Dear Bisqwit,
I have some experience with Drupal programming from work, and I find PHP to be a stupid hack of a language compared to most other interpreted languages like Perl, Ruby, Python, Javascript, etc. I have a good deal of respect for your programming ability and would like to know your thoughts on PHP and which languages you like to play with.
You asked "What do you think of some random guy's claim that 'nephesh' is mistranslated when rendered as 'soul'?" and I responded with "It's true, 'nphesh' is mistranslated when rendered as 'soul'"...where did I miss the question?
I didn't ask what Bisqwit thought of the claim, I asked what he thought of the analysis and its implications. Also, Robert Alter isn't some random guy, he is a preeminent old testament scholar and translator.
Actually, I was not familiar with that quote from Timothy. But I do like it.
My favorites sections (so far*) are:
Matthew 6:1-4
Corinthians 7:1-7
Ephesians 5:22-33
*I still have a vast majority of the Bible unread at this point.
Also I don't know what version of the Bible I have. It's pretty readable though (no old English words, like "thou").
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Another question: I remember that you have (had?) some kind of tile/sprite identifier program that you used to make the cool animated .gifs of Racoon Mario jumping around. Could that idea eventually be expanded into an efficient 8/16-bit video game video codec?
I think this lossless codec is great for that type of videos. Earllier I made a 2½h video, only 234mb.
Bisqwit wrote:
However, as for the definition of hell: I know tho twings. (1) It is irreversible eternal separation from God and (2) it is described as continuously painful.
Item 1 alone could allow the interpretation of it being your existence voided out, as if you permanently stop existing like you didn't before your birth,
The best thing I can imagine is if I ceased to exist, because then I would never have any problems and nothing to worry about. Like heaven. I don't think it's possible though.
Baxter wrote:
(2) How about locking all "Ask me something"-topics?
If there are questions for a particular person, a private message will work just as well. Maybe compiling a list of people who enjoy getting tons of useless questions in their inbox could be compiled (just a suggestion).
It's much more fun to write thoughts down somewhere where everyone can see them. PMs are boring as Hell.
What is your personal favorite chapter/verse/other length of excerpt from the Bible?
That is a difficult question. I cannot offhand name particulars.
Very common favourite passages of course include these two:
(John 3:16): For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(Psalm 23): David's song. The Lord is my sheppard; I have everything I need. He takes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: because you are with me; you protect me with your hand; and guide me with your staff. You prepare a table for me in front of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Your good and mercy surrounds me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
So I'll pick that Psalm 23. (Above is my translation of it from the Finnish version.)
Of course there are shorter verses that are often useful in the Internet for comedic and/or satiric effects, such as John 11:35 (Jesus wept.) or Proverbs 6:4 (Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.).
EDIT: Oh, there's also this.
(1 Corinthians 13): Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
In the Finnish version, the word used in place of "charity" is "rakkaus" (love). It refers to the unselfish love, not the erotic love or the attaching love. I think the original hebrew word for it was "agape".
I have some experience with Drupal programming from work, and I find PHP to be a stupid hack of a language compared to most other interpreted languages like Perl, Ruby, Python, Javascript, etc. I have a good deal of respect for your programming ability and would like to know your thoughts on PHP and which languages you like to play with.
I already replied about my favourite programming languages earlier in this thread.
I agree with you in that PHP is a stupid hack. But it has matured a lot, developing features that are more commonly found in other languages, but it is what you say. However, it is still better than any of its alternatives that I know of. ERuby, ASP as examples. Both are line-based which limits seriously their agility. Java is way too political: you need to do a lot of work in order to make even the simplest interactive webpage.
For me, PHP is a win in that it's extremely simple to get started with (at least if you have C/C++ programming background), and that its standard library is very extensive, spanning from regular expressions to socket access, and from databases to character set conversions.
[Edit: Added a link to a guide article I've written.]
Joined: 9/23/2006
Posts: 207
Location: Moreno Valley, California
Bisqwit wrote:
I think the original hebrew word for it was "agape".
"Agape" is actually a Greek word and philosophical concept for love without attachment, such as love for family or for work. Just thought I'd let you know. :)
"The way to move out of judgment is to move into gratitude." — Neale Donald Walsch
DannyLilithborne on IRC
I think the original hebrew word for it was "agape".
"Agape" is actually a Greek word and philosophical concept for love without attachment, such as love for family or for work. Just thought I'd let you know. :)
Are you offended by song lyrics that mention or tell about satan, but are not satanic? Here's an example.
I would avoid listening such music, but I wouldn't go on a crusade demanding the taking down of those lyrics from the website or that song off the shops' shelves.
Bisqwit,
What are you commonly offended by? What common offenses generally don't affect you? (Inspired by Guybrush's question.)
I consider ethics a certain way of doing things that has lost its functional value; i.e., a certain action makes sense in the paradigm of the set of actions it belongs to, then after its purpose dies or is forgotten, people involved in this set of actions remain used to it and repeat it without thinking of the reason, effectively becoming a ritual (commonly excercised by high class society members). Do you share this opinion? Do you think ethics in this context is detrimental to various aspects of society relationships? Or any ritual (= tradition that has lost its functional purpose or has its meaning forgotten), for that matter? (For the record, I do.)
What would you choose, doing a thing you consider bad/wrong, but for greater good (for example, stealing a medicine for a badly ill relative when there is no other viable choice nor time to make enough money), or not doing anything at all? How far can you go in the first case? Would you kill someone (say, a terrorist) in order to protect the innocent?
