₦airaland Forum

Karl Marx said that Religion is the opium of the masses.

I'm not into opium and I'm not part of the masses

snazzydawn:
Euthanasia is a crime punishable by law.It is called suicide.The punishment for attempted suicide is hanging!!!!funny though,but goes a long way to show that it is frowned at by the law.You don't have the right to take life,not even your own!!!

Shows just how stupid laws can be.

Don't know why, but this makes me think of a scene from Monty Pythons 'The Holy Grail'
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-05.htm

The question is whether or not is should be a crime. There are no reasons, except for the ones springing from a religious morality, why suicide and in extension euthanasia should be considered a crime.

I own my life, nobody else does.

snazzydawn:
Personally,I don't support it because it is suicide.You don't have the right the right to take life,not even your life.

So basically, you're imposing your religious belief on me or am I misreading you?

layi:
And what exactly is chance? Is that conclusive in itself? Can chance create anything? Is chance a tangible object? Whats is the source/origin of chance?

Chance is an approximate process that works in the natural world. Ultimately, chance probably finds it's origins in quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, I do not have the knowledge to answer that question in any satisfactory manner.

Chance certainly is not something physical that can be a cause by itself.

layi:
I guess chance simply means "It just happened by itself". In this case someone made it happen.

Not necessarily. It may easily have an impersonal cause, even an non-deterministic cause.

layi:
U can sleep wit your wife and impregnate her. However u can't always impregnate her everytime you sleep with her because several other factors contribute to your success.

Yes, and?

layi:
Its not within your sole jurisdiction.

Obviously not. On the level of analysis: making love causes a pregnancy, you can bring chance in the picture and even factor it according to the influencing factors that contribute to it. You cannot be so reductionistic though that you would capture all contributing factors and their interaction. You go by a higher level of analysis and introduce probability (chance) to complete your model.

layi:
Now,saying your wife got pregnant by chance is fallacious and highly elusive. Chance can't create a thing.

No but if you don't have a deterministic or fully knowable world chance is a factor that allows you to model what you study.

Now, that critique on the concept of chance does not lessen the fact that repeating an experiment allows you to have a higher confidence in a causal relationship between 2 events.

Hi Seun,

It's great that you want to discuss this openly in the Nairaland community. I would encourage you to split this thread up in a few threads that discuss the different topics at hand.

- maintenance (technical & possible staff requirements)
- moderation and rules (how to create a self-organising system)
- interface improvements (technically you're very close to the optimum, but needs serious usability enhancements)
- features (do you want to create a portal? Do you need editorial content? Do you want to offer services such as webmail, etc?)

What do you think?

I like your approach wahalaman. It is your actions that make you what you are, not your words.

If God is love whitout any other ballast attached, hey, maybe even I can believe in God

jogego:
In simple terms, am not a geek and I find Linux much more user friendly than BSD

That I can understand. BSD is for the hardcore geeks - something like Linux 10 years ago

@ jogego
Why would you need to use a Linux distribution if you've got BSD under the hood of your Mac?

I'm all in favor of it. A person has ultimately owns his own life.
Of course, if you need the help of someone in one way or another, this complicates matters seriously. That's why the systems that have been implemented in Belgium and the Netherlands offer sufficient protection for the individual undergoing euthanasia, as well as for the doctors assisting in the euthanasia. It is important that the demand for euthanasia is well examined and that it is the result of a thorough reflection as well as a sustained demand.
Obviously one can never force a doctor in assisting in euthanasia is this is contrary to his or her convictions.

Terminally ill people that suffer horrendous physical or mental pains should not be forced to live against their will.

We should be very careful in setting up these systems though, so that e.g. the pressure of the family in one direction (e.g. waiting for an inheritance) or another (religious conviction does not allow euthanasia) does not influence the process

If you use your computer in a business setting, your TCO (total cost of ownership) will be lower if you choose a Mac. Apple tightly controls it's hardware and that results in [i]waaay [/i]less hardware problems. The OS is much cleaner and less prone to clutter than Windows, which will lead to less time spent in troubleshooting the OS/software.

