Meh. Garbage collection problems are mostly a thing of the past. Most modern JVMs configurable have configurable GC. Have a look at JRockit for example. If you still have GC issues with something like that then it's a design problem, not a language problem.
Heck, these days just dedicate a core to nothing but memory management, you'll probably still have plenty left to run the app.
It's really hard for me to imagine a valid reason for using C on anything other than a micro-controller. Glue a USB connector to it and write the rest of whatever it is in a real language, throw a few more cores at it, add a few more nodes to the cluster... spend an extra $10,000 on the hardware and save a $1,000,000 in wasted development effort, missed business opportunities and maintenance nightmares.
In any case, Batelle sounds exceptionally backwards to me, in technology as well as in their morals and ethics. Certainly changes my opinion when I hear the company name.
Writing a scroll bar (or any other standard component of pretty much every windowing toolkit ever written in the last 20 years) is a pretty clear sign of insanity.
Writing code in C in the 21st century is approaching insanity. As an expert in C who has written tens of thousands of lines of code for embedded systems and PC applications, the only legit reasons I can think of for still writing in C is a) target system has less than 2MB of RAM or b) it fits in with other archaic corporate practices of carving office memos in clay tablets, offering sacrifices to the gods before business meetings and providing official company water jugs so that employees can wash their hand off after they take a shit in the field out back.
If it has a scroll bar it seems unlikely to be a payload or actual gaffe code... so WTF were they thinking?
Sounds to me like they've still has at least one foot the 1970's, like many large corporations.
Anyone thinking about engaging a security consultant should definitely consider the former employee over the company he used to work for! At least he used modern tools!
Welcome to the cloud and SaaS, where none of the code is ever distributed. If it were, we wouldn't be able to upgrade it as you're using it without you ever noticing it.
Randomly suggesting that it could have been a rare disease caused by bird farts is not "looking to scientific explanations"
It's simply the core technique used by anti-science types everywhere, from Islam to Inhofe. Climate change? "Well, it could be caused by a distant planet that radiates invisible rays at Earth, maybe that's what is causing it." Biological evolution? "Well maybe the global flood made it that way and it's just a silly accident that every single line of empirical evidence from geophysics to genetics support it"
You can't prove a negative, hence you can't prove it wasn't bird farts, so that means that the supernatural gods could have done it, right?
Cherry picking bits of the bible and pretending that "it could be" is no more rational or valid than denying climate science, denying biological evolution or denying that the Earth is round.
The whole point of science is to eliminate what we know is most likely false.
The claim that it took this completely invisible tribe of 2 million people 40 years to complete a 3 week trip is patently false from every possible perspective. From the fact that no other record of them exists to the fact that 2M people could not have found enough food. Trying to explain how that could happen is like looking for explanations for how a bowling ball *could* jump from the floor and stick to the ceiling is not "looking to scientific explanations", it's pig-headed and infantile behaviour on the part of so-called adults.
What truly amazes me about the willful ignorance of bible literalists is the fact that they can't recognize magic numbers. How many times does that number 40 occur in the bible? It's a magic number, just as 3, 7 and 12 are. Magic numbers (i.e. numerology) incorporated from superstitions and traditions that predate the bible by hundreds (probably thousands) of years.
Mohammad was 40 when he supposedly became telepathic, 40 days of Lent, 40 days from death to ascension, 40 days and 40 nights, the 12 Olympians, the 12 leaders of Islam, the 12 labors of Hercules... ain't no coinky-dince that ignorant ancient cultures shared certain magic numbers. It's truly mind boggling that such superstitions persist in an "educated" society.
Though if you ever need proof that there is no such thing as coincidence though, all you have to do is search for Ray Comfort and his infamous banana video e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfucpGCm5hY
If if if if if if if if if if if if... sounds like an epistemology fit for Easter Bunnieists and Santa Clausists.
"If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak"
That has to be the lamest stream of completely stupid apologies ever proposed in a single post.
The bible also says the sun stopped going around the Earth, that bats are birds, that rabbits chew cud, that daughters can be sold as slaves, that light was created before the stars, that whales were created before reptiles, plants were made before the sun, that the Earth is flat and the sky a metal disk held up by four pillars, that people lived 800+ years, that all humans spoke one language, that David's army was more than 1.5M men, and that unicorns and dragons exist.
Oh yeah, and what about that talking snake? What apologies do you have for that one? Maybe there was a really good ventriloquist the bible forgot to mention the wizard conjuring from the void?
Wally, if there's anything sadder than your ignorance of the bible, it's your absolute ignorance of science and logic.
There is no such thing as a "scientific fact". Never has been, never will. There are theories, and theories accepted as laws, but all genuine science is always subject to change if new evidence is found. Maybe you should at least come up to speed on what was being taught to young kids back in the 50's and 60's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw "Feynman on Scientific Method."
No one who has ever even read the freaking title of a book on logic has ever attempted to disprove the existence of anything. If I didn't interact with the anti-science types so regularly I'd have sworn nobody could possibly be stupid enough to seriously consider it. It's always one of the first arguments the religious reach for though. I wonder why that is?
Your total ignorance of such simple things does go a long way towards explaining your beliefs in the supernatural.
