Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more.
And by that definition, a crazy person who hears voices in his head also accepts "all of science and more".
It's that "and more" that's the problem. You think it's a good thing - you are wrong. There's a reason why science rejects that type of "evidence"; it's inherently unreliable, and can be used to "prove" just about anything.
Of course, I would also argue that, in fact, religious people tend to reject much of science and substitute your "and more" in it's place, but that's just the creamy-diahrrea icing on top of the turd-cake. The essential problem is that, just like any conspiracy theorist or pseudoscientific-quack, religious people either don't understand what constitutes valid evidence, or are happy to hold beliefs which are not supported by evidence.
We have religious people who think you have to believe talking ducks are real, and atheists who are obsessed with mocking anyone who uses talking ducks in a story. Both are missing the whole point of everything.
*facepalm*
I used to read Greek legends when I was a kid (6-10 years old), and thoroughly enjoyed the dramatic stories about the adventures and exploits of various gods and demigods. The difference it, nobody tried to convince me they were real, or told me that Zeus would torture me forever if I didn't believe in him. If you don't see the difference between fanciful stories and the kind of behaviour engaged in by believers in modern religions, you're either blind or a fool. If you DO see the difference, yet don't think they need to be opposed, you're just plain evil.
Your analogy doesn't work because it assumes a closed system about which we (tenants) have a fairly comprehensive perspective on. The "Staff-Members" (or should I say, rent-contract-based) notion of The Landlord involves a universal scenario in which temporal quality of life is not the benchmark of "fixing everything" and tenants are completely unable to understand the origin of the situation they are currently in.
FTFY.
Trying to fix the problems with silly claims by making even more silly claims is a popular approach, but not a very effective one. If your building manager told you that the landlord was some immaterial entity whom you cannot possibly understand, you'd be more convinced that he was crazy, not less
If he could describe something belonging outside this plane of existence he'd be quite an interesting guy.
Existing outside of existence is a contradiction in terms. The term "this plane of existence" is an another thing which you would have to define, since it's usage in normal conversation is so nebulous that it's rendered meaningless.
Some religious god says "I exist" from his POV and that's a subject of faith, irrelevant to your assertion. Yet your assertion is pretty tautologic, not very useful.
Heh. It's a lot more useful than the "god exists, but not in existence" approach. Of course it's tautological - any argument about an invisible magic man is going to be tautological by it's very nature.
Look, the only real question is "do any supernatural entities interfere with our world". If they do, then we should see some indication of it. If they do not, then their existence or non-existence is completely irrelevant. A god who "exists" but can't be observed and never does anything is completely indistinguishable from no god at all. Just like a cup full of invisible magic "water" which can't be measured in any way is no different than an empty glass.
Well then you did a shit job of explaining the meaning of the word, because the description you gave is equivalent to "imaginary". Though "conceptual" might be more accurate. Either way it means you think your god doesn't actually exist.
Nobody's pushing you down. You have more wealth and opportunity than your ancestors could have dreamed of. If you chose to squander it, that's your call; blaming others for your poor decisions is childish. All I see when I look at the "occupy" twits is a bunch of children without a lick of common sense fighting for their "right" to get free shit. Grow up. The world doesn't owe you anything. Life is what you make of it.
Naw, I am the 1%. So are you. Just ask any guy in China or India.
Focus on your own life, instead of weaving conspiracy theories and worrying about what "TEH RICH BANKER$$$$!!" are doing. I guarantee you'll be happier and more prosperous.
Then again, that's the point, isn't it? You don't want to be happier - you want everyone else to be as miserable as you.
So I should believe as you do. At least you're humble.
Yes, exactly: you should reject claims for which there is no evidence - or, worse, for which there is negative evidence - until such a time as new evidence presents itself. That is what a reasonable individual does. That is what you presumably do, in pretty much every part of your life other than your religious beliefs. Me pointing this out is neither humble nor conceited - it is a simple statement of fact.
You sound like one of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists screaming:
"OF COURSE THERE'S EVIDENCE! Fire can't melt steel!!!!"
All of the points you've raised are wrong, and there are detailed explanations available of why they're wrong. If you prefer to keep your head in the sand, fine, go for it, just don't expect anyone to take your "evidence" seriously.
