Yiuel
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Posts posted by Yiuel
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We know from the LotR that there used to be more cities in both Arnor and Gondor. Both we are also told that those cities were all disappearing. Osgiliath is probably the best example. It is said that Minas Tirith was a mere fortress where Osgiliath was the true capital city of Gondor...
I would imagine that most Gondorian cities were the old settlements. I would also imply that along the Last Alliance, most cities lost a lot of their people : this will forever barren them from growing again. In fact, all cities who are still extent in Gondor at the War of the Ring are "recent" cities : Minas Anor of Anarion, Dol Amroth of the Princes.
In terms of geography, indeed Tolkien is the worst. (I tend to be prolific about geography : and so here we have Sevy, the City Center, or Redbridge of the Green Valley, and here Kingsmount, along the Wideriver, etc.) Bree, pathetically, is the most well-known land of Middle-Earth. Four villages, neighboring a great isolated hill. We know how they interact, where they are, their population. Ironically, I'd feel safer going there, as I would know what there would be.
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This reminds me of Kôbe... even if this last event was pathetic...
(Koube is a city in Japan, west of Tokyo, west of Kyoto, in the neighborhood of Oosaka. In the 90', a great earthquake occured. Thousands of people died. A lot did not die immediately, but a few days later : there weren't enough rescuers. France had sended enoughm, yet, those people were refused to enter with their dogs : problems of quarantine for the dogs... People died...)
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As for your last post, Eken, Great News indeed.
As for the rebuilding of New Orleans. It could be an idea to rethink the city. The countering systems of Netherlands cannot apply to the Bayou, they are way too much exposed to hurricanes to be safe enough. Or, the walls would need to be way larger and higher than in the Netherlands. (The simpler system of Richmond BC cannot apply as well, as Richmond is fated to be on a very mild climate.) If they rebuild the city, they will have to think better about it.
As for the "religious explanation", before I send my recommendation, here's my worst joke of the day : (invoking my strange beliefs) And here the Universe showed how powerful it is to the Americans... No, it is useless, and we shall not enter it, as all could imply what they want.
It happened, it is sad, and we shall go on remembering. That's it.
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As for the urbanism, there has been previous critics about New Orleans. i know at least one Canadian city that has the same concerns : Richmond, in the Vancouver region. The island on which it is installed in lower than the sea level. IT might happen the same thing as in New Orleans : sinking of the city followed by intrusion of the river and the sea...
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I placed two identical faces.
The first one, dubbed "The Quebecker", refers to the place where I actually live. (On top of Montreal, in Quebec, eastern part of Canada) The second, dubbed "The Melvillian" refers to the place where I ultimately intend to live, perhaps where my deadstone would be placed (As I have no intention for my body to be buried.). It is in Extreme Northern Canada, on Melville Island. It seems a cold place (and I will not deny it), but the landscapes are so marvellous. the website i have linked to it contains photos of the island, look under île de Melville.
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I would say, the absurdity of all this.
And I chose my word, it is absurd. It can be disgusting, ugly, chaotic, ruthless, poisoned, awful, but above all, it is absurd. All those people cannot even go out of the city. I would like to say : walk, walk away out of hell, but it seems that they are somehow blocked. Why are they locked there...
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The lack of "good" in the world?
I decided to reread the first (small) post of this thread, and this last question intrigues me.
It has been shown here how much I am atheistic in my way of life. Yet, people around me tend to feel that I think the whole world is good. I can only agree. To me, in fact, there is no lack of good.
So, there are two things I wonder.
1. From where comes the ideaa that atheistic life leads to some amoral life. (amoral = lack of distinction between good and evil)
2. How much do you think good is present in the world?
About that last question, I think that the world is so much good. I am a relativist, in respect of morals : I do not think that there is an absolute good (and, likewise, an absolute evil). But, this relativism doesn't stop me of defining some good relatively. And, if humans have endured all this long life, good relative to human must have overwhelmed evil. (Each death though is a sign that we are not perfect, and that nothing is completely good.) What is good to me is what keeps human living. If they endure, it might be good. It they do not, it might be evil. Yet, even though death is a sign of evil to me, death itself is not evil : as far as I know, we endure, even if death is there to our late cospecimens.
