Global Christianity and the Rise of the Cellphone 559
Hugh Pickens writes "Alan Jacobs writes in the Atlantic about Every Tribe Every Nation, an organization whose mission is to produce and disseminate Bibles in readable mobile-ready texts for hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin as the old missionary impulse is being turned towards some extremely difficult technical challenges. The Bible is a large, complicated text containing three quarters of a million words and the typesetting is quite complex because of the wide range of literature types found in scripture and the need for several types of note. 'For all the issues that are still to be solved, ETEN is trying to do things that the world's biggest tech companies haven't cracked yet, such as rendering minority languages correctly on mobile devices,' says Mark Howe. 'There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry.' But once these technical challenges are met, it won't be only Bibles only that people can get on their mobile devices, but whole new textual worlds."
Leading the way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Leading the way (Score:5, Funny)
Like many slashdotters, you're completely dismissing the amount of benifical influence on Western civilization brought about by pornography.
Re:Leading the way (Score:5, Insightful)
Like being a sex education substitute, in cultures which are skittish about sex?
Re:Leading the way (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Leading the way (Score:5, Funny)
At least Porn is a reality......
I used to be a pizza delivery driver, and let me tell you porn is NOT reality!
Re: (Score:3)
No True Pizza Delivery Driver would say that porn is not a reality.....
3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how short a religious text could theoretically be, while still sustainably self-replicating between hosts. (i.e. religious believers). Much of the bible is akin to junk DNA.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Funny)
Let's find out. I hereby present The Holy Book of the Church of Brevity. Here are its contents:
Don't be a douchebag.
Love,
God
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Funny)
Be excellent to each other!
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Insightful)
With the occasional interludes into: but if they don't fit your world view throw rocks at them till they're dead.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the definition of "people" isn't clear. On the text, some humans are people, while others are not.
Re: (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder [wikipedia.org]
Who summarized it as the inverse of what you said:
What is hateful to you, do not do to others.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:4, Funny)
So for some reason I want to be raped, killed with the skull of an animal wielded like a club, and then turned into a pillar of salt?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So for some reason I want to be raped, killed with the skull of an animal wielded like a club, and then turned into a pillar of salt?
That's the Old Testement. Chrisitianity is based of the New Testament. It's where Christ tought the church leaders to not be stupid when it comes to religion. For example, they brought a man with a crippled hand before Christ on a Saturday. See, it was illegal to work on a Saturday, and healing this guy would be against the law. Here is what followed:
"Is it right to heal anyone on the Sabbath day?" they asked him - hoping to bring a charge against him.
"If any of you had a sheep which fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day, would he not take hold of it and pull it out?" replied Jesus. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? You see, it is right to do good on the Sabbath day."
Then Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" He did stretch it out, and it was restored as sound as the other.
--Matthew 12:9-14
The point is for you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments and which ones various groups follow. For example, your poin
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the Old Testement. Chrisitianity is based of the New Testament. It's where Christ tought the church leaders to not be stupid when it comes to religion. For example, they brought a man with a crippled hand before Christ on a Saturday. See, it was illegal to work on a Saturday, and healing this guy would be against the law. Here is what followed:
Well, until Christianity decides to excise the Old Testament from their book, it's a perfectly valid example. You can't proclaim to believe the words in a book and then just pretend they're not there.
"Is it right to heal anyone on the Sabbath day?" they asked him - hoping to bring a charge against him.
"If any of you had a sheep which fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day, would he not take hold of it and pull it out?" replied Jesus. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? You see, it is right to do good on the Sabbath day."
Then Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" He did stretch it out, and it was restored as sound as the other.
--Matthew 12:9-14
The point is for you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments and which ones various groups follow. For example, your point may have made sense if this were an article about religion. But since it was an article about Christianity specifically, you just showed your ignorance. You don't have to believe the story I just quoted above, but you should understand that Christianity is not about what you seem to think it is. It's called the NEW Testament for a reason.
I'm well aware, but see my previous point. P.S., the GP said "The whole bible", hence the joke. I can find New Testament examples of shit behavior just as easily.
Re: (Score:3)
To understand what it means that Jesus fulfilled the law, it has to stay.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Informative)
That's the Old Testement. Chrisitianity is based of the New Testament.
It's based on both, and if you are in the least bit cognizant of the general theology and history of Christianity, then you know that you are lying through your teeth.
