So you're saying that all those Biblical creationists, if they hadn't been spoon-fed Bible verses in their childhood, would have arrived at the notions of Earth being 6000 years old and a global flood having been a real event, purely by "man's own reasoning"? That somehow doesn't compute to me.
That said, I have yet to see an atheist (besides retired philanthropists) that gives 10% of their income away while working a regular job (heck, over half of Christians don't do it). But I know several Christians that give away 20% or more.
Christians sometimes live in luxury because God has blessed them financially. The Bible is full of wisdom, and people that read and follow it make extremely wise decisions, which often leads to financial success. Why don't they give more to the poor? As Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always." You can give part of your 10% to the poor (most churches do) or you can give above the 10% to other charities to help the poor (many Christians do this as well). But there is no reason that a Christian must live in the ghetto in public housing and give everything to his neighbors. The reality is that the Christian can often do more good with the money than giving it to a poor person that would squander it on the kind of decisions that made them poor to begin with.
Why do so many Christians have sex outside of marriage and divorce their wives? Because they don't really believe in God fully. Even Christians get lonely and struggle with their faith and make bad decisions, even if they know it's wrong.
Abraham had a child by his slave (at his wife's urging).
Moses killed an Egyptian.
David had an affair with Bath-Sheba and killed her husband.
But Abraham also defeated 5 kings' armies with 318 guys to rescue his nephew.
Moses led 2 million people from Egypt to the Promised Land
David and his son Solomon had the greatest kingdoms in Israel's history
Even the apostle Paul, who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, complained at the end of his life that he was constantly sinning. Messing up is part of being human. Beyond that, it's just a degree of harm caused.
To a Christian, God's not looking for perfect people... He'd never find any. He's looking for people that have the faith to do great things that make the world a better place. And Christians are reading a book and going to a place all the time that encourages them to do it.
I realize that atheists don't believe such things are possible, because they don't believe in the supernatural as an a priori. So, based on their a priori, there is nothing different with or without. Based on a Christian's a priori, there are a number of things that an atheist will never experience:
Prophecy
Words of Knowledge
Healing the sick
Speaking/interpretation of tongues
Love to the point of a self-sacrificial death
etc.
Programming languages should have the following built-in:
1. Logging (like Log4Net with choices of database, file logs, e-mail, Windows Error Log, etc.). All exceptions should be logged to the chosen log path automatically.
2. Web pages should go to an Error page, with logging and a link back to the home page. Also, they should record the yellow screen of death info like elmah automatically in the error logs, not show them to the user.
3. Popup dialogs on applications should be more user friendly, with the programmer info going into the logs. Microsoft should work on their error messages so that they make more sense to the user. "Directory not found" should instead say, "Application Name could not find the path c:\folder\subfolder. Please ensure that this folder exists or contact the software developer." Good default error messages would save millions of hours worldwide.
With these simple changes, the quality of software would improve substantially and the work of developers to catch errors would go down dramatically, if they were comfortable with the default handling.
If you're a MS shop, your doing it wrong because the software is not free. You're paying an overhead that you don't have to and licencing constrains your growth.
And yet, we pay a lot less for Microsoft than we did for free open source. Figure that. Maybe Microsoft knows exactly what to charge to make the labor savings you get with their platform worthwhile.
But they are only dumb to people who think wealth is the key to happiness. Most engineers I know are smarter than this and simply want an above-average job where they aren't worked to death and have family time. This makes them happy.
If you truly cared about others, would you go to Congress or work for a church or the peace corps or a charity or something?
And if you had a brain in your head, would you go to Congress? Or would you do something creative that makes you feel fulfilled because you solved a difficult problem or created something beautiful or useful?
From the answer to the 2 above questions, it should become obvious who goes to Congress...
One theory is that it isn't the vaccines as much as the change in how the vaccines are given. When I was a kid (I'm almost 43), a doctor would NEVER give you a vaccine when you were already sick. And they would NEVER vaccinate a pregnant woman. They would reschedule it for later.
Today, doctors don't seem the least bit concerned about having an infant's developing body try to fight off multiple diseases at once or subjecting the unborn to disease fighting antibodies. I sometimes wonder if this change in behavior in vaccinating infants and unborn children causes developmental problems such as autism, which has increased at a rate that genetics alone cannot explain.
At least 5 times doctors have recommended that a member of our family be vaccinated while already sick. In all cases, we rescheduled until we were well. They also recommended that my wife get a vaccine while pregnant, but we refused until after our daughter was born.
My father on the other hand was talked into a flu vaccine while he already had a bad cold (that's why he went to the doctor!) and got pneumonia and almost died. Because old people's brains are apparently unable to see danger (see Slashdot), he continues to swear by his flu vaccine despite the fact that he comes down with the flu about a week later and has for about 5 straight years now (but doctors will tell you that science says this doesn't happen). He tries to get us to get flu vaccines as well, but we don't and we don't get the flu like he does. I have only had the flu once in the last 5 years, and my wife twice.
One would think so, but many Christian women, if they don't work outside the home, are constantly surrounded by Christians. They go to women's Bible study, church, MOPS and various other Christian activities between soccer games and picnics with the family. They go so long without meeting a dishonest person, they forget that such people exist.
