I don't know who Jack Thompson is, nor do I care, I am a frequent./er and I enjoy reading the articles. However I am sick and tired of the anti-Christian pollution that clogs threads on this site. Some of you even take it so far as bashing on unrelated threads.
For a bunch of people who whine about Christian intolerance and judgment you sure are intolerant and judgmental yourself. How about we keep our hatred to ourselves and stick to the topics. Talk about hypocrisy.
And before you try to insult my intelligence or my mental capacity keep in mind you are speaking to a post-graduate student in Computer Engineering who ranked top of his class in both grad school and undergrad while married with children, working full-time running my own business.
See your model of "uneducated", "irrational", "intolerant" Christians is flawed. I am not the extrema of the data set either. If you weren't so busy feeling proud about your own "superior" intellect (which has yet to be proven by many of you), maybe you would have time to actually get to know some Christians personally instead of busily spouting your stereotypes.
I know plenty of dumb closed-minded Christians, and I know of plenty dumb closed-minded secular people as well. Everyone has flaws, everyone has an agenda.
While you argue "don't push your beliefs on me, you are pushing your beliefs on them". Keep that in mind.
So why don't we all grow up and stop acting like Nazi's. Everyone knows you hate Christians and you think we are stupid people that should be wiped off the planet. Enough of it.
Ninjitsu is considered a dead form of the martial arts. It is neither combat effective nor practical in modern applications. Your modern practitioners are steeped in a world of fantasy and Hollywood.
It is well known in the mixed martial arts world that Ninjitsu is a huge joke.
Well if we didn't have a culture of obesity, laziness, and porn maybe people would get a life and not be on the line so much.
(this is coming from a computer engineer)
I agree with this. How many videos of police in riot gear do you see them beating someone with a camera or just standing and watching? They run up and start beating people. I know these are isolated events, but you can only justify it so long.
I live "be prepared". I have what is commonly referred to as a "bug out bag". Enough food and water to last 6 days for my wife and I as well as a WIDE assortment of other items. A small list:
1. duct tape
2. mosquito nets, ponchos, and wide brimmed hats, sun screen
3. nail clippers
4. tooth brushes and paste
5. sanitary wipes
6. safety goggles, gloves, ear plugs
7. emergency whistles
8. waterproof matches
9. a knife
10. a compass
11. 2 led flashlights
12. dry socks
13. an electric lamp
14. a handcrank/solar radio/light
15. water purification pills / canteen
16. first aid kit
the list goes on. About 80 items in all in a MOLLE system back pack ready to go at a moments notice. I also own and S&W M&P 40 and a Ruger 22 rifle. A.22 is good for hunting small game and the pistol for personal protection.
Every person/family should have such an emergency kit, especially if you live in an area with seasonal risks (i.e. FL where I live)
This is insightful? Who is making this judgement? I challenge all those who modded this comment to 5 to define the insight into the article or any argument this person has supposedly provided.
Actually the more you "think" about it, the less you actually think and the more you listen to everyone else. Study the Bible and you will see that the God of the old testament is pre-covenant. With the sacrifice of Jesus, a covenant was made that all the actions God had to take prior to Jesus would not be needed anymore.
You have to understand that God saw humans as unredeemable before Jesus made His sacrifice. Thus the justification for destroying tribes and having plagues etc. The definition of evil is the exact opposite of God. Thus God can never be evil.
The way you are approaching the idea of good and evil is as if darkness is only black when someone say's it is dark. When in fact the color black is the absence of white light. The same with God, evil is the absence of God's goodness. Whatever action God takes is always considered the correct action. A moral absolute.
"It all about making sure you show up at least once a week (twice a week for some denominations)."
Gathering in a physical location is based upon a Biblical principal of fellowship. People gather to reinforce each other in their beliefs and to correct the straying. Just like people gather on slashdot and correct each other when they get facts wrong. Posting on slashdot is a form of fellowship.
"Making sure you give at least 10%, otherwise you don't love baby Jesus enough."
I know you like to mock Christian ideas, it seems to be the sport around here. But you could atleast be accurate and not sound like a fool.