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Here, in Quebec, we are blessed with a lot of facts.
A lot of immigrants fear Quebec, so they turn around and go in other regions of Canada. Most of those who come and stay here in Quebec are already linked somehow with French-language culture (Haiti, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebannon, France, Belgium, Ivory Coast, Rwanda etc.), so they are somehow pleased to discover Quebec.
In Quebec, intergration always has been the main method to deal with immigrants. Most Irish people in Quebec now speak French, and names with Mc are often heard among French speaking people. In old days, intergration was easier : the world as less technological, we were more local, and people who came by learned quickly the local language (except when they developped their own locality : the residents of Shannon in Quebec speak French, but kept a somehow distinct pronounciation).
In our new days, instead, we need some laws to accomplish the same feat : the famous Law 101. Immigrants, except for interprovincial English-speaking immigrants, are obligated to go to French school (until college) and those who are older are strongly encouraged to go to French language lessons. (We need a little more classes, but this can be managed). This created the strangest people of all : trilingual in their mother tongue, English (from expectations of Canada) and French.
We have a form of getthorisation. People of the same origin tend to locate in the same place, but the government itself never encouraged it : those semi-getthos developped out "naturally". This also created a strange effect : most second generation stays in the semi-getthos, but the thrid generations are now following the trend of suburbanization, and they go everywhere. People also get mixed a lot : a former tutor of mine, Japanese, was married to an Italian. I suppose their girl speaks Italian, but I know she perfectly understands Japanese, French and English. And getthorization has completely disappeared for older groups : the Italians have two main neighborhoods (Little Italia and Saint-Leonard), but they nowhere all live there. Chinese still retain their Chinese district, but nowhere do they live there any more. Japanese are fully suburbanized, and they only have their small cultural center in the middle of nowhere...
We have a few muslim communities as well in Montreal. Their never getthorised. There is no muslim neighborhood. There are a few communities of muslim heritage, but they nowhere form a monolithical group. In this, we also are luckily blessed with a deputy of our parliament, who is a female muslim, and she wants intergration as well. She was the iniciator of a resolution against charia in Québec. "You came here, well, follow their laws." I hope laws would be made better in that last issue, because actually, laws are not made well enough to ensure some decent (I could have an even more lenghty speech on that last issue...)
[You may have all possibilities that you can have in the respect that all others may have all possibilities they can have. If a possibility you can have block someone else of possibly having some possibility, you may not have that possibility. You may not kill someone, you may not force someone your own law...]
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As for birth-rate, in Quebec, the ratio is in the lowest in the Occidental lands. Even Canada as a whole has a higher birth-rate. Though I do not fear a problem of immigration (and immigrants of second and third generation tends to follow the same trend), I do feel an economic problem. I with my sole self, will have two replace two or even three workers. What will happen with our generation? We will be expected to work as three, we will be expected to support the life of our fathers and forefathers, yet, we will be mostly alone for 2 maybe up to 4 (fore)parents...
This is exactly the reason why immigrantion is called, because the need of people is there. Immigration is not heard of in a lot of countries because they do not need them. (Or try to forget they will eventually need them, as in Japan...) If there was a way to have more children without blocking years of life for women (or with blocking the life of men as well...), or maybe give a little more interest in having children, long-term interest, even changing the social values : this last thing can be done, if some people invest a lot of time, and if the leaders also help it.
I don't have a problem with having ever more children. Even if I do feel that Earth has a limit, the Universe itself has none, (or we cannot cross this last limit...) and we still don't know what is ahead in time. Fear shouldn't be the power, but will to live in the future. If my future wife feels like it, I'd be there and have more than a few children, and help her with what I can do. Maybe adopt some child as well.
I think France has tried to address this problem by banning head scarves in public schools, but i don't think it is enough.To me, it crossed the line a little too much.
