Actually even in towns where nothing much is happening you could still have stuff to do, just it wouldn't involve saving lives or whatever. You could have some townspeople invite you out to hunt some boar, or maybe help the farmer harvest the crop. Of course you'd quickly get bored of that and go off somewhere there's a little more trouble to do something interesting, but it would make the world feel a little more real.
Heh... I somehow doubt the US Army would put out a game which lets you play from the point of view of the insurgents. The reason for this should be pretty obvious.
You call that rationalizing? I'm sure you can do better than that. Try this:
The scientists are only like 99% sure of this global warming thing, so I'll continue live in that 1% margin of error where I can drive my SUV an hour each way to work. If we run out of oil we'll just say that venezuela or canada has WMDs or something. I work hard all day browsing the internet and posting on web forums. I deserve to have brand name clothes made by children in some sweatshop somewhere. I need that cell phone made from materials mined by slaves in africa so I can text message my votes for american idol, which I watch on my Plasma HDTV. Sure I'd like to give money to charity, but you know they'll just waste it. Only my opinion matters, everyone who disagrees with me is a hypocrite. People should either be rich enough to not care about the world or poor enough to not have the means to criticize the way world works.
Yeah I think Samba might be a target here. If Novell contributes code to Samba, and Novell says that the code they conrtibuted was licensed from MS, then Samba can only be used by companies that are indemnified by MS. Remember that part of this deal is about interoperability, and Samba is a big part of that.
Another target id Mono. It's probably a good idea to avoid that platform altogether, since its likely only MS approved linux distros will be allowed to run apps developed for Mono. Of course its just as likely mono will remain free. But the worst case scenario is going to scare a lot of developers, making mono a dead platform.
I think Perens is right. As long as this deal is in effect, everything Novell does will be tainted. No Open Source project should accept any code from Novell until they cancel this deal. It's good to see that the Samba team gets it. Though I think it's likely this will kill Mono.
And most religions are definitely limited. Most religions demand that you follow that religion and no others. But the thing is most religions take a lot of stuff from other religions when they are being formed. Christianity includes most of Judaism. Islam includes most of Christianity and Judaism. Buddhism takes in a little bit form Hinduism.
The problem with atheism is that it tacitly rejects anything from past religions. So its just a little more limiting than other religions.
The anthropomorphic principle absolutely kills any kind of deep thinking. Why is the Universe the way it is? Because if it were different we wouldn't be observing it. Why are we here? What is our purpose? To an atheist there is only one valid answer to that question: the anthropomorphic principle. Any other answer requires that something resembling God to exist.
Now if you start thinking what if there was some reason for it all... what if there was some kind of guiding force? Even just a slight possibility that there was something deliberate going on in the first instants of the big bang. Then the "why are we here?" question has an infinite number of possible answers. The things that Jesus and Buddha said go from somewhat interesting discourse to being the most important lessons you could ever learn. But once you start thinking like this you are no longer an atheist.
The "Why are we here?" question has one answer for an atheist. To get past this limitation you have to accept the possibilities of things that can't be proven.
I think this is just a message to MS: "If you don't play nice with vista, this is what we can do..."
I think the amount of money to be made from Desktop OS's is going to take a drop, even for MS. Piracy is going to continue to take a chunk of business no matter how much MS pushes WGA and DRM. But an even bigger problem is that most people just don't need that many features from an OS. the Office, IE, and Windows lock in schemes are being chipped away by increased competition and anti-trust rulings. Computers aren't going to keep improving geometrically forever, so people will stop replacing their computers every couple of years, and that means less bundled copies of windows being sold.
Now these same conditions also affect Linux. I don't think a Desktop Linux distro could do much more than break even. There's money to be made on servers, but not as many people will bother paying for support for their desktop. So Google probably doesn't really want to do a Linux desktop distro, its far easier to let Mark Shuttleworth dump his time and money into it. But if Microsoft gets up to their usual dirty tricks with vista... well buying ubuntu and puting a few billion into improving it is a good strategy to prevent Google from becoming another Netscape.
