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A Conversation with Trent Cutler
PERSON: are you going to [[byu]]
Trent Cutler: yeah I'm back at [[BYU]]
PERSON: thats cool
Trent Cutler: transferred to BSU, then found myself back here again
PERSON: for a good 2 months i just heard all these rumors about you
Trent Cutler: ha ha
Trent Cutler: I bet
Trent Cutler: "trent hates the [[Mormon|church]]"
Trent Cutler: "trent's anti"
Trent Cutler: "trent got kicked out of [[BYU]]"
PERSON: ya pretty much
PERSON: all of the above
Trent Cutler: ha ha
PERSON: he is starting his own cult based off of this anti [[mormon]] book that he bought and studied and came to love
Trent Cutler: ha ha
Trent Cutler: nah, the book was written by an institute director that is still active...
Trent Cutler: but it wasn't just the book....lol
PERSON: haha
Trent Cutler: some people just don't think its right to have doubts
Trent Cutler: and that if you have [[doubt]]s, you should quit the church
Trent Cutler: I don't necessarily feel that way
PERSON: um but i asked your parents how were doing probably like a month or 2 ago and they said "hmmm well trent is in a dillusional world, he thinks he is doing fine, but he isn't, he is not doing good at all" i was just like ok
Trent Cutler: ha ha
This is my life now, forever doomed by the people that never [[doubt]].
[[Homework Manager|http://mh2.brownstone.net/classes/acct206sec02/]]
*''Labs'' need the work book. ten tasks out of the book.
![[ACCT Lecture No.1|ACCT Lecture No. 1]]
*Compare Managerial and financial Accounting
*Cost Classifications
*Product Versus Period Costs
*Cost Behaviors
*Assigning Costs
![[ACCT Week No. 3|ACCT LEcture No. 3]] (Jan 30th 2008)
*review of the practice exam.
*most of the questions are set up in tables.
![[ACCT Lecture No. 2]] (February 4th 2008)
*What is job costing?
*pre-determined overhead rates
*choosing the correcct cost driver
*cost flows (demo Problem)
*Cost of Goods Manufactured schedule
*Disposition of overhead variances
![[ACCT Lecture No.3]] (February 11th)
*Reason for ABC costing
*Factors supporting an ABC system
*Cost flows steps in implementation
*examples
*manufacturing costs
**Direct Materials
**Direct Labor
**Manufacturing Overhead
***''Indirect Labor'' - Supervision
***''Indirect Material'' - Not significant enough that you can see it in product ie glue, welding, must go into making of the product
***Factory Supplies
***Factory Utilities
***Key terms: ''Factory, production, manufacturing.''
**Plant Depreciation
*Non-Manufacturing Costs [[SG&A]]
**Selling
**Administrative
**''Examples of [[SG&A]]:''
***Office Salaries
***Office Depreciation
***Selling Expenses
***Executive Life Insurance
***Office Supplies
!!What is Job Costing?
*Costs can be identified with a specific job
*Examples:
**Cabinet shop
**Building construction
**Machine Shop
**//look at specific job//
*Contrast to [[process costing]]
!!Calculating the ~Pre-Determined Overhead rate
*Concept of overhead pool
*Overhead versus direct costs
*how overhead is accumulated
*need for a driver
//See what [[Manufacturing Overhead]] is.//
also see what a [[cost driver]] is.
!!Example of calculating the rate:
|Budgeted ''Overhead costs''|1,000,000|
|Budgeted ''direct labor hours''|100,000|
|>|1,000,000/100,000 = $10 per direct labor hours|
!!What is the Overhead Application rate?
|Budgeted Overhead for year|2,000,000|
|Budgeted Machine hours|500,000|
a. $100
b. $25
@@c. $4@@
d. $2.50
!!What item is not part of WIP?
#Direct Labor
#@@Actual Manufacturing Overhead@@
#Direct Material
#Applied Manufacturing Overhead
!!manufacturing Overhead Variances are closed to which account?
#Work in Process
#Finished Goods
#Sales
#@@Cost of Goods Sold@@
!!Which Statement is not true?
#@@A favorable oerhead variance increases cost of goods sold.@@
#A Favorable overhead variance decreases cost of goods sold.
#An unfavorable overhead variance increases cost of goods sold
*make sure you go to "copy of examination one" that will be the one they are grading.
**Takes 100 minutes. Plan a lot of time. (take before 9:30pm)
*10 Questions. 30 different versions. We'll all get the same questions, but the numbers will change.
!!Practice Exam Review
*
|Sales| |880|
|B F Goods|120| |
|Cost of Goods MFC|?600| |
|Available|720| |
|Less end F.G| <100>| |
|Cost of Goods Sold| |<620>|
|Gross Margin| | 260|
Fill in the blanks..... Get a blank form
!!Question #2
Calculate total manufacturing cost
|DM| | |
|BB RM|32| |
|Purchase|57| |
|Available|''89''| |
|Less E. RM|<34>|''55''|
|DL| |36|
|M OH| |54|
|Total MFG Cost|''145''|
!!Question #3
//continuation//
|BWIP| 0 |15|
|END WIP| |<12>|
|Cost of Good MFGd| |''148''|
!!Question #4 (COGS)
//needs income statement, and cost of goods manufactured.//
|Cost of Goods Sold| | |
|B. Fin Goods| |53|
|Cost of Goods Manufactured| |148|
|Available| |''201''|
|Less E F. Good| |<39>|
|Cost of Goods Sold| |''162''|
!!Question 5
*false
!!Question 6
*Direct material is not a conversion cost, it is part of the prime cost.
!!Question 8
*All of the following would be classified as product costs except:
!!Question 9
|DL|16|
|M o/h|37|
|Conv. Cost|''53''|
!!Question 10
Prime cost consists of two components direct material and direct labor
|DM| 39|
|DL| 18|
|Prime Cost| ''57''|
!!Question 11
|Sales| |438|
|BB FIn Goods|74| |
|CGM|//351//| |
|Available|''//425//''| |
|Less end FG|<50>| |
|Cost of Goods Sold| |<375>|
|Gross Margin| |''63''|
!!Question 12
|DM||36|
|DL||20|
|M O/H||19|
|Total MFG cost||''75''|
|Add beg wip| |10|
|Less e wip||<13>|
|Cost of goods mfg||''72''|
!!Question 13
|DM|||
|B Balance|20||
|Purchases|150||
|Available|''170''||
|Less e bal|<30>|140|
!!Question 14
//continues from 13//
|DL||180|
|M/O||230|
|Total Manufacturing Costs| |''550''|
|Add b. wip||80|
|Less e wip||<30>|
|Cost of goods mfg'd||''600''|
!!Question 15
//build a cost of good sold, to do that you need cost of goods manufactured (from question 4)//
|bb fin goods|120|
|C goods mfg|600|
|Available|''720''|
|Less e fin goods|<100>|
|Cost of goods sold|''620''|
!!need for ABC Aproach
*single allocation rate not sufficient
*currently many firms must target price their products
*ABC assists in target pricing
*advent of high speed computing power made ABC feasible
//not everyone that adopts ~ABC costing is satisfied with it//
*Managers couldn't agree on cost drivers
!!Environmental factors supporting ABC approach
*high levels of competition
*Very diverse product mix
*low cost of measurement for additional data required
*now used in //hospitals, banking, health care//
!!Implementation Steps
#Identify the cost objectives (product, service or delivery)
#Identify the direct costs of the products
#Identify the overhead cost pools (most companies will have 15 or 20 pools, hw will have 4 or 5)
#Select the appropriate drivers
#Test the assumptions
#Install
What is not one of the three environment parameters of ABC?
#Competitive environment
#@@Single process@@
#Diverse Product Mix
#Low Cost of Accumulating Data
In what types of firms could you find abc costing being used?
#Manufacturers
#retailers
#hospitals
#@@all of the above@@
A cost driver is defined as?
#Direct Cost
#Indirect Cost
#@@Factor that causes overhead cost@@
#none of the above
AIDS
AIDS.
So in one of the blogs I subscribe to, the kid was ranting about AIDS. I assume by reading what he wrote that he believes the government is flawed in its funding for AIDS research, simply because the disease is so “preventable.” He said all people need to do is keep their pants on and stop doing illegal drugs.
What a horrible thing to say. 2.8 million people died of AIDS last year. I recognize that this is just a small percentage of the population. Currently it is estimated that 40 million people have HIV. 3 million died of aids, and 5 million people acquired it last year. There is no cure for HIV. If you get it, YOU WILL DIE. I repeat, YOU WILL UNDOUBTEDLY DIE from HIV/AIDS. There’s no cure for it! How would you feel if the government cut funding to find a cure and just told you to keep your pants on next time? Well there is no next time.
If one person has the virus he or she is the carrier of the virus. However HIV is scary because it takes 9 years for any of the traces of it to be noticeable. Most people who have HIV don’t know they even have it. A lot can happen in 9 years. I was 13, nine years ago. People make mistakes, people screw up… and in all of their mistakes they could have spread the virus to many other people. Just because of their ignorance. And the people that he gave it to, they become carriers without knowing, and it just gets worse and worse. It can turn into hundreds of people in 9 years, without anyone ever knowing that they have it.
38f some African countries have aids. Its estimated that in the future there will be 18 million African orphans because the parents have all died of aids. No one in Africa knows that they have aids, so they just keep spreading it. And it will get worse.
There still is no cure for aids. By the time you’ve read this about 5 people have already died from aids. By the end of today over 8,000 people will have died. And there wasn’t a cure for any one of them.
Some people say this is God’s curse for those committing sexual sins. Maybe some of those people are guilty of such blame… however I put this question out: If people don’t know about God, (like in Africa, and they don’t know it is a sin, and they are just doing what they have culturally always have done) is it a sin to God? Most people believe it isn’t a sin if it is in ignorance. So why would God create a disease to kill people who don’t even know he exists, and are just living their lives how they always have been? AIDS is not created by God, and if it is, then God is a killer.
Please have a little more tolerance people. You can say “well you should have kept your pants on” to dying aids victims. But that is no better than saying, “You should have run more” to a person dying of cardiovascular disease. It is a little too late. And many times people don’t consider all the consequences when they act. You should know that because you are human as well.
Asynchronous Transfer Mode network.
*ATM uses connection-oriented switches to permit senders and servers and receivers to communicate by establishing a dedicated circuit.
**data travels in fixed 53 byte cells
And Ye Shall Know Them by Their Roots?
I'm not going to lie. I've read the anti-mormon stuff. Its scary cuz its all true. an people actually believe all of it. and if they don't its even more scary how they don't even know their own church's beginnings in history... of course is it relevant anyways? The [[LDS]] [[church]] undoubtedly does good in the world, and has a positive influence on its members... or does it?
So, when I talk with someone, and I quote some weird thing that [[Brigham Young]] said a long time ago... this person will freak out on me and tell me, that Brigham Young was only speaking as a man when he said that. I'm like okay... Then some of the more intelligent people that I talk to will say, “if it isn't practiced or believed by the majority of the [[church]] today it isn't doctrine.” Which I can kind of believe... But then there goes the need for [[prophet]]s if its the majority of the people deciding on what they believe... Not that that's a bad thing... I'd prefer it that way anyways...But for the most part people tell me to look at the [[church]], and judge it by its fruits. Judge it by its fruits.
So when I talk with someone else, they'll start talking, and they'll be pulling these random quotes from ecclesiastical leaders regarding rated r movies, back rubs in the front room, caffeine, face cards and whatever the hell else you want to add in. Even though none of these are in the standard works as scripture, they're still treated as it.... anyways, by them pulling these old 'prophetic' quotes, can I pull out my racist quotes from brigham young?
Is the [[LDS]] church a fundamentalist religion? Does it move forward or does it look to the past? Where does it look for answers? The classroom answer is, “The [[LDS]] church has a modern day prophet that leads us and guides us today.” That's bull crap. Building new temples is not a type of revelation, or any type of guidance.
You go to conference to hear the stuff you know you shouldn't be doing? Don't beat your wives, don't look at pornography, don't gamble, pay your tithing, and honor your priesthood. That's not revelation, that's counsel... and no its not inspired... Even if the church was having problems with pornography, all they have to do is have the stake presidents report the major problems the stake is struggling with and then the prophet gets the briefing, and thinks, “wow we're having problems with porno, guess I should tell everyone to not look at it!”
You read your [[scriptures]] everyday. You know the stories. Its the same thing every time you read it.... but somehow you get something different everytime. I wonder why... probably because you're looking to get something out of it. I think scriptures are good. But I also think books are good too. Its not that hard to relate to any book that you read... use your imagination. In the mission field we'd play this game, where we'd describe some random dream we had, and then the other would have to interpret it to relate it to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of all, if you want to learn about Jesus Christ, you need to read the only evidence of Jesus we have, the bible.
Anyways, I've gotten sidetracked... My point is, is that the LDS church looks to its past more than the present. (its okay, that's what all the other christian churches do too) however the LDS church has a problem, they've got “modern day prophets” and no one can decide on what's the official stance of the church... on pretty much anything.
My problem, is that its unequal. No one in the church will ever judge it by its roots... only by the fruits. Do we just skip that step? Its funny how people will write books about the churches history, and you have these history professors at BYU who rarely counter the remarks, they always just claim the logic isn't 100 roven or qualitative. But then again... all scientific statements are falsifiable....
I dunno.... I think everything in life should be rational. Everything should be judged by the roots and fruits. Most importantly people should understand the fundamentals that it was based on. What was the method to the madness?
Even better, here's a good question for you? What fruits can you get from your religion, that you can't find anywhere else? What's God done for you in your life, that people find the same happenings in a different religion? If the answer remains constant in any religion, then I don't think that counts as a “fruit” of the religion.
And this is totally not just mormonism kids. Any religion has its dirty laundry, so I apologize if it seems I pick on the LDS church all time... just understand its all I know.
My point is, judging by the fruits is almost pointless.... The same spiritualities are pretty much constant in any religion. What does that leave people to do? Judge by the roots....the doctrines and the leaders. Especially if the church is claiming ecclesiastical authority.
I dunno... I wish life was easier, and there wasn't so much garbage to weed through. I do know that I have a brain, and I don't need a church as a baby sitter. Is that what church is for? Cuz last time I checked we're not going to be going to church in heaven.
Wow that was totally random.
[[Introduction to Atheism]]
Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
''George Carlin''
"Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?"
''Friedrich Nietzsche''
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true."
''Friedrich Nietzsche''
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. … Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
''Albert Einstein''
“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
''Mark Twain''
"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows."
''Mark Twain''
"“In God We Trust.” I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true."
''Mark Twain''
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
''Thomas Jefferson''
"We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society."
''Thomas Jefferson''
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle."
''Benjamin Franklin''
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
''Benjamin Franklin''
"Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities."
''Voltaire''
"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."
''Christopher Hitchens''
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
''George Bernard Shaw''
"You’re basically killing each other to see who’s got the better imaginary friend."
''Richard Jeni''
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
''Steven Weinberg''
"Where knowledge ends, religion begins."
''Benjamin Disraeli''
" Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
''Epicurus''
"If I thought the Jews killed God, I’d worship the Jews."
''Bill Hicks''
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
''Isaac Asimov''
“The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.”
''Abu Ala ~Al-Ma’arri''
"“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
''Richard Dawkins''
“The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it.”
''Robert G. Ingersoll''
“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”
''Abraham Lincoln''
“What have been [Christianity’s] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
''James Madison''
“Who needs Satan when you have a God like this?”
''Robert M. Price''
“I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”
''Bertrand Russell''
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.”
''George Bernard Shaw''
"Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.”
''Peter Ustinov''
"...the sum total of our momentary feelings turns out to be a very flawed measure of how good or how bad we judge an episode-a movie, a vacation, a marriage, or an entire life-to be." -page 7
"It is not just positive feelings we want we want to be entitled to our positive feelings. Yet we have invented myriad shortcuts to feeling good; drugs, chocolate, loveless sex, shopping, masturbation and television are all examples. (I am not, however, going to suggest that you should drop these shortcuts altogether.)" - page 8
"The exercise of kindness is gratification, in contrast to pleasure. As a gratification, it calls on your strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge. " - page 9
"...I am not a default optimist. I am a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist, I believe that only pessimists can write sober and sensible books about optimism, and I use the techniques that I wrote about in Learned Optimism every day." - Page 24
"...if you do not fight the urgings of your genetic steersman, you may remain lower in happy feelings than you would be otherwise." -page 47
"Another barrier to raising your level of happiness is the "hedonic treadmill," which causes you to rapidly and inevitably adapt to good things by taking them for granted. As you accumulate more material possessions and accomplishments, your expectations rise." - page 49.
"The overall lesson is that most Americans, regardless of objective circumstances, say they are happy, and at the same time they markedly underestimate the happiness of other Americans." page 51
"Depressed people after all, tend to be more withdrawn, irritable and self-focused, and so they may make less appealing partners. " - 56
"Cognitive therapy techniques work equally well at producing relief from depression as the antidepressant drugs, and they work better at preventing recurrence and relapse." - page 69
"Dwelling on trespass and the expression of anger produces more cardiac disease and more anger." - page 69
"The reason gratitude works to increase life satisfaction is that it amplifies good memories about the past: their intensity, their frequency, and the tag lines the memories have." - page 75
"It comes down to this: People who make universal explanations for their failures give up on everything when a failure strikes in one area. People who make specific explanations may become helpless in the one part of their lives, yet march stalwartly on in the others. " - page 90
"It is essential to realize your beliefs are just that - beliefs. They may or may not be facts. If a jealous rival shrieked at you in rage, "you are a terrible mother. You are selfish, inconsiderate, and stupid," how would you react? You probably would discount the accusations, and if they got under your skin you would dispute them (either to her face or internally)." - Page 94
*[[My Problems with BYU]]
*[[I go here 2 (marriage)]]
*[[I go here 2 (marriage)]]
Beliefs that I don't believe
Things the Holy Ghost Confirms 'True' (to everyone excluding me!!)
Becoming a God with millions of children, and having to answer their all their problems is eternal happiness.
A 94 year old man is completely capable of leading our church. He doesn't have to think, the spirit just tells him everything he needs to say.....right????
Families are forever....so am I with my parents....or with my kids....and are my kids with their parents....or are they with their kids...what about the kids with no dads....or no moms...or half brothers....or what if they never want to see their family again?
Only people who know the right tokens and symbols will be accepted into the highest exaltation. Or even if you're baptized and surrender yourself to Jesus, you'll be saved!!!
You must be sealed for God to accept your marriage eternally. Its not about love, its about location.
God speaks to us through church leaders. Because he can't tell us personally.
We will only feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost if we want to/We will only feel the temptings of the Devil if we want to Sound familiar?... maybe wanting something is how we get our promptings.
If we read scripture from 2000 years previous we will find applicable answers to our current situation. Just think about it enough and I bet you can get an answer out of anything.
99% of the worlds population won't go to the celestial kingdom. God loves his children that much.
Even if you have the Companionship of the Holy Ghost, you only feel it when you're worthy. The same goes for people who don't have the companionship...so why do we need the companionship again?
Our World is only about 10,000 years old. And Dinosaurs came from other planets used to make this one......right......
[[But That's the Old Testament]]
Biblical Bad Omens and Me
Disclaimer: I think the bible is good. However I don't think [[God]], if he does answers [[prayer]]s, would deny someone an answer to a [[prayer]]. So why study the bible? (I'll save '[[prayer]]s' for another blog some day....)
I read the bible. I like the bible. I want it to be true. But there are things in the bible I just don't buy anymore. And its getting really annoying to hear so many takes on what is said in it. I'm sick of the circular logic that surrounds the bible as well. Why is it so hard for me to graps this kind of stuff!??? Especially whent I once served a mission for Christ, when I've gone to [[church]] my entire life...
I must be a sign seeker. I look for truth. I look for logic. I look for evidence. I can’t find any of these in the bible. Sure the bible gives me some good feelings… But so does everything else that is good. We all know that.
Now some of you may argue that what is good is up for interpretation. As the bible itself is up for interpretation. There are millions of different sects of Christianity… and they all believe something different. Because they all interpret it so differently. How can something so easily misinterpreted be the final authority on everything in a person's life?
Some claim that we need more knowledge to understand how the bible works and what the authors are really trying to claim. Some people claim you need evangelical authority to understand what the biblical authors claim. The reason being, we never know if we should take the bible to be literal or symbolic. And if everyone can’t agree on it, then is there really a valid meaning or interpretation of it? If we don’t know, we don’t know.
No one takes the bible literally. People say they take the bible literally, but really, people believe what they always believe... and when they feel that the bible validates themselves they use those scriptures to support their own argument. Now, did the bible say it? Or did the person organize the process of what the bible says?
Have you ever heard people claim that they opened the scriptures and it miraculously was what they needed that day? They think of it as a miracle... But wait... [[God]] didn't change the bible for them, the bible has been written for years... They just read something and got what they wanted out of it.
If you don't believe its possible to use your imagination to that extent, think of all the horoscopes in magazines that are vague in every way, yet they are also applicable to almost every possible situation. Its not that hard to pick up a scripture and relate it to your life. Its really easy... but I don't think [[God]] intended for us to be able to stretch and bend his word so it fits our lives how we want it to.
What makes Paul's interpretations more important than anyone else's? Just because his writings got compiled along with the words of Jesus? Where did he get his authority?
What's the difference between a modern day quote verses a biblical quote? Why is the bible so authoritative?
I'll tell you why it is. People think they need to show faith. And the bible is what they need to show faith in. Believe in something even if it doesn't make logical sense. But it totally makes sense to them why they should have faith and show it. Its based on all these principles that will never be proven. Or in my own choice of words, principles that theoretically don't exist. But if you memorize each principle or doctrine, and the cycles that they form... it makes complete sense... But it doesn't mean it is real.
They say [[God]] will never be proved. It is a matter of faith. Separate from logic, because if [[God]]'s existence was logical it would void our “agency.” Nothing in this world is final. No theory is finally proved ever. If there was substantial evidence of [[God]], there would be more people that would believe... is that a bad thing? Doesn't [[God]] want us to believe? Doesn't [[God]] want us to learn?
Maybe I'm just a sign seeker.
We should stop focusing on what we know now. Focus on what we don't know. Could we be wrong?
Maybe the world would be better if we all got together and wrote a new bible of all the good teachings in the world right now. Every little evidence that ever existed in good teachings could be compiled. I think the mass majority would eventually head in the right direction of good. This would be much nicer instead of having one guy determine what the world believes. This kind of power is wrong.
Religion separates. Religion argues. Religion creates inequality. Religion starts wars. If we were all humble and reconciled what we really don't know, we'd find that we are all in the same boat looking for the same thing.
Even within 2.1 billion chrisians, they believe each other is somewhat misled. Who the hell is right? (pun) I don't think anyone.
I think everyone is just believing what they want, what they have been raised to believe is good. Maybe religion is just personal. Maybe we shouldn't let others determine if we're going to be saved or not. Maybe we shouldn't try and save others. Maybe its not our job to determine the sins of others.
If people are happy, why do we tell them they're not?
If I was in Japan, and i wanted people to come unto Jesus, how do you think is the best way about converting them? Quoting the bible? Quoting something they don't believe to be authoritative? Quote something they don't believe in? Quote scriptures that mean absolutely nothing to them? They don't even know what the bible really is. So first I would have to convince them that the bible is the authority, and then I can pretty much say what I want as long as a I back it up by scriptures.
and then I'd have to go and try and tell them that the bible is more authoritative than anything else in their life.
Someone please explain why it is this way.
“Life is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it’s real, because that’s how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, round and round, it has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud. And it’s fun – for a while.
“Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and they say, ‘Hey! Don’t worry, don’t be afraid – ever – because this is just a ride!’ And we kill those people. You ever notice that?
“But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice – no effort, no work, no job, no savings, no money. Just a choice – right now – between fear and love.”
Source: [[thisisby.us - It's Just a Ride, by whelvestine|http://www.thisisby.us/index.php/content/it__s_just_a_ride]]
Why Oatmeal/ Porridge Rocks
Oatmeal is a fantastic breakfast. You get low GI carbs, and you have the choice to add to it and make it really yummy and nutritious. Here is what I will often do with my oatmeal.
½ cup dry oatmeal (Cooked with water, but you can also use skim milk…I’m cheap)
Handful of Blueberries
1 Tub of Low Fat Yoghurt (Generally berry flavour)
1-2 Scoops of Vanilla Whey Protein
* (20) Prisoner squats
* (20) Push-ups
* (20) Jumps
* (5) Chin-ups
* (20) Forward lunges
* (15) Close-grip pushups
''Double this once you can do it in under 9 minutes''
!!Bodyweight 100 Workout
The Bodyweight 100 challenge was featured in Men's Health magazine in January 2008. This workout is the initial stage in a much longer and more challenging program called the Bodyweight 500. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.
First, let's take a look at the Bodyweight 100 workout. Do your regular workouts on Monday and Wednesday, and then try the 100 workout on a Friday or Saturday.
Do all repetitions of each exercise before moving to the
next exercise. Take as few breaks as possible, but you
don't have to do all of the repetitions in an exercise
without stopping. That would be asking a little too much!
#''20 Prisoner Squats''
##Prisoner squats require you to put your hands behind your head, like a prisoner would. Keep your elbows back, and shoulder blades together. From there, do regular bodyweight squats. Squat all the way to parallel.
#''20 Pushups''
##Follow that up with regular pushups, keeping your body in a straight line at all times. Keep your abs braced and contracted. Push with your chest and triceps to return to the start position.
#''10 Jumps''
##For the jumps, drop your hips and bend your knees and then jump up nice and high. Bend your knees upon landing, and in one motion drop your hips and jump up again.
#''10 Inverted Rows'' (aka Reverse Pushups or Bodyweight Rows)
##Follow that up with inverted rows, also known as reverse pushups. In this exercise, you'll lie under a bar set at hip height (in a squat rack or smith machine) and you will row your body up to the bar. Try to touch your chest at the top of the movement. Squeeze your shoulder blades together.
#''20 Forward Lunges'' (10 reps per side)
##Next up is forward lunges. Take a slight larger than normal step forward, plant your foot, and drop your hips straight down while bending your front and back knees. Lower until your front thigh is parallel to the floor, and keep your back knee 1 inch off the ground. Drive back up to the start position through your front leg.
#''15 Close-grip Pushups''
##Close-grip pushups follow that up. Keep your hands shoulder width apart, and this will use your triceps more.
#''5 Chin-ups or Inverted Rows''
##Finally, you'll finish the workout with chinups or inverted rows (again). Chinups are the underhand grip version of pullups, and of course, are an advanced exercise.
This bodyweight workout will put turbulence on your muscles and help you burn fat and boost your metabolism without slow boring cardio.
This is a revolutionary new way of burning bodyfat using
bodyweight exercises. The challenge of the 100 workout
combined with the multi-muscle exercises will burn a lot of fat and calories, and will keep your metabolism increased for hours after exercise.
Take your time going through the Bodyweight 100 workout. Split the reps up into chunks if you need to, but complete all repetitions for an exercise before moving on to the next. And you won't need any cardio to finish up this workout. This workout is enought to burn the fat and feed the muscle.
Here’s a recap of what needs to be done for the Bodyweight 350 challenge. The target time is 30 minutes.
* 45 Prisoner Squats
* 40 Pushups
* 20 Jumps
* 20 Stability Ball Leg Curls
* 20 Stability Ball Jackknifes
* 40 Step-Ups
* 10 Pullups
* 40 Forward Lunges
* 40 Close-Grip Pushups
* 20 Inverted Rows
* 40 Squats
* 15 Chinups
[[Racism/Lamanites]]
[[Book of Zelph|http://bookofzelph.com]]
[[Skeptics BOM|http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/index.htm]]
August 20 2006
Today I went to [[church]] with my family, and it was nice to see some friends. I hate the fact that I am so critical of everything that goes on. But really its like so foreign to me now. Everyone said that the talk/lecture/sermon given was absolutely wonderful, and it struck me as odd, because he repeated so many of the same stories, same ideas, same quotes, that everyone always says, and then ended his talk. There was nothing new, nothing really informative, just a different way of presenting it.
I guess it bothers me, because unlike education, there will be nothing new to learn in religion. [[God]] already spoke, and he isn't going to speak to you ever. Its just the same stuff over and over again, with people's interpretations.... and these interpretations can't be trusted because they're not of [[God]], they're just people's "different takes on it".... So why do they even bother saying them if it isn't straight from [[God]]? I don't know how my parents have gone to [[church]] for so long, heard the same stuff every sunday, and not gotten bored of it. same goes for the bible, scriptures, and [[church]] propoganda videos.
I miss the social interaction of [[church]]... And I have come to believe this is why people go to [[church]] anyway. Really. Religion is meant to be personal, so why would you need to go... I would just say its all about friends, or a need for support and other social needs. Which made me remember mine and Jeff's [[church]] that we were going to invent.
I feel bad for not going to class with the girl that invited me... but there were some people present that I could have gone without seeing there... and a nap sounded so good at the moment....it still does.
one time someone told me that I shouldn't believe everything I read. I of course full heartedly believe in that statement-even though they thought I was the gullible one.... I think these are the people that enjoy fox news, and hate organizations or tv shows that are critical of the Saint George W. Bush.
My Grandma today said GWB was hardworking, trustworthy and moral today. I almost shit my pants. It upset me so bad that I discussed it with my sister. And regardless of all the things I told her about GWB, (she wouldn't believe me) and I told her she should just look it up herself... she said she'd never know for sure with any of it... and I told her to just be weary about all information, she agreed... and then I told her that she's at least better than my grandparents and parents... who only seek one source for answers.
Moral of the story. Don't believe me.
I know this is really random. But I once had a teacher that was so controversial that it drove me nuts..... years later I realized that he's the only teacher that made me think, and come to my own opinions... and yes they are different than his. But I think you know what I mean. get two sides of the story.
and when i say opposition... I don't mean satan. [[God]] Dammit. How can people believe everything comes down to [[God]] vs. Satan? Why can't we exist just as equal to them? Dear [[God]]... thanks for all of my blessing that make me better than other people.
and thanks for giving us a good trustworthy hardworking leader.
[[Valley Ride|http://www.valleyride.org]]
!!What does a Business Analyst Do?
#Work with __people__
#__Document__ __requirements__ & system
#Identify solutions based on business needs
#__Write__ business documents
#__Middle-person__ between technical staff and business
#__organize__ people and resources
#__facilitate__ discussions
#analysis of data
#decompose broad picture into specifics
#work with vendors
!!Critical Skills they need?
#analytical skills
#management skills
#interpretation
#network
#communicate
#awareness
http://www.freethought.mbdojo.com/butthatstheoldtest.html
"But That's the Old Testament!"
2000
I constantly get this phrase thrown at me. It seems that Christians are very quick to disown 90% of their "perfect" Word of [[God]], as if they would cut out the Old Testament if they could, and use only the New Testament.
Christians always use this excuse to distance themselves from the heartless brutality of the killing of women and children at the hands of Moses, Joshua, David, etc., and yet they are sure quick to whip out Old Testament laws when it is convenient for them to do so. When the time comes for fire and brimstone, they'll quote from Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers and Judges; but when the Freethinker brings up all the genocide and cruel inhumanity contained in those books, well, then they back off and say: "That's the Old Testament. Jesus came to bring the New Covenant."
When they wish to heap upon us the 10 Commandments, the Creation Story in Genesis that they want to force into our schools, Noah and his Big Boat, the Wisdom of Solomon (well, he DID have 700 wives and 300 concubines), or ask us to swallow Jonah and his Whale, they will pull out their bibles and open up right to the appropriate Old Testament verse. But when we complain about the cruelty and irrationality of Moses, the infinite cruelty of the Plagues of Egypt and the Pharaoh who was intentionally hardened by God, the butcher Joshua, the criminal David and his murderous raids, Saul the Terrible and the murder of the Amalekites and the hewing of the captured king, they say "Well, that's the Old Testament."
Wait a minute... we are talking about THE Bible here. We are talking about the one and only [[God]] that the Christians worship, aren't we? Are there two bibles, two gods?
What these Christians are doing is arguing for something that they claim NOT to believe in... namely "moral relativism": they are saying that morality is not fixed, and changes over time as humanity changes. Go figure...
Exactly how do they do this? How do they create two bibles from the one? They say things like: "Jesus said he came to fulfill the law-- the old law passed away." I think what has happened here is that some ministers have intentionally misunderstood the book of Hebrews. It says: "For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." (Hebrews 7:12) The laws changed, not passed away. What changed was the need for a daily animal sacrifice (Hebrews 7:27-28). That is what the New Covenant was-- Jesus was a "human sacrifice" for the forgiveness sin, replacing the Old Covenant of sacrificing burnt offerings-- slaughtered animals-- for sins. (Hebrews 8:13). See also all of Chapter 9 of Hebrews, which describes the Old Covenant of burnt offerings, and Chapter 10 which describes how the New Covenant replaces the Old for the purging of sins. THAT is what the New Covenant is all about-- it means that Christians do not have to put on the butcher's apron and slaughter goats. That's what was changed. If the Christians are right about the "old laws passing away", then we could do away with the 10 Commandments, couldn't we? The "New Covenant" does not release Christians from the killing of homosexuals, or witches, blasphemers and the worshippers of other gods either. The leaders of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches knew this when they murdered hundreds of thousands of people just a few hundred years ago.
The next time some Christian tells you to live by the 10 Commandments, tell them: But that is the Old Testament. The 10 Commandments have been replaced by Jesus' new rules to live by:
Resist not evil. (Let evil take over the country, the world, I suppose?)
Love thine enemies. (What Christian ever did this? Is this even possible?) (Matthew 5:44)
Pray in secret... do not let men see you pray. (Matthew 6:1-7)
Marrying a divorced woman is adultery (carrying the death penalty). (Matthew 5:32)
Don't plan for the future. (Matthew 6:34)
Don't save money. (Matthew 6:19-20)
Don't become wealthy. (Mark 10:21-25)
Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. (Luke 12:33)
Don't work to obtain food. (John 6:27)
Don't have sexual urges. (Matthew 5:28)
Make people want to persecute you. (Matthew 5:11)
Let everyone know you are better than the rest. (Matthew 5:13-16)
Take money from those who have no savings and give it to rich investors. (Luke 19:23-26)
If someone steals from you, don't try to get it back. (Luke 6:30)
If someone hits you, invite them to do it again. (Matthew 5:39)
If you lose a lawsuit, give more than the judgment. (Matthew 5:40)
If someone forces you to walk a mile, walk two miles. (Matthew 5:41)
If anyone asks you for anything, give it to them without question. (Matthew 5:42).
"Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men to do so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:19
Are any of these ridiculous sayings wise? Is it possible to extract the least bit of common sense from them? Is this what you would teach to your own children?
When Christians throw up the excuse "But that's the Old Testament", I ask: "What do you mean, it's the Old Testament?" Christians say "Well, it was different in those days..." All right then-- how? How was it different, so that cruel wars of extermination and the slaughter of innocent children were perfectly acceptable to Christians? Did people value their lives less in those days? The 50,070 who were killed by God for looking into the Ark of the Covenant, the 70,000 innocent men whom God killed because Joseph chose 3 days of pestilence, the hundreds of innocent townspeople murdered by David during his thieving "raids" in Gath, the tens of thousands of children and babies butchered by Moses, Joshua and Saul... and of course, the 42 little children whom God killed for mocking one of his prophets. Did they value their lives less than we do today?
Remember that Jesus said "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I come not to destroy, but to fulfill." Therefore, Jesus came to fulfill Old Testament Law, such as:
Ex. 22:20 He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
Lev. 24:16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.
Ex. 31:15 Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
Ex. 21:15 He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.
Ex. 21:17 He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Ex. 22:19 Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
Lev. 20:13 If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.
Lev. 20:10 And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer
and the adulteress shall be put to death.
Ex. 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live
1 Sam 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (so much for the American Revolution).
Mal. 2:1-4 And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name,...behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces. (Will Jesus do the spreading of the dung??)
I can understand why Christians would want to divorce the New Testament from the bloody Old Testament. You would have to to be able to maintain any kind of moral rectitude. But honestly, it cannot be done.
The very first chapter of the very first book of the New Testament lists the genealogy of Jesus back to Abraham.
In Matthew Chapter 17, Jesus speaks to Old Testament figures Moses and Elijah, who's figures appeared before him. Moses... the monster who ordered a man's death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, and who commanded Joshua to enter the Promised Land and leave no one breathing: men, women and children.
Matthew 24:37 is an undeniable link to the brutality of the Old Testament, where Jesus compares his second coming to the destruction of the Great Flood that killed the world's population.
In the New Testament Jesus makes constant references to "scripture". In Matthew 22:29 Jesus says: "You are in error, because you do not know the scriptures, or the power of God." Now, just what were these scriptures that Jesus was making reference to? The New Testament? I don't think so. At the time there was no such thing as a New Testament! There were only the scriptures of bloodthirsty villains like Moses and David. Every reference to "scripture" in the New Testament establishes one more link to the Old Testament. How many times does the New Testament refer to Old Testament "scriptures"? 52 times.
In the New Testament, Abraham is referred to 68 times, the ancient Israelites are mentioned 73 times, Jacob 26 times, Issac 20 times, Elijah 29 times, Isiah 22 times, Noah 8 times, King David is mentioned 58 times. How about this-- the name Mary (not just the Virgin Mary, but ALL Mary's) is mentioned 54 times in the New Testament. The name Moses, on the other hand, appears 80 times! You think these numbers don't establish an important connection? You don't think that Jesus held that the teachings of Moses were important?
How about this. Jesus gives an absolute endorsement of the teachings and laws of Moses. "If you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" John 5:45
Are you going to sit there and tell me that the New Testament is not inexorably linked in the deepest ways to the Old Testament?
Will any Christian deny that, according to the bible, Jesus is the one and only same personage as the God of the Old Testament? Did Jesus condemn ANY of his father's bloody massacres? No. In Matt 5:48 he says "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
Do you think Jesus would have questioned any of his father's actions, like the many acts of genocide that litter the pages of the Old Testament? No. Remember what Jesus said when he gave the Lord's Prayer to his followers-- "Our Father who art in heaven... thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Do you think Jesus would have ever disobeyed his father's commands, like when he ordered that his servants should "kill everyone that breathes" upon their entry to the Promised Land? No. In John chapter 10 verse 30, Jesus said: "I and the Father are one." Jesus would have been swinging a sword, hacking nonviolent men, women and children to death, right along side of Joshua and his armies of Israelites! Just picture that. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, splitting a small child in two with his blood-drenched sword.
In John 1:1, we read "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In verse 14, we read: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." We are told explicitly that Jesus Christ IS THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT! You probably already accept this. But, by logical extension, you must also accept therefore that it was Jesus Christ who ordered the Israelites to slaughter millions of defenseless men, women and children in the conquest of Canaan; it was Jesus Christ who killed every firstborn child in Egypt; it was Jesus Christ who ordered king Saul to butcher thousands of children and babies in the genocide of the Amalakites; it was Jesus Christ who ordered the Israelites to capture and mass-rape 32,000 young girls of the Midianite tribe after killing their families; it was Jesus Christ who struck dead 50,000 innocent people at Beshemish for merely looking into the ark of the covenant; it was Jesus Christ who caused the painful asphyxiation of every man, woman, child and animal on the face of the earth during the flood of Noah (with the exception of 8); and it was Jesus Christ who condemned every person ever born to a state of eternal suffering, all because 6000 years ago a curious and naive woman ate a piece of fruit. And, of course, it was Jesus Christ who sent 2 bears to chase down 42 little kids and disembowel them for just acting like kids (see What's So Bad About Killing Children?)
WWJD?
[[MATH 160]]
[[ACCT 206]]
[[ITM 315]]
[[ITM 320]]
[[ITM 360]]
Creating an Addiction
Step 1. Guilt and Peer Pressure.
Move slowly. Do small acts of kindness to gain their trust. Talk about it with them casually. Tell them they'll be miserable without it. Convince them of the happiness it brings. Give a personal account of how wonderful it is and how it has changed your life. Show them all the other people who have joined in on it. Do not talk about the unhappy people who are involved with it. Not all truth is appropriate. Find them friends. Every Convert needs a friend.
Step 2. Official Introduction.
Make their first time as amazing as you possibly can. Gather as many strangers to it as possible. Tell all your friends to be nice to him or her. Everyone will spout the typical "congratulations." Confuse physical feelings with emotional. For example: the feeling alcohol gives someone can be interpreted as happiness, likewise a bath can help a person feel clean. Refer back to their feelings of this event if anything happens.
Step 3. Lifelong Participation.
Create rules. Talk about how important the rules are. Describe life without the rules, and the miserable atrocities that would follow. Make sure participant contributes time and money. Someone that has given a lot of money will never get up and walk away from their investment. Daily participation is ultimate, however weekly will do. Time investments are also powerful in retaining. The more they're involved with it, the better customer they are.
Step 4. Dealing with Opposition.
Sometimes concerns may arise. Lightly dodge them. Teach them to disregard facts. Continue to ask them how it makes them "feel." Refer to instances in the past where the feelings were good. Teach them to only be social with people who are also participants. People who are not participants don't know know how it feels. Create an exclusive environment where only "appropriate truths" are discussed. Denial. Denial. Denial. And maybe a little self deceit too!
Step 5. Tell them to Share
Real addicts talk about it in casual conversation. Real addicts can not be ashamed of it. Real addicts want everyone to jump off the same cliff so they don't feel stupid. It feels good to bring friends to it. It makes life easier.
Addicted and PWNed.
[[Cutlerite Del.icio.us Linsys|http://del.icio.us/cutlerite/linksys]]
How To Flash the WRT54G v8 (from flashing.txt)
1. Configure your local lan ethernet address to 192.168.1.100, subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.1.1 and connect your local ethernet to your WRT54Gv8 on one of the 4 switch ports (note that the tftp step below may not work unless you are plugged into port 1).
2. Unplug the power cord from the WRT54Gv8.
3. Push the reset button while plugging in the power cord and hold the button for about 20 seconds.
4. Open your browser and open http://192.168.1.1
5. Use the firmware upgrade dialog to flash
vxworkskillerGv8.bin.
1. You will see a dialog to Reboot the device. Power cycle the router by unplugging the power cord, then plugging it in.
2. Wait for about 1 - 2 minutes.
3. Unplug the power cord again and plug it back in (power cycle unit).
4. You will not be able to browse to the WRT54 at this point, and the power light may be off. You should be able to ping 192.168.1.1 however.
5. If you are not able to ping 192.168.1.1 after this point, follow the steps written here. Now you are good to go.
[[these steps|brickedlinksys]]
6. Now it's time to flash the DD-WRT firmware using TFTP
* If you're on Windows, enter tftp -i 192.168.1.1 put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin at your cmd shell
* If you're on Linux, enter tftp -m octet 192.168.1.1 -c put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin at your shell
* In Ubuntu Linux I entered atftp --option "mode octet" --verbose -p -l dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin 192.168.1.1
* If you're on OSX, enter tftp -e 192.168.1.1. At the tftp> prompt enter put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin at your shell
7. The file will now be transfered to your router and be flashed. After this is done, dd-wrt will automatically boot, the power light will be on, and you can browse to your router at http://192.168.1.1.
