Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: funkedup on July 16, 2003, 02:48:47 PM
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Was re-reading Cryptonomicon again and I bookmarked a few quotes. I love this one:
To translate it into UNIX system administration terms ... the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack. They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability."
Enjoy. :)
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LOL, sorta like skipping church on sundays or becoming a monk?
:D
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Tax the churches
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Perk the Monk!
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man pages?!?!
we don't need no steenkeeng man pages!!
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man life | more
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They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability
Church is about as adaptable as my wife when i ask for a threesome. Other then half assed unix analogy ( readme.txt ? ), it's all crap.
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And you find that quote logical?
funky... funky... funky....
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HP-UX 11i
# make love
Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.
# cat food
cat: Cannot open food: No such file or directory
# man life
No manual entry for life.
:D
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Originally posted by midnight Target
And you find that quote logical?
The theory expressed in that quote fits nicely with my personal observations of the behavior of PC puritans and religious people in an academic environment (the original context). When observations fit theory, good times. And even if it didn't fit, it's great troll material.
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step1: loot you local church, donate half of "winnings" to the homeless
step2...
step3. profit.
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Originally posted by funkedup
The theory expressed in that quote fits nicely with my personal observations of the behavior of PC puritans and religious people in an academic environment (the original context). When observations fit theory, good times. And even if it didn't fit, it's great troll material.
I'll need more hazelnut in my coffee before I can even begin to contemplate that.
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Originally posted by fd ski
Church is about as adaptable as my wife when i ask for a threesome.
So what did she say?
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Originally posted by mietla
So what did she say?
"Transsexuals are OUT OF THE QUESTION Bartek!" :D
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Sex for Unix gurus:
who; gawk; talk; nice; date; wine; grep; unzip; strip; touch; finger; more; yes; mount; fsck; umount; make clean; sleep
me@myMachine:~> ssh girl
Password:
me@girl:~> gcc -w -o relationship love.c sex.c understanding.c
me@girl:~> relationship
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
me@girl:~> logout
me@myMachine:~> cd pub
me@myMachine:~/pub> more beer
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This whole thread makes me want to
rm -rf *
then
sync;sync;halt
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That quote deserves its rightful place among the worst analogies ever written (http://www.truestupidity.com/analogies.htm). What else can you say about it beyond simply restating it?
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
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As an atheist, I'd like to score the original post.
7 for tone, 1 for applicability, and a 10 for originality.
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Originally posted by Erlkonig
That quote deserves its rightful place among the worst analogies ever written (http://www.truestupidity.com/analogies.htm). What else can you say about it beyond simply restating it?
Let me splain it to ya:
Atheists - Have no documentation. When faced with a novel situation, must make up rules arbitrarily and on the spot.
Religious Folks - Have documentation. When faced with a novel situation, can use documentation to quickly find applicable rules.
Now chug a beer as penalty.
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Originally posted by funkedup
Let me splain it to ya:
Atheists - Have no documentation. When faced with a novel situation, must make up rules arbitrarily and on the spot.
Religious Folks - Have documentation. When faced with a novel situation, can use documentation to quickly find applicable rules.
Now chug a beer as penalty.
You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church.
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church.
Holy straw man, Batman. :)
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He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
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LOL
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Bah... religious people are windoze users, they just have faith it will boot, faith it will work, the error messages are f***n parables and you have to perform all sorts of voodoo mojo around it when it fails.
A proper UNIX admin doesn't need a god... c'mon...
he is god on his machine, all powerful, omniscient, no process can run whitout him knowing, no file, device, cron job or driver can escape his scrutiny...
BOW BEFORE ME, FOR I AM ROOT
:D
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Originally posted by takeda
BOW BEFORE ME, FOR I AM ROOT
:D
NERD! NERD! OHMYGAWDIMSURROUNDEDBYNERDS!
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Sandman sayeth:
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church.
