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Comment Re:If you make this a proof of God... (Score 4, Funny) 612

If gods of our ancestors were so all powerful, why do they seem to have a messaging problem?

Can create vast amounts of items but has trouble communicating his views to others? God is a Geek!!!

Just be glad that he's not very good at messaging. Then God would be from Marketing. The Lord of All Creation coming from Marketing? Not that would be scary!

Comment Re:If you make this a proof of God... (Score 2) 612

One of my favorite explanations actually comes from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in the short story "How It Happened." Let's assume for a second that God really did tell Moses and Aaron what to write in the Bible, He would obviously need to give an allegorical account of what happened in the past and not a literal one. No human could write out a literal blow-by-blow history of the Universe and no human could ever read such an accounting. (Of course, my personal belief is that the Bible is a moral tale and not a historical tale. You are supposed to read it and think "people should act this way", not read it and think "women were really created by a rib surgically removed from the first man.")

Comment Re:Mirror image (Score 1) 642

I believe the "only marry one person" command came after Jacob married his two wives and slept with their servants. Loophole!

Of course, some Orthodox Jewish folks I know claim that Abraham kept Kosher even before the laws of keeping Kosher were given because he was just that holy. By that logic, wouldn't Jacob know the "rules of marriage" before they were given?

Comment Re:Entitlements vs. consumables (Score 1) 181

This exactly. I've been playing a lot of smartphone apps recently. I have no trouble paying something for a game. If they want to release a "lite" version with limited levels, I'm fine with that. It lets you get a feel for the game play and see if you want to spend the cash for the full version. I don't even have a problem with additional level packs costing more money. What I have a problem with are games where you either 1) Need to buy items with the "premium currency" (only obtainable by paying cash) to advance in the game or 2) Need to pay to keep an "energy meter" up. In the latter case, if you limit how much I play your game, you are just making it more likely that I'll play another game, not pay you money.

As an example of a game-gone-wrong, I'd submit Where's My Water. The first game was pretty good. There was a lite version, a paid version, and additional level packs you could buy. Then Where's My Water 2 came out. At first, they had an energy meter, but they got rid of that when people complained. My big issue? Keys. You can only obtain keys by 1) buying them or 2) bugging people on social media. If you don't do that, you can't proceed along the map. If you buy the keys, you will just get stuck at the next gate that requires more keys. So you aren't even buying "the full version", you are buying "the next level or two." The end result? I don't even have that app on my phone anymore.

I don't begrudge game developers from making money, but it's a fine line between encouraging payments and annoying people too much.

Comment Re:Mirror image (Score 1) 642

Jacob even married two sisters. In his defense, he was "tricked" into marrying the older sister when he wanted to marry the younger one, but then they got into a competition over who would give Jacob more kids and had Jacob sleep with their handmaidens so he could impregnate them and their kids would count towards the appropriate sisters' totals.

If someone did that today, they'd be tried for bigamy ASAP and "I was tricked into the first marriage" or "We just wanted more kids" wouldn't be any defense at all. You need to be very careful when chastising any historical figure (be they from religious texts or from history) based on modern day social rules/laws.

Comment Re:Homeopathy causes autism! (Score 1) 408

My son has autism and we never gave him any homeopathic treatments..... Wait a second, don't homeopathic treatments get more potent the less of them that there is? So taking none would have an infinite effect! That must be it. Quick, everyone! Take some homeopathic treatments before we overdose on homeopathic treatments.

Comment Re:just keep in mind (Score 1) 408

If they are selling something as a remedy to an ailment, they MUST get FDA approval. They can't simply say "well we don't have the budget so we won't do that."

Airborne got in trouble for that. They sold their product as a cure for the common cold, but didn't have FDA approval. They are still selling it, but they need to be careful to not state that it cures or treats anything. They now claim it is a "nutritional supplement."

Comment Re:What a joke (Score 2) 195

Perhaps people oppose Monsanto because of this tactic:

1) Claim a patent on seeds Monsanto makes.
2) Get some farmers to buy the seeds.
2 a) Lock the farmers in by stipulating that they can't take any seeds the plant produces and plant them again next year... like people have done for thousands of years!
3) Find a nearby farmer who isn't buying Monsanto and claim they they've planted Monsanto.
4) Find one instance of their plants growing on that farmer's land. (Ignore that seeds travel by air/animals and spread... like seeds have done for millions of years!)
5) Tie up the farmer in court until they either agree to buy Monsanto or they go bankrupt.
6) Repeat 2a - 5.

Comment Re:Other animals (Score 1) 351

To expand on Group #1 a bit, we press it into a pill because this lets us extract the medicinal agent and give it at a constant dose. Suppose we found an herb tomorrow that cured cancer. Chewing this herb seemed to make tumors go into remission in many cases. Alternative medicine folks would be happy with that and would sell the herb.

Scientists go further, though. They'd study the herb, figure out just how it is curing the cancer. They would isolate the compound within the herb that does the curing and would figure out how much of a dose was needed. There would be tests to make sure that the cure didn't come with some horrible downside. ("We've cured your cancer but now you are poisoned and have only a week to live.") They'd figure out what the side effects would be. Finally, they'd make a pill with the exact dosage. Chewing the hypothetical herb might cure your cancer or give you too high or too low of a dosage. Taking the pill would give you the exact dosage every time. Finally, since the scientists would know how the herb's chemical worked, they could look for/create similar chemicals with fewer side effects or that better targeted some kinds of cancer.

Comment Re:So? (Score 3, Informative) 351

Hunger is virtually unheard of (if anything, we have more food than is good for us).

I'd disagree with hunger being virtually unheard of, but the reason I'd disagree with it supports your overall argument. There are people who go hungry (both in third world countries and in first world countries like the United States). In almost all cases, though, the problem is not "we don't have enough food to send them", but "there is plenty of food but X is preventing them from getting it" where X could be some local warlord, a natural disaster, politicians who think the solution to poverty is just "they should stop being poor", etc. In other words, the problem is mostly a human one, not a food supply one. (Side note: The amount of food waste in the United States is staggering. Food gets tossed out to rot just because it has a blemish on it and too many people want their food to be 100% blemish free.)

Comment Re:Vegans (Score 2) 1037

Actually, I was going to use Vegans as an example in another comment on this story but switched it out. I know a vegan online who was attacked by some other vegans for not being "vegan-enough." Apparently, they considered their form of Veganism to be superior to what this woman blogged about following and they took issue with the woman "claiming" to be Vegan when she wasn't following their "rules to be Vegan." It actually got quite nasty.

That being said, you're right. There are just some people who feel that they *need* to be superior to other people, that their choices in life, beliefs, etc are "obviously" superior than that other person's life choices, beliefs, etc., and that they must express this situation as loudly and rudely as possible. These kind of people are found in all religions (and lack-of-religions, aka Atheism). It's not an intrinsically religious thing, but (again, like you said) some religions encourage this behavior as a means of converting nonbelievers.

(Side note: My religion - Judaism - actually discourages evangelical behavior. If you tried to convert to Judaism, you'd be turned away three times and even if you came back, the conversion process would be hard. This isn't because we don't want people converting, but because Judaism recognizes that changing religions is a major affair and wants to ensure that people who are converting are serious about it. No "well, I'll be a Jew today and a Buddist tomorrow and maybe follow Islam on Thursday." This isn't to say that there aren't jerks in Judaism - I've met plenty of those guys - just that they don't tend to be the "we're going to convert you" types.)

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