Default Subnet Masks
*Class A - 255.0.0.0
*Class B - 255.255.0.0
*Class C - 255.255.255.0
The mask is used
*to identify te host portion of an ip address to determine if the destination host is loca to the subnet
**ANDing the mask to source and destination addresses will produce the same result if the destination host is local.
[[Welcome]]
[[The Beginning of an End...]]
[[Quotes]]
Enabling DVD Playback
For legal reasons, Ubuntu Linux does not ship with the ability to decrypt and play the video files that live on most commercial DVDs. Unfortunately, the libraries we need aren't available through the package manager either, which means we'll need to use the Terminal (Click on Applications > Accessories > Terminal). But there's no need to panic, this is only time you'll really need the command line and it's only two lines of code.
Just open up a new terminal window and type:
sudo apt-get install libdvdread3
Ubuntu will ask for your password and then download the package. Now you just need to install it with this line:
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
That's it. Now your DVDs should play back without any trouble. However, Totem, the default media player in Ubuntu isn't all that great. We suggest replacing it with the Video LAN Client (VLC). If you haven't already added VLC, which was covered in the previous section, just head to Add/Remove Programs and search for VLC. Check the box, hit Apply and you're done.
To make the newly installed VLC player the default option, just click the System menu and navigate to Preferences > Removable Drives and Media. That'll open a new window where you'll see a Multimedia tab. Click that tab and look under the "Video DVD Discs" section. You should find a text box which reads: "totem %m." Just replace "totem" with "vlc" and you're done.
Source: [[Optimize A Fresh Ubuntu Installation - Wired How-To Wiki|http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Optimize_A_Fresh_Ubuntu_Installation]]
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS. If you do not believe in evolution, can you please.... pretty pretty please explain to me how or why you don't.
And if you aren't sure, can you please tell me why?
because look at this graph, only 40 percent of us trust evolutionary theories:
ACCEPTANCE OF EVOLUTION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES
taken from: Evolution Less Accepted in U.S. Than Other Western Countries, Study Finds
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/cutlerite/beliefinevolutionstatistics.jpg
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/21329204.html
This makes me sick. To see the USA be so far behind other countries. Evolution is NOT a belief, it IS A SCIENCE.
Americans are taking their educational diplomas and they are shitting on them. How the fuck can you go through a science class and evolution make no sense to you? How can you not be sure about it? MORE IMPORTANTLY how can 40% of a country believe it is false!!?
Someone please tell me how this works. I know you are out there, and you are reading my blog. How do you honestly justify the world being less than 10,000 years old? I have no clue.... absolutely no clue.
I'm serious, I'm addressing you, if you honestly believe evolution is false, please tell me how or why.
and if no one steps to up to the plate I am going to assume that you see the same problem I do.... and that you'll join me in my crusade to GET GOD OUT OF OUR FUCKING SCHOOLS!
I know however I write this, I'm going to come off as an ass.
But since I came off as an ass in my last blog,... Wouldn't want to surprise you kids again would I? Keep it assy. I'm pretty sure that's how you keep friends in the world by writing about everything they hold dear, (and cherish) interspersed with F bombs. Kasey Anderson taught me how to swear, and I don't even think she swears anymore. Well people tell me I helped their testimony in christ, and now I don't even believe in a savior. Now doesn't that take you in a quick dimensional tornado and bring you back in time for your mid night sorry-ass pint of ben and jerry's? Change is good. Which brings me to my point.
I am not one of those religious atheists that so many of you claim exist. Holy mother of hell, isn't a religious atheist an oxymoron? I don't worship anything! wait, okay, I'm kidding. I worship evolution, in fact it whispers in my ear and saves me from horrible accidents, and gives me warm and fuzzies when i talk about it with my close friends. And Evolution has chosen Al Gore as the prophet seer and revelator to teach us minions how to protect, and do his ministry work among those damn polluting S.O.B's in their fat-ass hummers. which by the way look like betty bakers in shitty new colors. I love evolution, he changed my life, I was like doing ramen, and worshipping false idols like the flying spaghetti monster, zeus, and Jesus- I was just lost. And then evolution came and taught me all about the purpose of life, like avoiding people that want to kill me (terrorists and bears), and killing weaker people (terrorists, and baby bears). fucking evil little bears. oops there goes an f-bomb!
But I'm not 100% faithful to the God of Evolution like.... lets say.....oh.... I don't know.... you are to your God. Seriously, if anyone came up to me and showed me enough information that proved God created the world 10,000 years ago, then I would be like holy crapamolie! I was wrong, and I must repent of my evil ways, because God doesn't like those people that seek answers,... you know those people called scientists, or researchers. I mean because come on... they're wasting their time. All those hours of research about things that no one else knows about? If they would just open a bible!!!! hello? couldn't it be any easier? fucking idiots! Because, well guess what, the spirit tells disciples of christ more than he'd ever tell someone that actually spent the time to learn about.
You see, that's where i'm different in my beliefs. I would love to be proved wrong. Someone please show me the truth, instead of pointing at a bible and saying, "hey check this sweet book out, it totally changed my life, I can quote about ten scriptures from it, and that's all I need for direction in life... oh and skip over the entire old testament because we don't really believe in it, and frankly it makes God look really mean, but he's like omg the coolest God ever!"
"Well will he tell me that Evolution is true?"
"he tells different things to different people, because he cares about us all individually"
"So he'll answer my prayers?"
"Oh yeah most definitely, if it is according to his will!"
"Then why pray to him if his will is going to be done no matter what?"
"You don't understand? I almost died, Its a miracle I'm alive! God cares about me!"
"If God cared about you, you wouldn't have almost died."
It doesn't matter what I say about your God. It doesn't, because you'll think, everyone has a right to their opinion. It doesn't matter if I could sit there and prove how the bible isn't a good moral code to base your life on. Because you would disagree. you don't want to try anything, and you don't want to know what I know. I want to know what you know. But I need something more than that spiritual witness that seems so ambiguous, elusive, and um... what's the word? inconsistent? yeah that's it. Maybe if religion was consistent, and had evidence like my God, Evolution, praise unto his name, I'd give-it-a-whirl. I'd tap it like a natural resource. But noooooooo.
So yeah. Dear God. Forgive me for I seek truth. I know you're a God that can't stand people who doubt, who are critical, who don't have any faith.... Forgive me, because I thought you sent us to earth to learn, but heaven forbid they actually try and discover you, and learn about your existence from sources other than a bible!!! But I guess I'm wrong. We aren't supposed to research stuff. We're just supposed to read that one book that has those ten scriptures. Because it has all the answers to all of life's questions, and if it doesn't directly answer the questions, interpret it how you want.
Thanks God. Thanks.
Let's go kill those people that research, learn and all that funky shit, because man, I swear, Scientists exercise about as much faith in God as fat kids run laps. They don't know shit about the Gospel and what magical Jesus can do to forgive their educational ways.
Faith Watch out Boys and Girls
I haven't done a controversial blog in a while, so I thought I'd spice things up a bit.
After a baby is born it starts its learning process. Parents constantly have to tell the child what is good and what is bad-what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable. It's very important that a child experience both to be able to learn. Then the child makes a well-thought out decision, concluding that every time he poops his pants he gets in trouble.
I think most of us would totally get pissed to see parents not disciplining their children for pooping their pants. The parents decided to just act excited when the child walked near the bathroom, and they'd give the baby a real nice prize if he ever pooped in the toilet. We all know this would never work cuz for the child to make a conscious conclusion it must experience both discipline and reward.
I believe this works in all forms where there is not necessarily a “right” or a “wrong.” Let's talk about the right to abortion. Some say its good, some say its bad. Both sides can give facts and arguments to support their decision. For an individual to make a logical decision, he or she must study both arguments! Someone would be an ignorant fool to just hear pro-abortionists speak, and not listen to one word of the con side simply because the pro-abortionists tell them not to. The people that are pro-abortion would have a fit to see millions of people refusing to listen to their argument! This is even how it works in the court systems right?
Here's what I'm getting at: We can't make a just, fair and logical decision without hearing both sides. I'm so sick of Mormons and other religious enthusiasts saying they don't need to research other religions, or even the shady histories of their own church because “they have faith and that's all they need.” Faith MUST be built on Logic, it's not based on feelings. This doesn't mean you can't have “feelings.” but you can't have faith without logic. Here is a definition of faith taken from Mormon Doctrine.
Faith:
“Faith is based on truth and is preceded by knowledge. Until a person gains a knowledge of the truth he can have no faith.”
I'm sick of people thinking they know everything they need to know about a particular subject without exhausting their resources. I'm sick of people saying, I have faith, and that's all that matters. Or “I've had a spiritual confirmation.” Those things are good, but come on people you can't base your life around those things.
Okay here's a particular truth that I think LDS people typically miss: The papyrus that Joseph Smith used to translate were found, and were translated in 1967 by egyptian scholars. Here is exactly what was written in my church history book at BYU. So you can't call it ANTI, cuz it was written by the church. Even still I think 'anti' material would make you a smarter person.... anyways...“In 1967 11 fragments of the joseph smith papyri were rediscovered by Dr. Aziz S Atiya in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Studies of them have confirmed that they are mainly ancient egyptian Funerary texts of the sort commonly buried with royalty and nobility and designed to guide them through their eternal journeyings.” And yes the mummy's ancestry were determined from the papyrus, and no, there was no relation to Abraham. Some people consider Joseph's Smith's Translation one of the greatest cons of the century.
Either way, Mormon or Not, life offers many viewpoints on many subjects. I believe it is our duty to study each side. It will make us better, more accepting people, heck even more Christ-like if you wish. It’s how our court system works, hear both sides and then make a decision. Everyone go read some anti material!
!Forecasting & Budgeting
Use the historical relationships to forecast future financing needs.
#Forcast internally generated funding //forecasted income statement//
#forecast asset investment necessary to support level of business activity
#forecast levels of spontaneous funding
''Level of business activity''
Sales forecast
''for all forecasts''
#start with historical data
#use trends or averages
#adjust for new information
#update frequently
Type the text for 'Foriegn Key'
Myspace Blog Aug 03 2006
God's Love.
God loves everyone, this is why he doesn't do anything for us. He wants us to be successful without him helping us. Its likea dad leavinga mom. "It was because he loved you," at least thats what everyone told you anyway. So every baseball game that you win, make sure you thank Dad for not helping you. all of those hours you spent practicing, his absence made you stronger, and the stronger you felt, the more real Dad became.
So God loved us. He made this garden for Adam and Eve, and it was paradise because no one knew what if it was really good or bad. God didn't talk to them until they broke his rules. But it was good thing they broke his rules, becausethen they got to wear clothes and feel guilty for stuff.
God was nice enough to everyone to give them a nice present, being born in a "state of sin." He made them naturally evil, giving them a disposition to choose the wrong without temptation because he wants them to be saved. Its just because he loves us, that's all.
Here's the most beautiful part about God's love. Everyone gets it, whether they're good or bad. You and I both get it. We just have to want it in our hearts bad enough to let God in and take over our body. So far, the only people who can feel God's love are the christians, because they have accepted the Lord as their savior.
God's love is so awesome. With it, you will believe that everything that happens in your life, is a direct result of God loving you. You will no longer believe you have any control in your life, and no free agency. Instead of choosing for yourself, you will just pray.
All those billions of poor people, man if only they had the word, because then God would decide to bless them... That would be awesome! A billion more people to accept the Lord's Love!
If God loves you, then why does learning need to happen? God is the source for all answers? In fact why should you get a job, if God is going to bless you? God will take care of you if you have faith in him. Love God, and Be loved by God.
God's love is very powerful. It won't ever really give you power to do anything more, but it will make you feel like you can accomplish more. If what you felt prompted to do, doesn't happen, don't worry, its just because God loves you, and he knows better-that's why he didn't let it happen, you just don't know whats best for you, but God does.
God knows you so well, because he loves you. He won't give you any challenge you can't overcome, because if you're still alive, you pretty much overcame it. wait a second, people die all the time...
For those of you who haven't felt God's Love. Please pray to him. Let him in your hearts, so that he can make you feel special. Because knowing that God loves you just as much as anyone else will make you feel special, right?
!![[My links on Delicious about Health|http://del.icio.us/cutlerite/health]]
!![[Current Fitness Plan|BodyWeight100]]
The [[Body Weight 100|BodyWeight100]] Training.
I hope to move up to the 200, 300 and eventually 500!
[[BodyWeight350]]
!![[Recipes]]
!My, that’s a big basket you’ve got there
Stores have hundreds of enormous shopping carts parked conveniently at the entrance. Once you have selected something, you’re more likely to “find” additional items - after all, that empty space in the cart is just begging to be filled, you must have something else you can buy, right?
''Tip: If you can skip the cart and make do with a basket, you’ll reduce the temptation to over buy. If you can get by without the basket, even better!''
!Mirror, mirror on the wall…
''Vanity mirrors slow you down and keep you looking, but there is more than meets the eye. Most people can’t help but check themselves out, and who’s 100% satisfied with what they see? Making you more self-conscious helps you see new items as a solution. You are more likely to buy, when you’ve walked out of the house in something less flattering than what’s on the rack in front of you.''
''Tip: Wear something that looks good on you while you shop, and avoid mirrors unless you’re already trying something on. Not only will you feel more confident and buy less, you’ll generally get better service too.
Buy in bulk and save?
retail-ticks-buy-in-bulk.pngMisleading bulk sales are another retail favorite. There’s no difference between $5 each and the four for $20 on sale, except that you just might end up with three more than you wanted. Also, products sold in different volumes and weights often have prices that are chosen to confuse you. Shoppers tend to look at $10.49 for 48 ounces and think it’s the equivalent of $4.99 for 24 ounces even though it’s not -you’re paying more for less! Most grocery stores and pharmacies are required to provide per unit pricing signage, but these often don’t reflect sale prices.
Even when it is actually cheaper per unit to buy in bulk, it doesn’t mean you should! Do you really need a gallon of mayonnaise, or 1000 clothes hangers?
''Tip: Compare unit prices, use that calculator on your cell phone, and don’t buy more than you can use, no matter the “savings”.''
!How did they stack all those boxes like that?
Those towering displays of intricately stacked boxes are called power displays, and they are meant to be speed bumps to slow you down and distract you from finding what you came for. Stores like Ikea have taken this to a whole new level. Their layout is specifically designed to require every shopper at least momentary exposure to every major showroom and floor, which increases the chance that you’ll come out with more than what you came in for.
''Tip: Look for shortcut signs to areas of choice & beeline to the checkout.''
!To get to the cheese, you have to get through the maze
Milk, bread, restrooms — all the essentials — are all in the back of the store, because they’re staples that everyone needs, and relatively low margin. Putting them there forces you to check out other merchandise along the way. Getting them first can help you stick to your list.
''Tip: Beeline to the back and work your way forward.
Bargain bins and going-out-of business sales''
We all love feeling like we got a good deal, but don’t be fooled! While some stores pay their clerks to be obsessive about precisely-folded sweaters on display, others actually pay them to make sure the displays are just a bit little messy, because shoppers interpret that (often unconsciously) as a cue that other people thought it was a deal too. Others retailers are known to have annual moving sales, year end sales and re-opening sales that just amount to taking their leftovers off hangers and dumping them into clearance bins.
''Tip: Evaluate the value of a “bargain” objectively, not by how wrinkled it is.''
!Oooh, something smells amazing!
Stores and restaurants love to stimulate your appetite with provocative sights and smells. Grocery stores capitalize on hungry consumers by offering free samples, but this isn’t charity any more than the smell of freshly baked bread is an accident. These are signals to excite you and tempt you into buying foods that are likely no better for your financial health than your physical health.
''Tip: Eat before you shop, or if you’re out shopping for the day, pack a water bottle and a snack!''
!Save even more with our charge card!
There’s a reason why department stores so cheerfully help you afford that overpriced indulgence with a discount on with a store charge card - they make the money later. You’re much more likely to buy big impulse items if you don’t have to count the dollars out the wallet you are holding.
''Tip: Pay in cash. Going to the ATM and physically seeing your bank balance gives you that extra time to consider.
Retailers love to put children to work “helping” you find things''
Manufacturers advertise to children aggressively, so kids are primed to seek out products they have been exposed too. Stores know that catching a kid’s attention is a great way to get distracted parents to fork over cash for an impulse buy, and they purposefully put colorful, fun, shiny items within their reach.
''Tip: Try to leave the kids at home, or have someone watch them. People tend to shop more efficiently without partners and friends, too.''
!Checking out? One last thing…
Drinks, candy, gum, media – all right by the checkout counter. This section is convenient in part because it is compact and limited, but it also means you can’t compare prices, and may not get your favorite brand.
''Tip: Ask yourself if you actually need it, or if it’s worth your place in line to compare prices.''
Source: [[How Retailers Trick You in to Buying Crap You Don’t Need (and How to Fight Back) : Joe Consumer Info|http://www.joeconsumer.info/index.php/shopping/29/how-retailers-trick-you-in-to-buying-crap-you-dont-need-and-how-to-fight-back/]]
How many of you sometimes feel like you're all alone?
"On My Own"
see all those people on the ground
wasting time
try to hold it all inside
(but just for tonight)
on top of the world
sitting here wishing the things i've become..
but something is missing
maybe i..
what do i know?
and now it seems that i have found nothing at all
wanna hear your voice out loud
slow it down, slow it down
without it all, i'm choking on nothing
it's clear in my head, and i'm screaming for something
knowing nothing is better than knowing it all
on my own..
without it all, i'm choking on nothing
it's clear in my head, and i'm screaming for something
knowing nothing is better than knowing it all
on my own..
-The Used.
“On My Own” is purely about searching for meaning in your life. I spent a whole summer sleeping on patches of grass and living out of my backpack with my best friend. There is this place called squaw peak above our town on the mountains where we would go and just listen to music and talk and think about our lives. That song is about those times. Times when I fucking hated everything and wanted to disappear, times when I didn’t know where my life was going and yeah just shit like that. I think anyone can relate to that in some way."
If science is never proven, what makes you so sure you have all the answers?
I remember when I was 17. I made the strongest effort to pray nightly. I really had no knowledge of LDS doctrines, but I would tell anyone and everyone that the church made me happy. Just the fact that I felt like this was how I could be happy I was happy. I seriously didn't know where i'd be if it weren't for doing what I was told to do. It all seemed real to me. And what was going to stop it from being real when I never had to think about any of it? I just had to go by what others told me. What would stop everything from being true in my head? Nothing.
There were times when I thought I was a real truth seeker. I wanted solid black and white truth. I did some real soul searching, but instead of finding a soul I found... Nothing.
It was then that the words, knowing nothing is better than knowing it all, on my own became quite personal.
Maybe this is why the lyrics here strike home to me. Everyone seems to have something, something I'll call hope, but you can substitute that for religion however I think its essentially the same.
In my own opinion there's better ways of becoming happy than just having that reassuring knowledge that you'll be saved. (as arrogant as that complex is)
I'm glad you have hope. I'm glad you've read books and religious texts that diagram what will make you happy in your life. I'm glad those texts and dialogues have defined happiness for you. I'm happy it works for you. It didn't work for me. I ask too many questions.
When I think of religion I see a huge mass amount of people walking in completely different directions. Their paths cross frequently, they even bump into each other. Quite often they all stop and point at the rest and remark at how lost everyone else. They feel good about themselves as soon as they say it, and continue to walk. I'm somewhere in there.... walking really slow... in circles thinking, what is going on here?
You think I'm lost and depressed. I think you're lost and opressed. We're not going to get anywhere with that.
Just think how much better the world would be if we all stopped walking. We'd all feel so much better if we just gave each other back rubs all day. I say that to be funny, but Its kind of true. Everyone would feel better and we wouldn't waste so much time walking and pointing.
My hope is that I can make the world a better place. I don't know exactly what better is. But I do know everyone's world is different. And when I know what someone else wants, (like a backrub) I can help give it to them. Everyone's worlds are different. But you know... I don't think change is bad. And if I change someone... what's going to happen? We're all going to cry about it and then go back in time and make it so everyone remains isolated.... hell no. That's what we get for being alive. We're going to affect and be affected all of our living existence.
Screw business. All it is, is two people giving the other what they think they deserve. And that is nothing new. That's life, and honesty. and don't separate life from business.
Maybe you can't change the world literally. Maybe you shouldn't. All I know, is that people have changed my world. They didn't necessarily all intend to change my world, but they did. Is it wrong to aspire to be like them? no.
Its then that I realize why the used wrote the song. Its not about being depressed. Its not about being alone. Its about the people you were with when you realized you had nothing together. Its funny how you can say, "how many of you sometimes feel like you're all alone?" and everyone raises their hands, and at that very instant you all get shudders because you realize you're not alone.
Yeah we all have doubts, no one really knows everything. We all have problems, and we all have our own ideas of solutions. But arguing about who's right and who's wrong won't help the world.
Hugh Nibley.
Various individuals unconnected with these institutionalized activities have also wrestled with the archaeological problem. Few of the writings they have produced are of genuine consequence in archaeological terms. Some are clearly on the oddball fringe; others have credible qualifications. Two of the most prolific are Professor Hugh Nibley and Milton R. Hunter; however, they are not qualified to handle the archaeological materials their works often involve e. As long as Mormons generally are willing to be fooled by (and pay for) the uninformed, uncritical drivel about archeology and the scriptures which predominates, the few LDS experts are reluctant even to be identified with the topic.
–John L. Sorenson, a Mormon Archaeologist.
Hurricane Katrina, God's Work?
“Never getting help doesn't make you brave,
Not listening to reason doesn't mean you have faith.”
Straylight Run.
I honestly don't know where or how to start this thing...But I feel its totally necessary.
Unfortunately, being completely honest with myself and with you, I don't think I have really been affected by Hurricane Katrina. Its funny how I have not done anything to help. I don't even know if it REALLY happened or not, I just read about all the horrible damage that has been done. I hate that. I want to be affected, because it is so devastating. I know what flood damage is like. I've actually done disaster cleanup before, it absolutely sucked, and I hated seeing the damage done to the homes... It just sucks being so far away, and all I have is to read about it.
Probably the biggest realization for me, was that there was really no major difference between each of those flood victims and myself. I wasn't smarter for chosing to live in a desert area. I wasn't more blessed or righteous either. I didn't consciously choose to live in the desert to avoid a hurricane. I haven't been living righteous thinking, if I live righteously God won't destroy me by a natural disaster.
It pisses me off to hear all the people who were protected through the whole destruction, say God caused it to happen because the other people were wicked. WTF?
Can you believe what they're saying about the hurricane in my religion class? God is destroying that city because its wicked, Mardi Gra is completely wrong. This is a sign of the second coming. Some people even think that God decided to strike that city because they were going to have a Gay Parade...read it for yourself here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_theories_regarding_Hurricane_Katrina
Here's a direct quote from Reverend Fred Phelps:
“New Orleans, symbol of America, seen for what it is: a putrid, toxic, stinking cesspool of fag fecal matter. Pray for more dead bodies floating on the fag-semen-rancid waters of New Orleans”
I am so pissed off now from reading that.
There's Homosexuality everywhere... There's sins going on everywhere. PROVO UTAH for crying outloud is like the major METH city of America, along with some of the highest Adult PPV'S ordered... Here's a reference if you don't believe me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provo,_Utah
I wonder what these people will say when some earthquake hits provo... did you know Provo is 10 years overdue for a major natural disaster? Read for yourself: Earthquake
God doesn't cause the natural disasters. God doesn't cause terrorist acts. I don't care if it happened in the bible. You have to remember that the people wrote the bible in the times when they thought every storm was caused by God. Not by science...
About a third of the world's population is Christian.... I think God should destroy the rest of the two thirds, because they're evil... All muslims are evil.... bla bla.. that's so sick and demented. Even within that “third” they all agree that the other denominations are going to burn... I can't believe how horrible it gets. Christians believe some of the dumbest crap sometimes.
Currently the death toll is only 1,100 people, as of September 23rd. If you believe God caused the hurricane to destroy the wicked, you pretty much need to think God failed. Most of those people are elderly people. 1 million people were evacuated... and only a thousand killed.....hmm... God struck out or something.
Someone in my religion class said God caused the Indonesian Tsunami because they were making the most child pornography videos.... Great... 310,000 people died because of a couple hundred perverts...
If God was after “perverts and homosexuals” he's got a lot of cities to destroy if you believe he's out there to do that.
Oh, and I'm just really pissed about the war in Iraq. That thing is costing us daily. It's over 200 billion dollars, just about as much as the debt we'll be in for hurricane katrina... not to mention the other 200 billion dollars that we're giving to nasa to go land on the moon again... i can't believe this.
I just don't get how people believe God is out to destroy people, someone please explain to me God's motivation for doing so.
I go here
This was in our newspaper today:
51 percent of students who graduated from BYU last year were married. Only 3 percent of the yale university graduating class were married, and the national average of married graduates is 11 percent.
..couples at BYU usually date about six months before becoming engaged, 41 percent of married students met at a church activity and the average age students are when they get married is about 22 years old.
Isn't that sick?
Today someone made the comment, "why is it that only ugly people always PDA?" Maybe we're only bothered by it because we find it disgusting. if two beautiful people were doing the PDA thing, we'd find it cute I'd bet, and or wouldn't care.
I hate marriage. you should read my "I hate marriage blog" if you haven't already.
I Live Here (I go here part 2)
Here's a clip out of the BYU newspaper today:
In 2000, 23,996 marriages took place and 9,604 divorces were granted.
Utah's marriage rate is 10.6 per 1,000 people, whereas the national average is 8.7 per 1,000/
The divorce rate in Utah is 4.3 per 1,000 people, compared to 4.1 nationally.
Median age for first marriage in Utah is 23 for grooms, compared to 27 nationally. For brides in Utah it is 21, compared to 25 nationally.
Median age at divorce in Utah is 31 for usbands and 29 for wives.
There were 10,600 children involved in divorce in Utah in 2000.
In Utah 18% divorces occur in the first year of marriage.
50% the divorces in Utah occur within the first 5 years of marriage and 70
I've become what I hated
Just for your information, the background of my profile is of Wentworth Miller, the dude from the hit show, “prison break.” I’m obsessed with the show, and if any of you ever want to get together and watch it with me Monday evenings, you are more than welcome to.
Now down to the dirt.
I think I have officially become the person that I used to hate.
I remember the times when I felt anger, jealousy towards people who weren’t religiously involved, but took on the appearance of it (jack mormons). I prided myself on the fact that I was happy because I stayed away from all of “those things that make you unhappy.” I knew they were sad, I knew they were depressed, and if they weren’t miserable now, they soon would be… They would be addicted to drugs, and have a child at age 18. They were unhappy… I was happy…I kept telling myself that… And sure enough, when I thought I was happy, I was happy.
I knew they were worldly and I was not. I was focusing on things that were not of this world. Things I had never seen nor would I ever see in my mortal existence. And that was making me happy… or at least I told myself. I told myself that reading scriptures made me happy, and it honestly did.
So I guess this “non-worldly” happiness is REAL happiness. What is it really? I don’t know exactly anymore. I personally believe its love in all its pure forms. I don’t think its knowing that Jesus will save you from your sins… It’s like a teacher telling you he’ll let all your mistakes fly… Sure it’s nice to know, but its nothing you can solidify an eternity’s well being… right?
Anyways, that’s what I thought. I kept telling myself Jesus saved me. But Jesus atoned for everyone. So really, my happiness was all comparative. In my mind I compared myself to those around me… I remembered everything I was taught about unhappiness, and I knew that if I wasn’t involved in any of that stuff, I must be happy. Funny how that works.
I avoided people who were “stupid” with their lives. Then, when I was forced to live with them, in college and the MTC, I hated them. I loathed them for what they were, and what they didn’t care about. I had taken everything so literal, and they had all the fun, and Jesus was going to save them just the same. Ever seen saved yeah I felt like mandy moore did near the end of that movie. (if you haven’t seen it, watch it.)
And now… I’m that impassionate person that used to infuriate me. I’m too weary when it comes to common religious customs, and organization. I’m pretty open minded. I don’t have that religious pride that motivated me once before… you know the “I’m so happy because the way I live has brought me happiness, and all the rest of you should live like me so you can be happy too” attitude.
There are many things that make me happy. Love is one of them. I love my family. I love my friends. My friends make me happy. Worldly material things make me happy too. I love hobbies, I love toys, I love food, I love kissing, I love blogs…. Etc.
isn't it funny how someone can be totally mad, but then tell us they'll always love us... I kind of believe it, but we all know their love and respect has gone down a little... and to be all honest, if I'm not feeling the love, I'm not feeling happy... and so I hate it when people say love is eternal... because it isn't.... it's dependent conditional and even situational... bla bla bla... moving on.
So now that I am materialistic, and I no longer am “religiously happy” am I delusional? Even when I’ve become that very person that so many religious people despise, the doubting, overly open-minded, nonconformist, can I still be happy? Should I take my parents advice and see counseling, because my principles have changed? Are they right when they tell me I’m not “REALLY happy.” Does my sister need to check on me and update my parents, because I lost trust with them? I really don’t think so. I know I could be happier. Hell, I who knows how happy I could be if I kept telling myself I’m happy because of Christ… It would all be up to me to do that, and I don’t simple because it would be me, nothing else… that to me is scary. People can tell themselves self mutilation makes them happy. Do I need this non-worldly happiness? Is it essential?
There are 3 primary classes of IP addresses
*''Class A'': first octet ranges from 1 to 126 with bit pattern of ''0''0000000 to ''0''1111111
*''Class B'':first octet ranges from 128 to 191 with a bit pattern of ''10''000000 to ''10''111111
*''Class C'':first octet ranges from 192 to 223 with bit pattern of ''110''00000 to ''110''11111
''Teacher'': Waclaw G Wojtkowski
''Office'': 308H
''Phone'': 426-1227
''Email'': gwojtkow@boisestate.edu
''Office Hours''
Monday Wednesday 4-6pm
![[Lecture No. 2|ITM315Lecture2]]
*Database definitions
![[Lecture No. 3|ITM315Lecture3]]
![[Lecture No..4|ITM315Lecture4]]
![[Chapter 3|ITM315Chapter3]]
God I hate this class
[[Chapter 3 assignment|ITM315Assignment1]]
Dr. Rob Anson
308-B
Phone: 426-3029
ranson@boisestate.edu
[[Group Website|http://groups.google.com/group/itm320?lnk=li]]
[[Business Analyst]]
![[Lecture No. 2]]
*Extreme Chaos
![[Lecture No. 3|ITMLecture No 3]]
*Methodologies
*Roadtrip
*What is a development Methodolgy?
*Be familiar with the system development methodologies, such as waterfall, RAD, iterative prototyping agile, etc
![[Lecture No. 4|ITMLecture No 4]]
*boobs
![[Lecture No. 6|ITMLecture No 5]]
*test review
![[Exam 1 Review|ITM320Exam Review]]
*Topics
*Reading Summaries
*Key Topics
[[HOME|http://telecomm.boisestate.edu/itm360.spring.2008/]]
[[SCHEDULE|http://telecomm.boisestate.edu/itm360.spring.2008/schedule.htm]]
[[CISCO Handbook|http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/index.htm]]
![[Lecture No. 1|ITM360 Lecture No1]]
*[[OSI Model]]
*[[ATM]]
![[Lecture No. 2|ITM360 Lecture No2]]
*TCP
![[Lecture No. 3|ITM360 Lecture No3]]
*[[IP Address Classes]]
*[[Subnetting]]
![[Lecture No. 4|ITM360 Lecture No4]]
#[[itm360ass3]]
''Write a CREATE TABLE statement for the customer table. Choose data types appropriate for the DMS used in your course. Note that the CUSTBAL column contains numeric data. The currency symbols are not stored in the database. The ~CustFirstName columns are required (not null).''
|>|>|CREATE TABLE|
|(|~CustNo|CHAR(8)|
||~CustFirstName|VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL,|
||~CustLastName|VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,|
||~CustCity|VARCHAR(30),|
||~CustState|CHAR(2),|
||~CustZip|CHAR(10),|
||~CustBal|DECIMAL(12,2),|
|>|CONSTRAINT ~PKCustomer PRIMARY KEY (~CustNo)|'')''|
!!Outline
*Relational model basics
*Integrity Rules
*Rules about referenced rows
*relational Algebra
Relational model basics:
**Tables
**Columns and data types
**Matching values
**Alternative terminology
**SQL CREATE TABLE statement
*Integrity rules: primary and foreign keys
*Referenced rows: actions when referenced rows are modified
*Relational algebra
**Cover simple operators
**Provide separate slide shows for join, outer join, and division operators
**May want to mix relational algebra coverage with SQL
Convention:
**Table names begin with uppercase
**Mixed case for column names
**First part of column name is an abbreviation for the table name
**Upper case for data
*Define table name, column names, and column data types
*Other clauses added later in the lecture
*Data type:
**Set of values
**Permissible values
**Vary by DBMS
**CHAR: fixed length character strings
**VARCHAR: variable length character strings
**DECIMAL: fixed precision numbers
**Table 3-2 lists common data types
!!Common Data Types
''CHAR(L)
VARCHAR(L)
INTEGER
FLOAT(P)
Date/Time: DATE, TIME, TIMESTAMP
DECIMAL(W, R)
BOOLEAN''
#CHAR: fixed length character strings
#VARCHAR: variable length character strings
Date/Time: SQL standard provides 3 data types; most #DBMSs only support one data type; data type name is not standard across DBMSs
The floating point is the blanks of the exponents.
!!Key terms
''Superkey'': column(s) with unique values
''Candidate key'': minimal superkey
''Null value'': special value meaning value unknown or inapplicable
''Primary key'': a designated candidate key; cannot contain null values
''Foreign key'': column(s) whose values must match the values in a candidate key of another table
characters are 8 bits, boolean is either 0 or 1. It is the natural of language
!Tables
*Relational database is a collection of tables
''Database Definition''
*Define database structure before using a database
*tables and relationships
*SQL CREATE TABLE Statement
**all you need to know is the name of the tables and the
*Graphical tools
**M$ Access.
[[Foriegn Key]]
//two tables are matched by a foreign key. In the context of relational databases, a foreign key is a referential constraint between two tables//
''Definition'' see [[wikipedia|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_key]]
''Schema'' - will be the source code for definitions. IT will generate meta data (information about your database)
!!University Example Database
*ERD
!!Nonprocedural Access
*Query: request for data to answer a question
*Indicate what parts of database to retrieve not the procedural details
*Improve productivity and improve accessibility
*SQL Select statement and graphical tools
!!Application development
*Form: Formatted document for data entry and display
*report: formated document for display
*use nonprocedural access to specify data requirements of forms and reports
!!Transaction Processing
*Transaction: unit of work that should be reliably processed
*Control simultaneous users
*Recover from failures
!!Develop a Common Vocabulary
*Diverse groups of users
*Difficult to obtain acceptance of a common vocabulary
*Compromise to find least objectionable solution
*Unify organization by establishing a common vocabulary
!!Define Meaning of Data
*Business rules support organizational policies
*Restrictiveness of business rules
**Too restrictive: reject valid business interactions
**Too loose: allow erroneous business interactions
*Exceptions allow flexibility
!!Data Quality
*Poor data quality leads to poor decision making
**Difficult customer communication
**Inventory shortages
*Cost-benefit tradeoff to achieve desired level of data quality
*Long-term effects of poor data quality
I fucking hate this class.
''Normalization'' will tell you how to fix redundancy.
!!The Systems Analyst/Business Analyst
#Lecture 1.2 We talked about the Business analyst and system analyst roles and competencies,
''Business Analyst''
#analyze key business aspects
#''Project related Competency''analyzing, testing
#''career path'' communication, technical understanding
#''professional qualities''leadership, teamwork
''System Analyst''
#identify how technology can improve business processes.
''Infrastructure Analyst''
#Ensure the system conforms to infrastructure standards
''Change management''
#Develope and execute a user training plan
''Project Manager''
#Manage the team of analysts
!!Topics Questions
#What are the systems/business analyst responsibilities
##analyze key business aspects
##Identify how the system will provide business value
##Design the new business process
##''Project related Competency''analyzing, testing
##''career path'' communication, technical understanding
##''professional qualities''leadership, teamwork
#''What are two particularly challenging responsibilities of the systems analyst and why are they particularly challenging.''
##Both the users and the developers are telling you to get the job done, but you have to keep in mind the management perspective, and the technical perspective.
##Trying to resolve problems on a limited budget.
!!IS Project Success and Failure
#''Top causes of project success or failure and explain how they contribute to success (or failure).''
##People Performing Perfect Process
##The first is a trend toward smaller
application development initiatives.
##Better project management through communication
##Standard infrastructure
#''Success criteria in CHAOS study (on time, budget, meets requirements''
##Minimization - communication - standard infrastructure
##Good project manager - Interactive processes - good tools - adherence to key roles
##no longer than 6 months - no more than 6 people - no more than 750,000
#''General strategies/principles we use in IS to manage chaos and complexity of IS projects. ''
##Limit scope
##Focus on the essential
##Break big things into smaller pieces
##Examine things iteratively—few at a time
##Review and refine
##Use visual when possible
##''resolve'' through SLDC development Phase
## Waterfall, RAD, Iterative, Prototyping, Agile
#Success Rate
##%55 @ <$750,000 <6
!!Methodologies
#''Describe each phase of the SDLC'' its major activities and deliverables.
##''PADIS'' Project Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation, Support
>''Planning ''
>*Why & Should we build the system?
>*Determine problem, feasibility, schedule, resources
>''Analysis''
>*What must the system be able to do?
>*Determine business requirements
>''Design''
>*How will the system work?
>*Determine solution—architecture, interface, networks, database, controls
>''Implementation''
>*Construct, test, install, train system
>''Support''
>*Maintain & upgrade system
##''SEE SDLC'' page for more details, you need to know how to differentiate and list examples of each phase.
''What is the difference etween the [[SDLC]] and a development methodology''
#A [[Methodology]] is a formalized approach to implementing the [[SDLC]]
#''SDLC'' -- conceptual phases that define the activities and deliverables to build an IS
##PADIS
#''Development Methodologies'' apply those basic phases in different ways to develop an IS, and may add tools, techniques and models Examples:
##Structured (Waterfall, Parallel)
##RAD (Phased, Prototyping)
##Agile (Extreme Programming, SCRUM, Unified Process)
!!Project Management
#Develop Work Breakdown Schedule (WBS)
##List of tasks required for project
##Like an outline
#Build a GANTT chart from the WBS
##Adds time estimates
##Adds resources
##Use for tracking by adding actual time
#Build a PERT/CPM chart
##CPM = Critical Path Method
''Describe major activites, deverables, etc of planning phase''
#15% of SDLC
#Need to estimate system size, effort required, estimate time required.
#''Planning Phase Approach''
##A place to start
##Very loosy goosy!
#Time-boxing Approach
##Based on imposed scheduling realities
#Detailed Task Analysis Approach
##Base on aggregate of task time estimates
##Ok if task plan known and stable
#Formal Estimation Approach
##More complex and reliable
##Based on breakdown of actual project requirements plus standard estimates
#''Time Boxing approach''
#''Formal Estimation Approach using Use Cases''
##Parallel to Function Points approach
##Based on Risk
##Core functionality (Use Cases)
###Major infrastructure components (database, CORBA, network)
##Iteration planning
###Use use case based estimates to help define goals, executables and deadlines for iterations
###Adjust work to manage set iteration duration
''What is the Critical Path?''
*The Critical Path is the primary determinant of how long the project will take—rather, the minimum time it will require. If a Critical Path task gets behind, then (usually) the entire project gets behind. The Critical Path defines what is critical!
''How might you use the Critical Path to help get a late project back on track?
#The CP is made up of work TASKS, not work products
#Many tasks may be critical to overall project success……but only the CP tasks are critical to meeting the project schedule.
#Changing tasks on the CP may change the Path in unpredictable ways
''Will adding people to a project get it back on track?
#“Adding people to a software project increases the total effort necessary in three ways: the work and disruption of repartitioning itself, training the new people, and added intercommunication.”
''Estimation''
''Compare 4 different estimation approaches to prepare an estimate for a project and cost''
#Planning Phase Approach
##A place to start
##Very loosy goosy!
#Time-boxing Approach
##Based on imposed scheduling realities
#Detailed Task Analysis Approach
##Base on aggregate of task time estimates
##Ok if task plan known and stable
#Formal Estimation Approach
##More complex and reliable
##Based on breakdown of actual project requirements plus standard estimates
''Sources of information used for estimation''
#how much uncertainty exists in the project
#how systematic and detailed is our process for creating the estimates
#the stage we are at in the project
''Describe Time-Boxing Approach''
#Set delivery date
##Deadline should not be impossible
##Should be set by development group
#Prioritize features by importance
#Build the system core (most to least priority items)
#Postpone unfinished functionality
#Deliver the system with core functionality
#Repeat steps 3-5 to add refinements and enhancements
''What are key things to regularly track to make sure the project is progressing well?''
#Establish baseline plans
#Regular tracking of…tasks and problems
#Change Control Process, only necessary changes are made
''developing the project schedule''
#Work breakdown schedule
##Lists all of the jobs, and divides them into categories, and gives each task an estimated length of time.
''different sources for identifying tasks and approach''
#Grant chart - horizontal bar chart lined up with calendar.
#Program evluation review technique - flow chart when individual task times are fairly uncertain.