Tithing (tithe old English meaning 1/10) is based on honoring God. Christians and Jews alike recognize God as the source of our life, income, skills, intellect etc. Any gifts He has bestowed are due honor while we use them. Any blessings (a blessing being something postive beyond the ordinary) are to be honored as well by investing 1/10 of that increase back into the establishment that teaches the system of belief that is Christianity. It is not so hard to understand. It's about supporting an institution financially. It says in the Bible to give with a cheerful heart. God doesn't want you to give if you don't want to. He certainly doesn't need your money. People give out of reverence for God.
"If you don't worship, bad things will happen to you, or at least good things won't happen to you."
This is another ridiculous statement in troll-like behaviour. It does not say in the new testament that God will curse you for not worshipping Him. Good things happen to evil people. Look at Hitler, he had great success in war. He would consider that a good thing to happen. This doesn't mean God did it for him.
Before you criticize arguments you should step back and think.
Your definition of perfection is probably the same as my definition. "Flawless", might be a good definition.
However, consider this, creating Humans with the ability to choose and have a free will IS part of a PERFECT human.
You said "if humans had been perfect they wouldn't have disobeyed in the first place."
Who said disobeying God was imperfection? According to the Bible, God gave us free will, the right to choose. How is it imperfection to make a choice, to exercise an ability?
Besides, the perfection stated may have been physical, spiritual, emotional, and not intellectual. Why would there be a tree of knowledge from which they could not eat if we were intellectually perfect?
You said "discussing with christians is just too easy. anybody with half a brain should see that statements like that can't even withstand a simple logical test."
I find this laughable considering a hole in your argument was easily bored. Also what simple logical test would you have applied?
You have grossly misstated what the teachings of Jesus were. Jesus was not teaching people to just be "nice". He was teaching love. Not love in the generic American context. I "love" cars, I "love" chocolate, but the self-sacrificing love. The Greek word "agape" was used in the original texts to describe this type of love. "Agape" love is choosing to put another's well-being ahead of yours regardless of cost or sacrifice, without preconditions, expectations, or reward. This type of love is rare, but can you imagine the world this would be if everyone practiced it?
Often individuals say "yes I love so and so, I would die for them". Well, dieing for someone is easy. It's over immediately without any further possibility of concious objections to the state of death. However trying "dieing" for someone every day. Putting them first, without regard to your own well-being. Not so easy is it? This is what Jesus taught, this self-less love that would literally transform this world if practiced properly. It is against our sinful nature to love this way. That is why is has to be a choice and cannot be forced.
"So, I see you treated people well and lived a good life. People loved you, and you loved too. Go ahead on....Hang on just a second. You didn't tell Me how wonderful I was? I'm sorry, but you can't go in. I'm going to have to set you on fire instead."
It seems you have a misunderstanding of some of the core beliefs of a Christian "salvation". The Christian salvation is based upon accepting the idea that Jesus the Christ was persecuted and ultimately sentenced to death and bore the burden of the world's sin, past, present, and future. Acting upon this belief and living your life accordingly (being "Christ-like") earns your entrance into heaven to be with the creator, God. Basically it is accepting a gift of sacrifice knowing that one could never be "good enough" to compare to God's perfection and be in His presence (which is what heaven is described as).
Okay so now say that you do believe this and have lived in this belief. It is understood that realizing and grasping this sacrifice would not only draw you closer to Him, but also give you the desire to worship His perfection and existence.
I am not aware of any place in the Bible where it says that someone would be committed to hell because they did not worship God.
I am not trying to be mean but it seems like you do not understand the beliefs of core Christianity.
Oh by the way, hell is not a placed of "fire". Analogies are often used in the Christian Bible. Hell is a place where the presence of God has been withdrawn. With the presumption that God is all good, and everything desireable and good comes from God's presence, obviously hell would be the opposite of good.
Fire is simply a way to relate spiritual suffering to physical suffering induced by being away from God for eternity.
"Any God that cares if you worshipped him doesn't deserve the position."