Ya know, the anonymous posting is good. You should definitely keep it anonymous, because the irony and dishonesty in your response is not something you'd want to be associated with.
Martin Luther is not Martin Luther King Jr that you're thinking of. Try wikipedia.
You missed the bit about all the Christians claiming "god is on their side" as the reason for starting wars. Maybe your internet was out during that bit?
You also seemed to have missed the dictionary lesson. a-theism. It means without. It is NOT a belief, it means "without theism" just like "amorphous" means "without form" and "asymmetrical" means "without symmetry."
You obviously haven't read the bible - or else you're just plain dishonest. Then penalty for rape is a small fine and then the woman is forced to marry the man who raped her. That would be Deuteronomy 22:28-29, where it says:
"If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her."
The only killing for the crime of rape is the killing of the woman who was raped, as in Deuteronomy 22:23-24
"If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife."
You neglect - or in your ignorance don't know - that the gods commanded rape. Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18 and roughly a dozen other places in the bible.
Don't you just miss the good ol' days when you could sell your kids for fuck toys, like Exodus 21:7-11
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment."
The fact that it's religion is irrelevant. What's relevant is the fact that his entire thought process (I use the term loosely) is intellectually and morally bankrupt.
Claims that gods are real are identical to claims that the Easter Bunny is real. There are equal amounts of evidence for both. If he claimed the Easter Bunny is real, I'd ridicule his beliefs for that.
What he's bitching about is that he thinks beliefs in gods, devils and angels are somehow different than beliefs in unicorns, elves and wizards. He want "special dispensation" for his beliefs.
Strong atheist and anti-theist are two different things, and I am both.
Atheists do not require evidence. Look up the word in a dictionary. It's really not that hard, is it?
a·the·ism
(th-zm)
n.
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
[French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a-1 + theos, god; see dhs- in Indo-European roots.]
It's also impossible to prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, but rational adults draw a cutoff based on the fact that the Easter Bunny claim is embedded in the context of the rest of reality. It can be dismissed out of hand as so fantastically unlikely that it's childish and stupid to claim otherwise.
Just like gods, angels, devils, faeries, unicorns and bigfoot.
You keep injecting fact into his fantasy world. He really, really, really needs to attack/blame atheists.
He can't defend his beliefs in telepathy, telekinesis, invisible wizards, evil curses and all the other rubbish, so he has to resort to "Well, Hitler was white so all whites hate Jews" sort of stuff.
It's fun to watch him flounder, but I'm done with him. I'll just note that countering anti-science with evidence doesn't work. A hundred separate lines of evidence won't convince fundies that biological evolution is real. A hundred separate lines of evidence that there is no correlation between atheism and acts of war or torture won't convince them either.
They're basically inflatable clown punching bags, hit them with a fact and they'll bounce right back with a different lie. They can make up more lies than you can ever have time to address.
Aim for demonstrating that their thought processes/lines of "reasoning" are constructed of nothing but fail. That lets the air out of their whole schtick.
Had you had read a history book or even watched the Richard Carrier youtube video on "Are Christians Delusional?", you'd already know that not only was Hitler a Christian, the Nazi platform was point-by-point an image of Martin Luther's Protestant platform.
From wikipedia:
"A German census in May 1939, completed more than six years into the Nazi era[2] and incorporating the annexation of mostly Catholic Austria into Germany, indicates that 54% of Germans considered themselves Protestant, (including non-denominational Christians) and 40% considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5% claiming to be neo-pagan "believers in God," and 1.5 % non-Christians, or "non-believers"."
That commandment against lying keeps rearing its head, doesn't it?
You can't mock my beliefs - I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any gods. Did you miss all those other a-words like amorphous, asymmetrical, atonal, amoral, atypical, arrhythmia, acellular, asynchronous, and all their other "has no" pals?
You keep breaking those commandments about bearing false witness. Don't you need to run out and say a few hail marys and toss some salt over your shoulder or something?
I understand your frustration. All those atheists bursting into churches and mosques shouting "There is no god!" and detonating their suicide vests. We're a violent lot. I remember when we... no wait, it was the Christian nation that invaded Iraq that has killed over 120,000 innocent civilians there so far. But I do remember when the atheists bombed around the clock through the Tet holiday... no, wait, that was the Christian nation that started that war too, wasn't it? Now, the Inquisition, that was some really nasty atheist activity there, wasn't it? Oh, wait, I'm looking at the pictures and those guys seem to be holding up crosses.
You know, that powerfully magical amulet that can ward off vampires and attacks by the demon possessed.
Sadly they don't work on virulent atheists hell bent on freeing minds from the idiocy of superstitions about evil curses cast by invisible wizards.
So, have you read Genesis yet? Do you agree now that your gods were in fact corporeal and that "invisible wizard" is a perfectly accurate way to describe someone who conjures objects from the void and casts evil spells on an entire species?
You are telepathic, right? I mean, that's how you communicate with the invisible wizard, right? You telepathically convey to him that you accept that the 1/3 of him that he magically implanted in that woman, that bit of him died so that you could be free of the evil curse, right? That's why you send out on invisible waves for him to listen in on?
Since you've got those sort of skillz and I obviously don't, I wonder if you could deliver a message to him. The message is this: I have seen his actions and I judge him to be the lowest form of filth, evil, and not worthy to lick the dog shit off the soles of my boots.