The point is for you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments and which ones various groups follow. For example, your point may have made sense if this were an article about religion. But since it was an article about Christianity specifically, you just showed your ignorance. You don't have to believe the story I just quoted above, but you should understand that Christianity is not about what you seem to think it is. It's called the NEW Testament for a reason.
Oh, so your group pulled the OT out of your bibles? You ignore all of the supposed "prophesies" in the OT which point to your supposed "savior?" There is no reference to a list of commandments in your church? How come I think you are still lying through your teeth?
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Insightful)
God created intentionally created humans ignorant. God then commands humans not to become less ignorant. As humans were created ignorant by asshole God, they obviously can't know any better, so they eat the fruit and progress beyond their woefully subservient roots. God then condemns ALL OF HUMANKIND TO ETERNAL TORMENT BECAUSE TWO PEOPLE ATE A FUCKING APPLE.
Then, God decides that women need a little bit of extra punishment, because fuck women, that's why.
Shortly thereafter, this omnipotent, omniscient God KILLS EVERYTHING ON THE PLANET because, apparently, not even being all-powerful can keep you from cocking things up now and again.
Once humanity gets back on its feet, God sends his chosen people on a mission to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE the promised land, raping, pillaging, murdering, and basically committing every war crime we have on the book for a few hundred pages.
God then decides that the best way to save humanity is somehow to send himself down to Earth to be horrifically executed in public. He couldn't just, you, know, forgive us. Imagine if your dad decided that he was going to forgive you for crashing his car, but first you had to watch him brand himself with a hot poker, just for you. Pretty fucked up, right?
Even after all of this, the prime directive is still to worship the divine asshole dictator in the sky; you can spend your whole life treating everyone around you BETTER than you treat yourself, and you will still be cast into a lake of fire for not believing.
When you boil the Bible down to its basic essence, it is every bit as vile as Mein Kampf, if not more so. While there are some nice, happy little sayings in there, they do little to redeem the overwhelming monstrosity of the rest of the text.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
My story is exactly the same. It's such a relief to realize that you alone are responsible for your life, and that there is no beardy creep who tell you you can't go to heaven because you were a bit mean to this guy in class all those years ago! It's such a pity that my parents see it differntly though. They really think I will go to hell now, and they are very sad about it. And my mother constantly tries to turn me around again.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not a religious hating atheist, but I am an atheist. I don't think you have hit it even close. Perhaps worded:
"Still, if you have come to this conclusion, then you have done something very right, and most people do manage that much. Although, history has shown that occasionally some people can twist the message for selfish and evil gains."
Bible translation is already a big help (Score:5, Insightful)
Bible translation is usually the one taking the big step of documenting a new language and defining a character set for it. So really, this isn't new.
Re:Bible translation is already a big help (Score:4, Insightful)
Sample Text (Score:5, Funny)
Crowd: OMG 4000 dudes 7 loaves 2 fish
Jesus: Lotsa food now LOL
Crowd: WTFBBQ!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
God: Rickrolling people since 3000 BC
Re:Sample Text (Score:5, Funny)
Look we are all the same, expect for them and .... (Score:4, Interesting)
"There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry."
Which is really and odd statement considering how many different versions their are, sure one might be able to say what 60-80% are version X, but still major fractions happen over the translations.
Re: (Score:3)
From what I've seen I'd say the unity among Bible translators is probably similar to that among scientists. There aren't a lot of people who are qualified to do a first-rate job of it, and they're very intelligent, and thus they tend to realize that they don't always have all the answers.
Now, unity among denominations and churches is an entirely different matter. It takes a far different skillset to get people to pay to listen to you go on for an hour about whatever you're feeling concerned about. The pe
Ah, yes, Christian unity (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry.
Also, alas, in stark contrast to the fractured and occasionally literally fratricidal world of their theological paymasters.
I applaud (Score:3)
the effort to bring better and more convenient communications to people everywhere, particularly in obscure languages that might otherwise die off - although we are losing languages on a regular basis.
I am saddened to hear that all this effort is being directed merely to bring a monotheistic religion like Christianity - likely the cause of more human misery than any other individual concept in history - to an ever widening audience. Its like building a tool to spread ignorance...
Which bible will be translated? (Score:3, Insightful)
The King James? The Eastern Orthodox? The Coptic? Hebrew? Syriac? Which apocrypha will be in or out? Will they charge extra for those? Get back to me on that, willya?
Re:Which bible will be translated? (Score:4, Informative)
The King James? The Eastern Orthodox? The Coptic? Hebrew? Syriac? Which apocrypha will be in or out? Will they charge extra for those? Get back to me on that, willya?