He didn't say good or bad... just that they're made up. Didn't say religious rules were good or bad, just that they exist and are applied.
Must you apply a moral judgement to everything? I mean, come on! You sound like some religious nut!
:D
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My morals are my own. I try not to judge the morals of anyone else. :)
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Originally posted by funkedup
Let me splain it to ya:
Atheists - Have no documentation. When faced with a novel situation, must make up rules arbitrarily and on the spot.
Religious Folks - Have documentation. When faced with a novel situation, can use documentation to quickly find applicable rules.
Now chug a beer as penalty.
No, that's not it either. The dude was talking about Puritans and rigor mortis and church-going sys admins and some ****...wtf that has to do with atheists running civilization I don't know?
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Ok, you want to turn this into 'Atheists by their very nature can't are morally handicapped'?
Riddle me this: You have two people working on the side of the freeway collecting garbage. One of them is someone assigned to do it by a judge, and the other is a volunteer who wants a cleaner freeway.
Which one do you admire more? The person who HAS to do it (at the risk of facing consequences if he doesn't) or the person who CHOOSES to do it because they just think it's the right thing to do?
Once you've answered that, tell me why a religious type who does good (because they'll go to hell if they don't) is better then an atheist who does good (who has no hell to or anything to worry about)?
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Originally posted by Erlkonig
No, that's not it either. The dude was talking about Puritans and rigor mortis and church-going sys admins and some ****...wtf that has to do with atheists running civilization I don't know?
No, that IS it. Ya gotta read the book. Cryptonomicon, available anywhere fine books are sold. :)
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And yeah it's not a perfect analogy, but it's not that bad, and it's easier to troll if you don't have to make up your own material. You should read the book though, which doesn't have all that much to do with God Stuff or trolling or PC or anything like that.
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Originally posted by banana
This whole thread makes me want to
rm -rf *
then
sync;sync;halt
su root
rm -rf /
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Originally posted by straffo
su root
rm -rf /
that's cheating! You need a password for that.
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hehe :)
I've seen a friend doing that on a production computer of the Paris stock exchange (SBF)... imagine the drama :D
And he is no more working at the SBF :p
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sure, I bet most people's password for root login is "root" :)
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"You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church."
yep... and ya know... 1,000 athiests will develop 1,000 different moral compass's... each will seem to be "good" by those who hold them. All will find the other 999 athiests to have some extremely unaceptable morals.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
"You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
yep... and ya know... 1,000 athiests will develop 1,000 different moral compass's... each will seem to be "good" by those who hold them. All will find the other 999 athiests to have some extremely unaceptable morals.
lazs
Everybody gotta believe something. I believe two things.
1. I believe Lazs knows nothing about anything
2. I believe I'll have another beer.
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Bah.
sudo "nohup rm -rf / > /dev/null 2&>1 &"
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just login as root....makes crap much easier....pffft su/sudo worthless commands.
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Originally posted by devious
Bah.
sudo "nohup rm -rf / > /dev/null 2&>1 &"
pfff ....
Start Menu -> execute -> cmd.exe
;)
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Originally posted by lazs2
"You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church."
yep... and ya know... 1,000 athiests will develop 1,000 different moral compass's... each will seem to be "good" by those who hold them. All will find the other 999 athiests to have some extremely unaceptable morals.
lazs
And the exact same thing can be said about religious-types too.
SOB
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church.
The real question is how does your self defined morality hold up when contrasted to God who is Holy?:)
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Which morals exactly are exclusive to the Christian church? Or any church for that matter?
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Originally posted by Rude
The real question is how does your self defined morality hold up when contrasted to God who is Holy?:)
I'm sorry... I just can't get past the "God is..." part. :p
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Oh... and if there was indeed a god, morality would most certainly not apply to him/her. One of the perks of the job... :D
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Let me get this right: You spend a lifetime killing and torturing people, but on your deathbed you have a real moment of religious conversion and honestly repent your sins and ask for forgiveness. Not just a sham, but to the bottom of your heart.
