Comment Re:But what created the law of gravity? (Score 0) 1328
But why do "people generally have a sense of empathy"?
Comment Re:But what created the law of gravity? (Score 0) 1328
I'm curious how you would describe the reasons for even having a personal code? And why the concept of "right" even exists? Why would an atheist (or anyone for that matter) need to create and evaluate a personal code? Where does the desire to do so even come from?
Comment Re:No. No, no, no. (Score 0) 478
You're right, we don't have the original copies of the Gospels, only fragments from long after the supposed events. The only full manuscripts we have are certainly copies, and copies of copies, and copies of copies of copies, and so on. Such a route can introduce many corruptions and mistakes. However, New Testament Scholarship has been growing by leaps and bounds since the 20th century because more and more evidence (scrolls, historical documents) is being discovered. Along with that, certainty of their authenticity is growing.
Scholarly consensus is growing toward dating all four of the canonical Gospels in the 1st Century. For example, it's realistic to believe that the dating of Acts approximately lines up with the dating of the Apostle Paul's imprisonment in Rome (A.D. 62), since this is where the account ends. If Acts was the continuation of the account that Luke began in his Gospel account (see Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1) then Luke would be dated sometime before A.D. 62.
I would suggest reading some additional New Testament scholars to help balance out your view of dating. Here are just a few:
- D. A. Carson
- Bruce M. Metzger ( The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration )
- Craig L. Blomberg ( The Historical Reliability of the Gospels )
- F. F. Bruce
Other thoughts about the historicity of Jesus: First-hand witnesses could be considered reliable.
- Oral tradition. Teachers, scholars, and students of the day were far better at memorization than we are. It was a firm part of their educational inheritance and their story-telling culture.
- Jesus was considered to be a rabbi by his disciples and even those who didn't follow him (Matthew 19:16-22). For the day, it was essential for a disciple to write down the sayings of his rabbi. If you didn't have something to write on, you would right it on your sleeve.
- Many disciples died or suffered on account of their witness (martyrdom, slavery). It's believable that someone would die for truth. It's also believable that someone would die for something they thought was true, but was actually false. It's not believable that someone would die for something they knew was false. Why would witnesses of Jesus' words and actions die if they knew what they said was false?
- Historical preservation was a common practice in the early church. Christians were punished for deviating from what was already known about what Jesus said.
- Even Jesus' enemies (Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees) have records of Jesus' miracles. They would attribute them to demonic forces (Matthew 12:22-32), but if you wanted to disprove Jesus, why would you even record it in the first place?
Comment Where's that option? (Score -1, Redundant) 452
Is there an option such as "Mod All Redundant"?
Comment Re:Unsurprising (Score 0, Redundant) 130
Umm...so do adults.
Submission + - Gmail Paragraph Spacing Broken (google.com)
scandalon writes: Thought this might be a relevant post for Slashdot readers. HTML Paragraph spacing has been broken on Gmail for over three weeks now. There seem to be workarounds, but for such fundamental functionality, it seems like a long time. Here's the Google help discussion.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?fid=7eb0921146d1d4e600046e28d8a18e55&hl=en
Thanks.
-Jonathan
MPAA Boss Makes Case for ISP Content Filtering 282
creaton writes "At the annual UBS Global & Media Communications Conference yesterday, MPAA boss Dan Glickman banged on the copyright filtering drum during a 45-minute speech. Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue and told the audience that it cost the studios $6 billion annually. His solution: technology, especially in the form of ISP filtering. 'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ... and I think that's a great opportunity.' AT&T has already said it plans to filter content, but others may be more reluctant to go along, notes Ars Technica: 'ISPs that are concerned with being, well, ISPs aren't likely to see many benefits from installing some sort of industrial-strength packet-sniffing and filtering solution at the core of their network. It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high.'"
Submission + - Ohio University finds key to getting RIAA to stop 7
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, has found the key to getting the RIAA to stop inundating it and its students with "settlement" letters. According to the university's student online publication, the university paid $60,000, plus $16,000 per year "maintenance", to Audible Magic, the business partner of the RIAA's all-purpose expert witness Dr. Doug Jacobson, for its "CopySense" filtering software. Once it made the payments, the letters stopped. This of course raises a lot of questions as to the 'disinterestedness' of Dr. Jacobson, whose deposition in the UMG v. Lindor case was the subject of interesting Slashdot commentary."
Terror Watch List Swells to More Than 755,000 512
rdavison writes "According to a USA Today story, the terror watch list has swollen to 755,000 with 200,000 people per year being added since 2004. Adding about 548 people daily every day of the year does not seem to lend itself to a manual process with careful deliberation given or double checking being done for each person added. It seems to suggests that data is being mined from somewhere to automatically add names to the list."