This is funny considering:
A) The presumption in this context is that "God made the universe"
B) Define "kind". You may think kind is giving up the last slice of pizza. While in some parts of Africa, kind and good is giving up the last few pieces of food to a parentless child knowing you will go without food for days AGAIN. What is "good enough"?
Some things to think about:
A) When was the last time you made a universe, a plant, or anything from nothing? If it is the case that God made the universe from nothing then He does deserve to be worshipped.
B) When was the last time you were "kind"? Kind doesn't count if it serves yourself.
Are you really so blind as to believe this could not potentially lead to some malicious policy of chipping humans? This is what corporations and governments rely on--the desensitazation of society over decades. It starts small and inobtrusive and continues that course until one day you wake up and realize you have a device beeping in your hand. Don't laught, don't ignore it, the threat is real. This is human nature to want to control every aspect of the world around them, including the people around them. Our governement is no different, and neither are cold heartless corporations.
OsCommerce is crapware, that's right crapware. I did a mod for a client and their code is some of the sloppiest, dirtiest, unintelligble code I have ever seen. They need to learn some good developmental practices. I can't imagine how inefficient that code runs.
The only people who are slowing down because of technology are those that are too lazy or can't focus on work and they just needed a good excuse not to do it. My father works at a hospital in the region and says that a quarer of the techs in his lab spend half the day on the www looking at auction sites, tutorials etc instead of doing work that piles up. Just last week they fired someone who was faking test results(in a hospital!) SO it's the lazy and people without respect for their work that slow down, the rest of us speed up cause now we are more efficient(usually).
Actually a couple of research papers I have read in the past (I will have to dig them up) have shown that 99.9% accuracy can be done with the proper training set. I personally have only achieved ~96% accuracy in my classifiers. Thanks for the link.
Slashdot Mirror
It was not a call to silence, it was a call to stop the hypocrisy.
I keep expecting them to pick a fight with the wrong person and something "bad" happen.
I don't know who Jack Thompson is, nor do I care, I am a frequent ./er and I enjoy reading the articles. However I am sick and tired of the anti-Christian pollution that clogs threads on this site. Some of you even take it so far as bashing on unrelated threads.
For a bunch of people who whine about Christian intolerance and judgment you sure are intolerant and judgmental yourself. How about we keep our hatred to ourselves and stick to the topics. Talk about hypocrisy. And before you try to insult my intelligence or my mental capacity keep in mind you are speaking to a post-graduate student in Computer Engineering who ranked top of his class in both grad school and undergrad while married with children, working full-time running my own business. See your model of "uneducated", "irrational", "intolerant" Christians is flawed. I am not the extrema of the data set either. If you weren't so busy feeling proud about your own "superior" intellect (which has yet to be proven by many of you), maybe you would have time to actually get to know some Christians personally instead of busily spouting your stereotypes.
I know plenty of dumb closed-minded Christians, and I know of plenty dumb closed-minded secular people as well. Everyone has flaws, everyone has an agenda.
While you argue "don't push your beliefs on me, you are pushing your beliefs on them". Keep that in mind.
So why don't we all grow up and stop acting like Nazi's. Everyone knows you hate Christians and you think we are stupid people that should be wiped off the planet. Enough of it.
Mod this down and prove my point please.
Ninjitsu is considered a dead form of the martial arts. It is neither combat effective nor practical in modern applications. Your modern practitioners are steeped in a world of fantasy and Hollywood. It is well known in the mixed martial arts world that Ninjitsu is a huge joke.
Well if we didn't have a culture of obesity, laziness, and porn maybe people would get a life and not be on the line so much. (this is coming from a computer engineer)
I agree with this. How many videos of police in riot gear do you see them beating someone with a camera or just standing and watching? They run up and start beating people. I know these are isolated events, but you can only justify it so long.