I tried to be terse, just in case he charges by the number of words sent or something.
Oh, shit, that's a telegraph, not telepath, isn't it?
In any case, tell him that I have judged him and found him to be a shitbag.
You misunderstand. Words are tools to stir emotions and stirring emotions is the goal. Obviously you know that, but I think within the context of the "war" between the religious and the rational you've made some incorrect/stereotypical assumptions.
I don't have to sway the crowd and get applause, I just have to make some of them question their own position.
Fortunately for the rational side of world, there are apologists like Wally who make the perfect backstop for a solo game of forcing people to question their own position.
Wally is lost to the world. He will believe in his fantasies of the supernatural to the bitter end. A million people could die in front of his eyes and if he convinces himself that is what his god wanted (which is always the case), then their fear and suffering wouldn't bother him at all.
Indeed, all those children starving and dying in Africa because Christians won't allow birth control to even be mentioned, yet tens of millions of Christians never lose one wink of sleep over it. True Christians can look at Kevin Carter's famous photo and then pacify their genuine humanist response of outrage with "oh those silly gods, they work in mysterious ways" and sleep well that night. They truly believe that child's suffering was not just good and acceptable behaviour on the part of their gods, they believe it was a profound expression of love. That's monumentally sick, but it's the all too predictable Christian response.
However for every Wally there are a hundred people who were simply raised not to question Christian dogma and they've just never considered the facts: that gods are imaginary, that morals don't come from books or from gods, that books aren't magic, that evil spells don't exist, and the core principles of Christians are ridiculous and intellectual bankrupt at best, and at worst pure evil on steroids.
They don't think about their beliefs because they have no desire or motivation to ask. No Christian is going to suggest that they think rationally about them and most atheists are too polite or too far in the closet to bring the subject up.
However, if you introduce one knowledgeable and very out atheist who pisses those people off so badly that they have to look deeply into their beliefs to find something to hurl back... well, hey. Look at what that "angry" old man did to them.
Everything I said about Christian beliefs is accurate, but not using the words they want to hear. Invisible wizards, evil spells that spread from generation to generation with perfect fidelity and the monstrously idiotic concept of using a magic book to pass down the key to being freed from this evil curse. They hate the use of those words because they've been raised to believe that their supernatural beings and super power are "different" somehow. They're not, they're just standard tales of the supernatural.
The only thing that Christianity ever added to earlier traditions/religions/philosophies is some absolutely 100% batshit crazy crap about an evil curse and the magic telephatic incantations needed to break it.
It doesn't matter where the people who read my words look in their bible, it doesn't matter what their priests, bishops or other shaman tell them, when they hear or read "original sin", "evil curse" is going to flash into their minds, and they're not going to be able to come up with a satisfactory way to differentiate those two ideas to their *own* satisfaction. What I said won't change them, but what they think will. Once that particular door is open a crack, no rational person can shut it again.
Religious people are also looking at the idiotic things Pat Robertson said and what that the "true believer" Christians have written here, and they're turned off by what they read. The apologetics and the endless avoidance of the key points I made do not sit well with thinking people. They read the lame-ass (non)responses to the points I made and they like those responses even less than what I wrote, because they recognize the apologetics as lame and intellectually dishonest.
Wally will stick fingers in his ears and shout LALALALALALALALAL, but I'll bet one or two people who read my words will be pissed off about them for a long time. Maybe their eyes will open someday and they'll say "That guy was a total asshole... but he was right, rational thought works and religion doesn't". If so, I win. If not, they lose and I break even. I'm good with that, I did my part to end religious tyranny of the mind, that's the best I can do.
Speaking of minds (or the lack thereof) I forgot to drive a stake through the "Newton advanced human progress and he was religious" idiocy. It's true, Newton was brilliant in some ways, however the time he spent doing science was almost insignificant compared to the time he completely wasted on pseudo-science gibberish.
Newton believed he was a "special messenger" from god. He was also a firm believer in astrology and alchemy. In other words, he was a human being with all the normal human frailties and he pissed away a great deal of time he could have been advancing human progress even more than he did. Superstition (including religion) is always a drag on human progress.
Newton's bullshit was long ago forgotten (except by apologists) but his testable science and provable mathematics got our rovers to freakin' Mars and Voyagers to (almost) interstellar space! What have astrology, alchemy and religion accomplished during that same time frame? 900 numbers, infinite free energy youtube videos megachurches, televangelists, homophobic and misogynist campaigns to take away basic human rights for no rational reason whatsoever. Whoopee.
For some reason none of the Christians never want to brag "Newton was an astrologer" or "Newton was an alchemist and he advanced human progress too". They only want to cherry pick the religion part.
I wonder why?
(why I do believe I just poked a hole in my cheek... again. Fucking hell that hurts!)
I was hoping that you would take a hint from the quality of the ridicule, but apparently you're hell bent on displaying proof that irrational and dishonest behaviour is the hallmark of the Christian fanatic.
First, please stop repeating the lie/distortion about Josephus. Anyone who has given the history more than a cursory once over knows that Josephus recorded one incredibly small bit of *third hand* observation. He wrote down what he was told the Christians did/believed. Period.