I had to set my wife up to not be Administrator on her computer, because she kept getting viruses. When I explained the scams to her, her response was, "But why would anyone do that?" BECAUSE THEY'RE DISHONEST!!!
I think retirement may have the same effect on the elderly, which is part of the reason they are more easily scammed.
Odd now, but nobody cared about source code (or even knew what it was in those days). It was similar to George Lucas maintaining the merchandise rights to Star Wars. What are those?
Are your numbers strictly tuition, or tuition/room/board/fees? Where I went to school, you have no choice but to pay room and board for the first two years. Oddly enough, it takes two years to establish residency in this state. Funny how that rule prevents anyone from getting in-state tuition, even though they spend 4 years living in this state...
Sounds like you should have gone to the state and lived for 2 years getting a low-end job and saving money, maybe even going to a JC with no residence requirements. Then, you could have saved a fortune on college tuition.
It's not a strawman. Colleges continue to teach degrees that have few jobs in massive numbers, instead of tailoring their programs to the open jobs around them. They have failed to keep up with the times, and art history is the one degree where everyone said, "WTF?" when they opened their college course catalog.
Wish I had mod points. This is wisdom that most people take a lifetime to learn, if ever...
Re:Well the ITT / devry / UofP are more about job
on
Just Say No To College
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Because we've hired ITT/devry/UofP people in the past... When you advertise your college to losers in the middle of the night, you end up with a college full of losers.
Many colleges are taking seriously the gap (both the perceived one and the real one) that has emerged between curriculum and the needs of employers, balancing it with the need for well-rounded education/experience both inside and outside of the workplace, and engaging in initiatives to adapt their programs.
Glad to hear this. Colleges usually move at a glacial pace on these sort of things.
In my experience, the ability to think, research and appraise ideas comes from...free time. Kids that have their lives scripted by their parents up to and including college seem to lack these important skills. Kids that have free time create things, experiment, learn to get along with problem people (other kids) and can actually do things. The more colleges become factories, the less prepared the students are.
Slashdot Mirror
Before, he complained about the problem. Now, he is sharing what he found out.
They've actually been working with the advertisers and TV networks for years on this problem, with endless promises and no delivery of results...
If god actually exists, then let it appear to everyone and speak for itself.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=NIV
We do live in a country where you can have a different house of worship on each corner at an intersect and nothing violent happens.
Yeah, they get together for Interfaith Picnics.
So you're saying that all those Biblical creationists, if they hadn't been spoon-fed Bible verses in their childhood, would have arrived at the notions of Earth being 6000 years old and a global flood having been a real event, purely by "man's own reasoning"? That somehow doesn't compute to me.
It may not, but Creationists arrive at that number by doing scientific experiments. Here are some of their arguments and the science behind them if you are truly interested: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n4/ten-best-evidences?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AIGDaily+(Answers+in+Genesis+Daily+Articles)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Great post yourself.
That said, I have yet to see an atheist (besides retired philanthropists) that gives 10% of their income away while working a regular job (heck, over half of Christians don't do it). But I know several Christians that give away 20% or more.
Christians sometimes live in luxury because God has blessed them financially. The Bible is full of wisdom, and people that read and follow it make extremely wise decisions, which often leads to financial success. Why don't they give more to the poor? As Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always." You can give part of your 10% to the poor (most churches do) or you can give above the 10% to other charities to help the poor (many Christians do this as well). But there is no reason that a Christian must live in the ghetto in public housing and give everything to his neighbors. The reality is that the Christian can often do more good with the money than giving it to a poor person that would squander it on the kind of decisions that made them poor to begin with.
Why do so many Christians have sex outside of marriage and divorce their wives? Because they don't really believe in God fully. Even Christians get lonely and struggle with their faith and make bad decisions, even if they know it's wrong.
Abraham had a child by his slave (at his wife's urging).
Moses killed an Egyptian.
David had an affair with Bath-Sheba and killed her husband.
But Abraham also defeated 5 kings' armies with 318 guys to rescue his nephew.
Moses led 2 million people from Egypt to the Promised Land
David and his son Solomon had the greatest kingdoms in Israel's history
Even the apostle Paul, who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, complained at the end of his life that he was constantly sinning. Messing up is part of being human. Beyond that, it's just a degree of harm caused.
To a Christian, God's not looking for perfect people... He'd never find any. He's looking for people that have the faith to do great things that make the world a better place. And Christians are reading a book and going to a place all the time that encourages them to do it.
I can't, yet. Someday it will be obvious to all one way or another who is right.
Healing the sick through prayer.
I realize that atheists don't believe such things are possible, because they don't believe in the supernatural as an a priori. So, based on their a priori, there is nothing different with or without. Based on a Christian's a priori, there are a number of things that an atheist will never experience:
Prophecy
Words of Knowledge
Healing the sick
Speaking/interpretation of tongues
Love to the point of a self-sacrificial death
etc.
Programming languages should have the following built-in:
1. Logging (like Log4Net with choices of database, file logs, e-mail, Windows Error Log, etc.). All exceptions should be logged to the chosen log path automatically.
