Either GWB is a religious fanatic, or he's not. If he is, wouldn't you think he'd WANT a theocracy?
Not to say that GWB is a religious fanatic (although I personally think he is) but isn't it extremely obvious that religious fanatics want theocracies of their own religion and oppose theocracies of other religions? If Iraq becomes a theocracy it won't be a christian one.
Seems like physical security is the only way to be truly certain that your webcam isn't spying on you. Unplug it or cover it up or something when it isn't in use.
I wonder how long it'll be before web sites start popping up with unauthorized videos from hijacked webcams.
Distributing the code consitutes accepting a consideration: the consideration is a license from the copyright holder for that distribution. So if the conditions attached to the license say "distributing this code consitutes acceptance of these conditions" and you distribute the code, you're committed. For example, if the license said, "by distributing this code, you agree to pay me $10 per copy downloaded," you could be sued for the $10 per copy.
You either commit to accepting the conditions or you admit to violating copyright law, the consequences of which are generally more severe than accepting the license. But you do have the option of saying that you don't accept the license and are intentionally violating copyright law. Of course you also have the option of just shooting yourself in the head, which has much the same effect but is both faster and cheaper.:)
As Moglen argues, the beauty of GPL (and the other licenses mentioned) is that it does not depend on this acceptance. If you accept it, you have to obey the conditions. If you don't accept it, distribution is illegal because you have no license at all. However you slice it (accepted or not accepted) it is illegal to distribute without obeying the conditions.
Exactly. Distributing it does not indicate acceptance of a license; it just means that if you didn't accept the license then you're really really screwed. Which is why companies, when pressed, accept the license. As SCO most likely will in response to this move by IBM. They'll be forced to assert the validity of the GPL in court to save themselves from being found guilty of copyright violations. Can't wait to see how Darl spins that.
Since distributing the code indicates acceptance of the license, it doesn't matter what comes out of your mouth. The action of distribution trumps your statements. It's like me saying I did not type this sentence.
I don't see how distributing code automatically indicates acceptance of a particular license to do so. After all, Perl is licensed under both the GPL and the Artistic License. If I distribute it without supplying a specific license document, which license am I automatically accepting? Both? In SCO's case, however, they do appear to be complying with the GPL (despite their arguments about it) so they may be able to argue that the Judge should ignore what comes out of their lawyer's mouths. I'm not sure what effect that would have on their other cases though.:)
If you distribute code, you are indicating that you accept the license. Can you later reject the license, and if so does your continued distribution constitute a violation of copyright?
Good question. I would think (in my useless not-a-lawyer opinion) that you could reject the GPL at any time. Howver if you did then you would not be able to continue distributing GPL'd code but you would also not be able to revoke the GPL on any modified code that you distributed during the time that you had accepted the license. I have no idea if a judge would agree with that though.
Whatever man. It's a license. If the GPL is invalid then all software licenses are invalid including the EULAS.
I doubt that the courts would agree with this. The invalidation of one type of license does not automatically invalidate all licenses. And the GPL is extremely different from EULAs. The GPL deals solely with granting permissions for activities that are prohibited by copyright law. EULAs generally involve placing restrictions on activities (not involving copyright) that are otherwise legal.
EULAS because they restrict use as well as ban redistribution are more restrictive then the GPL. There is no way any court is going to declare the GPL to be invalid while holding any old EULA to be valid.
There's no way the court is going to declare the GPL invalid at all, as copyright holders have the legal right to grant permission for people to distribute or modify their copyrighted works. But the rise or fall of the GPL will have no effect on EULAs.
Just because SCO claim something, doesn't make it true. I thought we all knew that by now... The GPL will stay valid, and SCO will have the right to distribute GPL'ed software, until they manage to convince a judge it isn't valid after all.
Indeed, and there is no reason to believe that the GPL is invalid at all. I think IBM's argument is that SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid constitutes SCO's personal rejection of it and therefore deprives them of any right to distribute the code.
haha, i'm no bible thumper, those are just the ones i could remember off the top of my head.
Yep... they're the ones that leap to mind when one thinks about the commandments. I suspect that this is because they're the ones that the people who are bible thumpers talk about the most. After all, they wouldn't want the commandments to seem at all unreasonable, would they?:)
Have YOU ever read the bible? Ever read leviticus? Believe me there is very little ambiguity as to what is to be done and not done.
Absolutely! I love Leviticus. It's a great book for pointing out how comically ridiculous the bible is.
Protestants and catholics shouldn't even be mentionned as they don't follow the bible, only the parts they pick and choose.
I've never met a christian who didn't follow just the parts of the bible that they pick and choose. Ever try to punish a christian for wearing clothing woven of two kinds of material? They get all huffy and offended! But it's right there in my old friend Leviticus and they just ignore it. Absolutely shameful. Yet many of them have no trouble quoting other parts of Leviticus and expecting people to care.
Do not confuse the bible with the slew of churches out there that have their own agenda.
The bible is just a book. It can't harm anyone directly (unless you hit them with it; it does tend to be rather thick). Churches, on the other hand, areoftenharmful.
It's pathetic how many people call themselves protestant/catholic as if it's an ethnic group and not a religion.
I suspect that to many people their religion is more important than their ethnic group. It's just a categorization and frankly I appreciate the warning.:)
Actually I really don't, as you'll see below. It's interesting, incidentally, that you reply to this aspect of my message and not the part where I respond to the question of what imperfections exist in the Commandments. I'll assume you don't disagree with me on that.