Now, even though you may have killed hundreds and raped and tortured your way through life, you go to heaven?
Yep, great moral compass! Go religion!
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My PC doesn't believe in God. It's distressing to say the least, so I called Tech support. They said I needed more RAM. So I installed another 256 meg stick, and the PC was finaly able to reach agnosticism, which was step in the rigth direction. So I called tech support, and they wanted to sell me a new processor, but by now it just seemed like a big scam, so I opted not to buy it. I'm affraid my PC is going to hell :(
-Sik
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arfan said.... "Everybody gotta believe something. I believe two things.
1. I believe Lazs knows nothing about anything
2. I believe I'll have another beer."
I say... everybody got to believe in something and I believe that both athiests and religious types have something in common.... neither has much imagination so far as humor goes. Both are "allmost hip"... right on the edge, their current humorous phrase hasn't been heard by someone in the wilds of africa more than a dozen time yet and is therefore still "current" and "hip".
lazs
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FunkedUp wrote:
Let me splain it to ya:
Atheists - Have no documentation. When faced with a novel situation, must make up rules arbitrarily and on the spot.
Religious Folks - Have documentation. When faced with a novel situation, can use documentation to quickly find applicable rules.
Now chug a beer as penalty.
You got it slightly wrong FunkedUp:
Atheists with a scientific background: Have a phenomenon. Study it and try to create rules that reliably can replicate or simulate or otherwise explain it. Failure = trashing the rule.
Atheists generally: Do not assume there is ONE rule that fits the occurence.
Very Religious Folks: have a preset very limited and narrow set of rules which they try to make fit to a phenomenon.
Religious Folks: Believe there is one predefined rule that will at least to some extent cover the phenomenon.
Lazs wrote:
yep... and ya know... 1,000 athiests will develop 1,000 different moral compass's... each will seem to be "good" by those who hold them. All will find the other 999 athiests to have some extremely unaceptable morals.
This is moral relativism taken to an extreme. Atheists of a scientific background will recognize that the human animal is a social one for which the group is of great importance. Like with other social animals, certain rules develop that helps maintain group survivability, integrity and progress. These same rules are described by religious people as 'the Will Of God(s)'. It may be hard to believe, but Jesus wasn't the first individual who realized that running around and killing people left and right would create an unstable group that easily would be stomped out by competing entities.
In most western societies atheists will have the same basic moral values as religious people. The difference is what it is based on - for religious people it is based on faith and for some atheists it's on an iterative and incremental series of judgements based on experience. Religious people have a harder time living what they preach because it is clearly defined whereas atheists will have a harder time creating a moral compass since there are no given answers.
Choirboy: do you believe it is wrong to kill another human needlessly? What?!? So do I! And I bet lazs or ripsnort (representing the religious folks) would agree. So not only do we ahve two atheists (who'd represent different morals), but also an agreement between them and religious people. Truly amazing.
I call organized religion a tool of control and opression but this must not be confused with individual beliefs. Personal spiritual beliefs are mostly something positive in my experience. I sure would like to be able to believe in an afterlife; however, the criteria for my spiritual life is the same as for the rest of my life. My personal opinion (and take it as that) is that it is the religious who apply different standards; demanding proof that his car is safe, yet not that possibility for life everafter is as certain. Faith is a very mystical thing to me. I do not have faith my my main canopy or even my reserve; I'm betting the odds and hoping for the best. Wish I had faith in many things as it'd make life considerably much easier.
But dudes, when it comes down to it we share the same values and we each think we're smarter than each other. Religion is dominant in many parts of the world and it is only recently that non theists have had an opportunity to speak out without risking severe punishment. I do not find it odd that secularists fight very hard to keep the little gains it has made in the last few hundred years in the western world.
