Basic reading comprehension is a useful skill. You may want to consider learning it. Allow me to break this down a bit more for you, since I apparently assumed too much.
>As a gnostic atheist myself, >So you also deny the existance of people who claim to know there's no God?
Brief English lesson. Gnosticism is the claim that it is possible to know the truth about the existence of God or gods. Agnosticism is the claim that that truth is unknowable. A gnostic theist believes there is a god and believes it is possible to know this to be true. An agnostic theist believes there is a god but does not believe that it is possible to know for sure. An agnostic atheist ("weak atheism", often incorrectly referred to simply as agnosticism) does not believe in god and believes it is not possible to know for sure. A gnostic atheist ("strong atheism") does not believe in god and believes it is possible to know this to be true.
I do not deny the existance of people who claim to know there is no god - gnostic atheists - in part because I AM one.
Now let's look at what I was replying to, and I will explain my response in greater detail.
>And ironically, atheism is also the vanity of those who cannot answer 'I do not know'.
Agnostic atheists are essentially making the claim "I do not believe it is possible to know if there is a god or not, but I do not believe there is." Clearly this comment does not apply to them, but I did not believe it was meant to, so I didn't bother spelling it out.
Gnostic atheists, strong atheists, whatever you want to call us, those seem to be the target of the original post's claim, as we are at least making some kind of positive claim - that it is possible to know whether there is a god. If you are agnostic (whether you are an agnostic theist or agnostic atheist), that may seem to be a vain claim. However, we are completely capable of answering "I do not know" and will do so when appropriate. My post provided examples - we don't claim to know what happened before the big bang or if the concept of 'before the big bang' is even valid. We claim we do know on the god issue specifically, but not on any of the multitude of related questions.
The reasons for making a gnostic claim vary from person to person - in my case, the argument is simple. Every claim of a deity that actually does something, has some kind of effect on the world beyond making it in the first place, can and has been disproven. We cannot disprove a god who does not influence the world any more than we can disprove there is an invisible, intangible pink unicorn who lives in my basement and leaves no trail of it's passing and doesn't touch or influence anything. However, I feel we can safely disregard these claims because they are meaningless and worthless. They add complexity without providing new information or allowing for predictions of anything. If you take a model of the universe based on only observable data and one that is identical except that there's also something we can't detect that doesn't affect anything, and both make exactly the same predictions, there is no reason to bother with that invisible entity in our model - Occam's razor applies here.
If you can give me an experimentally sound model of a god who has some kind of influence in the workings of the universe, that is detectable and allows us to make some kind of prediction about something not explained by the naturalistic model, I'd be willing to reconsider my stance. But based on all evidence currently available, I believe such a god does not exist.
No. Even strong atheism merely claims "I don't know what the answer is, but I believe your explanation is incorrect."
As a gnostic atheist myself, I don't pretend to know what happened before the big bang - or even if there was a 'before', or if that question is even meaningful or sensical. I will claim that a god as usually described by the Abrahamic faiths is nonsensical, however, as are most other specific claims about deities or other supernatural entities/phenomena. There are a few exceptions, like the deistic idea of god, that cannot be disproven - but I do not believe in them either, for a number of reasons.
Your (not you're) money in the savings account would also gain value in periods of negative inflation, at exactly the same rate (in addition to interest paid) so I don't see what point you are trying to make with that.
It's a bit subjective, honestly. I count 18 elementary moves - each of the 6 faces rotated in one of three ways - quarter clockwise, quarter counterclockwise, or half. Some people also consider slices (rotating the center but not the sides) an elementary move, giving 6 more elementary moves (each of the two slices rotated 3 ways) - I consider them two opposing edge rotations, just as you consider a half rotation two quarter rotations. In the end, however, all that matters is consistency - if you can solve a configuration in 10 moves (counting a single half-turn as two moves) and I say I can solve it in 9 (by counting it differently) that's when we have a problem. But in a case like this, since they are already setting an arbitrary target number of moves, it doesn't matter how they count them/so long as the results are compared to other results counted in the same way/.