You seem to be under the impression that science has something to do with religion. Religion is about have faith. Science is about being skeptical. Science and Religion should never be combined. But that is exactly what you're doing.
You are supposed to understand science and believe in religion. But you don't beleive in religion so now you believe in science instead.
So now science is your religion. That is a perversion of what science should be. Science demands skepticism, just as religion demands faith. You should never believe in science, you should only understand it. when you believe in it, its no longer science.
If you base your belief system on science you are neither a theologist nor a scientist.
My point exactly.
Why are we here?
Atheist: Why not?
Believer: Because God created us.
Philosopher: We are here to ask questions. Questions like "Why are we here?"
The atheist has the anthropomorphic principle which pretty much end the conversation.
The believer has an answer, but that answer raises the followup, "why did god create us?" which gets you thinking again.
The phisopher, well pretty much by definition he never stops thinking and asking more questions.
So when you get right down to it atheism is more absolute than any religion. It has an answer that explains the Universe completely and ends all the questioning of why. It makes some people feel good to have that question answered. Everything is all tied up into a nice neat little package. Logic and reason answers all the questions so you can sleep sound at night.
But some people think there is some value in asking "why?" So they reject the atheist answer and go searching for God.
Did you ever consider that religion simply makes people's lives a little more interesting? If there is no God and there is no meaning to life, then what's the harm in people going to curch and praying, if that is what they want to spend their time doing?
Actually the "yuo people" was addressed to all the fundamentalists, not to all the atheists.
Atheism doesn't "limit" you any more than it frees you - again, same as religion...
I would argue Atheism is just another religion. And it is as limiting as all the other religions. You assumed that I abandoned atheism for Christianity. That's not completely true. I just chose not to limit myself to any one belief system. I just pick and choose whatever seems right from whatever religion I'm exposed to. Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed all hove some very insightful knowledge of the universe. Why limit yourself to one?
It's interesting that you would immediately assume that someone who is contrary to your beliefs is Christian. I'm reminded of a quote from dune I saw in someone's sig: "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." I think this is a trap that many atheists fall into. They simply define themselves as simply being against christianity (and by extension all religions). So when an atheist asks "Why are we here?" he has to reject any answer that might resemble something from religion. This is what is so limiting about atheism.
Many atheists fill in the "idol-shaped hole" with science which is unfortunate. These atheists are damaging science much more than the fundamentalist christians. They don't just understand evolution and use it as a tool for science. They believe in evolution. And because of that they are as much responsible for dragging religion into science as the christian fundies.
When the fundies say "evolution is just a theory" a scientist simply answers "yes it is". But an atheist sees red "blasphemy! how dare you question Our Great Darwin (peace be upon him)". Atheists have turned the theory of evolution and the big bang theory into their own religious dogma. And this goes completely against the scientific method that demands skepticism.
Creationism is the ultimate troll against the atheists. It only exists to incite the atheists to go off on mad rants about how evil the fundies are for questioning the Great Darwin. This makes people think that evolution is an atheistic belief and something to be avoided by all God-fearing Christians.
Fundies challenge you because you are an easy target. They start talking about creationism and they instantly get an angry atheist. "See what atheists are like? We have to get evolution out our schools or our children might become angry atheists like that guy!"
You can't disprove the existence of a blue dragon. You can't disprove the existence of God. You can't disprove the existence of life on Mars. Therefore all of these things don't exist, right? That's what you are arguing using all that logic isn't it?
Then ten years from now we land a probe on Mars and discover blue dragons living on Mars. Then I guess that means God exists? Or maybe just maybe it means that if you can't disprove something exists it amounts to jack shit in logical discourse.
"Using logic only, you can't disprove the existence of anything." Translation from smug: "No fair! We can't win this argument! I'll just declare victory and go home." Do all the handwaving you want, but logic can't prove God exists, and logic can't prove God doesn't exist. There is nothing logical about what you believe and there is nothing logical about what I believe.
