mreiland
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Posts posted by mreiland
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You generally get more bang for your buck with AMD. AMD's are usually louder(the CPU fan) , and run hotter(that's why the extra noise). That means they're more likely to overheat, and have stability problems. I'm running AMD now and I've never had a problem with it, but I always take care of my computer*gives his case a kiss*
Heres the speed issue that they were talking about, without going into too much detail.
what 1Ghz is actually refering to is the clock speed, or how many times an operation can happen. The clock has a positive pulse, and a negative pulse(think of it as a wave, a top, and a bottom). At the top, and bottom, operations happen, but not at any other time. This allows everything on your cpu to be synchronized and predictable. Of course, the higher your clock speed, the more operations that occur per second.
That doesn't, however, take into account what your cpu does with those clock cycles, and this is where the "speed" difference comes in. The AMD cpu is more efficient than the Intel cpu, so they get more done per clock cycle. Unfortunately the general public doesn't know any better and think that clock speed equates directly to actual speed, so AMD changed their marketing strategy. An AMD Athlon-XP 2800 is a processor that matches the performance of an Intel 2.8 GHz, even though it may only be a 2.3 Ghz processor.
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It's just a social thing.
If someone you don't know just walked up to you and asked you if you masterbated last night, would you consider it rude? Same thing, different subject.
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The world economies are, for the most part, starting to even out.
Look at India. US programmers are probably the highest paid programmers in the world(most ppl would say they're overpriced). The result? A lot of outsourcing to other countries(especially India). They start getting paid more for their services, programmers in the US start getting paid less. We end up meeting in the middle.
Of course there are a lot of other variables, but the place of a programmer in 5 years won't be what it was 5 years ago.
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I would tell everyone to get the hell out of Africa and develop on their own. What's happened is that we're over there giving them medical attention so they're not dying as much... but they have the same amount of food.
greater birth rate + lower death rate + same technology = lots of starvation.
We created the problem with our meddling, it's time to step back and let nature take it's course.
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I would say that the *best* government is a totalitarian government with a great leader(The great leader is a requirement).
It can react that quickest, is affected by the majority the least(slavery, for example), and can be very fair.
In practicality, some form of democracy will be the best because we all know that the great leader doesn't come around often enough.
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I think everyone needs to step back, take a deep breath, and relax.
There's no reason for us to get all riled up because of some idiots. We all have our own beliefs about it, let's just respect everyone else's beliefs, and leave it at that.
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SC is my all-time favorite game
Although I play the money maps mostly, but I'll play you sometime
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rep up for Michael.
No, not really.
Doh! Got me excited for a second
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*does the funky chicken to show his fun spirit*
*to make sure everyone understands that he has a fun spirt, Michael proceeds to hump his keyboard*
Alright Yall's, don't be giving me *too* much rep for that overly informative post
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Cougar, you're no longer answering my points, you're just trying to show yourself to be correct.
I think I'm going to step out of this conversation while I still can
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You know Greek, and you've read the texts?I have a Greek bible and a Greek dictionary
That's a misdirection, a form of deception that's not nearly as strong as a lie.
Do you know Greek, and have you read the texts? Having a Greek bible, and a Greek dictionary doesn't make you qualified to reach the conclusion that you're putting forth.
I'm not sure what you are saying here with "The introduction of only two choices", but it's a fact that the Bible was written by 40 authors over a span of 1500 years.It's a fallacy known as False Dichotomy. Here's an excerpt from http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic...tml#bifurcation
Bifurcation
Also referred to as the "black and white" fallacy and "false dichotomy", bifurcation occurs if someone presents a situation as having only two alternatives, where in fact other alternatives exist or can exist. For example:
"Either man was created, as the Bible tells us, or he evolved from inanimate chemicals by pure random chance, as scientists tell us. The latter is incredibly unlikely, so..."
I presented a possibility that you hadn't mentioned, and negates your 'logic' as to why god has to exist. The bible could easily have been organized when it was put together.