Though I do not have something against banning symbols of hate (because this is explicitly a criminal act to menace someone), I wouldn't ban any other symbol, even in school. That I show my own religious allegences doesn't impeach someone else of doing what ever they please. (Black Knight, what if I impeach you of having a cross as a necklace, what would you do?) I do not show my religious allegences publicly, but I wouldn't like to be blocked of doing so, if I wanted.
I am Secularist, and I could feel some trends in American policies to offend my beliefs. (This includes one that the individual life of an individual being begins when it is out of his mother's limbs (before, it is a part of a the mother's life), and that life has no sancticity.) And then, if my people former the majority in my land, and that some of those Americans come in my land in search of a better life, and they would try to change my laws, would I ban their symbols of faith? It is a little absurd, and it will do nothing good.
What I would do instead is answer, answer that they are not the only one who have beliefs, the WE also have it. I would answer what I believe, and that some of those beliefs can even be contrary to their beliefs. And that, what I will do to answer such problem is to make this land a land where all individual possibilities may be, and that if one, because of his beliefs, may not do something, then, it is only his own right, and just don't do it. And if they're not happy with their freedom, well, they can go elsewhere, and fear hate ; and if they're happy with their freedom, well, we'll be happy to live with them.
I think European countries could use an old Ottoman method for this problem. Make it so that every Muslim family has to give up their first-born son to millitary service at birth. Then train these kids to be super-patriotic fighting machines, fiercly loyal to the state. So what do you think?The worst thing ever, and in the Ottoman empire, it seems to have not helped a lot : Christian and Jewish people are still to be find there, and people can quickly grow back to another patriotic feeling (Lebannon, Syria, Jordania, Irak, Turkey.)
And why try to do that thing, especially when one sees no need to do so.
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Beowulf was well studied by Tolkien, and he was in his time the leading scholar on the text.
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I would dare to oppose Mithrandil and Klaas on this one.
I wouldn't say that the Church maintained the people in stupidity. At least, we know that in the centuries following the Last Western Emperor, the people had still a lot of knowledge about the nature that surrounded them. It wasn't scientific knowledge, only traditionnal knowledge, yet it was relevant in their life. A lot of this knowledge was paganic : it had been fostered in the countryside and was maintained by people of the ancient beliefs. This is probably the reason why a lot has been lost (and why we can trace back main plagues only in further time), as pagan chiefs dissappeared.
The Church itself stayed as the refuge of scholar knowledge. This is nothing to be surprised of, as the Christian Church was first mainly a city church : books were their thing, and writing was maintained among them. (The caroline is roughly based on their way of writing...)
The first christian councils led what was left : the veracity of faith, and the canon was built, so everything in it was true. So, whatever the Church ultimately maintained was to be the based of scholarity. ("Geospherism" was known to Greeks, and they were probably not that far of getting further. "Heliocentrism" is not known, but maybe.) It is a matter of circumstances that made some dogms of the Church dogms. As such, the dogms themselves can no longer be discussed in the Church. (being their axiomes of reflexion, as to math 1 and 1 makes 2) But, reading the circumstances, we might find interesting details.
It went into absuridities when empirism and the pratice of experimentation and observation began. A small rock and a large canonball falling and reaching at the same time the surface? Small dots seeming to follow closely Jupiter following patterns as if they were circling around the planet? Mountains on the moon? Dark spots on the Sun? (further in time, now : within rocket with great speed and in a laboratory, we set time, and minutes later, a second late was the laboratory's clock...? Galaxies leading to some central point...? Some gaz balls circling around some other stars...? Rivers on Titan...?)
This is where the crisis appeared. As the Church stayed in human relation regulation, there was no much problems, as human relations can be artificially built. But, when it came to Nature itself, it was (and is) way beyond the power of the Church, and one could either deny the writings (leading to a lost in dogma) or deny the sight (leading to a deep dilemma). The Church, for the sake of its survival, aimed the first : it had the power to counter the dilemma. But, at last, Plato was right :
And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and in the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my departure punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more inconsiderate with you, and you will be more offended at them. If you think that by killing men you can prevent some one from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honourable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure to the judges who have condemned me. (Platon, in the Apology of Socrates)
(I like this prophesy, and all should remember that oppression leads to further push.)