If you don't believe in God then that's fine. But that's only because that is what you feel is right. Logic has nothing to do with it.
Atheist: God doesn't exist. Stop believing in God! Believer: How do you know? Atheist: I haven't seen any evidence of a God existing. Believer: Have you seen any evidence he hasn't? Atheist: You can't prove a negative. You should stop believing in God. Believer: But I like believing in God. Why should I stop believing in God just because you haven't found proof of His existence? Maybe you just aren't looking hard enough... Atheist: You can't prove a negative! GOD DOESN'T EXIST! YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE!!!! Believer:...whatever.
Actually your argument is similar to the argument that Lisa made to Homer that a rock had magical powers that could keep tigers away. "I don't see any tigers around do you?" "Lisa, I want to buy that rock." Your whole argument revolves around "I don't see God around do you? Therefore atheists are right!".
You're right that you can't prove a negative. But that doesn't automatically mean that God doesn't exist. You've acheived a stalemate (at best) and are claiming it as a victory.
And that is worse than advocating change for change's sake?
If you offer proof that there is no God and I continue to believe in God because "it's tradition" then you'd have a point. But you can't demand that I stop believing in God just because its out of fashion or whatever. You need to have a compelling reason for me to completely change my beliefs.
But that's the thing, you can't prove God doesn't exist can you? Yes, lack of proof of God's non-existence does not prove that God exists. But shouting "you can't prove a negative" over and over isn't a good enough reason to completely change one's belief system, now is it?
Tradition is like the default settings on your computer. If you have a reason to change them then you do so. If you don't have an reason to change them then you don't. If you go in and start messing around with these things because "you have no proof that the default settings are right" then you're just asking for trouble.
Most Christians would also regard these people as crazy.
And that's why this museum is a good thing. I think most christians beleive in this creationism crap simply because they haven't really thought it through. But if they see a bunch of whack jobs with a museum that shows Adam and Eve with some dinosaurs, well then its right there out in the open. Christians will have ask themselves "do I really believe this crap?"
It's like an addiction. You have to hit rock bottom before you can get better. And this museum seems pretty rock bottom to me.
The only thing worse than a christian fundamentalist is an atheist fundamentalist. Why the hell do you people want to convert everyone? How are you so certain that you are absolutely correct about everything? Atheism is a religion and it has its own dogma, you know.
Jesus said we should be kind to one another and forgive and not judge. If theis message makes someone a better person, couldn't you say that person was saved by Jesus?
Is it wrong to appreciate life in all its forms? Is it wrong to think that life is something special in the Universe? "God loves you" is just another way of saying that.
I used to be an atheist. But the problem with atheism is that it limits you. Science can answer the "How?" questions but not the "Why?" questions. Why are we here? Big bang, evolution, yada yada yada. That tells us how, but not why.
The thing is, consensus is all we have. We can't absolutely prove anything with 100% certainty. All we can do is work with the best data and models we have available.
We have used the theory of evolution in medical research which has resulted in countless lives being saved. Should we have waited until we convince all the ID people before we start using the theory of evolution to develop new medicine.
Yes, it is good to have suspicion of consensus, but you can't let that suspicion paralyse you. If these theories of global warming are correct then we need to act now. By the time we have absolute conclusive 100% certain "proof" it will be too late.
I'm reminded of of someone discussing the reaction time of governments. Imagine there were a virus that doubled the amount of people infected everyday. First one person, then 2 on the next day, then 4 on the day after that, then 8, 16, 32, etc. The government only reacts when a quarter of the population is infected. How much time do they have to contain the virus or find a cure? Two days.
Sometimes if you wait for a problem to have real demonstrable effects you leave yourself too little time to find a solution.
If I had mod points I'd mod you up just for the Harrison Ford reference. The rule with movies is "Show don't tell". And with books all it is is telling you stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually even in towns where nothing much is happening you could still have stuff to do, just it wouldn't involve saving lives or whatever. You could have some townspeople invite you out to hunt some boar, or maybe help the farmer harvest the crop. Of course you'd quickly get bored of that and go off somewhere there's a little more trouble to do something interesting, but it would make the world feel a little more real.