The Bill of Rights is (mostly) a list of things the US Government is not allowed to do. Since the 10 Commandments are not written by the US Government, it is not possible for the 10 Commandments to "violate" the Constitution.
You are correct in that the Ten Commandments cannot "violate" the Constitution. You are however wrong about why. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Ten Commandments were written by primitive goat-herders in the Middle East and not the U.S. government. If some fundie Senator wrote a bill saying that "The Christian God Is The Lord Your God And You Shall Have No Gods Before Him" and this bill somehow became a law, that law would be struck down as unconstitutional. The reason that they don't matter is that if they were made mandatory, they would violate human rights. The Constitution recognizes these rights and is the mechanism by which we prevent the government from violating them. You will note that in my message I do not say that the existence of the Ten Commandments violates human rights, only that trying to make them mandatory does.
My point is that even though Christians like to believe that the Ten Commandments come from some sort of god and are therefore really really important, the fact is that they are utterly irrelevant to U.S. law. This of course was not the main point of my message.
The ethics and morals of the 10 Commandments may be different from those that inform the Constitution, indeed.
Very different, in fact. It's nice to meet someone who recognizes that fact. So many people (like ex-Judge Roy Moore) believe that the Ten Commandments are "the basis of U.S. law". It really is astonishing that anyone who'd read the Commandments and the Constitution could believe that.
But the Constitution expressly forbids the Government from preventing me from adhering to the 10 Commandments.
Of course it does. The idea of forbidding you to believe in whatever god you want is ridiculous. You can conform to the Commandments as you wish, since following them doesn't violate U.S. law. What you can't do (and what a lot of fundies want to do) is force me to follow them, or even to care about them.
The biggest imperfection, of course, is the idea that one should follow them when there's no evidence that they come from any sort of god. But let me give some specific examples (from the Catholic version of the ten). When I mention laws, I am referring to U.S. law. I am actually aware that there are one or two other countries out there.:)
I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
There are a few problems with this one. First of all, there is no proof that said god exists. Secondly, people have the right to believe in any god they want so this one is right out. Incidentally, this is contradicted by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
People have the right to express themselves as they choose, so this one is right out as well. This is also contradicted by the First Amendment.
Remember thou keep the Sabbath Day.
People have the right to do as they will, provided they do not infringe upon the rights of other people. This includes spending the sabbath day as they wish. Naturally, the law supports this.
Honor thy Father and thy Mother.
This is good advice, unless you have crappy parents. Of course, making it mandatory is a violation of a person's rights to free expression, as mentioned in that pesky First Amendment.
Thou shalt not kill.
Sounds good on the surface, although as written it's a tad vague. I mean, eating can be tricky if you can't kill plants and animals.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Well, adultery is (in general) not very nice but to forbid it is a rights violation. Naturally, the law doesn't try to do so, although it does recognize the non-niceness of adultery when it's time for a divorce.
Thou shalt not steal.
This is actually a pretty good one; I don't have any complaints about it offhand.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Lying isn't very nice either and the law does penalize it in certain circumstances. Forbidding it in all cases might be a bit much, but I won't quibble.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.
There's not much to redeem these too. Trying to control how people think is very wrong and there's really no excuse for it. The first one is also a bit sexist.
yup, the ambiguity of 'thou shalt not kill/steal/covet, etc...' gives me migraines.
Funny how 10 Commandment defenders always mention those and only those.:) You don't think the others are ambigious? "Honor thy Mother and Father". What does "honor" mean, specifically? "Keep Holy the Sabbath day?" What specifically is meant by "Keep Holy"? There is plenty of ambiguity in the Ten Commandments. Hell, Protestants and Catholics can't even agree on which commandments are the special 10.
Well of course, your email is private (although that's debatable), and Google isn't supposed to index any of it. But all the same, I don't like the concentration of easily cross-referenceable data into the hands of one company, as good as it appears to be, for various good reasons.
You won't get any arguments from me about the (U.S.) Government's attempts to pry into people's lives but I don't see how Google is any more of a danger than any other major email provider (like Yahoo or Hotmail). Google's caching of regular pages seems irrelevant.
I suppose the best bet is to use encryption. Sure if the Government focuses on you personally they'll simply throw you in jail until you give up your keys but encrypting your mail will keep it from being indexed and searched, whoever your provider is. Is GMail only accessible through a web interface or can you use pop or imap to retrieve the messages? Encrypting would be pretty pointless if you had to turn it into cleartext on their systems before you could read it.
>> After using GMail and deciding it's not for you and you delete all your mail, empty your trash, and delete your account does Google keep all that data in its index?
Well, when a website goes 404, can you keep using the Google cache?
'nuff said...
I don't see how this applies to your email. The google cache is caching public data, whereas your email is private. Naturally Google has the technical ability to cache your private email (since it's on their servers) but I'm not sure they'd be on solid legal ground. They have the same legal responsibilities as any other email provider and if Hotmail or Yahoo or your ISP doesn't make your email public there's no reason to believe that Google would.
No, you are just convincing yourself of that, cause you want a reason to believe you are right, and others are wrong...
Wrong. You are ignoring the actual issue, which is that certain relationships are rewarded by the government and other equivalent relationships are not. The Massachusetts SJC recognized this discrimination as a violation of the Massachusetts State Constitution and put an end to it. Bigots are trying to change the Constitution to promote irrational discrimination but they are failing, in part because they lack any valid argument to oppose gay marriage.
Who has said that polygamy a form of bigotry?
No, wrong... I said that banning polygamy could be considered bigotry in your loose definition of the word.