There are no contemporaneous accounts of the existence of Jesus. The evidence that Jesus existed is identical to the evidence that Thor, Ganesha and Batman existed: someone who never met those characters talked about them in a book.
Yes, the OT teaches you what rules you should obey. Apparently you're unaware that the NT does too. What did the Jesus character say? Something about not one iota of the law...? Maybe you should actually read the book?
And what laws does the OT present? Laws that Christians pick and and choose from regardless of their appearance in the magic book. For instance, when was the last time you killed an adulterous pair? A homosexual? When was the last time you ate shellfish? How can you reconcile this horrible ban on slavery when the Jesus character went out of his way to make sure it was known that Christian slaves must obey their master even if their master isn't Christian, and that daughters can legitimately be sold into slavery?
Here's the question that Christians are invariably unable to answer honestly: what specific characteristic uniquely distinguishes the bible from all the other books about gods/devils/angels/faeries/superheroes?
Their inability to plainly answer that question speaks volumes about their thought processes (or lack thereof) I can pick up any science and book and explain in simple terms the reasons the book should be taken seriously, yet those books don't contain clear instructions on how and when murder, rape, slavery, infanticide and genocide are appropriate.
Christians on the other hand want people to take the rules about killing, rape and slavery completely seriously without being able to give a reason why the book should be followed. Pat Robertson is not out of line here, he's very much on message: do what the gods inspire you to do, say what they inspire you to say. Be tolerant of his beliefs! Noah, one of the great heroes of Christian traditions, is revered for doing just that. Abraham is revered for being willing to commit infanticide for his gods regardless of what other humans might thing of a shitbag who was willing to murder his own children based on telepathically transmitted orders from an invisible wizard.
I find it interesting that you choose only to focus on my entirely correct use of the term 'wizard' yet you found no objection in the basic story itself. That's good because it is an accurate description of Christianity. My description of the perfect spread of the curse of original sin, and my description of the incredibly inept method of handing down the secret of the cure for the curse is also accurate.
Instead of addressing how irrational the Christian narrative of events is, you choose not only to ignore the 1/3 of your magic wizard that was corporeal, you also deny the Old Testament. Surely you haven't forgotten that your god walked on the Earth and wrestled with Jacob in Genesis 23:24?
Regarding your last fallacy (lie/distortion) I believe you haven't cited any specific piece of "lots of evidence" for the exodus is because there is none. Doesn't the OT put a prohibition on telling lies? It's one of the better known flaws in the biblical account of history.
Like most atheists, I know the bible extremely well. I've also spent four decades now challenging Christians to think rationally about their magic book. I'm coming up on 30 years of presenting those challenges online (yes, since USENET days) Based on that experience, I can say that Pat Robertson is the ultimate Christian, in the same way that the 9/11 hijackers were the ultimate Muslims. None of them have any concern for their own lives, the lives of others. What matters is what their gods instructed them to do.
Whether it's destroying the lives of non-believers in the immediate sense like the Saudis who crashed the planes, or killing non-believers in the indirect sense as Robertson advocates by banning reproductive health care, contraception, and passing laws in Africa that call for the death penalty for homosexual acts, they all follow their faiths to the letter.
As for my "bigotry", why are *you* so intolerant of other beliefs? Why don't you simply tolerate the beliefs of those Saudis who crashed the planes into those buildings? Why don't you just tolerate the beliefs of paedophiles? Leave them alone, their beliefs aren't hurting you, are they?
Picture this: You're in a small, very crowded room standing shoulder to shoulder with 100 other people. There's one small hose that lets the air into the room so that everyone can breathe. There's some fat, stupid guy who doesn't believe that air is needed so survive, so he's standing on the hose and cutting off the air to everyone. He has absolute faith that his gods will provide what he needs.
His gods name are Mickey, Minnie and Goofy.
Do you advise being tolerant of his beliefs?
Welcome to planet Earth in the 21st century. We've got overpopulation, rapidly dwindling resources, a climate that may go catastrophically wrong in the next few decades/centuries, we've got massive wars by Christians in the name of oil, we've got a Christian government that can't be bothered to even bring up the subject of regulating hazardous material manufacturing and storage facilities located right next to schools and hospitals because they're far too busy trying to pass laws codifying biblical laws against homosexuals being allowed to love and marry.
There is one pipe delivering the vital supply of rational thought and science that provides the only hope for addressing these real life-or-death issues.
The fat, dumbfuck Christians are standing on that pipe. They're molesting children by stuffing their heads with irrational beliefs that not only won't help those children survive, but will actually prevent or delay those kids from even realizing that rational action is desperately needed. The Christians have absolute faith that Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, the father, the son and that wild and wacky "holy ghost" are going to magically act in the supernatural world and have some measurable effect in the natural world, to magically save us from our own actions.
You molest children's minds. You cause endless misery and suffering to the human race (today and in the future) by your continued insistence that the supernatural world is real. It's the 21st century. It is time for rational adults to think for themselves and reason out what is right and what is wrong and how best to implement fair and equitable laws and pursuits. It's the 21st century. The inherent evil of Christian moral relativism should not be tolerated any longer simply because humans as a species cannot afford to tolerate such primitive ideas and expect to survive into the 22nd or 23rd centuries.