Heh... I somehow doubt the US Army would put out a game which lets you play from the point of view of the insurgents. The reason for this should be pretty obvious.
Also don't forget the implication that "Big Mike" might beat you up if you buy stuff from Novell's competitors.
You call that rationalizing? I'm sure you can do better than that. Try this:
The scientists are only like 99% sure of this global warming thing, so I'll continue live in that 1% margin of error where I can drive my SUV an hour each way to work. If we run out of oil we'll just say that venezuela or canada has WMDs or something. I work hard all day browsing the internet and posting on web forums. I deserve to have brand name clothes made by children in some sweatshop somewhere. I need that cell phone made from materials mined by slaves in africa so I can text message my votes for american idol, which I watch on my Plasma HDTV. Sure I'd like to give money to charity, but you know they'll just waste it. Only my opinion matters, everyone who disagrees with me is a hypocrite. People should either be rich enough to not care about the world or poor enough to not have the means to criticize the way world works.
Now that's how you rationalize.
Water-boarders.
Yeah I think Samba might be a target here. If Novell contributes code to Samba, and Novell says that the code they conrtibuted was licensed from MS, then Samba can only be used by companies that are indemnified by MS. Remember that part of this deal is about interoperability, and Samba is a big part of that.
Another target id Mono. It's probably a good idea to avoid that platform altogether, since its likely only MS approved linux distros will be allowed to run apps developed for Mono. Of course its just as likely mono will remain free. But the worst case scenario is going to scare a lot of developers, making mono a dead platform.
I think Perens is right. As long as this deal is in effect, everything Novell does will be tainted. No Open Source project should accept any code from Novell until they cancel this deal. It's good to see that the Samba team gets it. Though I think it's likely this will kill Mono.
If we lived under a Roman Republic now, am sure we would built bases on Moon and colonized Mars instead of struggling in Iraq.
Don't be too sure... the Romans had their share of failed campaigns in Parthia.
I despise the close minded.
And most religions are definitely limited. Most religions demand that you follow that religion and no others. But the thing is most religions take a lot of stuff from other religions when they are being formed. Christianity includes most of Judaism. Islam includes most of Christianity and Judaism. Buddhism takes in a little bit form Hinduism.
The problem with atheism is that it tacitly rejects anything from past religions. So its just a little more limiting than other religions.
The anthropomorphic principle absolutely kills any kind of deep thinking. Why is the Universe the way it is? Because if it were different we wouldn't be observing it. Why are we here? What is our purpose? To an atheist there is only one valid answer to that question: the anthropomorphic principle. Any other answer requires that something resembling God to exist.
Now if you start thinking what if there was some reason for it all... what if there was some kind of guiding force? Even just a slight possibility that there was something deliberate going on in the first instants of the big bang. Then the "why are we here?" question has an infinite number of possible answers. The things that Jesus and Buddha said go from somewhat interesting discourse to being the most important lessons you could ever learn. But once you start thinking like this you are no longer an atheist.
The "Why are we here?" question has one answer for an atheist. To get past this limitation you have to accept the possibilities of things that can't be proven.
I think this is just a message to MS: "If you don't play nice with vista, this is what we can do..."
I think the amount of money to be made from Desktop OS's is going to take a drop, even for MS. Piracy is going to continue to take a chunk of business no matter how much MS pushes WGA and DRM. But an even bigger problem is that most people just don't need that many features from an OS. the Office, IE, and Windows lock in schemes are being chipped away by increased competition and anti-trust rulings. Computers aren't going to keep improving geometrically forever, so people will stop replacing their computers every couple of years, and that means less bundled copies of windows being sold.