If your question was really why are there multiple religions, well, some must be invalid, 'wrong' or 'lies' as many say.
Yep. The difference is that you're ok with assuming that all the other tens of thousands of religions are wrong, but yours must be right. I think it's much more likely that they're all wrong. Either way, assuming you've managed to pick the right one is the height of hubris.
So, you're saying the simplest answer is the best? Well...
NO! That is not what occam's razor stipulates. You can check the wikipedia article if you actually want to learn more about it, but if I had to quickly summarize I would put it as "all else being equal the simplest answer is more likely to be true".
The Big Bang theory is a far more complex explanation of the origins of the universe than "God Dun It", but it's also supported by reams of evidence. Using Occam's Razor to evaluate the difference between the two would be idiotic. Occam's Razor only applies when we have no evidence to look at.
Oh, sweet! I think the last time I really looked into it, even that wasn't available.
I'm a big fan of ZFS, but from what I've read on BTRFS it seems to have the potential to be far better as a home file-system. The ability to shrink volumes is a big one. Unfortunately, it's been stalled for a long time now, and even when they finally finish development (2032?) I'd be hesitant to adopt it for at least a year or two, until I'm sure all the kinks have been worked out.
I do have a ZFS setup of currently 6 disks and I really recommend buying server-grade HDDs, unless you have set up a monitoring system that tells you whenever a HDD is failing so you can buy a new one.
Sounds like you're just unlucky, or USB disks really suck.
I first built my Solaris/ZFS server in 2007, using 5x500gb WD disks. I added 1tb disks in early 2009. I finally swapped out the original 500 gb disks in late 2010, replacing them with 2tb drives. So the original 500 gig drives ran for 3+ years without an issue, and the 1tb drives have been going almost 3 years now as well. This is in a 24/7 system, of course.
BTW, the actual system drive is an old Maxtor 120 gig IDE that was manufactured in 2003. It's now been running for almost 5 years 24/7, plus another 4 years of on-and-off use prior to that. It's still humming along just fine, but I recently used one of those 500 gig drives to mirror it, just in case.
So I guess YMMV. I've only seen 3 consumer drives fail in my entire life - only one of which was mine - and I've never lost an array to a disk failure. As for monitoring, you can just set up a shell script that runs every half hour and sends you an e-mail if finds any corruption. It's not hard to do.
I also looked at a USB solution like the one you're talking about, but decided to just buy a big case instead. Each of those docks costs $50-$60 - assuming I use 4 drives internally, I'd still need to spend $200+ for docks. Instead, I picked up a Cooler-Master HAF for $140, and a couple drive-bay conversion brackets for $20 each. For the same price as the USB docks, I get a kick-ass case that can house 11 drives internally. Of course, I then had to blow another $180 to get a decent controller card for them, but the speed difference made it well worth the money.
I said "nature", not "survival of the fittest". Not everything is about evolution.
Yes, I know what you said. It made no sense on it's own, so I assumed you were at least misinterpreting evolutionary theory. I threw you a bone, and now you're throwing it back? Sure, go for it - just realize that you've made your initial statement look even more ridiculous.
Mammals may have a sense of territory, but they sure as hell don't respect it when they don't need to. Mammals cheat, steal from and rob each other all the time, even within the same species.
Not to be a dick, but from what you've said, it sounds like a big part of the problem is teachers with no backbone. Parents want to throw a temper-tantrum? Tell them to get fucked. If they don't sit down and shut up, tell them to leave the building or you'll call the cops and have them arrested.
I know most of us in first-world nations live in very non-confrontational societies, and for the most part I like it that way... but when people are unwilling to stand up to bullies, what do you expect to happen? We're automatically giving the advantage to whoever can scream the loudest. You're giving power over our society to the people least-suited to hold it.
Employees with a mountain of debt are less likely to cause trouble for their employer, as the employee's debt must be serviced, especially education debt in the US.
It is, for all intents and purposes, a rather relaxed version of indentured servitude, considering the overall lack of mobility in the job market.
