9th March 2003, 12:32 AM
First off, though I know reading it was probably causing you physical pain (I know I know, I watch some VERY stupid commercials where I actually feel pain due to the aura of stupid flowing off of it, like the Cox commerical I recently saw where a woman was ANGRY, physically YELLING like a couple's argument over infedelity, to a satellite company provider, it HURT me), could you at least read through the whole thing divorcing your emotions completely from it? I can tell you didn't read all of our posts, and pretty much just assumed what we meant based on what you think we are like. Please read the entirety of my response, finding the meaning behind it (and by the way, read above too, it would really help, you argued against stuff we don't believe in).
I didn't even describe my family at all... I described my own personal thoughts growing up, but never once mentioned my family. Thus you said more about yourself than me. Anyway, you listed a large amount of stuff "the church retreated on". You really should do some research. First off, as Weltall and LL to an extent explained, some large governing body telling those who worship God how to go about doing it is not exactly intended. The church is intended to be a place of gathering, not an organized "government" like it has become in certain situations *points in general direction of Italy*. Starcraft's Protoss storyline makes this point VERY clear indeed. It doesn't attack the belief itself you will notice, just the corrupt ruling group, while the belief itself is still just as important to the Protoss as ever.
Now then, I explain that for one very important reason. You stated all sorts of stuff that is NOT a part of our religion (I know LL and Weltall, I myself don't even like calling it a religion, by our definition, but there's another definition that does happen to include Christianity, and we have to work with that sometimes). You listed stuff like "the world is flat" and "this place is the center of the universe" and "God actually physically lives among the clouds" and such, that apparently the Catholic church once believed and has since given up. Now then, what does that have to do with Christianity :D? Really, none of that is in the Bible, or part of being a Xian (fun way to say Christian, it sounds like it's from OUTER SPACE), so why act like Chistianity ever gave ground when it's not even a part, but rather something added later by Ethos, er, church? You have no real point there.
As far as calling us all cooks and such regarding this, so be it. As I said, it really is a matter of faith. You may say it's a security blanket, but why? Why must you attack those who believe such things as cowards and morons? I don't attack you. You are in fact a very intelligent person. I merely say you are a coward, not a coward AND a moron :D. Nah, really I say you are just confused. You see our belief and say "why should we need a God to give our own lives meaning?". I've heard it before, and trust me one thing I've seen argued this point and some others FAR better than you have (no offense, it was a huge work as opposed to an MB post), but in the process of eventually delivering this argument, the entire work actually seemed to me to be SUPPORTING Christianity and attacking only false churches and false gods. I must have misinterpreted the intentions, but it says something when the whole time all these arguments and representations of human nature to me just looked so pro-Christian RIGHT up until the, somewhat early from my view, end, where the wrong person said the line "show me the strength you claim can let you survive without God" and the whole plot kinda fell apart for me (though if it had continued further like I thought it would have, they really could have gone the way I thought it would have gone and actually made a massivly good argument for Christianity). All I'll say is this. The moment is always very important, but wouldn't you like every single moment to be full of completeness, instead of simply "keepin' it real yall" knowledge? (On another note, I am so sick of reality shows mainly because I'm sick of people being so obsessed with "reality" that they loose reality.)
Oh, and alien space marine, the universe is of course bound by logic. Your statement seems to be that something with no beginning and no end is illogical. Hardly. It simply goes beyond our understanding (well, no beginning does, no end is easy enough to at least understand the meaning of, though not the consequences, we aren't elves). I mean, physicists have been devising new theories on how time operates, and it's like a sphere basically. It has no starting point or end point, it's just an expanse of direction. Now, don't take that to mean it loops around to the starting point or something, that's not quite it. It's just that if you keep on going one way, it just veers off and keeps going. It's just "been". Logic is pretty much pure, if it can be explained using logical terms it's logical. So, simply stating "it has no beginning" isn't illogical. It's only illogical if it's been proven that all things MUST have a beginning, which it seems has actually been unprooven. Now saying something like "it has no beginning because it has no beginning" is illogical, because having no beginning was not the actual CAUSE of it having no beginning. A logical statement would be "It has no beginning is equal to it has no beginning". You see, I just said something VERY obvious, but it was to explain logic's nature. It just has to make sense logically. The first thing was illogical because a property cannot be it's own cause. The second was logical because a property can and does equal itself. It's that easy. Where it gets complicated is stacking various statements with each other to make sure they don't contradict. If I said both "it has no beginning" and "it has a beginning" it would be illogical. The same would be if I said one and another person said another. Thus you have to find out which data to throw out, so that it's logical again. That requires more statements, which must match up with the rest of the statement (things you see are statements in this case, like seeing stars moving this way or that, they are statements that must not contradict any other statements). Eh, I have a really bad time with words, but my point is that logic is pretty uncaring about human opinion, um, I htink that's what I'm trying to say...
