User talk:Nerd42/talk2

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Hello Nerd42/talk2, welcome to Wikipedia!

Here are some tips:

Take a look at the Simplified Ruleset.
Read the Tutorial, How to edit a page and the Manual of Style.
Find out how to revert, move and merge pages.
Sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~).
Add yourself to the New user log and a regional notice board
Ask questions at the Village pump or Help desk.
Use the Show preview button
Provide an Edit summary
Add the correct image copyright tag to any images you upload
Create a User page
Be bold
Ignore all rules

If you feel a change is needed, feel free to make it yourself! Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone (yourself included) can edit any article by following the Edit this page link. Wikipedia convention is to be bold and not be afraid of making mistakes. If you're not sure how editing works, have a look at How to edit a page, or try out the Sandbox to test your editing skills.

If, for some reason, you are unable to fix a problem yourself, feel free to ask someone else to do it. Wikipedia has a vibrant community of contributors who have a wide range of skills and specialties, and many of them would be glad to help. As well as the wiki community pages there are IRC Channels, where you are more than welcome to ask for assistance.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. Thanks and happy editing, Alphax ^τεχ 10:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What wikipedia is not

Stop adding the unencyclopedia tag to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. It is considered vandalism. →Raul654 23:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WE ARE THE BORG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE ... I mean OK. I think it makes perfect sense to be there though --Nerd42 02:36, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Restoration Branches

Thanks for writing this article. Great job! Tom Haws 17:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject LDS

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:

Take ONE thing form the To-Do list and do it. Once you're done with it, remove it from the list, and from the<>{{Template:LDSprojectbox}}<>, so we know its done. Keep the page on your watchlist. We have a backlog going for more than half a year. Please help to work on it, and remove it.
Vote on the LDSCOTF, and work on it!
Tell your friends (esp. LDS friends, & esp. Wikipedian friends) about this WikiProject, and enocourage them to join (and be active).

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)[reply]

hey wait a minute maybe I'm in the wrong project LOL - I'm not LDS, I'm RLDS. -- NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 23:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something you said or may not have said (but I think you said it.) Or did you?

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)[reply]

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:

Truth is a universal constant, which all true scientists objectively seek.
For all intents and purposes, the observable Universe exists, and must be treated as real.
The Universe, in the midst of it's apparent chaos, is orderly and predictable.
Science, as follows logically from the above statements, is limited to making observations based on the observable Universe.

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.

The Universe, ~~in the midst of it's apparent chaos~~ is orderly and predictable.

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.

The Universe, in the midst of it's apparent chaos, is orderly and predictable.

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)[reply]

Er -- thanks, but you know... I was referring to clarifying my phrasing of it. ;)

OK, LOL, I thought you wanted an explanation of it. --Nerd42 15:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well anyway, reading this bit over again, this is alot better than what I had acually written down in the paper where I'm trying to explain the four, so I'm probably going to incorporate the above text into my finished paper. So I'm glad I went and typed all that anyway. :) --Nerd42 15:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Signature

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)[reply]

Unfortunately, for some reason instead of posting the text {{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)[reply]

Oh good I think it's fixed now --{{User:Nerd42/sig}} 05:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

I am not sure, but have you tried putting {{User:Nerd42/sig}} {{time}} as your auto signature? At worst, you could put that instead of ~~~~. -- ReyBrujo 07:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How would I do that? Do you mean like typing {{User:Nerd42/sig}} ~~~~~ ??? --Nerd42 14:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RE: LDS Project

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

My response to you on my user talk page is confirmed.

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)[reply]

Oh, don't worry I'm not mad or anything :) I've just had alot of problems with vandalism lately ... and wondered if you'd found any or caused any or whatnot --Nerd42 23:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joseph's Plural Wives

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)[reply]

The number of his wives may be in dispute - whether he had 1 (Emma Smith) or several, but
The issue is far from settled / a contraversy exists because there are many groups that think that the LDS and the CoC are both wrong, particularly within the RLDS movement, including my group (the Restoration Branches) and others, who all believe that Smith had one wife. (Emma Smith)
Joseph Smith Jr, Emma Smith and Joseph Smith III have all spoken out against polygamy repeatedly. --Nerd42 16:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sources please, with dates -- would be appropriate for a paragraph in a number of articles. WBardwin 22:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, bit busy at present, but hopefully I'll have that done within a week or two. --Nerd42 02:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Notice I am not editing the articles until I have gotten some solid proof together. At present I am busy with other projects, but eventually I'm going to prove you all wrong. --Nerd42 15:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New messages

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)[reply]

hey thanks LOL :) --Nerd42 19:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright problem with Image:Cursed.PNG

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).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Thank you. Shyam ^(T/C) 21:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

lol i dont know what its doing here anyway its supposed to be on bluwiki not here --Nerd42 17:20, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

testing signature again 123 --NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Return of Siggy!

Yay!! Siggy's back! --NERD42 EMAIL TALK H2G2 UNCYC NEWS 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me.....

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)[reply]