According to their list of included translations [youversion.com], ETEN's "YouVersion" reader provides 27 English translations so far. This includes the King James that you mentioned, and two Roman Catholic translations (CPDV and Douay-Rheims) which include several Apocrypha not included in the Protestant translations. I'm not sure what you mean by the "Eastern Orthodox Bible": there is a new translation to English by that name [orthodoxanswers.org], with the New Testament just released and the full release due later this year, so that obviously hasn't been included yet. There is no Coptic translation included yet, but there are three Coptic Church groups so far listed on the YouVersion groups pages, so that's clearly not a problem for them. Hebrew and Syriac are also not available yet. There is no charge for any of the included translations, and they are working to add more translations to the list: according to their "vision" page [everytribe...nation.org] they're working with other Bible groups to pull in more translations.
Re: (Score:3)
And what is the current status of the books found a while ago, i.e. the Dead Sea scrolls and other Qumran and Nag Hammadi scrolls? Are any of them those variant gospels we've heard about (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene) or are those entirely fictional?
You bible translators have had 50 years to study
Not the first time... (Score:5, Informative)
Bible translators have also given us XeTeX, which is now an important part of the TeX ecosystem. And a bunch of useful (and good looking!) fonts: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=FontDownloads [sil.org]
seems like the wrong approach (Score:3)
When all is done, they'll have made one book accessible to the tiny number of people who are literate only in these minority languages.
If instead they taught people to read a major language they'd be opened to a whole world of ideas.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Interesting)
Use LaTeX (Score:3)
We all know LaTeX allows you to focus on the content and magically comes up with beautiful layouts. I mean the single best page layouts are always in the looks-the-same LaTeX format! And it's so intuitive to use!
Re:Use LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
We all know LaTeX allows you to focus on the content and magically comes up with beautiful layouts. I mean the single best page layouts are always in the looks-the-same LaTeX format! And it's so intuitive to use!
Looks-the-same format? [tug.org] Wha...? =)
Also, funnily enough (and relevant to the article), one of the groups who is trying to improve (La)TeX's suitability for modern font technologies and supporting obscure languages is SIL [sil.org], a group that does, among other things, Bible translations. (The end result is XeTeX [sil.org], one of the best TeX versions out there right now if you want good PDF output and TrueType/OpenType support out of the box.)
Re:Use LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
SIL, a group that does, among other things, Bible translations.
Offtopic, but they also send people out to very remote areas -- one of their missionaries lived with and studied an Amazon tribe [newyorker.com] and learned some things that challenged some very fundamental western assumptions about universals in human language.
Re:Use LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
putting a book into the local language and sending an army to kill people - quite a comparison.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Superstition kills and maims opposing cultures. It's quite a weapon.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
so anything with religious motivation is bad no matter what they do?
that seems as narrow and short sighted as the other way of taking it.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
In a sense, yes. If you are logically minded, you know that from false premises, one can prove anything. Someone who is driven to do stuff for bad reasons can do good an evil.
But you have no guarantee. So in some sense, it would be better if there were no drive: that way, you needn't worry that next time, instead of typesetting, it'll be bombs.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Informative)
The existence of gods is undecidable. Therefore using it to justify anything is dodgy. Note that using the non-existence of gods is just as dodgy.
You should justify your actions by some reason wholly outside the realm of theogonies. And therefore religion is useless to guide human actions.
I further claim it is harmful. Because it uses an undecidable (and unlikely) premise which is not necessarily shared by all the recipients of the actions.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly - wow, another radicalised agnostic! I thought I was the only one!
You can't prove it either way. You've just got to wait until the ride stops, and see what happens.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
But I prefer to call myself an atheist. Because I lead my life as though no gods existed, as opposed to leading my life as though they might exist. So from the point of view of an external observer, I am not affected by the existence of gods, and therefore I am not and indication of their existence, nor of belief in their existence.
The idea is that to me, something exists if it is observed to have an effect on the universe. Since the effects beliefs in deities cannot be observed from my actions, I am, for the observer, an atheist. Does it make sense?
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
You talk like to blind person stating that since the colour red cannot be seen, it has no meaning.
