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Five Things I Learned Growing Up in a Christian Fundamentalist Home

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:27:26 GMT

clipped by: reimers

1: It is okay to hate certain people

2: The Bible has no errors, and is to be interpreted literally

The Bible can't be wrong. If it says the world was created in six days it was. If it says there was a world wide flood there was. If you don't think so, then you can't be a Christian, and you will burn in hell. If it said 2 + 2 = 5, then two plus two would be five.

3: The entire world is evil

4: Do not question your belief or the ideas you are taught

It is bad to question the ideas you are taught. You should live in ignorance and just believe.You should only learn science from Christian sources. The other sources are made by evil, ungodly people who believe in evolution. Their ideas do not always agree with what is in the Bible. You should not make friends with people of other religions, it will weaken your faith.

5: Without God you are a horrible, miserable, evil person

You are nothing without God. He is your life. Everything you do should be about him.

THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:22:11 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Interesting read.

some more:
"On the traditional conception of the mind, if you want to study experience, you shut your eyes and you introspect. You look inward and reflect on what is going on inside of you, on the inner show"
"To reflect on experience is not to look inward, it is to pay attention to what you are doing, and to the way in which what you are doing is world and situation and environment involving. "
"A much better image is that of the dancer. A dancer is locked into an environment, responsive to music, responsive to a partner. The idea that the dance is a state of us, inside of us, or something that happens in us is crazy. Our ability to dance depends on all sorts of things going on inside of us, but that we are dancing is fundamentally an attunement to the world around us. "

Clip Source: www.edge.org

The problem of consciousness is understanding how this world is there for us. It shows up in our senses. It shows up in our thoughts. Our feelings and interests and concerns are directed to and embrace this world around us. We think, we feel, the world shows up for us. To me that's the problem of consciousness. That is a real problem that needs to be studied, and it's a special problem.

A useful analogy is life. What is life? We can point to all sorts of chemical processes, metabolic processes, reproductive processes that are present where there is life. But we ask, where is the life? You don't say life is a thing inside the organism. The life is this process that the organism is participating in, a process that involves an environmental niche and dynamic selectivity. If you want to find the life, look to the dynamic of the animal's engagement with its world. The life is there. The life is not inside the animal. The life is the way the animal is in the world.

Tags: philosophy, consciousness

"Humanique" - The ability to combine different types of knowledge to gain new understanding

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:19:58 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "Biological anthropologist Marc Hauser seeks to isolate the aspects of human thought that account for what he terms "humaniqueness," the difference between animal and human thought"

Clip Source: harvardmagazine.com

What Makes the Human Mind?

Biological anthropologist Marc Hauser seeks to isolate the aspects of human thought that account for what he terms "humaniqueness," the difference between animal and human thought.

Clip Source: harvardmagazine.com

even though human brains have inherited many of the raw abilities observed in nonhuman animal species, a divergence arises from the ways in which multiple capacities interact in humans, allowing them to convert information into myriad forms to serve infinitely diverse ends

the distinguishing characteristics of human thought under four broad capacities. These include: the ability to combine and recombine different types of knowledge and information in order to gain new understanding; the ability to apply the solution for one problem to a new and different situation; the ability to create and easily understand symbolic representation of computation and sensory input; and the ability to detach modes of thought from raw sensory and perceptual input

Sweden's Ultra-Modern Underground Data Center

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:23:37 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: When asked the motivation behind Pionen, Jon Karlung, CEO of Bahnhof said
“Rather than just concentrating on technical hardware we decided to put humans in focus. Of course, the security, power, cooling, network, etc, are all top notch, but the people designing data centers often (always!) forget about the humans that are supposed to work with the stuff.”

“Since we got hold of this unique nuclear bunker in central Stockholm deep below the rock, we just couldn't’t build it like a traditional – more boring – hosting center,” he said. “We wanted to make something different. The place itself needed something far out in design and science fiction was the natural source of inspiration in this case – plus of course some solid experience from having been a hosting provider for more than a decade.”

Regarding the design of the facility, he said “I’m personally a big fan of old science fiction movies. Especially ones from the 70s like Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars...

Clip Source: hothardware.com

Underneath Stockholm, deep in the bedrock exists a data center better than any high tech lair Hollywood could probably dream up. Bahnhof, one of Sweden's largest ISP's has created a bunker of high tech goodness that is surely to astound.

The facility is called Pionen and once you get past the 16 inch thick entrance doors into the once nuclear bunker now converted to a data center, the spectacular sights that await are simply breathtaking. Replete with waterfalls, greenhouses, German submarine backup engines, and simulated daylight this facility has the added benefit of being able to withstand an almost direct hit by a hydrogen bomb.