I would love to see the results of this experiment. No matter how it turns out, we're going to learn SOMETHING about how the world works - either giving new evidence to reinforce old uncertain ideas or shattering them with new possibilities.
You mean "whose whos" not "whose who's" and "your theres" not "your there's." Stop abusing the poor apostrophe by needlessly jamming it into plural nouns.
Then the reviewer sucked. If you set it up correctly, he'll get a strike every time.
I would know, I could.
Of course, it's more a matter of putting the pins where he's going to throw it than a matter of him finding the pins and throwing towards them.
If they were going "Give me $10 and I'll put DaVinci Code on your iPod" you'd be right. It's (from my understanding) "give me $10 and I'll copy your DaVinci Code DVD onto your iPod for you", however, which (IANAL) would fall under fair use, backup/archival copies.
Where I live in the US, regular gas (I think it's 87? 88?) is $2.89/ gallon on a good day, up to about $3.05. My car's pretty gas efficient, and I get 300 miles on about $35. My mother's car costs closer to $60 for the same distance.
On the other hand, I'm making about $200/month after taxes. A CD costs me $10-$18, and I can get a good sandwich for $5. All considered, it's not too bad a difference.
>The Software is licensed, not sold.
>Actually almost every store SELLS it. So it is an erroneous statment.
Common misperception. You're not buying the software, you're buying the media it's on and a license to use it. That CD is yours and you can do whatever you want with it, but the contents are property of Microsoft.
I completely disagree with it, but that's how the laws are right now.
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Basic reading comprehension is a useful skill. You may want to consider learning it. Allow me to break this down a bit more for you, since I apparently assumed too much.
>As a gnostic atheist myself,
>So you also deny the existance of people who claim to know there's no God?
Brief English lesson. Gnosticism is the claim that it is possible to know the truth about the existence of God or gods. Agnosticism is the claim that that truth is unknowable. A gnostic theist believes there is a god and believes it is possible to know this to be true. An agnostic theist believes there is a god but does not believe that it is possible to know for sure. An agnostic atheist ("weak atheism", often incorrectly referred to simply as agnosticism) does not believe in god and believes it is not possible to know for sure. A gnostic atheist ("strong atheism") does not believe in god and believes it is possible to know this to be true.
I do not deny the existance of people who claim to know there is no god - gnostic atheists - in part because I AM one.
Now let's look at what I was replying to, and I will explain my response in greater detail.
>And ironically, atheism is also the vanity of those who cannot answer 'I do not know'.
Agnostic atheists are essentially making the claim "I do not believe it is possible to know if there is a god or not, but I do not believe there is." Clearly this comment does not apply to them, but I did not believe it was meant to, so I didn't bother spelling it out.
Gnostic atheists, strong atheists, whatever you want to call us, those seem to be the target of the original post's claim, as we are at least making some kind of positive claim - that it is possible to know whether there is a god. If you are agnostic (whether you are an agnostic theist or agnostic atheist), that may seem to be a vain claim. However, we are completely capable of answering "I do not know" and will do so when appropriate. My post provided examples - we don't claim to know what happened before the big bang or if the concept of 'before the big bang' is even valid. We claim we do know on the god issue specifically, but not on any of the multitude of related questions.
The reasons for making a gnostic claim vary from person to person - in my case, the argument is simple. Every claim of a deity that actually does something, has some kind of effect on the world beyond making it in the first place, can and has been disproven. We cannot disprove a god who does not influence the world any more than we can disprove there is an invisible, intangible pink unicorn who lives in my basement and leaves no trail of it's passing and doesn't touch or influence anything. However, I feel we can safely disregard these claims because they are meaningless and worthless. They add complexity without providing new information or allowing for predictions of anything. If you take a model of the universe based on only observable data and one that is identical except that there's also something we can't detect that doesn't affect anything, and both make exactly the same predictions, there is no reason to bother with that invisible entity in our model - Occam's razor applies here.
