DigitalShadow
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Posts posted by DigitalShadow
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I believe many religions have common themes because because those themes are satisfying to people. Religions claim to be the solution to many of the same problems and questions so to me it is a no-brainer that many of them are similar.
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Vermont Lawmakers Look To Legalize Teen 'Sexting' - wcbstv.com
Hopefully this will be done in Vermaont and that states across America will follow the lead. While I think that what these teens are doing is unwise and may even be morally wrong -- depending on what their intentions are I shudder at the idea that there are young teens being arrested throughout the US and being charged with the production, possession and distribution of child porn just because they take a naked picture of themselves and send it to a friend via a cell phone.
This does not happen often, but I agree completely.
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I didn't even get Good Friday off, the company I work for is very stingy with holidays.
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Do your encouragae your children to be dressed or nude or neither in public? Do you believe that introducing children to the enjoyments of sexuality is not sinful for adults?
The Traveler
I don't have children, but if I did I would encourage them to be dressed in public since the current culture frowns on nudity. I believe that introducing children to sexuality is on par with introducing children to drugs. If they are not old enough to make informed decisions, it is wrong for adults to introduce them to harmful things. I believe that introducing children to sexuality at a young age is severely psychologically damaging to the child, but I don't believe there is anything inherently sinful about sexuality or nudity itself.
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What is portrayed in most movies is most certainly lust. Nudity is thrown in to movies in an attempt to attract more guys who wouldn't admit that is one of the reasons they are seeing the movie. I personally think it is stupid, but I don't believe it is an issue of morality as I am not religious and don't really think of nudity or sexuality as "sinful."
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But eventually, we must simply accept, without proof, that God exists.
Not necessarily
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I assure you, I am just as annoying IRL :)
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I love math (almost as much as computers) and I am an atheist, but I really don't see the two as being related. I will say that I have noticed a slightly higher percentage of atheism among scientists and mathematicians, which I would like to attribute to the triumph of reason, but I'm sure many here would blame it on the pride of man or some such.
In any case if your friends can't respect what you believe (or don't believe), I would say to find new friends.
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I agree with you on all of this. But what you perhaps don't understand is that all over the world right now our system is systemically failing.
From this global financial crisis, to the failure of "free trade" and so on -- nothing is working anymore. Goods and services produced no longer have any relevance to the money that prices them, etc,. People will only take so much.
Yes, the current system is failing, whether it fails enough to make people entirely re-evaluate how they look at almost everything though, we have yet to see. Also, there is no consensus on why the current system is failing and everyone is trying to blame it on whatever would further their own cause.
My personal thoughts are that the current monetary system is holding humanity back, but most people are not really ready to accept anything else. The economy will get a bit worse until through a massive amount of band-aids and duct tape it will get propped back up and things will go back to normal because too many people have too much invested in the current way of doing things to let it all come crashing down.
Frankly, I have always disliked the emphasis in society on accumulating more and more wealth and possessions far beyond what anyone would need, just for the sake of having them and having more than the next guy. Unfortunately, if this system comes crashing down, at this time, the only alternative would be anarchy. Perhaps a better society would rise from the ashes, but I wouldn't count on it so I'm hoping that doesn't happen.
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For all the idealism and theorizing in the West, MOST of the world remains in object poverty where death by violence and disease is the norm rather then the exception.
The notion of "equality" is a Christian concept. The notions of charity, brotherly kindness, sharing and concerns fo the fellow man are ALL Christian constructs. Appropriating such values while "surgically" excising the religious root is just plain silly. It would be like discussing fine furniture and avoiding the word wood or tree during the conversation. We may mimic and even aspire to model cetain behavior (charity, for example) but without God at the center it is just another tool to feed our ego and gorge on the adulation of the droid populace.
Without God at the center, no system of government designed by man will ever be successful in addressing the realities of life across the whole world.
Aesa, this is an example of my point about people not being ready for this on a social level regarding religion :)
Edit: no offense intended here, I'm not trying to say that one viewpoint is better than the other, just trying to demonstrate the depth of the incompatibility between them.
