Agreed. How are those examples "unethical" in the sens that cheating on school work is? Both seem rather more honest, in my opinion.

Good point, you are correct, but (as I'm guessing you're aware) evolution doesn't speak to creation, that's a different theory. I know that it's usually confused, though (I've been in the South myself a few times and currently live in Kentucky), so I generally start by explaining that evolution doesn't say anything about the creation of the universe, Earth, or even the first replicator. Those are covered in alternate theories... I do find the confusion you mention is prevalent.

It's actually harder than that to compare Genesis to our scientific understanding of the universe given that light is created before the sun, and so are plants. There are two creation stories in Genesis and they contradict each other on a number of points. Still if the person you're talking to isn't going to get into the details that strategy can be useful for educating them enough to not want to "fight" against reality.

I like to use Song of Solomon on bible literalists; Chapter 4 uses the phrase "my sister my spouse" on several verses. Interestingly this phrase is also useful in dating the poem as it refers to a late Sumerian tradition. Their Gods marred brother to sister though this was forbidden among humans and as a result of their Gods practice (later adopted by the Pharaohs as they became "living gods") it became romantic to call your spouse "my sister" or "my brother" as the case may be.

You should check out the Sumerian creation myths, though I'll warn you it isn't exactly safe for work... :-D

Sad but true!

That's rich coming from a person that's consistently ignored the context of my remarks.

People ignorant of science, logic, reason, and philosophy who've either been browbeaten or brainwashed into believing some incarnation of mythology based on bronze-age nomadic Jewish traditions that have evolved over time to incorporate aspects of Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, various Greek and pagan influences, and other cultural artifacts.

That being said the bible is available in over 4,000 languages (http://worldbibles.org/index). I am more familiar with the international spread of Christianity than perhaps you imagine. Various Christian ministry groups heavily emphasize translating and distributing their version of divine "truth" in the native languages of the places where they are proselytizing. Even internationally there are translated bibles, both written and electronic spoken versions, available but rarely used for serious theological study. Indeed I wish it were not true; the more people read that book the fewer people will claim to follow it.

I'm glad you feel that way. Not everyone agrees with you.

Given that I am discussing American Creationists and given the large number of translations into English this statement is nonsensical. They choose not to bother with it. There are more fun ways to spend their time. The number of Christians I've met who cannot read a bible due to lack of education is very, very low. It's simply not an excuse the vast majority of them can call upon when admitting their ignorance of the book.

I didn't say they were "right" to consider it such; I've been told this personally on several occasions *by* Christians as the reason *why* they reject evolution and will not accept it. I live near the AIG Creation "Museum" and have had the opportunity to interact with many of these people. They are startlingly ignorant of their own theology, much less history.

It is often considered a threat to Christianity because without a literal Adam and Eve there was no "fall" and therefor we didn't inherit a "sinful nature" from them making the need for God to sacrifice himself, as a child of himself, to himself, to save us from himself, unnecessary. You are correct, though, that it is often literalists who take the most offense to the notion of evolution. I find that most Christians (people in general, really) are startlingly ignorant of the content of the bible and the actual mechanisms and theory of evolution.

Lovely post, I just wish it were, you know, relevant. I'm NOT bashing Mac, why are you fan-boys jumping on this post like I insulted your mothers? Why said anything about games? Or even music? The original post talks about checking e-mail and surfing the web and THAT IS IT. Incidentally, I've yet to surf a website on my ubuntu machine that a major website failed to work on. Hell I can't even think of any minor websites that have failed to work. Firefox (and Opera, and others) work just as well under linux as they do on the Mac or Windows PC, generally speaking (in terms of loading and displaying pages correctly). I'm not sure I even understand what you mean by "Apple rules the music world on the web". For the record, I'm typing this, and all the other comments, including the first one, on a Mac. A nice, expensive, dual quad core system with 4 gigs of RAM and a huge 30 inch monitor. I love the thing, I really do, but that doesn't take away from my original point: Ubuntu makes regular computer usage, especially for those who are interested only in light office, web, and e-mail uses, very easy and malware free. My relatives aren't going to buy new hardware anytime soon and so it's just easier to switch them to Ubuntu and not worry. As soon as one of them starts playing games and "ruling the music web" I'll suggest something more in line with those needs, OK? PS Why would a Mac fan-boy bring up GAMES??? As if the Mac were a viable platform for them all of the sudden? Sheesh!

I've already mentioned both of those in other followups to this post. Boot-camp is a fancy way of dual-booting a machine. Parallels is a fancy virtual machine. Both techniques can be done with linux too. WINE runs on linux as well as Mac. Look, I'm typing this on a $5k+ dual quad-core mac with a 30 inch screen; I'm no stranger to Mac software and hardware. It's just WRONG to suggest that linux isn't suitable because of a perceived need for Windows software to run but a Mac is; BOTH have similar solutions for running Windows based software if the need arises. If you're going to say that one can force a Windows program to run on a mac through a virtual machine, WINE (an "emulator" of sorts, to oversimplify it a bit), or a dual-boot solution on the Mac then you must also acknowledge that these solutions are also possible under linux. This means my original statement still stands. Dual-booting, incidentally, as I said before, defeats the purpose of moving away from Windows to avoid malware; you still have a version that can be corrupted and infected.

You can run Windows in a VM session on linux, too. You can also "dual-boot" a machine into Windows if you want to compare it to "bootcamp". WINE, of course, runs on both linux and OS-X. I don't see a valid point here, just nit-picking. Do you have anything useful to say? Oh wait, this is /. Never-mind, dumb question. Bottom line you cannot just "install and run" a Windows app on a Mac, you have to do something special like run a virtual machine, WINE, or dual-boot (which destroys the security gained from choosing a non-windows OS and leaves you right back where you were).

As far as I can tell both are true. I'm not a security expert myself but the security model on Ubuntu is inherently more secure than the security model in Windows XP and Vista. I haven't done a lot of research into 7 yet (just toyed with the beta). I'm a long, long-time Windows user who has only used Ubuntu about a year now and I can say both that I simply *enjoy* using it more than Windows (which now annoys me greatly when I use it) and has a very much lower incidence rate of problems and malware than Windows. This answer of "both" is also true of the Mac though, in my experience, OS-X seems to have more holes in it than Ubuntu from a security standpoint. I am *not* an expert, though, and so my meandering experiences should not be considered meaningful evidence.

I just have to comment on the irony of saying they shouldn't install linux because they won't be able to run Windows software and then suggesting they buy a Mac. Which also don't run Windows software apps. [grin] Personally I've been installing Ubuntu on machines I have to service regularly and then *presto* I don't have to service them for malware regularly. I have not had a single person want to switch back and the least technical users are the ones who seem to love it the most. I've converted teenagers, housewives, and even a law office to Ubuntu and they all love it. Turn on some of the eye-candy that Windows doesn't do "out of the box" and point them at their e-mail and web-browser/office software and then let them enjoy that machine. I have a lot less family/friend malware removal now!

Wait a second, you're using logic to evaluate this and completely ignoring the proper response which is to panic and repeat the article's over-simplified bylines as if they were facts... :-) I did notice that they have been focusing on the "percentage of increase" but not showing whether or not this impacts the amount we can reasonably tolerate. Even a large percentage increase is meaningless if it's still well below the amount that has an effect on us. But why bother with details when the sensationalist approach can be taken?