Oh, and LL, isn't engineering science? It's doing all sorts of experimental stuff and collecting data, mostly as a side effect of the goal of doing something. If the data of even a failure isn't gathered, then you can't help others. Gathering info for the sake of gathering info certainly helps people, so long as that info is stored and passed along. Doing math for the sake of doing math as well helps people if the data is stored and passed along and you are experimenting with new math stuff. One thing about science, scientists don't like "greedy" scientists who go their whole lives just doing experiments and not sharing the data, because that helps no one but the one doing it. On the other hand, sharing the data in an open forum helps everyone, as another scientist or engineer can use said data for what they are doing. Science is something I've always loved by the way. If I wasn't going into programming, I'd be going into another field of nerdity. I'm pretty sure you didn't want to imply this, but you kinda phrased the comment about science this way. It kinda sounds like you are saying science done for the sake of learning alone doesn't help people. I'll just say this anyway, just in case other people happen to actually think that (I bet I misread that though). Science done only for the sake of gathering more information certainly can be and has been helpful for everyone. At the time, it's little more than a page of useless data. However, they passed that data on (as a scientist wanting to use any information they find to help humanity should) and eventually someone read it, and realized THAT was exactlyt he thing they NEVER would have thought of or even began experimenting about on their own, but needed for their amazing device to work. They then completely redo all their plans and try incorporating this information into something new and incredible. This is the whole reason scientific studies get government funding. Governments of the past would never have considered supporting random data gathering for the purpose of data gathering if they didn't think that knowledge might become useful to others. Many lovely inventions wouldn't exist if it weren't for people who may never have thought about what their studies for the sake of learning would do. The only example off-hand that I have though is the worst example I can think of, the nuclear bomb, which would not have ever been invented if some fellow named Einstein's papers didn't hit some technicians just right. Doing something for the sake of learning something new is indeed a noble cause if the reason for you doing it to learn something new is to give that new information to humanity. That's why redoing experiments already done is kinda frowned upon, since that's not adding any new information. However, even then there are times that should be done. If the results of those experiments or the thesis are under question for fraud, it is a good idea to do said studies again.
I think what you meant though was that you wouldn't do math that's already been proven just for the sake of learning something new personally. That I understand fully. No reason getting paid for something that helps no one (though as an off-time hobby, hey no problem there, though I don't find math a hobby I'd enjoy :D, that's what debating dead issues is for :D).
Oh wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, isn't engineering a science? It uses science anyway. I'm not so sure I'd seperate them so much.
I didn't even describe my family at all... I described my own personal thoughts growing up, but never once mentioned my family. Thus you said more about yourself than me. Anyway, you listed a large amount of stuff "the church retreated on". You really should do some research. First off, as Weltall and LL to an extent explained, some large governing body telling those who worship God how to go about doing it is not exactly intended. The church is intended to be a place of gathering, not an organized "government" like it has become in certain situations *points in general direction of Italy*. Starcraft's Protoss storyline makes this point VERY clear indeed. It doesn't attack the belief itself you will notice, just the corrupt ruling group, while the belief itself is still just as important to the Protoss as ever.
Now then, I explain that for one very important reason. You stated all sorts of stuff that is NOT a part of our religion (I know LL and Weltall, I myself don't even like calling it a religion, by our definition, but there's another definition that does happen to include Christianity, and we have to work with that sometimes). You listed stuff like "the world is flat" and "this place is the center of the universe" and "God actually physically lives among the clouds" and such, that apparently the Catholic church once believed and has since given up. Now then, what does that have to do with Christianity :D? Really, none of that is in the Bible, or part of being a Xian (fun way to say Christian, it sounds like it's from OUTER SPACE), so why act like Chistianity ever gave ground when it's not even a part, but rather something added later by Ethos, er, church? You have no real point there.
As far as calling us all cooks and such regarding this, so be it. As I said, it really is a matter of faith. You may say it's a security blanket, but why? Why must you attack those who believe such things as cowards and morons? I don't attack you. You are in fact a very intelligent person. I merely say you are a coward, not a coward AND a moron :D. Nah, really I say you are just confused. You see our belief and say "why should we need a God to give our own lives meaning?". I've heard it before, and trust me one thing I've seen argued this point and some others FAR better than you have (no offense, it was a huge work as opposed to an MB post), but in the process of eventually delivering this argument, the entire work actually seemed to me to be SUPPORTING Christianity and attacking only false churches and false gods. I must have misinterpreted the intentions, but it says something when the whole time all these arguments and representations of human nature to me just looked so pro-Christian RIGHT up until the, somewhat early from my view, end, where the wrong person said the line "show me the strength you claim can let you survive without God" and the whole plot kinda fell apart for me (though if it had continued further like I thought it would have, they really could have gone the way I thought it would have gone and actually made a massivly good argument for Christianity). All I'll say is this. The moment is always very important, but wouldn't you like every single moment to be full of completeness, instead of simply "keepin' it real yall" knowledge? (On another note, I am so sick of reality shows mainly because I'm sick of people being so obsessed with "reality" that they loose reality.)