Funny - one of the criteria the military looks at when you apply is whether or not you have a lot of outstanding debt. If you do, you're far less likely to be offered a contract.
I don't think you've really considered all the possible repercussions...
not sure how it would be evil/eliminate all competition
Because if you truly "loved your neighbor as yourself" you'd be setting yourself up to be taken advantage of by everyone. Neighbor wants your car? Sure, go ahead! Neighbor wants to screw your wife? No problem! Neighbour wants all of your food? Well, I'll starve, but that's ok, I love you!
Yes, telling people to be suckers is evil. Being a sucker isn't really evil, but it is... sucky.
, and i disagree with your last statement for 4 reasons:
1. often, people need what they don't want.
Here you're assuming some moral or intellectual superiority which gives you the ability and the duty to determine what others need. If you don't understand just how egotistical and wrong that mindset is, I don't think we can really talk about morality.
2. there's no connection, just transaction.
There doesn't need to be. The only things you need for moral conduct are tolerance and some empathy. If you want to throw some "connections" in on top, fill your boots, but they're not required.
3. there's no personal accountability for failure. 4. there's no requirement for introspection.
Good. These are points in favor, not in opposition.
Of course, #3 applies to your "love they neighbor" spiel, too, so I'm not sure why you'd object in the first place.
Yet "linked" and "correlated" appear everywhere in medicine. Why is our culture like this? I think it must be a kind of secular religion -- kind of like the faith we have in peer review.
Because correlation is the minimum standard required, as is peer review. Without a peer reviewed study showing significant correlation, you can't expect to be taken seriously by any rational person, let alone encourage others to look into whether there's a causative effect between the two observations. Your distaste for both says a lot about your ability to understand how we determine what is and isn't true.
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Ever heard of "affirming the consequent"? It's a fundamental logical fallacy. Look it up.
If you're going to deny the existence of mental illness, we have nothing to discuss.
Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more.
And by that definition, a crazy person who hears voices in his head also accepts "all of science and more".
It's that "and more" that's the problem. You think it's a good thing - you are wrong. There's a reason why science rejects that type of "evidence"; it's inherently unreliable, and can be used to "prove" just about anything.
Of course, I would also argue that, in fact, religious people tend to reject much of science and substitute your "and more" in it's place, but that's just the creamy-diahrrea icing on top of the turd-cake. The essential problem is that, just like any conspiracy theorist or pseudoscientific-quack, religious people either don't understand what constitutes valid evidence, or are happy to hold beliefs which are not supported by evidence.
We have religious people who think you have to believe talking ducks are real, and atheists who are obsessed with mocking anyone who uses talking ducks in a story. Both are missing the whole point of everything.
*facepalm*
I used to read Greek legends when I was a kid (6-10 years old), and thoroughly enjoyed the dramatic stories about the adventures and exploits of various gods and demigods. The difference it, nobody tried to convince me they were real, or told me that Zeus would torture me forever if I didn't believe in him. If you don't see the difference between fanciful stories and the kind of behaviour engaged in by believers in modern religions, you're either blind or a fool. If you DO see the difference, yet don't think they need to be opposed, you're just plain evil.
Hrm.
Your analogy doesn't work because it assumes a closed system about which we (tenants) have a fairly comprehensive perspective on. The "Staff-Members" (or should I say, rent-contract-based) notion of The Landlord involves a universal scenario in which temporal quality of life is not the benchmark of "fixing everything" and tenants are completely unable to understand the origin of the situation they are currently in.
FTFY.
Trying to fix the problems with silly claims by making even more silly claims is a popular approach, but not a very effective one. If your building manager told you that the landlord was some immaterial entity whom you cannot possibly understand, you'd be more convinced that he was crazy, not less
If he could describe something belonging outside this plane of existence he'd be quite an interesting guy.
Existing outside of existence is a contradiction in terms. The term "this plane of existence" is an another thing which you would have to define, since it's usage in normal conversation is so nebulous that it's rendered meaningless.
Some religious god says "I exist" from his POV and that's a subject of faith, irrelevant to your assertion. Yet your assertion is pretty tautologic, not very useful.
Heh. It's a lot more useful than the "god exists, but not in existence" approach. Of course it's tautological - any argument about an invisible magic man is going to be tautological by it's very nature.