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I do realise that what we're aiming for is quite a "quantum shift." But we have to start somewhere. Can we really just sit back and act all powerless, in the face of such great possibility? We have to try.
I do think that you have some valid points, but I also don't think the world is ready for such a quantum shift, socially or technologically.
On the social side, we have:
-Many people in powerful positions who have a strong interest in maintaining the status quo because it is the source of their power.
-Billions of people raised to naturally accept the current monetary system with "dreams" to acquire more and more wealth because that is how they are raised. Many of these people aren't even able to imagine a social without money and will violently reject anyone who suggests we do away with it (I'm sure you must have encountered some of them).
-Many people will believe this somehow goes against their religion, especially LDS where it seems many believe the United States constitution was ordained by God and is the best form of government.
-What about people who have spent much of their lives training for and enjoy the jobs that you claim will be obsolete (stockbrokers, bankers, advertisers, ect.)? How will they have a fulfilling life in this new society?
On the technological side, we have:
-Yes, theoretically the technology exists for the society that you are envisioning, but not on the scale that would be needed. Just because a certain technology exists, does not mean we have the technology to recreate and distribute it on a world scale.
-Most of our technology as a society is held as trade secrets of corporations who actively seek to protect it. While I agree that this is an inefficient system and leads to re-inventing the wheel and wasting resources, you would first have to convince these corporations to "give away" this information.
-Most of our population is simply not trained for the tasks that would be necessary to maintain and create the technology of this ideal society. There would be a strong need for engineers and tech savvy individuals and only a small portion of the population could currently fill those roles.
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Ram: This was Hitler's viewpoint also. Science was used extensively in his goal to achieve his Millennial peace for the Third Reich. Nurses and doctors were very good at scientific research, even attempting to develop chimeras between humans and animals! And look at their jet and rocket technology, amazing! Of course, Hitler's ally, Mussolini, made sure the trains ran on time. Efficiency like that cannot be bought.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to Godwin the thread.
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I highlighted some statements in green because you say them as though you know them to be true. You did not give any indication of how you came to “know” such things so I am not sure if you really know it or if you are even being honest with yourself.
Are you saying these things because you know them to be true? If so – how do you know them?
BTW: Thanks for your input.
The Traveler
I am saying these things because I have found them to be accurate in my personal experience and for me it is the best explanation of the world around me. I don't know of any other way to explain seeing so many people who are absolutely sure that they are right, yet have conflicting mutually exclusive views. Obviously all of them can not be right, but all seem equally sure of themselves. My personal conclusion is that absolute truth is unknowable. Even my statements on uncertainty are subject to this same uncertainty and I don't claim to "know" them for certain.
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Please read this article on a Resource-based Economy (The Venus Project).
An interesting read. I have always thought that eventually society will move beyond the monetary system as more and more tasks become automated and we no longer have a need for a workforce humanity to survive and even thrive, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon, partially because I don't think we are at that technological level yet and also partially because so many people are very invested in and attached to the current system.
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Well if everyone hated the democrats there wouldn't be a divide.
If everyone hated the democrats, there wouldn't be a divide, but there also wouldn't be democrats. That means conservatives would have to find some other group to blame all the problems of the world on and partisanship will re-establish itself and we'll be right back where we started.
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So, you trust greedy politicians more? Corporations are accountable to their shareholders. The laws that allowed these corporations to reek havoc on our economy were passed by our elected leaders and when you get right down to it, the people who borrowed money to buy over valued property that they didn't have the means to pay back should own a large slice of the blame.
And politicians are accountable to their voters... either way it is a large corrupt entity with very little actual accountability. I have no problem with letting businesses fail under their own crappy business models, but I also am having a hard time caring when the government asks someone to step down. Perhaps it's just my apathy, but getting worked up over which large corrupt entity actually has control just doesn't do it for me.