Yes, evidently I accidentally left out the word "banning". This should be pretty obvious from the context but since you're just trying to ignore my point I can understand why you pretend to be confused. The point is that no one had mentioned polygamy; you were simply trying to use it as a strawman. Your attempt fails.
For one thing, you have no idea what I believe, and I've left my own opinions out of this. For another, I'm merely pointing out the flaws in your arguments, not saying you are right or wrong on the subject.
Actually, it's extremely clear what you believe from your original message on this subject. As for your claim about pointing out flaws, you have failed to do so thus far.
Discering between homo and hetero when it comes to marriage is a FAR cry from bigotry or gender discrimination.
No it isn't. Jack has a loving relationship with someone and wants to spend the rest of his life with that person. If that person is female then he can get all sorts of benefits from the government. If that person is male he cannot. It's exactly gender-based discrimination.
Shall we say that outlawing polygamy is also bigotry, and the court needs to overturn that law right away?
Who has said that polygamy a form of bigotry? Why are you so desperate to change the subject? You're making a very nice strawman but it isn't particularly convincing.
Obviously, this issues are a bit subjective, and people let their own opinions slip into it far too much. It's hard to get people to have perspective on these types of issues.
I get the impression that you are defining "having perspective" as "agreeing with you". My perspective on the court's decision is based on the fact that the unconstitutionality of the discrimination involved is extremely obvious. My perspective on the idea of amending the constitution is based on the fact that no one has made anything close to a reasonable argument against gay marriage. What is your perspective based on?
The Judiciary is supposed to only change those things which are in conflict with the consitutional rights of the people (specifically, the minority). They've overstepped that in some cases (Gay marriage?) but as far as I know, there isn't actually a solution to that problem, except for Congress making an amendment for every issue handled poorly by the Judiciary. That's something which will be hashed out in the near/intermediate future, I'm sure.
Actually the courts step in to protect the constitutional rights of everyone, not just the minority. Often it's the majority whose rights are being stomped on by a minority (corporations). In the case of gay marriage, the Judiciary handled the situation correctly; the Massachusetts State Constitution is extremely clear on the subject of gender discrimination. As for amendments, I don't think Congress will have as much luck writing bigotry into the Constitution as they'd hope.
The Executive branch is only minorly involved, officially. However, unoffically, the Executive can put a lot of political pressure in the right places, and get most anything done. The ability to pardon convicts, sign executive orders, and decide where the money goes, is pretty significant.
Of course, the Executive's ability to put poligical pressure on Congress is improved when the same party controls both branches. The Executive's other abilities are less dependent on that, however.
Well, that's a lot longer than I was planning on. Anyhow, all 3 branches are supposed to be well informed, and have the power to change unfair laws.
Yes, the famous "checks and balances". Unfortunately the only "checks and balances" that politicians care about these days are associated with their bank accounts.
Yeah, the open source mentality at work - on day zero fo a vulnerability announcement, designate those offering free public computing as a "lame free-shell provider", and take them down, together with the users who depend on them.
This isn't the open source mentality and it's dishonest of you to claim it is. The following quote from the article:
"This exploit has been reported used to take down several "lame free-shell providers" servers (this is illegal in most parts of the world and strongly discouraged)."
indicates that there have been reports that the bug is being exploited, not that open source supporters are intentionally crashing other people's boxes.
Only open source people would be stupid and nasty enough to do this sort of thing - if any software company took down its clients on purpose, they'd get seriously sued.
This is obviously untrue. Windows bugs are exploited all the time -- the people doing that are not "open source people". Why would say something so obviously incorrect in a forum where you're not likely to fool anyone?
Ironically, if you support the idea that each "day" in Genesis lasts for millions of years, God could well have been right;) (Yes, I'm joking, sort of.)
I suppose I'd have to ask what the biblical basis for that belief was.:)
To be fair, most people believe in some kind of supernatural mythology, and Christianity is up there as far as how many adherents each religion has. On the other hand, the number of people who believe something has zero bearing on how accurate it is, and I'm still an atheist either way.
As you say, the number of adherents to a religion has no bearing on its reality. This doesn't stop some christians from implying that it does. I find the best answer to "Well, lots of people believe in christianity" is "Most people don't." Then I usually have to explain that the U.S. is not the world.:)
Atheism is the paradoxical doctrine that implies that atheists can and have investigated the supernatural realm which they believe to not exist, and the knowledge they found as a result of their investigation of this non-existent realm is that God isn't there.
No, atheism is simply the lack of a belief in any gods. No investigation required; there's no evidence of anything to investigate. Here's a link to help you out.
However, for an athiest, it would seem that there is no purpose in life.
Nonsense. Life is what you make it. It's the only one you've got (as far as anyone can tell) so make the most of it. The only difference is that you have to find your own purpose; you can't have it given to you. This is hard, and I understand why so many people aren't up to it.
A person could do whatever they wanted to do to make themself feel good.
And it harm no one, this is the case.
It means that morals are pointless except as a means of maintaining order within society.
What other purposes do you wish them to have?
However, order within society may not be something which everyone wants. What's wrong with someone like the Unabomber trying to tear down society?
He's free to do what he wants until he infringes on the rights of others. In case you're confused, blowing people up is an infringement.
I think that the natural conclusion of athieism leads to an anarchist mindset, wherin individuals strive to break apart existing social and economic structures to rise up themselves and take a position of power while everyone else flounders in the wake of the disaster.
What possible connection is there between not believing in any god and believing that there should be no civilization? Please describe this causal link in detail because at first glance it seems, well, extremely stupid.
