Tynach

I've been a Christian my whole life, and grew up in a non-denominational church. Non-denominational churches essentially don't try to adhere to a specific interpretation of the Bible, and as such, invite all sorts of people into their doors.

Some of them are crazy, which is how I know the following.

Some Christians take phrases such as, "God's ways are not our ways,", "If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first," and, "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first," to extremes they were never meant to be taken.

For example, my dad - for the longest time - believed very firmly that if someone is bothered by something, it is only because that person does it themselves. For example, if someone is making an annoying sound, it's only annoying to you because you make annoying sounds too.

When I came out as bisexual, I've slowly been breaking down some of his beliefs. Me being into guys (though also girls too, still) severely bothers him - but he knows very well that he has never been into guys.

Another example (not from my parents, just people I've met) is that people think that if humans think of it, it's of course not at all what God intended. In other words, if God's ways are not ours, then nothing we do on our own is right. Therefore, only Christians can do anything good, because non-Christians don't know God's ways.

It's completely fucked up logic, but some people strongly believe it. And it's this type of logic that leads to these sorts of beliefs.

Disclaimer

This is in no way how the Bible actually is. This is the result of people taking very specific sentences of the Bible, and putting them out there for people to read with zero context. Or worse, reading them and creating their own context for the single sentence.

Now, I do believe that the Bible has many layers of information laced into it, and it requires lots of study of even single verses to discern all the information it has. However, every verse ABSOLUTELY MUST be read in the context of the verses around it. Pulling context out of your ass to make a single sentence say what you want it to say is, in my opinion at least, flat out evil.

Some of the books of the New Testament even address this. I love the way Romans is written, for example; the first chapter is indeed talking about how sin ruins our lives and how the unrighteous won't go to heaven.

Then in chapter 2, it talks about how those who claim to be righteous but condemn others are themselves condemned, and how even those without Christ might sin, but have thoughts behind the sin that will defend them from judgement, when God is judging them.

In other words, it talks about how sin can control our lives whether or not we're Christians, and we should not judge others. And even those who are not Christians will still be judged completely fairly, and their motivations can defend their sin, and the sin not be held against them.

Which is the complete opposite of what most Christians preach these days, which is a damn shame. Seriously, they need to just read the Bible for once and stop reading individual scriptures out of context.

Ok. My rant's done.

On a related note, where is the team that was responsible for Star Fox Adventures' graphics? That game had some of the best graphics on the Gamecube, and I'm curious where that talent has ended up.

Encrypted peer-to-peer connections using exclusively open source software (such as OpenSSH). Ensure that every piece of software on both your and your friend's computers is open source, and that you've compiled it all yourself (and your friend has compiled all of his own).

Then you're probably safe.

You're assuming an even distribution. If the quality control is the same, then the number of DOAs will be the same. However, this isn't true.

Consider someone who's very poor, and they live in an area full of rednecks. The delivery truck driver is also a redneck, and doesn't take good care of the packages. Everyone in this area is going to have high DOAs, but at the same time, everyone in the area is going to be more likely to buy a cheaper product.

Thus, when you see a bunch of otherwise equivalent products, but one brand is cheaper, you might see the percentage of DOAs go up. However, we do not have enough information to know if this is because of the design of the product, or the area that the buyers live in.

The overall demographic of two products might be the same, but if one's even slightly cheaper, then those on a money crunch are more likely to buy it than the other one. People who buy the other one have money to spare and/or brand loyalty. This skews the ratings slightly in favor of the more expensive one.

Thus, DOAs are not a good reason to rate 1 star. However, if it dies a month later, that is a clear indication of low quality, and is a very good reason to rate the product 1 star.

Interesting. Do you have anything specific you want to study when you get older?

I'm very far from your situation (living at home in probably too much comfort in the US, going to a community college that's cheap and leaves me with no debt), but I happen to be going into computer programming - but I love physics and math (sorta; I'm slow at it with pen/paper, but I understand how it all works and fits together).

I would have loved to have a 'general science' oriented highschool, and I think it's cool that's what you have :)