2. Web pages should go to an Error page, with logging and a link back to the home page. Also, they should record the yellow screen of death info like elmah automatically in the error logs, not show them to the user.
3. Popup dialogs on applications should be more user friendly, with the programmer info going into the logs. Microsoft should work on their error messages so that they make more sense to the user. "Directory not found" should instead say, "Application Name could not find the path c:\folder\subfolder. Please ensure that this folder exists or contact the software developer." Good default error messages would save millions of hours worldwide.
With these simple changes, the quality of software would improve substantially and the work of developers to catch errors would go down dramatically, if they were comfortable with the default handling.
Ignoring the error completely, data integrity or planned functioning be damned.
This is the option chosen by most developers...
If you're a MS shop, your doing it wrong because the software is not free. You're paying an overhead that you don't have to and licencing constrains your growth.
And yet, we pay a lot less for Microsoft than we did for free open source. Figure that. Maybe Microsoft knows exactly what to charge to make the labor savings you get with their platform worthwhile.
But they are only dumb to people who think wealth is the key to happiness. Most engineers I know are smarter than this and simply want an above-average job where they aren't worked to death and have family time. This makes them happy.
And made $70K instead of $120K.
If you truly cared about others, would you go to Congress or work for a church or the peace corps or a charity or something?
And if you had a brain in your head, would you go to Congress? Or would you do something creative that makes you feel fulfilled because you solved a difficult problem or created something beautiful or useful?
From the answer to the 2 above questions, it should become obvious who goes to Congress...
One theory is that it isn't the vaccines as much as the change in how the vaccines are given. When I was a kid (I'm almost 43), a doctor would NEVER give you a vaccine when you were already sick. And they would NEVER vaccinate a pregnant woman. They would reschedule it for later.
Today, doctors don't seem the least bit concerned about having an infant's developing body try to fight off multiple diseases at once or subjecting the unborn to disease fighting antibodies. I sometimes wonder if this change in behavior in vaccinating infants and unborn children causes developmental problems such as autism, which has increased at a rate that genetics alone cannot explain.
At least 5 times doctors have recommended that a member of our family be vaccinated while already sick. In all cases, we rescheduled until we were well. They also recommended that my wife get a vaccine while pregnant, but we refused until after our daughter was born.
My father on the other hand was talked into a flu vaccine while he already had a bad cold (that's why he went to the doctor!) and got pneumonia and almost died. Because old people's brains are apparently unable to see danger (see Slashdot), he continues to swear by his flu vaccine despite the fact that he comes down with the flu about a week later and has for about 5 straight years now (but doctors will tell you that science says this doesn't happen). He tries to get us to get flu vaccines as well, but we don't and we don't get the flu like he does. I have only had the flu once in the last 5 years, and my wife twice.
Try Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Those 2 books have a ton of wise quotes.
One would think so, but many Christian women, if they don't work outside the home, are constantly surrounded by Christians. They go to women's Bible study, church, MOPS and various other Christian activities between soccer games and picnics with the family. They go so long without meeting a dishonest person, they forget that such people exist.
I had to set my wife up to not be Administrator on her computer, because she kept getting viruses. When I explained the scams to her, her response was, "But why would anyone do that?" BECAUSE THEY'RE DISHONEST!!!
I think retirement may have the same effect on the elderly, which is part of the reason they are more easily scammed.
Odd now, but nobody cared about source code (or even knew what it was in those days). It was similar to George Lucas maintaining the merchandise rights to Star Wars. What are those?
Are your numbers strictly tuition, or tuition/room/board/fees? Where I went to school, you have no choice but to pay room and board for the first two years. Oddly enough, it takes two years to establish residency in this state. Funny how that rule prevents anyone from getting in-state tuition, even though they spend 4 years living in this state...
Sounds like you should have gone to the state and lived for 2 years getting a low-end job and saving money, maybe even going to a JC with no residence requirements. Then, you could have saved a fortune on college tuition.
It's not a strawman. Colleges continue to teach degrees that have few jobs in massive numbers, instead of tailoring their programs to the open jobs around them. They have failed to keep up with the times, and art history is the one degree where everyone said, "WTF?" when they opened their college course catalog.
Whatever you may have accomplished, don't put down art history. I've taken a few art history courses. First, art history is a subset of history.
OK, all history majors suck for getting most jobs. Better?
Wish I had mod points. This is wisdom that most people take a lifetime to learn, if ever...
Because we've hired ITT/devry/UofP people in the past... When you advertise your college to losers in the middle of the night, you end up with a college full of losers.
Many colleges are taking seriously the gap (both the perceived one and the real one) that has emerged between curriculum and the needs of employers, balancing it with the need for well-rounded education/experience both inside and outside of the workplace, and engaging in initiatives to adapt their programs.
Glad to hear this. Colleges usually move at a glacial pace on these sort of things.
In my experience, the ability to think, research and appraise ideas comes from...free time. Kids that have their lives scripted by their parents up to and including college seem to lack these important skills. Kids that have free time create things, experiment, learn to get along with problem people (other kids) and can actually do things. The more colleges become factories, the less prepared the students are.