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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Sound Off 02-11-09

Since many of the Daily Sound Off questions have elicited responses that are just short of essays, I thought I'd ask one today that can be answered in relatively few words:

What scientific or technological advance or invention would you like to see in your lifetime?

For example, would you hope for something remotely possible, like "the cure for cancer", or perhaps something out of the pages of science fiction like "a servant robot"?

31 comments:

  1. I'd love to see:

    Stem cell medical technology that can cure nearly any disease, prolong life, and eliminate the need for organ donors.

    After that, I'd love to see an extinct species "resurrected" via cloning. Something cool like a woolly mammoth or a Neanderthal.

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  2. A cure for HIV/AIDS that doesn't kill the host. A cure for cancer.

    Uruk, way to open a can of worms there. Cloning extinct animals to "resurrect" them = dinosaurs eating all of us! Is that what you want, Mister? Hmmm!? Is that your secret plot? Are you in with the TRex? :-D

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  3. Hey Uruk,

    Funny, I was just talking with Philo yesterday about Neanderthals, and I was thinking about the possibility of either a surviving population or the chance of cloning one. I would like to see humans bring back extinct species.

    Also, I would like to see humans achieve inter-stellar travel. Now that would be awesome. I would like to see the day when the Prometheus is one of many similar "starships."

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  4. I would like to see a technological advance or invention that is recognized world-wide that I am responsible for in my lifetime. Ideally it would be something that I developed on my own in my own company rather then working for another country. I have made contributions in the semi-conductor industry and the wind/power industry that are used world wide but I really haven't made anything great.

    How come your answers all relate to movies? Jurasic Park, The Cure, and Star Trek.

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  5. I hope they discover stem cell cures for many diseases, including restoring mobility for those with spinal cord injuries via adult stem cells, or umbilical cord cells, negating the so-called necessity of using embryos/aborted babies and "frankenscience."

    I hope it is a non-Darwinian. Bible believing rogue scientist who comes up with the cure.

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  6. I'd die of cancer before I'd use a life saving treatment that was discovered by a Catholic.

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  7. Hello Zee (or should I call you Trinket),

    You are hilarious! Your one-liners and commentaries are zingers. Now that I am getting to know you better, I can appreciate your wry humor.

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  8. You may call me Trinket if you read the book. Even better yet if you get the book you could read it to me.

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  9. Interstellar travel. I am so ready to take the Kobayashi Maru.

    While a cure for diseases like AIDS and cancer is desirable, we are getting ourselves into a problem with overpopulation (thanks to the Catholics!), so I think finding a new planet or two to inhabit would be awesome.

    Zee said: "How come your answers all relate to movies?"

    Okay, here's a more realistic answer: I'd like to see a car, mass-produced in the USA, which runs on an alternate fuel source that would end our reliance on foreign oils. Also, it has to be as cool and as loud as internal combustion engines. I like to watch autoracing, and the idea of watching silent electric cars whir by is not very appealing.

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  10. Would you want to go to another planet yourself to get away from the Catholics or would you send the Catholics away?

    I really enjoyed Ireland if all the Catholics were sent to Mars then I would find Ireland a very desireable place to live. I hope the Protestants remaining know how to make blood pudding though.

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  11. I'd want to go to another planet myself, but I would gladly entertain any proposals to send all the Irish to another planet (is it wrong of me to say that?).

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  12. Yeah, I'd like to see interstellar travel, too.

    I do want to see extinct species come back, but not a t-rex.

    Not a t-rex, man.

    That's just crazy.

    Zee:

    You say you haven't made anything great, but those are big contributions.

    Ooohh . . . you want to be immortalized. You want to have a Zee Day 200 years from now.

    What would you like to accomplish?

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  13. Uruk:

    My career goals include owning my own manufacturing buisness by the time I am 35 which focuses primarily on certian manufacturing processes and not primarily on any paticular product. By the time I am 50 I would like the buisness to have grown enough that I am comfortable with the employees in charge (ideally my kids) and can work when I choose to work.

    I doubt Henry Ford will ever have his own day and having my own day is not a personal goal. Henry Ford is well known in the United States for being father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. Something along those lines would be kewl. Zee the impererial overlord of modern manufacturing has a nice ring to it.

    Philosobot:

    Its only wrong of you to say if you intend to keep the Protestant Irish with the Catholic Irish. I also think you should make it a requirement that they leave detailed instructions on how to make sheep's blood pudding for a traditional Irish breakfast before they go as well.

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  14. Zee:

    Ye shall eat no manner of blood.....(Lev. 7 and 17, etc.)