Corporations influence laws and politicians with lobbyists and politicians throw the management of corporations under the bus when the crap really hits the fan. Maybe it is some kind of unintentional check/balance system.
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????? NO LW, I would rather that our government NOT have the authority to determine who sits in a position of management and who sits on the Board of Directors. Are you comfortable with this? You shouldn't be.
Actually I'm more worried that people in a corporations high management are accountable to virtually no one (that can't be placated by a well placed bribe or bonus) and hold the fate of millions of people in their greedy hands. Perhaps it is the corporations themselves that have way too much power?
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I hope you don't see my posts as anti-democrat posts. I do see the Democratic party as completely out of control, led by a bunch of incompetent boobs that may well succeed in destroying this nation as we know it. The Republican Party is only slightly less dangerous and filled with a bunch of incompetent boobs as well.
I am a libertarian by nature...please note the small L. I am for what is best for America and could give a rats hind end about the name of the party.
The percentage of your posts that criticize democrats or democrat leaders far exceeds the percentage of your posts that criticize republicans or republican leaders. I don't think you are consciously trying to be anti-democrat, but to say that you have a bit of a bias is an understatement :)
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I don't think I really needed a poll to tell me that the partisan divide in this country is growing, the massive amount of anti-democrat posts make that pretty clear.
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You should really put that all in a quote block or link the article, because most of the way through reading it I thought you wrote it yourself.
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I think some are missing the point - I am sorry I did not ask or communicate my question well. So I will try again. Can anyone name something that they know to be true without possibility of perception error and the means that they know that is true?
I am not talking about faith or belief. I am asking about pure knowledge - something you can say - "This I know to be true. I know it to be true because _______ or I did ________. I also know that by _________, whenever it is possible, the truth is absolutely established and that there is no way I can error in my perception.
Now you can fill in the blank with touch, see, feel, taste, or whatever you do to know a thing. There is, of course, one other possibility. That is that you personally really do not know anything for sure and live your entire life basing on faith or what you think and perceive rather than on what you know.
That is fine. What I am interested in is your personal input. What if anything do you “Know” to be true and how did you come to know it?
There is likely to be a follow up question – how do you know that how you came to know it is true and free of perception error?
I do have a method I use – what I am doing is a sanity check. I want to hear what others have done, the success they have, the extent to which they trust and use their method and the results or conclusions they have achieved.
The Traveler
Perception always has the possibility of error and distortion. There is nothing anyone can truly know for certain as an absolute truth and considering something absolute truth is a fallacy in my opinion. There are a lot of things that are useful to accept as working truths because you have seen enough evidence for them and the concepts have proved to work for you, but there is no way to personally determine truth beyond error because of the nature of perception.
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I work at the Data center that HOSTS Silverlight and Cloud DB. there has been talk about Microsoft hosting portions of this stuff at our Data Center.....Meaning it is going to be on the servers i am obligated to maintain.
In regards tot he Alchohol Comment, I would never work at a place that serves it
A huge company like Playboy could certainly afford to host this content on their own servers. In fact, I recently made a portfolio page for my wife using Silverlight hosted entirely on nearlyfreespeech.net with no connection to Microsoft servers. Yes, Microsoft hosts some Silverlight applications on their servers for free, but that is mostly for small personal sites, commercial sites pay for their own hosting and bandwidth.
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That would have been a great link, if it had linked to anything....
Apparently the web page was lost as well.
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If he and his team of economic advisers would put forth a plan to deal with the mortgage obligations, the market would react immediately.
What measures would you propose? It seems like you are saying there is a simple solution to all this and that Obama is simply not doing it, I'm curious exactly what steps you would take in his position. I know we disagree a lot, but I'm not particularly well versed in economics and genuinely curious here.
Christ in Egypt
in General Discussion
Posted
I don't claim to have the right story, I'm atheist/agnostic depending on your definitions, and also people tend to exaggerate and distort events over time, especially where religion is concerned and many of the events were passed down as an oral tradition (ever play the telephone game?).