!!Project Initiation
''draw a kiviat diagram''
[img[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/cutlerite/weigersprinciples.png]]
''Customer isn't always right''
#Look past customer request for feature to address underlying real need
#Look beyond local interests of primary customers
#Know where the customer’s expertise stops
#Be honest with your customers
#Make commitments or tell others early of changes
!!Networking Components
!Communication Networks
Chapter 2
Communications Networks
Introduction
Topics
Telephony Networks
OSI Reference Model
The Internet
Asynchronous Transfer Mode Networks
Networking Components
Network Topologies
Introduction
A network is a group of computers that can communicate with each other so they can share information
When computers can communicate with each other they can share resources
When a server provides a resource for a client to access, this is referred to as a shared resource
Telephony Networks
IP telephony networks make better use of available bandwidth
VoIP network carries voice traffic cheaper than a switched circuit telephone network
Telephony Networks
In a PSTN, a dedicated end-to-end circuit is allocated for each call
In a VoIP network, data is much more compressed and carried in packets
The OSI Model
An architecture that allows the devices of different manufacturers to work together to communicate with different operating systems
This architecture determines how hardware, software, topologies and protocols exist on the network and how they operate
The OSI Model
Physical layer
Defines mechanical, functional, procedural and electrical aspects of networking
Includes connectors, circuits, voltage levels and grounding
The OSI Model
Data Link layer
Converts data from upper layers into logical packages or frames
Converts logical frames into raw bits that are transmitted by the Physical layer
The OSI Model
Network layer
Provides connectivity and path selection between two systems
routing and addressing layer
The OSI Model
Transport layer
Provides a virtual end-to-end connection so that data transferred between two hosts will arrive without errors and in the correct order
The OSI Model
Session layer
Allows two applications on different computers to establish dialog control
Regulates which side transmits
Determines the time and length of the transmission
The OSI Model
Presentation layer
Translates data from the Application layer into an intermediary format
Provides services such as data encryption, and compresses data
The OSI Model
Application layer
Provides application programs access to print and file services to ensure that effective communication with other application programs is possible
Data Encapsulation
The Internet
The Internet was originally called ARPANET
Developed by the Department of Defense to provide a way to connect networks
Internet is a network of interconnected, yet independent networks
The language of the Internet is TCP/IP
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Networks
ATM uses connection-oriented switches to permit senders and receivers to communicate by establishing a dedicated circuit
Data travels in fixed 53-byte cells
Five bytes are used for header information and 48 bytes are used for data
Data transfer rate can reach up to 9,953 Mbps
Networking Components
Baseband uses a digital transmission pulse at a single fixed frequency
Entire bandwidth of the cable is used to transmit one data signal
Limits any cable strand to either half duplex or full duplex
Networking Components
Broadband uses analog transmission over a continuous range of values
Travels one way only in optical waves
Necessary to have two channels, one for receiving and one for sending data
More than one transmission can operate on a single cable
Networking Components
Media: Cables and Wireless
Coaxial cable was the first type of cable used to network computers
Coaxial cables are made of a thick copper core with an outer metallic shield used to reduce external interference
Twisted pair cable comes in seven different categories.
Networking Components
Media: Cables and Wireless
Twisted-pair cabling is either unshielded (UTP) or shielded (STP)
Fiber was designed for transmissions at higher speeds over longer distances
Fiber uses light pulses for signal transmission, making it immune to RFI, EMI, and eavesdropping
Networking Components
Media: Cables and Wireless
Wireless network refers to technology that allows two or more computers to communicate using standard network protocols, but without network cabling
Wireless networking hardware requires the use of technology that deals with data transmission over radio frequencies
Networking Components
Media: Cables and Wireless
Most widely used wireless standard is the IEEE 802.11 standard
The IEEE standards for wireless are 802.11a and 802.11b
Networking Components
A hub is a multiport repeater that retransmits a signal on all ports
Operates at Layer 1 of the OSI model
Can connect segments or a network
Cannot segment a network
Networking Components
A bridge can connect two different types of topologies
Does not understand anything above the Data Link layer
Moves data more rapidly
Takes longer to transmit because it analyzes each packet
Networking Components
Switches operate at the Data Link layer of the OSI model
Packet forwarding decisions are based on MAC addresses
Determines from a physical address (MAC address) which device a packet is intended for and switches it out toward that device
Networking Components
Routers operate at the Network layer of the OSI model
Forwards information to its destination on the network or the Internet
Routers maintain tables that are checked each time a packet needs to be redirected from one interface to another
Networking Topologies
All devices on the network compete for access on a single shared piece of media
Only one device can transmit or talk on the media at a time while all others must listen
When more than one device simultaneously tries to talk, there is competition for access to the media resulting in a collision of information
Networking Topologies
Bus topology:
Consists of computers connected by a single cable called a backbone
All the computers share in its capacity
Simplest method for connecting computers
10Base2 or10Base5 cable is used
The more devices, the slower the network
Networking Topologies
Ring topology:
Consists of each computer, connects directly to the next one in line, forming a circle
Data travels in a clockwise direction and each machine accepts the information intended for it
Passes on the information that is for other machines
Networking Topologies
Ring topology:
Uses a token, which is actually a small packet, to send information
Every computer in the ring is responsible for either passing the token or creating a new one
Networking Topologies
Peer-to-peer network:
All machines are equal
Each can act as a server and a client
There is no central control over shared resources
Individual users decide what to share and with whom
Less secure than a server based network
Networking Topologies
Star topology:
Computers are connected to a centralized hub by a cable segment
Require more cabling than ring or bus topologies
One computer connection goes down, it does not affect the rest of the network
Much easier to move computers around or connect them to other networks
!!Networking Topologies
*Mesh topology:
**All devices are connected to each other more than once to create fault tolerance
**A single device or cable failure will not affect the performance
**More expensive
**Requires more hardware and cabling
!!Networking Topologies
!!!Star bus topology:
*Computers are connected to hubs in a star formation and then the hubs are connected via bus topology
*More expensive to implement
*Longer distances can be covered
*Networks can more easily be isolated
*Networking Topologies
!!!Star ring topology:
*Data is sent in a circular motion around the star
*Eliminates the single point of failure that happens in a ring topology
*Uses token passing data transmission with the physical layout of a star
Introduction
Topics
Defining Network Terms
Local Area Network Technologies
Wide Area Network Technologies
Metropolitan Area Network Technologies
Infrastructure Protocols
Wireless Network Technologies
Introduction
Computer networks are classified into three broad categories as defined by size, geography, and ownership of the physical infrastructure
Classifications
LAN
MAN
WAN
Defining Network Terms
A Local Area Network (LAN) is a collection of networking equipment located geographically close together
The LAN infrastructure is owned by the company
A LAN utilizes high-speed data transfer capabilities
Defining Network Terms
A Wide Area Network (WAN) contains networking equipment spread out over a large geographic area
Connection services are typically leased from telecommunications providers such as phone companies or ISPs
Equipment runs at much slower speeds compared to LANs
Defining Network Terms
A Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) combines the characteristics of both LANs and WANs
A MAN is limited by geography to a single metropolitan area
Local Access and Transport Areas (LATAs) are often used to define the boundaries for MANs
Network Protocols
A protocol is a set of rules governing a given activity
Network protocols create standard methods of communications for networked devices
Standard LAN protocols include Ethernet, Token Ring, and Fiber Channel
Ethernet Basics
Network protocols defines how clients gain access to the medium
Traditional Ethernet clients use carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD)
Half-Duplex Ethernet
CSMA/CD
One-pair of wires to send
One-pair of wires to receive
Full-Duplex Ethernet
Point-to-point connections required
Two-pair of wires used for sending
Two-pairs of wires used for receiving
Up to 200 Mbps for Fast Ethernet
Ethernet Frame Types
Ethernet I is the original Ethernet that was developed at PARC by the DIX consortium
Ethernet II was developed quickly after the original 802.3 specification and published in 1982
Ethernet SNAP (Sub-Network Access Protocol) has an additional function to include the Type field found in Ethernet II
Ethernet Raw is Novell’s proprietary frame format
Ethernet Frame Interaction
Ethernet II
uses Type field to identify upper-layer protocol
802.3
Type assumed to be IPX
has length field instead
802.2
Identifies protocol for 802.3 frame
SNAP
allows Ethernet II frame to be used in 802.3 frame
Ethernet Media and Topology
Ethernet has evolved from a signaling rate of 10 Mbps to a current speed of 1 Gbps
Implementations supporting 10 Gbps have been developed, but are not yet formally standardized
Media Types
Thick coaxial cabling
Thin coaxial cabling
Unshielded twisted pair
Shielded twisted pair
Multimode Fiber
Single-mode Fiber
Local Area Network Technology
Types of Ethernet Cables
Token Ring
Token Ring was originally developed by IBM for LAN communications
Token Ring is a token-passing environment
The token is a special frame that is transmitted from one device to the next
Clients must possess the electronic token before they can transmit data
Token Ring Topology
Clients plug into a device called a Multi-station Access Unit (MAU)
A MAU looks like an Ethernet hub but has an internal ring instead of a bus
MAUs can be linked together to extend the ring by connecting the Ring In and Ring Out ports
Token Ring Components
Active Monitor
Standby Monitor
Monitor contention
Ring polling
Token Ring Cabling
Physical star topology
STP or UTP cabling (4 to 16 Mbps)
IBM cabling used a proprietary classification scheme
Current speeds – 100 Mbps
Token Ring Frame Types
Token
Logical Link Control (LLC)
Media Access Control (MAC)
FDDI
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) is another token-passing environment that relies on a dual ring configuration for fault-tolerance
In addition to its ability to recover from a primary ring failure FDDI also functions at 100 Mbps
FDDI Implementation
FDDI is commonly used as a backbone network architecture because of its failover capability
If the primary ring fails for any reason, the nearest DAC/DAS will wrap the signal on the wire
FDDI Layouts
Point-to-point
Arbitrated loop
Switching Fabric
Point-to-Point FDDI
one of the most common configurations in Fiber Channel
used to connect external drive arrays, printers, and other hardware component resources to servers
Arbitrated Loop FDDI
has become the preferred configuration for Fiber Channel
It is a mixture of both Ethernet and Token Ring topologies
It can support as many as 127 devices
FDDI Fabric Configuration
used to connect as many as 16,777,216 devices in a switched configuration
Unlike an AL configuration, the devices in a fabric can communicate at the same time
Fiber Channel can run on fiber-optic cable and STP copper
Wide Area Network Technology
WAN technologies can be traced back to the early days of mainframe computer systems
WANs give companies the ability to leverage information technology across wide geographic areas
Wide Area Network Technology
WANs can be classified in one of the following three ways:
Circuit switching involves creating a circuit between two points when needed
Packet switching uses virtual circuits for data delivery
Cell switching uses virtual circuits but the cells do not vary in size
Integrated Services Digital Network
ISDN is digital circuit-switched technology similar based upon public switched telephone network (PSTN)
When using ISDN, you dial a number just as with PSTN
ISDN Service Types
Basic Rate Interface (BRI) which is composed of two 64-kbps B channels and one 16-kbps D channel
Primary Rate Interface (PRI) which is composed of twenty-three 64-kbps channels and one 64-kbps D channel
Frame Relay
a very popular high-speed packet switching WAN protocol
utilizes PVC and SVC technology for data transfer and is a subscriber-based WAN service
Services are leased from a provider
Provider runs a line to company demarcation point
Company connects to line via CSU\DSU
Frame Relay switching network is used to route messages between company offices
Switched Multimegabit Data Service
SMDS is high-speed, cell-switching technology
It supports data rates from DS1, at 1.544 Mbps to DS3 at 44.736 Mbps
SMDS utilizes connectionless datagrams that are large enough to encapsulate entire LAN protocols such as Ethernet and Token Ring without altering them
Synchronous Optical Network
SONET allows different data stream formats to be combined into a single synchronous high-speed signal over fiber
SONET offers a common denominator signaling method for different signals by adding overhead and control information
SONET Data Rates
SONET is often used in large companies with varied WAN solutions in place or between service providers
The basic unit, or signaling rate, is 51.84 Mbps and is known as Optical Carrier 1 (OC1)
OC-256 is the fastest current standard
High-level Data Link Control
HDLC is commonly used on point-to-point WAN interfaces and between local serial interfaces as needed
It is a derivative of IBM’s Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC) protocol used in Systems Network Architecture (SNA)
HDLC Configurations
HDLC functions using two primary configurations:
Point-to-Point in which the configuration is comprised of only two nodes, one on each end of the link
Multipoint configurations allow the use of multiple nodes on the same link
Metropolitan Area Networks
MANs can use a combination of the WAN/LAN technologies for interconnecting networks
MANs are limited in scope to a single metropolitan area or LATA
IEEE 802.6 and IEEE 802-2001 define a wide range of characteristics of a MAN relating to technologies used
Infrastructure Protocols
Infrastructure protocols differ from LAN and WAN protocols
They tend to focus on extending network functionality to a small subset of users or even to a single client
Infrastructure Protocols
Three of the most popular Infrastructure Protocols:
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)
Infrastructure Protocols
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is used to connect client systems into an existing WAN infrastructure
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is most often used when connecting users using virtual private networks (VPNs)
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is the next generation of tunneling and is similar in function to PPTP
Wireless Network Technology
Wireless generally requires line of sight (LOS) between the two connection points
Buildings and natural formations can cause problems when trying to send and receive signals
Wireless offers freedom from monthly WAN fees, but the up-front cost for purchasing and installing wireless may be prohibitive
Wireless Network Technology
Wireless can be configured using several different signaling technologies such as:
Radio communications involve configuring transceivers for delivering data through point-to-point or multipoint configuration over a range of 1 to 10 miles
Wireless Network Technology
Wireless can be configured using several different signaling technologies such as:
Microwave technology uses microwave signaling and has the ability to be transmitted distances of 30 miles or more with significantly higher speeds
Infrared is a low-power wireless technology that is good for short distances, typically on an office floor
Wireless Network Technology
Wireless technologies are currently defined in the following IEEE standards:
802.11a: Operates at 5.0 GHz and has a data rate of 54 Mbps
802.11b: Operates at 2.4 GHz and has a data rate of 11 Mbps
802.11g: Operates at 2.4 GHz and has a data rate of 54 Mbps
Wireless Network Technology
802.1x uses standard Ethernet frames to encapsulate Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) requests
Bluetooth is an open standard that allows interoperation between equipment from different vendors and is aimed primarily at LAN devices and components
Home RF is one of the newest standards in RF wireless technology to help meet demands in the home networking arena
!TCP/IP
*It has become the standard for many LANs, as well as the internet, for its routing ability
*originally called the NCP (network control protocol).
''TCP maps out to the 4th layer of the OSI Model''
*focuses on interconnectivvity more than functional layers
*TCP/IP is also called the internet reference model
#layers
##Network access
##Internet
##Transport
##Application
!!Network Access Layer Protocols
*lowest layer
*Access layer delivers data to computers and devices on the network
//other network access protocols//
*''~ARP'' Address resolution protocol
*''~RARP'' Reverse address resolution protocol
!!Internet Layer protocols
relies on routable protocols for delivery
*It is a low overhead best effort delivery protocol
''The Internet layer Protocols''
#IP
#ICMP
#ARP
#RARP
!!Packet Delivery
*IP compares the destination address in the packet header to router table addresses
*If the address corresponds to a local network, the datagram is delivered to the appropriate computer
*If the address corresponds to a remote network, the packet is passed to a router for delivery
*''TTL'' Time to live, prevents packet from circulating on the network forever.
*The TTL value is decreased by 1 each time it is handled, //default value is usually 120//
''MTU'' limits the size of packets. If packets are larger, the router will splice them up.
|''TCP''|''UDP''|
|sequenced|unsequenced|
|Reliable|Unreliabel|
|Connection oriented|Connectionless|
*[[IP Address Classes]]
*[[Subnetting]]
*[[Default Subnet Masks]]
!!Subnetting Class C Addresses - Fast Method
#How many subnets does the chosen subnet mask produce?
#How many valid hosts per subnet are available?
#What are the valid subnets?
#What's the broadcast address of each subnet?
#What are the valid hosts in each subnet?
''use the subnet calculator in the book table 7.13''
|Bits masked|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|
|Subnet Interval|128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1|
|Decimal Mask|128|192|224|240|248|252|254|255|
|Networks created|2|4|8|16|32|64|128|256|
''also See table 7.10'' in the book
2^=number of subnets
*x is the number of masked bits (1s)
*for example, if 2 bits are used to identify the subnet (1100 0000 =192) there are 2^2 or 4 subnets
|Bits masked|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|
|Subnet Interval|128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1|
|Decimal Mask|128|192|224|240|248|252|254|255|
|Networks created|2|4|8|16|32|64|128|256|
2^6 - second =
2^8 third and fourth
2^22 = 2^10*2^10*2^2
2^30 and the two leftover the network would take up 2^30 - 2^2
that woud be the mask:
''class c''
255.255.255.252
!Road Trip
*We tend to believe that a carefully laid-out plan and tight schedule is the only way to develop a new piece of software. In fact, iterative and incremental techniques offer a better approach to creating software; small steps in the process are accomplished, demonstrated, and evaluated, and discoveries often suggest new ways to go about achieving the next steps.
*adding a feature after the project plan has been approved is termed as "feature creep."
*progressive requirements refinement is one of the essential concepts in iterative development, conducting requirement reviews at the start or end of each iteration is critical.
*In iterative development, we often encounter delays in a project, which can give us time to reduce the defect inventory and stabilize the iteration's deliverables, and thus help keep the overall mission on track.
!!Methodologies
[[Methodology]] is a formalized approach to implementing the [[SDLC]]
*[[Assignment|http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dr45g6n_1133ffxw55d9]]
!!Lecture No. 3
''What Is a Methodology?''
*A formalized, systematic approach or series of steps, often including specified tools, models and techniques
*Writing code without a well-thought-out system request may work for small programs, but rarely works for large ones.
!!Agile Methodologies
*Planning
**continuallly plan
**less documentation
**Time blocked
**manage risk proactively
*Adaptive approach
**embrace change
**close interaction with customer
**unfold analysis
**continually test and feedback
*requires preparation
**(usually short iterations)
**apply common tool set
**standards driven development
!!RUP (Rational Unified Process)
(another iterative methodology)
#Planning (little humps)
#Analysis (Half iteration/humps))
#Architecture (Big iteration at first gradually fades out)
#Design (big first little end)
#Implement (Half circle)
#Integration (tons of small iterations)
#Test assessment (small small big bigger)
''Concept''
*each iteration includes all workflows to different degrees.
*Each iteration ends in an executable deliverable
*a very structured and defined process
!!Crystal light approach
They use ''system criticality'' (defects cause the loss of), and ''number of people'' (involved on development team)
''concept'': more written documentation is needed when there is more potential damage or public scrutiny or legal liability and more people on project.
!!Beyond Methodology
''software development process''
the reall gains are from one or a few methodologies that are used and reused, documented and improved, over and over for many projects within an organization
The more you can reuse the better you get at implementing it.
Fred Brooks says, "there is no silver bullet"
//larger teams increase complexity//
''Brooks law'' "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."
"adding people to a software project increases the total effort necessary in three ways: the work and disruption of repartition itself, training the new people and added intercommunication
!!Controlling and directing the project
''controlling scope creep by:''
*establishing baseline plans
*regular tracking
*change control process
''regular tracking of''
#plans for project activities and tasks
#known problems
#what is coming up
''Change Control process''
*should ensure
**only necessary changes are made
**tradeoffs are made explicitly (time resources, quality)
**changes are communicated to all
*changes are implemented in an orerly fashion
*To do
**know thy client's priorities
**establish change control committee
**establish routine change control process
**conduct impact assessment on changes
**have client decide tradeoffs
''understanding Risk''
''Risk'' the chance that an undesirabe event will occur and the consequences of all its possible outcomes.
"One thing is clear. The genie is out of the bottle and it cannot be put back. Facts uncovered and the questions raised by the new Mormon historians will not go away. They will have to be dealt with if we are to maintain a position of honesty and integrity in our dealings with our own members as well as our friends in the larger religious community."
''Wallace B Smith'' (Community of Christ Emeritus)
Page xi
!!Book of Mormon
...the method was consistent throughout the project and it did not constitute what we would normally consider to be a translation. With his face covered, Joseph was unable to see the source document, the golden plates, even if the plates were nearby; more than often they were not.
Page 2.
Oliver saw "the plates in vision" before the two men met. This means that two of three special witnesses (Harris and Cowdery had seen these plates in vision before Joseph prophesied that they would view them together
Page 179
!!Joseph Smith
"He does not pretend that he sees them [spirits and angels] with his natural, but with his spiritual eyes; and he says he can see them as well with his eyes shut, as with them open."
''Ezra Booth''
Page 176
!!Peep Stones
"David Whitmer has a peep-stone ... [and] John C. Whitmer has a stone, the one which his son [John Whitmer Jr.] uses, and that it belonged to his father, jacob Whitmer" David also reported that his grandson George Schweich was a "seer" who, "through his peep=stone, sees caves in which are vast stores of records; cave in succession to cave, all filled with treasures of golden plates and sacred records. He sees in the north pole a gigantic race of people; in the south a liliputian race."
Foreword
This article attempts to provide a general introduction to atheism. Whilst I have tried to be as neutral as possible regarding contentious issues, you should always remember that this document represents only one viewpoint. I would encourage you to read widely and draw your own conclusions; some relevant books are listed in a companion document: Atheist Resources.
To provide a sense of cohesion and progression, I have presented this article as an imaginary conversation between an atheist and a theist. All the questions asked by the imaginary theist are questions which have been cropped up repeatedly on the Usenet newsgroup alt.atheism since that newsgroup was first created. Some other frequently asked questions are answered in a companion document: Atheist Arguments.
Please note that this article is arguably slanted towards answering questions posed from a Christian viewpoint. This is because the FAQ files reflect questions which have actually been asked, and it is predominantly Christians who proselytize on alt.atheism.
So when I talk of religion, I am talking primarily about religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, which involve some sort of superhuman divine being. Much of the discussion will apply to other religions, but some of it may not. (See Definition of a "cult.")
"What is atheism?"
Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods. This absence of belief generally comes about either through deliberate choice, or from an inherent inability to believe religious teachings which seem literally incredible. It is not a lack of belief born out of simple ignorance of religious teachings.
Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: they actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in Gods is often referred to as the "weak atheist" position; whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as "strong atheism."
Regarding people who have never been exposed to the concept of 'god': Whether they are 'atheists' or not is a matter of debate. Since you're unlikely to meet anyone who has never encountered religion, it's not a very important debate...
It is important, however, to note the difference between the strong and weak atheist positions. "Weak atheism" is simple skepticism; disbelief in the existence of God. "Strong atheism" is an explicitly held belief that God does not exist. Please do not fall into the trap of assuming that all atheists are "strong atheists." There is a qualitative difference in the "strong" and "weak" positions; it's not just a matter of degree.
Some atheists believe in the nonexistence of all Gods; others limit their atheism to specific Gods, such as the Christian God, rather than making flat-out denials.
"But isn't disbelieving in God the same thing as believing he doesn't exist?"
Definitely not. Disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe it to be true. Not believing that something is true is not equivalent to believing that it is false; one may simply have no idea whether it is true or not. Which brings us to agnosticism.
"What is agnosticism then?"
The term 'agnosticism' was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876. He defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed both ("strong") atheism and theism, and who believed that the question of whether a higher power existed was unsolved and insoluble. Another way of putting it is that an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not know for sure whether God exists. Some agnostics believe that we can never know.
In recent years, however, the term agnostic has also been used to describe those who simply believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.
To reduce the amount of confusion over the use of term agnosticism, it is recommended that usage based on a belief that we cannot know whether God exists be qualified as "strict agnosticism" and usage based on the belief that we merely do not know yet be qualified as "empirical agnosticism."
Words are slippery things, and language is inexact. Beware of assuming that you can work out someone's philosophical point of view simply from the fact that she calls herself an atheist or an agnostic. For example, many people use agnosticism to mean what is referred to here as "weak atheism," and use the word "atheism" only when referring to "strong atheism."
Beware also that because the word "atheist" has so many shades of meaning, it is very difficult to generalize about atheists. About all you can say for sure is that atheists don't believe in God. For example, it certainly isn't the case that all atheists believe that science is the best way to find out about the universe.
"What about the term 'freethinker'? What does that mean?"
A freethinker is one who thinks freely-one who is prepared to consider any possibility, and who determines which ideas are right or wrong by bringing reason to bear, according to a consistent set of rules such as the scientific method.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation have a "nontract" on what it means to be a freethinker, at: http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/freethinker.php.
"So what is the philosophical justification or basis for atheism?"
There are many philosophical justifications for atheism. To find out why a particular person chooses to be an atheist, it's best to ask her.
Many atheists feel that the idea of God as presented by the major religions is essentially self-contradictory, and that it is logically impossible that such a God could exist. Others are atheists through skepticism, because they see no evidence that God exists.
There are a number of books which lay out a philosophical justification for atheism, such as Martin's "Atheism: A Philosophical Justification" and Smith's "Atheism: The Case Against God". A few such books are in the document listing "Atheist Media".
Of course, some people are atheists without having any particular logical argument to back up their atheism. For some, it is simply the most comfortable, common sense position to take.
"But isn't it impossible to prove the nonexistence of something?"
There are many counter-examples to such a statement. For example, it is quite simple to prove that there does not exist a prime number larger than all other prime numbers. Of course, this deals with well-defined objects obeying well-defined rules. Whether Gods or universes are similarly well-defined is a matter for debate.
However, assuming for the moment that the existence of a God is not provably impossible, there are still subtle reasons for assuming the nonexistence of God. If we assume that something does not exist, it is always possible to show that this assumption is invalid by finding a single counter-example.
If on the other hand we assume that something does exist, and if the thing in question is not provably impossible, showing that the assumption is invalid may require an exhaustive search of all possible places where such a thing might be found, to show that it isn't there. Such an exhaustive search is often impractical or impossible. There is no such problem with largest primes, because we can prove that they don't exist.
Therefore it is generally accepted that we must assume things do not exist unless we have evidence that they do. Even theists follow this rule most of the time; they don't believe in unicorns, even though they can't conclusively prove that no unicorns exist anywhere.
To assume that God exists is to make an assumption which probably cannot be tested. We cannot make an exhaustive search of everywhere God might be to prove that he doesn't exist anywhere. So the skeptical atheist assumes by default that God does not exist, since that is an assumption we can test.
Those who profess strong atheism usually do not claim that no sort of God exists; instead, they generally restrict their claims so as to cover varieties of God described by followers of various religions. So whilst it may be impossible to prove conclusively that no God exists, it may be possible to prove that (say) a God as described by a particular religious book does not exist. It may even be possible to prove that no God described by any present-day religion exists.
In practice, believing that no God described by any religion exists is very close to believing that no God exists. However, it is sufficiently different that counter-arguments based on the impossibility of disproving every kind of God are not really applicable.
"But what if God is essentially nondetectable?"
If God interacts with our universe in any way, the effects of his interaction must have some physical manifestation. Hence his interaction with our universe must be in principle detectable.
If God is essentially nondetectable, it must therefore be the case that he does not interact with our universe in any way. Many atheists would argue that if God does not interact with our universe at all, it is of no importance whether he exists or not. A thing which cannot even be detected in principle does not logically exist.
Of course, it could be that God is detectable in principle, and that we merely cannot detect him in practice. However, if the Bible is to be believed, God was easily detectable by the Israelites. Surely he should still be detectable today? Why has the situation changed?
Note that I am not demanding that God interact in a scientifically verifiable, physical way. I might potentially receive some revelation, some direct experience of God. An experience like that would be incommunicable, and not subject to scientific verification - but it would nevertheless be as compelling as any evidence can be.
But whether by direct revelation or by observation, it must surely be possible to perceive some effect caused by God's presence; otherwise, how can I distinguish him from all the other things that don't exist?
"God is unique. He is the supreme being, the creator of the universe. He must by definition exist."
Things do not exist merely because they have been defined to do so. We know a lot about the definition of Santa Claus-what he looks like, what he does, where he lives, what his reindeer are called, and so on. But that still doesn't mean that Santa exists.
"Then what if I managed to logically prove that God exists?"
Firstly, before you begin your proof, you must come up with a clear and precise definition of exactly what you mean by "God." A logical proof requires a clear definition of that which you are trying to prove.
"But everyone knows what is meant by 'God'!"
Different religions have very different ideas of what 'God' is like; they even disagree about basic issues such as how many gods there are, whether they're male or female, and so on. An atheist's idea of what people mean by the word 'God' may be very different from your own views.
"OK, so if I define what I mean by 'God,' and then logically prove he exists, will that be enough for you?"
Even after centuries of effort, nobody has come up with a watertight logical proof of the existence of God. In spite of this, however, people often feel that they can logically prove that God exists.
Unfortunately, reality is not decided by logic. Even if you could rigorously prove that God exists, it wouldn't actually get you very far. It could be that your logical rules do not always preserve truth-that your system of logic is flawed. It could be that your premises are wrong. It could even be that reality is not logically consistent. In the end, the only way to find out what is really going on is to observe it. Logic can merely give you an idea where or how to look; and most logical arguments about God don't even perform that task.
Logic is a useful tool for analyzing data and inferring what is going on; but if logic and reality disagree, reality wins.
"Then it seems to me that nothing will ever convince you that God exists."
A clear definition of 'God,' plus some objective and compelling supporting evidence, would be enough to convince many atheists.
The evidence must be objective, though; anecdotal evidence of other people's religious experiences isn't good enough. And strong, compelling evidence is required, because the existence of God is an extraordinary claim-and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
"OK, you may think there's a philosophical justification for atheism, but isn't it still a religious belief?"
One of the most common pastimes in philosophical discussion is "the redefinition game." The cynical view of this game is as follows:
Person A begins by making a contentious statement. When person B points out that it can't be true, person A gradually re-defines the words he used in the statement until he arrives at something person B is prepared to accept. He then records the statement, along with the fact that person B has agreed to it, and continues. Eventually A uses the statement as an "agreed fact," but uses his original definitions of all the words in it rather than the obscure redefinitions originally needed to get B to agree to it. Rather than be seen to be apparently inconsistent, B will tend to play along.
The point of this digression is that the answer to the question "Isn't atheism a religious belief?" depends crucially upon what is meant by "religious." "Religion" is generally characterized by belief in a superhuman controlling power-especially in some sort of God-and by faith and worship.
(It's worth pointing out in passing that some varieties of Buddhism are not "religion" according to such a definition.)
Atheism is certainly not a belief in any sort of superhuman power, nor is it categorized by worship in any meaningful sense. Widening the definition of "religious" to encompass atheism tends to result in many other aspects of human behavior suddenly becoming classed as "religious" as well-such as science, politics, and watching TV.
"OK, maybe it's not a religion in the strict sense of the word. But surely belief in atheism (or science) is still just an act of faith, like religion is?"
Firstly, it's not entirely clear that skeptical atheism is something one actually believes in.
Secondly, it is necessary to adopt a number of core beliefs or assumptions to make some sort of sense out of the sensory data we experience. Most atheists try to adopt as few core beliefs as possible; and even those are subject to questioning if experience throws them into doubt.
Science has a number of core assumptions. For example, it is generally assumed that the laws of physics are the same for all observers (or at least, all observers in inertial frames). These are the sort of core assumptions atheists make. If such basic ideas are called "acts of faith," then almost everything we know must be said to be based on acts of faith, and the term loses its meaning.
Faith is more often used to refer to complete, certain belief in something. According to such a definition, atheism and science are certainly not acts of faith. Of course, individual atheists or scientists can be as dogmatic as religious followers when claiming that something is "certain." This is not a general tendency, however; there are many atheists who would be reluctant to state with certainty that the universe exists.
Faith is also used to refer to belief without supporting evidence or proof. Skeptical atheism certainly doesn't fit that definition, as skeptical atheism has no beliefs. Strong atheism is closer, but still doesn't really match, as even the most dogmatic atheist will tend to refer to experimental data (or the lack of it) when asserting that God does not exist.
"If atheism is not religious, surely it's anti-religious?"
It is an unfortunate human tendency to label everyone as either "for" or "against," "friend" or "enemy." The truth is not so clear-cut.
Atheism is the position that runs logically counter to theism; in that sense, it can be said to be "anti-religion." However, when religious believers speak of atheists being "anti-religious" they usually mean that the atheists have some sort of antipathy or hatred towards theists.
This categorization of atheists as hostile towards religion is quite unfair. Atheist attitudes towards theists in fact cover a broad spectrum.
Most atheists take a "live and let live" attitude. Unless questioned, they will not usually mention their atheism, except perhaps to close friends. Of course, this may be in part because atheism is not "socially acceptable" in many countries.
A few atheists are quite anti-religious, and may even try to "convert" others when possible. Historically, such anti-religious atheists have made little impact on society outside the Eastern Bloc countries.
(To digress slightly: the Soviet Union was originally dedicated to separation of church and state, just like the USA. Soviet citizens were legally free to worship as they wished. The institution of "state atheism" came about when Stalin took control of the Soviet Union and tried to destroy the churches in order to gain complete power over the population.)
Some atheists are quite vocal about their beliefs, but only where they see religion encroaching on matters which are not its business-for example, the government of the USA. Such individuals are usually concerned that church and state should remain separate.
"But if you don't allow religion to have a say in the running of the state, surely that's the same as state atheism?"
The principle of the separation of church and state is that the state shall not legislate concerning matters of religious belief. In particular, it means not only that the state cannot promote one religion at the expense of another, but also that it cannot promote any belief which is religious in nature.
Religions can still have a say in discussion of purely secular matters. For example, religious believers have historically been responsible for encouraging many political reforms. Even today, many organizations campaigning for an increase in spending on foreign aid are founded as religious campaigns. So long as they campaign concerning secular matters, and so long as they do not discriminate on religious grounds, most atheists are quite happy to see them have their say.
"What about prayer in schools? If there's no God, why do you care if people pray?"
Because people who do pray are voters and lawmakers, and tend to do things that those who don't pray can't just ignore. Also, Christian prayer in schools is intimidating to non-Christians, even if they are told that they need not join in. It is particularly bad if the prayer is led by a teacher, or otherwise officially endorsed.
The diversity of religious and nonreligious belief means that it is impossible to formulate a meaningful prayer that will be acceptable to all those present at any public event.
This is one reason why the public school system in the USA is not permitted to endorse particular religious beliefs through official prayer time in schools. Children are, of course, quite free to pray as they wish in their free time; there is no question of trying to prevent prayer from happening in schools.
"You mentioned Christians who campaign for increased foreign aid. What about atheists? Why aren't there any atheist charities or hospitals? Don't atheists object to the religious charities?"
There are many charities without religious purpose that atheists can contribute to. Some atheists contribute to religious charities as well, for the sake of the practical good they do. Some atheists even do voluntary work for charities founded on a theistic basis.
Most atheists seem to feel that atheism isn't worth shouting about in connection with charity. To them, atheism is just a simple, obvious everyday matter, and so is charity. Many feel that it's somewhat cheap, not to say self-righteous, to use simple charity as an excuse to plug a particular set of religious beliefs.
To "weak" atheists, building a hospital to say "I do not believe in God" is a rather strange idea; it's rather like holding a party to say "Today is not my birthday." Why the fuss? Atheism is rarely evangelistic.
"You said atheism isn't anti-religious. But is it perhaps a backlash against one's upbringing, a way of rebelling?"
Perhaps it is, for some. But many people have parents who do not attempt to force any religious (or atheist) ideas upon them, and many of those people choose to call themselves atheists.
It's also doubtless the case that some religious people chose religion as a backlash against an atheist upbringing, as a way of being different. On the other hand, many people choose religion as a way of conforming to the expectations of others.
On the whole, we can't conclude much about whether atheism or religion are backlash or conformism; although in general, people have a tendency to go along with a group rather than act or think independently.
"How do atheists differ from religious people?"
They don't believe in God. That's all there is to it.
Atheists may listen to heavy metal-backwards, even-or they may prefer a Verdi Requiem, even if they know the words. They may wear Hawaiian shirts, they may dress all in black, they may even wear orange robes. (Many Buddhists lack a belief in any sort of God.) Some atheists even carry a copy of the Bible around-for arguing against, of course!
Whoever you are, the chances are you have met several atheists without realizing it. Atheists are usually unexceptional in behavior and appearance.
"Unexceptional? But aren't atheists less moral than religious people?"
That depends. If you define morality as obedience to God, then of course atheists are less moral as they don't obey any God. But usually when one talks of morality, one talks of what is acceptable ("right") and unacceptable ("wrong") behavior within society.
Humans are social animals, and to be maximally successful they must cooperate with each other. This is a good enough reason to discourage most atheists from "anti-social" or "immoral" behavior, purely for the purposes of self-preservation.
Many atheists behave in a "moral" or "compassionate" way simply because they feel a natural tendency to empathize with other humans. So why do they care what happens to others? They don't know, they simply are that way.
Naturally, there are some people who behave "immorally" and try to use atheism to justify their actions. However, there are equally many people who behave "immorally" and then try to use religious beliefs to justify their actions. For example:
"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners... But for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me... Jesus Christ might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever."
The above quote is from a statement made to the court on February 17th 1992 by Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious cannibal serial killer of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It seems that for every atheist mass-murderer, there is a religious mass-murderer. But what of more trivial morality?
A survey conducted by the Roper Organization found that behavior deteriorated after "born again" experiences. While only 4% of respondents said they had driven intoxicated before being "born again," 12% had done so after conversion. Similarly, 5% had used illegal drugs before conversion, 9% after. Two percent admitted to engaging in illicit sex before salvation; 5% after. [Freethought Today, September 1991, p. 12.]
So it seems that at best, religion does not have a monopoly on moral behavior.
Of course, a great many people are converted to (and from) Christianity during adolescence and their early twenties. This is also the time at which people begin to drink and become sexually active. It could be that the above figures merely indicate that Christianity has no effect on moral behavior, or insufficient effect to result in an overall fall in immoral behavior.
"Is there such a thing as atheist morality?"
If you mean "Is there such a thing as morality for atheists?," then the answer is yes, as explained above. Many atheists have ideas about morality which are at least as strong as those held by religious people.
If you mean "Does atheism have a characteristic moral code?," then the answer is no. Atheism by itself does not imply anything much about how a person will behave. Most atheists follow many of the same "moral rules" as theists, but for different reasons. Atheists view morality as something created by humans, according to the way humans feel the world 'ought' to work, rather than seeing it as a set of rules decreed by a supernatural being.
"Then aren't atheists just theists who are denying God?"
A study by the Freedom From Religion Foundation found that over 90% of the atheists who responded became atheists because religion did not work for them. They had found that religious beliefs were fundamentally incompatible with what they observed around them.
Atheists are not unbelievers through ignorance or denial; they are unbelievers through choice. The vast majority of them have spent time studying one or more religions, sometimes in very great depth. They have made a careful and considered decision to reject religious beliefs.
This decision may, of course, be an inevitable consequence of that individual's personality. For a naturally skeptical person, the choice of atheism is often the only one that makes sense, and hence the only choice that person can honestly make.
The word "deny" can be used to mean "fail to accept the truth of." In that sense only, atheists deny the existence of God. They are not "in denial," willfully ignoring evidence; nor do they necessarily positively assert the nonexistence of God.
"But surely discussing God in this way is a tacit admission that he exists?"
Not at all. People talk about Santa Claus every Christmas; that doesn't mean he climbs down the chimney and leaves us all presents. Players of fantasy games discuss all kinds of strange creatures, from orcs and goblins to titans and minotaurs. They don't exist either.
"But don't atheists want to believe in God?"
Atheists live their lives as though there is nobody watching over them. Many of them have no desire to be watched over, no matter how good-natured the "Big Brother" figure might be.
Some atheists would like to be able to believe in God-but so what? Should one believe things merely because one wants them to be true? The risks of such an approach should be obvious. Atheists often decide that wanting to believe something is not enough; there must be evidence for the belief.
"But of course atheists see no evidence for the existence of God-they are unwilling in their souls to see!"
Many, if not most atheists were previously religious. As has been explained above, the vast majority have seriously considered the possibility that God exists. Many atheists have spent time in prayer trying to reach God.
Of course, it is true that some atheists lack an open mind; but assuming that all atheists are biased and insincere is offensive and closed-minded. Comments such as "Of course God is there, you just aren't looking properly" are likely to be viewed as patronizing.
Certainly, if you wish to engage in philosophical debate with atheists it is vital that you give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are being sincere if they say that they have searched for God. If you are not willing to believe that they are basically telling the truth, debate is futile.
"Isn't the whole of life completely pointless to an atheist?"
Perhaps it is to some, but still, many atheists live a purposeful life. They decide what they think gives meaning to life, and they pursue those goals. They try to make their lives count, not by wishing for eternal life, but by having an influence on other people who will live on. For example, an atheist may dedicate his life to political reform, in the hope of leaving his mark on history.
It is a natural human tendency to look for "meaning" or "purpose" in random events. However, it is by no means obvious that "life" is the sort of thing that has a "meaning."
To put it another way, not everything which looks like a question is actually a sensible thing to ask. Some atheists believe that asking "What is the meaning of life?" is as silly as asking "What is the meaning of a cup of coffee?." They believe that life has no purpose or meaning, it just is.
Also, if some sort of mystical external force is required to give one's existence a "meaning," surely that makes any hypothetical god's existence meaningless?
"So how do atheists find comfort in time of danger?"
There are many ways of obtaining comfort:
* Your family and friends
* Pets
* Food and drink
* Music, television, literature, arts and entertainment
* Sports or exercise
* Meditation
* Psychotherapy
* Drugs
* Work
That may sound like rather an empty and vulnerable way to face danger, but so what? Should individuals believe in things because they are comforting, or should they face reality no matter how harsh it might be?
In the end, it's a decision for the individual concerned. Most atheists are unable to believe something they would not otherwise believe merely because it makes them feel comfortable. They put truth before comfort, and consider that if searching for truth sometimes makes them feel unhappy, that's just hard luck. Often truth hurts.
"Don't atheists worry that they might suddenly be shown to be wrong?"
The short answer is "No, do you?"
Many atheists have been atheists for years. They have encountered many arguments and much supposed evidence for the existence of God, but they have found all of it to be invalid or inconclusive.
Thousands of years of religious belief haven't resulted in any good proof of the existence of God. Atheists therefore tend to feel that they are unlikely to be proved wrong in the immediate future, and they stop worrying about it.
"So why should theists question their beliefs? Don't the same arguments apply?"
No, because the beliefs being questioned are not similar. Weak atheism is the skeptical "default position" to take; it asserts nothing. Strong atheism is a negative belief. Theism is a very strong positive belief.
Atheists sometimes also argue that theists should question their beliefs because of the very real harm they can cause-not just to the believers, but to everyone else.
"What sort of harm?"
Religion represents a huge financial and work burden on mankind. It's not just a matter of religious believers wasting their money on church buildings; think of all the time and effort spent building churches, praying, and so on. Imagine how that effort could be better spent.
Many theists believe in miracle healing. There have been plenty of instances of ill people being "healed" by a priest, ceasing to take the medicines prescribed to them by doctors, and dying as a result. Some theists have died because they have refused blood transfusions on religious grounds.
It is arguable that the Catholic Church's opposition to birth control-and condoms in particular-is increasing the problem of overpopulation in many third-world countries and contributing to the spread of AIDS world-wide.
Religious believers have been known to murder their children rather than allow their children to become atheists or marry someone of a different religion. Religious leaders have been known to justify murder on the grounds of blasphemy.
There have been many religious wars. Even if we accept the argument that religion was not the true cause of those wars, it was still used as an effective justification for them.
"Those weren't real believers. They just claimed to be believers as some sort of excuse."
This is rather like the No True Scotsman fallacy.
What makes a real believer? There are so many One True Religions it's hard to tell. Look at Christianity: there are many competing groups, all convinced that they are the only true Christians. Sometimes they even fight and kill each other. How is an atheist supposed to decide who's a real Christian and who isn't, when even the major Christian churches like the Catholic Church and the Church of England can't decide amongst themselves?
In the end, most atheists take a pragmatic view, and decide that anyone who calls himself a Christian, and uses Christian belief or dogma to justify his actions, should be considered a Christian. Maybe some of those Christians are just perverting Christian teaching for their own ends-but surely if the Bible can be so readily used to support un-Christian acts it can't be much of a moral code? If the Bible is the word of God, why couldn't he have made it less easy to misinterpret? And how do you know that your beliefs aren't a perversion of what your God intended?