The overall productivity that you can reach with the OS (here I'm talking about mac OS 9 and before, haven't used OSX is a productive environment yet), is way higher than with windows. It's easier to automate and the context sensitive, spatial OS allows fine control over file management tasks.

I used to do high volume html authoring on an OS9 machine with BBEdit (which has got unix-like grep functionalities) in tandem with some graphics jobs using Photoshop. You are really highly efficient using a Mac setup. Using a Windows PC with Allaire Homesite and Photoshop didn't even come close in terms of productivity.

layi:
Should the fact that it can't be done repeatedly nullify the fact that it was done?

If it cannot be done repeatedly, it could be attributed to chance

If you can prove to cause something that natural means cannot cause and that are statistically highly improbable (e.g. by being able to do it a few times in a row), you will have a case.

mikebuddy:
Oh i c.

Maybe you should read more long posts

Nowhere did I say that any of those chosen paths is a guarantee for success

@layi

The conditions for the Randi chalenge are quite clear. The judge would not be anyone of the Randi foundations, but an independent person, upon agreement by both partners.
It seems obvious that those people don't want to subject themselves to independent scrutiny and already presuppose a paranormal explanation, without even investigating the actual source of the event.

A science eductation is the shortest path to knowledge
An art education is the shortest path to wisdom
A commercial education is the shortest path to riches

Choose what is most important to you (You need all in one degree or another)

timmy:
can science really explain dejavu's and dreams,

that depends on what you call exlain, but in most cases, yes.

timmy:
can science explain people who can fortell the future,

Can people foretell the future? I think not.

timmy:
can science explain voodo,

Depends on what you call voodoo

timmy:
i live in africa where voodoo is sure real, ive seen it LIVE, no stories or what haveyou, not even illusions

If you can find any credible claims of the supernatural, take up the Randi challenge: http://www.randi.org/research/
There's a million US dollars for the taking.

timmy:
OMG wtf was that, why you call God a thing, gosh you make me sick, im really in the mood to blast, lash and scold you, but illd hold back not witstanding the vex in me.. and don't expect me to let out, the agro we had over the tdaves gay issue is enough..

I wrote that first as in such a thing as a supreme being and I removed that last part. Sorry if I offended you sensibilities, it was not intentional. But still, why would that be reason for such a reaction?

timmy:
But guy u sure believe in the supernatural right, tell me au science can beat that. and tell me why science still find it difficult to read dreams, or even read minds (even the lie detector is not 100% accurate

I do not believe in the supernatural at all. Science is gradually, but definitely moving into area's that were once believed to be supernatural. I am convinced that there will be few things left that science cannot explain. Now, science only deals with the [i]how [/i]questions, not with the [i]why [/i]questions, unless you're looking at direct causality, but that has little to do with ultimate meaning or purpose.
Anyway, I, personally, do not need the concept of a supreme being to make sense of the world. I can accept that some people do need that, for several reasons. That does not mean that people that do not share my outlook on life need to belittle me or scoff at me because I do not believe in something that rationally makes no sense.

@ dejiolowe

I have already explained in a few other threads what my motivations are, but I am usually only replying to people that make claims that they cannot convincingly substantiate. Many here have tried to convert me. I am answering their questions to the best of my abilities and usually, they walk away from the debate after a few rounds. With some people (e.g. chrisd, layi, nicetohave) I have had really meaningful conversations and that alone makes it worth the effort.
The main reason why I continuously enter in these debates, is that I want to understand why people believe.

Can you explain me how I invite someone to a contest that I believe not to exist?

timmy:
so nferyn, if i may ask "WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE GOD AS AN EXISTENCE"?

No need to shout (typing in all caps = shouting). I do not believe in God, because there is absolutely no reason to believe in such a thing.