Just because you'd be out raping and killing if you ever stopped believing in god doesn't mean everyone would. Most people are better than that.
What you don't get is that everyone gets their morals from the same sources. Books, other people and their own reasoning. Christians think they get their morals from some sort of god, but they actually come from the bible (book), priests (people) and their own reasoning.
There is no one to say that this sort of mentality is "bad" without some absolute external standard of good and evil.
There is no absolute standard of good and evil. Get used to it.
I've never understood how athiests could view life as more important than --insert random religion here--s
No mystery here. Life is real. Religion is fantasy, and not even good fantasy. No religion has even come close to proving otherwise. Reality is if course more important than fantasy.
If we just die...and we're poof, gone, then we wouldn't know we were gone, we would be cease to exist, so would we have really lost anything??
Ah, Pascal's Wager. Not much of a reason to follow a religion, since even if you could follow them all you still wouldn't cover every possibility. And with some of those possibilities, it's better to be an atheist.
Actually, yes, I would. I would have to have faith in the fact that the world works in a certain way, and that time is linear, that other beings exist outside myself, that cause and effect exist, that my mind can in fact reason in a manner that lines up with things that happen outside my mind, etc. All of life requires faith.
That's an interesting perspective, but it's not one that everyone shares. For example, I don't. I don't have faith that time is linear. We're still learning about the precise nature of time. As for cause and effect, quantum physics experiments are providing some interesting results that bring cause and effect into doubt, at least on a very small scale.
In walking I have faith in gravity to pull me forward as I lean forward, and that my leg will have enough strength to stop me when it hits the ground. I have to believe that what I see in front of me is in fact solid and will hold my weight.
Let me assure you, gravity works just as well if you don't have faith in it, flight not withstanding. Same for solid substances (did you know they're mostly empty space?)
Life is not as logical as we would like to believe, and logic itself gets us nowhere without assuming or "having faith" in things.
Absolutely incorrect. Life is logical. People aren't. And logic gets people who use it a lot farther than faith does.
Our lives are mostly experiencial, and we have faith that what worked in the past will continue to work, but that isn't necessarily true. It is reasonable though, and is how all of us live.
It's rather dishonest to equate a reasonable expectation that things will work as they have in the past to the blind belief in a mythology that is logically contradictory and is filled with stories of events that we know didn't happen.
My car generally starts when I go to use it. I'm going out today; somehow if it doesn't start when I expect it to I don't think my worldview will implode.
How can you prove that there is no God? The Tooth Fairy can be proved to not exist, ask any parent and they will tell you that it is them, not the tooth fairy who places money under a pillow. I disproved Santa Clause as a child when I caught my parents in the act of placing preasants under the tree.
One of the big arguments christians use for saying that you can't disprove god is that you can't look at every spot in the universe to see that he isn't there. By that same "logic" you haven't proven that there's no Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus; only that they didn't visit you.
However, I have not yet seen one good proof that there is no God.
You have it backwards. The burden of proof is on the theists, not the atheists, as they are the ones making the positive assertion that something exists.
In fact, observation of the world and universe around me lead me to believe that there must be some higher being who brought all this into existence.
Care to share what specific observations lead you to believe this, and what specific chain of logic you used?
If not, it's an awefully big coincidence, and leads to the conclusion that all of life is a big accident, and my existance is purely meaningless.
I've never understood why people think that no creator means life is meaningless, so maybe you can explain it further. It seems to me that atheists, who (generally) believe that this is the only life we get, would see this life as more significant than would christians, who think that it's just the blink of an eye compared to the eternal life that follows.
A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "That fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." (Stephen Crane)
You apparently find this idea depressing. I have trouble understanding this attitude but to each his own.
This is a very depressing thought. Thus, I chose to believe that there is a God, not for a rational reason that can be proved, but because I chose to.
It's good that you admit this; would that more christians did. By this argument, you would then fully endorse the idea of people not believing in christianity if it they aren't depressed by reality. This makes you very openminded compared to a lot of christians. I salute you.
Since God operates outside of our existance, and therefore cannot be proved or disproved, belief in his existance or non-existance must be an act of faith.
Actually, I think most christians would claim that their god operates within our existence. God is everywhere and all that. It's a mistake to think that it takes faith to not believe in something, however. Not believing in things for which there is no evidence is normal procedure and you do it all the time. The list of things you don't believe in is infinite and includes things like The Great Zorgath and Legions of Evil. You just think that the christian god deserves special treatment because to think otherwise depresses you.
I don't understand why crucifixion was needed for salvation, do you?
Ooh! Ooh! I know! It wasn't. God is defined as all-powerful and can therefore save everyone from the punishment he designed just by willing it.
That's the problem I have with Christian theology. A lot of atheists that I respect are going to end up hell because of the cruel way in which Jesus discriminates. You understand this, I understand this, and if Jesus were a better person, he wouldn't have made faith a prerequisite for salvation.
I've always wondered... what happens to people who have never heard of JC? I mean, it's pretty hard to worship someone you've never heard of.
I am talking about creating the lake of fire, and sending the unfaithful there.
Yes, this does seem rather pointless. Still, god must enjoy it. After all, when you're all-powerful, only things you like and want can occur.
Slashdot Mirror
Either GWB is a religious fanatic, or he's not. If he is, wouldn't you think he'd WANT a theocracy?
Not to say that GWB is a religious fanatic (although I personally think he is) but isn't it extremely obvious that religious fanatics want theocracies of their own religion and oppose theocracies of other religions? If Iraq becomes a theocracy it won't be a christian one.