If there is no single unambiguous interpretation of the Bible, then why should an atheist take one interpretation over another just on your say-so? Sorry, but if someone claims that he believes in Jesus and that he murdered others because Jesus and the Bible told him to do so, we must call him a Christian.
"Obviously those extreme sorts of beliefs should be questioned. But since nobody has ever proved that God does not exist, it must be very unlikely that more basic religious beliefs, shared by all faiths, are nonsense."
The commonality of many basic religious beliefs is hardly surprising, if you take the view that religion is a product of society. From that viewpoint, religions have borrowed ideas which contribute to a stable society-such as respect for authority figures, a prohibition against murder, and so on.
In addition, many common religious themes have been passed on to later religions. For example, it has been suggested that the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament actually have their roots in Hammurabi's code.
The claim that because something hasn't been proved false, it's less likely to be nonsense, does not hold. As was pointed out earlier in this dialogue, positive assertions concerning the existence of entities are inherently much harder to disprove than negative ones. Nobody has ever proved that unicorns don't exist, and there are many stories about them, but that doesn't make it unlikely that they are myths.
It is therefore much more valid to hold a negative assertion by default than it is to hold a positive assertion by default. Of course, "weak" atheists may argue that asserting nothing is better still.
"Well, if atheism's so great, why are there so many theists?"
Unfortunately, the popularity of a belief has little to do with how "correct" it is, or whether it "works"; consider how many people believe in astrology, graphology, and other pseudo-sciences.
Many atheists feel that it is simply a human weakness to want to believe in gods. Certainly in many primitive human societies, religion allows the people to deal with phenomena that they do not adequately understand.
Of course, there's more to religion than that. In the industrialized world, we find people believing in religious explanations of phenomena even when there are perfectly adequate natural explanations. Religion may have started as a means of attempting to explain the world, but nowadays it serves other purposes as well. For instance, for many people religion fulfills a social function, providing a sense of community and belonging.
"But so many cultures have developed religions. Surely that must say something?"
Not really. Most religions are only superficially similar; for example, it's worth remembering that religions such as Buddhism and Taoism lack any sort of concept of God in the Christian sense. In short, there is no consensus amongst religions as to what God actually is. Hence one of the problems you must face if you wish to discuss God with an atheist, is that of defining exactly what you mean by the word.
Also, most religions are quick to denounce competing religions, so it's rather odd to use one religion to try and justify another.
"What about all the famous scientists and philosophers who have concluded that God exists?"
Firstly, note that surveys typically find that around 40% of scientists believe in god; so believers are in the minority. (The most recent survey was by Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham, was carried out in 1996, and was reported in the journal "Nature.")
For every scientist or philosopher who believes in a god, there is one who does not. Besides, as has already been pointed out, the truth of a belief is not determined by how many people believe it. Also, it is important to realize that atheists do not view famous scientists or philosophers in the same way that theists view their religious leaders.
A famous scientist is only human; she may be an expert in some fields, but when she talks about other matters her words carry no special weight. Many respected scientists have made themselves look foolish by speaking on subjects which lie outside their fields of expertise.
Also, note that even famous scientists' views are treated with skepticism by the scientific community. Acknowledged experts in a particular field must still provide evidence for their theories; science relies on reproducible, independently confirmed results. New theories which are incompatible with a large body of existing scientific knowledge will be subject to especially close scrutiny; but if the work is sound and the experimental data reproducible, the new theories will displace the old.
For instance, both special relativity and quantum mechanics were highly controversial, and required that a lot of existing scientific theory be thrown out. Yet both were relatively quickly accepted after extensive experiments proved their correctness. Pseudo-scientific theories such as creationism are rejected not because they are controversial, but because they simply do not stand up to basic scientific scrutiny. (For further information, see the FAQs for http://www.talkorigins.org/.)
The Constructing a Logical Argument document has more to say about scientific verification and proof by authority.
"So are you really saying that widespread belief in religion indicates nothing?"
Not entirely. It certainly indicates that the religion in question has properties which have helped it to spread so far.
The theory of memetics talks of "memes"-sets of ideas which can propagate themselves between human minds, by analogy with genes. Some atheists view religions as sets of particularly successful parasitic memes, which spread by encouraging their hosts to convert others. Some memes avoid destruction by discouraging believers from questioning doctrine, or by using peer pressure to keep one-time believers from admitting that they were mistaken. Some religious memes even encourage their hosts to destroy hosts controlled by other memes.
Of course, in the memetic view there is no particular virtue associated with successful propagation of a meme. Religion is not a good thing because of the number of people who believe it, any more than a disease is a good thing because of the number of people who have caught it.
The memetic approach has little to say about the truth of the information in the memes, however.
"Even if religion is not entirely true, at least it puts across important messages. What are the fundamental messages of atheism?"
There are many important ideas atheists promote. The following are just a few of them; don't be surprised to see ideas which are also present in some religions.
* There is more to moral behavior than mindlessly following rules.
* Be especially skeptical of positive claims.
* If you want your life to have some sort of meaning, it's up to you to find it.
* Search for what is true, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
* Make the most of your life, as it's probably the only one you'll have.
* It's no good relying on some external power to change you; you must change yourself.
* Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's good.
* If you must assume something, assume something easy to test.
* Don't believe things just because you want them to be true.
And finally (and most importantly):
* All beliefs should be open to question.
Thanks for taking the time to read this document.
A man walks out of a temporary job agency. Same thing every time. Walking to the nearest bench, he sits down and gives in. He runs his hands through his hair, leans over and stares at the ground. He's 35. It's been 3 months and he still can't find a job. There aren't any jobs for people who can't read. Sadly his attention isn't directed to learning to read, its on rent for his home, money for food, and money to pay for education of his only son. He knows, he'll never really learn how to read, he just needs a job. And I thought I had problems.
It's midnight, and A father walks the hallways of his silent home because he can't sleep. He pauses by his son's room. Nothing. Its been empty-its been silent for 3 days. He gave his son the world. But his son never opened up to anyone, and now his son is dead and silence couldn't be more loud. Suicide. And I thought I had problems.
She's lied to all her old friends when they ask her. They seem to be doing so well. She reaches out in the night, and the bedside is cold. He's not there. Her friends seem so happy with their marriage. Her eyes close and a tear falls down. She waits for her husband to come to bed. He's always gone; enslaved to his addictions. She pulls the covers over her head and cries herself to sleep. She'll do it again tomorrow too. And i thought I had problems.
He arrives in Iraq, but after a week of fighting he can't remember what he really is fighting for. And now his blood saturates the dirt below his heaving body. He looks around him to see others in the same state he is. It is a horrible realization... to know he's caused this horrible torment of pain to so many others, yet he tries not to think of the pain, because he knows he's going to miss his little sister's dance performance. He's got a long road of medical aid before he heads home if even lives. And I thought I had problems.
Her children are still at home and they don't know where she is. She can't go home because she can't tell the kids there's nothing to eat. She needs money. Out on the streets she prostitutes her body for food money. I thought I had problems.
An elderly lady sits in her chair. She's sat in the same room, same chair for 5 years. She's reading a well worn christmas card, but its July. The card is the last she has heard from her own daughter. Nearly 6 months. She hasn't physically seen her children for 3 years. The only thing left in her life is her death, and it hasn't happened yet. And I thought I had problems.
All her friends tell her how nice he is. Everyone thinks he's prince charming. They don't know him. He's verbally abusive, controlling, and he beats her. But he's the only one that tells her she's beautiful.
A 9 year old boy sits quietly in the corner of the basement room. Photo albums from long ago decorate the floor. He found them. Mom and Dad's wedding pictures. He squints as he struggles to understand what love is. They looked so happy. But maybe they weren't. They broke the news to him yesterday that they're getting a divorce. I thought I had problems.
I hate to think of my life and how easy it has been. Knock on wood. I'd love to say I've been blessed, but I don't really believe God plays favorites. Am I supposed to just sit back, enjoy life, and hope it gets better for everyone else?
Have you ever wondered how to help someone? How do you help someone in a situation such as these? Be a friend? It doesn't fix the problem, it doesn't make it go away. How can we make the world a better place? Do I just promise people it will get better if I have no knowledge that it undoubtedly will? Would my words mean anything if I have never experienced anything similar to what they've gone through?
Its probably just me that feels this way, but don't you believe you can influence people to be better, to think more, to act more, and even influence others. I can name almost all the people that have changed my life for better or for worse and even influenced how I view the meaning of life.
Some of you can join clubs, you can rally, you can feel stronger in masses and think you'll make a difference. Someday separating yourself to feel stronger will divorce you from the real society. I believe you can only change those around you, and so many people don't believe that they can help others.
A sincere hope for others well being. And on top of that, a willing to act upon that hope. Compliment with sincerity oft. Show gratitude. Don't influence to get what you want, show love because its been shown to you-and believe me when I say it has. It's all about the love.
There's hope for those out there that have been through hell. There's hope for the ungrateful ones who haven't.
It's For the Best
and it takes more time than i've ever had
drains the life from me
makes me want to forget
as young as i was, i felt older back then
more disciplined, stronger and certain
but i was scared to death of eternity
i was saved by grace
but destroyed by naivety
and i lied to myself
and said it was for the best
so now faith is replaced with a logic so cold
i've disregarded what i was
now that i'm older
and i know much more than i did back then
but the more i learn
the more i can't understand
and i've become content with this life that i lead
where i drink to much and don't believe in much of anything
and i lie to myself
and say "it's for the best."
we're moving forward, but holding ourselves back
and we're waiting on something that will never come
I couldn't say it better. Straylight Run. They're amazing.
I remember the days, when I had faith so strong, and I felt so mature, mature enough to go on a mission, and then come back home, get married, and start a family. Everything made so much sense then...
And then I guess I got old...
Just Another Statistic.
The following was said to me on facebook from an old friend:
"It's funny how those that leave the church after living in its light can never leave it alone because deep inside they know it's true. You are another statistic."
I won't lie about it, I am a little over obsessive about the church. It isn't because deep down I know its true. Its because I know it isn't. Yet somehow I'm constantly surrounded by people saying that shit to me all of the time. I have ridden the "Its a small small world" ride for the first 20 years of my life, and I have had enough. Life isn't this happy happy joy joy orgy that you all pretend it to be.
Statistically there are more christians in jail than there are total atheists in America. Atheists supply less than 1% of the jail population. They also donate to charity more than those who believe God will fix all of the problems. Who's your immoral, evil wicked sinner now?
But if you want to talk statistics, I have brought more people out of the church than I ever brought in. It is a hella easy! Here is my secret:
Love Everyone.
I in no way mean to brag, but when people come to me because they don't feel like anyone in the church will accept them.... I take them in, and you lose another.
Its not like you care anyway. You'll never really "stand for truth and righteousness." You just don't have the answers to retain your numbers. You don't have the patience for the people that ask questions, nor do you have the answers. I'll answer them the best that I can.
So while you're off doing creepy temple sessions, I'll be having beers with your rejects, adding to my totals. Which are ever increasing. Trent FTW.
!!Blog
*[[Population of the LDS Church]]
!!Article
http://www.sltrib.com/lds/ci_2890645
06/22/2006 04:14:18 PM MDT
The claim that Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the world has been repeated so routinely by sociologists, anthropologists, journalists and proud Latter-day Saints as to be perceived as unassailable fact.
The trouble is, it isn't true.
Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has more than 12 million members on its rolls, more than doubling its numbers in the past quarter-century. But since 1990, other faiths - Seventh-day Adventists, Assemblies of God and Pentecostal groups - have grown much faster and in more places around the globe.
And most telling, the number of Latter-day Saints who are considered active churchgoers is only about a third of the total, or 4 million in the pews every Sunday, researchers say.
For a church with such a large, dedicated missionary corps constantly seeking to spread its word, conversion numbers in recent years tell an unexpected story.
According to LDS-published statistics, the annual number of LDS converts declined from a high of 321,385 in 1996 to 241,239 in 2004. In the 1990s, the church's growth rate went from 5 percent a year to 3 percent.
By comparison, the Seventh-day Adventist Church reports it has added more than 900,000 adult converts each year since 2000 (an average growth of about 5 percent), bringing the total membership to 14.3 million.
The Assemblies of God now claims more than 50 million members worldwide, adding 10,000 new members every day.
Russia provides a dramatic example of different religious growth rates. After more than 15 years of proselyting there, LDS membership has risen to 17,000.
During the same period, Jehovah's Witnesses membership has increased to more than 140,000, with some 300,000 individuals attending conferences.
Graphing activity: When the Graduate Center of the City University of New York conducted an American Religious Identification Survey in 2001, it discovered that about the same number of people said they had joined the LDS Church as said they had left it. The CUNY survey reported the church's net growth was zero percent. By contrast, the study showed both Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists with an increase of 11 percent.
"Because membership statistics are prepared and reported differently by various religious groups, the LDS Church does not publish comparisons of total membership to other faiths," said LDS spokesman Dale Bills on Friday.
On the question of how many Mormons are actively participating, Brigham Young University demographer Tim Heaton noted in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism that attendance at weekly sacrament meetings in the early 1990s was between 40 percent and 50 percent in Canada, the South Pacific, and the United States. In Europe and Africa, the average was 35 percent. Attendance in Asia and Latin America hovered around 25 percent.
By multiplying the number of members in each area by these fractions, David G. Stewart Jr. estimates worldwide activity at about 35 percent - which would give the church about 4 million active members.
Stewart, an active Mormon who served a mission to Russia in the early 1990s, has been conducting research on LDS missionary work in 20 countries for 13 years, examining census figures, and analyzing published data.
Take Brazil. In its 2000 Census, 199,645 residents identified themselves as LDS, while the church listed 743,182 on its rolls.
"There may be any number of reasons for the discrepancy," Bills said, "including personal preferences of some citizens regarding disclosure of their religious affiliation."
Retaining members: Stewart says Mormons need to be aware of such statistics to be more effective missionaries. To that end, he is publishing his research, along with a description of what he calls "tested principles to improve growth and retention," in a forthcoming book, The Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work.
"It is a matter of grave concern that the areas with the most rapid numerical membership increase, Latin America and the Philippines, are also the areas with extremely low convert retention," says Stewart, a California physician. "Many other groups, including the Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, have consistently achieved excellent convert retention rates in those cultures and societies. Latter-day Saints lose 70 to 80 percent of their converts, while Adventists retain 70 to 80 percent of theirs."
Perhaps the best measure of LDS Church growth is the rate of new church units, such as wards (congregations) and stakes (like a diocese). Because they are staffed by volunteers, such units cannot function without enough active members.
In 1980, The Ensign, the LDS Church's official magazine, predicted that membership would grow from 4.6 million members at that time to 11.1 million members in 2000, and from 1,190 stakes to 3,600 in 2000. While the number of members came very close to the projected value, there were 2,602 stakes worldwide at the end of 2002.
"You can use these trends to say that the percentage is slowing, the numbers have leveled off or they are dropping. They tell us what is happening right now," Heaton says. "But to try and tell us about the future is risky business. What if all of a sudden China or India lets us in and the [missionary] work takes off?"
Predicting the future: In 1984, University of Washington sociologist Rodney Stark was astonished to discover that the LDS Church's growth rate from 1940 through 1980 was 53 percent. He estimated that if it continued to grow at a more modest 30 percent, there would be 60 million Mormons by the year 2080; if 50 percent, the figure would explode to 265 million.
He famously predicted that the LDS Church "will soon achieve a worldwide following comparable to that of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and the other dominant world faiths."
Latter-day Saints were on the threshold of becoming "the first major faith to appear on earth since the Prophet Mohammed rode out of the desert," Stark wrote.
Many people, especially Mormons, eagerly embraced Stark's assessment. In recent years, though, some scholars have challenged his assumptions.
For one thing, True Pure Land Buddhism, Sokka Gakkai, Baha'i and Sufism are all of comparable or greater size and have arisen since Islam in the 7th century, said Gerald McDermott, a religious studies professor at Virginia's Roanoke College who gave a paper at a Library of Congress symposium on Mormonism in April.
One key to Mormonism becoming a world religion, McDermott says, is how well it can transcend its founding culture to become universal. Catholicism, for example, began in Jerusalem but found a home in many other places, where it easily assimilated into local cultures.
The LDS message has found a ready audience in Latin America and the South Pacific, where Mormon missionaries can tell people God did not neglect them. The Book of Mormon is the story of a Hebrew family that migrated from Jerusalem to the New World and tells of a visit to their descendants by Jesus Christ after his resurrection.
Still, the church may not fare as well as other Christian religions in Africa and China, since it has no such reassurance for them, he says.
American faith: Mormonism is "so thoroughly American," McDermott said in a recent phone interview. "God visited [Mormon founder] Joseph Smith in upstate New York. Eden began in Missouri and the millennium will end there. The new exodus took place in North America."
None of these critiques bother Stark, who now teaches at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He is amused by the reactions.
"The church liked the results and people who are against the church are desperate to figure out why it won't happen," he said last week. "Everyone takes the thing too seriously. I've tried to make clear all along that I was just trying to bring a little discipline to a lot of crazy conversations."
It was a game of "let's pretend," Stark says, when he applied the compound interest formula and saw huge numbers of Mormons.
He says he never meant his projections to dictate the future of Mormonism. Others may have more complex models that challenge his findings.
"They may be right," he says. "But again, if [Mormon growth] has slowed a little, it can always speed up again."
Stark, whose work will be republished this fall in a new volume, The Rise of a New World Faith: Rodney Stark on Mormonism, doesn't see any reason to apologize for his claims.
"Already there are more Mormons than Jews," he says, "and we want to consider Judaism a major world religion."
When Miles talks to Ben and ask for 3.2 million dollars in one week, it is code.
First, Miles is one of the ‘others’. I believe proof of that is when he asks Ben ‘do you know who I work for’. Second, saying that he wants 3.2 million dollars is his way of telling Ben that our rescue crew knows the bearing to get on the island; 3-2-5 (3.2 and 5 zeroes). Ben then asks Miles why not 3.3 or 3.5 and Miles says no, 3.2 million dollars—reinforcing that they are sure of the correct bearing. Fourth, when Miles says that Ben has one week to get the money, he is saying that more people are coming to the island in one week unless action is taken to prevent it. These are just my ideas, I just thought the conversation between Ben and Miles was so bizarre that it had to have more meaning behind it.
Source: [[LOST-Theories.com: 3.2 million dollars|http://lost-theories.com/theories/2008/feb/22/32-million-dollars/]]
!!Extreme Chaos 2001 Study
|!Success Facorts|!Weight|
|Executive support|18|
|User Involvement|16|
|Experienced project manager|14|
|Clear business objective|12|
|Minimized scope|10|
|Standard software infrastructure|8|
|Firm basic requirements|6|
|Normal Methodology|6|
|Reliable Estimates|5|
!!How do these success factors succede in managing the chaos and complexity?
LIFE IS JUST.....?
“Parting a soup is not a miracle, Bruce. It's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs, and still finds time to take her son to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them. What they don't realize is *they* have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.” -Bruce Almighty.
The Christians pray the catholics will convert. The catholics pray the christians will convert. Or maybe I should put it this way, we pray that anyone will convert to our standards. I'm not sure what we really expect God to do exactly.
If we get what we want we thank the Lord. If we don't, we think that it wasn't the Lord's will. That God didn't want it to happen. But it supposedly can happen, events where God totally picks someone up and places them in a new setting with a completely new mindset... right? Does God affect free agency like that? No.
No matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to make God intervene, but yet everyone still seems to pray like they somehow can. If its God's will, and God's will happens no matter what, then why are you even praying? Do you believe that if you show faith hard enough that you'll get what you want? I hope not... it just don't make sense.
Blessing food. Do you expect God to physically change the food because you prayed?
I also dislike it when people always talk about how they have been blessed by the Lord. They believe their financial stability, their success in material things and their ability to do better than the average came from God. Anything and everything that seems advantageous to them comes from God.
Two things. I hope God doesn't play favors. I really don't think being born in america is a result of God blessing me more than the poor kids in Honduras. 1/6 of the world's population (1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day. 11 million children die each year from diseases and other causes that are poverty related.
Read http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Stratification
When i was in Japan as a missionary we prayed every morning to find a family to teach and baptize. We always prayed out of habit.... I used to think that God would prepare someone slowly so that their hearts would open... Then i came to believe that God is always trying to get his people to believe in him. Here's another Bruce Almighty quote:
Bruce: How do you make somebody love you without affecting free will?
God: [scoffs] Welcome to my world, son.
What does it take to see God. Beats me. It seems as though everyone likes God when they feel they're better off than their neighbor. Now that they're rich, they can give more than the neighbor. What's your heaven like? “everyone is equal, except I'll be a little bit better off.”..... typical thought process.
Here is my main point that I am trying to make. I am not saying prayers don't get answered. I believe prayers get answered through other people. I barely even credit God in miracles. The reason being is that it is a collective effort to make things happen in this world. The rich guy isn't rich because God blessed him. He's rich because everyone has bought his product. He's rich because his employees work form him at 7.50 an hour. However he thinks God has given him the advantage... He thinks he worked and deserves it, because he had one good idea... allowing him to be labor free the rest of his life. Isn't capitalism great? God didn't make all those people buy his product so he could sit on his butt the rest of his life.
What are miracles? Are they mere results of magic? I don't believe those kind of miracles exist regardless of all the unexplainable happenings in this crazy world. God can't control people's minds. Miracles are just results of people doing good things to help other people out. Simple, but very deep and encompassing.
Don't wait for miracles... be the miracle.
Why Me? Why Anybody?
Current mood: blah
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural
Listen:
Life's a bitch... or maybe I'm life's bitch. If I really had the choice, I wouldn't be living the life I am right now. I'd be out on a distant planet called tralfamadore, where the tralfamadorians would keep me in a zoo and give me everything I need. They wouldn't know that I'm too timid to be a salesman, nor would they care for my incredibly skinny physique-for all they would know, I'd be the finest earthling specimen they've ever seen. And of course, it would be true. My life would be controlled by those surround and watch me, and free will wouldn't exist... if it really did in the first place.
So here I am in Fresno-selling pesticide. Except I shouldn't use the word pesticide because people think that the chemicals my company uses kill dogs, which, (in theory) it really could-that wouldn't be so bad because 80 percent of all the doors I knock, have annoying dogs that should die, maybe I shouldn't say that. I'm no more guilty than them. if we killed all the ignorant annoying people, I probably wouldn't be alive. Another reason i'd be happier on tralfamdore. I guess I'm not better than those dogs. I'm probably no better than the spiders that plague people's beds, nor the ants that are only trying to live. Somehow the world has this complex that their life has priority over everything, and that they that they have free will, to choose. to choose someone else's death.
And I'm merely the man that helps them kill. I put a smile on my face and choose my words carefully, as to not offend or scare the potential customer. I knock doors all day, and I force myself to like it. It reminds me of life. We always are convincing ourselves of what we enjoy... But seriously, if you think about it...we aren't ever biologically programmed to enjoy anything. We just enjoy being better than everyone else at something, and we enjoy the dominion of it all.
I read slaughterhouse five. And I can't stop thinking about it. I wish my life was viewable like the tralfamadorians see it all, there is no time that holds them back, they know their future, they see their death, and it doesn't make them sad... They see life like we see photo albums. Why? because there is nothing they can do to prevent it. they don't have free will, seeing it all just makes it more bearable. No agony. Why does time have to be chronological. our existence is a random compilation of memories-and my fresno sales experience could be randomly spread out among all my other good randomly placed memories in my mind.
I'll knock some more doors. If I was a real salesman vulture, I'd coldly tell people what they need in their life, describing what a perfect ideal life is like (without poisonus bugs). And they would, in fear or guilt, buy it from me. I'm slowly remembering why I hated being a missionary so much, and now I know why these companies hire all the return missionaries in the world. They are cold heartless salespeople. But they convince themselves that they're helping the world be a better place.
at least I'm not selling dish network....
But really I'm doing fine. Pest control isn't so bad, people really do need it here. It just sucks knocking the doors hoping people really need it, instead of telling each person they need it....
I should compromise, and submit like any other convert.
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}
//}}}
I think Desmond will later discover that Widmore knows something about the island, and instead of racing him, he follows him to the island... and that probably explains how penelope learns so much about it as well.
I personally think Widmore is the Economist. He's very wealthy, in Europe, and seems very mysterious. Also, he knows about the island, because he purchased the journal of the firstmate of the Black Rock Ship (that ship crashed on the island) How did the journal get back? I think Mr. Economist doesn't want people to know about the island.
Why are the oceanic 6 lying to everyone? Because the economist is trying to control them, and silence them about the island. It just so happens that sayid is the only one with balls enough to take some action against the controlling force.... thus he teams up with Ben, who is in cahoots with Jacob.
!!1/30 - 2/5 (Due Fri. 2/8)
''Wednesday'': p.102 #43,44,47,52; Read sec.2.5, do p.115 #3,6,11,13,14,16-19,24,26,27,31-33,36-39,41,43-52.
''Friday'': p.115 #53,58,59,66,67,69,72,73,83,84; p.141 #5-12all.
1/30 - 2/5 (Due Fri. 2/8)
[[Wednesday|math160-2,4-2,5]]: p.102 #43,44,47,52; Read sec.2.5, do p.115 #3,6,11,13,14,16-19,24,26,27,31-33,36-39,41,43-52.
Friday: p.115 #53,58,59,66,67,69,72,73,83,84; p.141 #5-12all.
Monday: p.142 #13,16,17,19,22,26,27,29,32,33,36-39,42,43,49.
Tuesday: p.142 #52,57,59,64; p.151 #4,5,7-9,17,19,22,23,26,42,43,46,52,53.
!!1/23 - 1/29 (Due Friday 2/1)
''Wednesday:''
p.59 #10,12,13,16,18,20,22,24,28
,30,34,36,38,40,41,48, 49,51-53,61,64,68,
69,86,87,93,101,106.
''Friday: ''
p.73 #11,12,16,18,22,23,
26,27,31-34,38,39,44,47,49,52,61,68.
''Monday:''
p.90 #3,6,10,13,16,26,27,29a,32-34.
''Tuesday:''
p.90 #37,46,49,58,59;
p.102 #1,2,4,6,8,9,13,16,17,19,23,24,27,30.
!!Tues. 1/22 (Due Friday 1/25)
Tuesday: p.11 #23,29,36,37,39,43,46,55,56,64,65; p.25 #11,16,28,33,38,43,49,52,61,66,69.
!Life
[[Health]]
[[Mormonism]]
[[Atheism]]
[[Quotes]]
[[Useful Info]]
[[toggle sidebar]]
!School
[[Classes]]
[[BlackBoard|http://blackboard.boisestate.edu]]
[[Cobe Writing Guide|http://cobe.boisestate.edu/COBEwritingguide/]]
!Work
[[Metageek]]
!Links
[[Facebook|http://facebook.com]]
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!!Tech
[[ubuntu]]
[[eee]]
[[kpc]]
!!Tiddly Cheats
[[Cheat Sheat|http://nothickmanuals.info/lib/exe/fetch.php/cheatsheets:tiddlywiki_cheatsheet.pdf?id=cheatsheets&cache=cache]]
Another Old Post
This Post is Old. 3 cheers for recycled blogs!
Does anyone else notice who actually goes out in the world to make a difference? I mean people of religious affiliations are always going out in the world to "make a difference" and no doubt they have every intent to do good. But it just doesn't seem 'real' to me.
I remember one time my mother asking me how I couldn't see God in the LDS church. I asked her how she saw God. And she pointed around the room in the general direction of our house and said "look how much our family has been blessed!" And though I was almost infuriated by that statement it opened my eyes to how it all works. We thank God for everything that we've been given. Everything that is an advantage over the next person, because if we were all in the hole together we wouldn't see "involvement" from God. In fact we wouldn't see much at all.
Its this complex that really bothers me. People believe God has given them everything. Its not because they were in the right place at the right time. Its because they worked hard. Its because they have been faithful and God has blessed them. Its never about the underpaid workers that did all the work for this man to become wealthy.
And the people that go out to do service in the world, like actual service, such as aids work in Africa, humanitarian aid in India, and anything that requires time money and sacrifice. All the people in the peace corps, and all the tree huggers seriously concerned about earth's future all these people have the stereotype of being nondenominational.
Unlike religiously affiliated groups they don't do service in hopes for something in return. They're out there to make a difference, not see people come unto Jesus for a day. Talk about strings being attached. I know religions say they do it all for free and out of the goodness of the heart, but they're really there to find converts. To them, salvation is more important than anything material anyways.
Its so funny. In the history of missionary work… its like we introduce the gospel to these idol worshipping nations, but the people with the power are the white religious leaders, and the natives become slaves of labor and they loose all their land, their culture, and their language all in the name of Jesus. And the people who traveled in the name of Jesus bring disease that kills thousands.
But we brought them so much more. We brought them a new life. We taught them how to be civilized. We brought them from their inhumane state to a reasonable lifestyle-because they had no recognizable form of government. We brought them religion.
We killed them. We killed their culture. We killed everything they had. We enslaved them, believing God favored us because we were white and born in an educated home. The rich will remain rich. The poor will remain poor. Of course our society needs poor people! Otherwise the rich people couldn't be rich!
And its not like this doesn’t happen today. We care little about the physical welfare of our brethren. On the outside we say we do. Religions love to boast of their good works, missions and service trips. "it was so worthwhile!" "the people were so poor!" And then they tell their spiritual stories, of how people came to Jesus and how they want to go again.
But then I think about the people who actually go to another country with respect of the culture and lifestyle. They realize that the people they are serving aren't necessarily "poor" its just the way they live. They don't know any better. But these people help educate and maintain the positive things to help the people improve. They don't judge the people for the different lifestyle. They don't look at them like they're inhumane, godless, and unequal.
Mom. Seriously. I can't believe the attitude you have to the poor. How can anyone believe God plays favorites? To whom much is given much is required. So make a difference. You weren't meant to be better than others. I know you and Dad worked to get where you are. But I do know that there are millions of people that work harder than you could ever handle. And they get crap.
Strings attached to service is not service. And I know we view the world differently. Many people think Jesus is more important than food and a home. But I'm coming to the realization that things will never change. It will be the same forever. We'll keep pretending we're making a difference. We'll teach the world scriptures, instead of teaching them a career.
As we informed previously, Ubuntu Open Week is going on. Tuesday and Wednesday saw - among other meetings - a Q&A session with Mark Shuttleworth. For those of you who don't have a full hour to read the logs, I prepared the most interesting pieces below. Ubuntu Wiki has full logs from all Open Week sessions. Please note that besides skipping most questions, I edited the rest slightly (purely formatting-related edits).
Tuesday
JLP: Does Ubuntu have any plans to join forces with other Linux distributions, vendors and companies and together put some pressure on software companies and and offer them help so that they would port some of the most popular applications (like Photoshop, AutoCAD, ...) to Linux?
We do already meet with ISV's, and encourage them to port to Linux. they always take a business view of the market opportunity. that's a factor of two things. the raw number of users, and the willingness of those users to pay for software. on the raw number, linux is doing very well. so hardware folks are starting to take notice. but on the ISV front, it's more challenging. many folks are on free software in part because they do not have to pay. there are some niche markets where that's not true - mostly places where Linux was a lower-cost (but not free) alternative to UNIX like workstations, graphics, CAD, movie animation and effects etc. but for raw consumers, i think the free software community should assume that we are going to have to build our own leaders in each of the major software categories. because, unless something changes and linux users start to be willing to pay for apps, the ISV's are unlikely to port
kwah:: Mark, what do you think about the latest MS 3$ initiative?
clever move. http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business6_april24_2007. he gets it. free software is a far better platform for education than the $3 offer.
* far more applications, means you can teach many more things with technology, not just word processing and spreadsheets. for example, databases, programming languages, art apps, music, astronomy, statistics... you name it
* source code, means you can learn far more about how that technology works, important for super-star students who will rocket ahead of even their teachers
* localisations, means you can teach in your n indigenous languages
in short, education departments that really care about education have lots of reasons to choose free software rather than the cheap (and usage-limited) windows offer
stuart_: Kubuntu is a great distro but (IMHO) lacks polish and features compared to Ubuntu. Are there any plans to bring in more paid Kubuntu developers now or in the future?
yes, the kubuntu team will expand, but i think kubuntu will always be more independent of canonical, which is in many was a good thing. somethings happen first in ubuntu, because that's where we focus our resources for new releases, other things happen first in kubuntu, because the decisions there are more bottom-up
kwah: What do you think about use of proprietary software in education? Shouldn't it be just a _privilege_ for software developers to provide SW for education without having any direct profits?
no. there's nothing wrong with the profit motive, unless society lets it run amok. regulation is supposed to ensure that every business has checks and balances. competition does the same. i think it's naive to disregard the value of self-motivated investment. i have no problem with proprietary software - microsoft has every reason to charge me to use software they wrote. but i think the free software community can produce better software. and i choose to use that instead
pointwood: Any rough numbers on how many *buntu machines there are running in the world currently?
4-16 million, my best guess including derivatives is around 10 million.
ryuujin_: why is launchpad a proprietary software?
several reasons. first, it's worth pointing out that we fund a huge amount of GPL software development. so LP is not non-free because we don't know any better in general. we've thought about it very carefully. the major reason is that LP is explicitly a short-term, WRONG solution to the problem. the problem is a lack of information flow between projects. the right solution, from an engineering perspective, is a federated, distributed, standards-based approach. where data from bugzilla flows to LP, and into debbugs, and into roundup, and into sourceforge. then everyone uses their preferred tools, and the data just migrates as needed. but, we couldn't wait for that to happen, so we wrote a tool for ubuntu that new how to link to other tools. now, if there were MULTIPLE tools like that, it would divide the eyeballs interested in agregating this information. so, imaging you have a bug, reported in ubuntu, debian, upstream and gentoo. with LP, someone from each community just has to annotate it once, saying "our bug tracker knows about that issue, and we are tracking it as #324342". if there were multiple LP's, people would have to do that work multiple times. the result would be a mess. you would not have 1 bug number for 1 problem. no more Bug #1! so that's the major issue. we have released bits of code that we thought WOULD be useful to other communities. either infrastructure stuff (Zope, SQLObject, translation bits etc). or app stuff. we do have a plan to get to a point where we can GPL it. but that involves a lot of work, and i think it will take time, i don't want anyone to expect it to be free in 2-3 years even. but we're working to that roadmap, and will hopefully get there
joebaker: Do you have any opinions you'd like to share about the progress of GPL v3.0?
only that i think it's important work, and a good transparent process, and I really hope they come to a result that the community embraces wholeheartedly, even Linus. from the drafts, we're not there yet. i do trust both rms and eben moglen. when v3 is out, we'll take a decision about the code we have copyright in. ultimately, though ubuntu is an aggregated work of hundreds of items under many licences. so that will remain true :-)
[doctor]: Mark, what do you think about interaction at a level of the governments (Russia & East Europe) for distribution edubuntu. Any plans?
well, Georgia has already done a large program like that. i think Armenia is looking at the same. i do expect others to follow. and we will work with any government that wants consulting and customisation help
adamant1988: I think we all recognize Canonical ltd.'s importance to the Ubuntu project's continued growth and prosperity, however Canonical remains a mysterious figure to Ubuntu users because it is a private corporation. I'm sure many users of Ubuntu are concerned with Canonical's financials (profit, etc.) and would like to invest (read: buy stock) in the company. Are there any plans to 'go public', if not why?
no plans to go public at this stage, though it's nice to have lots of VC's expressing interest. i don't want to take a short-term view, and the markets ultimately force you into that. it's rare to find public companies that don't have that pressure, or even VC-funded private companies, and right now we have the luxury of having plenty of funding and a long-term mandate to change the economics of the software industry in a profound, philanthropic and commercial way. we are slowly building up a revenue stream in canonical, all of which gets reinvested in ubuntu. my dream is to build something unique: a genuinely free platform, that PAYS FOR ITSELF. that has never existed before, but i believe it can exist, and our goal is to find out. at the same time, canonical and ubuntu are separate entities. other companies are starting to invest in ubuntu too. sometimes via canonical (contracts for development, ports etc). and sometimes directly (hiring developers and getting them to spend time on ubuntu or kubuntu). ubuntu is bigger than canonical, and that's a very good thing. it would be nice to have more non-canonical people in the CC and techboard. nobody can buy their way onto those, but as more companies devote full-time engineers to ubuntu, it's more likely that they will be able to build the necessary experience and credibility to hold a seat their on their own merits.
Wednesday
fql: Several ubuntu pages and also bug #1 in launchpad note that ubuntu is entirely free (as in free speech), however in the default install this is not true (drivers etc.), are there plans on making this more transparant to the user?
we should always qualify that as "only free applications". at least, i fix it that way in the wiki when i run into it. we have had the driver exception in place since the beginning, so it's not as though this has changed. hopefully, the new flavour will also carry the "pure free" flag
McKinney: i read an interview with andreas barth criticizing ubuntu. what do you think, in which way can ubuntu and debian profit from each other in future? http://www.golem.de/showhigh2.php?file=/0704/51531.html&wort[]=andreas&wort[]=barth
again, hard for me to respond, i can't read the german. however, i think debian and ubuntu already benefit hugely from one another. we have brought debian millions of new users, in a category that it was never previously taken seriously in, the desktop. in addition, many new DD's come through Ubuntu, or first discover debian through Ubuntu. we are expanding the debian universe, which is very good for debian. we lead a lot of very useful work, which eventually gets included in debian. they are considering upstart, for example and also considering our live cd infrastructure. perhaps even the ubuntu installer. they largely depend on work we do on the toolchain, on python, on java etc. the flip side is also true. we benefit hugely from debian's depth and breadth. we consider ourselves to be part of the debian family. it's sad for me, that when ubuntu releases there are 2 messages about it on debian planet - one of celebration from a person who contributes to both, and one a bug report, but i'm happy that, when debian releases, there are tons of congratulations to debian on planet ubuntu. i would like to see better collaboration. many dd's routinely read patches that we automatically mail to them when a package is modified in ubuntu. others just ignore them. it would be nice to have debian recognise the contribution ubuntu makes. we get twice the volume of bug reports now, not because we are more buggy, but because we reach a wider audience. debian would benefit if they took an interest in ensuring that their packages are getting that wider exposure
spr0k3t: I've seen some of the estimated numbers for *buntu, but I'm curious... how many unique IP addresses did the canonical servers see on th 19th of April?
wow, not sure i have that number, but there were 53 mirrors before we announced, and 130 by the end of the day, that we know of. so hits on canonical.com are a small fraction of total. i think we were serving 12 gigabits / second from ourselves and top 5 mirrors :-). probably 20 gbits/s in total. 3 cd's per second for 12 hours. pretty amazing. if you were in #ubuntu-release-party, you know it was quite a rush :-)
darich: are there any plans for large scale marketing campaigns a la Firefox for Ubuntu(full page adds etc..)
you mean bigger than the billboards? that was a fun campaign. all in good time. first we have to crack the corporate market, and be sustainable. we are taking a very unconventional approach, but we are on good track. next week you will see two big announcements, one of which will probably dominate the media, but both are really nice steps towards sustainability for the project. our goal is to be sustainable and completely free. we are neither right now, but we are moving towards that goal very steadily
sampbar: Mark, do you feel that open office is in the right direction to becoming as good as word and excel?
tough question. i'm getting worried about their developer approach. it still feels like a closed community. i know they WANT to fix that. the head of that group at Sun has the right ideas, but it's hard to move a big ship. oo.o has been a huge boost for free software, because it is cross platform. i had lunch with an interesting lawyer today, and he was telling me that he installed oo.o and was "really impressed that it worked so well". he was amazed that it just opened word docs nicely, and he could find his way around easily. great! but it doesn't have the rapid evolution that we see in other Gnome or KDE projects. i think AbiWord, and KOffice would be slicker, faster, lighter if they had more developer time, but because OO.o is the 800 pound gorilla, it's hard to get a lot of developers on those others. 63,000 unique IP's hit releases.ubuntu.com on 19 april, not bad for half a day's work :-). so i would like to see oo.o get "more open." it took mozilla long time to gestate and produce firefox. we need the same thing from oo.o
Daviey: Why is 'ubuntu' a trademark of Canonical and not the Ubuntu foundation?
Canonical is the funder of the brand. The Ubuntu Foundation is a trust that exists in the event that Canonical can no longer support Ubuntu. so, when we made a long term support commitment, i figured out how much money we needed in the bank to meet that commitment and setup the Ubuntu foundation and gave them that amount of money. no matter what happens to Canonical, the money is there to meet the support commitment. you can safely deploy Dapper and you will not suddenly find yourself unsupported, but we don't touch that money, it's an insurance balance. so, in that light, it makes more sense to have Canonical manage the brands. it invests in the marketing, and also makes decisions about the ways in which people can use the brand. so far, it's working well. http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy
pwnedd: For a large number of people, the number one reason for getting a pc is for gaming. Right now however there are few mainstream games written for or even compatable with linux. Do you think there is anything the ubuntu team can do to change that, and open up linux to a larger population?
i agree this is a big, important question. gaming developers are like other ISV's. they write software to sell software, so they want to see (a) how many people use a platform, and (b) what percentage of them WOULD PAY to use their software on that platform. that gives them a market size. they then compare that to the cost of the port and the lost time in making the port (while their competition works on new products). and then take a decision
popey_: Please buy transgaming, and package cedega for us :(
they key is not who owns cedega, the key is the business model that supports it. no point in buying it and changing the model if that means it becomes unsustainable
Armagon: What steps would you advise an experienced programmer (who lacks F/OSS development experience) to take in order to quickly become a valuable contributor to the community?
find something you are personally really interested in! preferably a smaller component. that's written in a language you know. then climb in! a good community will welcome you. if you don't feel welcome, look elsewhere. so WELCOME!
Source: [[Mass Interview With Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu Open Week) : Ubuntu News|http://www.ubuntunews.info/mark-shuttleworth-interview-ubuntu-open-week]]
A ''Methodology'' is a formalized approach to implementing the [[SDLC]]
!!!Rob's Bad Example
''Code and Fix Methodology''
#Code
#Test (repeat if broken)
#Delivery
!!Structured Design
*Critical Elements
**Projects move sequentiall from one step to next through [[SDLC]]
**Generally, a step is finished before the next one begins
#''Waterfall Development''
##[[example|http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Waterfall_model.png]]
#''Parallel Development''
##[[example|file:///media/disk/tiddly/methodology-parallel.jpg]]
#''Phased'' (book has this under RAD)
!!Rapid Application Development (RAD)
*Critical elements
**CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools and Code generators
**JAD (Joint Application Development) sessions
**Fourth generation/visualization programming languages
*RAD Methodologies
**Phased development
***A series of versions
**Prototyping
***System prototyping
**Throw-away prototyping
***Design prototyping
*''focus was more on the tools''... because shortly after hardware became cheaper than people, Computer aided software engineering
#''Phased Development''
#''Prototyping''
##[[example|file:///media/disk/tiddly/methodology-phased.jpg]]
#''Throwaway Prototyping''
##[[example|file:///media/disk/tiddly/methodology-throwaway.png]]
!!Agile Development
Agile = Flexible, Streamlined, Iterative
''Agile Methodologies''
For all things Agile, here is the place to go! [[link|http://www.agilealliance.org/]]
#Extreme Programming (XP)
##Accommodates change during development using
###Object oriented techniques
###Design simplicity
###Coding practices (code standards, automated testing, pair programming, refactoring)
###Reduced documentation
##Emphasizes
###Simplicity
###Communication
###Feedback
###Courage
#SCRUM (2-5 week iterations)
#Spiral
#RUP (Rational Unified Process)
''Highland Planning''
-# of iterations
-length of iterations
-main contents of iterations (contents = deliverables)
*Problems Agile Addresses
#At start of project, customers ask for more functionality than they end up wanting. Standish Group (2005) found:
##45% features never used
##19% rarely used.
