"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Obviously I'm responding to a particular unkind bait here, but here goes.
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
BLARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
This speaker in the video makes the fallacious assumption that born-again believers are believers because of their upbringing in a christian family. But the fact is that some of the most influential and fundamental christian believers are actually those who have been brought up in _anything but_ christian family: These come from muslim backgrounds, these come from families where their parents have practised witchcraft or voodoo and they've been sacrificed to the devil at their birth and have had to live in gangs with the "strongest survives" mentality; these come from places where being caught of owning a Bible may mean spending the rest of their lives in a prison, if they aren't murdered first, and so on. I'm talking about people like Nicky Cruz here.
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
But the fact is that some of the most influential and fundamental christian believers are actually those who have been brought up in _anything but_ christian family: These come from muslim backgrounds, these come from families where their parents have practised witchcraft or voodoo and they've been sacrificed to the devil at their birth and have had to live in gangs with the "strongest survives" mentality; these come from places where being caught of owning a Bible may mean spending the rest of their lives in a prison, if they aren't murdered first, and so on. I'm talking about people like Nicky Cruz here.
There may be exceptions to every rule, but reading this the only thing going through my head is, "Oh the poor oppressed majority. :/"
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
Yeah, I watched the response, and as he adequately puts it, the question "what if you're wrong" invokes pascal's wager, since if Richard Dawkins was wrong about Christianity, negative consequences would follow. Now Richard Dawkins doesn't point out that there is one wrong assumption with this argument, but two, which, if either one is wrong, the argument is invalid. The first incorrect assumption is that beliefs are an individuals decision, Which Bisqwit pointed out is not necessarily the case. The second assumption is that Christianity is the only religion that assumes negative consequences for non believers. I can be sure that the juju up the mountain is believed by some to create havoc upon those which don't follow his strict ritual practices. Because there are many more options than simply Christianity and atheism, the argument rested on a false dichotomy, and therefore was not a valid question.
Given the bias of both the speaker and the person in the audience, and the nature of the question, to assume that either one is the only one correct is also a false assumption.
Do you ever feel any of these questions are just so needlessly insane that they are just not worth answering?
Yes.
andymac wrote:
Given the bias of both the speaker and the person in the audience, and the nature of the question, to assume that either one is the only one correct is also a false assumption.
Only when there exists no possible way to achieve even subjective validation on the question, and the reliability of a party claiming to possess that validation cannot be established.
That said, here's a video interview of one of these researchers who have used scientific methods to find the locations and artefacts corresponding to the Biblical exodus of Israel from Egypt, among other things. (The English-language part starts from around 1:50, and it's a three-part video, continued with Google Earth imaginery of the locations).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VFOFGwCZvI&feature=PlayList&p=0ECD095F64BE1678&index=0&playnext=1
This speaker in the video makes the fallacious assumption that born-again believers are believers because of their upbringing in a christian family. But the fact is that some of the most influential and fundamental christian believers are actually those who have been brought up in _anything but_ christian family: These come from muslim backgrounds, these come from families where their parents have practised witchcraft or voodoo and they've been sacrificed to the devil at their birth and have had to live in gangs with the "strongest survives" mentality; these come from places where being caught of owning a Bible may mean spending the rest of their lives in a prison, if they aren't murdered first, and so on. I'm talking about people like Nicky Cruz here.
As a side note, that in itself doesn't really prove anything. There are many people who have been raised in bible-believing Christian homes and then as adults have converted to buddhism, shintoism, islam, hare krishna and other religions. In this light it's not surprising that someone brought up in one of those religions, or some form of cult, would later convert to Christianity (or any of the other religions for that matter).
What Dawkins says is true for the majority of people: They tend to follow the religion they were brought up with (which is the sole reason that all the world's religion still exist in the first place). Individual exceptions don't change this fact.
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
Only when there exists no possible way to achieve even subjective validation on the question, and the reliability of a party claiming to possess that validation cannot be established.