If you hurry maybe you can be first to market the personal security "Cam-Cozy."
Excuse me, I have to rush off to the USPTO to get a patent on "A Thing That Covers Other Things".
> I wonder how long it'll be before web sites start popping up with unauthorized videos from hijacked webcams.
Tuesday.
Optimist.
Seems like physical security is the only way to be truly certain that your webcam isn't spying on you. Unplug it or cover it up or something when it isn't in use.
I wonder how long it'll be before web sites start popping up with unauthorized videos from hijacked webcams.
Distributing the code consitutes accepting a consideration: the consideration is a license from the copyright holder for that distribution. So if the conditions attached to the license say "distributing this code consitutes acceptance of these conditions" and you distribute the code, you're committed. For example, if the license said, "by distributing this code, you agree to pay me $10 per copy downloaded," you could be sued for the $10 per copy.
:)
You either commit to accepting the conditions or you admit to violating copyright law, the consequences of which are generally more severe than accepting the license. But you do have the option of saying that you don't accept the license and are intentionally violating copyright law. Of course you also have the option of just shooting yourself in the head, which has much the same effect but is both faster and cheaper.
As Moglen argues, the beauty of GPL (and the other licenses mentioned) is that it does not depend on this acceptance. If you accept it, you have to obey the conditions. If you don't accept it, distribution is illegal because you have no license at all. However you slice it (accepted or not accepted) it is illegal to distribute without obeying the conditions.
Exactly. Distributing it does not indicate acceptance of a license; it just means that if you didn't accept the license then you're really really screwed. Which is why companies, when pressed, accept the license. As SCO most likely will in response to this move by IBM. They'll be forced to assert the validity of the GPL in court to save themselves from being found guilty of copyright violations. Can't wait to see how Darl spins that.
Since distributing the code indicates acceptance of the license, it doesn't matter what comes out of your mouth. The action of distribution trumps your statements. It's like me saying I did not type this sentence.
:)
I don't see how distributing code automatically indicates acceptance of a particular license to do so. After all, Perl is licensed under both the GPL and the Artistic License. If I distribute it without supplying a specific license document, which license am I automatically accepting? Both? In SCO's case, however, they do appear to be complying with the GPL (despite their arguments about it) so they may be able to argue that the Judge should ignore what comes out of their lawyer's mouths. I'm not sure what effect that would have on their other cases though.
If you distribute code, you are indicating that you accept the license. Can you later reject the license, and if so does your continued distribution constitute a violation of copyright?
Good question. I would think (in my useless not-a-lawyer opinion) that you could reject the GPL at any time. Howver if you did then you would not be able to continue distributing GPL'd code but you would also not be able to revoke the GPL on any modified code that you distributed during the time that you had accepted the license. I have no idea if a judge would agree with that though.
Whatever man. It's a license. If the GPL is invalid then all software licenses are invalid including the EULAS.
I doubt that the courts would agree with this. The invalidation of one type of license does not automatically invalidate all licenses. And the GPL is extremely different from EULAs. The GPL deals solely with granting permissions for activities that are prohibited by copyright law. EULAs generally involve placing restrictions on activities (not involving copyright) that are otherwise legal.
EULAS because they restrict use as well as ban redistribution are more restrictive then the GPL. There is no way any court is going to declare the GPL to be invalid while holding any old EULA to be valid.
There's no way the court is going to declare the GPL invalid at all, as copyright holders have the legal right to grant permission for people to distribute or modify their copyrighted works. But the rise or fall of the GPL will have no effect on EULAs.
Just because SCO claim something, doesn't make it true. I thought we all knew that by now... The GPL will stay valid, and SCO will have the right to distribute GPL'ed software, until they manage to convince a judge it isn't valid after all.
Indeed, and there is no reason to believe that the GPL is invalid at all. I think IBM's argument is that SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid constitutes SCO's personal rejection of it and therefore deprives them of any right to distribute the code.
haha, i'm no bible thumper, those are just the ones i could remember off the top of my head.
:)
:)
Yep... they're the ones that leap to mind when one thinks about the commandments. I suspect that this is because they're the ones that the people who are bible thumpers talk about the most. After all, they wouldn't want the commandments to seem at all unreasonable, would they?
Have YOU ever read the bible? Ever read leviticus? Believe me there is very little ambiguity as to what is to be done and not done.
Absolutely! I love Leviticus. It's a great book for pointing out how comically ridiculous the bible is.
Protestants and catholics shouldn't even be mentionned as they don't follow the bible, only the parts they pick and choose.
I've never met a christian who didn't follow just the parts of the bible that they pick and choose. Ever try to punish a christian for wearing clothing woven of two kinds of material? They get all huffy and offended! But it's right there in my old friend Leviticus and they just ignore it. Absolutely shameful. Yet many of them have no trouble quoting other parts of Leviticus and expecting people to care.
Do not confuse the bible with the slew of churches out there that have their own agenda.
The bible is just a book. It can't harm anyone directly (unless you hit them with it; it does tend to be rather thick). Churches, on the other hand, are often harmful.
It's pathetic how many people call themselves protestant/catholic as if it's an ethnic group and not a religion.
I suspect that to many people their religion is more important than their ethnic group. It's just a categorization and frankly I appreciate the warning.
You really misunderstand the Constitution.
Actually I really don't, as you'll see below. It's interesting, incidentally, that you reply to this aspect of my message and not the part where I respond to the question of what imperfections exist in the Commandments. I'll assume you don't disagree with me on that.
