Hope for your project - a little off topic.

[Geoff]

If I could offer a cautionary note to Mr Flibble, the text continues:

And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Beth-el; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him: 'Go up, thou baldhead; go up, thou baldhead.'

I'm not sure of the age of those who were mauled by the
bears, but think they may have been immature people.
Elisha may have also been reckless with his new power.
After witnessing something amazing, he got carried away
so to speak.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111915/jewish/Elijah-And-Elisha.htm

Ah, so it appears you are not Christian. Your god is not the loving,
forgiving god of the New Testament but the vengeful, powerful and
destructive god of the Old.

Here we have a prophet who uses his "power" to curse a group of
"children" who harmlessly teased him about his appearance. The prophet
is vain, the children perish, the prophet receives forgiveness.
Hypocrisy at it's finest. This supposedly teaches the prophet a lesson
about his "power" and he transgresses no more. If his enlightenment
truly came from God he would never have transgressed at all.

This is typical of the O.T. stories, God acts destructively in
response to "sin" and people die. God forgives only after the fact.
This is what makes the O.T. so illogical and fallacious.

Above all, the Golden Rule applies. Always treat others as you want to
be treated. Transgress this and live in hell.

 

[J. Clarke]

If I could offer a cautionary note to Mr Flibble, the text continues:

And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Beth-el; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him: 'Go up, thou baldhead; go up, thou baldhead.'

I'm not sure of the age of those who were mauled by the
bears, but think they may have been immature people.
Elisha may have also been reckless with his new power.
After witnessing something amazing, he got carried away
so to speak.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111915/jewish/Elijah-And-Elisha.htm

Ah, so it appears you are not Christian. Your god is not the loving,
forgiving god of the New Testament but the vengeful, powerful and
destructive god of the Old.

Here we have a prophet who uses his "power" to curse a group of
"children" who harmlessly teased him about his appearance. The prophet
is vain, the children perish, the prophet receives forgiveness.
Hypocrisy at it's finest. This supposedly teaches the prophet a lesson
about his "power" and he transgresses no more. If his enlightenment
truly came from God he would never have transgressed at all.

This is typical of the O.T. stories, God acts destructively in
response to "sin" and people die. God forgives only after the fact.
This is what makes the O.T. so illogical and fallacious.

Above all, the Golden Rule applies. Always treat others as you want to
be treated.

So a masochist should always inflict pain on others? I think a better
rule is to always treat others as _they_ want to be treated.

 

[Daniel]

So a masochist should always inflict pain on others? I think a better
rule is to always treat others as _they_ want to be treated.

Finally back on topic for comp.lang.++! so People Who Answer Questions must
always treat People Who Ask Questions the way they want to be treated, no more
pestering them to post code, or scolding them for void main(){} and the like.

Daniel

 

[J. Clarke]

Finally back on topic for comp.lang.++! so People Who Answer Questions must
always treat People Who Ask Questions the way they want to be treated, no more
pestering them to post code, or scolding them for void main(){} and the like.

Why not? Pestering them to post code doesn't do any good as near as I
can tell--the ones who understand why they need to do that do it without
being asked, and the ones who don't seem to never grasp the concept.

In any case, I think that those who post code fragments without any
output or messages are ignoring the Golden Rule anyway, as they seem be
expecting others to work miracles for them while they offer no miracles
themselves.

 

[woodbrian77]

Ah, so it appears you are not Christian. Your god is not the loving,
forgiving god of the New Testament but the vengeful, powerful and
destructive god of the Old.

Here we have a prophet who uses his "power" to curse a group of
"children" who harmlessly teased him about his appearance. The prophet
is vain,

He was angry at their foolishness. Perhaps they concluded that
because Elisha hadn't been taken up with Elijah he was inferior
to Elijah. They mocked him with "Go up". If they were
challenging his authority, the bears may have helped them
and others to know Elisha had the same authority as Elijah.
Elisha's work among them would go on for years after this
incident.

the children perish, the prophet receives forgiveness.

I'm not sure anyone died. A couple of translations use the
word 'tore' another uses the word 'mauled'. I think 42
were hurt, but not sure beyond that.

 

[Geoff]

He was angry at their foolishness.

So foolishness is a capital offense.

Perhaps they concluded that
because Elisha hadn't been taken up with Elijah he was inferior
to Elijah.

He was, in fact, inferior to Elijah since he was his disciple until
that time.

They mocked him with "Go up".

"Go up baldy" being the euphemism for "Die, baldy, die."

If they were
challenging his authority, the bears may have helped them
and others to know Elisha had the same authority as Elijah.
Elisha's work among them would go on for years after this
incident.