Call me bigoted, but there *are* moral absolutes, in spite of what Christians believe about supernatural beings and worlds.
In short, you're fat, you're stupid, and you're standing on my air hose. Don't expect me to expire quietly while you stand there stupidly unconcerned in your state of blissed out ignorance. Get the fuck off the hose.
Re: Re: Re:
Heck, these days just dedicate a core to nothing but memory management, you'll probably still have plenty left to run the app.
It's really hard for me to imagine a valid reason for using C on anything other than a micro-controller. Glue a USB connector to it and write the rest of whatever it is in a real language, throw a few more cores at it, add a few more nodes to the cluster... spend an extra $10,000 on the hardware and save a $1,000,000 in wasted development effort, missed business opportunities and maintenance nightmares.
In any case, Batelle sounds exceptionally backwards to me, in technology as well as in their morals and ethics. Certainly changes my opinion when I hear the company name.
Re:
Writing code in C in the 21st century is approaching insanity. As an expert in C who has written tens of thousands of lines of code for embedded systems and PC applications, the only legit reasons I can think of for still writing in C is a) target system has less than 2MB of RAM or b) it fits in with other archaic corporate practices of carving office memos in clay tablets, offering sacrifices to the gods before business meetings and providing official company water jugs so that employees can wash their hand off after they take a shit in the field out back.
If it has a scroll bar it seems unlikely to be a payload or actual gaffe code... so WTF were they thinking?
Sounds to me like they've still has at least one foot the 1970's, like many large corporations.
Anyone thinking about engaging a security consultant should definitely consider the former employee over the company he used to work for! At least he used modern tools!
Re: All code is open
Welcome to the cloud and SaaS, where none of the code is ever distributed. If it were, we wouldn't be able to upgrade it as you're using it without you ever noticing it.
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It's simply the core technique used by anti-science types everywhere, from Islam to Inhofe. Climate change? "Well, it could be caused by a distant planet that radiates invisible rays at Earth, maybe that's what is causing it." Biological evolution? "Well maybe the global flood made it that way and it's just a silly accident that every single line of empirical evidence from geophysics to genetics support it"
You can't prove a negative, hence you can't prove it wasn't bird farts, so that means that the supernatural gods could have done it, right?
Cherry picking bits of the bible and pretending that "it could be" is no more rational or valid than denying climate science, denying biological evolution or denying that the Earth is round.
The whole point of science is to eliminate what we know is most likely false.
The claim that it took this completely invisible tribe of 2 million people 40 years to complete a 3 week trip is patently false from every possible perspective. From the fact that no other record of them exists to the fact that 2M people could not have found enough food. Trying to explain how that could happen is like looking for explanations for how a bowling ball *could* jump from the floor and stick to the ceiling is not "looking to scientific explanations", it's pig-headed and infantile behaviour on the part of so-called adults.
What truly amazes me about the willful ignorance of bible literalists is the fact that they can't recognize magic numbers. How many times does that number 40 occur in the bible? It's a magic number, just as 3, 7 and 12 are. Magic numbers (i.e. numerology) incorporated from superstitions and traditions that predate the bible by hundreds (probably thousands) of years.
Mohammad was 40 when he supposedly became telepathic, 40 days of Lent, 40 days from death to ascension, 40 days and 40 nights, the 12 Olympians, the 12 leaders of Islam, the 12 labors of Hercules... ain't no coinky-dince that ignorant ancient cultures shared certain magic numbers. It's truly mind boggling that such superstitions persist in an "educated" society.
Though if you ever need proof that there is no such thing as coincidence though, all you have to do is search for Ray Comfort and his infamous banana video e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfucpGCm5hY
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"If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak"
That has to be the lamest stream of completely stupid apologies ever proposed in a single post.
The bible also says the sun stopped going around the Earth, that bats are birds, that rabbits chew cud, that daughters can be sold as slaves, that light was created before the stars, that whales were created before reptiles, plants were made before the sun, that the Earth is flat and the sky a metal disk held up by four pillars, that people lived 800+ years, that all humans spoke one language, that David's army was more than 1.5M men, and that unicorns and dragons exist.
Oh yeah, and what about that talking snake? What apologies do you have for that one? Maybe there was a really good ventriloquist the bible forgot to mention the wizard conjuring from the void?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrDlVLbtKbQ
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There is no such thing as a "scientific fact". Never has been, never will. There are theories, and theories accepted as laws, but all genuine science is always subject to change if new evidence is found. Maybe you should at least come up to speed on what was being taught to young kids back in the 50's and 60's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw "Feynman on Scientific Method."
No one who has ever even read the freaking title of a book on logic has ever attempted to disprove the existence of anything. If I didn't interact with the anti-science types so regularly I'd have sworn nobody could possibly be stupid enough to seriously consider it. It's always one of the first arguments the religious reach for though. I wonder why that is?
Your total ignorance of such simple things does go a long way towards explaining your beliefs in the supernatural.
How are the telepathy exercises coming along?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
Martin Luther is not Martin Luther King Jr that you're thinking of. Try wikipedia.
You missed the bit about all the Christians claiming "god is on their side" as the reason for starting wars. Maybe your internet was out during that bit?