Look, the only real question is "do any supernatural entities interfere with our world". If they do, then we should see some indication of it. If they do not, then their existence or non-existence is completely irrelevant. A god who "exists" but can't be observed and never does anything is completely indistinguishable from no god at all. Just like a cup full of invisible magic "water" which can't be measured in any way is no different than an empty glass.
Those are the facts - all else is sophistry.
Well then you did a shit job of explaining the meaning of the word, because the description you gave is equivalent to "imaginary". Though "conceptual" might be more accurate. Either way it means you think your god doesn't actually exist.
Nobody's pushing you down. You have more wealth and opportunity than your ancestors could have dreamed of. If you chose to squander it, that's your call; blaming others for your poor decisions is childish. All I see when I look at the "occupy" twits is a bunch of children without a lick of common sense fighting for their "right" to get free shit. Grow up. The world doesn't owe you anything. Life is what you make of it.
Naw, I am the 1%. So are you. Just ask any guy in China or India.
Focus on your own life, instead of weaving conspiracy theories and worrying about what "TEH RICH BANKER$$$$!!" are doing. I guarantee you'll be happier and more prosperous.
Then again, that's the point, isn't it? You don't want to be happier - you want everyone else to be as miserable as you.
So I should believe as you do. At least you're humble.
Yes, exactly: you should reject claims for which there is no evidence - or, worse, for which there is negative evidence - until such a time as new evidence presents itself. That is what a reasonable individual does. That is what you presumably do, in pretty much every part of your life other than your religious beliefs. Me pointing this out is neither humble nor conceited - it is a simple statement of fact.
You sound like one of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists screaming:
"OF COURSE THERE'S EVIDENCE! Fire can't melt steel!!!!"
All of the points you've raised are wrong, and there are detailed explanations available of why they're wrong. If you prefer to keep your head in the sand, fine, go for it, just don't expect anyone to take your "evidence" seriously.
If your question was really why are there multiple religions, well, some must be invalid, 'wrong' or 'lies' as many say.
Yep. The difference is that you're ok with assuming that all the other tens of thousands of religions are wrong, but yours must be right. I think it's much more likely that they're all wrong. Either way, assuming you've managed to pick the right one is the height of hubris.
So, you're saying the simplest answer is the best? Well...
NO! That is not what occam's razor stipulates. You can check the wikipedia article if you actually want to learn more about it, but if I had to quickly summarize I would put it as "all else being equal the simplest answer is more likely to be true".
The Big Bang theory is a far more complex explanation of the origins of the universe than "God Dun It", but it's also supported by reams of evidence. Using Occam's Razor to evaluate the difference between the two would be idiotic. Occam's Razor only applies when we have no evidence to look at.
Ah. I think the word you're looking for is "imaginary".
Oh, sweet! I think the last time I really looked into it, even that wasn't available.
I'm a big fan of ZFS, but from what I've read on BTRFS it seems to have the potential to be far better as a home file-system. The ability to shrink volumes is a big one. Unfortunately, it's been stalled for a long time now, and even when they finally finish development (2032?) I'd be hesitant to adopt it for at least a year or two, until I'm sure all the kinks have been worked out.
But BTRFS doesn't support any kind of parity yet, right?
I do have a ZFS setup of currently 6 disks and I really recommend buying server-grade HDDs, unless you have set up a monitoring system that tells you whenever a HDD is failing so you can buy a new one.
Sounds like you're just unlucky, or USB disks really suck.
I first built my Solaris/ZFS server in 2007, using 5x500gb WD disks. I added 1tb disks in early 2009. I finally swapped out the original 500 gb disks in late 2010, replacing them with 2tb drives. So the original 500 gig drives ran for 3+ years without an issue, and the 1tb drives have been going almost 3 years now as well. This is in a 24/7 system, of course.
BTW, the actual system drive is an old Maxtor 120 gig IDE that was manufactured in 2003. It's now been running for almost 5 years 24/7, plus another 4 years of on-and-off use prior to that. It's still humming along just fine, but I recently used one of those 500 gig drives to mirror it, just in case.