It is not wise to believe everything you hear just because you don't have information that contradicts it. There should be some evidence to support the claim.Atheists, and Agnostics, have been telling Creationists that for years.
My point was, if something exists, it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in it, it still exists. Conversely, if something doesn't exist, believing in it will not make it real.That's not true. It's been shown that if you give patients placebo's, there are times when they'll react just as if they had taken the actual pill. To the patient, it's real.
God is very real to a lot of people. The question of whether he is *actually* real has absolutely no bearing on how real he is to those people.
In case you've missed my point I'll spell it out explicitly. This particular subject is *very* subjective, and as a result, "real" has a double meaning in this context.
physical meaning: "A desk is still a desk. You can wish it were an egg mcmuffin all day long, but it will never *be* an egg mcmuffin. It will always be a desk.
Mental: "God is real to me."
Just because something is Mentally Real(real in your mind), doesn't make it physically real. At the same time, just because something is physically real doesn't make it mentally real(real in your mind).
The difference between the two is that if there is a God, then the probability of creation is very high. If there is not a God, the probability of evolution is still very, very small.But that still doesn't disprove Evolution.No, but it does make it very unlikely.
I refer you to my False Dichotomy comments. I'll also add that statistically small doesn't mean impossible.
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Well this depends on what you define as the physical.
If you define what you can see, touch, feel, etc as physical, then you're limiting yourself I think. For instance - there's no denying that the golden ration, phi, an irrational number EXISTS as the positive root to the equation x^2-x-1=0. Isn't that physical? I can see this and solve this mathematically. It exists.
The number 2 doesn't exist in nature(The quantity does, but not the number), and neither does the equation x^2 - x - 1 = 0. For that matter, there is no such thing as a "perfect circle" in nature since PI doesn't exist in nature. The best you can do is get it within a certain tolerance.
The same thing goes for Phi. It's irrational, therefore it doesn't exist in nature. The best that can be done is a good approximation of it.
If you want to get really technical, Real numbers don't exist in nature either, only the set of integers > 0. Real numbers are nothing more than a concept. What we think of as half a salad still has a quantity of 1. When we say half, we're talking about a reference, the same as when we use negative numbers.
The reason that they exist is simple - take any segment of a number line, and there are infinitely many numbers on that - every number you can think of is on that number line. And if pi can be measured to be less than four and greater than three, then it exists on the interval [3,4] because there are infinite numbers on every interval.Those are all concepts created by Math. There is no such thing as the "number line", it's a concept used to show the relationship of numbers, but it doesn't exist outside of our minds.
Even multiplication, and addition, is a system that has been designed by us. Complex numbers have a different addition, and multiplication, system for them that's based off of our original system. Same with Quaternions.
We've designed these systems to work with nature, but they're still our own design. The reason it's hard for a lot of people to see that is because they've grown up with the concepts of numbers, so it's a surprise to them to find out that it *isn't* nature in a lot of ways.
Could you elaborate on this? What do you define as "true" randomness as opposed to randomness without the "true"? Where has this been accepted? I mean certainly it's accepted in the world of computers, that there is no true randomness, but to claim that in all the universe there is no such thing I think is a bit exclusive and short-sighted.This isn't an area that I'm real strong in, but think of it like this. "true" randomness would be without a cause, or reason. It would just be there. How do you create something without a cause, or reason? The best you can do is make it seem so.
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That could be the start of the fibonnacci series, it could be the age of my cousin, or it could be how many times I've drank alchohol. To you, it seems random(the illusion), but in actuality it's not, I've put it there for a reason.
Ahh, are you hinting at the aleph studies by Georg Cantor? And the Kabbalists as well I think? That stuff is really interestingI have no idea what you're talking about, lol. I'm referring to an ongoing debate that's been happening in the Mathematical community for some time now.