We're the same in another respect, atheists and religious people .I'm smug because I'm the hard science dude with all the nifty science arguments; religious people are smug because they've experienced the divine, and explaining the divine is like telling a colourblind person what a sunset looks like. The atheists (me) best argument is 'PROVE it!' whereas the religious persons is 'explain THIS! you can't, can ya?!?'. Science isn't the sword of the non theist or the enemy of religion; it's a methodology used to explain things which works remarkably well and cuts through bull****e said by an atheist with the same grace at it cuts through ridiculous religious crap.
As long as you keep religion outta laws and other things that directly affect me and my loved ones I have no problem with it as it gives me a reason to feel smug. You religious people should be happy that I exist so you can experience the same smugness. it's nice, ainnit? :)
Lazs, my lack of faith didn't come from being hip or whatever. I just don't have one. Maybe that makes me boring. I don't believe in anything like you believe in a god. Money isn't my god. Status isn't either. There isn't anything I believe in or experience like that. It's a non issue and my lack of theism doesn't affect me one way or the other in the way I handle people on a daily basis - 90% of those I know know nothing of my lack of faith and I bring it up only if they initiate a discussion, knowing that a) it is tedious to the extreme b) being right or being wrong won't change a thing as there is no being right or wrong or if there is we'll either know or not know depending on the answer (once we die that is) and c) it tends to piss friends off if they're believers.
I'm jsut glad that religion isn't very much of an issue in the country where I live. It's personal here, which is the way I like it. Despite having a state church (which I'd like toget rid of :))
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my PC thinks im god and thats they ways i like it.
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Originally posted by StSanta
You got it slightly wrong FunkedUp:
I don't think so. Read the book again. It's during the part when Waterhouse is at his house after the earthquake. I think my interpretation is what the author was trying to say.
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In a very real sense you are a god Fr4gm@n.
Don't let it get to your head though. I wiped out a dozen villages in a computer game when that happened.
Need to work on my 'Muahahahah' laughter though.
FunkedUp
Oh the quote you probably got right, but the opinion or conclusion you (and maybe the author) got out is a bit off to the side IMHO. See my previous post for just an example as how the situation might be interpreted instead - one of many answers, covering some more areas or hypothetical situations/answers. I think the author had a smug grin on his face and was enjoying himself and it sure is amusing to read, I'll grant you that :)
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stsanta. I am not religious. I do not believe in organized religion for myself.. I have no problem with others having organized religion so long as it does not affect me in an adverse way.
I believe that we all have the same basic moral compass in civilized countries simply because we all have the same religious background or at least... have been expossed to it. You won't find many people in the U.S. who don't know about religion or the 10 commandments say. Most of our laws have their base in religion so... it has had, and continues to have, a huge effect on how we develop morally..
Those who decide on atheism still have this religious background and peer pressure that has formed their morales.
I believe that the quote was pointing out that the atheists are confused because in their effort to distance themselves from religious teachings and morals they tend to get into "grey" areas.. The grey areas cause indecision.
I was merely saying that the atheists have problems drawing the line at the same place amongst themselves... they overthink it. I believe that is all the author was saying.
Take sex for instance... same sex? sodomy? group sex? underage sex? bestiality... etc. etc.. for religious people the path is pretty clear... the atheist however, gets bogged down. A group of atheists.... well, you get the point.
lazs
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
You know... and you may find this difficult to believe, but it's true...
It is possible to develop good values and a moral compass in the absence of church.
How could you possibly know? Western civilization has been permeated with religious influence for millinnea as has eastern. Not saying it isn't possible but I think that's a rather ignorant assumption.
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Originally posted by lazs2
Take sex for instance... same sex? sodomy? group sex? underage sex? bestiality... etc. etc.. for religious people the path is pretty clear... the atheist however, gets bogged down. A group of atheists.... well, you get the point.
lazs
Not really, Atheist views are more pragmatic and down to earth. For example, same sex falls into the Darwin theories, if same sex relationships are to be considered a genetic trait then there is no natural course for them to propagate. Sodomy: disease spreading and potential dangerous (asked Funked about he's bleed butt). Beastiality, same thing again. Underage sex: depends what you call underage, for the young stuff potential life threatening wounds or sterilisation from wounds. Group sex: spread of disease. Cannibilism: spread of disease.