The Bill of Rights is (mostly) a list of things the US Government is not allowed to do. Since the 10 Commandments are not written by the US Government, it is not possible for the 10 Commandments to "violate" the Constitution.
You are correct in that the Ten Commandments cannot "violate" the Constitution. You are however wrong about why. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Ten Commandments were written by primitive goat-herders in the Middle East and not the U.S. government. If some fundie Senator wrote a bill saying that "The Christian God Is The Lord Your God And You Shall Have No Gods Before Him" and this bill somehow became a law, that law would be struck down as unconstitutional. The reason that they don't matter is that if they were made mandatory, they would violate human rights. The Constitution recognizes these rights and is the mechanism by which we prevent the government from violating them. You will note that in my message I do not say that the existence of the Ten Commandments violates human rights, only that trying to make them mandatory does.
My point is that even though Christians like to believe that the Ten Commandments come from some sort of god and are therefore really really important, the fact is that they are utterly irrelevant to U.S. law. This of course was not the main point of my message.
The ethics and morals of the 10 Commandments may be different from those that inform the Constitution, indeed.
Very different, in fact. It's nice to meet someone who recognizes that fact. So many people (like ex-Judge Roy Moore) believe that the Ten Commandments are "the basis of U.S. law". It really is astonishing that anyone who'd read the Commandments and the Constitution could believe that.
But the Constitution expressly forbids the Government from preventing me from adhering to the 10 Commandments.
Of course it does. The idea of forbidding you to believe in whatever god you want is ridiculous. You can conform to the Commandments as you wish, since following them doesn't violate U.S. law. What you can't do (and what a lot of fundies want to do) is force me to follow them, or even to care about them.
See?
Do you?
What imperfections exist in the Ten Commandments?
:)
The biggest imperfection, of course, is the idea that one should follow them when there's no evidence that they come from any sort of god. But let me give some specific examples (from the Catholic version of the ten). When I mention laws, I am referring to U.S. law. I am actually aware that there are one or two other countries out there.
I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
There are a few problems with this one. First of all, there is no proof that said god exists. Secondly, people have the right to believe in any god they want so this one is right out. Incidentally, this is contradicted by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
People have the right to express themselves as they choose, so this one is right out as well. This is also contradicted by the First Amendment.
Remember thou keep the Sabbath Day.
People have the right to do as they will, provided they do not infringe upon the rights of other people. This includes spending the sabbath day as they wish. Naturally, the law supports this.
Honor thy Father and thy Mother.
This is good advice, unless you have crappy parents. Of course, making it mandatory is a violation of a person's rights to free expression, as mentioned in that pesky First Amendment.
Thou shalt not kill.
Sounds good on the surface, although as written it's a tad vague. I mean, eating can be tricky if you can't kill plants and animals.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Well, adultery is (in general) not very nice but to forbid it is a rights violation. Naturally, the law doesn't try to do so, although it does recognize the non-niceness of adultery when it's time for a divorce.
Thou shalt not steal.
This is actually a pretty good one; I don't have any complaints about it offhand.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Lying isn't very nice either and the law does penalize it in certain circumstances. Forbidding it in all cases might be a bit much, but I won't quibble.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.
There's not much to redeem these too. Trying to control how people think is very wrong and there's really no excuse for it. The first one is also a bit sexist.
Anyway, hope this information helps.
yup, the ambiguity of 'thou shalt not kill/steal/covet, etc...' gives me migraines.
:) You don't think the others are ambigious? "Honor thy Mother and Father". What does "honor" mean, specifically? "Keep Holy the Sabbath day?" What specifically is meant by "Keep Holy"? There is plenty of ambiguity in the Ten Commandments. Hell, Protestants and Catholics can't even agree on which commandments are the special 10.
Funny how 10 Commandment defenders always mention those and only those.
Well of course, your email is private (although that's debatable), and Google isn't supposed to index any of it. But all the same, I don't like the concentration of easily cross-referenceable data into the hands of one company, as good as it appears to be, for various good reasons.
You won't get any arguments from me about the (U.S.) Government's attempts to pry into people's lives but I don't see how Google is any more of a danger than any other major email provider (like Yahoo or Hotmail). Google's caching of regular pages seems irrelevant.
I suppose the best bet is to use encryption. Sure if the Government focuses on you personally they'll simply throw you in jail until you give up your keys but encrypting your mail will keep it from being indexed and searched, whoever your provider is. Is GMail only accessible through a web interface or can you use pop or imap to retrieve the messages? Encrypting would be pretty pointless if you had to turn it into cleartext on their systems before you could read it.
>> After using GMail and deciding it's not for you and you delete all your mail, empty your trash, and delete your account does Google keep all that data in its index?
Well, when a website goes 404, can you keep using the Google cache?
'nuff said...
I don't see how this applies to your email. The google cache is caching public data, whereas your email is private. Naturally Google has the technical ability to cache your private email (since it's on their servers) but I'm not sure they'd be on solid legal ground. They have the same legal responsibilities as any other email provider and if Hotmail or Yahoo or your ISP doesn't make your email public there's no reason to believe that Google would.
No, you are just convincing yourself of that, cause you want a reason to believe you are right, and others are wrong...
Wrong. You are ignoring the actual issue, which is that certain relationships are rewarded by the government and other equivalent relationships are not. The Massachusetts SJC recognized this discrimination as a violation of the Massachusetts State Constitution and put an end to it. Bigots are trying to change the Constitution to promote irrational discrimination but they are failing, in part because they lack any valid argument to oppose gay marriage.
Who has said that polygamy a form of bigotry?
No, wrong... I said that banning polygamy could be considered bigotry in your loose definition of the word.
Yes, evidently I accidentally left out the word "banning". This should be pretty obvious from the context but since you're just trying to ignore my point I can understand why you pretend to be confused. The point is that no one had mentioned polygamy; you were simply trying to use it as a strawman. Your attempt fails.
For one thing, you have no idea what I believe, and I've left my own opinions out of this. For another, I'm merely pointing out the flaws in your arguments, not saying you are right or wrong on the subject.
Actually, it's extremely clear what you believe from your original message on this subject. As for your claim about pointing out flaws, you have failed to do so thus far.
Only in your own opinion.
It's hardly just my opinion.
Discering between homo and hetero when it comes to marriage is a FAR cry from bigotry or gender discrimination.
No it isn't. Jack has a loving relationship with someone and wants to spend the rest of his life with that person. If that person is female then he can get all sorts of benefits from the government. If that person is male he cannot. It's exactly gender-based discrimination.
Shall we say that outlawing polygamy is also bigotry, and the court needs to overturn that law right away?
Who has said that polygamy a form of bigotry? Why are you so desperate to change the subject? You're making a very nice strawman but it isn't particularly convincing.
Obviously, this issues are a bit subjective, and people let their own opinions slip into it far too much. It's hard to get people to have perspective on these types of issues.
I get the impression that you are defining "having perspective" as "agreeing with you". My perspective on the court's decision is based on the fact that the unconstitutionality of the discrimination involved is extremely obvious. My perspective on the idea of amending the constitution is based on the fact that no one has made anything close to a reasonable argument against gay marriage. What is your perspective based on?
The Judiciary is supposed to only change those things which are in conflict with the consitutional rights of the people (specifically, the minority). They've overstepped that in some cases (Gay marriage?) but as far as I know, there isn't actually a solution to that problem, except for Congress making an amendment for every issue handled poorly by the Judiciary. That's something which will be hashed out in the near/intermediate future, I'm sure.
Actually the courts step in to protect the constitutional rights of everyone, not just the minority. Often it's the majority whose rights are being stomped on by a minority (corporations). In the case of gay marriage, the Judiciary handled the situation correctly; the Massachusetts State Constitution is extremely clear on the subject of gender discrimination. As for amendments, I don't think Congress will have as much luck writing bigotry into the Constitution as they'd hope.
The Executive branch is only minorly involved, officially. However, unoffically, the Executive can put a lot of political pressure in the right places, and get most anything done. The ability to pardon convicts, sign executive orders, and decide where the money goes, is pretty significant.
Of course, the Executive's ability to put poligical pressure on Congress is improved when the same party controls both branches. The Executive's other abilities are less dependent on that, however.
Well, that's a lot longer than I was planning on. Anyhow, all 3 branches are supposed to be well informed, and have the power to change unfair laws.
Yes, the famous "checks and balances". Unfortunately the only "checks and balances" that politicians care about these days are associated with their bank accounts.
Yeah, the open source mentality at work - on day zero fo a vulnerability announcement, designate those offering free public computing as a "lame free-shell provider", and take them down, together with the users who depend on them.
This isn't the open source mentality and it's dishonest of you to claim it is. The following quote from the article:
"This exploit has been reported used to take down several "lame free-shell providers" servers (this is illegal in most parts of the world and strongly discouraged)."
indicates that there have been reports that the bug is being exploited, not that open source supporters are intentionally crashing other people's boxes.
Only open source people would be stupid and nasty enough to do this sort of thing - if any software company took down its clients on purpose, they'd get seriously sued.
This is obviously untrue. Windows bugs are exploited all the time -- the people doing that are not "open source people". Why would say something so obviously incorrect in a forum where you're not likely to fool anyone?
Ironically, if you support the idea that each "day" in Genesis lasts for millions of years, God could well have been right ;) (Yes, I'm joking, sort of.)
:)
:)
I suppose I'd have to ask what the biblical basis for that belief was.
To be fair, most people believe in some kind of supernatural mythology, and Christianity is up there as far as how many adherents each religion has. On the other hand, the number of people who believe something has zero bearing on how accurate it is, and I'm still an atheist either way.
As you say, the number of adherents to a religion has no bearing on its reality. This doesn't stop some christians from implying that it does. I find the best answer to "Well, lots of people believe in christianity" is "Most people don't." Then I usually have to explain that the U.S. is not the world.
Atheism is the paradoxical doctrine that implies that atheists can and have investigated the supernatural realm which they believe to not exist, and the knowledge they found as a result of their investigation of this non-existent realm is that God isn't there.
No, atheism is simply the lack of a belief in any gods. No investigation required; there's no evidence of anything to investigate. Here's a link to help you out.
However, for an athiest, it would seem that there is no purpose in life.
Nonsense. Life is what you make it. It's the only one you've got (as far as anyone can tell) so make the most of it. The only difference is that you have to find your own purpose; you can't have it given to you. This is hard, and I understand why so many people aren't up to it.
A person could do whatever they wanted to do to make themself feel good.
And it harm no one, this is the case.
It means that morals are pointless except as a means of maintaining order within society.
What other purposes do you wish them to have?
However, order within society may not be something which everyone wants. What's wrong with someone like the Unabomber trying to tear down society?
He's free to do what he wants until he infringes on the rights of others. In case you're confused, blowing people up is an infringement.
I think that the natural conclusion of athieism leads to an anarchist mindset, wherin individuals strive to break apart existing social and economic structures to rise up themselves and take a position of power while everyone else flounders in the wake of the disaster.
What possible connection is there between not believing in any god and believing that there should be no civilization? Please describe this causal link in detail because at first glance it seems, well, extremely stupid.
Just because you'd be out raping and killing if you ever stopped believing in god doesn't mean everyone would. Most people are better than that.
What you don't get is that everyone gets their morals from the same sources. Books, other people and their own reasoning. Christians think they get their morals from some sort of god, but they actually come from the bible (book), priests (people) and their own reasoning.
There is no one to say that this sort of mentality is "bad" without some absolute external standard of good and evil.
There is no absolute standard of good and evil. Get used to it.
I've never understood how athiests could view life as more important than --insert random religion here--s
No mystery here. Life is real. Religion is fantasy, and not even good fantasy. No religion has even come close to proving otherwise. Reality is if course more important than fantasy.
If we just die...and we're poof, gone, then we wouldn't know we were gone, we would be cease to exist, so would we have really lost anything??
Ah, Pascal's Wager. Not much of a reason to follow a religion, since even if you could follow them all you still wouldn't cover every possibility. And with some of those possibilities, it's better to be an atheist.
Actually, yes, I would. I would have to have faith in the fact that the world works in a certain way, and that time is linear, that other beings exist outside myself, that cause and effect exist, that my mind can in fact reason in a manner that lines up with things that happen outside my mind, etc. All of life requires faith.
That's an interesting perspective, but it's not one that everyone shares. For example, I don't. I don't have faith that time is linear. We're still learning about the precise nature of time. As for cause and effect, quantum physics experiments are providing some interesting results that bring cause and effect into doubt, at least on a very small scale.
In walking I have faith in gravity to pull me forward as I lean forward, and that my leg will have enough strength to stop me when it hits the ground. I have to believe that what I see in front of me is in fact solid and will hold my weight.
Let me assure you, gravity works just as well if you don't have faith in it, flight not withstanding. Same for solid substances (did you know they're mostly empty space?)
Life is not as logical as we would like to believe, and logic itself gets us nowhere without assuming or "having faith" in things.
Absolutely incorrect. Life is logical. People aren't. And logic gets people who use it a lot farther than faith does.
Our lives are mostly experiencial, and we have faith that what worked in the past will continue to work, but that isn't necessarily true. It is reasonable though, and is how all of us live.
It's rather dishonest to equate a reasonable expectation that things will work as they have in the past to the blind belief in a mythology that is logically contradictory and is filled with stories of events that we know didn't happen.
My car generally starts when I go to use it. I'm going out today; somehow if it doesn't start when I expect it to I don't think my worldview will implode.
How can you prove that there is no God? The Tooth Fairy can be proved to not exist, ask any parent and they will tell you that it is them, not the tooth fairy who places money under a pillow. I disproved Santa Clause as a child when I caught my parents in the act of placing preasants under the tree.
One of the big arguments christians use for saying that you can't disprove god is that you can't look at every spot in the universe to see that he isn't there. By that same "logic" you haven't proven that there's no Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus; only that they didn't visit you.
However, I have not yet seen one good proof that there is no God.
You have it backwards. The burden of proof is on the theists, not the atheists, as they are the ones making the positive assertion that something exists.
In fact, observation of the world and universe around me lead me to believe that there must be some higher being who brought all this into existence.
Care to share what specific observations lead you to believe this, and what specific chain of logic you used?
If not, it's an awefully big coincidence, and leads to the conclusion that all of life is a big accident, and my existance is purely meaningless.
I've never understood why people think that no creator means life is meaningless, so maybe you can explain it further. It seems to me that atheists, who (generally) believe that this is the only life we get, would see this life as more significant than would christians, who think that it's just the blink of an eye compared to the eternal life that follows.
A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "That fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." (Stephen Crane)
You apparently find this idea depressing. I have trouble understanding this attitude but to each his own.
This is a very depressing thought. Thus, I chose to believe that there is a God, not for a rational reason that can be proved, but because I chose to.
It's good that you admit this; would that more christians did. By this argument, you would then fully endorse the idea of people not believing in christianity if it they aren't depressed by reality. This makes you very openminded compared to a lot of christians. I salute you.
Since God operates outside of our existance, and therefore cannot be proved or disproved, belief in his existance or non-existance must be an act of faith.
Actually, I think most christians would claim that their god operates within our existence. God is everywhere and all that. It's a mistake to think that it takes faith to not believe in something, however. Not believing in things for which there is no evidence is normal procedure and you do it all the time. The list of things you don't believe in is infinite and includes things like The Great Zorgath and Legions of Evil. You just think that the christian god deserves special treatment because to think otherwise depresses you.
I don't understand why crucifixion was needed for salvation, do you?
Ooh! Ooh! I know! It wasn't. God is defined as all-powerful and can therefore save everyone from the punishment he designed just by willing it.
That's the problem I have with Christian theology. A lot of atheists that I respect are going to end up hell because of the cruel way in which Jesus discriminates. You understand this, I understand this, and if Jesus were a better person, he wouldn't have made faith a prerequisite for salvation.
I've always wondered... what happens to people who have never heard of JC? I mean, it's pretty hard to worship someone you've never heard of.
I am talking about creating the lake of fire, and sending the unfaithful there.
Yes, this does seem rather pointless. Still, god must enjoy it. After all, when you're all-powerful, only things you like and want can occur.