The reason that an outcome cannot be established is because it is a false dichotomy. There is not only Christianity, and science. To think that there are only two ways to go: Christianity and science is an incorrect assumption. They could both be right, or both be wrong. The reason that a conclusion cannot be established has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of a person's arguments or claims in this case.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
I don't reallly know what makes a person choose a religion over the others, but I know that religion is a somewhat more reliable way to enforce acceptable behaviour than judicial law. They both cover roughly the same crimes.
For usual law enforcement, you're only punished if someone can prove your guilt AND if they can catch you. There's always a theoretical way out.
For religion, "God" is always watching your every step, and "in the end" you'll have your "judgement".
And if you behave you'll have your special second life, where: everyone feels happiness although nobody will ever be sad... everyone's always a winner, but nobody will ever lose anyway.. everyone is rich but then nobody's poor... everything is right and nothing is wrong (does this mean "ANYTHING GOES"?)...etc...
Note that creating new omnipotent entities is not a crime unless someone proves admits they are not real.
Anyway, more lulz here >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtcVoBhBQ
And more interesting stuff (the host isn't really the smartest guy around, but anyway...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjyTyFJe5ghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ArWUyayv4
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Hi TASVideoAgent! Long time no talk.
Mostly it seems that I have been doing low color graphics gimmicks, like this [youtube.com], this [youtube.com] and this [bisqwit.iki.fi].
Right now (in a month's scale) I am making a 16-color raytracer… It's a collaboration.
No TASes to talk about, sorry.
Hey Bisqwit or anyone else,
My video card broke down and I was wondering what would be a good replacement for it? I was trying to repair my PC and I think I broke something and now I cannot see my computer when I boot it up. I was wondering what would a good video card for a HP Vectra 420VF? I think the original card was a GeoForce or something.
You should double-check that it's really the video card that is broken. Just because you get no image doesn't mean it's the video card. It could be a myriad of other things.
(OTOH, if your video card is oldish, you probably want to upgrade it anyways. Nowadays you can get pretty decent video cards for relatively low price, so it isn't a really big investment.)
I suggest the "anyone else" option. I'm rather ignorant to today's upgrade & replace & throw away culture, and wouldn't know which display cards to suggest to anyone. Sorry about that.
I suggest the "anyone else" option. I'm rather ignorant to today's upgrade & replace & throw away culture, and wouldn't know which display cards to suggest to anyone. Sorry about that.
thanks anyway.
You should double-check that it's really the video card that is broken. Just because you get no image doesn't mean it's the video card. It could be a myriad of other things.
(OTOH, if your video card is oldish, you probably want to upgrade it anyways. Nowadays you can get pretty decent video cards for relatively low price, so it isn't a really big investment.)
Well I'll try that. Also, can a damaged controller mess up a lot of things on the comouter?
Hey Bisqwit or anyone else,
My video card broke down and I was wondering what would be a good replacement for it? I was trying to repair my PC and I think I broke something and now I cannot see my computer when I boot it up. I was wondering what would a good video card for a HP Vectra 420VF? I think the original card was a GeoForce or something.
Falling under the anyone else category, I'd suggest posting some system specs (ideally motherboard , cpu, and psu) before deciding what to do, since "hp vectra 420vf" brings up precisely one google result that is of no use.
What do you mean under "controller"? You should listen the beeps coming out of "PC Speaker", it tells you the problematic area. Depending on your mainboard, try to google it for example "msi beep codes" for MSI motherboards.
Also what type of "damage" taken?
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
You should listen the beeps coming out of "PC Speaker", it tells you the problematic area.
It's not reliable. One of the most common sources of hardware failure is the PSU, and if it starts failing, it can cause the system to diagnose all kinds of problems that aren't there (which are caused by the PSU not giving enough power, or the power being noisy). For example, I had once my PC tell me repeatedly that the CPU had failed ("No CPU installed"). Nope, the problem was a failing PSU. (Replaced the PSU, the computer has been working ok for a couple of years since.)
I am going to some professionals to help me out with this espceicllay since I don't have enough money to buy a new one.
Edit: I fixed it already so yeah.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
hey Bisqwit, do you like movies?
Have you watched this one?
If you haven't, then avoid any spoilers before you do. It's a pretty good movie.
In before "I'm not interested"
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
If you haven't, then avoid any spoilers before you do. It's a pretty good movie.
In before "I'm not interested"