I live "be prepared". I have what is commonly referred to as a "bug out bag". Enough food and water to last 6 days for my wife and I as well as a WIDE assortment of other items. A small list: 1. duct tape 2. mosquito nets, ponchos, and wide brimmed hats, sun screen 3. nail clippers 4. tooth brushes and paste 5. sanitary wipes 6. safety goggles, gloves, ear plugs 7. emergency whistles 8. waterproof matches 9. a knife 10. a compass 11. 2 led flashlights 12. dry socks 13. an electric lamp 14. a handcrank/solar radio/light 15. water purification pills / canteen 16. first aid kit the list goes on. About 80 items in all in a MOLLE system back pack ready to go at a moments notice. I also own and S&W M&P 40 and a Ruger 22 rifle. A .22 is good for hunting small game and the pistol for personal protection.
Every person/family should have such an emergency kit, especially if you live in an area with seasonal risks (i.e. FL where I live)
Sweet contest. I still have all my legos and have spent mondo money on buying more.
::searching through the closet:: I knew it was in here somewhere
This is insightful? Who is making this judgement? I challenge all those who modded this comment to 5 to define the insight into the article or any argument this person has supposedly provided.
Actually the more you "think" about it, the less you actually think and the more you listen to everyone else. Study the Bible and you will see that the God of the old testament is pre-covenant. With the sacrifice of Jesus, a covenant was made that all the actions God had to take prior to Jesus would not be needed anymore.
You have to understand that God saw humans as unredeemable before Jesus made His sacrifice. Thus the justification for destroying tribes and having plagues etc. The definition of evil is the exact opposite of God. Thus God can never be evil.
The way you are approaching the idea of good and evil is as if darkness is only black when someone say's it is dark. When in fact the color black is the absence of white light. The same with God, evil is the absence of God's goodness. Whatever action God takes is always considered the correct action. A moral absolute.
How is this comment "informative"? You modded up a sarcastic response? Wise choice...
Actually to correct your skewed perspective:
"It all about making sure you show up at least once a week (twice a week for some denominations)."
Gathering in a physical location is based upon a Biblical principal of fellowship. People gather to reinforce each other in their beliefs and to correct the straying. Just like people gather on slashdot and correct each other when they get facts wrong. Posting on slashdot is a form of fellowship.
"Making sure you give at least 10%, otherwise you don't love baby Jesus enough."
I know you like to mock Christian ideas, it seems to be the sport around here. But you could atleast be accurate and not sound like a fool.
Tithing (tithe old English meaning 1/10) is based on honoring God. Christians and Jews alike recognize God as the source of our life, income, skills, intellect etc. Any gifts He has bestowed are due honor while we use them. Any blessings (a blessing being something postive beyond the ordinary) are to be honored as well by investing 1/10 of that increase back into the establishment that teaches the system of belief that is Christianity. It is not so hard to understand. It's about supporting an institution financially. It says in the Bible to give with a cheerful heart. God doesn't want you to give if you don't want to. He certainly doesn't need your money. People give out of reverence for God.
"If you don't worship, bad things will happen to you, or at least good things won't happen to you."
This is another ridiculous statement in troll-like behaviour. It does not say in the new testament that God will curse you for not worshipping Him. Good things happen to evil people. Look at Hitler, he had great success in war. He would consider that a good thing to happen. This doesn't mean God did it for him.
Before you criticize arguments you should step back and think.
Your definition of perfection is probably the same as my definition. "Flawless", might be a good definition.
However, consider this, creating Humans with the ability to choose and have a free will IS part of a PERFECT human.
You said "if humans had been perfect they wouldn't have disobeyed in the first place."
Who said disobeying God was imperfection? According to the Bible, God gave us free will, the right to choose. How is it imperfection to make a choice, to exercise an ability?
Besides, the perfection stated may have been physical, spiritual, emotional, and not intellectual. Why would there be a tree of knowledge from which they could not eat if we were intellectually perfect?
You said "discussing with christians is just too easy. anybody with half a brain should see that statements like that can't even withstand a simple logical test."
I find this laughable considering a hole in your argument was easily bored. Also what simple logical test would you have applied?
You have grossly misstated what the teachings of Jesus were. Jesus was not teaching people to just be "nice". He was teaching love. Not love in the generic American context. I "love" cars, I "love" chocolate, but the self-sacrificing love. The Greek word "agape" was used in the original texts to describe this type of love. "Agape" love is choosing to put another's well-being ahead of yours regardless of cost or sacrifice, without preconditions, expectations, or reward. This type of love is rare, but can you imagine the world this would be if everyone practiced it?