You can demonstrate to a blind person that a certain wavelength of light, measurable by scientific equipment, can be filtered and that it has different effects upon both manmade and biological sensors. Thus even a blind person can understand and verify the existence of the color red, even if they may not understand the ramifications of how it is perceived by others.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Christian who believes in God and tries to live a moral life acting in kindness towards his neighbours is wrong, when he dies he finds he goes nowhere after death but has lived a good moral life while here on earth.
And if he's spent a large proportion of his life trying to convert people? Or if he's lived a less moral life due to his religion, for example by participating in a holy war, or by helping spread AIDS by preaching against the use of condoms in Africa?
If the atheist is wrong, though he may have lived a moral life, he will still have to stand before God and explain his unbelief.
And this belief is entirely possible to justify rationally. If God does exist and is not capable of being swayed by rational argument, then you're fucked anyway. If God doesn't exist, then it doesn't matter. If God does exist and is rational, then he will accept that atheism is a rational position. You act as if the only two choices Christianity and atheism. This is the flaw in Pascal's wager. There are at more than two religions that say that you will go to some form of hell if you don't belong to them. Each one has exactly the same amount of verifiable evidence for them (i.e. none). If one is true and you believe the wrong one, you go to hell. If one is true and you don't believe either, you still go to hell. You maybe gain slightly on the odds, but some religions (including the abrahamic religions) regard worshiping a false god as being worse than worshiping no god, so even that's a bit of a stretch.
If a Christian dies and discovers that the Valkyries come to take dead people off to feast with Odin, do you really think that the fact that he believed in an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient deity will be something the Valkyrie will care about?
As for proof... look around at nature. Can you honestly believe it was all an accident? A random chance due to some atoms rattling around until they got in the right order?
The only kind of person who can't believe this is someone who has absolutely no concept of how big the universe is and how long it took. It took billions of years for life to form on this planet. This galaxy contains about 300 billion stars, of which several billion (extrapolating from our current observations) are likely to have planets sufficiently like ours that conditions similar to those where life arose here will occur. There are about 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe (probably more outside of this sphere), and it's entirely possible that there are other universes. Do you really think it unlikely that given about 10 billion years on around a quintillion stars, it is unlikely for complex life to evolve even once? Keep in mind the anthropic principle (in summary, emergent life will always observe its surroundings to be suitable for life because otherwise life would not have emerged). If there is a 0.000000000000000001 probability of life like ours (i.e. DNA based) emerging on a planet like ours somewhere in the universe each year, then you'd expect it to be happening on a very regular basis.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but to an atheist, you can show him a mainliner opium addict being cured of his addiction, but it makes no difference. You can show him a person who was cured of one leg being shorter than another, but he remains blind. You can show him a person who was healed of rage, but the atheist denies it.
Maybe you misunderstand my example. I showed that even a blind person can perceive a wavelength of light using equipment, and observe effects of that wavelength of light, experimenting to perceive differences of that wavelength from others.
What you've mentioned is observing results, which one can tie through experimentation, perhaps, to belief, but not to that actual existence of any god. Can you, through experimentation show that belief in a particular god (as opposed to one of many religions) has positive
Re: (Score:3)
So what you're advocating is that we live like hypocrite cowards in case the Christian god actually exists and is a shitty little bully how condemns good people just because they didn't believe in him?
Fuck that shit.
Re: (Score:3)
Umm, no.
Every reformed addict has something that stops them using. Ain't it ain't no evil sky goblin.
They stop because they want to (or sometimes because they're forced to). What the hell does any God have to do with it? I don't require faith to believe that God didn't do it, I actually have faith in humanity and science to cure illness, to save trapped people, to help them recover after being trapped in the wilderness, to have search and rescue squads.
If anything, God causes cancer in people, causes car cr
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you take the false premise that God does not exist, you can prove anything?
Bear in mind that the theists are just as strong in their beliefs as the atheists, but neither can prove their belief either way and must rely on faith.
The idea that atheists have some sort of "faith" or "belief" that there is no God is a divide by zero function.
What is that with so many fundamentalists? A lack of belief in something does not mean belief in something. Who gets down on their knees every day and prays to "no god" that they profess to not believe in? Who builds a house of worship where people go to have a ceremony every week to something that they believe that they don't believe in?
Imagine someone standing on a street corner, handing out pamphlets that say that there is no God. So they convince someone that there isn't. So the convertor now asks the convert to pray with him.......... to what?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to the Muslims who conquered Palestine, North Africa, Iberia, Persia, Mesopotamia and southeastern Europe?
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed to the Muslims who conquered Palestine, North Africa, Iberia, Persia, Mesopotamia and southeastern Europe?