Oh, and alien space marine, the universe is of course bound by logic. Your statement seems to be that something with no beginning and no end is illogical. Hardly. It simply goes beyond our understanding (well, no beginning does, no end is easy enough to at least understand the meaning of, though not the consequences, we aren't elves). I mean, physicists have been devising new theories on how time operates, and it's like a sphere basically. It has no starting point or end point, it's just an expanse of direction. Now, don't take that to mean it loops around to the starting point or something, that's not quite it. It's just that if you keep on going one way, it just veers off and keeps going. It's just "been". Logic is pretty much pure, if it can be explained using logical terms it's logical. So, simply stating "it has no beginning" isn't illogical. It's only illogical if it's been proven that all things MUST have a beginning, which it seems has actually been unprooven. Now saying something like "it has no beginning because it has no beginning" is illogical, because having no beginning was not the actual CAUSE of it having no beginning. A logical statement would be "It has no beginning is equal to it has no beginning". You see, I just said something VERY obvious, but it was to explain logic's nature. It just has to make sense logically. The first thing was illogical because a property cannot be it's own cause. The second was logical because a property can and does equal itself. It's that easy. Where it gets complicated is stacking various statements with each other to make sure they don't contradict. If I said both "it has no beginning" and "it has a beginning" it would be illogical. The same would be if I said one and another person said another. Thus you have to find out which data to throw out, so that it's logical again. That requires more statements, which must match up with the rest of the statement (things you see are statements in this case, like seeing stars moving this way or that, they are statements that must not contradict any other statements). Eh, I have a really bad time with words, but my point is that logic is pretty uncaring about human opinion, um, I htink that's what I'm trying to say...
Oh, and LL, isn't engineering science? It's doing all sorts of experimental stuff and collecting data, mostly as a side effect of the goal of doing something. If the data of even a failure isn't gathered, then you can't help others. Gathering info for the sake of gathering info certainly helps people, so long as that info is stored and passed along. Doing math for the sake of doing math as well helps people if the data is stored and passed along and you are experimenting with new math stuff. One thing about science, scientists don't like "greedy" scientists who go their whole lives just doing experiments and not sharing the data, because that helps no one but the one doing it. On the other hand, sharing the data in an open forum helps everyone, as another scientist or engineer can use said data for what they are doing. Science is something I've always loved by the way. If I wasn't going into programming, I'd be going into another field of nerdity. I'm pretty sure you didn't want to imply this, but you kinda phrased the comment about science this way. It kinda sounds like you are saying science done for the sake of learning alone doesn't help people. I'll just say this anyway, just in case other people happen to actually think that (I bet I misread that though). Science done only for the sake of gathering more information certainly can be and has been helpful for everyone. At the time, it's little more than a page of useless data. However, they passed that data on (as a scientist wanting to use any information they find to help humanity should) and eventually someone read it, and realized THAT was exactlyt he thing they NEVER would have thought of or even began experimenting about on their own, but needed for their amazing device to work. They then completely redo all their plans and try incorporating this information into something new and incredible. This is the whole reason scientific studies get government funding. Governments of the past would never have considered supporting random data gathering for the purpose of data gathering if they didn't think that knowledge might become useful to others. Many lovely inventions wouldn't exist if it weren't for people who may never have thought about what their studies for the sake of learning would do. The only example off-hand that I have though is the worst example I can think of, the nuclear bomb, which would not have ever been invented if some fellow named Einstein's papers didn't hit some technicians just right. Doing something for the sake of learning something new is indeed a noble cause if the reason for you doing it to learn something new is to give that new information to humanity. That's why redoing experiments already done is kinda frowned upon, since that's not adding any new information. However, even then there are times that should be done. If the results of those experiments or the thesis are under question for fraud, it is a good idea to do said studies again.
I think what you meant though was that you wouldn't do math that's already been proven just for the sake of learning something new personally. That I understand fully. No reason getting paid for something that helps no one (though as an off-time hobby, hey no problem there, though I don't find math a hobby I'd enjoy :D, that's what debating dead issues is for :D).
Oh wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, isn't engineering a science? It uses science anyway. I'm not so sure I'd seperate them so much.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)