You also seemed to have missed the dictionary lesson. a-theism. It means without. It is NOT a belief, it means "without theism" just like "amorphous" means "without form" and "asymmetrical" means "without symmetry."
You obviously haven't read the bible - or else you're just plain dishonest. Then penalty for rape is a small fine and then the woman is forced to marry the man who raped her. That would be Deuteronomy 22:28-29, where it says:
"If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her."
The only killing for the crime of rape is the killing of the woman who was raped, as in Deuteronomy 22:23-24
"If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife."
You neglect - or in your ignorance don't know - that the gods commanded rape. Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18 and roughly a dozen other places in the bible.
Don't you just miss the good ol' days when you could sell your kids for fuck toys, like Exodus 21:7-11
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment."
Anyone any good at writing simple game apps?
When that happy day comes, the Onion will have to re-use the headline they had for Reagan: "Robertson's Body Dies"
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
Simple as that.
Identical argument applied to identical entities.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Well...
From wikipedia:
Tucson: 646 ± 31 years;
Oxford: 750 ± 30 years,
Zurich: 676 ± 24 years old
Even before that was done it was known that it was likely a medieval fake ever since it was first presented.
After the dating there is no room for doubt, except in the minds of people who PT Barnum associates with a brief interval of time.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
Re: Sorry late to the party
Claims that gods are real are identical to claims that the Easter Bunny is real. There are equal amounts of evidence for both. If he claimed the Easter Bunny is real, I'd ridicule his beliefs for that.
What he's bitching about is that he thinks beliefs in gods, devils and angels are somehow different than beliefs in unicorns, elves and wizards. He want "special dispensation" for his beliefs.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins"
Atheists do not require evidence. Look up the word in a dictionary. It's really not that hard, is it?
a·the·ism
(th-zm)
n.
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
[French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a-1 + theos, god; see dhs- in Indo-European roots.]
It's also impossible to prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, but rational adults draw a cutoff based on the fact that the Easter Bunny claim is embedded in the context of the rest of reality. It can be dismissed out of hand as so fantastically unlikely that it's childish and stupid to claim otherwise.
Just like gods, angels, devils, faeries, unicorns and bigfoot.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
He can't defend his beliefs in telepathy, telekinesis, invisible wizards, evil curses and all the other rubbish, so he has to resort to "Well, Hitler was white so all whites hate Jews" sort of stuff.
It's fun to watch him flounder, but I'm done with him. I'll just note that countering anti-science with evidence doesn't work. A hundred separate lines of evidence won't convince fundies that biological evolution is real. A hundred separate lines of evidence that there is no correlation between atheism and acts of war or torture won't convince them either.
They're basically inflatable clown punching bags, hit them with a fact and they'll bounce right back with a different lie. They can make up more lies than you can ever have time to address.
Aim for demonstrating that their thought processes/lines of "reasoning" are constructed of nothing but fail. That lets the air out of their whole schtick.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
Had you had read a history book or even watched the Richard Carrier youtube video on "Are Christians Delusional?", you'd already know that not only was Hitler a Christian, the Nazi platform was point-by-point an image of Martin Luther's Protestant platform.
From wikipedia:
"A German census in May 1939, completed more than six years into the Nazi era[2] and incorporating the annexation of mostly Catholic Austria into Germany, indicates that 54% of Germans considered themselves Protestant, (including non-denominational Christians) and 40% considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5% claiming to be neo-pagan "believers in God," and 1.5 % non-Christians, or "non-believers"."
That commandment against lying keeps rearing its head, doesn't it?
You can't mock my beliefs - I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any gods. Did you miss all those other a-words like amorphous, asymmetrical, atonal, amoral, atypical, arrhythmia, acellular, asynchronous, and all their other "has no" pals?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "sins" Schooled in Style...
You keep breaking those commandments about bearing false witness. Don't you need to run out and say a few hail marys and toss some salt over your shoulder or something?
I understand your frustration. All those atheists bursting into churches and mosques shouting "There is no god!" and detonating their suicide vests. We're a violent lot. I remember when we... no wait, it was the Christian nation that invaded Iraq that has killed over 120,000 innocent civilians there so far. But I do remember when the atheists bombed around the clock through the Tet holiday... no, wait, that was the Christian nation that started that war too, wasn't it? Now, the Inquisition, that was some really nasty atheist activity there, wasn't it? Oh, wait, I'm looking at the pictures and those guys seem to be holding up crosses.
You know, that powerfully magical amulet that can ward off vampires and attacks by the demon possessed.
Sadly they don't work on virulent atheists hell bent on freeing minds from the idiocy of superstitions about evil curses cast by invisible wizards.
So, have you read Genesis yet? Do you agree now that your gods were in fact corporeal and that "invisible wizard" is a perfectly accurate way to describe someone who conjures objects from the void and casts evil spells on an entire species?
You are telepathic, right? I mean, that's how you communicate with the invisible wizard, right? You telepathically convey to him that you accept that the 1/3 of him that he magically implanted in that woman, that bit of him died so that you could be free of the evil curse, right? That's why you send out on invisible waves for him to listen in on?