I'm not sure anyone died. A couple of translations use the
word 'tore' another uses the word 'mauled'. I think 42
were hurt, but not sure beyond that.

And here we have the true answer to life's ultimate question.

 

[Daniel]

word 'tore' another uses the word 'mauled'. I think 42 were hurt, but not
sure beyond that.

Curiously the number 42 is also the "Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", a fact that I am sure will not be lost on our excellent Mr Flibble.

Daniel

 

[Ian Collins]

He was angry at their foolishness. Perhaps they concluded that
because Elisha hadn't been taken up with Elijah he was inferior
to Elijah. They mocked him with "Go up".

Like programmers mocking the style prophets with goto?

 

[Öö Tiib]

I'm not sure anyone died. A couple of translations use the
word 'tore' another uses the word 'mauled'. I think 42
were hurt, but not sure beyond that.

Did you really want to discuss these old fairy tales or what? Yes,
no one died. The good hunter came and cut the stomach of those
bears and let the little red ridding-hoods out again. Or something
like that.

 

[Geoff]

Did you really want to discuss these old fairy tales or what? Yes,
no one died. The good hunter came and cut the stomach of those
bears and let the little red ridding-hoods out again. Or something
like that.

 

[woodbrian77]

Incident? Are you serious? Adam and everyone related to Adam including
Abraham) NEVER EXISTED because there was no first human because humans
evolved. Do you deny the evidence for evolution? Your bible is a
fiction, your religion is a lie and your god does not exist.

If I'm all wrong, what about what I've been working on?
Do you think on line code generation is the wrong path?

This though might be like asking Noah's contemporaries
for their thoughts on the ark. They may have thought
it was a waste of time or something like that.

 

[Daniel]

no one died. The good hunter came and cut the stomach of those
bears and let the little red ridding-hoods out again. Or something
like that.

Except in this story it was the good hero who sent for the she bears ...

 

[woodbrian77]

Did you not read what I said? Noah is related to Adam. Adam never
existed ergo Noah never existed ergo Noah did not have any
contemporaries. People that never existed never thought anything.

You ignored the first/primary part of my reply.

 

[Jorgen Grahn]

Sigh, it seems my little joke was sown on rocky places, where it grew not ...

In other words: please don't feed the trolls. From where I'm looking,
half of comp.lang.c++ is wasted on the Leigh-vs-woodbrian offtopicness
and that is not how it should be.

(And I wish I had something useful to contribute with, but I'm in my
comfort zone with regards to C++ right now -- I know how to do
whatever I want to do, and to do more I'd have to read up on C++11.)

/Jorgen

 

[Daniel]

From where I'm looking, half of comp.lang.c++ is wasted on the Leigh-vs-
woodbrian off topicness and that is not how it should be.

Less than half, but it would be great if Leigh went back to what he does best,
what he's very good at, which is to answer questions about C++ programming. It
is the language, and only the language, that unites people here, and it is not
possible to resolve other differences here.

Although at the moment there does seem to be a shortage of questions ...

Daniel

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Qu0ll:

*"Paavo Helde":

ROFL!

Paavo happens to be right that the term is ill-defined (and of course,
he's wrong about not needing to decide).

Whatever criterion one chooses for "first human" it gets probabilistic
and murky whether it's satisfied or not for any particular specimen. Our
genetic information is fuzzily defined (there is great variation between
individuals), and is just part of the molecular definition of the
species. How the genes are expressed for in-body cell activity depends
on the soup of chemicals in and between the cells, and this soup can
vary, over the lifetime of an individual, and depending on the itself
evolving environment. How the genes are expressed for procreation
depends on the opposite sex individuals in the environment.

Not to mention that people who disagree on criteria, or agree about an
incomplete set of criteria, may disagree, to the tune of tens of
thousands of years, about /when/ the first human existed.

There seems to be some similarity to the "small heap" paradox. Start
with a small heap of stones, add another typical tiny stone, then a
small heap plus a tiny stone is still a small heap. So it will be
forever small, no matter how many tiny stones are added one at a time.

I think most kinds of macro-level physical identification are that way:
fuzzy.

The Bible's stories are not much about critical rational thought anyway.
They're mostly about the opposite, namely blind obedience, supporting a
dominance hierarchy. Do not eat fruit from that tree. Do kill your son.
Do not look back on the city. Inbreeding is OK. So on.

One oddball exception: the story of Susannah (English speling?) in the
garden (or bath), where one critical-thinking young fellow prevented her
punishment of death by stoning for the crime of being raped.

I think for most Biblical stories the one, mister X, who created or
elaborated on that story probably wanted people to behave the way
indicated by the story. Blindly obeying mister X, letting him have his
way no matter how irrational or meaningless it seemed. Letting mister X
get away with having sex with his daughters, or killing his son. So on.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf (off-topic mode)

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

OK, all very interesting but can you now answer my question? Do you
believe there was a [non-metaphorical] first human or not?

Of course not, and it's not a question of subjective belief either. The
notion of a first human is meaningless because it builds on an incorrect
assumption of the possibility of perfect, non-fuzzy and
context-independent classification. Thus any belief in that notion, or
failure to disbelieve it, is misplaced and irrational.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf (still off-topic mode, but this has to end, there has to be a last
OT post)

 

[David Brown]

"Paavo Helde" wrote in message

[ranting snipped]

Sorry I let me carried away into this thread. Trying to avoid that in
future...

So Paavo, are you saying somewhere in there that there never was a
"first human"? Please, please say yes!

Cannot answer this without a meaningful definition of "first human".

Cheers
Paavo

I think it is reasonable to say that since there is no possible
definition of a "first human" (outside of religious fiction, and even
there it is invariably inconsistent in every creation myth I have heard
of), it is fair to be categorical and say there was no "first human".

It is not uncommon amongst some religious people to deliberately
misunderstand evolution and the concept of species. They read in their
favourite book a few brief comments about early humans and other
species, then extrapolate, misinterpret and misunderstand to come up
with a theory about biology and species in which species are absolute
and well defined. It's a logical as watching "Singing in the Rain" and
coming up with a meteorological theory correlating the levels of rain
with songs, but they seem to think it makes sense.

So Biblical literalists think the two choices are "you believe God made
humans and other species as complete, individual and unchanging
concepts" or "you believe evolution made humans and other species as
complete, individual and unchanging concepts through inexplicable leaps
- one day a chimpanzee gave birth to the first human".

Despite your (and Alf's) rather good explanations of species and
"fuzziness", I doubt if you will change Qu0ll's fundamental and
self-reenforced misunderstandings.

 

[Öö Tiib]

"Alf P. Steinbach" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

OK, all very interesting but can you now answer my question? Do you believe
there was a first human or not?

I believe there was at least twelve "first" humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens)
whose offspring has survived to this day. Humans might have several
ancestors among Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis or Homo Sapiens Idaltu.
It feels nonsense to believe that there was the one single "first human".
The apes did live in big packs already back then and the beneficial
mutations happen rather slowly ... not like *bang* and that's now human
but its mother and father ... no those were apes.

I don't care how *you* want to define the term "first human", just answer
the question if you don't mind.

The assertion that there was no first human is what I am disputing.
Everyone seems keen to critique the Bible in general instead.

I don't critique the Bible. Unlike Leigh Sausages Johnston I do find it
quite notable piece of fiction considering that some parts of it were
written 2500 years ago.

Really, it's a very simple question. Either you agree with Mr Flibble or
you don't.

I agree with Leigh there. I also trust that you can find better answer
(and links and reasoning) from more dedicated newsgroups (like talk.origins).

 

[Geoff]

It all depends on the definitions. Humans (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees
(Pan troglodytes) last shared a common ancestor (CA) 5-7 million years ago
(http://genome.cshlp.org/content/15/12/1746.long). If we define the "first
human" to be the oldest child of CA who is also an ancestor of all humans
(or if CA did not have such child, then define "first human" to be CA
himself/herself), and for fixing this CA exactly define the species of
humans and chimps as the unions of the corresponding living individuals of
the corresponding species at 2013-12-29T00:00:00Z, then this "first human"
is most probably uniquely defined and certainly did exist (otherwise we
would not be here).

Another question is if such a definition makes much sense (I think not) and
if we would recognize this concrete individual as human (most probably not,
as he or she was or would have almost been an ancestor of chimps as well).

And if there was a "first human", and if that definition is crisp,
then who did he/she mate with and what are the offspring called?
Because if he/she was the sole human on the planet (by definition)
then all other potential mates were sub nor non-human and their
offspring, having only 1/2 human DNA cannot be called fully human.

The bible story, of Eve being made from components of Adam certainly
makes sense from a human mated to human standpoint but the resulting
incest of the offspring certainly makes no sense genetically. For God
to set man up as a species by act of incest and then to make incest
taboo in the subsequent chapters is completely illogical. One cannot
take these stories literally, and that is the mistake of Creationists.
But then again, a world filled with the product of incest, having
recessive defects and retardation, certainly explains a lot of people
walking around in the world today. They would appear to be classified
as biblical literalists and creationists.