PS
If you want to continue this discussion, Feel free to email me, and/or PM me. I don't want to hijack this thread
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I think we've come to a point in this discussion were we need to just drop it and go on. We all know how the others feel, and I don't see much use in beating a dead horse. From here, all that's going to happen is silly positioning to try and be correct while proving the other incorrect, which doesn't help convince anyone of anything. All it will do is create hard feelings, and that's certainly not something we want at WFG.
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Alright, this is going to be a bit long because I'm going through and responding to quotes that I feel need a response.
And, for the record, IMHO believing in an unprovable supernatural deity will always require more faith, or as I sometimes cynically call it, "kidding oneself", than belief in the laws of logic & probability.Something that a lot of people don't realize is that Math is also a faith. At the bottom you have unknowns, from there you start creating a system by defining axioms, postulates, theorems,etc. However, at the bottom of this system, there are *still* unknowns. You must have faith in these unknowns, or the entire system doesn't make any sense.
For example, in Geometry, the definition of a point[Quoted From http://library.thinkquest.org/2647/geometr...intro/point.htm]:.
Points are the basis of all Geometry. There are so many things you can do with the little buggers that the possibilities are endless. Points are zero-dimensional. That basically means that they have no height, length, or width. They are just there.
There are four main definitions of a point. They are the dot, the exact location, the ordered pair, and the node. A point has four definitions because, over the years, many different mathematicians have come up with their own ideas as to what a point should be. Since their ideas were all equally true, the point was given four main definitions instead of a single definition. In fact, the point is considered undefined for that reason (among others). When being written out, points are always represented by a capitol letter. If a point is on a line, it is often represented by the same letter.
If a point is the basis of geometry, how is it that we use geometry to describe the physical world around us when a point is undefined? A better question is this: Why is it that we use the irrational value of PI(3.14.....), when irrational numbers don't exist in the physical world? I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the people on this board(creationists, and evolutionists alike) have never even questioned a lot of instances like this.
Here's the deal. Mathematics "as we know it" is nothing more than a system. What's special about this particular system is that we have defined it in such a way that it coincides with the physical world extremely well, but that doesn't mean it's limited to the physical world(hence the use of irrational numbers). It can use tools that don't exist in the physical world, but it's output ultimately does.
Most people don't realize that the Euclidean Geometry they're taught is *not* the same geometry that Euclid himself came up with. The axioms have been changed to fit in with new understandings. Euclid made the assumption that his Geometry was the only one out there(perhaps *he* didn't make that assumption, but the system he developed did). There are, however, different systems. For a quick, easy example, look up 3 point geometry. It has absolutely no bearing on the physical world, but it exists.
I know this may seem a bit off topic but I bring it up for two reasons.
1) Those who think that creationism is faith, and that evolution isn't, are fooling themselves. That doesn't validate, or invalidate, either one of them, thus, arguing that it's just faith is a fallacy.
2) Science can't argue against religion. The reason is because all of these theories(that includes evolution), are most likely wrong in some part. Think of it as a building, near the top it's not nearly as stable as it is towards the bottom. The bottom must be stable before we start reaching higher.
There is a fine point that I think needs to be made. Just because Evolution is proven incorrect does *not* prove that Creation is correct, and vice versa. Creationists are very bad about this. Remember, Creationists have the Burden of Proof to show that creationism is correct, and Evolutionists have the Burden of Proof to show that Evolution is correct, but they can't disprove each other.
One tricky thing to implement, though, would be the complete randomness of this universe. Sure, it's only theoretical, but removing the randomness would not leave room for free will. I want my free will!I believe it's been pretty much accepted that "true" randomness doesn't exist, only the illusion of randomness.
Infinity is a soothing concept, since it gives no room for questioning..I have an interesting question for you. Given: The set of even integers, odd integers, and integers, are all infinite. The set of even integers and the set of odd integers are mutually exclusive. How, then, is it possible for them *both* to be "just as large" as the set of integers, when the set of integers contains both sets?
This is actually an area of debate for mathematicians. The point being that the concept of infinity isn't nearly as simple as you make out.
