User talk:Temlakos/Archive3

Debate on FSM, etc.
Moved to Archive 2.--TemlakosTalk 15:57, 18 November 2007 (EST)

Biology article for SchöpfungsWiki
Terry,

I saw where you added Biology, Biología, and 생물학 to the de:Biologie article. What is that exactly? And how does the Biologie article look? Did you notice any mistakes or anything I need to do differently? Thanks... --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 15:01, 17 November 2007 (EST)
 * The links beginning with the two-letter codes are to different versions of the article in languages other than German--including the English version. The two-letter codes are language codes--de for German, en for English, es for Spanish, and ko for Korean. We also have fr for French, he for Hebrew, pl for Polish, and zh for Chinese.
 * Now the way they work is this: if you add a link to an article that looks like what you saw, then it will not appear in the article--but a sidebar link in the "in other languages" box will appear. But if you prefix a colon to the language code, then it will behave like a regular Interwiki link.
 * Now I don't speak German, and I didn't see anything wrong with the article off-hand. (That translation of the Creation Museum article that I uploaded, came from a fellow member of my church who is a native of Germany.)
 * By the way: you have full administrative privileges in the Polish and French sites. That means that you can edit system messages, which are in the MediaWiki namespace. Only sysops can do that. "Loginend", "Requestacount-text", and "Userlogin" are system messages. So, by the way, are "Sidebar" and certain other messages that provide the text inside the sidebar. And on every site in which English is not the primary language, you can add the code "/en" to edit the English version. In that way, you can customize the sidebar for viewers who read languages other than English.
 * Keep watch on the French site for a few days. Try setting your language preference (in the "my preferences" dialogue) from English to French, and see how it appears. Then I can show you how to do the same thing on any other foreign-language site where you have sysop rights.--TemlakosTalk 16:03, 17 November 2007 (EST)


 * Terry, thanks for all the info! I didn't know that I have sysop privileges for the foreign languages CreationWikis.   I played around with my default languages settings; so if I change my language to whatever foreign language wiki I'm working on, I have sysop options?
 * The German biology article I translated with a online translator, but I do know a little German (I took it for several months).
 * BTW, thanks for the French language tip for "homeschooling" :). --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 09:39, 18 November 2007 (EST)


 * Amanda: Sysop privileges have nothing to do with language preferences. They have to do with whether you are listed, or not listed, in the groups table.
 * At present, you are a sysop on the English, French, and Polish sites, and on the Media Pool. You do not have those privileges on any other site.
 * Resetting the language preferences means only that the system will respond to you with messages written in the language for which you set the preference. MediaWiki has default content in all languages for most system messages--or a sysop can override that by creating an actual system messages.
 * All system messages are actually MediaWiki namespace documents--for example, MediaWiki:Loginend. Only sysops may edit those.
 * As to translating anything with an on-line translator: the more of an language you know, the better. And those online translators are anything but perfect. I found a good one at FreeTranslation.com, but even then I have to check some of its choices of words and phrases. This is especially true of idiomatic expressions--which literally are "one's own way of saying a thing" (from the Greek idios one's own). For example, we say, "We are at odds"; the French say, "We are at the edge." We say, "Put a cork in it!"; the French say, "Stick your tongue in your pocket!" We say, "to fight like cats and dogs"; the French say merely "to be like cats and dogs." We say, "I must warn you"; the French say either "I must advise you" or, to say it more strongly, "I must put you on guard." (Je dois vous mettre en garde.)
 * And by the way: the Academie Francaise is no joke. That is an institution of living, breathing human beings who decide what the proper word is for a new concept, especially one that the French didn't invent. That is why we say "e-mail" and they say "courriel." That last came as a surprise to Academy watchers, because that is a Quebeckism. But the Academy were very much afraid that the word "mel" was too--well, too "Americanized" or "Yankee-fied" for Gallic sensibilities.
 * No, I don't have a URL to visit the Academie Francaise--though if I find one, I might add it to the French-language version of the Style Guide (Guide de style). But I'm confident that "s'instruant en maison" is a good phrase for "homeschooling" in French. Though I must put everyone on guard: Europeans don't like the concept of home-schooling. In Germany, you can actually get arrested for it--and it's happened. The Home School Legal Defense Association has the bloody, gory details. Still, we're all contrarians anyway, so I'd say go ahead and mention that in your User namespace.
 * Especially seeing that the User namespace is no longer a public namespace. We restrict that to registered users.
 * One final word: when translating any article, you might find, as I still do, that the image links remain broken. All that's happened is that the images involved are still on the English database and not on the Pool where they belong. Because you are a sysop here and on the Pool, you can move such images to the Pool and delete them from this site as you find them.--TemlakosTalk 15:31, 18 November 2007 (EST)

Discussion Policy
Good evening, Dr. Temlakos.

