated at all, I was giving an example of how this type of thinking has been around for thousands of years. Yet again, just because it's on a computer some people are claiming it's different.
Not sure if your statement is meant to be insulting or a joke, but: tweaking around supposedly infallible (ie divinely inspired) texts is just moronic. I believed that while I was religious too btw. The difference is that scientific models are intended to be replaced as soon as something better (more accurate) comes along. It's good sense, and it has been very useful. The concept of god(s) can be useful in certain situations, but overall I seriously think we're better off without it by now.
Considering the majority of people seem to be religious or at least vaguely superstitious, it's the non-deluded ones that aren't "normal".. so I don't actually see any authority trying to fix the situation anytime soon!
it works the same in each case, and depends on surrounding yourself with people who suckle at the same tit.
Yeah, that doesn't sound right. I demand at least two tits per man.
I think a better ethos would be "if I don't try to make the world better for myself, I can't count on anyone else to do it".
"There is a God. I'm not Him." is a good way of keeping people like me just sitting around waiting for life to change without actually putting any effort in. I'm glad that I changed my attitude.
Hehe. Part of me wants to pick out things that aren't in line with what the bible says, but seeing as I don't believe in it any more, there's no point :P
Their "God" is basically nothing but an abusive prick anyways and yet they keep on worshiping.
Yes. I came to that conclusion while I still believed in god, decided that even if he did exist I wouldn't worship him. According to the bible he has complete and predetermined control over the situation, our genetic make-up and so forth, and therefore he is responsible for the choices we made and make. Punishing billions of souls eternally for such things is daft. It really smacks of some shit that some guys made up to make themselves seem superior to everyone else.
Basically: I think any religion that has a similar concept to hell for non-believers has to either be a bunch of bull, or the god is such a prick that he's not worth worshipping.
Hehe :) In that case it means I've shifted my faith from Christianity to Parkour, which isn't even a religion! I've said before that I take my beliefs very seriously, even when I don't have any. My brother has pointed out that anything I do, I do it "enthusiastically". I try to be more open minded these days about the human mind, and understand how brainwashing/cultural/social conditioning affects people. It's impossible to be truly objective, but I try to be aware of the idea that there are different points of view, and different ways of thinking, etc. I've even experience the change from one way of thinking to another myself, so it's easier to be sympathetic of religious types, but I still find closed minded ways of thinking very tiresome and frustrating at times.
I'm not sure that splitting people into "true believers" and not-"true believers" is that useful. I think that every human has ingrained conditioning that can only be changed by the basic pathways of brainwashing (for example I even consider Slashdot to be slowly brainwashing me to its general groupthink values of humour and geekiness), which are indeed more open when someone is having a personal crisis. It happened to me, though it wasn't quite a "Road to Damascus" type epiphany, it took months of painful self examination and questioning the meaning of existence and all that crap.
Of course the idea that a god existing makes anything more meaningful is also pretty funny if you think about it.
What would then be the "reason" for that god existing for example?
In the end there is no meaning other than what you create for yourself. Most find it easier to copy their meanings from others - and the larger a group is, the more convincing their meanings appear..