##Only 20% are always or often used.
##Waste time developing, debugging, maintaining
#Customers get better ideas after they see some system
#Developers get better ideas after they build some system
#Over time, changing requirements disrupt project
*''Features of Agile methodologies…''
**Planning
***Continually plan
***Less documentation
***Time Blocked
***Manage risk proactively
**Adaptive Approach
***Embrace change
***Close interaction with customer
***Unfold analysis
***Continually test and feedback
!Choosing a Methodology
See [[chart|file:///media/disk/tiddly/methodology-choose.png]]
[img[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/cutlerite/methodology-choose.png]]
This is a vegetarian dish utilizing many vegetables that is full of flavor. The sea vegetable, hijiki safety, and Healthy Stir-Fry cooking method makes this recipe even healthier than most stir-fries. Don’t be limited to just the vegetables mentioned here. The more variety the better for nutritional value. It gives you a delicious opportunity to enjoy more vegetables in your diet.
''Prep and Cook Time'': 25 minutes
!!Ingredients:
* 1 TBS dried organic hijiki seaweed soaked in 3/4 cup warm water (save water)
* 1 medium onion cut in half and sliced thick
* 1 TBS minced fresh ginger
* 3 cloves garlic pressed
* 1 medium sized carrot peeled and sliced very thin
* 2 cups small broccoli florets, about ½ inch pieces
* 1 cup shredded green cabbage
* 4 oz firm light tofu, cut into ½ inch cubes
* 2 TBS light miso dissolved in 2 TBS seaweed water
* 2 TBS soy sauce
* 2 TBS rice vinegar
* salt & white pepper to taste
* 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
!!Directions:
#Begin preparing by rinsing and soaking hijiki seaweed in about ¾ cup hot water, and chopping all the vegetables. After about 10 minutes squeeze hijiki to remove excess water. Save the water.
#Heat 1TBS of seaweed water in a stainless steel wok, or large skillet. Healthy Stir-Fry onion and carrots in seaweed water over medium high heat, for 2 minutes stirring constantly.
#Add garlic and ginger. Keep stirring constantly. Ginger may stick a little to the pan. Don't worry about it. It will come up when liquid is added. After about 2 minutes add broccoli. Stir-fry for another 2 minutes.
#Add cabbage, miso mixed with seaweed water, soy sauce, rice vinegar, hijiki, and tofu.
#Continue stir-frying for another 2 minutes stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.
Yields ''6''
!!Serving Suggestions:
* Serve with Brown Rice
!!Healthy Cooking Tips:
Make sure your vegetables are cut and ready before you start to stir-fry. This way you can be sure not to over cook them. By slicing your carrots thin and cutting broccoli into small florets they can cook el dente without needing to be blanched first. Also, the cabbage will start to release water and dilute the flavor of your dish if you cook it too long. By slicing it thin and only cooking a couple minutes it will be fresh, crisp without tasting raw, and won't release its liquid.
mormon suicide
Suicide Due to a current event, I am extremely upset.
Let me quote an article.
For more than 10 years, 15- to 34-year-old males in Utah have had suicide rates markedly higher than those seen nationally. In fact, in the early to mid-1990s, suicide was the number one cause of death among 25- to 44-year-old men in the state and the second-leading cause of death among men aged 15 to 24.
"These results provide evidence that a low level of religious commitment is a potential risk factor for suicide," Dr. Sterling C. Hilton of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and his colleagues write in the March 1st issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
"If the observed association is real, then it gives us another piece of information that helps us understand suicide... which might help efforts to reduce it," Hilton told Reuters Health.
Hilton and his colleagues investigated the relationship between suicide and religiosity in an analysis of 1991-1995 state death records from the Utah State Department of Health, as well as data from the LDS church and the US Census Bureau.
Roughly 27,740 male deaths occurred during the study period, including 551 suicides among 15 to 34 year olds, the investigators report. About 6 in 10 of these suicides were committed by male members of the LDS church.
Suicide rates in each of the four age categories studied--15 to 19 years, 20 to 24 years, 25 to 29 years, and 30 to 34 years--were lower among active members of the LDS church than among less active LDS church members, nonmembers and males in the general US population, the report indicates.
I think many people would love to automatically conclude that Mormons are happier and commit less suicides.
But that is most certainly not the case. Most of these suicides are among less active mormons-they have been rejected by their people, and they feel unacceptable to society. If you don't believe me, and if you don't think leaving mormonism is a big deal, you can ask almost any mormon you meet.
Ask them how their family would feel about them leaving the church, and ask them how their friends would treat them. I feel pretty confident that they'd answer like this, "I'd lose all my friends, and it would be very difficult with my family."
While all of these thoughts are completely pre-conceived-I, having left the church, still get along great with my family and friends. It is scary that a church and or subcuture would have that much power over someone mentally where it would make them feel like life isn't worth living if they aren't LDS.
I don't claim the non religious to be better off, I'm just saying that its found everywhere, immorality, divorce, drug abuse and suicide. Its found in the LDS church, which makes me wonder.... If Mormons have all the same evils and corruption as everyone else (doesn't matter if they're less active because they once had mormonism and have chosen to resort to other things) what makes mormonism so appealing-better yet worthwhile? Why do religious people think they all of a sudden have all the hope they need in the world, when they're really no better off?
Why do people feel like they'll lose everything if they leave the church? I have talked to plenty of mormons, who don't necessarily agree with everything in the LDS church, and they have plenty of questions of their own, but they refuse to do anything about it because the mormon church is their life, and they can't imagine the horrible shunning that would follow.
This is scary. If you don't believe me that the church indirectly causes these suicides, try asking a member how they feel about a mormon missionary coming home early. ask a girl how she would feel about marrying a non return missionary. Ask them how they feel about marrying a non mormon, or an ex-mormon.
I'm curious to how they'll answer.
*[[History|Mormon History]]
*[[Book of Mormon|Book Of Mormon]]
*The [[Bible]]
**[[The Bible (explicit blog)]]
*[[Money|Mormon Money]]
*[[Growth|LDS Growth]]
*[[Temples]]
-----
!!Blogs
*[[A conversation with Trent Cutler]]
*[[And ye shall know them by their ..roots?]]
*[[Beliefs I don't subscribe to]]
*[[Biblical Bad Omens and Me]]
*[[Boring Church and Opposition]]
*[[Creating and Addiction]]
*[[Evolution Blog]]
*[[Faith - Watch Out Boys and Girls]]
*[[God's Love]]
*[[How many of you feel all alone?]]
*[[Hugh Nibley]]
*[[Hurricane Katrina - God's Work?]]
*[[I go here (marriage)]]
*[[I go here 2 (marriage)]]
*[[I've become what I hated]]
*[[Is it possible to change this world]]
*[[Its for the best]]
*[[Just another statistic]]
*[[Life is just....?]]
*[[Life's a bitch]]
*[[Making a Difference]]
*[[Mormon Suicide]]
*[[My Bitterness (blog)]]
*[[My Inspirations]]
*[[My Problems with BYU]]
*[[Native Americans]]
*[[Old Letter]]
*[[Open Source Religion]]
*[[People around me]]
*[[Pray for Mojo]]
*[[Prayer]]
*[[Profanity]]
*[[Purple versus Pink]]
*[[Questions]]
*[[Racism and Mormons]]
*[[Religious Satire]]
*[[Satan's Plan]]
*[[Some things to think about.]]
*[[Story of a mormon Girl]]
*[[The Abuse and Misuse of Power]]
*[[The Bible (explicit blog)]]
*[[The Book of Abraham]]
*[[The Youth of the World are Revolting]]
*[[Trent Heaven Trent Hell]]
*[[What is Faith?]]
*[[Who would have thought?]]
*[[religion and teens]]
September 04 2006
If I had a penny for every time I have been asked, What happened to you, why are you so bitter? Why do you have to write about it? I'd have a few dollars.
People always look for one instance that they can blame for my bitterness, like a bad leader, a hard break-up, a tough mission, or bad parenting. I'm a little hurt when people do this, because they assume my reasoning is not based on logic, facts, or inconsistencies, but that I haven't devoted enough time in research to finding the answers.
I have confidence in what I write because I have spent time reading and thinking about what I write. Some days, it consumes my thoughts. Where is your confidence in your beliefs? Why do you fear people will read what I write, and believe me (especially if I am wrong)? You have the same access to the world, to post your beliefs and or disbeliefs. In fact you can correct me at the bottom of my blog.
If you are passionate about a topic, it is something that has influenced you, and it is usually relative to every thought, dream, hope, and love that you have. When there is something like that in your life, (whether a person, religion, hobby, lifestyle, and or science)-you will see the connections it has in every facet of your life, and your obsession will influence your thoughts.
Some people prefer to not cast their pearls before swine. but why not? Are you afraid you'll be wrong? Don't you want to know if you're wrong or right? There is no better way to do so than criticism. I say, cast your pearls out their and gain a return on your investment!
And this is why I am bitter. LDS people don't question themselves, they won't read (and believe) anything by anyone who isn't LDS. They're guilted into thinking they could never find happiness outside of the religion. Their religion creates the sins that it frees them from.
And if you have ever been passionate about mormonism, you know as well as I have known, sorrow. You cringe when people sin, and cry when someone loses faith. I've been there too. Now people do that for me, even though I am much happier now than I ever was. This is sad to me, because they wouldn't be hurt if their religion told them I was lost.
I was depressed horribly, I had all of these doubts that I just kept within, because I knew it was bad to be critical of the church. Every time I asked a question, I never really received a real answer, because as they told me, there was none. And the day I started writing all of my questions publicly, I felt better. People could really know how I felt, if they chose to. I wasn't knocking on people's doors forcing a message down their throat, it was their choice.... it felt good, and it was nice to hear people's perspectives on how it all fits together. I began meeting people who had the same questions and frustrations as I did. I became happy.
You have every right to comment, and correct my faulty logic, and or post your own perspectives, but please, please don't be a hater, or you will just be exactly what I have written about.
I write for criticism, and controversy, and if you can't handle it, don't read it, and don't ask me to take any down.
My Inspirations
My Inspirations.
I am so thankful for the scriptures. When I read them I get such a great warm feeling of confusion. I know I can find any answer I need in them, I just have yet to do that. Sometimes its like I open the scriptures, and I find one that fits exactly what I needed at that time. It's like God changed the entire bible, and everyone else's bible to answer my prayer. The scriptures have totally replaced my relationship with God, its so nice I don't even have to pray anymore, just read the scriptures and get what I want out of them! I seriously don't know where I'd be without them! (Probably in jail arrested for drugs).
I am so thankful for all of my teachers who make the extra effort to fail a certain percentage of their students each semester. They keep the competition at BYU high, and I can just tell that they really care about making a difference in each student's life. I have never felt so close to teachers who answer my questions with love saying, “it's in your book, go look it up.” They get paid to teach, but yet they know better they have the system figured. They just have me teach myself or assign it to some P.O.S. Teacher's assistant. I wouldn't be where I am right now if it weren't for them. (probably in Mexico conning Hispanic people to buy “american food” but its really american dirt...bad huh!).
I am so thankful for my fellow students at Brigham Young University. They know the truth, they hold the truth in their hands. They have been taught through spiritual confirmation, and no matter what temporal education they receive, they will never let go of their testimony. They are such great examples to me. They will never doubt, nor listen to something that differs from what they already believe. I don't know where I'd be if it weren't for them. (probably in a Harley gang with the best beer gut ever and most sickest ever mustache in the world).
I'm so thankful for my graduating class of 2002. I have never seen any group of people be so exclusive with friendships in my entire life. This graduating class amazingly held on to the same standards that they made in middle school. They were so strong set in who they talked to and who they couldn't talk to. Each person had the same attitude towards allowing new people in their group, the answer was no...no way. When I think of high school, I wonder what it would have been like to have close friends and I think to myself, “who needs friends when I have the scriptures!????” But seriously where would I have been without the vacancy throughout my high school career. I don't know but probably on some island cooking in a pot to be eaten by cannibals.
I'm thankful for all the people in my life who told me what happiness was. If they had not told me what I can or can't do, I would have been a miserable mess. I'm so thankful to be able to watch their examples and learn from them. They tell themselves over and over again that something so depressing is actually joyful. These people know without a doubt what real happiness is, but they never feel it. They just keep saying its a joy that happened....(pick that one single random moment from their past and insert here)... If it weren't for them I would never be living the lifestyle that they considered happiness. (I'd probably be in hell already dead).
Overall, I know what happiness is. And I've learned a lot from the likes of these people. I'm sick of people telling me what makes me happy. I know I must be careful when I use the word happy cuz some people confuse it with “pleasure.” I know when I feel happy. I know when i've done good and when i've done bad. I know each situation doesn't have only two options, wrong and right. God gave me a brain and expects me to use it. I'm sick of people describing my heaven for me. I'm sick of people telling me what will make me miserable, and things that won't make me happy. To me, happiness is liberation. It's being free from all the oppressing words of others beliefs. Its being free from the thought that God will send me to hell if I say the word SHIT. Its knowing that if I'm a good christian regardless of what others say, I'll be saved. It's about being free from a belief that there is only one way back to God. I have a good heart, I do good. If God wants to damn me because I don't read my scriptures, and don't go to church every week, so be it. I'll write you blogs on myspace from hell.
My Problems with BYU
BYU
Okay, so people ask me ALL the time why I wish to transfer away from BYU. I hate explaining it to them because it takes so long, but this is for those of you who really want to know, why I don't want to stay here at BYU.
Some of you think, well its because Trent doesn't have a testimony of the church, which is false. I have my doubts, but that wouldn't keep me from going to school here. Obviously there's people that aren't even members of the church attending this school. (they're either athletes or foreign students usually) Either way, it isn't so difficult to stay at this school.
BYU is incredibly cheap. I enjoy studying communications-advertising here. I find the program amazing. It doesn't make any logical sense for me to transfer to BSU, where they don't have my program or anything like it, and for me to pay that much money it just doesn't make sense.
The reason I desire to transfer is simply RELIGION SHOULD BE SEPARATE FROM EDUCATION. I will stand by that till the Messiah and all scientific and Godly questions are answered. I'm pretty sure most students here at BYU feel otherwise, they came here because they believe God is behind all knowledge taught here at BYU. That was the hope of the church when they founded the University of Utah, except they started teaching philosophies that fundamentalist Mormons didn't agree, so they sold the school and started Brigham Young University. Unfortunately things aren't going as well as they hoped.
Imagine someone telling you that all learning is done through the Holy Ghost and is obtained through God. Sounds nice, and desirable! I wish it were so, but it isn't. If it were so, a school with God's authority would literally be a light unto the world. Brigham Young would be the world's leading source of knowledge, and all of its teachings would lead people to find God. But we all know it isn't that way.
If it had been so God would have told the Prophet Ezra Taft Benson to not defend the usage of DDT so passionately. The pesticide DDT eventually was scientifically proved harmful to the ecosystem, and became illegal to use in the United States. Joseph wouldn't have been such a horrible investor, which is funny cuz BYU now has the best accounting program in the nation. (for those of you who think that Joseph was put in Jail because he was hated, you're wrong he was put in jail for debts over a 100,000 dollars which is a lot for back then.)
Imagine what it would be like to go to a Religiously founded school and be required to take classes in Religion. No problem huh, cuz that's what you believe right? Well regardless of what you may spiritually obtain from scriptures, you'll be tested on what the teacher spiritually obtained when he wrote the test. Religion no longer becomes what you believe. Religion classes are wonderful, even I'll admit it. Most of the time they give you a good foundation and background to the things you already believe. But so many times they ask you to write about your spiritual experiences, and then they grade you on that... That's wrong. They'll plan their lessons for the day, and then look for scriptures that will back up what they want to say so they'll sound like it's what God wants. That's wrong too! That's not what God wants said, that's what they wanted to say! They wrote the words, and then took the scriptures out of context to justify their own words! That's wrong! Plus anyone of any religion can do that.
Imagine studying Criminal justice and psychology. Instead of reading about Satan tempting the person into committing the crime, you'll read about their thinking patterns, you'll read about their mental disabilities, and you'll decipher the whole situation instead of simply saying he fell into temptation.
Imagine how they would help someone who was depressed back in the day. Back in the beginning of time. Most Mormons in historical times would have thought an evil spirit had possessed them. Reading scriptures and increasing church attendance would solve their problem. Except we now know it is a real medical problem and can't be helped by medication.
Some of you will look at both of these situations and think God just hadn't revealed the knowledge to us yet. Acceptable, but yet wrong. The medical science and criminal science came from other people not even in the church. Some of you will say it is from God, even though the people that developed those thought processes were Godless.
So much of the world's knowledge comes from outside religious sources. I'm willing to bet all of the scientific discoveries regarding dinosaurs and evolution come from scientists who don't believe in God. Are you telling me that through all their endless studies, tests and work that they did to get to the point where they were, God still gave it to them? Especially when they didn't even believe in God? No, that would be silly. We all understand how the human brain works, repetition brings brings memorization or in other words learning.
I can't go into a test and expect God to help me with the answers if I haven't studied. We all have to work to get where we were. God doesn't help us, and if you believe he does, then I ask you about all the incredibly smart people who just need to see something once, and they have it memorized. Is God more with them than you? No, let's hope not, because they're not even part of your religion most likely. Everything you learn comes from your efforts. Scientific discoveries come from scientist's efforts.
Science and Education simply explain how things work in the world. It all shows us how little God is in our lives. Compare a Latter-Day Saint from a 100 years ago with no education, and a Latter-Day Saint from today with a Doctorate in Science. I'm willing to bet one of them thinks God causes the thunder in the clouds and the rumblings in the ground. One of them ignorantly believes God is in control of pretty much anything, and if you told them the world was billions of years old, they'd think you apostatized, and would bear their testimony that the world is no older than 10,000 years.
Now we just say the numbers used in the bible are “figurative.” and God now works through “natural ways.” Some teachers teach evolution here at BYU. Other teachers here at BYU believe evolution is wrong. They'll call it all “theories.” 1/3 of our church believes evolution should not be taught in schools! (see deseret news) They refuse to believe it all when we have skulls and bone structures showing every progression of man coming from ape. WE HAVE THE BONES AND THE SKULLS! We can go through Man's DNA, and ape's DNA and show exactly where a tiny, simple mutation occurred. Yet church member's still quote packer when he calls them all theories unprovable.
Do you see how wrong it is to have people teaching what they want, and saying its God's words? Do you see how wrong it is to have religious beliefs and contradicting scientific beliefs taught on the same grounds? Even though a teacher feels like he received his personal revelation on a topic, it still doesn't mean it is church doctrine.
For Religion and Education to be taught simultaneously, everything must be provable, and agreeable. The church must officially endorse every single teaching taught. The spirit of God would help all scientific discoveries. All Science will lead to God. I think science eventually will lead to God in some way or another, but it is WAY too premature to intertwine religion and education. This is why our leaders don't get involved in any science. Our church has no official doctrine on cloning, or gene that makes people homosexual or even on the theories of evolution.
When students are taught here, they're taught “how it is.” They believe its how God wants it. Thinking differently would be going against God. It is detrimental to those personal discoveries, studies, tests and works I talked about earlier that leads so many people to new discoveries. One time on my mission in Japan, I knew things could be run better with the missionary program there, there were so many things being done wrong there. I wrote in a letter my disgust with how things were being done. I received in a letter disgust in how I was going against an organization that a prophet had received revelation for. She said I was going against my God, my Creator. It scares me to think that there's people out there who think things can't be improved, it scares me to think they believe our leaders have all the answers. And then we hear our prophet get up in General Conference and say we hope the president knows what he's doing. Or we'll hear our prophet admit he doesn't know what to do quite yet, or how he's spent many hours praying to know what to do. People that think the world and our situations don't change, that we have no more need for added revelation scare me.
But you know what, I don't believe God directly gives us knowledge like so many mormons at this school believe. I think it comes through personal discoveries within and outside our church. Go ahead say I'm taking God out of my normal life, but look at what you're doing to. Look at all the studying you've done, I bet you it does the same, in less harsh of words.
overall, religion should be separate from education until they harmonize. but for now it is detrimental to everyone, and discourages personal belief and devotion, which we know how people work. think of all the personal revelation that people receive that isn't in harmony with official church doctrine... I could go on for ever! BYU needs to choose one or the other, allowing people their individual beliefs within their gospel, or BYU needs to discourage all individual beliefs discoveries and focus solely on revelation from God. They don't go together.
Myspace blog November 13 2006
I just think its a second swift kick* in the nuts to Native Americans, for Mormons to claim indians are descendents of apostates, and that their skin color was changed because God was cursing them.
*The first swift kick being the white man taking over all of their land, and raping their women...
This is a big deal because there are way too many Mormons that falsely believe an idea that Native Americans came directly from Jerusalem, (and if you didn't know that, I challenge you to read the book of mormon). . or just click here on this link. Wikipedia: Lamanites
I could pick at all the little details, about the lack of cities, the unbelievably false languages the book of mormon claims the native americans spoke, or point out the fact that there are no weapons or swords or anything that has been discovered, but no, I'm not going to bother, you can read all of that yourself, which you really should do, because it is your faith we're talking about, and I do believe McConkie once said, "Faith is based on truth and is preceded by knowledge. Until a person gains a knowledge of the truth he can have no faith."
Most importantly, besides DNA proving the Native Americans are not from Jerusalem, I just have to ask, if the Nephites supposedly traveled to America in 600 BC....
then how have the native americans been on the continent for over 9,000 years?
Wait, that's older than Adam and Eve? what? you mean there's fossil evidence of people living on earth more than 10,000 years ago?
yes.
Thank you for forgetting everything that you were taught in school.
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##Allows two applications on differeent computers to establish dialog control
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Old letter.
The following is a segment from an email my brother sent home. He served as a missionary in Japan. I did as well, in a different life. found the response and I thought I'd post it.
nothing to big happening with our investigators. there is a lot of fear that comes with change. people are scared not only of changing themselves but if other people will accept their decision. not the new them or how they improved, but just the name and the action that they went through. and a lot of people, especially japanese people don:t desire or want the best at all. they are satisfied with what they got. they:d rather fit in and have a terrible stinky time, then actually having fun and feeling good about what they are doing. they don:t have the courage to step out and do what is right. america really is a blessed country. im not saying that just by americans having the attitude they have makes them accept anything any better, but because of it, religious freedom is there and it has brought people to search for truth and right and things that really make a person happy.
A couple things bothered me with this statement, Kelv. How willing are you to accept change? What if someone offered you a new religion? Don't go making assumptions about japanese, and how unopen to change they are. Look around Japan, look at all the funky hairstyles, fashions, pop vs. subculture, homosexuality, and even health practices. Some of the religions even in japan would never fly in America.
Christianity is a cultural thing. A pre-existence doesn't matter when you talk to them, because you can't remember it and neither can they. You have to break the cultural barriers. They weren't culturally raised with it, so there is a huge "learning" process they have to go through, and even then it will never become what it has been for you in your life. You can work the rest of your life to get the church how you like it, but it will never be how they like it. When you get home, take an anthropology class. It will open your eyes a bit. For now, just realize that there's a huge difference in what they can mentally comprehend/visualize/accept vs what you are able to.
Second, "the best" is completely subjective. You think you have the best. You think you know how to run the show. Or at least you think you have the answers on how to. But what is "the best?" To you, it means being LDS. But even within that, what brings you happiness? What do you have that they don't already have? two parents, a quality career, arguably a great education system for the kids, and if desired... spirituality. Do miracles happen exclusively in the LDS church? ask your japanese neighbors if miracles happen. What I'm saying, is they're content with what they have.
Its like our trip to honduras, (and I know you're probably sick of hearing about it-if you are don't bother reading this) Of course the american would look at the little children and say, "oh my gosh how sad! they live on dirt floors." Well how sad is it, if the parents have lived on dirt floors their entire lives, and don't feel it necessary to go out and get a real tile floor. Its simply all that they know. And to them, THAT is comfort. All you have known is the LDS religion, so naturally, it is comfortable to you.
The same principle can be applied to Japanese. of course they seem platonic in their marriages, and their homes seem less emotion filled. But you have to remember, this is how their society is. How would you feel if someone knocked on your door and told you how you loved your wife was unacceptable in the eyes of God- or wasn't "the best." You wouldn't listen to him would you?
I'd also be careful about saying America is so blessed. Tha attitude won't fly well when you're trying to help the people around you. Are you trying to americanize them or are you trying to give them Jesus?
Don't promise people they'll be happier if they had the gospel because you don't know that. you may think you do, but you don't. You can't promise them anything like that. why? because even people within in the church are very unhappy. From the obedient to the disobedient. Having the answers to life's questions doesn't make a person happy. Happiness is a conscious choice. and if you don't believe people can choose to be happy, then keep on preaching, and keep on thinking everyone smiling person without the gospel is unhappy.
Kelv I offer little advice on all of this. It just bothers me to hear people look so condescendingly on other 'inferior' cultures. If a culture wanted what you have, they'd work for it. But they don't want it. They don't need it. They don't need a million dollars to feel the "best." They don't need 5 kids, a big house and a perfect marriage to be happy. sure it would be nice, but if they don't get to that point they're not going to feel like a failure.
what happens if you don't have all the things you think are happiness? I know you never named any of those things I've named, but just think about it. What if your wife leaves the church, or you children. What if your marriage is bad, but you you stick it out everyday just because you've been "sealed?" Be careful what expectations you have for happiness Kelv. cuz if you aren't, you'll be unhappy.
so what I've said may not be applicable to your thinking complex, I may have totally misinterpreted your statements. But try to show a little more openmindedness to them. offer truth, and be accepting of truth. trust those seeking truth, and doubt those who say they have it.
This is all I have to say. a lot. but just think about it a little more. you have a few months left to learn about the japanese people.
Posted by Cutlerite at 10:08 AM 0 comments
I've always wondered this: how can opinions vary so much in one religion? I mean seriously, isn't the Bible specific enough? (sarcasm) But really, why go to a church if you're going to hold your own personal beliefs and opinions anyway?
So I read this book called, "Wild Swans." Its a true account of three generations that lived through Communist China. The scary part about it all, was that the nationalism each person had, almost became a religious belief. The things people did because they believed it was for the better were horrible. I think the Mao quote, "it is better to be Red than expert" is scary. People were terribly afraid to learn because they just may die. So everyone just did what they were told to do without questioning. I think Religions do the same thing Mao did in some form or another.
I think criticism is good, and you should too. Where would you be if no person ever said, "hey this could be done better!" or "maybe women should have rights too?" Every invention, every innovation, and every thing in science comes from critical eyes. They all want to be further scrutinized so they can become better, or closer to truth. You can't open the bible and say, "I wish they wouldn't kill so much."
To me, anything that discourages doubt, or criticism is scary. Very scary. Everyone should have critical eyes and excellent crap-detectors (muhr) to make it through life. Instead so many people just accept what they're told, because it was how they were raised, or part of their social environment. They never think critically about any of it. They literally sign their soul away.
Now, I know 99% of you don't devote yourself 100% to your religion because no one really does. I see you all at school, I see you all sinning, and I know you all have your questions, doubts and criticisms. ( I know sinning is subjective, but I know you all think you have sinned). Even though you aren't 100% sure of anything when it comes to religious principles, you hope to be, and this self deception carries you back to church each week.
I don't think you all necessarily know God exists. In fact, I believe no one knows of God's existence, they just keep telling themselves that they do, and some of you tell yourselves that the leader you trust knows for a fact, but if you were to ask him, he'd tell you otherwise. None of you believe 100%, or otherwise you wouldn't screw up and do something contradictory to what your pastor/bishop tells you to do. But you all do.
You do what makes you happy. Then, you go to church, and they make you feel depressed for what you have done. They tell you that you will be punished in hell if you don't repent. And naturally, every religious person believes they will be saved some day, so they repent. And they're all terribly convicted that God has forgiven them, because everyone believes they're a saint.
They believe the rest of the world isn't. They believe every choice made is a good one. (otherwise they wouldn't have chose it) Its easy to regret it, and have retrospective knowledge that it was a bad and unintelligent decision. The human mind is always weighing each decision and acting on it based on its previous knowledge and experience.
Every religious person can't imagine what it would be like to be God and salvation-less. It gives them a false hope that they'll see all of their sinning relatives again, and that they'll be happy forever, while everyone else burns. People just can't accept life without this hope. Let me tell you about this hope.
Religious wars. Religious hate. Religious intolerance. Cults. Even homocide and genocide. And every single person that commited any of these had the same "feelings" confirm their faith that you apparently do.
Let me tell you about life. No one is ever 100% correct. It isn't black and white. It isn't even gray scale. Its full of vibrant colors. Why is that? Because their isn't just one right or wrong, there's just you. There's many things for you to be happy about, and to be happy I think you need to see all the colors. And if you don't see colors that everyone else is seeing, you ought to look into it with a critical eye :)
I believe to learn is to be happy. When you have a hobby, you are always learning. When you have a relationship, you are always learning. You're seeing more colors each day. There is no happiness in having all your decisions made for you. Devoting your life to someone other than yourself is not happiness, it is slavery.
If it makes you happy, do it. If it makes you sad, don't do it, (for some of us, don't do it again). If you wouldn't want it done unto you, don't do it to others... Don't do anything to the unwilling. Don't devote yourself to anyone or anything other than yourself. There you have it, morals to guide you happily ever after. Those morals have been around longer than God.
It is not better to be red than expert. We're all in this together. We all need to share our knowledge (like a big wikipedia.org)and gradually we'll get closer and closer to an unbiased truth and knowledge for all of us to live by.
There, I said it. My religion is wikipedia.org :).
People
People around me.
I'm sorry I haven't been on myspace much... I'd be on more, but I'm at home, and the internet is through my mother's computer, and her internet is about 1 kb per second. I lie not. There's this cruddy ISP that blocks sites at a cost, and it couldn't be slower. And instead of getting a professional censoring program she prefers this, and it is hella slow. I want to kill myself, with a minute per page loading time. Not to mention she's given us an hour max, on the computer.
Okay, so this is one of those bitter blogs that I've become so well-known for. It's like 11:30 at night, and I seriously should just let it all slide, but I'm just pissed, so I'm gonna write this all out and you can all comment away, and hopefully get me back in line.
So my aunt, whom I haven't talked to in about 3 years calls up my mom and “informs” her that I have been keeping up a blog on a thing called “myspace.” She apparently heard about it from some other lady. She felt it was her business to tell my parents what I was doing, like it was something bad!!!!
My friends parents called my parents, and had a conversation about “our” friendship. They both agreed that our friendship wouldn't be for the better.
My other friend's mother contacts my mother and wants to discuss what my friend and I have been talking about, so they can help us, and prevent us from doing damage to each other. They both agreed that myspace is evil, because rather than it being a medium to carry a people's messages or communication, it was created by satan or something like that.
So if you are a parent, and you're reading this in fear that your child may be brainwashed by the things I write, get with it. If you've raised your kid to believe everything he or she hears, you've raised an ignorant child. If you've raised a child, that you've made all the decisions for, you're screwing them over in the long run.
You know, wouldn't it be a great idea to send all the overprotective people who get super pissed when the read the word “boner” to the same place so they can gather like “zion,” and we'd never have to deal with them again? They'd be happy, and so would we! Oh wait, that has already happened, Provo Utah.
Welcome to a world and a society created by the self-righteous. The standards they've made separate them from the filthy world. They live a higher law. The harder the law is to live, the more righteous they feel for accomplishing it. Choosing to be offended at words, styles, pictures, or music also determines their spirituality. It makes them feel like they're better than the other people who don't get offended.
Okay, so when my parents talk about the 'birds and the bees' they'll probably say “intercourse” and when a teenager says the same thing, he'll say “fucked.” It means the same thing, but wait, one of them is REALLY bad. Wait, no, they mean the same thing.... just one of the words shows lack of intelligence... right? No! Of course not, they're talking about the same thing-simply the word choice is different.
I know people that believe the devil is behind all those swear words. But why can't they just see words as words?
Choice of words is like choice of instrument, it's a choice of art, or music. They're all equal, just one of them fits a person's character better. A person may like classical music, while another rock. They're both music, and neither shows lack of intelligence on the listener's part. But we all know people that listen to classical music feel superior to others, even if it is as boring as hell. That's just how it all works in this world. We all do the same things, just in different ways. Choice of words is a freedom, and doesn't show lack of intelligence.
Everything that comes out a person's mouth reflects who that person is, and what they believe at the time something is said. What I write, is what I feel strongly about, and what I believe. My opinions can be subject to change, however NO ONE can hold anything against me for what I believe, or what I feel.
I wish the passion behind these words could come out in this text. You can't stop being my friend because I believe differently than you, I respect your beliefs so respect mine. Wouldn't want to room with this kid, he's a funny guy however he's a returned missionary who doesn't believe in the LDS religion.
I'm glad you have everything perfect around your life. I'm glad you all surround yourselves with people who feel exactly like yourself. I'm glad this makes you happy, and I hope you realize how many people you piss off. I guess this is why its so hard to find friends in Provo, because they all go there to be surrounded by LDS people-not doubting LDS people. I should have known how hard it would be to find friends, roommates, and people ready for the real world.
So these people once they graduate they'll move to Utah, Idaho, Arizona, or California. They'll start their little families, and they'll MAKE their family perfect. The only friends they'll let their children make will be within the church, to ensure the safety of the child's spirituality. It will be just like everything they learned in Provo, cuz if one surrounds her or himself around the same kind of people, (people that choose to get offended, make really difficult laws to live) then life will be perfect, and clean and happy..... right?
I don't have a problem with rules, and general parenting. It's exactly what I talked about earlier, that's how they as people would run the show. It's their “choice of expression.” However, it is so important for them to respect other people's choices of expression whether you like it or not.
I had a roommate that randomly get offended by something I had done or said. I never knew what I had done, he just would ignore me for weeks or even months. He would be so bitter and cold towards me. I don't care how unrighteous you make thing a person may be, they have every right to say what they want as you do. I'm willing to bet that they don't believe they're being unrighteous.... That's simply the person doing the judging. Think of all the judging you've done in your life. (I think ending friendships with people who were maliciously cruel to you, is fine) but think of all the times you judged someone by the words they used, the music they listened to or the way they lived. Anyone that holds grudges for weeks on end is gonna need REAL help in the real world. The world isn't going to just place you in situations that will make you better and or happy. You don't need to work on relationships, you just need to keep choosing your friends, and keep finding that perfect circle. We wouldn't want a blemished person among us.
Reminds me of a time when a smoker walked into the church, and the congregation said they “lost the spirit.” We also shouldn't allow any sinners at church, because they've lost the spirit, and it may affect us. Sheesh... give me a break.
You know, if I was doing something illegal, hurtful or disrespectful I can understand other people's concerns. I haven't done any of those, yet people feel its okay to judge me accordingly. They feel its their business to call my parents, they feel that its okay to talk to him but not okay to live with him. If you find what I write offensive, stop reading it. If you think I'm a bad person for what I write, then I guess don't talk to me again. But that's what I'm trying to say in this.
I'm not a bad person for writing ANY of this, yet everyone makes me feel like it. I can't find a roommate, I can't stay at home unless I keep my mouth shut and my ideas to myself, I can't write things without disappointing people. You'd think people would be happy to know I've really come to find out what I believe in life. People would respect my right to have opinions, instead of judge me.
Maybe this is what we're here in life to do. If thy right eye offend thee cut it out. Find what relationships work for us, and ones that don't. It's just hard for me because I've seen so many friends treat me differently. I get long talks with my parents for what they hear of me writing. You'd think that would stop me, however it just makes me want to write more. Maybe someday I'll write my deepest and truest feelings about life, and I'll be able to find the people that are deep and true friends. It's sad that I have to go through all this stupid crap for believing what I want.
However, Religion and different ideals will always start more wars than stop. And that is why I hate organized religion. We all should just believe what feels right and logically makes sense to us, rather doing what someone tells us to. You can't base a life around a book that is so vague and so contradicting. It's amazing how they tell us to go to the scriptures to get help for answers... That shows that we can get ANYTHING from them. God can't speak to you through the scriptures unless he changes them.... so just get on your knees and pray. Wouldn't that be better?
So get on your knees, and ask God if he wants you to associate with me anymore. If you get an answer then follow it please. Just stop trying to get involved indirectly, or trying to get out of my life indirectly. Or you can just treat me like a normal person and act like none of this ever was written.
If you read this…. It’s a miracle.
see [[LDS Growth]]
a blog by Trent Cutler
Area
Population Distribution
World
Over 12,000,000
United States
5,310,598
South America
2,548,979
Mexico
884,071
Asia
750,478
Central America
472,038
Europe
412,907
South Pacific
363,875
Africa
153,565
Caribbean
115,610
First off, I don't want this piece to be labeled as “anti” because it isn't. This is merely just the mathematics of the church's population and growth. So please check my resources, and numbers. And to be completely honest, numbers should not have anything to do with one's faith. With that said i would just like to expand on the mormon myth that the church is the fastest growing religion in the world.
I believe the hardest time I will have is trying to convince you is that the church is not 12 million members active. Remember for a member to be removed from LDS records, they must submit a letter of withdrawal, formally asking to never be contacted again. And obviously there's inactives otherwise there would not be such a word. I guess if you grew up outside of Utah or Idaho-or even served a mission-you would immediately recognize that there are a ton of inactive members.
They say the church has about a 1/3 activity rate (I personally think it is lower, but sure let's go with that). That's 4 million active members (12,000,000 * 1/3). If you don't believe me, I'd encourage you to go ask a fellow return missionary about the branches he served in. First off, branch means it can't function as a ward, so we're talking 5 to 60 members. Each of these branches sees a baptism each month (or more). But we know that branch isn't growing by 12 members a year! The church would have exploded by now if that were so. Truth be told, and you can read it for yourself, the church has a 10 etention rate for missionary-convert baptisms. (“members are the key” Ensign Sept 200) and (“the role of members.” Ensign March 2003)
So if retention is 10f the 241,000 convert baptisms we had last year, that would be 24,100 actual increase in church membership per year. This increase only makes up 0.6f the active church. That is not very high numbers. This number can only make one think... How many members born in the church go inactive? Do you know someone that has gone astray? A family member? A Friend? Could the mathematics be about 0.6ach year? That is so plausible, and probably exactly how it is. If it could be, that means that our church is in fact not growing in activity rates, but at a steady rate. We are increasing simply by numbers, but not in activity.
World Population: 6 Billion
Church Population: 12 Million
Percentage of Mormons in World 0.2_P>
Total Baptisms for the Dead 85 Million
Percentage of the World that have Celestial Opportunity: 1.6r 97 million
Missionaries: 51,000
Converts 241,000
Converts remaining active after 1 year: 24,100
States with under 1ormons: 32
States with under 5ormons 45
Trent's Projected Active Population 4 Million (one third)
See a map of the united states mormon population broken down per state
State Percentage
Utah 72.94
Idaho 26.77
Wyoming 11.09
Nevada 7.28
Arizona 6.06
Hawaii 4.78
Montana 4.5
Alaska 4.14
Oregon 3.97
Washington 3.9
New Mexico 3.14
Colorado 2.69
California 2.19
Nebraska 1.14
South Dakota 1.11
Texas 1.05
Kansas 1.05
Oklahoma 1.01
Virgina 0.99
Missouri 0.96
North Dakota 0.8
Arkansas 0.77
North Carolina 0.73
Georgia 0.72
Florida 0.71
Church News Nov. 9th 2002
Don't you see the guy walking down the pews each Sunday counting how many people attend church? The LDS church knows how many people are actively involved in the church, yet they don't tell us. Why not? I wonder. I really really wonder.
I believe that the LDS church needs to go about spreading the Gospel. Members don't feel strongly enough about what they believe. They have fears. They know what they say they believe is difficult for the rest of the world. If our church was to actually grow, it would need to come from the members. Church's don't grow by missionary work. Church's grow because of the fruits they bare. People don't join the church because so and so worked really hard on them, and prayed for them everyday. People should be joining because of what they see the church doing in everyday lives.
If people aren't noticing what your religion does for you, maybe you need to reconsider your religion-it obviously isn't doing anything noticeable in your life.
Myspace Blog October 22 2006
Bless your food, even though you know God won't change it to be any healthier.
Pray for miracles, even though you know its God's will in the end... (and if its God's will, then why are you praying?)
Pray for other people to see the light of Christ. Pray that God takes over their mind and influences them to see him withouth them choosing to see it.
Thank God for blessing you with nice things, because it makes you feel more important than all the other people that don't have it.
Thank God for helping you win your sports game, while the other team curses God for not helping them.
Thank God for medical miracles, instead of thanking all the doctors who have spent years researching, and practicing so they could get the knowledge to save their patients.
Pray and mourn for those who have fallen away from the happiness of the Gospel, because mourning is happiness.
Pray for God to perform miracles, because then God is doing your will and not his.
Pray for knowledge, instead of researching it.
Pray to know what's right, because if there's only one right answer or one God's Will, then every other choice would be a sin right? So every situation is either right or wrong, no gray area.
Pray for safety, so God will put protective shields around whomever you wish.
Pray for the soldiers over seas, so they won't feel guilt for killing people.
Pray for George W. Bush, because he asked you too. Now you know that he's on God's side, so we can have God in whatever we wish. Because if God's on his side, why would anyone want to disagree with him?
Thank God for all he's blessed you with, and all that he hasn't blessed everyone else in the world with.
Thank God for the food, because he gave it to you, instead of you buying it.
Thank God for your wealth, your tv, your big house, your stereo, and your nice car, because he gave it to you, instead of you working for it.
Thank God for blessing you with a confirmation of truth, so you don't ever have to question, doubt, or research anything. Because who needs knowledge when you can just feel good about something?
Prayer: How to do nothing and still think you're helping.
!God Delusion
Page 60 Prayer
To adapt Alice's comment on her sister's book before she fell into Wonderland, what is the use of a God who does no miracles and answers no prayers? Remember Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'. There are athletes who believe God helps them win - against opponents who would seem, on the face of it no less worthy of his favoritism.
Page 63 Medical Benefit of Prayer?
The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not.