Often individuals say "yes I love so and so, I would die for them". Well, dieing for someone is easy. It's over immediately without any further possibility of concious objections to the state of death. However trying "dieing" for someone every day. Putting them first, without regard to your own well-being. Not so easy is it? This is what Jesus taught, this self-less love that would literally transform this world if practiced properly. It is against our sinful nature to love this way. That is why is has to be a choice and cannot be forced.
"So, I see you treated people well and lived a good life. People loved you, and you loved too. Go ahead on....Hang on just a second. You didn't tell Me how wonderful I was? I'm sorry, but you can't go in. I'm going to have to set you on fire instead."
It seems you have a misunderstanding of some of the core beliefs of a Christian "salvation". The Christian salvation is based upon accepting the idea that Jesus the Christ was persecuted and ultimately sentenced to death and bore the burden of the world's sin, past, present, and future. Acting upon this belief and living your life accordingly (being "Christ-like") earns your entrance into heaven to be with the creator, God. Basically it is accepting a gift of sacrifice knowing that one could never be "good enough" to compare to God's perfection and be in His presence (which is what heaven is described as).
Okay so now say that you do believe this and have lived in this belief. It is understood that realizing and grasping this sacrifice would not only draw you closer to Him, but also give you the desire to worship His perfection and existence.
I am not aware of any place in the Bible where it says that someone would be committed to hell because they did not worship God.
I am not trying to be mean but it seems like you do not understand the beliefs of core Christianity.
Oh by the way, hell is not a placed of "fire". Analogies are often used in the Christian Bible. Hell is a place where the presence of God has been withdrawn. With the presumption that God is all good, and everything desireable and good comes from God's presence, obviously hell would be the opposite of good.
Fire is simply a way to relate spiritual suffering to physical suffering induced by being away from God for eternity.
"Any God that cares if you worshipped him doesn't deserve the position." This is funny considering: A) The presumption in this context is that "God made the universe" B) Define "kind". You may think kind is giving up the last slice of pizza. While in some parts of Africa, kind and good is giving up the last few pieces of food to a parentless child knowing you will go without food for days AGAIN. What is "good enough"? Some things to think about: A) When was the last time you made a universe, a plant, or anything from nothing? If it is the case that God made the universe from nothing then He does deserve to be worshipped. B) When was the last time you were "kind"? Kind doesn't count if it serves yourself.
Christians began the western move towards education and academics. Read your history books.
That figures the prejudiced would mod down someone who spoke against them. This simply proves that what I said was true.
Are you really so blind as to believe this could not potentially lead to some malicious policy of chipping humans? This is what corporations and governments rely on--the desensitazation of society over decades. It starts small and inobtrusive and continues that course until one day you wake up and realize you have a device beeping in your hand. Don't laught, don't ignore it, the threat is real. This is human nature to want to control every aspect of the world around them, including the people around them. Our governement is no different, and neither are cold heartless corporations.
And your post is another case of prejudice against Christians
OsCommerce is crapware, that's right crapware. I did a mod for a client and their code is some of the sloppiest, dirtiest, unintelligble code I have ever seen. They need to learn some good developmental practices. I can't imagine how inefficient that code runs.
How can these companies get away with such poor product quality... oh wait it's our government buying from them!
The only people who are slowing down because of technology are those that are too lazy or can't focus on work and they just needed a good excuse not to do it. My father works at a hospital in the region and says that a quarer of the techs in his lab spend half the day on the www looking at auction sites, tutorials etc instead of doing work that piles up. Just last week they fired someone who was faking test results(in a hospital!) SO it's the lazy and people without respect for their work that slow down, the rest of us speed up cause now we are more efficient(usually).
Actually a couple of research papers I have read in the past (I will have to dig them up) have shown that 99.9% accuracy can be done with the proper training set. I personally have only achieved ~96% accuracy in my classifiers. Thanks for the link.