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I've read a little about Secularism, and it flows right where I think, that is, the "irrelevance of religion in my life".
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The idea is to measure the space of a vision. To do it, you need three information : distance under and over the horizon, distance left and right from the middle of one's vision, and distance from the viewpoint. So, you don't film in the same way as taking a picture, it is more calculation and evaluation.
To create touch, you must have some force acting against your skin. Finally, for smelling, the idea is to project the right chemicals in the air at the right time.
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I'm in a debate around "Secular/Agnosticist/Atheist" and "Natural Religion".
I'm obviously not an adherant to one of the Book Religions, and even less to those who declare dogmas. I am not neopagan, and do not follow any said "traditional" religion as well.
The reason why I hesitate in front of the Secular choice is that I do have a credo (what I believe) and I have some faith in it. I also am Agnostic, in the sense that I deny the possibility of knowledge about what is metaphysical (beyond Nature, Observation and Experience), but it didn't stop me of having a credo in life. It is atheistic, but not atheist : I do not deny some god, but I deny its relevance in the Universe. My credo relies on the "Existence of the Universe, and its Laws of Physic". I do not worship, but, in some sense, I do honour this credo in a way. It's quite hard to define, and actually, Natural Religion is quite close to the word I would think of it.
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I'm not going until next year, it seems. Oh well... I still have my courses beginning in september.
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I am no scholar on the Bible, and I do not intend to become one. I have heard, and also have seen, of examples of contradictions.
I would follow Klaas on this one, the lack of contradiction doesn't mean it is true :
The sky is green, everything green is ugly, so the sky is ugly. There is no contradiction here, but there's no (absolute) truth here.
But I would also add this : the presence of contradiction doesn't mean it is (entirely) false.
For the parts I have read of the Gospels, I like some of the moral ideas in it, and I don't bother to inspire there as well. I've also read some Coranic surates as well. I do not "believe" in the litteral sayings of either, but I appreciate some of the message behind them, to some extant.
And sometimes, it is through contradictions that truth is seen.
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This is what we would call the Matrix dilemma, or the "Brain in a machine". We don't know if our feelings are real or artificially induced. The only thing we know, is that we feel those things, whatever we feel. Is it real, is it fake? I came to answer that it could be both at the same time (my Universe Game). The only thing we have to know for such dilemma to be relevant is that if we have a reality beyond this reality. (In the Matrix, all people have a reality beyond their virtual reality. This might not be the case for us in this Universe.)2. If you say that logic is just interaction between cells, everything might also be interaction between cells, (i.e. your house, car, whatever) thereby making everything immaterial. In fact, there might not even be any cells, or anything, but you might be just conciousness somewhere, maybe even nowhere.If we do have a reality beyond this one, we can be said to be trapped and abused somehow. Or maybe we got sick and to save us, we were but in jars and continue to "live" in this reality. If we do not, yet that this Universe is a mere computation (a possibility), it is irrelevant to our existence, as our only existence is here, our unique reality.
3. Plus, you’re telling me that in a billion years of evolution, there is no change in logic?One postulate of science is that elements (quarks and the combination thereof) did not change at all since the beginning of the Universe. If they don't change, then, if you but one kind of quark and another together, you'll always get the same result.
The only two things that change are the distribution of matter and energy, and their relation.
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Must I remind how much people all self-defined Christians have killed, especially among themselves, in the name or religion (Constantinopolos and the Crusades, The Reformation, Colonies, North Ireland)...
The only reason why I would kill someone else is if I was attacked in my own community. This is the only thing I would protect.
I would argue to Mithrandil that, even though my very strange ways, I did find a "good" and "evil", but, it is always relative, and that, when relative to the whole Universe, it is always completely amoral (neither good nor bad).