So I guess YMMV. I've only seen 3 consumer drives fail in my entire life - only one of which was mine - and I've never lost an array to a disk failure. As for monitoring, you can just set up a shell script that runs every half hour and sends you an e-mail if finds any corruption. It's not hard to do.
I also looked at a USB solution like the one you're talking about, but decided to just buy a big case instead. Each of those docks costs $50-$60 - assuming I use 4 drives internally, I'd still need to spend $200+ for docks. Instead, I picked up a Cooler-Master HAF for $140, and a couple drive-bay conversion brackets for $20 each. For the same price as the USB docks, I get a kick-ass case that can house 11 drives internally. Of course, I then had to blow another $180 to get a decent controller card for them, but the speed difference made it well worth the money.
I said "nature", not "survival of the fittest". Not everything is about evolution.
Yes, I know what you said. It made no sense on it's own, so I assumed you were at least misinterpreting evolutionary theory. I threw you a bone, and now you're throwing it back? Sure, go for it - just realize that you've made your initial statement look even more ridiculous.
Mammals may have a sense of territory, but they sure as hell don't respect it when they don't need to. Mammals cheat, steal from and rob each other all the time, even within the same species.
Congrats, you just described humans.
Not to be a dick, but from what you've said, it sounds like a big part of the problem is teachers with no backbone. Parents want to throw a temper-tantrum? Tell them to get fucked. If they don't sit down and shut up, tell them to leave the building or you'll call the cops and have them arrested.
I know most of us in first-world nations live in very non-confrontational societies, and for the most part I like it that way ... but when people are unwilling to stand up to bullies, what do you expect to happen? We're automatically giving the advantage to whoever can scream the loudest. You're giving power over our society to the people least-suited to hold it.
Employees with a mountain of debt are less likely to cause trouble for their employer, as the employee's debt must be serviced, especially education debt in the US.
It is, for all intents and purposes, a rather relaxed version of indentured servitude, considering the overall lack of mobility in the job market.
Funny - one of the criteria the military looks at when you apply is whether or not you have a lot of outstanding debt. If you do, you're far less likely to be offered a contract.
I don't think you've really considered all the possible repercussions ...
My god ... nothing in life is ever your fault, is it?
Must be one of the 44% who claim to be the "99%" ...
Yes, the trolls often have that reaction. No worries - I would have given up on you after a bit of back and forth anyway. Cheers!
not sure how it would be evil/eliminate all competition
Because if you truly "loved your neighbor as yourself" you'd be setting yourself up to be taken advantage of by everyone. Neighbor wants your car? Sure, go ahead! Neighbor wants to screw your wife? No problem! Neighbour wants all of your food? Well, I'll starve, but that's ok, I love you!
Yes, telling people to be suckers is evil. Being a sucker isn't really evil, but it is ... sucky.
, and i disagree with your last statement for 4 reasons:
1. often, people need what they don't want.
Here you're assuming some moral or intellectual superiority which gives you the ability and the duty to determine what others need. If you don't understand just how egotistical and wrong that mindset is, I don't think we can really talk about morality.
2. there's no connection, just transaction.
There doesn't need to be. The only things you need for moral conduct are tolerance and some empathy. If you want to throw some "connections" in on top, fill your boots, but they're not required.
3. there's no personal accountability for failure.
4. there's no requirement for introspection.
Good. These are points in favor, not in opposition.
Of course, #3 applies to your "love they neighbor" spiel, too, so I'm not sure why you'd object in the first place.
Ah, I see. You're just a troll, looking for a rection. Well done, then. Carry on.
RTFS.
Apparently this doesn't detect explosives, anyway - it detects ammonia. The cleaning lady will set off every sensor on the base.
Yet "linked" and "correlated" appear everywhere in medicine. Why is our culture like this? I think it must be a kind of secular religion -- kind of like the faith we have in peer review.
Because correlation is the minimum standard required, as is peer review. Without a peer reviewed study showing significant correlation, you can't expect to be taken seriously by any rational person, let alone encourage others to look into whether there's a causative effect between the two observations. Your distaste for both says a lot about your ability to understand how we determine what is and isn't true.