    How do you justify eating sheep’s blood pudding as a Christian?
    Is this commandment obsolete? “somebody else’s mail”? only for Jews? Never heard there was a law against it?

    Just curious as to the rationale behind disregarding God’s commands.

    (I am half Irish by the way.....hope I am not persecuted to Planet Pluto.)

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  15. Tandi,

    Sigh...

    Do you also go to a priest for skin problems to see if you should be isolated? When you have an infection do you wear torn clothing, not comb your hair, cover your face, and cry out "Unclean! Unclean!"? If you find mildew do you take that to a priest? I'll leave out the parts of Leviticus about bodily discharge and flow of blood. Do you follow the instructions in Leviticus on cutting of hair and tattoos? If your child cursed at you would you put them to death? Do you observe the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles?

    God's commands in Leviticus were given at a specific time and I think each command had its purpose at that time. A large part of the Old Law was necessary to ensure the Israelites remained united as a people and apart from the pagans. If God really didn't want me eating such an amazingly tasteful part of an Irish breakfast then I beleive Jesus would have made a point to have mentioned it at some point.

    Pluto is for the Catholic Irish. Which half of you do you want to go to Mars?

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  16. Tandi:

    We'll find a nice planet for you... or at least for the half of you that's Irish. :)

    Don't most Christians find Acts 11 to be a dispensation from Jewish dietary laws? The idea that some foods are magically clean or magically unclean is quite superstitious. And, anyway, I'm sure many Jews resent Christians and Muslims usurping their holy texts.

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  17. Tandi, many of those laws were in order to allow the survival of the group. Why can't they eat pork? Undercooked pork kills you. Blood? Blood carries all manners of disease and mishandled can kill you. And so on and so on. Do you do burnt offerings? No, probably not. It is no longer relevant. If we weren't supposed to eat it either it would not exist or it would be poisonous. Do you eat meat? There is many a religious scholar who says meat was not eaten until the Fall of Man.

    Can we leave at least one or two Irish? Preferably a rebel. In the male form. Please? :-D

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  18. The ceremonial law, as it was given, was not meant to be a temporary legal code. All of the commandments were understood as eternal precepts. Jews do not make burnt offerings; they acknowledge that without a Temple that offerings are illegal (Deut 12:1-6), but they believe that the law is still valid. It is unlikely that Jesus, the historical Jesus that is, understood the law of Moses, the Torah, to be abolished. There are passages in the Gospels that suggest that Jesus did abolish the Torah (Mark 7 and Matthew 15), but these were written well after Paul's Torahless message of Gentile-inclusion was already status quo, so they are likely a retro-fitting of a words into Jesus' mouth.

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  19. What the people believe is irrelevant to what God intended. Of course we cannot know what He intends but, personally, I think some of those laws became obsolete when we learned how to take care of ourselves.

    And if it is only a temple holding folks back from burnt offerings...could they not build a temple? Please believe I know little to nothing of Judaism but, that is just how I see it.

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  20. Scriptulicious:

    I do not agree that all of the commandments are understood to be eternal. I think Mark 2:23-28 demonstrates this:

    One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."

    Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

    The Lion:

    You can pick one or two rebel Irish men to stay as long as I can pick one or two Irish women to stay. There were definetly a few women I met in Ireland that I wouldn't mind keeping around. This also ensures the survival of Irish blood pudding on Earth.

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  21. "Why can't they eat pork? Undercooked pork kills you. Blood? Blood carries all manners of disease and mishandled can kill you."

    Lion, I don't buy the theory that dietary laws were a sort of ancient health code, because the archeological evidence suggests that other middle-eastern nations ate pig, etc. and got along just fine. Eating undercooked pig is no more or less dangerous than eating undercooked anything (at least at that time). Either it was a superstition on the part of the Judeans, or they were looking for ways to distinguish themselves from other nations (or a little bit of both).

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  22. Oh, and we'll make a rule: everyone gets to keep one irishman or woman before we ship them off to another planet. :)

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  23. One of the great things about being a Zeeist is that I don't have to understand God's reasons. I believe God had a purpose for commanding not to eat pork when He did. Maybe it was because the consumption was dangerous. Maybe it was because it was not in there best interest to keep animals that competed with them for grain. Maybe it was because He wanted to test them by prohibiting consumption of such a tasty meat. Maybe He just wanted to make them different. Maybe it was because there was an Israelite that would have been a master pig breeder who would have bred a pig so strong and powerful that it would have taken over the world as we know it. I don't know and I don't care.

    I don't like the path we are going down with everyone giving an Irishman a pass from going to another planet. In a matter of hours we have gone from sending them all off to keeping a few. At this rate they are all going to stay here.