Now these same conditions also affect Linux. I don't think a Desktop Linux distro could do much more than break even. There's money to be made on servers, but not as many people will bother paying for support for their desktop. So Google probably doesn't really want to do a Linux desktop distro, its far easier to let Mark Shuttleworth dump his time and money into it. But if Microsoft gets up to their usual dirty tricks with vista... well buying ubuntu and puting a few billion into improving it is a good strategy to prevent Google from becoming another Netscape.
They could buy Ubuntu.
You seem to be under the impression that science has something to do with religion. Religion is about have faith. Science is about being skeptical. Science and Religion should never be combined. But that is exactly what you're doing.
You are supposed to understand science and believe in religion. But you don't beleive in religion so now you believe in science instead. So now science is your religion. That is a perversion of what science should be. Science demands skepticism, just as religion demands faith. You should never believe in science, you should only understand it. when you believe in it, its no longer science.
If you base your belief system on science you are neither a theologist nor a scientist.
What difference does it make if belief and rituals are separated or combined? If the beliefs are false anyway, who cares?
My point exactly. Why are we here? Atheist: Why not? Believer: Because God created us. Philosopher: We are here to ask questions. Questions like "Why are we here?" The atheist has the anthropomorphic principle which pretty much end the conversation. The believer has an answer, but that answer raises the followup, "why did god create us?" which gets you thinking again. The phisopher, well pretty much by definition he never stops thinking and asking more questions. So when you get right down to it atheism is more absolute than any religion. It has an answer that explains the Universe completely and ends all the questioning of why. It makes some people feel good to have that question answered. Everything is all tied up into a nice neat little package. Logic and reason answers all the questions so you can sleep sound at night. But some people think there is some value in asking "why?" So they reject the atheist answer and go searching for God.
Did you ever consider that religion simply makes people's lives a little more interesting? If there is no God and there is no meaning to life, then what's the harm in people going to curch and praying, if that is what they want to spend their time doing?
I would argue Atheism is just another religion. And it is as limiting as all the other religions. You assumed that I abandoned atheism for Christianity. That's not completely true. I just chose not to limit myself to any one belief system. I just pick and choose whatever seems right from whatever religion I'm exposed to. Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed all hove some very insightful knowledge of the universe. Why limit yourself to one?
It's interesting that you would immediately assume that someone who is contrary to your beliefs is Christian. I'm reminded of a quote from dune I saw in someone's sig: "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." I think this is a trap that many atheists fall into. They simply define themselves as simply being against christianity (and by extension all religions). So when an atheist asks "Why are we here?" he has to reject any answer that might resemble something from religion. This is what is so limiting about atheism.
Many atheists fill in the "idol-shaped hole" with science which is unfortunate. These atheists are damaging science much more than the fundamentalist christians. They don't just understand evolution and use it as a tool for science. They believe in evolution. And because of that they are as much responsible for dragging religion into science as the christian fundies.
When the fundies say "evolution is just a theory" a scientist simply answers "yes it is". But an atheist sees red "blasphemy! how dare you question Our Great Darwin (peace be upon him)". Atheists have turned the theory of evolution and the big bang theory into their own religious dogma. And this goes completely against the scientific method that demands skepticism.
Creationism is the ultimate troll against the atheists. It only exists to incite the atheists to go off on mad rants about how evil the fundies are for questioning the Great Darwin. This makes people think that evolution is an atheistic belief and something to be avoided by all God-fearing Christians.
Fundies challenge you because you are an easy target. They start talking about creationism and they instantly get an angry atheist. "See what atheists are like? We have to get evolution out our schools or our children might become angry atheists like that guy!"
You can't disprove the existence of a blue dragon. You can't disprove the existence of God. You can't disprove the existence of life on Mars. Therefore all of these things don't exist, right? That's what you are arguing using all that logic isn't it?
Then ten years from now we land a probe on Mars and discover blue dragons living on Mars. Then I guess that means God exists? Or maybe just maybe it means that if you can't disprove something exists it amounts to jack shit in logical discourse.
"Using logic only, you can't disprove the existence of anything." Translation from smug: "No fair! We can't win this argument! I'll just declare victory and go home." Do all the handwaving you want, but logic can't prove God exists, and logic can't prove God doesn't exist. There is nothing logical about what you believe and there is nothing logical about what I believe.