If one eradicate the whole human kind, it would be evil to all humans (unless you're misanthrope), but it might be a blessing to our poor Chimps, finally freed from the destructive homo sapiens sapiens of their home. In a whole, to the Ecosphere, it might be a great happening, in a VERY positive way. And, in front of the Universe, both us and the Ecosphere are meaningless, so it might be just as good as bad to eradicate the whole human kind... (But this doesn't stop me to say that it is bad, to me and to the human kind...)
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Anyhow, I guess that I'd like to think that our psyche is something more than an interaction between cells, but I can't prove it... tough ya know?
I don't bother. I find it quite interesting actually, because if I can save my psychic pattern (those interactions), I actually live on.
I think it is a way to humble myself, as well. I honour the Universe as some might worship some gods. Even though to me it is nothing more than Nature, it is Nature, and that doesn't keep me from having thoughts for the Universe that permitted my birth and life. Each time I see the profile of a galaxy (especially those marvellous spirals), it reminds of how small I am and how big the Universe is. And, a galaxy is so beautiful.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whirlpo...alaxy-large.jpg
Hundreds of Billions of Stars, circling in a great show.
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So this could mean that everything that you see and feel could just be- interaction between cells? And since logic could just be interaction between cells, wouldn't it be different for everyone, considering the theory of evolution that you hold so dearly?
It is quite the same to me. I feel like I am only the sum of my cells and all their interaction (the later accounting for the most part), and that my "spiritual" self (my psyché) is merely the interaction of my brain cells. So the logic is the way those cells interact when something occurs. When I see a tree falling, I also here a sound. Link them, you have your first steps in logic and reasoning.
At one point, I will link things differently than another one. This is especially true about memories. To some people, some smell might remember some grateful person which is ought to remember, well some other would small the same thing, and be disgusted, because it reminds him of something awful. But cells between all humans are quite similar (DNA is the comparative here : if we had to compare the two most different humans, there would be only 0,1% difference. That is, almost nothing.) so that the process in each being is closely the same. So, even if the links might differ, there will not be unsurmontable differences between two people.
(Yet, compare a human with a goldfish, and you'll find striking differences in some areas of memorizing.)
And, at one point, I must remember that, in the end, we are made of about the same matter, all of us : quarky (
) quarks. So, in the end, at the quark level, there won't be much difference at all in their "relations". -
I would say that there is a site that we have called Troy. I don't mean here that Homere's Troy itself did not exist, or that the city we have called Troy isn't Homere's Troy, but we cannot be sure.
(Remember that Homere's Iliad, even if somewhat looking quite plausible, is still only a litterary and mythological work, and that not everything has to be taken litterally. That one said frenetically that "we have found Troy" is hard to believe. Documents have to corrobore, or at least they must remain some inscriptions. And it's name might have not been Troy to Troyans...)
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The Japanese Kami fall in the "spirit" category. Eventhough it's meaning has turned to "god" (leading to the translation of Our Lord God as "Kami-sama"), Kami refers specifically to what is "over us", and a leader used to be called a Kami, as the ancestors, and nature's powers. And nothing was "over nature".
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Some have already made the work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_incon...es_in_the_bible
I will not further comment.
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I cannot be entirely sure, as I cannot proove the inexistence of something. But I can be fairly sure because I can repeat this experience. When ever I join two objects, it never became a group of three objects. This is why I saked you my last question : If you know of such occurence, please tell me.You never saw two things being put together and getting three things. How can you be sure of anything? Can you be sure of them?
I haven't been pinpointed to those examples. Would probably be a great read to know how all of this happens.Hasn't been found, eh? I'm sure that you've heard of the anomalies in the Jurra Mountains in Switzerland? The Agate Springs fossil graveyard? "Heart Mountain Thrust" in Wyoming? "Lewis Overthrust" in Montana? Trees that extend through several layers of sediment in the Mount St. Helens eruption area?Yet, I have been tricked by my own unskilled interpretations at least once. In another thread, I recalled thinking that hills were the expression of Earth's bentness. (I now laugh of it, but it's interesting as it always reminds me that mere observation is not enough : you must probe and ever prob your observation, until you can be fairly sure it is correct.) Observation is something, yet, reading is not as easy. Especially when you know that the Universe's existence is not as simple as to read roman alphabet...
