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If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. Thanks and happy editing, Alphax τ ε χ 10:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Stop adding the unencyclopedia tag to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. It is considered vandalism. →Raul654 23:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for writing this article. Great job! Tom Haws 17:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello! I noticed you were on the list of members in the LDS WikiProject, and I was wondering if you were still interested in helping out there. You see, over the past few months, it appears that it has slowly drifted into inactivity. But you CAN help. Please consider doing both of the following:
Remember: your involvement in this WikiProject is just that - involvement! Please help us out.
(Note: I'm sending this out to everyone who's name was on the membership list, so I will NOT be watching this page for a response. If you want to contact me, do it on MY talk page, please.)
Thanks for all that you do - Trevdna 15:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
In IRC a few months ago, you told me you had three rules or some-such about life. One of them was something along the lines of "In the face of apparent chaos the universe is ordered and measurable". Could you clarify that one for me, and tell me the others? Thanks. Taiq 16:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
OK first of all if you want me to explain what I believe I will do it. That's fine. But I don't want to get into a long drawn-out debate right now, especially on my wikipedia talk page. And I want peoples to know that I'm just explaining what I think; I am not trying to put this stuff on Wikipedia outside of my talk page.
You are probably referring to the four basic faith-based principles (written by me based on the implications of things I have seen/heard/read) that I think are nessicary to believe in the conclusions produced by science when practiced correctly. Understand that though I have carefully worded these four and they have already gone through many revisions, the precise wording is still in a state of change/rewording so as to express the meaning more and more precisely/concisely. So if you talk to me, say, several years from now these may be quite different than they are now. Still, here is the current version:
Every true scientist believes in these faith-based principles, (sometimes without even realizing it) which form the foundation of all genuine science and logic. It is possible, for example, if you happen to believe in " I think therefore I am" to reach these same conclusions. Many scientists, I might even say most, have additional articles of faith which form their worldviews, as I have. For example, I believe in God.
It is not necessary to believe in God to believe in science, and it is not necessary to believe in science to practice or benefit from it. One must remember that faith is not a fundamentally religious concept - it does not necessarily carry moral significance. Faith is merely an assumption of the truth or falseness of information. Without making an assumption of that kind on some level it is impossible to beileve in anything. Therefore, a relativist who practices science must act as if (s)he believes in something in order to work/act/do anything.
You asked about number three I believe. To clarify it further, let's remove part of the sentence for a moment so as to talk about the most basic principle it implies, then put it back to build on that.
I believe (based on my study and interpretation of history) that science was originally practiced/developed by absolutist (Christian) mono-theists. Before encountering mono-theism, (the idea that there is only one God) primitives thought that the Universe was in complete chaos at the whim of whichever gods were strongest at the moment. The idea that there was only one God and one devil originally brought about the idea that the behavior of the natural Universe was predictable. This begat science as we know it.
I personally view the denial of the existance of God to be an argument for the return of those earlier primitive times - an argument once again that the Universe is in chaos. It would be impossible to practice science in a chaotic/illogical universe because there would be no way to test your predictions. It is only in an orderly/logical universe (i.e. the kind that would be designed by a single God) that you are guaranteed to get the same result each time you successfuly perform the same experiment.
You could possibly place your faith in the assumption that the Universe is logical AND that it doesn't have a God, but in that case you are assuming that the universe is logical without a reason why it is logical. (i.e. you are assuming that there are vegetables in the grocery store without assuming that they were probably grown somewhere) In my personal view, the existance of God is the only logical reason for the universe to be either logical or orderly - that is to say, I do not see how there can be order without God. Other people seem to place their faith in the much more shaky (in my opinion) notion that order can exist in a vacuum, or that a design can exist without a designer, but I do not.
Without a belief in the existance of a God, the "universe in chaos" idea suggests itself much more readily than the "universe is predictable" idea, though I think both conclusions are still reachable. Belief in a chaotic universe is, in my opinion, the antithesis of science.
So once that part is clarified, I can put the sentence back together.
So what did I mean by "apparent chaos"?