The Muslim Empire was successful in part because they were more tolerant than the rulers they replaced. The Jews in Spain had more rights under Muslim rule than under the Visigoths.
Kingdom of Granada != Muslim Empire (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No excuses from me; just counteracting the mass fallacy that only the Crusaders were Teh Evil and that the Muslims were a bunch of Little Miss Innocents.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Informative)
The crusades were in their own way an example of the "good" in Christianity. A thousand years prior, Roman culture would have just plundered the Middle East for mercantilist gain, and felt no real need for an excuse. Christians felt like they needed an excuse, because Latin Christianity in the person of St. Augustine had stated very clear rules for when a Christian could morally participate in a war (the so-called "Just War Theory") and "plunder" wasn't on the list. Also, you seem to be proceeding on the assumption that Islam posed no real threat to Europe, and that a "flanking campaign" was illegitimate. The reality, if you go back and read the writings of people like Bernard of Clairvaux, is that they (a) felt that by attacking the Byzantines, the Muslims had attacked them (b) were acutely conscious of the fact that Byzantium might fall and that they would then have no buffer from the Saracens and (c) they were scared to death of Muslim aggression because Muslims had already conquered chunks of formerly "Christian" territory (i.e. Spain.)
The whole crusades as a criticism of Christianity thing simply doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, but that doesn't stop devotees by proxy of Bertrand Russell from repeating it to the point of nausea. What I wish such people would do is actually learn some real history and stop flapping their gums until they do.
Sources: Ph.D. in New Testament and early Christianity, active interest in subsequent church history.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And the Caliphate armies pushed into central France before being pushed back by Charles Martel.
Anyway, of course it justifies the Crusades. What powerful civilization doesn't try to conquer back what was taken from it?
Just don't think there was anything Christ-like about the Christians.
Re: (Score:3)
It is when the "bad things" are in response to a Muslim invasion.
The Muslims conquered most of the Xian world including the religion's most important holy sites.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, yes. but I do not think that is actually a good thing, all things considered. For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever.
You mean the same Crusades where a group of people tried to regain access to the Holy Land after it was cut off? What do you think the Muslims would do if Israel cut off access to the "Dome of the Rock"? Would you blame them? When they attack Israel, would you call it "among the most evil human undertakings ever"?
From the wiki page on Crusades:
The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church, with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the leaders of the Byzantine Empire for help to fight the expansion into Anatolia of Muslim Seljuk Turks who had cut off access to Jerusalem.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the same Crusades where a group of people tried to regain access to the Holy Land after it was cut off? What do you think the Muslims would do if Israel cut off access to the "Dome of the Rock"? Would you blame them? When they attack Israel, would you call it "among the most evil human undertakings ever"?
Shit like this is just adding weight to the argument that religion is bad. Fighting over something with mumbo-jumbo significance is crazy.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you think the Muslims would do if Israel cut off access to the "Dome of the Rock"? Would you blame them? When they attack Israel, would you call it "among the most evil human undertakings ever"?
Yes, I'd blame them. That's a perfect example of the harmful influence of religion. If it weren't for ridiculous superstitions that scrap of desert would be as worthless as any other scrap of desert. If you're willing to kill people because of ancient mythology, then absolutely I'm willing to call it evil. Most evil ever? Depends on the scale of the atrocity.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Informative)
Umm what? The the most evil undertaking ever? I am sorry that is complete and utter BS. There have been far more evil deeds done. I will grant you the Crusades were not very 'Christian' but they were no more evil than any other way. Also its worth pointing out that popular idea the Christian powers started it is wrong, Islam had been spread to those areas mostly by force years before, if anything the Crusades were a counter attack.
Do you think war for the cause of national security is necessarily evil?
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever.
You must be smoking some serious stuff. The Crusades? That amateurish, badly organized and to a significant degree self-destructive (Constantinople, 1204) movement that in 200 years managed to pull of a few years total of violent fighting (if at all) and a few conquered cities (many of them just bought off rather then won by siege)?
After learning a bit about crusades, I came to the conclusion that the only dark spot in the crusading movement was the sack of Jerusalem with the concomitant bloodshed; the rest of the crusading event being little more than a farce.
Now, had you mentioned the Muslim conquest of India, that would have been a different thing. With a single expedition, Mahmoud of Ghazni enclaved half a million Indians, leaving tens of thousands dead. That was just a single incident during the centuries of the conflict at the western borders of India. As far as I know, the total death toll during the 1400 years of Muslims attacking Hindus from the west is not far from reaching the insane mark of 100,000,000 deaths. And you talk about the Crusades? Wow. Just...wow.
