Cap'n Refsmmat

You can also use the "Today's Active Content" link at the bottom of the forum index for the last 24 hours of material.

If you go to your settings you change the View New Content Method to show you everything you have not read, no matter how old. It's buggy, however, and sometimes loses everything in the list and starts over. But it's better than nothing.

Guys, let's stay on topic. How many reputation points Moontanman has somewhere is not relevant, unless those points are having loads of babies. Nor is his personal situation relevant. Let's all stay on topic, and avoid taking the bait when others go off-topic.

It means there's less of a stigma from having a low reputation. Five star system? You can indeed counter a negative vote with a positive vote, but everyone's vote counts equally, so there can't be an elite group with thousands of reputation points that decides things. That was the biggest problem with the old system.

Pardon? Ancient Hebrew and ancient Aramaic are different beasts. Aramaic appears in a few books of the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament as the language Jesus speaks (although the authors of the gospels translate him to Greek). The rest of the Hebrew Bible is ancient Hebrew.

We don't use the old vBulletin system of giving certain members more power to alter reputation points than others. In vBulletin it was easy for one member to be handing out dozens of points at once -- or thousands, if things got out of hand. Now, it's all one point for everyone. Furthermore, your total reputation count does not display on each post. When viewing a discussion, you only see how each post fared, so every post is considered in isolation.

I'd love to see military curses and hexes. An armored vehicle rolls onto the battlefield, covered in small crystal balls, streaming a cloud of incense, and playing soft music. A soft voice is heard, chanting. Suddenly, the enemy tanks transform into Ford Pintos.

Okay, I just bumped up your positive vote limit by a large factor. I'm not sure about allowing more negative rep points; we'll have to see if that's something we really want. Lots of negative rep has caused problems in the past.

Indeed. vBulletin is still around, and I could resurrect your images should you want them. If you really think you'd use it, we could install this: http://www.invisionpower.com/products/gallery/ ...once version 4 comes out.

No, I do not. Everyone is subject to the same rules, which you are free to read. You are not in violation of any that I know of.

Fine. Make a ukulele that plays itself.

We do not arbitrarily ban people when we disagree with them. We ban people when they violate our clearly spelled-out rules, which you are free to read.

Why not? Right. I'm trying to do the same thing, but with the formula for the surface area of a sphere, rather than using a double integral. How does this account for the changing area of the shell?

I can see what you're doing wrong, but not whether darkenlighten or I am correct... You did this: [math]R = \rho \times \frac{1}{4\pi} (10^{-6}-10^{-2})[/math] But the expression you wanted to integrate was [math]R = \rho \int \frac{1}{4\pi r^2} \, dr[/math] The r2 is in the denominator of the integral. darkenlighten: with the radii in units of meters (10-2 and 10-6), I get 10-3 in my answer. Did you change any other values, or are we doing different integrals?

I tried your solution and it makes sense; however, I don't see how you got [math]1.35\times10^{-11}[/math]. I got [math]10^{-3}[/math]. I don't know if I'm right; my calculator is acting up and displaying strange things. Double-check?

So? The choice of terminology to describe how a copy of a gene exists in descendants says nothing supernatural. Why not? survive, v: to remain or continue in existence or use: Ancient farming methods still survive in the Middle East. Genes can't remain in existence?

Why not? If the copy becomes part of your child, and the child survives after you do, the copy has survived. Your descendants. You pass a copy of the gene on to your descendents. Yes, the original copy is gone, but a functional gene that does the same thing is now in your descendants, and in their descendants, and so on. It's merely a bad analogy by biologists. Genes aren't alive and they don't "survive." But a particular gene can be passed on from parent to child through the generations. The bacterium never "dies," actually. Take a look at how the bacterial reproduction cycle works. The bacteria is alive the entire time... I think you're the one reinterpreting it to have nonscientific values.

Where? Is mainstream Christianity's interpretation to hold that Jesus meant for the law not to be followed after his death? Right, but I'm asking why most of Christianity would believe this. There's lots of things they believe that have little Scriptural support whatsoever. Do you have specific examples of when Paul states that works are necessary to gain entrance to Heaven (or to eternal life, or salvation, or whichever eschatology you believe)?

Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, but that's not particularly relevant. A simpler, consistent meaning for "all" would take into account the phrase "until heaven and earth pass away" in the passage, which indicates that perhaps Jesus means "until the end of time;" i.e. everything that will ever be accomplished will be accomplished. We can get some context on this phrasing with Luke 16:17, when Jesus sates "But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped." In an eschatology that preaches that the world will, in the future, end, and a Kingdom of God will replace the world as we know it, it's hard to construe Jesus as meaning that the Law will pass away any sooner than the end of time. (Which would be the Second Coming, in some interpretations.) [Now, some early Christian groups believed that the world had already, in a sense, ended with Jesus's death and resurrection, and believed that they had been spiritually resurrected. Paul angrily rebukes them in 1 Corinthians, if I recall correctly.] Well, the difference is that Paul denies the importance of works entirely, whereas Jesus believes they are essential. We must also remember to consider the Gospels in isolation from Paul. If we're trying to determine a difference between Jesus' message and Paul's message, we can't reinterpret the Gospels in light of Paul's epistles, because then we're reinterpreting them to avoid contradiction. Given that Paul never cites a single story of Jesus' life besides that he died and was resurrected, it's quite possible Paul never read the Gospels; our understanding of Paul's meaning should not be influenced by the Gospels, and vice versa. (In fact, the Gospels were written after most of Paul's letters, not before. Paul could not have had access to the same Gospels we read today.) Paul says something like this, but he never addresses the parts of the Law that explicitly state what to do when you accidentally break the Law. A few ritual sacrifices and some appropriate prayers later, and you're absolved. The Gospel of John does use this, and turns Jesus into a symbolic Passover lamb so that his death represents a sacrifice (under the Law) for everyone's sins. This, however, contradicts with Mark, which states that Jesus was crucified before Passover... but that's a discussion for another thread.

Indeed. If you consider the current flowing from the inside to the outside, you can consider the inside surface of the conducting sphere to be the area of your conductor. It travels a given length until it reaches the outside. But the area changes as it does so, so integration will be required.

Is there Scriptural support of Jesus teaching that he fulfilled the Law and the Law would no longer be required?

Well, we know that Paul, in Romans and the other epistles, advocated that Gentile converts should not be required to keep the Jewish Law. Peter apparently objected, as Galatians 2:11-16 shows: Now, some context. Cephas is, of course, Peter (Cephas is Aramaic). The "people... from James" were likely more strict Jews who interpreted the Law to rule that Gentiles and Jews should not eat together, and Paul clearly objects that following Jewish Law is not required of a believer in Christ. (Particularly Gentile believers.) Acts, of course, documents that Paul's view eventually became dominant, but Galatians shows significant internal disagreement in the churches. Well, I've shown Paul's view of the disagreement above, and you can see more of the conflict in Acts. But as for what Jesus taught, here's a sample in Matthew 5:17-20: Of course, scribes are interpreters of the law, and the Pharisees were a group known for their particularly strict interpretation of Jewish law. Another famous parable serves to illustrate this further. Matthew 19:16-22: We see in Matthew a strong emphasis on the commandments and the Jewish Law. Jesus certainly disagrees on some points of interpretation of the Law, such as in the famous incident when he healed a man on the Sabbath. However, his emphasis on the Law and good works is quite clear. In the Galatians passage, however, Paul emphasizes faith, and denigrates the Jewish Law and works. As he does in Ephesians 2:8-9:

Wikileaks update: http://edition.cnn.c...dex.html?hpt=T2 So far, looks like the horrors that were promised have not occurred. Rumor has it, though, that Wikileaks has several hundred thousand Iraq war documents they'll be releasing sometime next week.

All viruses are small enough to get out of pores. The question is whether they'll survive once they're out there -- sunlight is pretty harsh. Also, it depends on if the virus particles end up in your sweat glands, I suppose. How would we create a vaccine for every possible version of HIV? Random mutations in the genome make it very hard to predict what HIV will look like next. You might as well ask if we could create a vaccine for every possible virus.

Because we want to be expressive and sophisticated. More precisely, it is much easier to make a sophisticated point when your writing is clear, expressive and grammatically sound. Also, we're all hopelessly pedantic.