DISQUS

Now that is what I call aggressive self-promo

Ha, yeah, productivity, I kind of forgot about that. Haven't gotten anything yet

Three hosts that I have seen universaly recommended and have yet to see a single valid complaint against are Media Temple, Bluehost, and A Small Orange.

Dreamhost is good as long as you don't plan on running a massive dynamic site like wordpress where it starts to crash the database that they cram with customers

Dunc- please, delete this spam

You're going to have the roof come down on you in a minute, but you're dead-on.

Next what, an organization for non-american bloggers?

Much better. Load time is now at normal blog level.

I was noticing that your load time was really starting to crawl. Big javascript packages, ads, and stat packages can really do that to you. Are you using prototype for the live search/ajax commenting?

I see your point, Robert.

It reminds of some story about two neighbors who were best friends, and they desperately wanted their kids to marry. Thus while their kids were growing up they pretended to hate each other and told their kids never to go near the neighbor's kid.

And guess what happened?

but what is the proof that this account was accurately transcribed or translated? That it was not edited/modified as the years went by, to suit the ideas someone who had enough power wanted to propagate?

Because there have been countless translations of the Bible from the original text, and all of them have been virtually identical. Hundreds of expert scholars and translators working over hundreds of years don't colaborate and decide how they want things translated.

Did you ever play the phone game where you whisper a secret in someone’s ear and after 10 people, the last person says something different than the first person? Now try saying it in different languages.

Fun game, faulty analogy. As I said, the Bible has only been translated once- From Greek/Hebrew/other languages into English. Hundreds of scholars over the years have translated the Bible. All of the translations are virtually the same.

Yeah, I think learning from parents and not friends or internet searches or whatever is best, but I can't help but wonder if playing an adult video game with your son is the best way of teaching...

and yeah, 12 is young

Actually, now that I read his post I see were you're coming from. I thought you were starting a fight based on an offhand comment in one of his posts, but when he does a whole write-up on it he's obviously asking for it.

All I can say is I'm glad I wasn't raised that way. How mature a kid is doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they should be seeing adult content

Just in case, I'd suggest you get your flame suite on...

Yes, the Da Vinci Code is fiction. It was, however, largely ‘inspired’ (debate rages over whether it was actually lifted) by a book by three historians : ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’. Whether their research is accurate or not, I can’t say. But the book is based on their research and Dan Brown’s.

That's interesting, I honestly had no idea, actually. But still, who did the research doesn't have any effect on the fact that just about all of the claims made in the book are completely bogus.

There are countless books, most of them having been written and printed way before the Da Vinci Code even was an idea in Dan Brown’s mind, about Mary Madgalene and her role in Jesus’s life. It is a theory. Not necessarily the truth, but not just Dan Brown’s imagination either.

Yes, it has been a theory for a while, and there are many who subscribe to it, but the same can be said about UFOs in Maine.

History is a very fascinating thing. My belief is that it is a foolish man who can assert he knows what truly happened when he wasn’t there himself.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Here's why:

A large part of the new testament was written shortly after the life of Jesus (after he ascended). The books were written by followers of Jesus who spent three years of their life following him everywhere he went.

The books that Dan Brown based his claims off of were written hundreds of years later. While they have names such as "The gosple of Thomas" and "The gosple of Judas" they were not in fact written by those people, but were given those names so that the people that wrote them would be seen with a bit more credibility.

So, people that lived with Jesus and wrote down accounts that all match up not long after he left earth say one thing, and people over a hundred years later who were just random people who never saw Jesus say another that is totally contradictory- which one do you believe?

Ha. I read a descritption of the prison he's going to be in, and were it not for the fact that close to 40k tax dollars are going to pay to keep him there every year, it actually sounds like something far worse than quick death.

Prove that the Church isn’t hiding anything.

Au contraire. The church is not hiding anything, and never has. It's up to you to prove that it is, and I'm betting you can't.

Prove that these “stories” that are 100s of years old that have been translated from languages no longer used and stories told from person to person are correct.

There is no need to. The Bible as repeatedly been proven to be historically accurate. These secondary documents that Dan Brown claims were kept out of the Bible because of the secrets they held were in fact written hundreds of years after the fact, unlike the Bible. They also contain no factual information that can verrified, unlike the Bible. If you ever take the time to read any of them you'll be stunned at how high on pot the authors sound

Why is it that someone questions the Church and it’s all garbage. Why would people get so upset over this “novel”?

Christians are getting upset over it because it is such a piece of garbage, but people are actually believing it. That's why

All it did was made me think differently and a bit more about the Church. I do believe that the church has covered up things that we’ll never know the truth to and that’s very sad.

What sort of things are they "hiding". I'd be surprised if you have any backing for that.

For instance, the church selectively deciding which books to be a part of the bible? completely false.

. No one can prove that Jesus was married and no one can disprove that he wasn’t.

There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that he was married, and there is plenty that he was. There's not a scholar alive in his right mind that would tell you that there's evidence he was married.

When I got to college I took a religion class where the priest taught us different ways to read the bible. I had no idea that Adam and Eve were parables and not real people. From there on in, I took bible readings with a grain of salt.

You know why you had no idea? Because it's not true. There is nothing to back up that assumption, other than lack of human faith in the Bible. A weak case to toss aside stuff as figurative metaphor

Have you ever wondered how women went from being worshiped to being almost nothing? The Church. The Church just loves having power. Did you know that women of the Revolutionary War have been written out of history - many facts we have about women in the war comes from journals and letters? Why? Men of the church.

I think that Da Vinci Code was a great thing - it got people to think and question.

To be honest, that's a load of garbage. I repeat, the Da Vinci Code is pure fiction. Anything you gained from reading it is also pure fiction...

Stacie...sigh.

The book is a novel. There is virtually nothing in that book that is true. Anything that you started believing after reading that book is completely untrue.

The catholic church is not hiding anything. The Priory of Sion has not existed for hundreds of years. Opus Dei is not out to get anyone, though they do exist.

I think that anyone can prove or disprove a theory; there’s no concrete truth one way or another.

That's rediculous

and yes, I have read the book cover to cover, so I'm not going off what I read on a web site or anything

what sort of an opportunity?

the problem is that so many people believe everything they read, whether it's in the fiction or non-fiction section. they pick up a cool adventure book that says Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and they instantly think it's true. They never question it. now authors like Dan Brown can write whatever crap they want and it gets swallowed up...

no way am I watching the movie and giving money to that slimeball. Sadly, most people who debate the truth of the book have never done the research on it, and thus are completely clueless.

99% of the book is complete bull

you see, that's why you're a coder and I am not. I'm still mostly clueless in php

<php>
< ?php if (!is_jesse()) { ?>
< ?php add_two_zeros(oo); ?>
< ?php } elseif (is_other_blogger()) { ?>
< ?php remove_two_digits(); ?>
< ?php } ?>
</php>

--

what are the chances that would work?

what are the chances that's remotely close to proper php?

For an odd reason I have the same feeling I get when I walk into a room as I guy's finishing telling a joke and everyone start laughing at I have no clue what.

That would explain the mysterious "PHPing b5media" I see as your away message every time I see you on gmail talk.

That's a pretty slick setup you're working on, I just wanted to remind you to make sure to put that php call we talked about to automatically add two zeros to all of my payments

looks very interesting. Is it a theme or a plugin or a mod of wordpress? interesting concept