This question might be tough. Imagine that you have a choice of either you or one of your relatives getting killed/raped/anything similar. Who would you choose? Can you endure something you panically fear or despise so that someone you value the most could remain safe?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Or even better, would you shove a fat man standing by the side of the road in front of a bus, if it ment saving the lifes of 5 people who's car was stalled out in the path?
Suppose you can be sure that the action will save the 5 people but the fat man will die in the process. Also, the 5 people will die if you do nothing.
As a general rule it is safe to say that most religious people would not choose to take an extremely negative action* that is nevertheless rational. Taking the negative action would actually necessitate you killing a man (even if it would save five), while if doing nothing does happen to kill five people, well, it's God's will, and God is inscrutable, but always right, there's a reason for everything, and thou shalt not kill and all that.
*Also assume that the negative action (such as molesting a child, or something) isn't prompted by some psychotic urge that overpowers their "beliefs."
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
I don't think that passivity has a direct connection to religion. I think it is somewhat human nature to chose inaction when faced with a question with no right answer. Letting a runaway bus kill any number of people has no direct accountability for an observer, whereas killing one person to save those people has a very specific amount of accountability. Whether a person chooses the theoretical right choice or not may be swayed by their fear of repercussion for the action with more direct accountability.
Edit: Hooray for being an active player now.
I'd think it would boil down to personal indecisiveness, rather than having a connection to religion. Even if Bisqwit wasn't religious, I would have asked him this question regardless.
I think both ways are equally bad/good, however rationale differs in each case: by choosing inaction, one acts more selfishly, saving themself from responsibility and possible harm; by choosing action, one acts for the good of the majority, but by purposefully harming or gambling with the interests of minority (and/or, in some cases, themself).
Indeed a very interesting thing to ask, you know.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I don't think that passivity has a direct connection to religion. I think it is somewhat human nature to chose inaction when faced with a question with no right answer.
moozooh wrote:
I'd think it would boil down to personal indecisiveness, rather than having a connection to religion.
That wasn't really what I was getting at. Yes, other aspects of someone's personality may affect such a decision, but the point is that faith in a higher power specifically allows people to feel no sense of responsibility for inaction in situations where taking a rational action requires sinning.
Another question: I remember that you have (had?) some kind of tile/sprite identifier program that you used to make the cool animated .gifs of Racoon Mario jumping around. Could that idea eventually be expanded into an efficient 8/16-bit video game video codec?
I think this lossless codec is great for that type of videos. Earllier I made a 2½h video, only 234mb.
What game?
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Dear Bisqwit,
do you have any favourite TV show (excluding anime)? Or is there any TV show you're actively watching, or watched?
And what's your favourite movie? (not TAS, I'm talking about real movies here :P)
What are you commonly offended by? What common offenses generally don't affect you? (Inspired by Guybrush's question.)
I think it is a too broad question to answer right away. We are not simple robots whose overall behavior can be described with a few sentences.
Okay, I'll try.
I find myself most pissed when I notice that "justice" is used to perform injustice. Examples:
-- Copyright laws when used to litigate normal people.
-- Immigrants who perform crimes are left unpunished or are underpunished in fear of racial discrimination charges.
-- People falsely accused of child pornography can have their life and public image irrepairably destroyed.
False accusations, generally.
What common offenses don't affect me?
I usually try to see beyond the surface, and avoid joining the mob who blames someone because all the others are blaming that person as well. To draw an example from the Bible, again, I think that even if I was a non-believer, I would not take part in the group who stoned Stephen to death or even support them.
It's difficult to name common offenses that don't affect me, but it bears down to that I avoid doing injustice.
moozooh wrote:
I consider ethics a certain way of doing things that has lost its functional value; i.e., a certain action makes sense in the paradigm of the set of actions it belongs to, then after its purpose dies or is forgotten, people involved in this set of actions remain used to it and repeat it without thinking of the reason, effectively becoming a ritual (commonly excercised by high class society members). Do you share this opinion? Do you think ethics in this context is detrimental to various aspects of society relationships? Or any ritual (= tradition that has lost its functional purpose or has its meaning forgotten), for that matter? (For the record, I do.)
Please name some examples of such ritualistic morals. I found this question hard to answer.
Your last question in the post is about borderline cases in ethics. Whether it is okay to kill one person to save the life of fifty for example. Such questions are very often posed in TV series, because they are intriguing. TV series often chicken out the question by finding a way to accomplish both good and neither bad, to avoid offending the audience. But I can remember Battlestar Galactica as a recent (and strong) counterexample.
Theoretically speaking, one should always (I suppose) strive for the greater good. In practise, whether one is able to do it depends on many factors. One cannot really know until faced with such situation.
Taking Twelvepack's example:
Twelvepack wrote:
Or even better, would you shove a fat man standing by the side of the road in front of a bus, if it ment saving the lifes of 5 people who's car was stalled out in the path?
Suppose you can be sure that the action will save the 5 people but the fat man will die in the process. Also, the 5 people will die if you do nothing.
Doing nothing is certainly easier for anyone. If you shove the fat man saving those five, it is probable that you will face murder charges and probably get some penalty, because of the argument that there is possibility that those five people could have survived nevertheless. And what gave you the right to select that man's death over the others'.
If you go by the "greater good" principle, you will probably find more questions. Who says that fat man wasn't working on something that benefits the whole humanity whereas the five guys just regular good-for-nothing drunk-every-weekend men?