"Among the most evil undertakings?" No, not even close. Regarding the number of lives destroyed, the crusades pale in comparison even when compared to such seemingly mundane things as car accidents caused by drunks, lenient subprime mortgage policies and IRS tax forms.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
Or more like a belief in a slightly different superstition. You can spot the people who really believe in atheism and want to evangelise it as much as possible.
No, atheism isn't a a belief, it's the lack of one. And atheists who spend time trying to convince others are few and far between. Most are just not concerned with what others believe at all. Of all the atheists I know, and that's quite a lot, I'm the one most likely to join in an argument about it. But that's more that I like an argument. There are no group meetings. There's nothing to join.
Those with religion like to imagine atheism is just another religion. I'm not sure whether it's a desire to drag everyone down to their own level, or because they habitually make tenuous connections, and something ending in "ism" sounds like it might be a religion.
Here's a great way to troll atheists - get them to try to prove that Richard Dawkins exists.
You've never trolled an atheist with that in your life. It doesn't even start to have the makings of a workable troll theme.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never been approached by Christians pushing religion, but I encounter anti-thiests pushing bigotry and anti-religion on a weekly basis on the internet (between facebook and this/other sites).
If you are from the USA, you are heavily sheltered. They come to my house. They bother my children in public. They infest the local schools. If you haven't had SOMEONE pushing Christianity on you, then you are either a Christian who is already in the club, or you are part of a vanishingly small group of people.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, anti-thiests, those that believe there is no god, not those that don't have a belief that there is a god
That's atheism and agnosticism. Atheism isn't short for anti-theism. "a" as a prefix means without. So atheism is "without a belief in god(s)", not "opposed to the belief in gods".
The distinction between atheists and agnostics is very fine. The atheist says "I have no belief in the flying spaghetti monster" and the agnostic says "it's not possible to now for certain whether there is a flying spaghetti monster". Both think people who run their lives based on a belief that there is a flying spaghetti monster
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Humans are nothing more than a species of animal. Many animals are territorial, and those that are fight their own species for those territories. And those that are also social, fight together for their territories.
This isn't anything to do with a tendency for humans to pervert anything. It's just a behaviour strategy that's brought success to particular genes in DNA.
Nation states, racial differences, religion and sports, provide the human species with groups to identify with in order to pursue these instin
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
Blah. Even though there is no god, etc., the Bible is still one of the most important texts if you want to understand Western culture and philosophy. Refusing to learn about ideas because they are wrong is simply a more vain and self-glorifying form of anti-intellectualism.
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The intention of the project has little to do with what's in the bible (except, of course, the thing about turning all nations into Jesus' disciples). As for readability, that's your opinion, and you've already established the fact that you're anti-intellectual, and therefore by your own intent an idiot. It really isn't that challenging to read. Also, it's a compendium of various texts, not an "effort to write a book".
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Rape, are you sure? Read again. They were banned of any sexual relations with the people that was there.
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. - Numbers 31:17-18
Unless you think the taking virgin slaves for concubines is somehow consensual sex, then, yes, that's rape.
And does it says that anyone can claim to have heard God? It doesn't set any tests to any so called "prophet"? Nor penalties? And does Jesus and his disciples leave *any* room for anyone to do such a thing ever again?
I have no clue what you are talking about here. Please clarify.
It's true that you don't need to read what someone claims is source material for their ideas in order to accept or reject them, but you do need to if you are to engage in intelligent discussion. I don't think there's much of a chance for democracies without that.
I concede the point, if it is put this way: when faced with a monolithic, religious cultural force like Christianity, it is prudent to know their source books in order to attack them m
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Quick comment. If it wasn't for the Protestant Christian missionary zeal for having people "read the bible", we wouldn't have the literacy rates that we maintain today. Hawaii went from a land without a written language to a literacy rate of 80% in 40 years after the missionaries devised(literacy in either newly created Hawaiin or English). Literacy is a valuable skill for any society that is being exported at an exponential rate by people for FREE because of their religious beliefs. This isn't just han
Karen Armstrong - Golden Rule (Score:4, Informative)
Karen Armstrong in one of her TED [ted.com] talks put forth an idea that all religions should concentrate on the Golden Rule - the rule that Confucius created 3,000 years ago. Compassion. Orthopraxy as opposed to orthodoxy.