The Bible only appears to to contradict itself because it was originally written in Greek, which is a much more precise language than English, and the "contradictions" were introduced during translation . If you read the original texts you'll find that they are very exact and there are no contradictions.You know Greek, and you've read the texts?
There were many authors of the Bible, but that actually strengthens the argument of divine inspiration since there aren't any contradictions. These 40+ authors who came from many different walks of life wrote about controversial subjects and yet all the writings agree with each other.That's a fallacy. The introduction of only two choices, when there's clearly a third(or more). It's also possible that one person was overseeing the writing of the bible when it was put together.
Yes, all religions claim to be the way into heaven, but you need to consider the evidence on which those claims are based. I can say to you, "Chew bubble gum twice a day and I guarantee that you will get into heaven". However, I have no facts to support this claim so it would be foolish to believe me.There are also no facts that dispute your claim, so by the same token it would be foolish to disbelieve you.
Just because you don't believe in something it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.And just because you *do* believe in something doesn't mean that it *does* exist.
If evolution is true, there should be hundreds of thousands of inter-species fossils. Instead there are a handful of these supposed "missing links" that could just as easily be explained by a freak mutation. It's hard to believe that there are generations of organisms that left absolutely no trace of there existence behind.It's also hard to believe that there's an omnicient being that I can't hear, nor see, nor feel, but I've been asked to believe it. Which is more likely? I honestly don't know, but both are a stretch.
Adam, the difference is that evolution doesn't leave any room for supernatural events (events that you could say the odds are so heavily against it ever occuring it is inconcievable to the human mind). God, miracles, creation etc.. are supernatural in definition. Christians accept the supernatural by faith. Faith is something unacceptable to the scientific community that supports evolution.1) read the first part of my post
2) it's very possible for creationism, and evolution, to both be true. Evolution doesn't deal with why(if there is indeed a why), only how. Creationism deals with a why, and ignores the how. Is it that hard to believe that perhaps they're both parts of the same thing?
The difference between the two is that if there is a God, then the probability of creation is very high. If there is not a God, the probability of evolution is still very, very small.But that still doesn't disprove Evolution.
Time is limitless, every moment has had a moment before it. Time did not start X billion years ago from nowhere. Therefore, something had to have happened before the big bang, if that was the creation of the universe.This is really a weak spot for me, but I believe Time is a force, like any other. It's been proven that time isn't constant, and time does nothing more than keep every instance from running into every other instance. If there is the possibility of God, then isn't it possible that he/she/it exists where time, as we know it, doesn't exist? In that case, God would be everywhere at once. Perhaps all God did was create time, or release it, who knows, I certainly don't.
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Good post ElfTheHunter. My last question was meant as a leading question to setup for most of what you just stated in your post.
What a lot of people don't realize is that there's different values. There's societal values, group values, and then there's personal values. The problem is that society as a whole will have different values than a particular group, and the individuals in that group may have different values than the group itself, which is why you get such a different message from different people in a group.
How many have heard the phrase "He's not *really* a christian. A true christian would never do that." All that's happened is that his values were different than the accepted values of the christian faith, as well as the values of the person making the statement.
If you want a sickening example, google for NAMBLA. I was shocked the first time I realized they were a *real* organization, but as long as they don't act, they can advocate till their blue in the face(they legally have the right).
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Majority decides what is "right" and "wrong"?
By that same logic, Slavery, for the longest time, was "right".
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Personally I won't own an ATI card until they learn to support Linux fully, not the half-hearted crap you get from them nowadays.
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plain text, without a doubt.
RTF I can see from a functional PoV, but there's absolutely no reason for HTML.
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I know this is old, but....
Linux is not *nearly* the most stable OS out there. Perhaps when you compare it to winANY, but that's about it. Don't get me wrong, I use Linux more than Windows, and I love it, but *BSD kills Linux in terms of stability, as do most *nix's.
That's not to say that Linux isn't stable, it most assuredly is, but *nix has been worked on much longer than Linux.