The space Pionen now occupies was originally built during the Cold War era as a nuclear shelter. Located below 30 meters of solid bedrock the space was completely redesigned during 2007-2008.

Backup power is generated by two Maybach MTU diesel engines that produce 1.5 Megawatts of power and were originally designed for submarines.

Tags: design, science fiction

The American Dream delusion

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:39:17 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Chances of you being well-off are, at best, one in twenty; of being wealthy, one in a hundred. Yet nearly half of us think we will be.
That's what keeps those hamster wheels spinning.

Clip Source: trueconservative.typepad.com

A Land of Magical Thinking: Becoming a Millionaire

Here is the central faith-based delusion regarding The American Dream:

Belief: 45% of Americans think it is somewhat or very likely that they will become wealthy in their lifetimes.*

Fact: in 2005, 5.7% of households were worth a million dollars or more. (Source PDF. See Table 3.)

Understand: A million dollars isn't even close to "wealthy." It represents, say, $40K to $60K a year in income.

So:

Chance of being wealthy: One in twenty. At best. Only 1% of households had more than $5 mil.

Perceived chance of being wealthy: One in two.

This explains Joe the Plumber. He made $40K in 2006, but in 2008 he was big-talking to Barack Obama about how we was gonna buy the business he works for--for a quarter of a million dollars.

This also explains how Joe and his co-delusionists could believe, for thirty years, that we could increase tax revenues by cutting taxes. Or that prayer would have any effect on any of this.

Tags: wealth

Diamonds, may become very cheap..

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:13:27 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: In response, diamond giant De Beers has set up a "Gem Defensive Programme" with the aim of finding ways to tell apart synthetic and natural diamonds.

i wonder if once they will become cheap, all their allure will dissipate, or not...

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Artificial diamonds - now available in extra large

Diamonds are a girl's best friend, they say - and soon they could be every girl's best friend.

A team in the US has brought the world one step closer to cheap, mass-produced, perfect diamonds. The improvement also means there is no theoretical limit on the size of diamonds that can be grown in the lab.

The CVD process produces rapid diamond growth, but impurities from the gas are absorbed and the diamonds take on a brownish tint.

The most exciting aspect of this new annealing process is the unlimited size of the crystals that can be treated

The new technique is so efficient that the synthetic diamonds contain fewer impurities than those found in nature

The improving quality of synthetic diamonds threatens the natural diamond market. While 20 tonnes of natural diamonds are mined annually, some 600 tonnes of synthetic diamonds are produced each year for industrial use alone.

started to sell synthetic diamonds as gemstones

Tags: diamonds, nature, synthetic

Sleeping Cats

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:34:26 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.jimmyr.com

How an Amazonian tribe turned a missionary into an atheist

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:33:06 GMT

clipped by: reimers
clipper's remarks: His zeal soon dissipated … Convinced that the Pirahã assigned no spiritual meaning to the Bible, Everett finally admitted that he did not, either. He declared himself an atheist …

Clip Source: www.freethinker.co.uk

A RIVETING and hugely satisfying report on BBC Radio 4 today tells the story of a missionary who was charged by an American missionary group with taking the Gospel to the little understood Pirahãs tribe in the Amazon – only to realise how ridiculous his faith in Christianity was.

Daniel Everett, 57, a linguist in the Departmental Chair of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Illinois State University, told presenter John McCarthy on the Excess Baggage programme, that he had travelled to the Amazon in the 70s to bring the tribe “the joy of faith” only to discover that they were a deeply contented people. In fact they seemed far better contented than he was.

Tribe members asked the missionary whether he had seen or experienced any of the things he was telling them about. He had to admit that he hadn’t; that he was simply passing things onto them that were told to him by people who hadn’t seen or experienced them either.

You Won't Need A Saw

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:05:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Thank you very much

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — A number of retailers and manufacturers have a gift for holiday shoppers: product packaging that will not result in lacerations and stab wounds.

The companies, including Amazon.com, Sony, Microsoft and Best Buy, have begun to create alternatives to the infuriating plastic “clamshell” packages and cruelly complex twist ties that make products like electronics and toys almost impossible for mere mortals to open without power tools.

mpregnable packaging has incited such frustration among consumers that an industry term has been coined for it — “wrap rage.” It has sent about 6,000 Americans each year to emergency rooms with injuries caused by trying to pry, stab and cut open their purchases, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission