> It’s always kind of a relief to see something like this, realize that it’s too over-the-top to really be an evangelical marketing scheme — and then to realize that means that it’s still possible to be more over-the-top than evangelical marketing.
Jehovah is an English rendition of the proper name of God from the Hebrew Bible, also rendered "Yahweh" or YHWH, which means I AM and is referred to as "The Tetragrammaton". It isn't specific to Jehovah's Witnesses, and can be found in many older English translations of the Bible.\
In the Hebrew...
I've seen that proposition a few times on this site, and I quite simply don't believe it.
This is possibly the Witness that's still in me, but I honestly don't believe the Bible contains any support at all for the Trinity doctrine.
I should probably write something about that somewhere. No idea where or what, though.
(It would make for a pretty good "refute this" question, but probably not here.)
@LemuelAdane: Also an extra note regarding your deleted answers: this question will need to be answered from the perspective that it asks for. A treatise whose purpose is to show the Trinity is unbiblical is not an answer to a question asking for where people see the Biblical basis for the Trinity. JW views are certainly in-scope on this site, but each question has it's own scope and this one is clearly asking for the how the view "most" Christians hold is supported Biblically. — CalebNov 9 '11 at 22:59
The thing is, we know what the disputes of early Christianity were, because they're laid out in Paul's letters (whoever actually wrote the things) and the book of Acts. There were massive debates about circumcision, and about eating various kinds of foods. But the Shema was overturned with nary a whisper? I don't buy that.
I mean, can you imagine Paul-the-theologian's writings on the Trinity? The way he'd trawl through the Hebrew Bible and find subtle hints and clues, and write them all up? He'd have been good at it. If he'd ever done it.
I'm reading through the Christmas cheer on M.SO and feeling quite bah humbugish. There are only two decent Christmas songs. (Hint: One's in my C.SE profile.)
@waxeagle I was trying to make some changes to the format of an e-mail sent by an online shop when you place an order. Somehow I succeeded in breaking the thing altogether. Not entirely sure how.
@waxeagle PHP, yes. But not, I think, semicolons. It's not a PHP syntax error. It's a the-order-exists-in-the-database-but-the-actual-products-in-the-order-are-not-saved error.
@waxeagle Guess: The template for the e-mail contains an unset variable. Problem: Error reporting doesn't seem to be working properly either, so I'm going to have to work out the unset variable by trial and error. After all, this code isn't triggered by the user's browser; it's triggered by PayPal's postback. So I can't see what's going on.
@waxeagle To be honest, I'm not sure I can cope with even a parody version of that song.
@waxeagle PayPal's sandbox does exist, but is slightly strange. And I have previously had code that worked in the sandbox and then stopped working when I went live. Meh. This'll be something simple in the end, but I'm giving up for today. I'll go home and tackle it in the morning.
For example, sometimes PayPal will be slow, and the customer will return to your site before PayPal have posted back confirmation to you that the order has gone through. So you have to show the customer a holding page while you wait for PayPal. Can you simulate this in the Sandbox, asking it to delay the postback? No. So you have to code and hope. (It works. I've tested it on the live site, with real money. Refunds are wonderful.)
@waxeagle Yep. Pretty good. I might listen to it again sometime. Perhaps in mid-summer.
@TRiG that's a painful way to test. There are days (most of them) when I'm thankful we are completely self contained
@TRiG sounds good. They started to get radio play around here last year or the one before and it makes the constant christmas music slightly more tolerable.
I'm glad I listen to NPR so I don't tire of christmas music by about now.
@waxeagle Of course, even on the live site, you can't tell PayPal how slow to be. Just put through a bunch of transactions and hope that some of them take time.
@waxeagle I don't listen to the radio at all these days. Really should start again. Actually, I'm consuming practically no news media at all at the moment.
@TRiG I was that way for a while, but I can't listen to nothing for 2.5 hrs/day in the car. So its NPR unless they are on pledge drive or it's a local show and then it's sports radio..unless I'm in an area sports radio doesn't come in, then it's music
A few years ago, when Foot and Mouth disease threatened to destroy Ireland's economy, everything was closed down to make it less likely to spread from one farm to another. So there was no sport at all in the country. And the sports reporters on RTÉ got really creative, and started reporting from car races in Egypt and all sorts of things. That was fun.
I'm looking for that clip on QI where Alan gets a klaxon for singing "five go-o-o-old rings", because that wasn't the original phrasing. The melody was modified to make it copyrightable. I can't find it. I can get some other Christmas specials, but not that one.
This Christmas special is a bit more on topic anyway:
@TRiG eh, I grew up in a sports household, I was an athlete as a kid and into college(though not a good one). Sports fandom provides an easy conversation topic with my dad which to me is one of the primary uses of sports.
@TRiG that sounds rather amazing. I like odd sport
@waxeagle I remember reading somewhere that getting kids into team sport might be helpful for various social things, but doesn't help with fitness, because sports playing turns quickly into sports fandom as you get older. If it's fitness you want to inspire, get kids into solo sports, or stuff like hillwalking (trekking).
Dunno whether that's true. I've never been a fan of any sort of sport. Not coordinated enough. (Primary school. Playing volleyball. I scored a point. Both teams stopped to clap. Yup.)
@waxeagle I walk quite a bit, sometimes up mountains (insofar as anything in this country can accurately be called a mountain). Not often enough, though. And I can't recall the last time I did proper cardiovascular exercise of the heart-pumping variety. Not owning a car helps with the walking, of course.
I've got a desk for home on my purchase list for next year (my current desk won't do 2 monitors). Will need to decide whether I want to get a cheap desk and invest in a chair later, or save up and spend a bunch of money on a sit/stand desk for home and deal with a folding chair for a long while when I'm actually sitting...or go all the way and get a treadmill desk for home :)...
@TRiG yep. super slow treadmill (~1-3kph) that sits under a desk. It's quiet enough that you can walk and do things like answer the phone or whatever. Instead of just simply standing, you're actually walking while you work.
Don't buy from them much. I prefer to support my local bookshops. They'll order anything I want, and send me a text message when it's arrived. And I can pop out at lunchtime and pick up whatever it is. Whereas Amazon sends through the postal system, and I'm not there when the postman comes, so I have to go around to the delivery office and pick up whatever it is. And the delivery office has moved from the town centre to the back end of nowhere, so it's a bit of a pain.
I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings. Appendix A, "Annals of the Kings and Rulers", tells us that Aragorn son of Arathorn spent part of his youth in Minas Tirith under the assumed name "Thorngil" serving under Ecthelion, Steward of Gondor.
Thorongil often warned Ecthelion not to put trust in S...
I must admit I'm fond of that question title. It's completely opaque to anyone who isn't very very deeply invested in Lord of the Rings minutiae. That may not actually be a desirable quality, but it does in some strange way please me.
@JonEricson I have another one I'll post shortly, also from Appendix B.
Legolas was at the Council of Elrond because he came to Rivendell to report that Gollum had escaped. But Gollum had escaped months earlier. Why the delay?
But I'll leave it a week or two before posting that one. Unless someone beats me to it.
@TRiG My guess is that he took the southern route (via the Gap of Rohan) rather than the more direct route the dwarves and Bilbo took. Under the mountain took about three weeks, so I would imagine a less direct path would take longer. But months longer? Hmm...
By the way, I was re-watching the Peter Jackson films and the Council of Elrond is just so boring. Now I know why: it's just exposition that anyone familiar with the story (or even stayed awake for the beginning of the film).
I really love the films, but they have serious pacing and dialog problems.
For some reason, I've spent the last few days trawling through the magic parts of YouTube. It started with Penn & Teller, then moved on to Jason Latimer.
Penn & Teller's show "Fool Us" is rather excellent, and most (all?) of it is on YT.
"It's about Jesus," I said.
"Everything here is," she muttered.
—The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
It's difficult to know which questions shouldn't be tagged jesus or god. That makes those tags of dubious usefulness and so I've been trying to remove them when...
I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings. Appendix A, "Annals of the Kings and Rulers", tells us that Aragorn son of Arathorn spent part of his youth in Minas Tirith under the assumed name "Thorngil" serving under Ecthelion, Steward of Gondor.
Thorongil often warned Ecthelion not to put trust in S...
"It's about Jesus," I said.
"Everything here is," she muttered.
—The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
It's difficult to know which questions shouldn't be tagged jesus or god. That makes those tags of dubious usefulness and so I've been trying to remove them when...