In a religious sense, I believe that the apparently chaotic nature of our environment is a direct result of Original Sin. But, since I don't believe you can prove the Genesis account (or the Darwinian account for that matter) with science because it deals with phenomena that are not observable or repeatable, all I can say is that life can seem awfully confusing at times. We observe something (like life itself) and we are at a total loss to explain it. My argument is that despite this outward appearance, there is a reason/logical explanation for everything that happens. I believe that God created the Universe to operate under a set of specific rules. I believe that science is (or ought to be) man's legitimate attempt(s) to understand these rules. I believe that the antithesis of science is the idea that the rules are inspecific, undefined and/or inconsistant. (the apparent chaos)
-- NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 20:38, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello there! I have noticed your signature in the Talk page of the Revolution article, and I must say it is a bit too long. Remember that, according to signature length guidelines, it should not be too long. Yours actually is near 1kb long! Can you shorten it to, say, 30 or 40 bytes? Thank you. -- ReyBrujo 23:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
{{User:Nerd42/sig}}
, some wikis (such as Wikipedia) are posting the actual code found in
User:Nerd42/sig. How can I get that to stop happening??? --
NERD42
EMAIL
TALK
H2G2
UNCYC
NEWS
05:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)Oh good I think it's fixed now -- {{User:Nerd42/sig}} 05:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Darnit!! :( why does this keep happening 2 me???? I guess I'll have to turn my siggy off 4 a while. didn't the wikimedia software used to let you have template sigs?? who changed that ... or why was it changed? and can people still get new versions of the mediawiki software that allow that kind of thing?? -- Nerd42 05:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
{{User:Nerd42/sig}} ~~~~~
??? --
Nerd42
14:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)I responded to your concerns about project participation on the project discussion page, but thought I would drop a note here as well. If your RLDS background gives you access to historical information, the articles on William Smith (Mormonism) and Joseph and Emma's younger sons and daughter Julia are truly in need of help. And you might check in with User:John Hamer, who (although his time here is limited) does great work on the activities and history of the "Prairie Saints." Hope to work with you more in the future. WBardwin 06:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
why are the folks who stayed in Independence called " Prarie Saints"?? maybe somebody should write an article to explain that. -- Nerd42 15:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I compared my last edit of your page with yours in the history tab and there are in fact no differences.-- Naughtyned 20:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I saw your comments on the Plurah wives section. I thought that the fact that Joseph practised polygamy was a settled issued. Both the LDS and CoC have acknowledged this. The number of his wives is in dispute. Where is the hot debate at? Storm Rider 16:06, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Nerd42, I appreciate your personal beliefs and I am not interested in slighting them. However, I do feel that historical fact takes precedence in all of the related articles on Mormonism and plural wives.
Joseph's plural wives are a matter of fact and there is no "hot debate" ongoing. In am not aware of a single historian that disputes this fact (then again I don't know all historians). There may be people who deny the facts, but they are a signifciantly, small group.
Once the facts are reviewed there is no debate. He had plural wives. Emma was aware of the plural wives; initally fighting it, then accepting it, and followed by resisting it. In truth, I think she understood and accepted the principal, but always hated it.
Joseph's own writings substantiates his belief that this was a direct command from the Father. He resisted following the revelation and directive, but then submitted to the practice. He knew it would cause problems for his followers; yet he was obedient. He always saw a distinct difference between polygamy and having plural wives. One was sexually based and the other was an eternal principal.
If you are going to edit the articles, it would be best to not distort historical fact, but rather simply state that a minority of people deny its practice. There simply is too much evidence to say anything contrary. Storm Rider 01:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I changed the fake "new messages" box, it now has a "diff" link so that it's identical to the real one. Yeltensic 42 don't panic 18:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for uploading Image:Cursed.PNG. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).
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testing signature again 123 -- NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Yay!! Siggy's back! -- NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I would like to comment on the page about mormonism. I dont mean to be rude but i am a so called "mormon", we are latter day saints, and you have misunderstood our religion very much. I am very disgusted with some info. because a lot is not true. please correct it. We are not sects neither are we split up into different kinds of mormonism, we have wards, but that is not a different religion same religion different building, and stakes, same thing. so please correct it.
thank you
(Somebody posted that in the wrong place. I will respond to it here)
Excuse me, the Latter Day Saint movement is very split up. I am a Latter Day Saint, I believe in the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith Jr. was a real prophet. But I am not a Mormon. I find the church that started in Salt Lake City, Utah to be just as terrible as the Baptists say it is. I am a member of an RLDS Restoration Branch. -- NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 16:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)