If you can give me an experimentally sound model of a god who has some kind of influence in the workings of the universe, that is detectable and allows us to make some kind of prediction about something not explained by the naturalistic model, I'd be willing to reconsider my stance. But based on all evidence currently available, I believe such a god does not exist.
No. Even strong atheism merely claims "I don't know what the answer is, but I believe your explanation is incorrect."
As a gnostic atheist myself, I don't pretend to know what happened before the big bang - or even if there was a 'before', or if that question is even meaningful or sensical. I will claim that a god as usually described by the Abrahamic faiths is nonsensical, however, as are most other specific claims about deities or other supernatural entities/phenomena. There are a few exceptions, like the deistic idea of god, that cannot be disproven - but I do not believe in them either, for a number of reasons.
That would be a median, not a turning lane. Assuming you're in the US, the turn lanes being referenced are for RIGHT turns, not left.
Snooptisserie Oven? That actually sounds pretty awesome...
Turns out this already exists in many forms...it's called fraud. This doesn't change that except maybe making it marginally harder.
Your (not you're) money in the savings account would also gain value in periods of negative inflation, at exactly the same rate (in addition to interest paid) so I don't see what point you are trying to make with that.
> they didn't declare that it's explicitly allowed by law
That's because that's not how US law works. The law tell us what we cannot do, not what we can do. Put another way, if it is not illegal, it is legal.
Firefox better than Chrome? Surely you jest!
Planet, schmanet, Gilmoure. It just doesn't have the same ring to it, I suppose.
It's a bit subjective, honestly. I count 18 elementary moves - each of the 6 faces rotated in one of three ways - quarter clockwise, quarter counterclockwise, or half. Some people also consider slices (rotating the center but not the sides) an elementary move, giving 6 more elementary moves (each of the two slices rotated 3 ways) - I consider them two opposing edge rotations, just as you consider a half rotation two quarter rotations. In the end, however, all that matters is consistency - if you can solve a configuration in 10 moves (counting a single half-turn as two moves) and I say I can solve it in 9 (by counting it differently) that's when we have a problem. But in a case like this, since they are already setting an arbitrary target number of moves, it doesn't matter how they count them /so long as the results are compared to other results counted in the same way/.
I would love to see the results of this experiment. No matter how it turns out, we're going to learn SOMETHING about how the world works - either giving new evidence to reinforce old uncertain ideas or shattering them with new possibilities.
Of course it can, but less tech-savvy phone owners won't realize this. They're the targets.
You mean "whose whos" not "whose who's" and "your theres" not "your there's." Stop abusing the poor apostrophe by needlessly jamming it into plural nouns.
Then the reviewer sucked. If you set it up correctly, he'll get a strike every time. I would know, I could. Of course, it's more a matter of putting the pins where he's going to throw it than a matter of him finding the pins and throwing towards them.
I used to work at RadioShack, the product's been on thr market for several months.
AD 2101 Vista was beginning...
If they were going "Give me $10 and I'll put DaVinci Code on your iPod" you'd be right. It's (from my understanding) "give me $10 and I'll copy your DaVinci Code DVD onto your iPod for you", however, which (IANAL) would fall under fair use, backup/archival copies.
Where I live in the US, regular gas (I think it's 87? 88?) is $2.89/ gallon on a good day, up to about $3.05. My car's pretty gas efficient, and I get 300 miles on about $35. My mother's car costs closer to $60 for the same distance.
On the other hand, I'm making about $200/month after taxes. A CD costs me $10-$18, and I can get a good sandwich for $5. All considered, it's not too bad a difference.
Hooray global economy!
>The Software is licensed, not sold. >Actually almost every store SELLS it. So it is an erroneous statment. Common misperception. You're not buying the software, you're buying the media it's on and a license to use it. That CD is yours and you can do whatever you want with it, but the contents are property of Microsoft. I completely disagree with it, but that's how the laws are right now.