Are you an atheist?

[Rich]

Maybe he (she) was trying to get away from the ants - ?

Probably or even a mouse, no wait a minute, by Micks definition the elephant is supernatural compared to the mouse

 

[Mike375]

Thanks for that reasoned response.

Do you genuinely believe that if a being has abilities beyond our own or which we can't currently explain, that makes them supernatural?

Yes.

Don't confuse a supernatural with God and the Bible.

Consider the huge gap between us and a chimp yet the DNA is supposedly 97% the same. Just imagine only 3 steps above us and each step being as big a gap as chimp to man.

 

[Fifty2One]

I don't think you followed what I was saying. My contract of employment gives me paid time off on public holidays - some religious like Christmas and Easter, other secular like New Years day and 1st Monday in May. If they want people to work at Christmas they have to pay a premium to get volunteers. No force that I can see.

As a historic note Christmas Day was just another working day in Scotland upto the 1950s even for religious people.

YIKES
How many days do they force you to take against your wishes? Perhaps you should have read the contract more thoroughly before signing or did you know they were going to force their religious beliefs upon you like طالبان does?

 

[Rich]

Yes.

Don't confuse a supernatural with God and the Bible.

Consider the huge gap between us and a chimp yet the DNA is supposedly 97% the same. Just imagine only 3 steps above us and each step being as big a gap as chimp to man.

The word you're looking for is evolution not supernatural

 

[Mike375]

A more advance life form than humans would not be supernatural if it had evolved from other beings. As usual you are twisting your definitions to suit your own argument. Not a great advert for your intellectual honesty

Buy why did it have to evolve from us.

 

[Mike375]

I don't think it is true. Less people seem to be religious today than they were, but it has no bearing on what happens to them.

Whether people are using science or magic as an explanation for the things around them has no bearing on whether somebody else is going to attack them or their home is going to be wiped out by a natural disaster. The suggestion that bad things happen because god is in a sulk is ridiculous.

You are the one who posted it

 

[Rabbie]

Rabbie,

Unique descriptions for that customer of the all the descriptions in his record.

Unless I am reading you incorrectly you would have one table with all the firstname, middlename and lastname and an ID field.

Mike, once again you are reading me incorrectly I explicitly said that you would need date fields to define the validity period of the name. You would also need a FK field to hold the link to the customer table.


Everyone else, Apologies for going so far off topic to humour Mike

 

[Rich]

YIKES
How many days do they force you to take against your wishes?

I've yet to meet anyone who being granted a holiday sees it as being forced on them anymore than the Yanks when granted public holidays

 

[Alc]

Yes.

Don't confuse a supernatural with God and the Bible.

Consider the huge gap between us and a chimp yet the DNA is supposedly 97% the same. Just imagine only 3 steps above us and each step being as big a gap as chimp to man.

Trust me, I'm not confusing the two (three?).

supernatural adj. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.

Even if the difference is 30% - and I still don't see what DNA has to do with it, as DNA, advanced or not, is definitely natural - how would that match the definition of supernatural?

 

[Mike375]

Like I said if it was for historical purposes it would just be archived

So you agree in a db where a person is the main entity it would be normal to have firstname, middlename and lastname in the customer's table.

Although they are 3 different names they are in reality one name and with each name narrowing things down, as dinstinct from storing the children's details or similar in the main table.

Do agree with that.

 

[Alc]

You are the one who posted it

I posted it in response to a post (#1126) that said the reason that bad things happen today may be because god is in a sulk about the number of people who worship him.

I made the point that bad things have always happened and always will, regardless of how many people believe in god, unicorns, pixies, etc.

If you take pretty much any part of one of the posts from this thread in isolation and ignore their context, you can interpret them in any way you want. Oh, hang on, there's a book like that, isn't there?

 

[Rabbie]

If you take pretty much any part of one of the posts from this thread in isolation and ignore their context, you can interpret them in any way you want. Oh, hang on, there's a book like that, isn't there?

You don't need to tell Mike that. He is pretty good at that

 

[Mike375]

I posted it in response to a post (#1126) that said the reason that bad things happen today may be because god is in a sulk about the number of people who worship him.

I made the point that bad things have always happened and always will, regardless of how many people believe in god, unicorns, pixies, etc.

If you take pretty much any part of one of the posts from this thread in isolation and ignore their context, you can interpret them in any way you want. Oh, hang on, there's a book like that, isn't there?

How is it out of context.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ShaneMan
Just a thought, Friday, but maybe the kind of "god" that would allow these things to happen would/could be the same one that has listened to everyone say they don't want to believe in him, don't want their children to pray to him, don't want to have anything to do with him, do not want to obey his laws, so he has said fine, then do it without my interference and now these folks get to live with the consequences of what they said they wanted. Just a thought (and of course this is based on "if" there is/was a god)

But wouldn't that be the same God who has always allowed these things to happen, regardless of whether everyone was worshipping him or not? Or are you suggesting that there was a point at which these bad things started to happen?

Is there a direct relationship? Back when there was a higher proportion of people who believed in him, everything was fine, people just didn't realise it. As the percentage of believers decreased, the amount of bad things increased.

 

[Alc]

You don't need to tell Mike that. He is pretty good at that

What, like Bill Gates knows a little about computers?

 

[Rabbie]

What, like Bill Gates knows a little about computers?

You may well think that. I could not possibly comment

 

[Alc]

How is it out of context.

Is there a direct relationship? Back when there was a higher proportion of people who believed in him, everything was fine, people just didn't realise it. As the percentage of believers decreased, the amount of bad things increased.[/COLOR][/B]

By omitting the preceding sentence in it's entirety, you were able to twist the following two sentences into statements of fact, as opposed to things which would only apply under certain circumstances.

I asked if there was a direct relationship between those things discussed in the preceding paragraph - which you also, helpfully, missed out. I then went on to add points which, if the answer to the question was 'yes', would apply.

That's what I mean by taking it out of context. The context was the whole post and the post it was response to.

In case you didn't follow that one, another example would be:
'The world was created in a week? (question, asked incredulously) Oh, the rocks, the plants, the animals just appeared in one week (statement which only applies if the answer to the question was 'yes').

 

[Alisa]

Ok. Subsititute this scenario with one involving praying that lions won't kill them versus learning how lions find their prey and using that information to avoid being found and eaten.

Or to use that particular example, you fail to do your job correctly so you get sacked and a bad reference to go with it from your former employer. Your significant-other dumps you for RuralGuy, who got your job and a nice pay raise for doing it right (he's a guru after all). No one else wants to date a jobless loser and you get depressed and kill yourself. Or you stay alive and become a smelly drunk. Or you just can't find anyone to breed with you. and no one wants to share in your original belief system since it clearly hasn;t done you much good has it?

Whatever the scenario might be, survival of your genes, by genetic trasfer to a new generation, or transmission of ideas, can both be adversely affected by incorrect information. Natural selection works on the principle that over time, even a slight fitness cost will result in the trait responsible being selected against and removed from the population. If you can't grasp that simple principle then we're at yet another impasse.

It doesn't have to happen all the time, nor does it have to be immediately fatal, for NS to work.

I appreciate your thrilling examples, but the premise of the original argument is that blind faith or belief or trusting your elders has an evolutionary advantage, not a disadvantage, and that is why we have evolved to believe what authorities tell use when we are children.

 

[ShaneMan]

Is there a direct relationship? Back when there was a higher proportion of people who believed in him, everything was fine, people just didn't realise it. As the percentage of believers decreased, the amount of bad things increased.

I think that is what many of the Bible stories say. Blessing and cursing (for lack of a better word) are both connected to obedience to Him. I do believe you can check several points in history that would point to this correlation being true. One that comes to mind is a time in American history that was named "The Great Awakening." During this time frame several Brits came over and began outdoor preaching. It lasted for several years and during that time frame the crime rate dropped to single digits. Most religions in and of itself, if the followers actually did what their "good books" told them to do, would have a good impact on the world and people in it. I believe the problem is, the followers of these books do not obey what they claim they believe in and I am not just saying this about Christianity only. Of the various religions that I have studied, I have only come across one that actually tells their followers to kill someone if they do not convert. I believe the biggest problem that religions and good books have is the people who represent them. If they did follow them then commandments like, living peaceably, loving everyone including your enemies, do good unto others, feed the widows and orphan and etc, etc., would surely show up as a good thing and not a bad thing. Problem is these folks will take their good books and get them to say things they don't say and will begin to kill folks for not believing what they believe. Something that is not in any "good book" but one. Just my opinion though.

 

[Alc]

I think that is what many of the Bible stories say. Blessing and cursing (for lack of a better word) are both connected to obedience to Him. I do believe you can check several points in history that would point to this correlation being true. One that comes to mind is a time in American history that was named "The Great Awakening." During this time frame several Brits came over and began outdoor preaching. It lasted for several years and during that time frame the crime rate dropped to single digits. Most religions in and of itself, if the followers actually did what their "good books" told them to do, would have a good impact on the world and people in it. I believe the problem is, the followers of these books do not obey what they claim they believe in and I am not just saying this about Christianity only. Of the various religions that I have studied, I have only come across one that actually tells their followers to kill someone if they do not convert. I believe the biggest problem that religions and good books have is the people who represent them. If they did follow them then commandments like, living peaceably, loving everyone including your enemies, do good unto others, feed the widows and orphan and etc, etc., would surely show up as a good thing and not a bad thing. Problem is these folks will take their good books and get them to say things they don't say and will begin to kill folks for not believing what they believe. Something that is not in any "good book" but one. Just my opinion though.

Thanks for the considered response and for not taking offense where none was intended (you religious nut, you ).

I don't know, but aren't there plenty of examples of times when religion was very prevalent but bad things still happened, or when religion was ignored yet nothing exceptionally bad occurred? I know I've read some things saying that the reason the population of Pompeii was wiped out was that they'd angered God by behaving in a debauched manner, but I find it hard to believe that the worst city of that time, in that regard, just happened to be in the shadow of Vesuvius.

I think a key problem to the practical aspect of religion is the 'if' bit you mention. I see religion very much like Commmunism and trade unions, in that respect. The ideologies are great, but stopping people from abusing the ideas for their own ends appears to be impossible.

 

[Darth Vodka]

crime rate dropped to single digits

care to reveal the source of your 1730s USA crime statistics?