Its common mistake, a simplistic take on atheism simply because many 'organised' religion followers don't think through some of the rationale for their beliefs. At the root of most religion is a governance of sorts AND some basic guidelines to ensure survival and propagation of a group. At the time of the birth of many religions it was hard to enforce these practical guidelines, unless you threw in a pile of mysticism and scared the populace into following them.
There are very straighforward reasons for not doing certain 'sins', perhaps the difference between the atheist and 'organised' (generalisation coming up) religious follower is the atheist has the ability to think it through for themselves?
What it all boils down to is the most basic genetic instincts, that is survival and propogation of the species and ones own gene pool.
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Oh, it too make it more interesting, take a look at Buddhism. Its an Atheistic religion (Buddhists do not necessarily believe in a god), and the basic premise is you choose whats right and wrong (with the idea being you keep getting reborn til you get it right). It doesn't set out guidelines or rules, but allows the follower to make their own decisions, relying on the fact they know whats wrong in their heart.
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my cats breath smells like catfood.
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As is stated above, beastiality is bad for you, stop french-kissing your cat.
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vulcan... I think you proved my point. I would guess that 999 other atheists would dissagree about where you draw the line so far as sex is concerned. for instance... "depends on how old" will mean different things to different athiests. those organizations like mambla (or whatever the acronym is) that believe that sex with underage boys is a good thing are either atheists or religious people not following their doctrine. In your explanation of just a few pof the varied sex acts you got boged down using terms like "depends".
I am not saying that everything is, or even should be black and white and dictated by organized religion, only that the author was making avalid point.
lazs
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what laz and akiron said ...
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So, you and the author really don't have any point then. Just as 100 athiests can have 100 different views, so can 100 catholics...unless you think all catholics live strictly by the edict of the church. The ones to don't follow the edicts either can't or don't because they pick and choose what to believe and/or follow. And who's to say that athiests have it harder because they don't have a book that spells out common sense for them?
SOB
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no... sob... no one is saying that. The author is saying that athiests get bogged down. He is correct too by my observation.. Athiests have to draw on their religious background in order to have basic morals and then... If they wish to be different from religious teachings...they have to make all new rules. Making new rules is difficult and time consuming and fraught with contradiction and paradox.
No one is saying who is right or wrong.... Only how it is.
lazs
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My point is that most religious types suffer through the same process, choosing which rules to follow (generally the common sense rules) and which rules to modify or do away with entirely. I'm not saying who's right or wrong either, since neither way of life is right or wrong.
SOB
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Originally posted by SOB
My point is that most religious types suffer through the same process,
SOB
Heh last time I saw the Catholic Church had no problems in choosing whats right or wrong. As long as they're a choir-boy its perfectly ok :D
I don't know anyone who's 'bogged' down by the atheist beliefs. In fact the third largest religion in the world (Buddhism) is doing just fine without a deity. Lazs you're choosing examples where other factors come to be (such as being nuts) and it doesn't matter whether you follow a deity or not (see above example).
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lazs2:
No one is saying who is right or wrong.... Only how it is.
No, you're saying what you think it is. I'm an atheist, and I never have any trouble deciding what I think is right and wrong, no matter how grey the area. If anything, a religious type would have a harder time because they need to figure out what someone ELSE (God) thinks is right and wrong.
I have no problem being an atheist, and I know I'm a good enough guy. I give to charity, I had a wheelchair ramp built for my neighbor this week who has no money, I'm nice to children and I don't litter. Who could ask for anything more?
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Careful... you don't want to squash the great christian myth that atheists aren't good people.
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Originally posted by Chairboy
Who could ask for anything more?
Toyota!