Tech Toys, Gaming, Religious Nutters,

[tcpip]

I've been fortunate in the past couple of weeks to acquire a HP Compaq nx5000 (although I'm at a loss why the inbuilt sound card is utterly silent), a Cisco Catalyst 2900XL switch and a dodgy Canon scanner.

People would be utterly disturbed by my LAN. The workgroup is called "Woodland". The computers are "Hedgehog" (Mandrake 10.1/Windows XP dual disk dual boot), "Bunny" (Windows 2000/FreeBSD dual disk boot) and "Rat" (Red Hat Fedora Core 4, the laptop). "Squirrel" (SQL server) and "Badger" (Windows 2003 server) and "Shrew" (BSD server) are also planned. Solved my USB problems from last week with a kernel upgrade. Annoying to say the least. On a related topic CCNA studies go well, with another two modules and c85% for the exams.

Also after over twenty years of collecting, I now have a complete set of Different Worlds magazines. The elusive copy was issue 23 which I gave away as a teenager to a kid down the road who wanted to see what the 'zine was about... On a related topic have hacked out the Mimesis RPS rules into some sort of very specific rules rather than the vague ideas and concepts that I was working with. A new design group is being set up within the next twenty four hours and anyone who wants to be a playtester/designer should contact me.

Related item: brain-breaker of the week goes to a line from patchworkkid "Only in an MMORPG could I use a knife forged from ogre shit by a blind elf to murder a dwarf for his magical hat."

Apparently 'Intelligent design' an option: Nelson; yeah, for the really stupid. On the same note, there's a good anti-homophobic thread going around. I won't repeat it, because most people on my flist would already agree and have already seen it. However, I do recommend you boycott Gloria
Jeans.

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I don't have any burning issues with "Intelligent Design" or a deist sort of abstract creator in any way. The problem I have is the idea that this is taught as science.

On-topic, a letter from this morning's Age was just classic;

The ultimate proof

No woman who has ever menstruated, had menstrual difficulties e.g. bleeding fibroids or endometriosis, been pregnant, given birth, with or without complications, suffered from repeated thrush and/or cystitis infections, and especially no woman to whom all of the above applies, could find the theory of so-called "intelligent design" anything but absurd. The female plumbing system provides gilt-edged evidence of the complete absence of design, intelligent or otherwise! And as for the male plumbing system, what sort of designer would put a sewer pipe right through the middle of a playground?

Rosemary Sceats, Macleod

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Add to that, neither should any man who has suffered abdominal hernia. The nerve and blood supply goes out through the abdomen wall, and over the top/front of the pelvis and descends to the genitals. This makes perfect sense if the genitals are placed higher on the belly and you are a quadruped. Natural selection can't backtrack and change it's mind. Human intelligence can conceive many such examples of the intelligent designers lack of foresight, or limited of capability, or possibly his malevolence.

This world could be the product of an intelligent designer, but such a god could not be characterised as omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

No, certainly not benevolent....

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Ah, be fair, he could be benevolent but incompetent.

I reckon he can be two out of three, but to assert that his be all three is contrary to evidence.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Or benevolent, competent but not omniscient... Like "Damn, I would have stopped that tsunami, but I didn't see that happening! Looks like 'my program' has a few bugs in it still"..

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Any two out of three seems consistent with the world, but all three are required by the scriptures. And that's why I think a strict Christian faith is irrational.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

And that's why I think a strict Christian faith is irrational.

Ah well, the Xians I've discussed this with argue that their deity is not benevolent but "just" - and will punish!

They get upset when I tell them that their deity is a moral inferior ;-)

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the arguement: By "just" they mean there are patterns of behaviour that might lead to reduced suffering but which are unacceptible to their god, "justice" requires judgement and absolute sanction.

However, all this means is that he is constrained and not omnipotent after all. It's an old line of reasoning, there are counters, the solutions all end up being self referencial slight of hand equating god's "justice" with god's "love".

Give 'em stone and call it bread.

I'd leave them to their own devices, but the practice of their faith causes harm, so keeping an eye out and being prepared to support the ones they leave broken is important.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

but the practice of their faith causes harm,

I think you'll enjoy this bit of historical research..

http://www.buckcash.com/opinions/temp/Christian_Crimeline.htm

BTW, just subscribed you to the design@mimesisrpg.com list - however from experience I can tell you that yahoo will plonk this into the Bulk Items folder. Have a look in there and mark it as 'Not Spam'.

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Thanks, yahoo seems to have delivered to my inbox so that cool. It'll be light reading if Frankfurt is as boring as everyone suggests it can be.

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Thinking about this some more: If it's in a science curriculum, and were I science teacher obliged to teach it then it would be the ideal tool for illustrating scientific method.

What makes a scientific theory? The ability to formulate experiments the failure of which disprove the theory.

What would such an experiment look like for intelligent design? Propose contrary designs that would have been better designs, (we've seen a few). But any such experiement then includes assumptions about better, (we've judge that better means reducing human suffering). And the response is that the designer didn't judge that to be better. Fine, but any experiment can be met with that response, so there's no experiement that can fail, it's not a scientific theory.

Can this can be reduced to a sound bite and trotted out each time the matter comes up, sending them back to the prayer closet?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What makes a scientific theory? The ability to formulate experiments the failure of which disprove the theory.

*nods* Althought these days falsification is also used for normative positions (and aesthetic expressions as well, for testing personal consistency). Indeed, falsification has become de riguer for anything claiming to be a rational area of inquiry.. Whereas science is strictly about using the falsifiable model with an objectivating attitude towards the physical world.

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

True, I'm just practice penning sound-bites for the media. There's a game to be played, and I'm realising I don't want to lose.