I am now officially a geek.

[kickaha]

Facetop (complete with my picture) got a mention in the reader letter column of the current issue of Macworld.

hee

Comments

No...

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

It now means you have fanboys at large. :)

You distracted me IRL... :)

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

You were born with a geek card, love.

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

So where's the link to the picture?

[arthane.livejournal.com]

Woot! Pictures, pictures!

Letter posted here...

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginkgo/25986.html

[code-slave.livejournal.com]

Niiiiiiice!! Y'know, it reminds me how so many inventions resemble things from futuristic sci-fi. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Power of suggestion? Or maybe the sci-fi folks really *do* know what the future is gonna look like.

:-)

You're my favorite visionary!

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

*blush*

Awwwwww.... :)

Actually, we developed the initial prototype a couple of months before Minority Report, which is what it keeps getting compared to. :)

Christian Mind

[bibliobug.livejournal.com]

Dear Kickaha -

First, let me congratulate you on your ascention to Geekhood. Now that I have tracked you down (running a search for Kickaha turned up some guy in Estonia - lots of Cyrillic, no South Park cartoon).

I can't resist the opportunity to answer your various posts - but I can't figure out how to do it other than to post here, so...

KICKAHA “You understand that the Old Testament and New Testament describe two fundamentally opposed ideologies? That using a single verse, Leviticus 20:13, as a justification for political agenda is more than a little perverse when say, Leviticus 15:19 is ignored? (I mean, if it's the true word of God, it's ALL the true word of God, right?) Let's see, that's scientific, cultural and political truths there...”

BIBLIOBUG I understand nothing of the kind. Why do you believe that the Old and New Testaments are “fundamentally opposed ideologies” when virtually every one else sees the New as a development and fulfillment of the Old? Please explain.

You assume too much, sir. I do not use any of Leviticus as a justification for a political agenda. How do you know what my political agenda is, anyway?

The Old Testament is the story of the growth of human understanding. To paraphrase “Gift of the Jews,” by Thomas Cahill, “You can see God grow from a trivial local deity to YHWH from Abraham to Moses.” God didn’t change, our understanding did. Just as you do not teach a two-year-old in the same way that you instruct a 12-year-old, God delivered different messages at different times. The graduate course (to stretch the analogy as far as possible) was Jesus’ ministry, wherein he promised to “throw down the House of David,” and gave instructions that supersede the Old Testament.

KICKAHA “So evolution is a reasonable alternative to creationism in your book? The world evolved through a few billion years, not a few thousand? Dinosaurs actually roamed the earth, and were not placed in fossil form by Satan to toy with us?”

BIBLIOBUG Evolution isn’t a reasonable alternative. Evolution happened and is still happening. We have fossil evidence, (“Lucy,” “Origins Revisited” Leaky) genetic evidence (“The Human Evolution Coloring Book, 2e” Collins), observational evidence (“The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time,” Jonathan Weiner) and experimental evidence (slow, dark, lake chiclids are switched with their near cousins, light-colored, fast, stream chiclids, within four generations, they have reversed characteristics – sorry, can’t find cite, published years ago in Science magazine). Any scientific theory with that much going for it gets my vote.

Do I think that Genesis is scientifically accurate and complete? No. Do I believe that it is – in broad strokes – the story of creation as filtered through the mind and experience of a primitive, ancient, desert Semite? Yes, I do.

It is an error to assume that evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive. No one knows how long a day in the mind of God is, after all (to borrow from the Scopes trial). I believe that God can use any mechanism He chooses – including the Big Bang and biological evolution – His wonders to perform.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

Re: Christian Mind

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Never spam my personal journal because you can't figure out the proper channels. Ever.

What you just did is amazingly rude, inconsiderate, and against the accepted norms of net etiquette.

Re: Christian Mind

[(Anonymous)]

KICKAHA “Your claims on 'thousands' of copies of the New Testament that was compiled 'within 70 years of Jesus' death' don't match my own research, nor that of most biblical scholars I have conversed with on such subjects."

BIBLIOBUG I'm quoting Dr. Metzger of the Princeton Theological Seminary, who claims that there are over 5,000 extant copies of the New Testament dating to within a century (many to within 70 years) of Jesus’ death in Greek alone. That’s not counting the several thousand odd in Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Aramaic, etc. The abundance of early copies is important because comparing copies – particularly different translations from different geographic areas – permits translators to re-create the original text very accurately. With so many copies produced by so many different people – the chances of any substantive error is infinitesimal. (“The Making of the New Testament,” Arthur Patzia)

The Old Testament is an oral tradition only preserved in writing after many generations of re-telling. However, archeology keeps confirming more and more of the ancient stories (no one believed that the Hittites existed until recently, for instance). So, it falls into the ‘pretty good bet’ category. Also, the Old Testament has been ‘self-validated’ through prophecies fulfilled. (“The Messiah in the Old Testament,” Walter Kaiser)

KICKAHA "You realize that the Bible is at best questionable in accuracy due to the multiple flawed translations and versions?”

BIBLIOBUG I don’t realize that at all. The New Testament is HIGHLY accurate, with no major Christian doctrine in dispute, and the Old Testament is also pretty darned good. How do you justify “the Bible is at best questionable in accuracy…” an unsupported assertion at odds with the vast majority of biblical scholarship? Please explain.

KICKAHA “Remember, you have yet to make a plausible argument for the existence of a soul, so invoking that as a more precious item is not a logical and rational counter-argument.”

BIBLIOBUG Didn’t know I needed to, but here goes. Every human society that I’ve ever heard of has independently arrived at the concept of a soul (“Moral Animal,” Robert Wright, “The Power of Myth,” Joseph Campbell). Wishful thinking? Perhaps. More likely to be the result of primary experience (Occam’s razor).

Spirituality is built in to human beings. Using sophisticated brain-imaging techniques. Dr. Andy Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania, author of “Why God Won't Go Away,” has documented changes in blood flow in particular regions of the brain during prayer and meditation. Generally speaking, animals do not develop nor long retain useless attributes. Therefore a built-in ‘prayer mechanism’ argues powerfully for a recipient of prayer (God) and a generator of prayer (a soul).

Finally, subtle measurements of terminally ill patients show that at death, the patient loses a few fractions of an ounce that can not be accounted for by any known physiologic mechanism. What leaves? I speculate it is the soul departing.

In sum, I present three arguments for the existence of the soul (1) primary experience – admittedly subjective but extraordinarily wide-spread, (2) the existence of a “prayer mechanism,” inherent in the brain, implying the existence of a soul, and (3) people lose weight at death, which I speculate is the soul departing.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

Re: Christian Mind

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Lady, you just got yourself banned due to sheer rampant rudeness and a blindingly shining example of selfcenteredness. So you post anonymously? Amazing.

Please do not contact me. Ever. For anything.

Got it?

Re: Christian Mind

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

So now I have to turn off anonymous posting as well. Unbelievable.

Thanks, bibliobug, for making LJ just that little bit less open and inviting.

I'm stunned. I have never, not once in my online life, encountered someone this predatorily self-centered. You're something else.