Profanity
(KSL News) Police now say an argument caused a 21-year-old man to jump from a moving truck in South Jordan.
Tyler Poulson was riding with his brothers last night when he became offended by one of them using profanity. Poulson, who recently returned from an LDS mission, threatened to get out of the truck if he continued.
One of the men, not thinking he would, told Poulson to.
Earlier police said the car was going about 35 miles an hour when Poulson opened the door and jumped. He was pronounced dead on scene.
I don't even want to begin to comment...
Here's the link if you want to see for yourself
I think swearing is just another way of expressing oneself. no one uses swearing in a contentious way... and if someone is being contentious, then no matter what they say you should be offended. So many times people get all caught up in, how its wrong, and they get all uncomfortable when someone drops the f bomb. But wait a second, God didn't invent the F bomb. Man did. And man has chosen to be offended by the f bomb. Learning another language taught me so much about my own language, and you realize what kind of words cuss phrases have become to a society... not contentious phrases, but new ways of emphasis.
I think our society is lost as to what to do with swear words. people try to put themselves on a high pedestal, and try and make a point, by saying, "please don't say that it offends me" but that just turns around the offense. and then who feels uncomfortable. saying something verses not saying anything is more contentious, and more at a wrong. Listen to the radio, a song can be talking about rape, prostitution, killing, and objectifying sex.... everyone listens to it, they find it socially acceptable, as long as they DON'T SWEAR.... and if they do swear, we bleep it out.
The Idaho owners of Fort Ranch, The Vandersloots, gave $100,000 in support of California's Prop. 8 - ensuring that men and women do not have the right to wed whom they choose.
This ranch must be out of 1885.
Other Idaho major supporters of Prop. 8:
Ronald Osborne of Meridian - contributed $20,000
Krag Davis of Idaho Falls - contributed $15, 000
Douglas Andrus of Idaho Falls - contributed $15,000
Kenneth Turley of Idaho Falls - contributed $10,000
Brett Natress of Fruitland - contributed $10,000
Doyle Beck of Idaho Falls - contributed $9,999
Jeff Thompson of Meridian - contributed $9,500
Mark Peterson of Ada - contributed $9,500
Steve Smitz of Boise - contributed $5,000
among many other donors against equality and love, in the >$9,000 range...
my source for this info: http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/prop8/ & http://i38.tinypic.com/2wncvmt.png & http://i38.tinypic.com/2e33o8z.png
UCLA's Greg Graffin to Be Honored for Lifetime Achievement in Atheism, Punk Rock, and Science
"Cultural Humanism" Awardee is Seminal Punk Singer, Earned Ivy-League PhD in Evolution
CAMBRIDGE, MA — Harvard University's prominent community of atheists and agnostics is poised to honor a rock star and scientist whom they argue is an ideal role model for the nation's millions of non-religious youth.
The Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard has gained considerable national attention in the past year for its unique approach to building a culture and community for the non-religious, and this April 26 it will give its highest honor, the "Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism," to a unique figure: Dr. Greg Graffin, frontman of the influential punk rock band Bad Religion. Graffin, whose "day job" since 1980 has been recording and extensive worldwide touring with a band boasting such hits as "How Could Hell be Any Worse" and "American Jesus," earned his PhD in Zoology at Cornell and is a member of the UCLA's Faculty in Biology, teaching Life Sciences courses covering Darwin and natural selection. Graffin will give an acoustic performance after accepting the award.
"I always put education high on my list of priorities because I thought, Wouldn't it be neat if you can have a singer of your favorite band who also has something more to offer than looking cool - which I don't - or dressing cool - which I don't;" Graffin said. "Those are the things that I try to inspire young people to do, whether it is in the lecture hall or on stage on the Warped Tour."
But Bad Religion, considered among the most influential modern punk bands, has been known for inspiring young people towards a particular set of ideas: those of atheism and Humanism. Graffin's lyrics make plain his passionate disbelief in God. Yet the Harvard Humanists cite his faith in the ability of music and science to improve the world as making the singer unique.
"So much attention gets heaped onto polemicists like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, but Graffin is a truly deserving candidate for the face of atheism,'" said Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain of Harvard University.
The award, intended to honor a Humanist or atheist having made a lasting impact on US culture, was presented last year to renowned novelist Sir Salman Rushdie before a sold-out audience of 1100 that Rushdie likened to a celebration of "Atheistmas," and will once again be conferred at Harvard's Memorial Church, the official University Chapel. Graffin was selected for this year's award by the Harvard Secular Society, an undergraduate student group affiliated with the Humanist Chaplaincy.
For information about Greg Graffin and Bad Religion, visit
www.badreligion.com.
Purple Vs. Pink
How would you feel if you were a daily subscriber to a newspaper, only to find that they never reported anything new? In fact every single story they printed you had already heard, read and expounded on many times before. I'd be pissed. That's not a newspaper... that's a crapspaper.
Seriously though,that's why we subscribe to the newspaper, we want news, we want answers,we want change, we want gossip, we want satisfaction to our curiosity. Its not just newspapers, its everything. We don't come on myspace to read/see the same exact information posted everyday.
Let's say there was a new science called Trentology. Not one single person in the entire world knew anything about Trent. You could say they lived in a black and white world when it came to the study of Trent. And then one day, like a light in infinite darkness, or a spice of color in a black-and-white world, a revealing story about Trent, breaks the headlines.
So when it came to Trentology, everyone was on the side of 'knowing-nothing-about-Trent' and then they all got a touch of color in life as they were exposed to the opposing view of 'knowing-something-about-Trent.' Being the provider of that 'touch of color' or exposing a new view on anything puts you in the books as a 'history maker.' I'm not talking about being famous, but for anyone living in black-and-white will always remember the people that added color to their world. I remember all the people that added color to each of my worlds then black and white.
So let's we have two groups of people, the “the purples” and the “pinks.” Everything they paint is purple, and likewise everything that comes out of the purple's mouths is purple everything. Purple is their life, its all they know, its how they were raised, its their security, and its their happiness. In fact its hard to be well known in the community, because pretty much everyone says the same things that you've said, or heard before. Nothing is really new, or different,... its just purple! The only thing that is news, is when one purple mentions the word pink... and that day team purple got a little bit more pink...
I tend to talk/write like I know everything about anything. However I consider myself purple who knows nothing about pink. I know I'm not here to conform. I'm here to be me, and to find what color me is. I want to know what makes other people happy, and I want that same thing to make me happy as well. I want that so much that I'll go to the extreme to take away any label of color for me to be surrounded and disappear in.
I'm pretty sure we all feel the same way, about that. I mean come on, who wouldn't want to be him or herself? We all want to be someone in this world, we each are assigned some specific color, to expose to the world.
And that's why I say this, if you had an opinion, if you had an idea, if you had a theory, what good would it do to keep it to yourself? If your words strike home with others, they'll support you. If your words are found contradicting, others will correct you.
But what good does it do have an opinion, and not listen to others, simply because “they're wrong.... or maybe even pink.” You'd never understand how pinks could be like that! You'll never know what makes pinks happy. Who knows, a purple could find happiness in pink.
I'm just going to say this. If you have something that you feel strongly about, or you feel passionate about, by all means share it. Somewhere out there, you'll impact some person out there, someone out there that didn't even know Trentology even existed. That my friends is history. Its not being famous. Its being appreciated, and taken as a good source for opinion.
Its human nature to learn instantly when something different is said. That's how we know hot/cold, nice/mean. That's how we learn and build personal opinions... based on personal experiences. My interpretation of nice is different simply based on my different experiences of 'nice' people.
What if you sincerely told someone you appreciated them. This little instance of 'change' could possibly mean the world to someone who thinks no one appreciates them. Do you see? You don't have to be a theologist, an idealist or even a trentologist to influence people. You just need to be that portion of 'color' whether it is in praise or critique.
This is why I love blogs. Finally our opinions aren't necessarily shaped by the media of corporations. They no longer have the control of what we know, and even what we become in life. We no longer need to be stuck quoting the same people and sources, we can write our praise and critique to the world with our own sources.
I think that's why we're here in life. At least that's why I'm here. I'm sick of hearing descriptions of purple when I know what purple is. I've been engulfed in it my entire life.
We won't remember the people who repeated words that have been said before. We'll only remember the people who said it first.
Questions
Why is the bible the official authority?
Who or what made the biblical leaders more authoritative than the religious leaders of our time? Or why is it treated that way?
How do I know I'm not believing only what I want to believe? and only taking literally what I want to take literally?
Why do so many people say what they want to say, and "reference it" with scriptures...Why don't they just say what they want to say? It's not like its coming from God if they're saying what they want to say.
Why do I ask so many damned questions all of the time? pun intended.
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease."
Source: [[Google Reader (62)|http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.quotationspage.com%2Fdata%2Fqotd.rss]]
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
-Kurt Vonnegut
Source: [[Google Reader (121)|http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.quotationspage.com%2Fdata%2Fqotd.rss]]
[[Quotes from Books]]
[[Atheism Quotes]]
[[Trent's Favorite Quotes]]
[[Authentic Happiness]]
[The National Debt is] Up to (over actually) $9 trillion. Spelled out in the original Numberese, the national debt looks like this: $9,000,000,000,000, plus change. If each dollar were a glass bead one centimeter in diameter, we would need a string approximately 56,818,182 miles long to get them all on. A string of beads that long would wrap around the Earth 2,282 times at the equator. It rounds out to 300,000,000,000 feet, which-if divided equally between the 304 million Americans in whose name this string of beads has been incurred-each and every one of us would receive almost 990 feet of stringed beads to pass down through our family, from mother to daughter, from father to son. If one clumsy relative in each generation were to lose or destroy (or swallow) a yard of your family's string, there would still be a legacy of beads stretching out for just under 330 generations. Given one generation every 20 years, this means your descendants would still have beads, bequeathed by you, well into the 86th century. And this assumes that we quit stringing up beads today. This very minute. That we don't incur one more bead. Which is highly unlikely because 1) it's not really beads we're talking about here, but deficit dollars, remember? and 2) we stil have a lot more that needs buying than we have money to buy it with.
You see this on a personal level. If you can't get under the hood of the gadgets you buy, you're far more liable to believe the marketing hype of the corporations that sell them. When things break, you toss them and buy new ones; you accept your role as a mere consumer. "I think it makes you more passive as an individual," says Matthew Crawford, a former motorcycle repair-shop owner (and postdoctoral fellow in cultural studies) who's writing a book on the demise of mechanical aptitude in America.
Source: [[Google Reader : Cutlerite@gmail.com : (180)|http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/user%2F17183388567230552163%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list]]
[[The God Delusion]]
[[The End of Faith]]
[[Insider's View of Mormon Origins]]
[[Authentic Happiness]]
Racism and Mormons
Hey guess what? The [[LDS]] Church is NOT RACIST, nor has it been in the past! Big News? Read on please!
Okay, so I know I have been incredibly hard on the social aspects of the LDS church. So I'm gonna say some things that are possibly 'positive' about the church. For those of you who aren't members, this could be a good education for you.
The Mormons have taken a bunch of crap for being racist. Their doctrine states that God put a curse on colored people, to tell them apart from the righteous ones. You can even find quotes from some mormon leaders that say the difference in color was because of they were not valiant in the “pre-earth” war with satan. Black people couldn't go into the Mormon temple, nor could they be part of the priesthood 'brotherhood.' Mormons believe the priesthood is God's authority, and that Black's because of their skin color were not worthy to hold God's authority. Doesn't seem right huh? Well after all the color rights movements, the church gave black people the right to the priesthood and entrance to the temple. So technically the church currently is not racist, but doctrinally- arguably racist.
There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient; more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there [pre-existence] received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less. . . . There were no neutrals in the war in Heaven. All took sides either with Christ or with Satan. Every man had his agency there, and men receive rewards here based upon their actions there, just as they will receive rewards hereafter for deeds done in the body. The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:61, 65-66). Bruce R. McConkie also says similarly.
You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. . . . Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which was the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another cursed is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the "servants of servants;" and they will be until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree (Journal of Discourses, 7:290)
Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be (ibid., 10:110)
This alongside, polygamy, leaves even the mormons themselves wondering why. Sure you can say in the bible, they practiced polygamy, and to some degree 'racism.' However, if considered again, it just makes you wonder how God could do something like that!? We all know everyone is equal, and besides genetic differences, we are all the same, except for the fact that black people dominate in any all sports. :-)
Okay, I'm here to tell you that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, did not believe any of those principles ever! The truth is, Brigham Young started all the racist teachings. I will be frank. Brigham Young, the very man that my school is named after, was a racist bigot.
LDS people now can be frank with other people, when they share the following information with people who are concerned with LDS beliefs about colored skin.
First. I'd like to introduce you to Elijah Abel.
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
“At least two black men were ordained as elders during Joseph Smith's time, and the Prophet himself signed the ordination certificate of one of them. That man, Elijah Abel, was later ordained a seventy and served as a missionary.” This is a quote from the FARMS institute.
If you want more reading, check out Wikipedia. It is an excellent modern encyclopedia. Wikipedia and Elijah Abel
Anyways, Elijah Abel was incredibly faithful, even to the point where he served a mission. However while he was on his mission, Brigham Young announced that he and his sons could not enter into the temple, nor receive the blessings of the priesthood.
And that's where the racist beliefs began. However I don't believe the things stated were doctrine ever at all. And here's why you don't have to either.
Joseph Smith teaches “A prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such.”
It's written in Mormon Doctrine page 646, “No one but the president of the church who holds and exercises the fullness of the keys, can annouche revelation to the church. “no one shall be appointed to receive revelations and commandments in this church excepting my servant Joseph Smith,” Doctrine and Covenants 28:2-8, 25:9, 90:14, 94:3, 100:11, 107:91-92.... It is true that all members of the council of the 12 are appointed and sustained to serve as prophets seers and revelators to the church (teachings p.109) but as with all the keys of the kingdom which they receive in connection with the holy apostleship, the power to receive and promulgate revelations for the church lies dormant unless and until one of them becomes president of the church since keys are the right of the presidency, they can only be exercised in their fullness by one man on earth at a time.”
So all the books written by apostles that we quote so often.... not doctrine. Conference talks.... also not doctrine...... books by the prophet...... not doctrine.... Doctrine by definition will be decided and signed by each person in the 12 and presidency. It will be an official statement, and or will be found in the standard works. I may be so bold as to say that our church hasn't received revelation since they corrected the whole “black priesthood” thing.
I'm so happy mormons aren't so racist. I'm glad it was just Brigham Young and many of the dead leaders... Oh and by the way, i realize that members of the church hopefully never had feelings of hatred towards black people- they just believed that white people were fundamentally and spiritually better. That's what I mean when i use the word racist. Thanks. Have a nice day!
Joseph Smith commonly referred to the Indians as Lamanites. When Joseph
Smith sent Oliver Cowdery on a mission to the Indians, he said (speaking
as god): "And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the
Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them..." (D&C 28:8).
The terminology is reaffirmed in D&C 32:3 when Joseph Smith said (again,
speaking as god): "And that which I have appointed unto him is that he
[Parley P. Pratt] shall go with my servants Oliver Cowdery and Peter
Whitmer, Jun., into the wilderness among the Lamanites."
In D&C 54:8, Joseph Smith (speaking as the Mormon god) says the "borders
of the Lamanites" are near the "land of Missouri". True, Joseph never
said ALL the American Indians are Lamanites, but he spoke in language
giving the impression that he believed they were primarily of Lamanite
descent.
In one of his accounts of the church's early history, Joseph Smith
described a visit from Moroni. In that story, Joseph Smith said: "He
[Moroni] said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates,
giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the
source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fullness of the
everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to
the ancient inhabitants ..."
~~ Joseph Smith [History of the Church] 2:34
Brigham Young was no less consistent in calling the American Indians
Lamanites. According to Brigham Young: "There is a curse on these
aborigines of our country who roam the plains, and are so wild that you
cannot tame them. They are of the House of Israel; they once had the
Gospel delivered to them, they had the oracles of truth; Jesus came and
administered to them after his resurrection, and they received and
delighted in the Gospel until the fourth generation when they turned
away and became so wicked that God cursed them with this dark and
benighted and loathsome condition."
~~ Quoted from Discourses of Brigham Young, compiled by John A.
Widtsoe, pages 122, 123.
"You Polynesians of the Pacific are called Samoan or Maori, Tahitian or
Hawaiian, according to your islands. There are probably sixty million of
you on the two continents and on the Pacific Islands, all related by
blood ties. The Lord calls you Lamanites, a name which has a pleasant
ring, for many of the grandest people ever to live upon the earth were
so called. In a limited sense, the name signifies the descendants of
Laman and Lemuel, sons of your first American parent, Lehi; but you
undoubtedly possess also the blood of the other sons, Sam, Nephi, and
Jacob. And you likely have some Jewish blood from Mulek, son of
Zedekiah, king of Judah. The name Lamanite distinguishes you from other
peoples. It is not a name of derision or embarrassment, but one of which
to be very proud."
~~ The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p.596 - Kimball was the 12th
President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints from 1973 until his death
Kimball's backhanded racist comments - continued from Brigham Young:
"I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people
today...they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people....For
years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming
white and delightsome, as they were promised....The children in the home
placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and
sisters in the hogans on the reservation."
"At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter
were present, the little member girl -- sixteen -- sitting between the
dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades
lighter than her parents -- on the same reservation, in the same hogan,
subject to the same sun and wind and weather....These young members of
the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white
elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood
regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be
accelerated."
~~ Improvement Era, Dec. 1960, 922-923.
"I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today as
against that of only fifteen years ago. Truly the scales of darkness are
falling from their eyes, and they are fast becoming a white and
delightsome people....For years they have been growing delightsome, and
they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised..."
~~ Spencer W. Kimball, Improvement Era, Dec. 1960, pp.922-3
Ingredients:
* Dough
o 300 g flour
o 210 ml water
o 2 eggs
o Cabbage
* Possible ingredients to put into/onto Okonomiyaki
o Katsuobushi*: Dried, shaved benito (katsuo)
o Aonori*: Green, dried seaweed.
o Leek or green onion
o Beef: thinly sliced or ground
o Pork: thinly sliced or ground
o Chicken: breast filets
o Octopus*
o Squid*
o Prawn
o Tuna
o Mushrooms
o and much more...
* Sauces
o Brown okonomiyaki sauce*
o Mayonnaise
* May not be available in Western supermarkets; but you should be able to find it in Japanese grocery stores that exist in most large European and American cities.
Preparation:
1.
Cut four large, green cabbage leaves without the hard, white core in thin strings (ca. 4 mm).
2. Mix the water, flour, eggs and the cabbage strings together.
3. You may now add more ingredients to the dough: e.g. seafood, cut in little pieces, ground meat, cut mushrooms, etc.
4.
Fry the dough like a pancake in a small frying pan.
5.
Before turning the okonomiyaki over, and while the dough is still quite soft, you may put other ingredients on top of the dough.
6. Turn the okonomiyaki.
7. When fried well, serve the okonomiyaki with katsuobushi, aonori, mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce.
General information:
Depending on the region of Japan, okonomiyaki is prepared in various different styles. In Hiroshima, which is especially well known for its Okonomiyaki, it is served with or on top of Yakisoba (fried noodles).
Source: [[Okonomiyaki|http://www.japan-guide.com/r/e100.html]]
*[[Sourdough Pancakes]]
*[[weed butter]]
*[[Blueberry Porridge]]
*[[Teriyaki Pork and Vegetables with Noodles]]
*[[Miso Stir Fry]]
Ingredients:
Okonomiyaki means "whatever you like, grilled in Japanese". It's one definition of "Japanese pizza" because, well, it does kinda look like pizza, and you eat it like one too.
Today we'll be making Osaka-style Okonomiyaki. It's also popular in Hiroshima, but it's a little harder to make and doesn't appear to pay off much more in the taste department!
Base:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup dashi (or water, see below)*
1 egg
1/8-1/4 of a cabbage
Toppings - any of the below:
Chicken
Roast pork or beef
Squid, Octopus, other seafood
Corn
Mushrooms
Onion
Garnishing - any of the below, if you can find it and actually want it:
Katsuo-bushi (dried bonito flakes)
Sakura-ebi (dried shrimps)
Beni-shoga (red ginger)
Ao-nori (green seaweed)
Sauces:
Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
Mayonnaise
* Dashi is japanese stock, used in heaps of different recipes. When made up it smells like smoked fish and seaweed. You can buy it from oriental grocers in sachets that come in boxes like the one to the right of the beer in the picture above. Just mix up a bit with some hot water. If you can't find it, it's okay - just use water.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 1
Step 1:
So firstly grab that cabbage and chop it up finely. Better to have too much than too little because it shrinks a little as it cooks, and it's mega cheap anyway. Get out as much of the white stem parts as you can.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 2
Step 2:
Now break an egg into a large bowl and pour in the dashi/water, and the flour.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 3
Step 3:
Then beat with a whisk until smooth.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 4
Step 4:
Now add some of the finely chopped cabbage and mix as best you can. It should end up looking like this.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 5
Step 5:
Heat up your skillet, electric frypan, grill, whatever you're going to use to cook this baby. Preferably use something that's got teflon on it :-)
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 6
Step 6:
Now prepare your toppings. I'm using Chinese BBQ pork slices, a little bell pepper, some onion, mushrooms, parsely and spring onion. Just chop it all up good.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe picture 7
Step 7:
Throw it all in the frypan with some oil (sesame is good) to keep it all well-lubed. Cook until either heated through or in the case of raw meat or veges, for a few minutes until it's getting close to being cooked.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe photos 8
Step 8:
Arrange the nearly cooked toppings in a round...
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe photos 9
Step 9:
Then throw the cabbage/dough mixture on top, also in a round!
step-by-step recipe photos 10
Step 10:
Turn up the heat a little to medium and let that bad boy cook through for 5 minutes or so. Then flip it. In the picture below, I had to cut the round in half to flip it, which doesn't matter because we'll be cutting it into pieces later anyway. You could always make two okonomiyaki instead!
Let it cook for another 5-10 minutes. You can break away a bit of the dough bit when it doesn't look raw any more and see if the cabbage and dough is cooked through.
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe photos 11
Step 11:
Flip it out onto a plate and cover liberally with Okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise! OH GOD MY TASTEBUDS!
Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza recipe photos 12
Step 12:
Cut, serve and savour! Bon apetit.
Source: [[Visual Recipes - Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza Recipe|http://visualrecipes.com/recipe-details/recipe_id/120/Okonomiyaki-aka-Japanese-Pizza/]]
Religious Satire
It wasn't until I showed my roommate www.bookofzelph.com, that I realized how hypocritical the religious are. He finds satire on one specific religion offensive, while satire about religion in general is okay. He said he finds any attack on any specific belief equally offensive... however I doubt that is the case.
Having been a Mormon Missionary, I've heard many of the wisecracks about specific religions, and even the wisecracks about the nonbelievers as well. I'm sure it is common within any religion, any organization, or any group.
Everything should be on the table for criticism and satire. Give truth a chance to shine.
Religious people seem so eager to talk about their beliefs except for when they feel like they're being challenged, and then they tuck into a fetal position crying for unjust persecution. Even though they have the perfect opportunity to correct the individual of their faulty arguments, they rarely take it.
It is an appeal to ignorance, where they don't know if the criticism or satire is true or not, they just know it is against what they believe, so they ignore it. More commonly they run from the situation.
You'd think if they were really confident in their beliefs they'd be okay with any satire.
In the past, a defining mark of a conservative was a certain willingness to swallow a minor disagreement for the surpassing point of politics: the wielding of power. But recently, as Republicanism morphed into an ideology and then a personality cult and then a series of increasingly strained far-right litmus tests, conservatives seemed to be verging on the purism of the old left.
''Andrew Sullivan''
[[source|http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article3294433.ece]]
!''System Development Life Cycle''
!!Planning
The planning phase s the fundamental process of understandng why an information system should be built and determining how te project will go about building it.
#During project initiation the system's business value to the organization is iidentified
##The technical feasibility (can we build it?)
##The economic feasibility (will it provide business value)
##The organizational feasibility (if we build it, will it be used?)
#Once the project is approved it enters ''project management''. During project management, a work plan is created, gets staffed, and implements techniques for control.
!!Analysis
The analysis phase answers the questions of who will use the system what the syste will do, and where and when it will be use.
#An ''analysis strategy'' is developed to guide te project's efforts
#The next step is ''requirements gathering''
#The Analyses, system concept, and models are combined into a document called the ''system proposal.''
!!Design
The ''Design Phase'' decides how the system will operate in terms of the hardware, software, and network infrastructure; the user interface, forms and reports; and the specific programs, databases and files that wilil be needed.
#The ''Design Strategy'' must be developed
#this leads to the development of the basic architecture design for the system that describes the hardware software and the network infrastrucuture.
#The ''database and file specifications'' are devveloped.
#The analyst team develops the ''program design''
!!Implementation
The final phase in the [[SDLC]] is the ''implementation phase'', during which the system is actually built (or purchased, in the case of a packaged software design).
#System ''construction'' is the first step
#the system is installed, ''installation'' is the process by which the old system is turned off and the new one is turned on.
#The analyst team establishes a ''support plan'' for the system.
In Mormon theology, we all existed before we came here. We had two plans to choose from, Lucifer's and Christ's. Because God chose Christs, Lucifer got upset and became Satan. and plotted to foil Christ's plan.
Sometimes I wonder if Lucifer had it right. Because seriously, if heaven is anything like church, who'd want to go? and if hell is where all the party(ers) go, then isn't that where the cool place is?
God's Plan:
Free Agency, (no help)
Majority of The people won't be saved
No signs whatsoever,
Have to go to church, and read vague scriptures
Heaven is perfect, no sports, no fun, just making babies.
Lucifer's Plan:
Everyone gets saved,
God helps us.
Even though, for me to believe in Lucifer's plan, I'd have to believe in God, and therefore do a bunch of dumb crap. But really, in Mormon Theology, God's Plan sounds so sucky.
okay, this is not for the people who get upset when they read things contrary to their beliefs. Just for your information, I served an LDS mission to Japan. I have some doubts, and i'm not afraid to say them. I've pondered a lot about somethings, and I'm posting them. I guarantee many of you feel VERY different than I do, and I really don't mind if you post how you feel underneath the blog.
If you are going to treat me different after reading this, then I guess your love for other people really is conditional,.. and so be it.
NOTE: I personally don't believe all that I say, but they definitely are things I've pondered. Okay?
Trent's Ponderings
I've seen guys lie to themselves that the lie becomes a reality to them, never knowing truth from the lie they live.
I've seen people in religion live life in one way in so much that it becomes a reality to them never knowing if there's more to what they live.
I've seen girls so emotionally dependent on boys, boy bands, and non-existant friendships that it brings them to tears, even though none of them were ever active in their personal life.
I've seen girls, and guys so emotionally dependent on God and Religion that it brings them to tears, and it can be debated whether God is active in their lives or not. (mormons believe God gave us free agency) maybe I should just ask this, What was the last thing God did for you?
I've seen spirit rallies, company rallies, fundraising rallies all centered around getting people hyped up. Getting the mass to all believe the same thing.
I've seen church meetings, and testimony meetings all designed to get people hyped up (spiritually) and to believe the same principles.
I've seen a hypnotist help someone think they were a chicken.
I've seen a missionary help someone believe in God.
People of higher class love to live their rules, and manners just to separate themselves from the masses. To make them feel better because they "know" how things work, and how things should be done.
People of Religion love to live their rules, just to separate themselves from other religions, and people of no religion. and for some to make them feel better about themselves because they "know" how things work, and how things should be done.
I've known greed start some wars.
I've known religion start even more wars.
When i've played sports they told me it was possible, I just had to really want it.
When i go to church they tell us that to believe in God, you just have to really want to.
I know people start drugs, stay on drugs, and even sell drugs just because that's what all their friends do. That's what they know life to be. They don't know what it would be like outside of that world
I know people join religions, stay in the religion, and even do service for their relgion because that's what all their friends do, that's what they know life to be. They don't know what it would be like outside of that world.
I've seen people go to concerts that were absolutely horrible, but they say how cool it was so they don't look stupid for paying 10 bucks to go to it. I've seen everyone around them say the same thing, no one wants to feel like a party pooper or a lonely cynic.
I've seen people go to church meetings for years, and every single one of them was absolutely boring, but they say how wonderful it was so they don't look stupid for spending so much time going to it. I've seen everyone around them say the same thing, no one wants to feel like a party pooper or a lonely cynic.
I've seen salesman go way out of their way just to be nice, in hopes of making a sale.
I've seen missionaries go way out of their way just to be nice, in hopes of making a baptism.
I know little children that believe a kiss will take away their pains.
I know church members who believe a prayer will take away their sins.
I know people tell their friends their dirty little secrets just so they can feel relieved.
I know people tell their bishops their dirty little secrets just so they can feel relieved.
I know people continue doing what they do, even if they know its wrong, or unethical, or questionable, just cuz its never hurt anyone, and they're content with their life for the time being..
I know people continue believing what they believe even if they have doubts, even if they know the fallacies, even if its weird, just cuz its never hurt anyone, and they're content with their life for the time being.
i know people never say how they really feel in fear of social rejection.
I know people never say the things they don't believe in fear of social rejection.
WHAT REALLY IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EACH OF THESE SITUATIONS? HOW DO EACH OF YOU SEPARATE THESE THINGS. WHAT IS GOD'S ROLE IN EACH OF THESE SITUATIONS? IS GOD IN THESE SITUATIONS?
So, is Religion just mind games? are religionists just doing the same psycological games everyone else does in everyday life? have they created the religion to give them a sense of a direction, of purpose, of fullfillment, or even forgiveness? is everything that you have experienced in your religion just in your head? just wondering...
Wow, so if made it through, you probably think Satan has a hold of me. Great. I'm asking you to explain to me how you view each of these, how you put them into perspective, so that I can do the same, cuz I struggle with all of these. So either you can hate me, or you can help me.
#Mix 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of hot water and 2 cups of flour in a glass or plastic bowl. Mix well.
#Add starter (about a cup)
#Cover loosely and place in warm spot for about 8 hours
#Remove 1 cup of mixture for starter. Place in glass or plastic container, cover loosely and save for next time (in fridge)
#Add two eggs and 2 tbls oil. Mix well.
#Mix together:
*1/4 cup of sugar
*1 tablespoon baking soda
*1/2 teaspoon salt
#Sprinkle sugar/baking soda/ salt mixture over and stir in well just before cooking.
#Cook on 40 year old skillet at *375, until perfect.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Story of a mormon girl
Story of a Mormon Girl.
Once upon a time a girl grew up in a perfect little family, in a perfect little house, in a perfect little community. You could pretty much say her life was perfect.
She was 18 and a senior in High School. She always dressed modestly, never ever going to school in a tank top, or in short shorts, wouldn't want the boys to rape her, or at least think bad thoughts because they've never seen it before. So many other LDS girls aren't dressing modestly, but she'll be blessed for making the right decision.
Every afternoon she has cheerleading practice, and every friday she has a basketball game. It never occurred to her that she was showing off every inch of her legs to every guy in the audience. Probably because no guy had ever tried to rape her, touch her, or sexually harass her because seeing her legs and shoulders put him in an uncontrollable mentality. It also never occurred to her that the music and dance moves her cheer instructor created could be labeled as provocative. She finds the things done on MTV offensive, and vowed never to watch it again... and truly believes her dancing in no way emulates what is done on that very show.
She has a special service project. It's some girl in her english class, that she's "trying" to be a friend. but it's just so hard, the girl is getting too attached, and their personalaties don't match! Her little service project is getting so annoying, but she has to hang in there because their church group is reporting on how well their "friend" project is going sunday. She "knows" this is something Christ would do, so she pushes herself along.
She was asked to Prom by the most charming guy in the school. he was talented, good looking, smart, and funny. In fact he had high standards just like her, however he wasn't LDS- he was born again christian. They would spend hours talking in chemistry, and the guy was led to believe there was more bubbling than just their beakers. Any girl would have killed to go with him to prom, but our little mormon girl told him no, and upon finding out that he had interest in her, cut off all communication with him.... She made a promise to herself that she'd never date out of her faith.
She eventually got asked to prom, so she went out to by a dress. She shopped around all the malls, and was so irritated because the dresses were all immodest. This surely must be signs of the times, the world obviously is an evil place. She was forced to by an immodest high cut dress, and modify it so she could be modest to prom.
The school had elected a song as the theme for their dance. however this was horribly upsetting to our little mormon girl because it said the "d" word. her and her mormon friends started a petition to the principal. The principal agreed, and the school was forced to revote on some pre-approved songs. She went home feeling that she did something good for society. The rest of school went home feeling like they no longer had a say in their life. Funny how words that are used to strengthen expressed feelings, are taken so offensively these days all because some guy decided to label them as "swear words." how many times have you heard those words used when the really meant to offend you? sure it happens, but rarely in music!
Prom comes around, the boys take the girls wake boarding as a day date activity, and it is extremely fun being with boys her age. She stayed in her swimming suit as long as possible so she could be tan for the prom. still no boys made no perverted comments, or even made any thoughts about how her shoulders were now showing. So the thought that wearing a swimsuit was wrong never crossed her mind.
it's time for the big dance. Her and her girlfriends got together for some pictures before the dance. She didn't invite her childhood friend to come. her childhood friend had gone to the "otherside" and had chosen to wear an immodest dress. They didn't want that in their pictures, so she wasn't invited.
At the dance music was going, and the lights flashed according to the beat. Her and her friends were all in the little mormon group together at the dance. They were having the funnest time ever, dancing and singing along to their favorite songs, oblivious to the horrible sexual connotations in the music. It didn't matter because they just liked the beat, and the DJ had edited out all the swear words, so she knew it was "clean." She was still glad she had gotten the theme song changed. Because in these days you need to be a light unto the world, and keep it from being such a filthy place.
You know, all of these things that Mormon girls do, are good. It makes them feel protected and like they're making good decisions. I write this simply to hear how you feel. Somehow i think that people get religion confused with rules and standards. It's almost as like they think that God doesn't understand any situation, and that the Bible is enough to guide your life perfectly. Maybe it is that way, maybe it isn't. All I'm saying is that people who are like this have their priorities mixed up.
*Subnetting is the process of taking a singe address block and breaking it into multiple, smaller blocks
*the purpose of subnetting is to segment an existing network into smaller subnetworks
*Sunetting is accomplished by borrowing bits from the host portion of classful Ip address and adding these bits to the network portion
*A Special subnet mask is used that separates the sunetworks from the network
|1842|Two months after his initiation into Freemasonry, Joseph Smith administers the first endowments on the upper floor of his Nauvoo store. The rite consists of washing, anointing, clothing in the garment, and instruction in the signs, tokens, and keywords of the holy priesthood.|
|1843|Eternal marriage (sealings) and the second anointing are instituted. Women receive the endowment for the first time.|
|1845|Under Brigham's Young leadership, the endowment is performed in the Nauvoo Temple as a ritual drama, with a Creation Room, Garden Room, Telestial Room, Terrestrial Room, and Celestial Room.|
|1877|The first recorded endowments for the dead are performed. Brigham Young produces the first written text of the endowment, for use in the St. George Temple.|
|1893|Church leaders order minor alterations to the language and procedures of the endowment, trying to ensure greater consistency in how the endowment is administered in different temples.|
|1904-1906|The endowment is publicly scrutinized during Congressional hearings to determine if senator-elect Reed Smoot has taken a treasonable oath. Of particular concern is the "oath of vengeance," added to the ceremony after Joseph Smith's death.|
|1919-1927| A committee appointed by Heber J. Grant produces a revised endowment to be used in all temples. Changes include: Eliminating the oath of vengeance. Omitting graphic descriptions from the penalties. Reducing the number of times the robes of the priesthood are changed from one shoulder to the other. Discontinuing temple choirs (who had formerly performed the hymn chosen by Lucifer's preacher), in favor of congregational singing.|
The sweet-savory flavor of teriyaki sauce is a centuries-old mixture of soy sauce and mirin (sweet cooking wine). Over time, Japanese Americans added ginger, brown sugar, pineapple juice, and green onions, elements of the bottled teriyaki sauce Americans know today.
!!Ingredients
*8 ounces uncooked spaghetti
*4 green onions
*1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
*1 cup thinly sliced red bell pepper
*3 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops (about *1/2 inch thick), cut into 1/4-inch strips
*1 (3 1/2-ounce) package shiitake mushrooms, sliced
*1/3 cup low-sodium teriyaki sauce
*4 teaspoons chili garlic sauce (such as Lee Kum Kee)
!!Preparation
Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain, reserving 1/4 cup cooking liquid; keep warm.
Remove green tops from green onions; thinly slice, and set aside. Mince white portions of green onions; set aside.
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add minced green onions, bell pepper, pork, and mushrooms; sauté 3 minutes or until pork is browned. Combine reserved 1/4 cup cooking liquid, teriyaki sauce, and chili garlic sauce in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add pasta and teriyaki sauce mixture to pan; toss well to coat. Stir in sliced green onion tops.
!!Yield
4 servings (serving size: about 1 3/4 cups)
!!Nutritional Information
CALORIES 444(27% from fat);
FAT 13.5g (sat 4.1g,mono 4.6g,poly 2.7g);
PROTEIN 26.3g;
CHOLESTEROL 55mg;
CALCIUM 40mg;
SODIUM 633mg;
FIBER 3.1g;
IRON 3.4mg;
CARBOHYDRATE 51.9g
The Abuse and Misuse of Power
Abuse and Misuse of Power.
I believe in checks and balances... It obviously is inspired, or closer to perfection than many other ideas in government. If a leader sucks, the people won't vote for him the next time around, and they'll get a better leader.
Unfortunately such is not the case in the LDS church. If a leader sucks, everyone just deals with it because he's been divinely appointed. I'm not going to lie... that is a bunch of BS. 3 of the modern day apostles were in the same graduating class of University of Utah. Not to mention about half of all them graduated from University of Utah. Do you remember the conference talks about them hanging out together back in the day. I can't reference that- but don't argue with me, because I know I'm right. Either way, they've all been working together on church events for years.. that's why so many ex byu presidents get called.
So what, big deal if a leader calls a bunch of his friends to be leaders with him. Bush doe s it with his cabinet. So no big deal... Its just kind of scary, because unlike bush, we don't have a say in what team is our leaders. I'm not worried, the church never boldly says anything more, there hasn't been new revelation in years. And the church never takes a stance on anything anymore.
I'm not worried about the big-hitters in our church. I've met a couple of them. In fact I had a couple meals with Elder Eyring himself. He's got his head on his shoulders. He isn't some extremist that receives revelation for every single person he runs into... You'd think that from all the bishops you run into.
These leaders are the ones that decide and influence us to what to believe. How often do you hear the apostles discuss what the REAL doctrine of the church is? Never... But how often do you hear your bishops and elder's quorum presidents tell you what the church really believes? ALL THE TIME.
For every pro statement made, I guarantee there's been someone high up in the church that has said differently, you just have to look past the popular doctrines in mainstream mormonism. My point being, too many people are trusting their local leaders too much. They think their local leaders no everything.
The local leaders think they know everything as well. Its not like their job is difficult. If it sounds righteous, inspirational, or spiritually uplifting they'll say it, and who's gonna argue with them? You don't argue with someone who has God's authority right? So everyone keeps their mouth shut, and they do everything their leader says.
Its almost like people need a leader to tell them what to do in everything. Like God didn't give them a brain. Or God doesn't trust them to use it. How long are you going to let your leaders tell you what is happiness, and what isn't?
I don't care if you disagree with me on this or not, you're welcome to comment, but don't try and manipulate me... that's what leaders do in religion. Its a competition for righteousness.... that's what life is isn't it? To be the most righteous as possible right? Let's not drink caffeine because obviously someone inspired decided not to have it served on BYU campus. Making out is bad because it leads to sex.... on and on.
Kikuchi.. a general authority in asia... The guy was nuts. He said the biggest bunch of crap all the time. He called up our mission and told us every mission companionship would baptize that month because he received a revelation. Did every companionship baptize-no. He told us to go around to every japanese persona and ask them two questions, and if they answer no, then move on... if you believe in spiritual direction... does that sound capable of spiritual inspiration?
On a more local level, Ever hear of bishops telling kids to never make out? And that if they do they need to confess it? Ever hear of a bishop telling kids not to back rub? “back rubs in the front room lead to front rubs in the back room” Ever hear of bishops asking for confessions of friends' sins?
I'm a big believer in myself I think. I didn't used to be... but my trust was broken. People will always say, “the church is perfect but the leaders aren't.” so what do we do, ignore the leaders, and live our lives how we feel we should?
I think so. Just think... If someone I trusted told me that wearing blue pants was a sin... I'd feel really guilty every time I wore blue pants...even though I really liked blue pants. But what if I stopped listening to him... I wouldn't feel guilty anymore.
Not that leadership is bad. I think its good, I'm just sick of it being abused.
"Forsaking all valid sources of information about this world (both spiritual and mundane), our religions have seized upon ancient taboos and prescientific fancies as though they held ultimate metaphysical significance. Books that embrace the narrowest spectrum of political, moral, scientific, and spiritual understanding-books that, by their antiquity alone, offer us the most dilute wisdom with respect to the present-are still dogmatically thrust upon us as the final word on matters of the greatest of significance. In the best case, faith leaves otherwise well-intentioned people incapable of thinking rationally about many of their deepest concerns; at worst, it is a continuous source of human violence."
''The End of Faith''
//Sam Harris//
//page 223//
Explicit Content: The Bible.
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Today, on my lunch break I noticed the article about students trying to reclassify the bible as indecent, you can read it here:
After reading some of the comments.... It really got me thinking...For example a digg user (bupublue) said:
But so interesting how people pick and choose. Plenty of very significant books have been banned on school library shelves for far, far less, all because the parents are too afraid they might scar their precious little babies. Check out the list below of the most commonly challenged books in the US. Okay, so there are plenty of things on there you might not consider historically significant (ie, "Where's Waldo?") but there are plenty that are (ie, "1984", "Catch-22", "The Jungle") and plenty more that at least have great literary significance (ie "Lord of the Flies.") And before anyone says something about the Bible not being allowed at school either, well, I had to read parts of the Bible "as literature" in high school, and that was only about 8 years ago. So there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_challenged_books_in_the_U.S.
so I read that, and I was like... seriously no kidding. The bible is one gross and perverted book-fiction or not. and for the minute of sex scene in a movie, I think references of divinely inspired incest is far worse. check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_references_to_incest
Here's a personal old favorite of mine. I will end with this.
Biblical Gang Bang
22 While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."
23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."
25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
27 When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold.
28 He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.
29 When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.
Seriously.... awesome stuff.
(This is a recurring theme, since one of the main comparative advantages of bicycle transportation is the cost.)
I just got my "Annual Auto Issue" of Consumer Reports. (April 2008)
It has an interesting article, What that car really costs to own. And they give some good, practical advice on how to choose a car that will cost less "over the long haul."