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  24. Thank you all for commenting on the blood pudding controversy. Your comments have not dissuaded me from keeping as many commandments of God as I can, for this is the heart and will of God “for our good always” (Deut. 6:24) and that “none of these diseases” (Ex. 15:26) come upon God’s peculiar, covenant people. I have been grafted in to the Commonwealth of Israel and given a new heart that delights in God’s precepts and principles.

    Scrip is correct that much of the ceremonial law awaits a temple and restored priesthood and is only temporarily suspended.

    If pigs, etc. were cleansed in Acts 10, I wonder why UNCLEAN birds are mentioned in Revelation 18:2. The meaning of the vision in Acts is explained. Peter understood the vision to mean he should call no man common or unclean....Acts 10:28.

    Undercooked pork can give you trichinosis even today.

    http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/787591-overview

    Whatever a pig eats is on his flesh in a matter of hours, with no purification process as rumination provides. The meat is full of worms and toxins that eventually take their toll in the form of disease, especially myalgia and fatigue. Hogs with cancer are slaughtered with just the tumors removed.

    The life of the flesh is in the blood. So are the toxins, stress hormones, cancer cells? etc.

    Bon appetit


    The following is a satirical response based on a collage of your comments......

    Jesus’ commands (such as the Sermon on the Mount) were given at a specific time for a specific people, as were the epistles of Paul, etc. It must all be obsolete now that we know how to take care of ourselves and Darwin has revealed our true origins. The Bible holds no authority in our lives. It is for another time, another place, another people. It is a book of myths and false histories and ignorance. Those who live by a Biblical code of ethics are living a life of delusion and folly. Every man should do what is right in his own eyes. Be a Zeeist!

    Zee, I think you have coined a new term:

    Zeeist: one who does what is right in his own eyes, disregarding commandments of God that he deems irrelevant and obsolete.

    Proverbs 21:2....... Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.

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  25. Tandi,

    So you would put you child to death if they cursed at you? How many of your kids did you abort post-birth?

    I do what is right in my own eyes based on my understanding of the Bible. I admit that I am human and flawed. There most likely are some understanding that I have that are not completely accurate. At least I seek guidance from God and apply logic instead of blindly following in ignorance.

    The core belief of a Zeeist is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is eternal death but God sent His only son Jesus to die for his sins. One needs to only accept Jesus as a personal Savior to be saved. As a result of being saved despite being sinful and deserving eternal death one will naturaly try to seek God's will and please God.

    Do you believe my core belief is inaccurate or incomplete? Last Saturday I got three hours of ink, smoked, and went to a gay bar with neighbors where I drank beer and danced. Do you think that prevents my salvation?

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  26. Tandi wrote: "Undercooked pork can give you trichinosis even today."

    I said at the time undercooked pig was no more dangerous than cow. But even if I'm wrong about that, there is a very simple solution: don't undercook it

    And, anyway, there's nothing Biblical about trichinosis, this is "just a theory" of modern atheist-scientists.

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  27. Zee,

    As a "dedicated disciple of Jezus" how do you justify your behavior as described? Do you consider it right, wrong, or indifferent to God? Your "gospel of salvation" is deficient. I call it "easy believism." It is not Biblical Salvation. Where does "repentance towards God and faith in our LORD Jesus Christ" fit in? (Acts 20:21)

    If you could go to the "New Heart and Mindset" store and choose a new version of yourself, an upgrade so to speak, that had no desire for such activities as you describe, would you? How much do you enjoy being as you are?

    I got fed up with my froward ways and went for the upgrade. Crashes are less frequent now. Life is good.

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  28. Tandi,

    My body is a temple of God and I decorate it accordingly including the use of tattoos. I drink in moderation without getting drunk. I hope I don't have to justify dancing unless you are a hundred years old. The gay bar does have a lot of people there that reject God. I wouldn't expect them to seek me out to feel God's love. Additionally the gay bar really is the best place to dance where I live.

    Repentence is part of accepting Jesus as a personal savior. How is it not Biblical salvation?

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  29. Oh man - are we really condemming dancing now? Really?

    I admit, I have not memorized the Bible but where - oh where - does it say dancing is not allowed?

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  30. The Bible condems dancing the same place it condems any amount of alcohol consumption, Catholics, and being around anyone who doesn't know Jesus as a personal savior.

    Either that or Jesus turned water into wine, was commonly around people who needed to learn about Him, and He could shake it like a Polaroid picture.

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  31. Zee, Lion.....

    I was taking the pulse of "Christianity today" with my questions and comments. You both have provided the heartbeat data I was seeking to ascertain, both here and at Uruk's blog.

    No further comment on our differences in understanding the teachings of the Bible.

    Shabbat Shalom

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