Moonlapse

Spent one year at the state university here. However since I currently can't afford any more schooling there without taking on loans, I've discovered the wonderful world of self-education and free enterprise.

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are immortals, like in the movie 'Highlander'. So are Chuck Woolery, Pat Sajak, Jay Leno, etc, etc. None of them really dies, rather one of the others beheads him and the whole thing is covered up by the media.

Alright, another lack of articlulation on my part. I was assuming that anything on the other side of the door was not impossible. The point is that you can't determine what is or is not there within reason. Perhaps when humans have determined everything about the nature of the universe and 'open the door' I will know. I think that you are still thinking in terms of man-made religion. If you consider atheism as disbelief in the gods created by man, then yes I am a rabid atheist. If you consider atheism as a belief that a universe cannot be created, and thus the impossibility of a creator - or 'god' - of any sort, then I cannot agree with it because I don't know if dimensions, universes, whatever can or cannot be created. I simply don't have that knowledge. Ask Aristotle a question about impossibility involving quantum theory, without teaching him everything required to attempt to understand it.

I haven't read it yet. Actually, I've been slowly re-reading many parts of VOS because each one of her sentences carries an almost absolute maximum of information and implication. The last book I read was We The Living, and I find it difficult to really say anything about it other than it was hard to put it down.

Sounds pretty sick, right? Actually, BigDump is a staggered MySQL dump importing script. Anyone who has loaded a large database backup, transported a large database to a new host, or made a mirror test database knows how challenging it can sometimes be if you administrate remotely without using shell access. Fortunately, this script makes it a complete snap. Instead of breaking the SQL file into chunks that wouldn't cause a PHP timeout, then loading each one manually, I let this thing run while I went to work. 220MB later, the databse was loaded without a snag. A big thanks goes to Alexey Ozerov for writing such an awesome, time saving tool.

I read Angels and Demons and Digital Fortress. Decent reads that definitely spark interest in uncommonly known things. I haven't read The DaVinci Code yet because I haven't seen it in paperback LOL! But from all the hype and Discovery channel specials on the ideas, I guess it won't like totally blow my mind or anything. I guess it would require some faith to believe, eh?

The way I see it, this is just a convenient medium for extremist Muslims to lay some sort of blame on someone. I've heard that basically everyone from the United States to Israel to Denmark to whoever is 'responsible', not the actual person who created them.

You maniacs!!! You blew it up! AHHHHH, damn you! God damn you all to hell!!!! It sure is nice to be able to see the site again.

Perhaps I wasn't articulate enough with my question. The purpose was to show that before people like Aristotle started to define reality with logic and rational thinking, people explained everything around them in ways they could understand - that something definable to them, be it an omnipotent/omniscient humanesque being or whatever, created everything the way that they were able to create things. My point is that nearly all of our concepts of 'god' are based on these old ideas. To me they are obviously fabrication and thats why I don't think they should be used to validate a belief about something unknown. Exactly, thats why I don't consider an explanation of the contradiction inherent in old ideas to be an objective basis for believing one way or the other. Just understand that I'm stating that my viewpoint is that it is unkown until we fully understand it. Consider this analogy... you find yourself in a room with a door leading somewhere outside the room. You can't know whats outside until you open the door. You can guess and attempt to rationalize to define what is or isn't out there without opening the door, but its all a bunch of wind. Thats why I state that I'm not religious nor am I atheist, because I just don't have the conclusive information to form any belief on the subject.

Belief in a god without godliness (omnipotence and omniscience)? Why bother? If you don't believe in godliness, what's the point of theism? Quite the popular notion in religion, isn't it? Here's a question for you... what is the only universally understandable way to account for existence to people, before hard science? Humans have to have answers. Sorry for the side-track. I was attempting to differentiate atheism from agnosticism.

I started writing a post, but I'm sure you guys know how I think by now.

I believe we know reality. The point I'm trying to get across is that just because something is unkown, does not mean that we cannot discover it. When I say discover, I mean to know and explain something objectively. Just because something has not been discovered by humans does not objectively prove non-existence. Everything is unknown, until known. Until you know, you cannot objectively determine one way or the other. Presuming anything, especially knowledge about a creator of the universe, is unrealistic. One can believe one way or the other, but saying "I know God exists," without tangible evidence is the same bad logic as saying "I know that God doesn't exist." Not entirely accurate. I don't state that 'knowledge of gods' existence cannot be known', I just require real proof before I believe anything. You can't realistically determine anything about something you don't know. If you read me correctly, I'd be somone who doesn't know or believe because that issue has nothing to do with my reality. But it is accurate to say that I don't believe in man-made 'gods'.

Do you believe that self-aware A.I. can eventually be created? The answer 'yes' or 'no' is irrelevant, no one can know until it happens. I think that assuming the impossibility of a creator based on assumptions of the nature of a creator is a flawed rationale.

Well Agnostic, to me, is its literal meaning a - gnosis, without knowledge. I don't know and I have no real way of determining, so I'm not concerned.

I was heavily indoctrinated as a Christian, but now I'm neither Christian or atheist, because both would presume something unknown, so I'm agnostic. I really don't care for any religious belief.

http://www.historian.net/files.htm http://journalofbiblicalstudies.org/Links/fonts.htm http://www.sbl-site.org/Resources/Resource...licalFonts.aspx http://www.geocities.com/timessquare/alley/1557/fonts1.htm http://www.valdyas.org/conlang.html

A well-preserved underground tomb belonging to a prominent Roman-era family has been unearthed on the island of Crete, archaeologists said Wednesday. The large first or second century A.D. structure beside one of the main gates to the walled city of Aptera was looted during Christian times, archaeologist Vanna Niniou-Kindeli said. full article at USA Today

The Romans did retreat from Britain much earlier than Gaul. Britain also had adjoining territories that had very little to do with Rome, but who knows if thats even a factor. Some of the early waves of Franks became clients of the late Roman Empire, afaik.

Oh my goodness gracious, that is flipping beautiful.

Of course they are free to do as they wish with their own product (see the irony?), but I feel that this course of action is an incredible contradiction and I have lost much respect for this company. Through their actions, they are sanctioning this repression of freedom by China's totalitarian regime. They are helping to violate the freedoms that made their success possible in the first place. It's an undeniable contradiction, and it will only strengthen the enemies of human rights. Google for infomation on Shi Tao, and you'll see how something as seemingly harmless as catering to the Chinese goverment by doing business with them gives them the power to imprison a man (who has no access to government secrets) 10 years for communicating with pro-democracy groups in the U.S., under the pretense that he disclosed "national secrets". Much of China's censorship technology was supplied by the United States. In the long run, Google is dooming their company to oblivion by undermining the principles they owe their existence to.

Google agrees to China censorship. Some of the censored topics: Tiananmen Square Massacre Taiwan's Democracy The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. - Ayn Rand Google's Motto: "Don't be evil."

Nothing that I know of. Personally I'd recommend using the Add Reply button and the 'preview' capabilities. lol

There was one where he was staying with 'cannibals' in Papua New Guinea, I think. One of the tribesmen convinced him to try a thing they do where they invert their male organ... he almost passed out and fell over.

I've only been in -34

One thing that scares me is the potential to see someone violently die or get badly injured, especially on motorcycles.