There's a bumper sticker out that says, "We are Microsoft. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." When things like this and this show up in the news on the same day, I really think that bumper sticker is not so funny. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want ads in my applications, even it does allow me to get free Wi-Fi access.
We now have a computer that can play checkers (draughts in the UK) and never lose, and a car with AI.
I'm curious as to how a goddess can sin. Shouldn't their goddess being telling her priests what is, or is not, a sin?
Meanwhile, a couple of thought-provoking things in Newsweek: I See Dead People, and Rabbi Marc Gellman's take on near death experiences. Rabbi Gellman postulates that research into NDE's is dangerous from both a religious and a scientific standpoint. I have read his arguments, and I have to disagree. I don't see any danger to either. Quite frankly, I do think that it is a waste of time and money, but I fail to see the danger. I don't expect that the research will ever find definitive proof one way or the other about the afterlife. That is a matter of faith. There is the idea of placing objects in the ER out of sight of the clinicly dead individual, to see if said individual remembers seeing them in their recollections of their out-of-body experience. Interesting thought, but a good number of NDE'rs don't report seeing the ER from the ceiling, and most of the ones that do are focused on their own bodies, with some attention given to the medical team attempting to revive them. If someone does get revived, and then recalls seeing the number for Dial-A-Prayer written on the top of the ER room light fixture, is that sufficient proof that they had an out-of-body experience? It would be quite a stretch to consider that proof of life after death. I must admit, I have a certain amount of curiosity as to whether the experiences reported by NDE'rs are real, or simply elaborate hallucinations, but, IMHO, it really only matters to the people who went through it.
I do appreciate the fact that Rabbi Gellman states that Genesis tells us why we are here, while Darwin tells us how we are here, and goes on to say that they do not conflict. I'm not entirely sure that they don't conflict, but they can co-exist. The bottom line is that religion tells us that God made the universe, and then made man; science attempts to explain the process by which God did that. I do think that people on both sides tend to get a little too serious. There has been some discussion as to whether the 6 days mentioned in Genesis are literally six twenty-four hour periods of time. It seems to me, that since God didn't create the sun and moon until the fourth day, that isn't talking about a day in the sense of sun-up to sun-rise. Also note that in 2nd Peter 3:8, the scriptures tell us that, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." So, am I saying that creation actually took 6,000 years, instead of six days? No, I'm saying that time, with God, is pretty insignificant, even though, with us, it seems vastly important. 6 days, 6,000 years, 6,000 millennia; it's all the same to God. At the same time, the evolutionists insist that mutations happen randomly, but when a random mutation happens to benefit the species, then the mutant strain becomes dominant. If the mutation is not beneficial, then it quietly fades away. They readily admit that most mutation are harmful. That makes evolution a painfully long process, doesn't it? Quite frankly, the odds against humanity evolving by the process of natural selection would seem to be astronomical, and yet, the evolutionists tell us that this must be the case. Look, it's a theory. Granted, right now, that's the most plausible scientific explanation for how we came to be here that anybody has been able to come up with so far, but it is a long way from being considered scientific fact. Don't get all in an uproar if some people challenge its veracity. I can understand that some people are still upset that Galileo Galilei was placed under house arrest by the church for suggesting that the earth orbited the sun (even though I still haven't found any scripture that contradicts him), but that was a long time ago, by people that didn't like having their beliefs challenged. You should be able to empathize with that.
We now have a computer that can play checkers (draughts in the UK) and never lose, and a car with AI.
I'm curious as to how a goddess can sin. Shouldn't their goddess being telling her priests what is, or is not, a sin?
Meanwhile, a couple of thought-provoking things in Newsweek: I See Dead People, and Rabbi Marc Gellman's take on near death experiences. Rabbi Gellman postulates that research into NDE's is dangerous from both a religious and a scientific standpoint. I have read his arguments, and I have to disagree. I don't see any danger to either. Quite frankly, I do think that it is a waste of time and money, but I fail to see the danger. I don't expect that the research will ever find definitive proof one way or the other about the afterlife. That is a matter of faith. There is the idea of placing objects in the ER out of sight of the clinicly dead individual, to see if said individual remembers seeing them in their recollections of their out-of-body experience. Interesting thought, but a good number of NDE'rs don't report seeing the ER from the ceiling, and most of the ones that do are focused on their own bodies, with some attention given to the medical team attempting to revive them. If someone does get revived, and then recalls seeing the number for Dial-A-Prayer written on the top of the ER room light fixture, is that sufficient proof that they had an out-of-body experience? It would be quite a stretch to consider that proof of life after death. I must admit, I have a certain amount of curiosity as to whether the experiences reported by NDE'rs are real, or simply elaborate hallucinations, but, IMHO, it really only matters to the people who went through it.
I do appreciate the fact that Rabbi Gellman states that Genesis tells us why we are here, while Darwin tells us how we are here, and goes on to say that they do not conflict. I'm not entirely sure that they don't conflict, but they can co-exist. The bottom line is that religion tells us that God made the universe, and then made man; science attempts to explain the process by which God did that. I do think that people on both sides tend to get a little too serious. There has been some discussion as to whether the 6 days mentioned in Genesis are literally six twenty-four hour periods of time. It seems to me, that since God didn't create the sun and moon until the fourth day, that isn't talking about a day in the sense of sun-up to sun-rise. Also note that in 2nd Peter 3:8, the scriptures tell us that, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." So, am I saying that creation actually took 6,000 years, instead of six days? No, I'm saying that time, with God, is pretty insignificant, even though, with us, it seems vastly important. 6 days, 6,000 years, 6,000 millennia; it's all the same to God. At the same time, the evolutionists insist that mutations happen randomly, but when a random mutation happens to benefit the species, then the mutant strain becomes dominant. If the mutation is not beneficial, then it quietly fades away. They readily admit that most mutation are harmful. That makes evolution a painfully long process, doesn't it? Quite frankly, the odds against humanity evolving by the process of natural selection would seem to be astronomical, and yet, the evolutionists tell us that this must be the case. Look, it's a theory. Granted, right now, that's the most plausible scientific explanation for how we came to be here that anybody has been able to come up with so far, but it is a long way from being considered scientific fact. Don't get all in an uproar if some people challenge its veracity. I can understand that some people are still upset that Galileo Galilei was placed under house arrest by the church for suggesting that the earth orbited the sun (even though I still haven't found any scripture that contradicts him), but that was a long time ago, by people that didn't like having their beliefs challenged. You should be able to empathize with that.
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