Since you've got those sort of skillz and I obviously don't, I wonder if you could deliver a message to him. The message is this: I have seen his actions and I judge him to be the lowest form of filth, evil, and not worthy to lick the dog shit off the soles of my boots.
I tried to be terse, just in case he charges by the number of words sent or something.
Oh, shit, that's a telegraph, not telepath, isn't it?
In any case, tell him that I have judged him and found him to be a shitbag.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I don't have to sway the crowd and get applause, I just have to make some of them question their own position.
Fortunately for the rational side of world, there are apologists like Wally who make the perfect backstop for a solo game of forcing people to question their own position.
Wally is lost to the world. He will believe in his fantasies of the supernatural to the bitter end. A million people could die in front of his eyes and if he convinces himself that is what his god wanted (which is always the case), then their fear and suffering wouldn't bother him at all.
Indeed, all those children starving and dying in Africa because Christians won't allow birth control to even be mentioned, yet tens of millions of Christians never lose one wink of sleep over it. True Christians can look at Kevin Carter's famous photo and then pacify their genuine humanist response of outrage with "oh those silly gods, they work in mysterious ways" and sleep well that night. They truly believe that child's suffering was not just good and acceptable behaviour on the part of their gods, they believe it was a profound expression of love. That's monumentally sick, but it's the all too predictable Christian response.
However for every Wally there are a hundred people who were simply raised not to question Christian dogma and they've just never considered the facts: that gods are imaginary, that morals don't come from books or from gods, that books aren't magic, that evil spells don't exist, and the core principles of Christians are ridiculous and intellectual bankrupt at best, and at worst pure evil on steroids.
They don't think about their beliefs because they have no desire or motivation to ask. No Christian is going to suggest that they think rationally about them and most atheists are too polite or too far in the closet to bring the subject up.
However, if you introduce one knowledgeable and very out atheist who pisses those people off so badly that they have to look deeply into their beliefs to find something to hurl back... well, hey. Look at what that "angry" old man did to them.
Everything I said about Christian beliefs is accurate, but not using the words they want to hear. Invisible wizards, evil spells that spread from generation to generation with perfect fidelity and the monstrously idiotic concept of using a magic book to pass down the key to being freed from this evil curse. They hate the use of those words because they've been raised to believe that their supernatural beings and super power are "different" somehow. They're not, they're just standard tales of the supernatural.
The only thing that Christianity ever added to earlier traditions/religions/philosophies is some absolutely 100% batshit crazy crap about an evil curse and the magic telephatic incantations needed to break it.
It doesn't matter where the people who read my words look in their bible, it doesn't matter what their priests, bishops or other shaman tell them, when they hear or read "original sin", "evil curse" is going to flash into their minds, and they're not going to be able to come up with a satisfactory way to differentiate those two ideas to their *own* satisfaction. What I said won't change them, but what they think will. Once that particular door is open a crack, no rational person can shut it again.
Religious people are also looking at the idiotic things Pat Robertson said and what that the "true believer" Christians have written here, and they're turned off by what they read. The apologetics and the endless avoidance of the key points I made do not sit well with thinking people. They read the lame-ass (non)responses to the points I made and they like those responses even less than what I wrote, because they recognize the apologetics as lame and intellectually dishonest.
Wally will stick fingers in his ears and shout LALALALALALALALAL, but I'll bet one or two people who read my words will be pissed off about them for a long time. Maybe their eyes will open someday and they'll say "That guy was a total asshole... but he was right, rational thought works and religion doesn't". If so, I win. If not, they lose and I break even. I'm good with that, I did my part to end religious tyranny of the mind, that's the best I can do.
Speaking of minds (or the lack thereof) I forgot to drive a stake through the "Newton advanced human progress and he was religious" idiocy. It's true, Newton was brilliant in some ways, however the time he spent doing science was almost insignificant compared to the time he completely wasted on pseudo-science gibberish.
Newton believed he was a "special messenger" from god. He was also a firm believer in astrology and alchemy. In other words, he was a human being with all the normal human frailties and he pissed away a great deal of time he could have been advancing human progress even more than he did. Superstition (including religion) is always a drag on human progress.
Newton's bullshit was long ago forgotten (except by apologists) but his testable science and provable mathematics got our rovers to freakin' Mars and Voyagers to (almost) interstellar space! What have astrology, alchemy and religion accomplished during that same time frame? 900 numbers, infinite free energy youtube videos megachurches, televangelists, homophobic and misogynist campaigns to take away basic human rights for no rational reason whatsoever. Whoopee.
For some reason none of the Christians never want to brag "Newton was an astrologer" or "Newton was an alchemist and he advanced human progress too". They only want to cherry pick the religion part.
I wonder why?
(why I do believe I just poked a hole in my cheek... again. Fucking hell that hurts!)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
First, please stop repeating the lie/distortion about Josephus. Anyone who has given the history more than a cursory once over knows that Josephus recorded one incredibly small bit of *third hand* observation. He wrote down what he was told the Christians did/believed. Period.
There are no contemporaneous accounts of the existence of Jesus. The evidence that Jesus existed is identical to the evidence that Thor, Ganesha and Batman existed: someone who never met those characters talked about them in a book.
Yes, the OT teaches you what rules you should obey. Apparently you're unaware that the NT does too. What did the Jesus character say? Something about not one iota of the law...? Maybe you should actually read the book?