When they study 300 different models, the average ownership cost, over a period of five years, breaks down as follows:
- Depreciation (the big one!) - 48%
- Fuel - 21%
- Interest - 12%
- Insurance - 11%
- Maintenance and repair - 4%
- Tax - 4%
It would stand to reason that if you went out 10 years rather than 5, depreciation and interest would decrease, and maintenance/repair would probably increase to partly fill the void. And here's a bold prediction - fuel will cost more in 5 years than it does now. (But the second five years would still likely be significantly cheaper than the first five years of ownership.)
So... let's talk some numbers.
The cheapest car to own, from new to five years old? The Toyota Yaris Hatchback, at $12,596.
BUT WAIT!
How does that compare with the cost of owning a bicycle?
(I know... there's really no comparison!)
Here are my bicycle numbers for the past 5 years...
I paid $900 for my bicycle, so if it depreciated 100%, that's only $900. My fuel is 0% of the total. Interest? 0%. Insurance? 0%. Maintenance and repair? Figuring in EVERYTHING, it's not more than $200/year. (I probably go through 4 tires, 8 tubes, 25-30 patches, a chain and cassette in a year. Everything else lasts longer than a year.)
So - the Yaris costs AT LEAST $10,700 more, over 5 years.
(By the way, the most expensive car was the Mercedes-Benz SL550, at $105,885 for 5 years. Obviously they're only considering mass-market production-type cars. No doubt you could find a Ferrari or Lamborghini or McLaren that would cost more than the MB's $21,177 per year.)
Source: [[The Bike Nazi: Transportation Cost|http://bikenazi.blogspot.com/2008/03/transportation-cost.html]]
The Book of Abraham.
Current mood: cranky
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Everyone doubts. Rarely anyone admits them. No one wants to be viewed as ignorant. I always have had doubts, they probably didn't really surface until I realized how different the same spirit is with everyone else. That was odd I thought. But my biggest turning point was when I read about the discovery of the Abraham Papyrus in this book: (Church History in the Fulness of Times) I was on my mission at that time, and believe me, anti material doesn't exist in Japan.
Pretty much, The papyri that Joseph Smith found, were discovered and finally translated by several scholars, and had no relevance to Joseph Smith's interpretation. Most importantly, Why would a document, so important to christianity, get into the hands of the unbelieving egyptians, and then get burried with a mummy? Why would anyone in their right mind believe that.
Here's what the LDS Church's institute manual says, "In 1967 11 fragments of the joseph smith papyri were rediscovered by Dr. Aziz S Atiya in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Studies of them have confirmed that they are mainly ancient egyptian Funerary texts of the sort commonly buried with royalty and nobility and designed to guide them through their eternal journeyings. it has absolutely nothing to do with what the LDS church believes it does. Here are some points brought to you by the contributors at Wikipedia.org
Both the recovered papyri and the facsimiles published with the Book of Abraham bear no direct connection, either historical or textual, to Abraham. Abraham's name does not appear anywhere in the papyri or the facsimiles.
Joseph Smiths interpretation of the facsimiles do not bear any similarity to modern Egyptologists' translations of the text in these figures.
The Joseph Smith Papyri have been determined to be from the late Ptolemaic or early Roman period which is at least 1500 years after Abrahams lifetime.
This fact contradicts the introduction to the Book of Abraham, which states that the book represents The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.
Anachronisms exist in the Book of Abraham which indicate that it was not written in Abrahams time
Joseph Smith kept in his personal diary an Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar which demonstrates his inability to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs.
I think you ought to open up your scriptures and see for yourself!
From LDS.org:
Joseph Smith's wonderful talent of Translating:
Fig. 6. Represents this earth in its four quarters.
Fig. 7. Represents God sitting upon his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand Key-words of the Priesthood; as, also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove.
Fig. 8. Contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God.
Fig. 9. Ought not to be revealed at the present time.
Fig. 10. Also.
Fig. 11. Also. If the world can find out these numbers, so let it be. Amen.
Figures 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 will be given in the own due time of the Lord.
The above translation is given as far as we have any right to give at the present time.
I, in no way, am a professional. I am in no way an expert on these things, however i think all of you out there should read up a little on your religion. I'll even direct you to the Mormon Apologist view. Click here to read what FARMS has to say.
I laugh when I read their intelligent ways of saying nothing at all.
To say the least, I could go on and on about all of this, but I'd rather have you look into it. I once told myself that I'd never be critical of someone's religion publicly. But things have changed.
I really do fear the people who can't be criticized. And religion is one of those powers, that is unscrutinizable, and I think its bad. I think everything should be able to be criticized, and every person should look at everything with critical eyes, instead of trusting blind faith.
//by Sam Harris//
"It is what we do with words like "god" and "paradise" and "sin" in the present that will determine our future."
//pg 12//
"..religious moderates are themselves the bearers of terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others."
//page 14//
"Two myths now keep faith beyond the fray of rational criticism, and they seem to foster religious extremism and religious moderation equally:
#most of us believe that there are good things that people get from religious faith (e.g., strong communities, ethical behavior, spiritual experience) that cannot be had elsewhere;
#many of us also believe that the terrible things that are sometimes done in the name of religion are the products not of faith per se but of our baser natures-forces like greed, hatred, and fear-for which religious beliefs are themselves the best (or even the only) remedy.
Taken together, these myths seem to have granted us perfect immunity to outbreaks of reasonableness in our public discourse.
//pg 15//
"Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence"
//pg 19//
"The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred //yesterday.//"
//pg 24//
"If we cannot find our way to a time when most of us are willing to admit that, at the ery least, //we are not sure// whether or not [[God]] wrote some of our books, then we need only count the days to Armageddon-because [[God]] has given us far many more reasons to kill one another than to turn the other cheek."
//page 35//
[[Swearing]]
"...many of us occasionally find it necessary to murder other human beings for using the wrong magic words, or the right ones for the wrong reasons. how can any person presume to know that this is the way the universe works? Because it says so in our holy books"
//page 35//
"A single proposition-//you will not die//-once believed, determines a response to life that would be otherwise unthinkable"
//page 38//
[[Belief]]
"Beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every [[belief]] is a fount of action //in potentia//. The [[belief]] that it will rain puts an umbrella in the hand of every man or woman who owns one."
//page 44//
"Religious Moderates are, in large part, responsible for the religious conflict in our world because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed."
//page 45//
[[Humanism]]
"It is time we recognized that the only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their [[belief]]s modified by new facts."
//page 48//
"...Nor can I say things like "I believe in God because it makes me feel good." The fact that I would feel good if there were a God does not give me the slightest reason to believe that one exists."
//page 62//
[[Faith]]
"This is the very same faith that will not stoop to reason when it has no good reasons to believe. If a little supportive evidence emerges however, the faithful prove as attentive to data as the damned. This demonstrates that [[faith]] is nothing more than a willingness to await the evidence-be it the Day of Judgment or some other downpour of corroboration. It is the search for knowlege on the installment plan: believe now, live an untestable hypothesis until your dying day, and you will discover that you were right."
//page 66//
"Science is science because it represents our most committed effort to verify that our statements about the world are true (or at least not false)."
//page 76//
[[Jesus]] [[Evidence]]
"If Jesus came saying things like "the Vatican Library has exactly thirty-seven thousand, two hundred and twenty-six ooks" nd he turned out to be right, we would then begin to feel that we were, at the very least, in dialogue with someone who had something to say about the way the world is."
//page 77//
[[Humanism]]
"Christians risked their lives to protect the Jews in their midst, and did so because of their Christianity. But they were not innumerable enough. The fact that people are sometimes inspired to heroic acts of kindness by the teaching of Christ says nothing about the wisdom or necessity of believing that he, exclusively, was the Son of God. Indeed, we will find that we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to feel compassion for the suffering of others. Our common humanity is reason enough to protect our fellow human beings from coming to harm."
//page 106//
[[Christianity]]
"Christianity is principally a story of mankind's misery and ignorance rather than of its requited love of God."
//page 106//
[[Islam]]
"Huntington writes that the world's billion or so Muslims are 'convinced of the superiority of their culture, and obsessed with the inferiority of their power.'"
//page 130//
[[USA]]
"The US government refuses to judge itself by the same moral standards by which it judges others... Its technique is to position itself as the well-intentioned giant whose good deeds are confounded in strange countries by their scheming natives, whose markets it's trying to free, whose societies it's trying to modernize, whose women it's trying to liberate, whose souls it's trying to save... the US government has conferred upon itsef the right and freedom to murder and exterminate people "for their own good."" - Arundhati Roy
//page 142//
[[Religion]]
"As I contend throughout this book, all that is good in religion can be had elsewhere-if, for instance, ethical and spiritual experience can be cultivated and talked about without our claiming to know things we manifestly do not know-then all the rest of our religious activity represents, at best, a massive waste of time and energy."
//page 149//
[[Free Agency]]
"We know, for instance, that no human being creates his own genes or his early life experiences, and yet most of us believe that these factors determine his character throughout life."
//page 157//
"We now find ourselves living in a world in which college-educated politicians will hurl impediments in the way of such research because they are concerned about the fate of //single cells//."
//page 166//
"President Bush recently decided to cut off funding to any overseas family-planning group that provides information on abortion. According to the New York Times, this "has effectively stopped condom provision to 16 countries and reduced it in 13 others, including some with the world's highest rates of AIDS infection"
//page 167//
"A rational approach to ethis becomes possible once we realize that questions of right and wrong are really questions about the happiness and suffering of sentient creatures. If we are in a position to affect the happiness or suffering of others, we have ethical responsibilities toward them."
//page 171//
[[God]]
"The child born without limbs, the sightless fly, the vanished species-these are nothing less than Mother Nature caught in the act of throwing her clay. No perfect God could maintain such incongruities. it is worth remembering that if God created the world and all things in it, he created small pox, plague and filariasis. Any person who intentionally loosed such horrors upon the earth would be ground to dust for his crimes"
//page 172//
"If pain were all that mattered, it would be as important to protect the rabbits from the foxes as to protect the jews from the Nazis"
-''Richard Rorty''
//page 177//
"The history of human spirituality is the history of our attempts to explore and modify the deliverances of consciousness through methods like fasting, chanting, sensory deprivation, prayer, meditation, and the use of psychotropic plants. There is no question that experiments of this sort can be conducted in a rationall manner. Indeed, they are some of our only means of determining to what extent the human condition can be deliberately transformed. Such an enterprise becomes irrational only when people begin making claims about the world that cannot be supported by empirical evidence."
//page 210//
[[Philosophy]]
"Thousands of years have passed since any Western philosopher imagined that a person should be made happy, peaceful, or even wise, in the ordinary sense, by his search for truth."
//page 215//
[[Religion]]
"Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in pace of good ones for all time. It is the denial-at once full of hope and full of fear-of the vastitude of human ignorance."
//page 221//
"Forsaking all valid sources of information about this world (both spiritual and mundane), our religions have seized upon ancient taboos and prescientific fancies as though they held ultimate metaphysical significance. Books that embrace the narrowest spectrum of political, moral, scientific, and spiritual understanding-books that, by their antiquity alone, offer us the most dilute wisdom with respect to the present-are still dogmatically thrust upon us as the final word on matters of the greatest of significance. In the best case, faith leaves otherwise well-intentioned people incapable of thinking rationally about many of their deepest concerns; at worst, it is a continuous source of human violence."
//page 223//
[[War on Drugs]]
The consequences of our irrationality on this front are so egregious that they bear closer examination. Each year, over 1.5 million men and women are arrested in the United States because of our drug laws. At this moment, somewhere on the order of 400,000 men and women languish in US prisons for nonviolent drug offenses. One million others are currently on probation. More people are imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses in the united states than are incarcerated, for any reason, in all of Western Europe (which has a larger population). The cost of these efforts, at the federal level alone, is nearly $20 billion dollars annually. The total cost of our drug laws-when one factors in the expense to state and local governments and the tax revenue lost by our failure to regulate the sale of drugs-could easily be in excess of $100 billion dollars each year. Our war on drugs consumes an estimated 50 percent of the trial time of our courts and the full-time energies of over 400,000 police officers. These are resources that might otherwise be used to fight violent crime and terrorism.
''[[The End of Faith]]''
//By Sam Harris//
Page 162-3
Page 22. Why do we treat non-experts like experts?
...you can bet that religious leaders from several different faith groups will be prominently represented on influential committees, or on panel discussions on radio or television. I'm not suggesting that we should go out of our way to censor the views of these people. But why does our society beat a path to their door, as though they had some expertise comparable to that of, say, a moral philosopher, a family lawyer or a doctor?
Page 23. Ask a person to justify their beliefs and you infringe on religious liberty.
The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.
Page 27
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
Page 31. The Old Testament in a Nut Shell
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadmasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Page 40 America was not founded on Christianity.
As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Treaty with tripoli, drafted in 1796 under George Washington and signed by John Adams in 1797.
Page 53 When asked why atheism
When asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.
Page 57 Morality from Religion
...we can all agree that science's entitlement to advise us on moral values is problematic, to say the least. But does Gould really want to ced to religion the right to tell us what is good and what is bad? The fact that it has nothing else to contribute to human wisdom is no reason to hand religion a free license to tell us what to do.
Page 60 Prayer
To adapt Alice's comment on her sister's book before she fell into Wonderland, what is the use of a God who does no miracles and answers no prayers? Remember Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'. There are athletes who believe God helps them win - against opponents who would seem, on the face of it no less worthy of his favoritism.
Page 63 Medical Benefit of Prayer?
The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not.
Page 75
A professorship of theology should have no place in our institution. -Thomas Jefferson
Page 78
Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
the omnipotence to
Change His future mind?
Page 88 George W Bush
George W. Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq (a pity God didn't vouchsafe him a revelation that there were no weapons of mass destruction).
Page 91 Visions
Constructing models is something the human brain is very good at. When we are asleep it is called dreaming; when we are awake we call it imagination or, when it is exceptionally vivid, hallucination. As Chapter 10 will show, children who have 'imaginary friends' sometimes see them clearly, exactly as if they were real. If we are gullible we don't recognize hallucination or lucid dreaming for what it is and we claim to have seen or heard a ghost; or an angel; or God; or - especially if we happen to be young, female and Catholic - the Virgin Mary. Such visions and manifestations are certainly not good grounds for believing that ghosts or angels, gods, or virgins are actually there.
Page 91 Testimony
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish. -David Hume
Page 96. Jesus Harry Potter Christ
The gospels that didn't make it were omitted by those ecclesiastics perhaps because they included stories that were even more embarrassingly implausible than those in the four canonical ones. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, has numerous anecdotes about the child Jesus abusing his magical powers in the manner of a mischievous fairy, impishly transforming his playmates into goats, or turning mud into sparrows, or giving his father a hand with the carpentry by miraculously lengthening a piece of wood.
Page 97 The Da Vinci Code
The only difference between the Da Vinci Code and the gospels is that the gospels are ancient fiction while the da vinci code is modern fiction.
Page 102 Religiosity
(more highly educated people are less likely to be religious). Religiosity is also negatively correlated with interest in science and (strongly) with political liberalism. None of this is surprising, nor is the fact that there is a positive correlation between religiosity and parents' religiosity. Sociologists studying British children have found that only about one in twelve break away from their parents' religious beliefs.
Page 103 Pascal's Wager
There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. ...But why, in any case, do we so readily accept the idea that the one thing you must do if you want to please God is believe in him? What's so special about believing? Isn't it just as likely that God would reward kindness or generosity, or humility? or sincerity? ...We are talking about a bet, remember and Pascal wasn't claiming that his wager enjoyed anything but very long odds. Would you bet on God's valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest scepticism?
Page 109 Designer
A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right.
Page 132 Religion and Science
If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? wonderful! Please don't go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don't work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don't squander precious ignorance by researching it away. We need those glorious gaps as a last refuge for God.'
Page 133 Medical Science
Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system...It's our defense against debilitating and fatal diseases. The scientists who wrote those books and articles toil in obscurity, without book royalties or speaking engagements. Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. By contrast, Professor Behe and the entire intelligent design movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don't bother. -Eric Rothschild
Page 134 Design and Evolution
Predators seem beautifully 'designed' to catch prey animals, while the prey animals seem equally beautifully 'designed' to escape them. Whose side is God on?
Page 157 Miracles
"Do you believe Jesus was born of a virgin?" Don't you know that in polite society we don't ask such questions? That sort of question went out in the nineteenth century.' But think about why it is impolite to ask such direct, factual questions of religious people today. It is because it is embarrassing! But it is the answer that is embarrassing, if it is yes.
Page 178 Jesus Christ
• In the time of the ancestors, a man was born to a virgin mother with no biological father being involved.
• The same fatherless man called out to a friend called Lazarus, who had been dead long enough to stink, and Lazarus promptly came back to life.
• The fatherless man himself came alive after being dead and buried three days.
• Forty days later, the fatherless man went up to the top of a hill and then disappeared bodily into the sky.
• If you murmur thoughts privately in your head, the fatherless man, and his 'father' (who is also himself) will hear your thoughts and may act upon them. He is simultaneously able to hear the thoughts of everybody else in the world.
• If you do something bad, or something good, the same fatherless man sees all, even if nobody else does. You may be rewarded or punished accordingly, including after your death
• the fatherless man's virgin mother never died but 'ascended' bodily into heaven.
• bread and wine, if blessed by a priest (who must have testicles), 'become' the body and blood of the fatherless man.
Page 190 Reason
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. ...Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason. ...Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. - Martin Luther
Page 238 Literal Interpretation
Of course, irritated theologians will protest that we don't take the book of Genesis literally any more. But that is my whole point! We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories.
Page 243 Morals from the Bible
...All I am trying to establish for the moment is that we do not, as a matter of fact, derive our morals from scripture. Or, if we do, we pick and choose among the scriptures for the nice bits and reject the nasty. But then we must have some independent criterion for deciding which are the moral bits: a criterion which, wherever it comes from, cannot come from scripture itself and is presumably available to all of us whether we are religious or not.
Page 251 Original Sin
The sin of Adam and Eve is thought to have passed down the male line - transmitted in the semen according to Augustine. What kind of ethical philosophy is that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor?
Page 252 Jesus Christ's Purpose
If Jesus wanted to be betrayed and then murdered, in order that he could redeem us all, isn't it rather unfair of those who consider themselves redeemed to take it out on Judas and on Jews down the ages?
Page 253 Serious PWNage
I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them, without having himself tortured and executed in payment - thereby incidentally, condemning remote future generations of Jews to pogroms and persecution as 'Christ-killers': did that hereditary sin pass down in the semen too?
Page 278 End of Faith by Sam Harris
The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that all others must, civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous. We are, even now, killing ourselves over ancient literature. Who would have thought something so tragically absurd could be possible?
The Youth of the World are Revolting
Okay so I stole the title of this Blog from "Five Iron Frenzy" which BTW is the best Live CD i've ever heard.
So today I got out of advertising class early and I head home. I've got my longboard with me as usual, but out of fear of being ticketed I walk it through campus. (yeah its illegal to ride on campus... lame.) So I pass the car entrance gates, and I'm on what I thought was a public road, so I get on my board. I'm no where near central campus, I'm on the road near the tanner building and marriott center. Cop pulls me over.
he says, "give me your ID" and I say, "why, was I doing something wrong?" "you were riding your board on campus." "this is a public road" "but its owned by BYU."
Okay so i'm pissed. All my life I've had friends who hated cops, who have ran from cops, and even my neighbor who is a cop is very questionable is his job ethics. But because I'm relatively an obedient citizen I have never had any run-ins with police. So I just don't have any predispositions about cops. I've always thought about how I'm going to smart off to the next police officer that pulled me over...
I realized I could be a jerk to the cop, I could hate him, I could despise him for doing his job or I could hate the people that made such a dumb rule. I knew the cop was just doing his job, and so I really couldn't hate him, it wouldn't be fair. A few unjust policemen in the world doesn't mean they're all tainted....
So I cooperated with him, and he let me go... I pretty much can't ride to and from school anymore... lame. at least he admited it was lame too. The cop was actually nice after I was nice to him. all I had to do was decide mentally, "I hate BYU" instead of "I hate this cop." funny.
It's funny how our preconceived thoughts can affect reality. I think that's where a lot of us go off wrong in the world. We always have two choices when we encounter something new. Act accordingly to what you've heard-many times I think this is subconscious. Like if you heard this guy was a stuck up prick, you'd definitely talk to him like he was one. Everything he would do, would justify you thinking he was a prick. Or we could just play it cool and judge for ourselves. We all have preconceived stereotypes, and we all eventually screw ourselves over for it.
aside from personal relationships, I think teenage rebellion has something to do with all of this. its not that a teenager feels like the world is out to get them, its that the world is judging them unfairly. that is a judgment itself! If those preconceived notions were set aside for a little bit i think most adults and mentors are fairly realistic and unjudging. Trust on both parties can go a long way.
Kris Roe from the ataris wrote: "we said that we would never fit in, when really we were really just like them, does rebellion ever make a difference?" I think we all naturally try to separate ourselves, only to unify ourselves with others.
I see so many "scene" kids, who always try and like these bands that have never been heard of before, all these local crappy bands, not all of them are crappy... for example seve vs. evan. These scene kids are bitter to anything pop culture. when a band they like becomes "popular" the band gets labeled a sell out. and anyone who likes that band has got to be a freaking idiot or something... I wish good music could be appreciated instead of hated. I give this as an example as how we all are in some way or another. I'm pretty sure you dislike something solely because everyone in your social circle dislikes the same thing even when only one of you may have good enough reason to.
its all about our desire to associate, or maybe just our desire. Someone in the scene kid circle that says, "I like Good Charlotte" would stick out like a sore thumb. It sucks that pressures around him or her would suppress him into keeping his true honest feelings in. Who knows, maybe they all feel that way. They just never progress. they don't look for solutions, or they're just lazy and don't care...(prolly that one)
I think problems in the world today are pretty much based on personal separation and judgment. Its the easy rout to just say and feel the world hates you, or we can be those opinion leaders of the world and say how we really feel. We can look for solutions instead of at the problems in the world. We can love instead of hate.
''I copied this from some blog, (see the bottom).''
Before Eggtown and the promos for The Constant, I would never have considered the word MEMORY as one of the most important clues in Lost, even though it's an aspect of Lost that is addressed in every single episode of the series. After watching what appeared to be Daniel having trouble remembering the last card that was face down on the table, I started to wonder how the experiment could possibly relate to the properties of the island, and how certain things, like memory, could be affected by something like time travel. After that, the mysteries of the island basically started to solve themselves.
MEMORY AND TIME TRAVEL
In every episode there's a flashback, and the flashbacks are composed of (for the most part) linear memories. These have been in Lost since the very beginning, and have provided massive amounts of insight into the characters. But is that all they're for? I don't think so. If you throw the element of time travel into the mix of the flashback formula, you start to realize... is the past set in stone? Not at all. Maybe these flashbacks we've been seeing are setting the stage for a return to these events, in another, different, yet similar flashback. Not a different future, but a different PAST, where the events unfold differently due to the influence of a time traveller.
As we saw in his very brief flashback, we get a sense that Faraday is a very intuitive person -- he understands immediately that seeing the plane on the bottom of the ocean means bad news. He also shows his intuitive qualities on the island with the rocket experiment as well as the card experiment. But what is he trying to figure out with these experiments? @@I think he's trying to figure out why reality as he knows it is changing all around him, and why he's starting to remember his own past differently.@@
Here's how I think it's working - Daniel is receiving memories that are new to him, but at the same time they are old, long term memories, and he's starting to understand that this is why he had a really bad feeling about it all. Faraday recognizes that these memories are new to him even though they feel old, and he's trying to figure out what's causing it before he starts to change into a very different person (our experiences define us, do they not?). What would cause something like this to happen? Something changing his past. Basically, his past is being altered by a time traveller, and because his past is being rewritten, reality on the island keeps shifting timelines VERY slightly (This is why he couldn't guess the last card).
(If you haven't seen the promo for the next episode, you probably won't want to continue reading this)
The preview for "The Constant" shows a short clip where Desmond goes back in time, confronts Faraday in the past (a physicist professor at the time), and from the looks of it, changes the path of Daniel's life from that point on. Considering he's yelling and throwing Dan into a chalkboard, it does not look like it would affect him in a good way, and probably causes some unwanted struggles in his life. Once Faraday remembers this encounter with Desmond, he's going to start to act very differently.
So if Desmond messes with Dan's life in the past, what happens to the Dan on the island? The memories and experiences that he had after Desmond messed with his life will start randomly showing up in his head, and reality will basically switch paths, or course correct. @@The Faraday on the island will change greatly, and as things continue to change in the past from this "branching point" where Desmond screwed with his life, more and more things on the island will start to change because of how that one event set off another snowballing chain of events.@@
COURSE CORRECTION
A confusing aspect of this is... well, how do we know that Faraday would still end up on the island as a rescuer if his life was so drastically changed? Wouldn't he never show up on the island? That's probably true. That is, unless John Locke is right, and that "every one of us has been brought here for a reason". The island is fate for every single person that we've seen on it. It's inescapable. It's where they were meant to end up so they could play their role in the correct way of "saving the world". Some of them have minor parts and some of them have major parts, but they all have a role in the play and certain things that they're supposed to do at certain times. So basically, the island course corrects itself whenever it REALLY needs to, in order to allow the play to continue, uninterrupted.
THE ISLAND, THE NUMBERS, AND DHARMA
@@The island is the anti-paradox of time travel.@@ It corrects all the paradoxes in time travel so the past can be meddled with and 'course correction' becomes possible. It allows certain gifted individuals (like Desmond, Ms. Hawking, and even Brother Campbell who was the reason that Desmond met Penny) to go back and alter history in order to change the future, without the changes being made in the past affecting the person's own physical mass/composition as a human being, if they are indeed on the island in the future (that would be messy). Given the abilities of the island, the main Dharma goal was probably to change the past to ensure the future they desired, and they knew they could use the unique electromagnetic properties of the island to achieve this. I'm guessing Dharma really screwed up when they tried to alter a timeline and it resulted in the 'incident' -- reality as they knew it on the island starting changing so drastically that they had to go into damage control an! d prevent the past from changing too much. How do they do that? A reset button. The computer, the button, the numbers.
If it doesn't work correctly, they hit the reset button and go back to the "home" point on the timeline, the one that relates to the numbers. (The numbers could represent the location of the island in 4 dimensions, + the speed and direction of the island on a timeline) Well, ever since the failsafe, they can't reset. Whatever changes being made to history now, they're becoming permanent, and everything is going to change for good.
THE FUTURE OF FLASHBACKS
What I really like about this idea... it allows the traditional flashback formula to be used again but with so much more effect. Consider this... Desmond goes back, changes time for one person, and in someone else's flashback, we realize the aftermath of this course correction changed the course of their life as well. Basically, if this were to be true, everything we've ever known in the show could change from this point on, but since we've already seen how the past worked before the changes, we'll have the ability to see just how different the events play out the second time around
JACOB AND THE SMOKE MONSTER
Jacob's cabin = The Magic Box. It's capable of (or Jacob is capable of) creating a duplication of a person or animal that once existed, and the blueprints for the duplication come directly from memories of people living on the island. That's why Ben told Locke he brought his father there. That's why I think Hurley saw Mikhail in Jacob's cabin (Hurley was wanting to get revenge against the man who killed Charlie, and Jacob was trying to give him that opportunity. Hurley wouldn't even have to know that it was Mikhail who killed him -- Jacob knew, and tried to use it, unsuccessfully, to gain an audience with Hurley). I also think Jacob masked himself as Christian Shephard for a reason -- so Hurley will eventually tell Jack that he saw his father, ALIVE on the island, giving him yet another reason to want to go back.
As for Jacob, he's transcended time and space and acts as the brain of the island. He is the island's consciousness given a name. He's like a course correction program. The one who knows exactly how everything HAS to play out in order to "save the world". Without Jacob, or someone with the same capabilities he has, humanity is doomed. Since Jacob isn't restricted by time and space, he can probably jump in and out of time whenever he pleases, and is likely capable of seeing how the past needs to be fixed in order to change the future. This also makes it possible that Ms. Hawking/Brother Campbell was just Jacob in disguise, jumping through time and masking himself once again.
So, who protects Jacob? The smoke monster. As Danielle said, it is a security system. It read Eko's memories, then it reported to Jacob. It determined that Eko was the prime candidate to make it so Locke wouldn't push the button, so the monster came back, gave Eko a vision, and led them to the Pearl station. When it read Locke in Walkabout, it flashed a bright light because it determind that Locke was crucial for the endgame. Same with Juliet. The monster is sort of like Jacob's dog, kind of like the dog painting in Jacob's cabin...
BEN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH JACOB
Ben, being special like he is, is able to see and speak to Jacob, a being that is really only a constant visitor to our plane of existence. So why does Jacob need Ben? Because Ben is (for the most part), loyal to Jacob, and executes his will accordingly. If Jacob didn't have Ben and only had the smoke monster, Jacob wouldn't be able to manipulate events as well, and as we all know, Ben is a master of manipulation. Ben is a necessary evil until Locke finally starts to understand the scope of what needs to be done on the island. As for how Jacob uses Ben - Jacob must travel through time, gather the information he needs about the outcome he wants, and then inform Ben about what needs to happen to obtain the outcome. This way, Ben know's exactly what to say to keep people in check, and him and Jacob are always one step ahead of everyone. When Ben isn't physically capable of doing the manipulation, the smoke monster is used for intimidation, or Jacob just appears as another perso! n from their past.
Source: [[Theories: How the Island works by manfromtallahassee815 (*Updated*)|http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-island-works-by-manfromtallahassee8.html]]
#''Ad hominem'' An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter anothers claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself. True believers will often commit this fallacy by countering the arguments of skeptics by stating that skeptics are closed minded. Skeptics, on the other hand, may fall into the trap of dismissing the claims of UFO believers, for example, by stating that people who believe in UFO's are crazy or stupid.
#''Ad ignorantiam'' The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about the human brain. UFO proponents will often argue that an object sighted in the sky is unknown, and therefore it is an alien spacecraft.
#''Argument from authority'' Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. It is reasonable to give more credence to the claims of those with the proper background, education, and credentials, or to be suspicious of the claims of someone making authoritative statements in an area for which they cannot demonstrate expertise. But the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it.
#''Argument from final Consequences'' Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that is serves. For example: God must exist, because otherwise life would have no meaning.
#''Argument from Personal Incredulity'' I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that does not mean life did not evolve.
#''Confusing association with causation'' This is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply because they are correlated, although the relationship here is not strictly that of one variable following the other in time. This fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal interpretation. For example, during the 1990’s both religious attendance and illegal drug use have been on the rise. It would be a fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in societal unrest. It is also possible that both variables are independent of one another, and it is mere coincidence that they are both increasing at the same time. A corollary to this is the invocation of this logical fallacy to argue that an association does not represent causation, rather it is more accurate to say that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but it can. Also, multiple independent correlations can point reliably to a causation, and is a reasonable line of argument.
#''Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable'' Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the "God of the Gapsâ" strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.
#''False Continuum'' The idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful: There is a fuzzy line between cults and religion, therefore they are really the same thing.
#''False Dichotomy'' Arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two. For example, evolution is not possible, therefore we must have been created (assumes these are the only two possibilities). This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudoscience are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other.
#''Inconsistency'' Applying criteria or rules to one belief, claim, argument, or position but not to others. For example, some consumer advocates argue that we need stronger regulation of prescription drugs to ensure their safety and effectiveness, but at the same time argue that medicinal herbs should be sold with no regulation for either safety or effectiveness.
#''The Moving Goalpost'' A method of denial arbitrarily moving the criteria for "proof" or acceptance out of range of whatever evidence currently exists.
#''~Non-Sequitur'' In Latin this term translates to "doesn't follow". This refers to an argument in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. In other words, a logical connection is implied where none exists.
#''Post-hoc ergo propter hoc'' This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this").
#''Reductio ad absurdum'' In formal logic, the reductio ad absurdum is a legitimate argument. It follows the form that if the premises are assumed to be true it necessarily leads to an absurd (false) conclusion and therefore one or more premises must be false. The term is now often used to refer to the abuse of this style of argument, by stretching the logic in order to force an absurd conclusion. For example a UFO enthusiast once argued that if I am skeptical about the existence of alien visitors, I must also be skeptical of the existence of the Great Wall of China, since I have not personally seen either. This is a false reductio ad absurdum because he is ignoring evidence other than personal eyewitness evidence, and also logical inference. In short, being skeptical of UFO's does not require rejecting the existence of the Great Wall.
#''Slippery Slope'' This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme.
#''Straw Man'' Arguing against a position which you create specifically to be easy to argue against, rather than the position actually held by those who oppose your point of view.
#''Special pleading, or ad-hoc reasoning'' This is a subtle fallacy which is often difficult to recognize. In essence, it is the arbitrary introduction of new elements into an argument in order to fix them so that they appear valid. A good example of this is the ad-hoc dismissal of negative test results. For example, one might point out that ESP has never been demonstrated under adequate test conditions, therefore ESP is not a genuine phenomenon. Defenders of ESP have attempted to counter this argument by introducing the arbitrary premise that ESP does not work in the presence of skeptics. This fallacy is often taken to ridiculous extremes, and more and more bizarre ad hoc elements are added to explain experimental failures or logical inconsistencies.
#''Tautology'' A tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such. For example, saying that therapeutic touch works because it manipulates the life force is a tautology because the definition of therapeutic touch is the alleged manipulation (without touching) of the life force.
#''Tu quoque'' Literally, you too. This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it. "My evidence may be invalid, but so is yours."
#''Unstated Major Premise'' This fallacy occurs when one makes an argument which assumes a premise which is not explicitly stated. For example, arguing that we should label food products with their cholesterol content because Americans have high cholesterol assumes that: 1) cholesterol in food causes high serum cholesterol; 2) labeling will reduce consumption of cholesterol; and 3) that having a high serum cholesterol is unhealthy. This fallacy is also sometimes called begging the question.
1) "It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. Nephi saw this ‘church which is the most abominable above all other churches' in vision. He ‘saw the devil that he was the foundation of it' and also the murders, wealth, harlotry, persecutions, and evil desires that historically have been a part of this satanic organization.(Bruce R. McConkie. Mormon Doctrine [1958], 130.)
2) "I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow." - Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Twenty Seventh Wife, Irving Wallace, p. 101.
3) "Brethren, I want you to understand that it is not to be as it has been heretofore. The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake." - Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Lion of the Lord, New York, 1969, pp
4) "You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation ...When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:336).
5) "The day of the Lamanites in nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome. . . The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation. . .There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. Spencer W. Kimball; The Improvemant, Era, Dec. 1960, p. 923)
6) "You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind....Cain slew his brother. Can might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, page 290).
7) "Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110.)
8) "Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race." (Tenth LDS President, Joseph Fielding Smith The Way to Perfection, p.101.)
9) "Let us consider the great mercy of God for a moment. a Chinese, born in China with a dark skin, and with all the handicaps of that race seems to have little opportunity. but think of the mercy of god to Chinese people who are willing to accept the gospel. In spite of whatever they might have done in the pre-existence to justify being born over there as Chinamen, if they now, in this life, accept the gospel and live it the rest of their lives they can have the Priesthood, go to the temple and receive endowments and sealings, and that means they can have exaltation. Isn't the mercy of God marvelous?
Think of the Negro, cursed as to the priesthood... This Negro, who in the pre-existence lived the type of life which justified the Lord in sending him to the earth in the lineage of Cain with a black skin, and possibly being born in darkest Africa-if that Negro is willing when he hears the gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the gospel. In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincerer faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessing of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory. (Race Problems--As They Affect The Church, An address by Mark E. Petersen at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College level; Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954.)
10) "We do not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals. If any of you have this tendency and have not completely abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university immediately after this assembly.... We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence." (Ernest Wilkinson, president of Brigham Young University, in a 1965 lecture to the BYU student body, titled: "Make Honor your Standard."
Trent Cutler Heaven Trent Cutler Hell
Trent Hell.
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Having billions of spirit children to take care of. ( i only want 3-4 kids in real life, what makes anyone think I'd want billions? )
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No cool music. Strictly motab and crappy sacrament meeting songs.
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Tons of uncool people wanting to give me high fives and talk about how “my testimony” is.
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We're all perfect, we know everything, so we don't do anything because there's no point. We don't play sports, do recreation, talk, live...boring....
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instead of brushing your teeth you'd have to use that gritty tooth polisher dentists use each visit.
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Everyone would be in their “natural perfect state” and be all hairy and gross.
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Everyone just is real happy to share experiences from their life in an eternal long testimony meeting...
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We'd have to read scriptures still.
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No sleeping only singing hallelujahs
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being married to multiple women.
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Walking on clouds all day. Or possibly fire.
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Talking like they do in the scriptures, that would suck. That's why it would be Trent Hell.
Trent Heaven
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Free Raisin Bran Crunch.... all you can eat... and it never goes old.
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My life will have an eternal soundtrack playing where ever I go, and I don't have to wear headphones. Music will not include any LDS music of any kind. Mostly rock bands that swear and stuff.
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Swearing is totally fine and encouraged, because 1. its hella funny. 2. because I'm so sick of Freak and fetch. 3. because its only dirty if the listener wants to think its dirty.
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I will Not be a God, and have to answer prayers all day. I will get to play all day, and spend time with the people I love.
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There won't be church, and nothing will resemble church whatsoever...
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Many of the 'righteous' people here in provo, will be no where found... unless someone was to be eternally punished like going to “trent hell”
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I won't be perfect, because then I can learn, I can compete, I can grow, I can experience imperfect emotions, such as pleasure and happiness.
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We all can have superpowers like x-men. And fight like video games, except we don't die. We would all laugh if our arms got chopped off and stuff. And then we'd just fix ourselves.
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Since our “test” would be over we could watch rated R movies all day, and totally not feel bad about it.
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We wouldn't have to wear weird robes or garments. And walk barefoot.
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No ugly fat people allowed.
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No one from my IP&T class allowed.
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And if you don't like this blog, you're not allowed into Trent Heaven.
“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
''Andre Gide''
//(French writer, humanist and moralist, 1947 nobel prize for literature, 1869-1951)//
“God has no religion”
''Mahatma Gandhi''
//(Indian Philosopher, internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest, 1869-1948)//
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
''Howard Thurman''
//(American Theologian, Clergyman and Activist. 1900-1981)//
“To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.”
''Benjamin Disraeli''
//(British Prime Minister and Novelist. 1804-1881)//
“Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”
''Bernard M. Baruch''
//(American Economist and adviser to US presidents, 1870-1965)//
“When you knock, ask to see God - none of the servants.”
''Henry David Thoreau''
//(American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862)//
“And he goes through life, his mouth open, and his mind closed”
''Oscar Wilde''
//(Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)//
“I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.”
''Carl Sandburg''
//(American Historian, Poet and Novelist, 1878-1967)//
“We first fought the heathens in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.”
''Serj Tankian''
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
''Stephen Bayley''
//(British , b.1949)//
“I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries”
''Henry Louis Mencken''
//(American humorous Journalist and Critic of American life who influenced US fiction through the 1920s, 1880-1956)//
“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief”
''Gerry Spence''
“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
''Lewis Carroll''
//(English Logician, Mathematician, Photographer and Novelist, especially remembered for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 1832-1898)//
“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”
''George Orwell''
//(English Novelist and Essayist, 1903-1950)//
“People ask me what I think about that woman priest thing. What, a woman priest? Women priests. Great, great. Now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to.”
''Bill Hicks''
//(American Comedian, b.1961)//
“We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.”
''Pearl S. Buck''
//(American author, 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1892-1973)//
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
''Mark Twain''
//(American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)//
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
''Sinclair Lewis''
//(American Writer, 1885-1951)//
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”
''Steven Weinberg''
“The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world.”
''Georgia Harkness''
“The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example”
''Mark Twain''
//(American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)//
“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.”
''Anais Nin''
//(French born American Author of novels and short stories, 1903-1977)//
“Same religion that saves - Damns You”
“Religion is as helpful as throwing a drowning man both ends of a rope”
“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
''Richard Dawkins''
“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one”
''George Bernard Shaw''
//(Irish literary Critic, Playwright and Essayist. 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1856-1950)//
“For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm”
''Voltaire''
//(French Philosopher and Writer. One of the greatest of all French authors, 1694-1778)//
“Religion consists of a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain”
''Mark Twain''
//(American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)//
“If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.”
''Edmond de Goncourt''
“Suppose we've chosen the wrong god”
“Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men”
''Voltaire''
//(French Philosopher and Writer. One of the greatest of all French authors, 1694-1778)//
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism....”
''Albert Einstein''
//(German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955)//
“Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich”
''Napoleon Bonaparte''
//(French General, Politician and Emperor (1804-14). 1769-1821)//
“A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible is the surest path to atheism”
''Donald Morgan''
“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.”
''Richard Burton''
//(Welsh Actor from the late 1940s through the 1980s. 1925-1984)//
“My principal objections to orthodox religion are two - slavery here and hell hereafter”
''Robert Green Ingersoll''
//(American Statesman and Orator, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of atheism. 1833-1899)//
“Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth”
''Henry Louis Mencken''
//(American humorous Journalist and Critic of American life who influenced US fiction through the 1920s, 1880-1956)//
“I love the Pope, I love seeing him in his Pope-Mobile, his three feet of bullet proof plexi-glass. That's faith in action folks! You know he's got God on his side.”
''Bill Hicks''
//(American Comedian, b.1961)//
“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”
''Diane Arbus''
//(American Photographer She is best known for her photographs of out of the ordinary people, 1923-1971)//
“Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”
''Bertrand Russell''
//(English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)//
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
''Seneca''
//(Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)//
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means”
''George Bernard Shaw''
//(Irish literary Critic, Playwright and Essayist. 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1856-1950)//
“It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so”
''Ernestine Rose''
“More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.”
''Harvey Milk''
“Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.”
''Larry Flynt''
“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.”
''Jesse Ventura''
//(American Governor of Minnesota, b.1952)//
“Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"”
''Annie Dillard''
//(American Author. Won a Pulitzer prize for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1975. b.1945)//
“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.”
''Elvis Presley''
//(American Singer and Actor widely known as the "King of Rock and Roll", 1935-1977)//
“If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.”
''Billy Wilder''
//(Austrian-born American motion-picture scenarist, director and producer, 1906-2002)//
“Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.”
''Bo Derek''
//(American Actress, b.1956)//
“Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.”
''Mark Twain''
//(American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)//
“Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.”
''Bob Dylan quotes''
//(American folksinger, b.1941)//
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.”
''Mahatma Gandhi''
//(Indian Philosopher, internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest, 1869-1948)//
“Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late”
''Felix Frankfurter''
//(American Jurist, 1882-1965)//
“Only the suppressed word is dangerous”
''Ludwig Borne''
“I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent”
''Albert Einstein''
//(German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955)//
“People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.”
Dave Barry
(American Writer and Humorist best known for his weekly newspaper column. b.1947)
“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry”
Edgar Allan Poe
(American short-story Writer, Editor, Poet and Critic, 1809-1849)
“If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.”
