Religion is one of those funny things that will crop up anyway, regardless of whether or not the colonists bring it with them.

I know it's sad, but hide your PhD. Most employers are scared of PhD's for multiple reasons: (1) they don't want to pay them what their credentials demand , (2) many hiring bosses are intimidated or feel threatened to have an underling with more education than they do, and (3) they are probably hesitant to invest in someone who is so highly credentialed for fear of losing them when a sweet offer comes around. Sad, I know. But I'd go ahead and hide the PhD. (Disclaimer: I'm working on mine now)

I'd be happy to work with you on this. Send me an email: jrp09a AT acu DOT edu

I teach HCI at a college in Texas. I have used this book to provide background information for my lectures, but I've never had them read it. Frankly, we just don't have time in an undergrad class to read Design of Everyday Things (Norman) and Don't Make Me Think (Krug) and discuss and apply in a single undergrad semester. However, next year I'm going to teach a second semester of the course for the first time, and I think I'll finally get to dig into DWMIM (especially now that there's a second edition).

No one said anything about proof of "god." Obviously, you have never encountered the academic study of religion. I shall educate you.

We don't deal in unreliable facts. We don't attempt to figure out "god's wants, plans, etc." Rather, we use history (as in real, verifiable evidence from outside of the sacred texts), archaeology, paleography, sociology, and textual criticism (the same that medieval scholars use when looking at manuscripts of Chaucer) in order to get at a best guess for the author's original intent. Perhaps it may surprise you, but we can actually arrive at some meaningful and verifiable conclusions with regard to how people perceived their world, their neighbors, their gods, and the rituals they performed. It's an invaluable window into the past. However, this does not in any way require proof of "god." It only requires people who believed in that particular deity and their texts (or artifacts) about him/her.

Hi there. I happen to have multiple graduate degrees in the field of Hebrew Bible. I'm an academic. Hopefully I can shed some light on this.

At first glance, it does indeed seem like the God in the text is a giant a-hole. Why put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden in the first place? To answer that, we need to lay some ground work to properly interpret the story:

1) Remember that the ancients did not have a scientific worldview. Today we understand that things I drop to the ground fall because of gravity. Gravity works because the Earth is a huge sphere with an enormous amount of mass. The sun sets and rises because the Earth rotates. Seasons progress at the rate they do because the Earth rotates around the Sun. In other words, life is orderly and predictable because the laws of Physics, Chemistry, etc, are orderly and predictable. But the ancients had no knowledge of this. Instead, they explained the world through mythology. So, in the Ancient Near East, the reason the world is orderly is because a long time ago, the "good gods" came in and beat up/killed/banished the "bad gods" and then set up order in the universe (e.g. the Marduk/Tiamat myth of Babylon, or the Baal/Mot myth of Caanan).

2) Genesis is written in the form of Ancient Near Eastern creation myths. Those ancient creation myths wanted to explain this fundamental question: "Why does the world work the way it does?" Genesis answers that question: A long time ago, God (YHWH) came upon pure chaos (the Hebrew of the passage makes that very clear. Google: "Genesis tohu vevohu"). He then systematically pushes it back to create perfect order. This is why the world works the way it does...because God set it up in order.

3) The Bible never claims that God is omniscient. In fact, good Jewish/Christian theology claims that he's not. Does God have all power? If he does, then (low hanging fruit) he could make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it. But then that's a logical impossibility. Here's a better question: could the God of the Bible create a being with free will and force that being to love God? The answer is no. So by definition, there is at least one thing (maybe two, if you count the rock example) that God cannot do. So, a better formulation of God's state is that (according to the Hebrew Bible) "God has all the power that can be had, but some things cannot be accomplished by power."

So now we're ready to talk about the garden (which is, remember, more like a story or a parable). God creates these two beings and puts them into paradise. Imagine a world where there is nothing bad and you KNOW that God exists (because you talk to him frequently). So now how exactly does God let them choose to love God or not? (Because remember: there must be a choice) The answer (at least, the ancient Hebrews) was to place a clear choice before Adam and Eve. The Tree represents free will. And the Tree represents the choice that everyone makes in whether or not they will love God or turn their backs. To the ancient Hebrews who wrote this story (probably finalized from earlier oral tradition around 500 BCE), the clear choice between following God or not had been made when the people of Judah chose to follow other gods. Thus, God kicked them out of the garden (the "promised land") and sent them into exile into a hurting world. The garden story is not just one which orients the reader to the world, but specifically to the present world (the one they lived in at the time).

Let me know if you have any questions. This isn't a sacred cow to me. Cheers.

What does "As Whoever57 pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP pointed out, there are some who will still get support for Microsoft Windows XP" mean?? Who's editing these stories?

From wikipedia: Btrfs (B-tree file system) is a GPL-licensed experimental copy-on-write file system for Linux. (I'm sure a lot of people were wondering what it is, since TFA doesn't say)

We'd be immortal, sure, but we'd be sad all the time, have incredibly low birthrates, watch some lesser race take over the world, and then sail into the west. What kind of life is that?

Why would they cure cancer when they can join a start-up and possibly get bought out by the titans? The draw of the Valley is that you can be a millionaire by the time you're 24. This isn't "rocket surgery."

I had an iPhone 4S and I upgraded to iOS7. I noticed the slower animations and choppier UI right away. It was one of the things that made me very happy that I was ready for an upgrade. My new iPhone 5S performs perfectly, with the smooth UI and animations that I have come to expect from Apple. It seems like the older hardware just can't support it.

Welcome to Zombocom! www.zombo.com

Everyone wants to live forever, but death is the natural way of selection within the species. If death was "cured" then the species would stagnate. Leadership would not change. Younger generations would continuously be stuck at the bottom of the heap (or, at least, in their place within the heap). Imagine working at the same job forever, never getting promoted or increased in pay. Now that wouldn't be eternal life. It'd be Hell.

Me too! Every blasted time.