We should all act like a compassionate person instead of worrying about how others believe and if they believe "correctly" - which is lost on pretty much every practitioner of the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
Re:Karen Armstrong - Golden Rule (Score:5, Informative)
Different Cultures Have Different "Golden Rules" (Score:3)
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"Don't do unto others as you would not have them do unto you."
"Help people find their way" vs. "Just leave people alone to find their own way" is a gigantic tar-baby of a philosophical discussion all by itself.
Date for Confucius (Score:3)
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Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
What a sad life you must lead if you truly believe that a man cannot find his own purpose and happiness.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
I always find this particular statement perplexing. Apparently it's the Atheists who fear death, yet it's the Christian (amongst others) who need to make up stories about an ever lasting afterlife to make themselves feel better about the fact that people die. Why would you pretend that people "live on" if you're not afraid of death?
No. Why do you believe that I would? Why do you even think that I spend any significant life pondering such philosophical questions? There is no point to life. Life just is. Now that's a concept that Christians do find scary!
Yes, and? Fairy tales about them living up in the clouds might make you feel better, but it doesn't change anything: people die.
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Atheism in a nutshell.
Thanks.
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Wrong. That would be nihilism. You will not find many nihilists, they tend to suicide early on. However, thanks for bringing it up, what you just said is the BIG LIE perpetrated by religion, namely that without it there is nothing. As an atheist, let me assure you that is far from the truth. Ethics are still something that requires a lot of contemplation. Joy of life is to be had. Goals can be set and reached and insights can be gained. Actually, being an atheist is a bit like being a believer, but with les
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What's sad is that Christians have something you will never have. Christians have something to look forward to. They do not fear death and instead, welcome it. They know what life is all about and never spend a moment wondering what is next or what the point is. Their only concern is how to be the best human being possible to ensure a pleasureable eternity after death. They look forward to meeting friends and family and feel their presense throughout life. Their only fear is that they may not be good enough to enter paradise so they spend their lives trying to do good things for their fellow man and being honorable, honest people throughout their life. Material possessions mean nothing more than what they can be used for to better the lives of others, although the Bible is full of stories about people who did great things with nothing.
Oh come on! That's what it says in the marketing material, but in truth most Christians do fear death. They live lives full of guilt, uncertainty and self-hatred and direct that outwardly in an effort to make everybody else feel as shitty as they do.
On the other hand no matter how much money you make how successful you are in life, you will die and that will be the end of it for you. You will go through life wondering what the point of it all is and why it's all worth it. When you lose loved ones, they are gone forever and you know that you will never be able to spend time with them again. No matter how hard you work, how many possessions you acquire, or accomplishments you achieve, you will end up being a bloated, rotting carcus, just like everyone else, and nothing more. The final chapter of your life involves is about compost.
Again, a load of evangelical crap. As an enlightened rational actor in society, you realise that your legacy is what you do with your time, so you try to make the world a better place for the next generation. Yeah, when you are die that's it, but at least you c
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Their only concern is how to be the best human being possible to ensure a pleasureable eternity after death.
I've met a lot of "Christians" over they years whose only concern was being seen to be conforming to their social group's (church friends) idea of "good" (i.e. dogmatic, small-minded, selfish and ignorant) in order to be accepted by that social group, many of whom were labouring under the misapprehension that what they were doing was Christian.
You won't catch me spending eternity in the company of t
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You would think that something the size of the Salvation Army would help form your opinion of a group more so than Mark in accounting.
Oh, it has. The Salvation Army shows me that Christians think it's okay to spread hate about a specific group of God-created individuals (ie., gays [wikipedia.org] and women who would dare to make their own perfectly legal decisions regarding reproductive health [wikipedia.org]) if you help a group of homeless people who think similarly to you (or are at least willing to go through the motions for a hot meal).
Sorry, I'm pretty sure Jesus said "Love thy neighbor," not "Love thy neighbor unless he's a fag or uses contraceptives." I'll start
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Insightful)
- it is insulting that you think (against evidence, I might add) that atheists cannot have peace of mind. After all, Buddhism is an atheist philosophy, and peace of mind is their trademark.
- It is insulting that you think people do good things just because they are afraid of the great CCTV in the sky. People do good things for their own sake.
- It is insulting that you believe one cannot have any other hope in life than the afterlife. I am a scientist, and my research will live after me, so will my memory in my friends' minds. A writer's books will survive him. And artist's works. The good you do while alive. If you need materially motivated pretexts to do good, there it is.