And what laws does the OT present? Laws that Christians pick and and choose from regardless of their appearance in the magic book. For instance, when was the last time you killed an adulterous pair? A homosexual? When was the last time you ate shellfish? How can you reconcile this horrible ban on slavery when the Jesus character went out of his way to make sure it was known that Christian slaves must obey their master even if their master isn't Christian, and that daughters can legitimately be sold into slavery?
Here's the question that Christians are invariably unable to answer honestly: what specific characteristic uniquely distinguishes the bible from all the other books about gods/devils/angels/faeries/superheroes?
Their inability to plainly answer that question speaks volumes about their thought processes (or lack thereof) I can pick up any science and book and explain in simple terms the reasons the book should be taken seriously, yet those books don't contain clear instructions on how and when murder, rape, slavery, infanticide and genocide are appropriate.
Christians on the other hand want people to take the rules about killing, rape and slavery completely seriously without being able to give a reason why the book should be followed. Pat Robertson is not out of line here, he's very much on message: do what the gods inspire you to do, say what they inspire you to say. Be tolerant of his beliefs! Noah, one of the great heroes of Christian traditions, is revered for doing just that. Abraham is revered for being willing to commit infanticide for his gods regardless of what other humans might thing of a shitbag who was willing to murder his own children based on telepathically transmitted orders from an invisible wizard.
I find it interesting that you choose only to focus on my entirely correct use of the term 'wizard' yet you found no objection in the basic story itself. That's good because it is an accurate description of Christianity. My description of the perfect spread of the curse of original sin, and my description of the incredibly inept method of handing down the secret of the cure for the curse is also accurate.
Instead of addressing how irrational the Christian narrative of events is, you choose not only to ignore the 1/3 of your magic wizard that was corporeal, you also deny the Old Testament. Surely you haven't forgotten that your god walked on the Earth and wrestled with Jacob in Genesis 23:24?
Regarding your last fallacy (lie/distortion) I believe you haven't cited any specific piece of "lots of evidence" for the exodus is because there is none. Doesn't the OT put a prohibition on telling lies? It's one of the better known flaws in the biblical account of history.
Like most atheists, I know the bible extremely well. I've also spent four decades now challenging Christians to think rationally about their magic book. I'm coming up on 30 years of presenting those challenges online (yes, since USENET days) Based on that experience, I can say that Pat Robertson is the ultimate Christian, in the same way that the 9/11 hijackers were the ultimate Muslims. None of them have any concern for their own lives, the lives of others. What matters is what their gods instructed them to do.
Whether it's destroying the lives of non-believers in the immediate sense like the Saudis who crashed the planes, or killing non-believers in the indirect sense as Robertson advocates by banning reproductive health care, contraception, and passing laws in Africa that call for the death penalty for homosexual acts, they all follow their faiths to the letter.
As for my "bigotry", why are *you* so intolerant of other beliefs? Why don't you simply tolerate the beliefs of those Saudis who crashed the planes into those buildings? Why don't you just tolerate the beliefs of paedophiles? Leave them alone, their beliefs aren't hurting you, are they?
Picture this: You're in a small, very crowded room standing shoulder to shoulder with 100 other people. There's one small hose that lets the air into the room so that everyone can breathe. There's some fat, stupid guy who doesn't believe that air is needed so survive, so he's standing on the hose and cutting off the air to everyone. He has absolute faith that his gods will provide what he needs.
His gods name are Mickey, Minnie and Goofy.
Do you advise being tolerant of his beliefs?
Welcome to planet Earth in the 21st century. We've got overpopulation, rapidly dwindling resources, a climate that may go catastrophically wrong in the next few decades/centuries, we've got massive wars by Christians in the name of oil, we've got a Christian government that can't be bothered to even bring up the subject of regulating hazardous material manufacturing and storage facilities located right next to schools and hospitals because they're far too busy trying to pass laws codifying biblical laws against homosexuals being allowed to love and marry.
There is one pipe delivering the vital supply of rational thought and science that provides the only hope for addressing these real life-or-death issues.
The fat, dumbfuck Christians are standing on that pipe. They're molesting children by stuffing their heads with irrational beliefs that not only won't help those children survive, but will actually prevent or delay those kids from even realizing that rational action is desperately needed. The Christians have absolute faith that Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, the father, the son and that wild and wacky "holy ghost" are going to magically act in the supernatural world and have some measurable effect in the natural world, to magically save us from our own actions.
You molest children's minds. You cause endless misery and suffering to the human race (today and in the future) by your continued insistence that the supernatural world is real. It's the 21st century. It is time for rational adults to think for themselves and reason out what is right and what is wrong and how best to implement fair and equitable laws and pursuits. It's the 21st century. The inherent evil of Christian moral relativism should not be tolerated any longer simply because humans as a species cannot afford to tolerate such primitive ideas and expect to survive into the 22nd or 23rd centuries.
Call me bigoted, but there *are* moral absolutes, in spite of what Christians believe about supernatural beings and worlds.
In short, you're fat, you're stupid, and you're standing on my air hose. Don't expect me to expire quietly while you stand there stupidly unconcerned in your state of blissed out ignorance. Get the fuck off the hose.
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