Dalai Lama
(Head of the Dge-lugs-pa order of Tibetan Buddhists, 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, b.1935)
“Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.”
Epictetus
(Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
Bishop Desmond Tutu
(African Spiritual leader and Novelist, b.1931)
“Most people have some sort of religion, at least they know which church they're staying away from”
John Erskine
(American Educator, Novelist and Musician. 1879-1951)
“What has religion to do with facts? Nothing”
Robert Green Ingersoll
(American Statesman and Orator, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of atheism. 1833-1899)
“The book called the Bible has been voted by men, and decreed by human laws to be the word of God; and the disbelief of this is called blasphemy”
Thomas Paine
(English born American Writer and political pamphleteer, whose 'Common Sense' and 'Crisis' papers were important influences on the American Revolution. 1737-1809)
“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.”
Jorge Luis Borges
(Argentinian Poet and Essayist, 1899-1986)
“The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.”
Ayn Rand
(Russian born American Writer and Novelist, 1905-1982)
“Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived”
Oscar Wilde
(Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)
“Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story”
Max Ehrman
“I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.”
Harry S Truman
(American 33rd President of the United States, 1884-1972)
“Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented.”
Georges Braque
“Time discovers truth.”
Seneca
(Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)
"If books were Judged by the bad uses man can put them to, what book has been more misused than the bible?"
Maritain
found in the portable Nietzsche
"The only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this."
John Stuart Mill
"When science and faith have been put to the test beliefs generated by faith have not survived."
Richard T Hull
"Good comedy helps people know they're not alone. Great comedy provides an answer."
-[[Bill Hicks]]
"When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion."
-''C.P. Snow''
[[Quotes of the day|http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26919.html]]
"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."
-''Thomas Jefferson''
I think Gutsy Gibbon is the worst release ubuntu has offered yet. Edgy gave me headaches, feisty was fine, but I am on my 4th fresh install of gutsy. NOTHING WORKS.
This is how I got DVD play back to work:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
also make sure you have libdvdcss2, and some other things.
I currently am unable to get menus working for dvds, and VLC will close if you try to load the dvd normally, but if I go to a certain title it will play. WTF? I never had any issues in my previous installations of ubuntu!!!!
Source: [[Trent's Ubuntu: DVD Playback|http://trentubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/12/dvd-playback.html]]
/***
Contains the stuff you need to use Tiddlyspot
Note you must also have UploadPlugin installed
***/
//{{{
// edit this if you are migrating sites or retrofitting an existing TW
config.tiddlyspotSiteId = 'cutlerite';
// make it so you can by default see edit controls via http
config.options.chkHttpReadOnly = false;
window.readOnly = false; // make sure of it (for tw 2.2)
// disable autosave in d3
if (window.location.protocol != "file:")
config.options.chkGTDLazyAutoSave = false;
// tweak shadow tiddlers to add upload button, password entry box etc
with (config.shadowTiddlers) {
SiteUrl = 'http://'+config.tiddlyspotSiteId+'.tiddlyspot.com';
SideBarOptions = SideBarOptions.replace(/(<<saveChanges>>)/,"$1<<tiddler TspotSidebar>>");
OptionsPanel = OptionsPanel.replace(/^/,"<<tiddler TspotOptions>>");
DefaultTiddlers = DefaultTiddlers.replace(/^/,"[[WelcomeToTiddlyspot]] ");
MainMenu = MainMenu.replace(/^/,"[[WelcomeToTiddlyspot]] ");
}
// create some shadow tiddler content
merge(config.shadowTiddlers,{
'WelcomeToTiddlyspot':[
"This document is a ~TiddlyWiki from tiddlyspot.com. A ~TiddlyWiki is an electronic notebook that is great for managing todo lists, personal information, and all sorts of things.",
"",
"@@font-weight:bold;font-size:1.3em;color:#444; //What now?// @@ Before you can save any changes, you need to enter your password in the form below. Then configure privacy and other site settings at your [[control panel|http://" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ".tiddlyspot.com/controlpanel]] (your control panel username is //" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + "//).",
"<<tiddler TspotControls>>",
"See also GettingStarted.",
"",
"@@font-weight:bold;font-size:1.3em;color:#444; //Working online// @@ You can edit this ~TiddlyWiki right now, and save your changes using the \"save to web\" button in the column on the right.",
"",
"@@font-weight:bold;font-size:1.3em;color:#444; //Working offline// @@ A fully functioning copy of this ~TiddlyWiki can be saved onto your hard drive or USB stick. You can make changes and save them locally without being connected to the Internet. When you're ready to sync up again, just click \"upload\" and your ~TiddlyWiki will be saved back to tiddlyspot.com.",
"",
"@@font-weight:bold;font-size:1.3em;color:#444; //Help!// @@ Find out more about ~TiddlyWiki at [[TiddlyWiki.com|http://tiddlywiki.com]]. Also visit [[TiddlyWiki Guides|http://tiddlywikiguides.org]] for documentation on learning and using ~TiddlyWiki. New users are especially welcome on the [[TiddlyWiki mailing list|http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki]], which is an excellent place to ask questions and get help. If you have a tiddlyspot related problem email [[tiddlyspot support|mailto:support@tiddlyspot.com]].",
"",
"@@font-weight:bold;font-size:1.3em;color:#444; //Enjoy :)// @@ We hope you like using your tiddlyspot.com site. Please email [[feedback@tiddlyspot.com|mailto:feedback@tiddlyspot.com]] with any comments or suggestions."
].join("\n"),
'TspotControls':[
"| tiddlyspot password:|<<option pasUploadPassword>>|",
"| site management:|<<upload http://" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ".tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi index.html . . " + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ">>//(requires tiddlyspot password)//<<br>>[[control panel|http://" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ".tiddlyspot.com/controlpanel]], [[download (go offline)|http://" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ".tiddlyspot.com/download]]|",
"| links:|[[tiddlyspot.com|http://tiddlyspot.com/]], [[FAQs|http://faq.tiddlyspot.com/]], [[announcements|http://announce.tiddlyspot.com/]], [[blog|http://tiddlyspot.com/blog/]], email [[support|mailto:support@tiddlyspot.com]] & [[feedback|mailto:feedback@tiddlyspot.com]], [[donate|http://tiddlyspot.com/?page=donate]]|"
].join("\n"),
'TspotSidebar':[
"<<upload http://" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ".tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi index.html . . " + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ">><html><a href='http://" + config.tiddlyspotSiteId + ".tiddlyspot.com/download' class='button'>download</a></html>"
].join("\n"),
'TspotOptions':[
"tiddlyspot password:",
"<<option pasUploadPassword>>",
""
].join("\n")
});
//}}}
| !date | !user | !location | !storeUrl | !uploadDir | !toFilename | !backupdir | !origin |
| 16/06/2008 10:43:17 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 16/06/2008 10:55:55 | cutlerite | [[Tiddly|file:///home/trent/Desktop/Tiddly]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 15/10/2008 23:56:22 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 16/10/2008 00:00:24 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 31/10/2008 23:20:47 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 31/10/2008 23:23:18 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/#%5B%5BAuthentic%20Happiness%5D%5D]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 15/11/2008 09:32:49 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 22/12/2008 14:20:41 | cutlerite | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 15/04/2016 15:03:51 | | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 15/04/2016 15:04:12 | | [[/|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://cutlerite.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
/***
|''Name:''|PasswordOptionPlugin|
|''Description:''|Extends TiddlyWiki options with non encrypted password option.|
|''Version:''|1.0.2|
|''Date:''|Apr 19, 2007|
|''Source:''|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#PasswordOptionPlugin|
|''Author:''|BidiX (BidiX (at) bidix (dot) info)|
|''License:''|[[BSD open source license|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#%5B%5BBSD%20open%20source%20license%5D%5D ]]|
|''~CoreVersion:''|2.2.0 (Beta 5)|
***/
//{{{
version.extensions.PasswordOptionPlugin = {
major: 1, minor: 0, revision: 2,
date: new Date("Apr 19, 2007"),
source: 'http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#PasswordOptionPlugin',
author: 'BidiX (BidiX (at) bidix (dot) info',
license: '[[BSD open source license|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#%5B%5BBSD%20open%20source%20license%5D%5D]]',
coreVersion: '2.2.0 (Beta 5)'
};
config.macros.option.passwordCheckboxLabel = "Save this password on this computer";
config.macros.option.passwordInputType = "password"; // password | text
setStylesheet(".pasOptionInput {width: 11em;}\n","passwordInputTypeStyle");
merge(config.macros.option.types, {
'pas': {
elementType: "input",
valueField: "value",
eventName: "onkeyup",
className: "pasOptionInput",
typeValue: config.macros.option.passwordInputType,
create: function(place,type,opt,className,desc) {
// password field
config.macros.option.genericCreate(place,'pas',opt,className,desc);
// checkbox linked with this password "save this password on this computer"
config.macros.option.genericCreate(place,'chk','chk'+opt,className,desc);
// text savePasswordCheckboxLabel
place.appendChild(document.createTextNode(config.macros.option.passwordCheckboxLabel));
},
onChange: config.macros.option.genericOnChange
}
});
merge(config.optionHandlers['chk'], {
get: function(name) {
// is there an option linked with this chk ?
var opt = name.substr(3);
if (config.options[opt])
saveOptionCookie(opt);
return config.options[name] ? "true" : "false";
}
});
merge(config.optionHandlers, {
'pas': {
get: function(name) {
if (config.options["chk"+name]) {
return encodeCookie(config.options[name].toString());
} else {
return "";
}
},
set: function(name,value) {config.options[name] = decodeCookie(value);}
}
});
// need to reload options to load passwordOptions
loadOptionsCookie();
/*
if (!config.options['pasPassword'])
config.options['pasPassword'] = '';
merge(config.optionsDesc,{
pasPassword: "Test password"
});
*/
//}}}
/***
|''Name:''|UploadPlugin|
|''Description:''|Save to web a TiddlyWiki|
|''Version:''|4.1.0|
|''Date:''|May 5, 2007|
|''Source:''|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPlugin|
|''Documentation:''|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPluginDoc|
|''Author:''|BidiX (BidiX (at) bidix (dot) info)|
|''License:''|[[BSD open source license|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#%5B%5BBSD%20open%20source%20license%5D%5D ]]|
|''~CoreVersion:''|2.2.0 (#3125)|
|''Requires:''|PasswordOptionPlugin|
***/
//{{{
version.extensions.UploadPlugin = {
major: 4, minor: 1, revision: 0,
date: new Date("May 5, 2007"),
source: 'http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPlugin',
author: 'BidiX (BidiX (at) bidix (dot) info',
coreVersion: '2.2.0 (#3125)'
};
//
// Environment
//
if (!window.bidix) window.bidix = {}; // bidix namespace
bidix.debugMode = false; // true to activate both in Plugin and UploadService
//
// Upload Macro
//
config.macros.upload = {
// default values
defaultBackupDir: '', //no backup
defaultStoreScript: "store.php",
defaultToFilename: "index.html",
defaultUploadDir: ".",
authenticateUser: true // UploadService Authenticate User
};
config.macros.upload.label = {
promptOption: "Save and Upload this TiddlyWiki with UploadOptions",
promptParamMacro: "Save and Upload this TiddlyWiki in %0",
saveLabel: "save to web",
saveToDisk: "save to disk",
uploadLabel: "upload"
};
config.macros.upload.messages = {
noStoreUrl: "No store URL in parmeters or options",
usernameOrPasswordMissing: "Username or password missing"
};
config.macros.upload.handler = function(place,macroName,params) {
if (readOnly)
return;
var label;
if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "http")
label = this.label.saveLabel;
else
label = this.label.uploadLabel;
var prompt;
if (params[0]) {
prompt = this.label.promptParamMacro.toString().format([this.destFile(params[0],
(params[1] ? params[1]:bidix.basename(window.location.toString())), params[3])]);
} else {
prompt = this.label.promptOption;
}
createTiddlyButton(place, label, prompt, function() {config.macros.upload.action(params);}, null, null, this.accessKey);
};
config.macros.upload.action = function(params)
{
// for missing macro parameter set value from options
var storeUrl = params[0] ? params[0] : config.options.txtUploadStoreUrl;
var toFilename = params[1] ? params[1] : config.options.txtUploadFilename;
var backupDir = params[2] ? params[2] : config.options.txtUploadBackupDir;
var uploadDir = params[3] ? params[3] : config.options.txtUploadDir;
var username = params[4] ? params[4] : config.options.txtUploadUserName;
var password = config.options.pasUploadPassword; // for security reason no password as macro parameter
// for still missing parameter set default value
if ((!storeUrl) && (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "http"))
storeUrl = bidix.dirname(document.location.toString())+'/'+config.macros.upload.defaultStoreScript;
if (storeUrl.substr(0,4) != "http")
storeUrl = bidix.dirname(document.location.toString()) +'/'+ storeUrl;
if (!toFilename)
toFilename = bidix.basename(window.location.toString());
if (!toFilename)
toFilename = config.macros.upload.defaultToFilename;
if (!uploadDir)
uploadDir = config.macros.upload.defaultUploadDir;
if (!backupDir)
backupDir = config.macros.upload.defaultBackupDir;
// report error if still missing
if (!storeUrl) {
alert(config.macros.upload.messages.noStoreUrl);
clearMessage();
return false;
}
if (config.macros.upload.authenticateUser && (!username || !password)) {
alert(config.macros.upload.messages.usernameOrPasswordMissing);
clearMessage();
return false;
}
bidix.upload.uploadChanges(false,null,storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, username, password);
return false;
};
config.macros.upload.destFile = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir)
{
if (!storeUrl)
return null;
var dest = bidix.dirname(storeUrl);
if (uploadDir && uploadDir != '.')
dest = dest + '/' + uploadDir;
dest = dest + '/' + toFilename;
return dest;
};
//
// uploadOptions Macro
//
config.macros.uploadOptions = {
handler: function(place,macroName,params) {
var wizard = new Wizard();
wizard.createWizard(place,this.wizardTitle);
wizard.addStep(this.step1Title,this.step1Html);
var markList = wizard.getElement("markList");
var listWrapper = document.createElement("div");
markList.parentNode.insertBefore(listWrapper,markList);
wizard.setValue("listWrapper",listWrapper);
this.refreshOptions(listWrapper,false);
var uploadCaption;
if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "http")
uploadCaption = config.macros.upload.label.saveLabel;
else
uploadCaption = config.macros.upload.label.uploadLabel;
wizard.setButtons([
{caption: uploadCaption, tooltip: config.macros.upload.label.promptOption,
onClick: config.macros.upload.action},
{caption: this.cancelButton, tooltip: this.cancelButtonPrompt, onClick: this.onCancel}
]);
},
refreshOptions: function(listWrapper) {
var uploadOpts = [
"txtUploadUserName",
"pasUploadPassword",
"txtUploadStoreUrl",
"txtUploadDir",
"txtUploadFilename",
"txtUploadBackupDir",
"chkUploadLog",
"txtUploadLogMaxLine",
]
var opts = [];
for(i=0; i<uploadOpts.length; i++) {
var opt = {};
opts.push()
opt.option = "";
n = uploadOpts[i];
opt.name = n;
opt.lowlight = !config.optionsDesc[n];
opt.description = opt.lowlight ? this.unknownDescription : config.optionsDesc[n];
opts.push(opt);
}
var listview = ListView.create(listWrapper,opts,this.listViewTemplate);
for(n=0; n<opts.length; n++) {
var type = opts[n].name.substr(0,3);
var h = config.macros.option.types[type];
if (h && h.create) {
h.create(opts[n].colElements['option'],type,opts[n].name,opts[n].name,"no");
}
}
},
onCancel: function(e)
{
backstage.switchTab(null);
return false;
},
wizardTitle: "Upload with options",
step1Title: "These options are saved in cookies in your browser",
step1Html: "<input type='hidden' name='markList'></input><br>",
cancelButton: "Cancel",
cancelButtonPrompt: "Cancel prompt",
listViewTemplate: {
columns: [
{name: 'Description', field: 'description', title: "Description", type: 'WikiText'},
{name: 'Option', field: 'option', title: "Option", type: 'String'},
{name: 'Name', field: 'name', title: "Name", type: 'String'}
],
rowClasses: [
{className: 'lowlight', field: 'lowlight'}
]}
}
//
// upload functions
//
if (!bidix.upload) bidix.upload = {};
if (!bidix.upload.messages) bidix.upload.messages = {
//from saving
invalidFileError: "The original file '%0' does not appear to be a valid TiddlyWiki",
backupSaved: "Backup saved",
backupFailed: "Failed to upload backup file",
rssSaved: "RSS feed uploaded",
rssFailed: "Failed to upload RSS feed file",
emptySaved: "Empty template uploaded",
emptyFailed: "Failed to upload empty template file",
mainSaved: "Main TiddlyWiki file uploaded",
mainFailed: "Failed to upload main TiddlyWiki file. Your changes have not been saved",
//specific upload
loadOriginalHttpPostError: "Can't get original file",
aboutToSaveOnHttpPost: 'About to upload on %0 ...',
storePhpNotFound: "The store script '%0' was not found."
};
bidix.upload.uploadChanges = function(onlyIfDirty,tiddlers,storeUrl,toFilename,uploadDir,backupDir,username,password)
{
var callback = function(status,uploadParams,original,url,xhr) {
if (!status) {
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.loadOriginalHttpPostError);
return;
}
if (bidix.debugMode)
alert(original.substr(0,500)+"\n...");
// Locate the storeArea div's
var posDiv = locateStoreArea(original);
if((posDiv[0] == -1) || (posDiv[1] == -1)) {
alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([localPath]));
return;
}
bidix.upload.uploadRss(uploadParams,original,posDiv);
};
if(onlyIfDirty && !store.isDirty())
return;
clearMessage();
// save on localdisk ?
if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "file") {
var path = document.location.toString();
var localPath = getLocalPath(path);
saveChanges();
}
// get original
var uploadParams = Array(storeUrl,toFilename,uploadDir,backupDir,username,password);
var originalPath = document.location.toString();
// If url is a directory : add index.html
if (originalPath.charAt(originalPath.length-1) == "/")
originalPath = originalPath + "index.html";
var dest = config.macros.upload.destFile(storeUrl,toFilename,uploadDir);
var log = new bidix.UploadLog();
log.startUpload(storeUrl, dest, uploadDir, backupDir);
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.aboutToSaveOnHttpPost.format([dest]));
if (bidix.debugMode)
alert("about to execute Http - GET on "+originalPath);
var r = doHttp("GET",originalPath,null,null,null,null,callback,uploadParams,null);
if (typeof r == "string")
displayMessage(r);
return r;
};
bidix.upload.uploadRss = function(uploadParams,original,posDiv)
{
var callback = function(status,params,responseText,url,xhr) {
if(status) {
var destfile = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("destfile:")+9,responseText.indexOf("\n", responseText.indexOf("destfile:")));
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.rssSaved,bidix.dirname(url)+'/'+destfile);
bidix.upload.uploadMain(params[0],params[1],params[2]);
} else {
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.rssFailed);
}
};
// do uploadRss
if(config.options.chkGenerateAnRssFeed) {
var rssPath = uploadParams[1].substr(0,uploadParams[1].lastIndexOf(".")) + ".xml";
var rssUploadParams = Array(uploadParams[0],rssPath,uploadParams[2],'',uploadParams[4],uploadParams[5]);
bidix.upload.httpUpload(rssUploadParams,convertUnicodeToUTF8(generateRss()),callback,Array(uploadParams,original,posDiv));
} else {
bidix.upload.uploadMain(uploadParams,original,posDiv);
}
};
bidix.upload.uploadMain = function(uploadParams,original,posDiv)
{
var callback = function(status,params,responseText,url,xhr) {
var log = new bidix.UploadLog();
if(status) {
// if backupDir specified
if ((params[3]) && (responseText.indexOf("backupfile:") > -1)) {
var backupfile = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("backupfile:")+11,responseText.indexOf("\n", responseText.indexOf("backupfile:")));
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.backupSaved,bidix.dirname(url)+'/'+backupfile);
}
var destfile = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("destfile:")+9,responseText.indexOf("\n", responseText.indexOf("destfile:")));
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.mainSaved,bidix.dirname(url)+'/'+destfile);
store.setDirty(false);
log.endUpload("ok");
} else {
alert(bidix.upload.messages.mainFailed);
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.mainFailed);
log.endUpload("failed");
}
};
// do uploadMain
var revised = bidix.upload.updateOriginal(original,posDiv);
bidix.upload.httpUpload(uploadParams,revised,callback,uploadParams);
};
bidix.upload.httpUpload = function(uploadParams,data,callback,params)
{
var localCallback = function(status,params,responseText,url,xhr) {
url = (url.indexOf("nocache=") < 0 ? url : url.substring(0,url.indexOf("nocache=")-1));
if (xhr.status == httpStatus.NotFound)
alert(bidix.upload.messages.storePhpNotFound.format([url]));
if ((bidix.debugMode) || (responseText.indexOf("Debug mode") >= 0 )) {
alert(responseText);
if (responseText.indexOf("Debug mode") >= 0 )
responseText = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("\n\n")+2);
} else if (responseText.charAt(0) != '0')
alert(responseText);
if (responseText.charAt(0) != '0')
status = null;
callback(status,params,responseText,url,xhr);
};
// do httpUpload
var boundary = "---------------------------"+"AaB03x";
var uploadFormName = "UploadPlugin";
// compose headers data
var sheader = "";
sheader += "--" + boundary + "\r\nContent-disposition: form-data; name=\"";
sheader += uploadFormName +"\"\r\n\r\n";
sheader += "backupDir="+uploadParams[3] +
";user=" + uploadParams[4] +
";password=" + uploadParams[5] +
";uploaddir=" + uploadParams[2];
if (bidix.debugMode)
sheader += ";debug=1";
sheader += ";;\r\n";
sheader += "\r\n" + "--" + boundary + "\r\n";
sheader += "Content-disposition: form-data; name=\"userfile\"; filename=\""+uploadParams[1]+"\"\r\n";
sheader += "Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8" + "\r\n";
sheader += "Content-Length: " + data.length + "\r\n\r\n";
// compose trailer data
var strailer = new String();
strailer = "\r\n--" + boundary + "--\r\n";
data = sheader + data + strailer;
if (bidix.debugMode) alert("about to execute Http - POST on "+uploadParams[0]+"\n with \n"+data.substr(0,500)+ " ... ");
var r = doHttp("POST",uploadParams[0],data,"multipart/form-data; boundary="+boundary,uploadParams[4],uploadParams[5],localCallback,params,null);
if (typeof r == "string")
displayMessage(r);
return r;
};
// same as Saving's updateOriginal but without convertUnicodeToUTF8 calls
bidix.upload.updateOriginal = function(original, posDiv)
{
if (!posDiv)
posDiv = locateStoreArea(original);
if((posDiv[0] == -1) || (posDiv[1] == -1)) {
alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([localPath]));
return;
}
var revised = original.substr(0,posDiv[0] + startSaveArea.length) + "\n" +
store.allTiddlersAsHtml() + "\n" +
original.substr(posDiv[1]);
var newSiteTitle = getPageTitle().htmlEncode();
revised = revised.replaceChunk("<title"+">","</title"+">"," " + newSiteTitle + " ");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"PRE-HEAD","MarkupPreHead");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"POST-HEAD","MarkupPostHead");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"PRE-BODY","MarkupPreBody");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"POST-SCRIPT","MarkupPostBody");
return revised;
};
//
// UploadLog
//
// config.options.chkUploadLog :
// false : no logging
// true : logging
// config.options.txtUploadLogMaxLine :
// -1 : no limit
// 0 : no Log lines but UploadLog is still in place
// n : the last n lines are only kept
// NaN : no limit (-1)
bidix.UploadLog = function() {
if (!config.options.chkUploadLog)
return; // this.tiddler = null
this.tiddler = store.getTiddler("UploadLog");
if (!this.tiddler) {
this.tiddler = new Tiddler();
this.tiddler.title = "UploadLog";
this.tiddler.text = "| !date | !user | !location | !storeUrl | !uploadDir | !toFilename | !backupdir | !origin |";
this.tiddler.created = new Date();
this.tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;
this.tiddler.modified = new Date();
store.addTiddler(this.tiddler);
}
return this;
};
bidix.UploadLog.prototype.addText = function(text) {
if (!this.tiddler)
return;
// retrieve maxLine when we need it
var maxLine = parseInt(config.options.txtUploadLogMaxLine,10);
if (isNaN(maxLine))
maxLine = -1;
// add text
if (maxLine != 0)
this.tiddler.text = this.tiddler.text + text;
// Trunck to maxLine
if (maxLine >= 0) {
var textArray = this.tiddler.text.split('\n');
if (textArray.length > maxLine + 1)
textArray.splice(1,textArray.length-1-maxLine);
this.tiddler.text = textArray.join('\n');
}
// update tiddler fields
this.tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;
this.tiddler.modified = new Date();
store.addTiddler(this.tiddler);
// refresh and notifiy for immediate update
story.refreshTiddler(this.tiddler.title);
store.notify(this.tiddler.title, true);
};
bidix.UploadLog.prototype.startUpload = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir) {
if (!this.tiddler)
return;
var now = new Date();
var text = "\n| ";
var filename = bidix.basename(document.location.toString());
if (!filename) filename = '/';
text += now.formatString("0DD/0MM/YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss") +" | ";
text += config.options.txtUserName + " | ";
text += "[["+filename+"|"+location + "]] |";
text += " [[" + bidix.basename(storeUrl) + "|" + storeUrl + "]] | ";
text += uploadDir + " | ";
text += "[[" + bidix.basename(toFilename) + " | " +toFilename + "]] | ";
text += backupDir + " |";
this.addText(text);
};
bidix.UploadLog.prototype.endUpload = function(status) {
if (!this.tiddler)
return;
this.addText(" "+status+" |");
};
//
// Utilities
//
bidix.checkPlugin = function(plugin, major, minor, revision) {
var ext = version.extensions[plugin];
if (!
(ext &&
((ext.major > major) ||
((ext.major == major) && (ext.minor > minor)) ||
((ext.major == major) && (ext.minor == minor) && (ext.revision >= revision))))) {
// write error in PluginManager
if (pluginInfo)
pluginInfo.log.push("Requires " + plugin + " " + major + "." + minor + "." + revision);
eval(plugin); // generate an error : "Error: ReferenceError: xxxx is not defined"
}
};
bidix.dirname = function(filePath) {
if (!filePath)
return;
var lastpos;
if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("/")) != -1) {
return filePath.substring(0, lastpos);
} else {
return filePath.substring(0, filePath.lastIndexOf("\\"));
}
};
bidix.basename = function(filePath) {
if (!filePath)
return;
var lastpos;
if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("#")) != -1)
filePath = filePath.substring(0, lastpos);
if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("/")) != -1) {
return filePath.substring(lastpos + 1);
} else
return filePath.substring(filePath.lastIndexOf("\\")+1);
};
bidix.initOption = function(name,value) {
if (!config.options[name])
config.options[name] = value;
};
//
// Initializations
//
// require PasswordOptionPlugin 1.0.1 or better
bidix.checkPlugin("PasswordOptionPlugin", 1, 0, 1);
// styleSheet
setStylesheet('.txtUploadStoreUrl, .txtUploadBackupDir, .txtUploadDir {width: 22em;}',"uploadPluginStyles");
//optionsDesc
merge(config.optionsDesc,{
txtUploadStoreUrl: "Url of the UploadService script (default: store.php)",
txtUploadFilename: "Filename of the uploaded file (default: in index.html)",
txtUploadDir: "Relative Directory where to store the file (default: . (downloadService directory))",
txtUploadBackupDir: "Relative Directory where to backup the file. If empty no backup. (default: ''(empty))",
txtUploadUserName: "Upload Username",
pasUploadPassword: "Upload Password",
chkUploadLog: "do Logging in UploadLog (default: true)",
txtUploadLogMaxLine: "Maximum of lines in UploadLog (default: 10)"
});
// Options Initializations
bidix.initOption('txtUploadStoreUrl','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadFilename','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadDir','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadBackupDir','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadUserName','');
bidix.initOption('pasUploadPassword','');
bidix.initOption('chkUploadLog',true);
bidix.initOption('txtUploadLogMaxLine','10');
/* don't want this for tiddlyspot sites
// Backstage
merge(config.tasks,{
uploadOptions: {text: "upload", tooltip: "Change UploadOptions and Upload", content: '<<uploadOptions>>'}
});
config.backstageTasks.push("uploadOptions");
*/
//}}}
!!!Tiddly
*[[DefaultTiddlers]]
*[[MainMenu]]
*[[SiteTitle]]
*[[SiteSubtitle]]
*
!!!Transportation
*[[Bus Schedule]]
!!!Food and Drink
*[[Wines we Like]]
*[[Recipes]]
The consequences of our irrationality on this front are so egregious that they bear closer examination. Each year, over 1.5 million men and women are arrested in the United States because of our drug laws. At this moment, somewhere on the order of 400,000 men and women languish in US prisons for nonviolent drug offenses. One million others are currently on probation. More people are imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses in the united states than are incarcerated, for any reason, in all of Western Europe (which has a larger population). The cost of these efforts, at the federal level alone, is nearly $20 billion dollars annually. The total cost of our drug laws-when one factors in the expense to state and local governments and the tax revenue lost by our failure to regulate the sale of drugs-could easily be in excess of $100 billion dollars each year. Our war on drugs consumes an estimated 50 percent of the trial time of our courts and the full-time energies of over 400,000 police officers. These are resources that might otherwise be used to fight violent crime and terrorism.
''[[The End of Faith]]''
//By Sam Harris//
Page 162-3
''Hi.'' However you stumbled across this tiddly, welcome.
I am constantly updating this, so if you want bookmark this, or add it to your delicious. I don't really know how I will organize this... I have many of my old blogs posted on here, and favorite quotes... so look around a bit, not much is linked, but I'm sure you can find whatever you like.
test edit
The Ubuntu project is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they need.
Source: [[Welcome to Ubuntu 7.10!|file:///usr/share/ubuntu-artwork/home/index.html]]
What is Faith?
I haven't done a controversial blog in a while, so I thought I'd spice things up a bit.
After a baby is born it starts its learning process. Parents constantly have to tell the child what is good and what is bad-what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable. It's very important that a child experience both to be able to learn. Then the child makes a well-thought out decision, concluding that every time he poops his pants he gets in trouble.
I think most of us would totally get pissed to see parents not disciplining their children for pooping their pants. The parents decided to just act excited when the child walked near the bathroom, and they'd give the baby a real nice prize if he ever pooped in the toilet. We all know this would never work cuz for the child to make a conscious conclusion it must experience both discipline and reward.
I believe this works in all forms where there is not necessarily a “right” or a “wrong.” Let's talk about the right to abortion. Some say its good, some say its bad. Both sides can give facts and arguments to support their decision. For an individual to make a logical decision, he or she must study both arguments! Someone would be an ignorant fool to just hear pro-abortionists speak, and not listen to one word of the con side simply because the pro-abortionists tell them not to. The people that are pro-abortion would have a fit to see millions of people refusing to listen to their argument! This is even how it works in the court systems right?
Here's what I'm getting at: We can't make a just, fair and logical decision without hearing both sides. I'm so sick of Mormons and other religious enthusiasts saying they don't need to research other religions, or even the shady histories of their own church because “they have faith and that's all they need.” Faith MUST be built on Logic, it's not based on feelings. This doesn't mean you can't have “feelings.” but you can't have faith without logic. Here is a definition of faith taken from Mormon Doctrine.
Faith:
“Faith is based on truth and is preceded by knowledge. Until a person gains a knowledge of the truth he can have no faith.”
I'm sick of people thinking they know everything they need to know about a particular subject without exhausting their resources. I'm sick of people saying, I have faith, and that's all that matters. Or “I've had a spiritual confirmation.” Those things are good, but come on people you can't base your life around those things.
Okay here's a particular truth that I think LDS people typically miss: The papyrus that Joseph Smith used to translate were found, and were translated in 1967 by egyptian scholars. Here is exactly what was written in my church history book at BYU. So you can't call it ANTI, cuz it was written by the church. Even still I think 'anti' material would make you a smarter person.... anyways...“In 1967 11 fragments of the joseph smith papyri were rediscovered by Dr. Aziz S Atiya in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Studies of them have confirmed that they are mainly ancient egyptian Funerary texts of the sort commonly buried with royalty and nobility and designed to guide them through their eternal journeyings.” And yes the mummy's ancestry were determined from the papyrus, and no, there was no relation to Abraham. Some people consider Joseph's Smith's Translation one of the greatest cons of the century.
Either way, Mormon or Not, life offers many viewpoints on many subjects. I believe it is our duty to study each side. It will make us better, more accepting people, heck even more Christ-like.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Who would have ever thought....
so it's been 3 days since I posted the blog titled, "something to think about." I had about 218 hits in 2 days, and 22 comments. I don't think i was really trying to reach that many people, or upset the same viewers enough for such a high hit count.
Okay, so I'll start off with my apologies. I guess this is why religion starts more wars than it stops, because it really is something that can't be proven, but people feel so strongly about it, that they'll defend it to death. I'm one of those people that will defend my personal beliefs and rights to death, unfortunately they're different than most of yours, and I don't apologize for thinking the way I do.
I do apologize if I came off like I was simply stating something to piss people off, if I was taking people's words and just arguing for the sake of arguing. I apologize for taking people's comments specifically and analyzing them, and telling them how i feel about them. i seemed to have pissed off some really close friends, and that hurts. And I know they're upset because they don't know what to think of me anymore... I used to "believe" as they did. I guess I let them down.
It's interesting though. i read an essay about media's influence on human thought. Many people think television, and even the internet has "stupefied" us. Just think, what has been the most influential television show to you, has CSI, MTV or even your local news station inspired you to go out at act, participate, or create? what has helped you figure out who you are? What media has helped you develope your opinions? How have you become who you are now?
According to my mass communications class, the majority of people do not vote based on their own intellectual findings. Most people vote because there's someone that they know, respect, and believe holds authority on political subjects, and that's how they vote. My class, and I believe professionals also call them "opinion leaders." Basically it's someone out their who's not afraid to say what they believe, think or feel about anything. Sometimes it's based on their own findings, and sometimes its based on their own experiences.
The essay I read, talked of internet "BLOGS" (what you're reading right now) as probably the best thing that has happened to people obtaining personal opinions, or finding out what they love and enjoy. Instead of writing, today I did this, and so and so was jerk, people are posting works of art, poetry, humor, ventings, political bashings, and even religious viewpoints. how often do you sit down with your friends and have an intellectual conversation? Probably not too often, but I bet if you did, you'd come off more intellectually motivated! they're your friends, their wisdom means a lot more to you than knowledge from a newspaper, at least I think so anyways.
I didn't write what I did to irritate people, even though I know that happened. I wrote it as a window to my world, my way of thinking. I guess there are several types of readers.
1. Average mypsace sufer - they just came accross my blog and thought holy crap, let's not get involved in that!
2. The religiously devoted - These people read it, don't understand and don't agree with it. It doesn't make sense. It's like a republican never understanding how a democrat could even think like that. However they think they're right, and they post, and keep returning to make sure they've been heard.
3. The Religiously confused - You have people that think like I do, and are just like wow, that's deep, and totally how I feel. they feel refreshed from reading it.
4. The people who care less about my 'philosophies' - these people keep coming back because they keep hoping I'll post anti-mormon literature, cuz they don't have the guts to go look it up themselves.
5. the people that I'm an idiot, but yet they find themselves coming back to read more things that help them prove how stupid I am.
Either way you look at it, i'm getting heard. whether you're subscribed to my blogs or not, you're reading them, you're interested... and whether you disagree with me or agree with me, just from reading what I wrote, you've strengthened your opinions and restructured your beliefs. You're better off from reading what I wrote.
Anything that gives more perspective, or heightens your perspective is good. So whether I wrote something that pissed you off or not, or even if you pretty much hate me, I think I did something good. And I think each one of you has the potential to do the same for the world.
If i confused any of you i'll be happy to go deeper :-)
''Like''
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*Barefoot Sauvignon
*Electric Reindeer (cost plus)
*Duck Pond (pinot gris)
''Wines we DON'T like:''
*Twin Fin Merlot.
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xxUriahxx’s Campaign
Bricked your WRT54G Router?
Posted in Uncategorized by Andrew Alliance on December 3rd, 2007
Here’s some instructions that will help you and they certainly helped me get my bricked wrt back in the swing of things:
http://www.linksysinfo.org/tftp.zip
you don’t need to register for that:)
it sounds like the firmware upgrade has gone wrong or the firmware itself was corrupt.
assuming you have windows XP these instructions can be generic.
1. Go to Start click on Run and type in control ncpa.cpl
2. Double click on the Local Area Connection that controls your network card.
3. Click Properties under Local Area connection status.
4. Click the Configure button. Then, click on the Advanced Tab.
5. Click Connection Type (this may also appear as Media Type, Connection Speed, Mode, Link Speed, etc). The current default value should be set to “Auto sense” or “Auto”.
6. Change the value of this option to 10Base-t, half duplex mode (usually the lowest possible option). The wording of this value may also vary, depending upon the make and model of the Network Adapter. Other possibilities include 10T half, 10Mb half duplex, 10Mbps half, etc.
7. Click OK after you made the change then click Close
Reloading the firmware
get a new version of the correct firmware you need first of all.
1. First, hold the reset button located on the back of the router for 30 seconds.
2. Next, to test communication between the Router and the network card: Go to Start, and select Run. Type in command and press [Enter]. This will bring up the MS-DOS prompt window.
3. Type ping 192.168.1.1 and press [Enter]
4. You should get the following results:
Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
5. Once you get these replies, close out of the command prompt by typing in exit and pressing [Enter].
6. You may now proceed to upgrade the router’s firmware with the files that were downloaded.
7. Once the upgrade is complete, the router’s Power light should no longer be blinking.
Tagged with: Bricked, Firmware, Flashing, Upgrade, WRT54G
2 Responses to 'Bricked your WRT54G Router?'
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Bricked your WRT54G Router?'.
1.
Opening “NAT” For WRT54G Router « xxUriahxx’s Campaign said, on December 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
[…] Bricked your WRT54G Router? […]
2.
Bruce said, on February 7th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I tried the steps above and I still couldn’t ping the router.
The problem was dhcp wasn’t up on the router which I just flashed yet. I changed the IP address on the PC network card (on XP under the network cards properties I went into the properties of “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)” and selected “Use the following IP address” and set the ip to 192.168.1.100, the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway to 192.168.1.1).
After I saved this I was able to ping 192.168.1.1.
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''Properties of Exponential Functions''
page 96.
''Compound Interest Formula''
page 102
''Logarithmic functions''
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''Properties of Logarithmic functions''
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Friday, March 18, 2005
LDS Youth
I just read a news article, that might spark interest… I thought I’d relay the information to you, and see how you feel. It’s been nice having people comment and giving insight, and I’d thought I’d continue it.
This is an article found in the Deseret Morning News titled “LDS teens tops in living faith.” The article can be found here.
A couple things, for the people who don’t have interest in reading the article I’ll summarize it for you. A group of people did a study on religion in Teens across America. Teens were asked to rate items asked. Here are some of the things that were asked.
-Belief In God
-Church Attendance (once a week)
-importance of religious faith in shaping their daily life
-have no or few doubts about religious beliefs
-engaged in sexual intercourse
-smoked pot
I’ll start off with a table showing “importance of faith in shaping major life decisions” I’m assuming major life decisions involve career choice, marriage, and even college location and major.
United States Average Mainline Protestant Roman Catholic Latter-Day Saint
Extremely Important 20 19 11 52
Very Important 29 34 30 14
Somewhat important 31 30 41 21
Not Very Important at All 11 11 12 9
Not Important at all 8 6 6 4
When I look at this I see LDS kids believing faith is important in making life’s major decisions. 52 ompared to the national average of 20s a huge difference. I know many of you feel the same way as these people who were surveyed. So I’m wondering how you all feel about this information. And you probably wonder I even bother to bring this up.
I’m willing to bet God told you to go to the college you’re going to. You sat down, and you researched which college would be the best to go to, and you prayed about it. God gave you an answer and boom you’re where you are at right now. If you had not asked God where to go, (but obviously God wanted you to be where you are at) and you went some place different would that be a sin? Some people say, “well cuz you didn’t pray you didn’t know God’s will on the matter, so it’s not a sin.” So if it’s not a sin, then why is it important to pray to God about College in the first place? I just can’t believe for an instance that God has our lives planned out for us, and we must pray to find out what we’re supposed to do.
Some of the people in one of my last Blogs felt that it is important to get to know what the world has to offer, without necessarily becoming worldly. I agree. However the 91f LDS teenagers (ages 13-17) believe they have God’s religion with no or few doubts. They’ve been raised to believe that life is a test of faith, and having doubts is irrelevant to our life’s purpose. They don’t ask questions nor do they seek them. It isn’t about logic its about feelings.
So here we are with 52f Latter-day saints, 91f them never doubting nor questioning their faith, believing this faith that they’ve been raised up in will guide them in Life’s decisions. And I’m willing to bet most everyone that replies will think that’s how religion should be. It’s not something that is personal, it is God’s. They believe Religion should be a factor in every choice you make. They want Religion as their first priority.
Amazingly one of the few areas, where LDS youth didn’t out rank other religions was “belief in God.” Only 84 percent, compared to the higher numbers of the protestant religion. One of the researchers performing the survey was quoted in the Deseret News, “We were startled how inarticulate most teens are about what they believe,” smith said. “Even evangelical teens had trouble talking about who Jesus might be. Mormon teens, he says, “tended to be more articulate” about the specifics of their doctrines.
Everyone is claiming to be making major life decisions based on faith, but yet they’re more familiar about the doctrines and rules of their religion rather than having a personal relationship with Christ? I’m gonna say it. Mormons try to brainwash their kids. They don’t want their kids to ask questions, they want their kids to do it one way, and one way only.
Think of all songs they make you sing as young primary kid. “I love to see the temple, I’m going there some day.” “follow the prophet he knows the way, follow the prophet don’t go astray.” “I am a child of God.” “I hope they call me on a mission, when I have grown a foot or two.” Just to name a few.
My parents got after me for being “influential” to my younger brothers, and to even their friends. They tell me I shouldn’t say bad words and publicly discuss my feelings of Religion.
No I don’t think everyone ends up brainwashed. I think many people don’t. I don’t think claiming a faith doesn’t mean someone is brainwashed. However I do think LDS parents try to brainwash there kids.
Here look at this chart.
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
VERY SIMILAR to parents is scored 73 percent. Only 9 percent of the lds kids surveyed said that their beliefs were not similar to their parents. Wait, could that be the 9 percent that said they were having doubts about their religious beliefs? Why is it like this in the LDS religion, you’re either with them or you’re not. You’re hardcore, or you’re not. You either question, or you don’t. and only 9 percent do. The rest feel like it’s their duty to follow their parents footsteps and not question.
How does this make you feel?
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