Why the contrary of your belief is impossible? I also wonder if one would oppose you with the Kojiki's origin of the world. (Old Shintoist beliefs)The contrary of my belief.
ad absurdem means "to the extent of absurdity". It is not illogical per se, but it leads to a paradox where you have an endless list "to the extent of absurdity" of Creators. Hence, either you don't have a final answer, as you always need a creator, or, as I said, you accept to stop somewhere.ad absurdum? Can't you just say "illogical?" What's so hard to believe about God having no beginning? Why is that illogical?As for What's so hard to believe about God having no beginning?, I will reply this first : it is not that hard, but, what would be so hard to believe (1) That the Universe itself has no cause, or, (2) that it is the Creator's Creator that has no Creator. In fact, the three positions are equally thought about me, the reason why i chose the Universe as my end is that it adds nothing more than what is seen. (Aim of simplicity of means about scientifical theories)
Please refer to quote No. 2. By the way, there is a saying in the scientific world, (I'm not sure if I directly quoted this) "a truly beautiful theory murdered by an ugly fact."Ugly fact?
My view on evolution is so broad? What do you mean? I have stated that to me, it was merely the "process in time in which life transforms through a number of processes (mutation and selection and variation thereof) leading to different kinds (whether phyloi, spiecies, communities)". Yet, it describes thousands (millions?, billions?) of situations and examples, from the appearance of the chordea kind to the distinction between two communities.I've also noticed that your view on evolution is so broad we can't pin it down. You need to work that out. -
If we count along the guideline I have given, 23 planets is possible.
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Small historical note on Vaire's Wall that mostly explains why I do not believe in a lot of the stories written in the holy books of religions.
I was in a car, with my mother, I was really young. As usual, I'm mostly expressive with my gestualities than with my tongue. So my mother said : "The Good Lord gave Adam and Eve a mouth to speak, so use it." And so, with my childish manners, I answered : "And Lucy* in all this?" And I puzzled my mother.
I don't know exactly how I could have so quickly answered that, I was, at most, 8 years old, and we have been to church until then, and I had catholic catheshism etc.
Yet, it probably came from a natural reflex I had ever since I can remember : observation. Every time I saw or heard something, my first idea was to look deeper at it, and think what it meant. Itried to explain my world through observation and interpretation of what I was seeing. Indeed, I made mistakes (my funniest was the assumption that hills were the world's bending, and I later came to see the horizon as the true showing of Earth's bending)...
I also read a lot (and still reading, I never have enough) about other people's observation and reasoning. I know my first book about dinosaurs was not those small childish-like books with names and mere small stories : it was a book to be read by (old) teenagers (I was still a 4th grade by then). In it, it not only explained the dinosaurs, but the whole process in how the discoveries were made, what observation they did etc. Now, I came to believe observation is the best way to know the world.
Being so, in recent times, I came to think this : If ever there is a God (or Gods, or a metaphysical being), the best book to know about it is the Universe, especially if it's Its own creation. A man's hand and mind can err, but the Universe can never.
* Lucy is the famous Australopithecus Afarensis discovered in the sixtees. I don't remember well, but in my argument, I think I even said the whole scientific name.
Saddam confesses to some crimes
in Hall of Intellectuals
Posted
He definitely will not become a muslim martyr. It would be like giving sancticity to those Roman Emperors who didn't wantto hear about Christians...
I am not for death sentence, even if it is Saddam, even if he killed dozens of people.Who would bring back those dead people to life, would his killing do that. People shoe how much an example would it be to the world. I would say it would even favor Saddam-like people do try even harder. I wouldn't kill him. Perhaps would I let him go...
As for those "confessions", I doubt them. I especially don't like those words : "he was able to extract confessions from Saddam's mouth". Yet, the victor's law, isn't it.