You should live your life to the fullest, in awe of the universe, precisely because you will return to dust and nothingness. But knowing, because of the immense privilege we have of living now, that we exist because a generation of stars formed, aged and went nova so we could exist as carbon-based lifeforms. We exist because every single one of our ancestors, for four billion years, did no fail to reproduce. We stand half-way to the death of our star, and the beings which will see it die will be as far from us that we are from the first unicellular organism.
You, on the other hand revel in bronze age mythology.
I'll spare you comments about the "no true Scotsman" fallacy you committed in your last paragraph.
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No, a "Christian" is one who self-identifies as believing in Christ. They typically also claim to follow sets of (selected) teachings. But there is no test of behaviour other than belief in Christ to be Christian. Therefore, claiming a Christian which is also a violent arsehole is not a real Christian is committing the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
If anyone not following all precepts of their faith is not of their faith, let me tell you this: there are no believers.
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They do not fear death and instead, welcome it.
On the contrary, they're scared as hell (pun intended). They fear death so much that they invented heaven.
You will go through life wondering what the point of it all is
Nope, why wonder about such a question? Why should there be a point? And more importantly, why would you rather believe an invented one than accepting it's about as silly as wondering about the smell of an inch?
Even after reading an article about Christians pushing tech that will benefit everyone, all you can do is insult them.
The reason xians are being mocked and insulted here is that they're not doing it for the benefit of everyone, but to shove their propaganda down our throats.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't matter in the end (Score:3)
But it matters now.
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I'm sure you'll dismiss this charge as "not what the overall organi
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The problems come when some Christians decide that the 'souls' of people are more important then their 'worldly' well being. And it strangely very rarely applies to their own personal well being.
For example the Church in my country is very active in collecting donations from the faithful. After every mass a person will go among the people with a collection plate, while the priest preaches about the importance of charity or something similar. Many poor people, that can barely survive on what they have still
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The only true christians are the fundementals as they follow the bible to the letter and don't try to spin out the "shit". The "true christians you want are the ones that are on their way to being secular as they've dismissed the bad stuff of the old testament
Re:What, no Klingon version? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, it would be most inspiring to read the bible in the original Klingon.
Re:So Ashamed of Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no such thing as Christianity-the-religion. There are many sects that form a family, but they are as far apart theologically as, say, Judaism and Catholicism.
"Christians" and devout people of any faith do not get much love, because either they believe only those bits of their holy books which they personally deem moral, and therefore show themselves capable on the one hand of figuring out what is moral by themselves, and on the other hand compelled to justify it in the most ridiculous way, this is harmless but silly. Or they believe their holy books wholesale, and that makes them pretty horrible people.
And then, they claim (like you just did) that other people, without beliefs, are somehow incapable of being good, or moral, or at peace with themselves. This is insulting. Of course you will get mocked: you just insulted people for no reason at all.
As for life being more than science? yes. Every day comfort come from conversations, friendship and love of other humans. But for the mystical and the awe, science is so much more beautiful, profound and inspiring than any myth that no, I don't need any fairy tales to make my life more interesting.
This is the creation as science tells us it happened:
15 000 000 000 years ago, the universe started expanding and cooling down. Hydrogen formed, and lumps of hydrogen condensed to form stars. In the stars, all the elements up to iron were formed. This first generation of stars died, and some of them went nova, thus filling the universe with all the elements we see today. We are made of the stuff of dead stars, 10 000 000 000 years in the making.
From these elements and leftover hydrogen and helium, the sun and the solar system formed 5 000 000 000 years ago. Some 4 000 000 000 years ago, the first self-replicating life-form/bunch of molecules appeared. You are the result of an uninterrupted line going back four billion years ago of organisms, not one of which failed to reproduce.
In four billion years, the sun will die. And the organisms still there to see us will be as far from us as we are from the first self-replicating molecules.
How's that for awesome? And no supernatural needs to be invoked to explain it.
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Hang in there, there are more than a few slashers that are fully versed in science, and fully faithful to God. Slashdot is a little like a freeway; Everyone has a horn. A few of the posters are more thoughtful and well-reasoned than some, but the questions about faith are here because they are relevant to slashers, and some of the most vitriolic posts are by folks who need a thoughtful response the most.
Remember that Christ was crucified. We who follow him can expect the same.
Re:In which the question becomes imperative (Score:4, Insightful)