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Title: If God Does Not Exist..
Watch this:
I would say that is there was/were no God(s) there would be a big difference in society today. A couple things are that if no-one believed in God(s) there would be no religous buildings (churches, synagogs, etc.) so there would be more space for different thingsIf religion didn't exist, people may have been more able to accept different ideas and pursue the sciencesThe assumption is that there's a conditional relationship between God/s and Religion(meaning, if God exists, then Religion exists, if God doesn't exist, Religion doesn't exist).
Even after av_nefardec points it out, it *still* happens.
Well I actually think that that would be impossible, seeing that man's heart, througout history, has always looked for a higher being rather than vice versa.Here, he's speaking of man's manifestation of his belief in a god, AKA religion
The problem with this question is that there's no objective way to answer it, nor is there a subjective way to answer it either. It all depends on 1 assumption. The assumption that he does currently exist, or that he doesn't currently exist. This thread was destined to degenerate into a discussion/argument about which assumption is correct.
Personally, I think a lot of people are strong and sound enough in character, and well-learned enough to actually create their own systems of morals, not from one source, but from their collective studies and especially personal experience.But the reality is, not everyone has the strength of mind to do this, especially those for whom religion is the only thing that holds their lives together. So it would create a descent into lawlessness and a state of nature for many people, and this may be fine if everyone collectively embraced this state of nature, but there are going to be cohesive groups of "believers" who don't give a crap about science or logic, because faith is an ultimate form of logic, or separate from logic entirely. I have no idea what's right here, as each seems perfectly viable to me, because I am capable a lot of the time of being aware of multiple solutions or dualities, but for a lot of people who think in absolutes, there would be some tight factions created that would probably get progressively and progressively more militant, as judgemental as humans naturally are.
This post by av pretty much mirrored my thoughts on the subject of religion:
Just 1 more point and then I'll leave, I promise
You can't prove a negative, it's logically impossible. I can say that I saw purple unicorns dancing outside my window, and you can't prove that it didn't happen. The best you can do is tell me that the evidence doesn't support the claim(but that doesn't mean it didn't happen). That's also why the person making a claim has Proof of Burden. He's the only one that can prove his position, the other's can't. They can choose not to believe, but they can't prove their position.
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I abhor censorship of any kind. ANY. Belgium was wrong for throwing that guy in prison, regardless of how stupid (and yes, Holocaust denial is stupid) his book was.
I agree. I haven't looked at that website, but regardless, they have a right to their opinion. You guys speak of right and wrong as if they were absolute truths, when in fact, they are very relative terms, and therein lies the problem.
To me, it's more "wrong" to try and stop someone from speaking their mind, then it is for them to advocate racism. I would rather spend my time trying to educate people, and let them make the decision for *themselves*, then to make the decision for them. In the end, censorship is nothing more than another form of control.
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He's just another man, treat him as such. There's no reason to forcibly take away someone's dignity, even Saddam.
I personally believe in capital punishment, but probably not for the reason that most do. It has nothing to do with punishment, and more to do with protecting society, and expediency. If a person is a threat to society as a whole, and it would be far easier to kill them than to convert them, then kill them. I don't believe that Saddam could be changed easily, although I do believe it's possible, just not in my lifetime. For that reason, I think he should probably get the death penalty.
I do have one request for the media, however. Name 5 *good* things that Saddam has accomplished for his country. I say this because the media portrays him as a madman villain, and there is no such thing as pure evil in this world. It certainly helps Bush out, and gives the public someone to hate, but it doesn't do Saddam justice.
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'95 Ford Taurus
bought the sucka yesterday
Ever Had A Virus?
in Computer Desk
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My solution to that problem is to run Linux
I enjoy computing so much more with linux it isn't even funny.
Plus, you can use snazzy pick up lines like: "yo baby. I'd *really* appreciate it if you could come up to my room and mount my device for me!"
Oh yeah... Linux geeks are chick magnets