If you don't believe in God then that's fine. But that's only because that is what you feel is right. Logic has nothing to do with it.
Atheist: God doesn't exist. Stop believing in God! ...whatever.
Believer: How do you know?
Atheist: I haven't seen any evidence of a God existing.
Believer: Have you seen any evidence he hasn't?
Atheist: You can't prove a negative. You should stop believing in God.
Believer: But I like believing in God. Why should I stop believing in God just because you haven't found proof of His existence? Maybe you just aren't looking hard enough...
Atheist: You can't prove a negative! GOD DOESN'T EXIST! YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE!!!!
Believer:
Actually your argument is similar to the argument that Lisa made to Homer that a rock had magical powers that could keep tigers away. "I don't see any tigers around do you?" "Lisa, I want to buy that rock." Your whole argument revolves around "I don't see God around do you? Therefore atheists are right!".
You're right that you can't prove a negative. But that doesn't automatically mean that God doesn't exist. You've acheived a stalemate (at best) and are claiming it as a victory.
And that is worse than advocating change for change's sake?
If you offer proof that there is no God and I continue to believe in God because "it's tradition" then you'd have a point. But you can't demand that I stop believing in God just because its out of fashion or whatever. You need to have a compelling reason for me to completely change my beliefs.
But that's the thing, you can't prove God doesn't exist can you? Yes, lack of proof of God's non-existence does not prove that God exists. But shouting "you can't prove a negative" over and over isn't a good enough reason to completely change one's belief system, now is it?
Tradition is like the default settings on your computer. If you have a reason to change them then you do so. If you don't have an reason to change them then you don't. If you go in and start messing around with these things because "you have no proof that the default settings are right" then you're just asking for trouble.
And that's why this museum is a good thing. I think most christians beleive in this creationism crap simply because they haven't really thought it through. But if they see a bunch of whack jobs with a museum that shows Adam and Eve with some dinosaurs, well then its right there out in the open. Christians will have ask themselves "do I really believe this crap?"
It's like an addiction. You have to hit rock bottom before you can get better. And this museum seems pretty rock bottom to me.
Jesus said we should be kind to one another and forgive and not judge. If theis message makes someone a better person, couldn't you say that person was saved by Jesus?
Is it wrong to appreciate life in all its forms? Is it wrong to think that life is something special in the Universe? "God loves you" is just another way of saying that.
I used to be an atheist. But the problem with atheism is that it limits you. Science can answer the "How?" questions but not the "Why?" questions. Why are we here? Big bang, evolution, yada yada yada. That tells us how, but not why.
Religion is the reason why poor people vote for Republicans who cut social programs and give tax cuts to the rich.
You're right, the analogy is broken. Even Opium addicts aren't as stupid as the "Christian Right".
The thing is, consensus is all we have. We can't absolutely prove anything with 100% certainty. All we can do is work with the best data and models we have available.
We have used the theory of evolution in medical research which has resulted in countless lives being saved. Should we have waited until we convince all the ID people before we start using the theory of evolution to develop new medicine.
Yes, it is good to have suspicion of consensus, but you can't let that suspicion paralyse you. If these theories of global warming are correct then we need to act now. By the time we have absolute conclusive 100% certain "proof" it will be too late.
I'm reminded of of someone discussing the reaction time of governments. Imagine there were a virus that doubled the amount of people infected everyday. First one person, then 2 on the next day, then 4 on the day after that, then 8, 16, 32, etc. The government only reacts when a quarter of the population is infected. How much time do they have to contain the virus or find a cure? Two days.
Sometimes if you wait for a problem to have real demonstrable effects you leave yourself too little time to find a solution.
Quoting clerks on the internet is fine. Quoting Clerks 2 is just lame.
If I had mod points I'd mod you up just for the Harrison Ford reference. The rule with movies is "Show don't tell". And with books all it is is telling you stuff.