Thanks for getting back to me. I looked at OriginsTalk, but wasn't too clear on how it works. Anyway, I'll watch for you there.

I don't want to go against your policies, but I felt I was sort of defending myself, as you sounded rather aggressive. I try to explain my thinking, not to prove that I am right, but so that you can tell me where I am mistaken.

One last point, am I allowed to comment on your talk pages on things in your articles which appear to me to be counterfactual?

--Drlindberg 17:39, 18 November 2007 (EST)


 * As per the relevant policy, you may post your reviews of the content of any article in the Talk page for that article. Those among our editors who are creationists will of course take your comments under advisement in deciding whether and how to edit those articles. I assume that you know that only a creationist may edit an actual article.
 * Concerning the content of actual discussion, I must warn you--or as the French would say, put you on guard--about one thing. Very often, disputes of fact turn out to be disputes of interpretation and usually disputes of interpretation of an historical record. This is inevitable in any article that actually concerns origins science rather than operational science. Occasionally, the resolution of such disputes, in the context of article content, become unresolvable--and in that case the parties are best advised to take their dispute to another forum, like OriginsTalk. Pressing the matter on this site in defiance of an administrative order is frowned upon and will be dealt with in a serious manner.
 * Furthermore, the publication of atheistic propaganda in the guise of pressing such a "dispute of fact" rises to the level of vandalism, for which administrative tolerance is very low indeed.
 * I apologize for not terminating the back-and-forth on this site earlier--and for assuming a posture that in retrospect I find somewhat less than civil and edifying. I forgot for several crucial hours that I actually am an administrator, and therefore ought to set a proper example.
 * Therefore: as a creationist willing to let you have your say in the appropriate place, I will sign on to OriginsTalk and introduce myself in a way that, I trust, you will not mistake.
 * And as an administrator of CreationWiki, I declare that this particular discussion must continue elsewhere than in the Talk namespaces of CreationWiki.--TemlakosTalk 20:41, 18 November 2007 (EST)

Updated privileges
Amanda:

I have some good news that you will probably find very helpful in your efforts on the international sites.

''Mr. Ashcraft authorized me to make some database propagations. You don't need to know the details. The upshot is that you now are a Sysop and a Checkuser on every site in CreationWiki, including the Media Pool and every foreign-language site. That gives you the authority, everywhere in CreationWiki, to:''

''1. Protect and unprotect pages.  2. Edit protected pages.  3. Edit and, when necessary, create system messages (MediaWiki namespace).  4. Match users to their IP's and IP's to the users who log in from them, in case of trouble.''

''I have gained that authority as well, so I can help you out if you have a question. I can also help you with Checkuser if you want to play around with that.''


 * Terry,


 * Thanks for letting me know! I am greatly appreciative!


 * Yes, I would like to play around with Checkuser, because I'm not familiar with it at all. But I probably won't be on CreationWiki at all tomorrow because of Thanksgiving.


 * Also, you might be able to help me...on SchöpfungsWiki, I added some events to the Aktuelle Ereignisse (Current Events) page; but as you can see it is only showing one section in the "Contents" box. Also, it is not showing the [edit] link to edit the event section.  I'm not real sure what is going on. :)


 * Thanks...--└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 17:43, 21 November 2007 (EST)


 * P.S. I came across this site (http://creationism.org/) the other day and have found it to be a great international resource. It had links to Creation groups all over the world.  BTW, I emailed the French organization they have listed and inquired about Creation related events in France, but they have not responded.


 * I've never seen any problem quite like the one that cropped up on that Current Events page. I still can't diagnose it. Let's leave the link where it is, and if I can think of any other solution, I'll try to implement it. In the meantime, I've left it as you left it.


 * Thanks for trying to get a line on French or continental creation-oriented events.--TemlakosTalk 18:33, 21 November 2007 (EST)

Suggestion
Hi,

I noticed on your userpage for SchöpfungsWiki you have: Temlakos ist ein SchöpfungsWiki Benutzer; but Benutzer is usually plural, so I suggest using Benutzerin -- which is singular. Also, on SchöpfunsWiki for the userpage it says, for example: Benutzer: Amorris, can it be changed to Benutzerin? --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 18:01, 22 November 2007 (EST)

P.S. Feel free to "critique" my French userpage; because I just used an online translator to write it. :)

One more thing, I can put you (your userpage) in the Christian user category for ScöpfungsWiki if you want (or you can...doesn't matter).


 * You don't say! I just used the name of the namespace. The only problem is that if I change the namespace name to something non-standard, a lot of links will disrupt. Best to leave namespace names alone--but maybe I can change the tab designation for those who express a German language preference.


 * Thanks for offering to add "Christian user" to my userpage. To show you how crazy I've been going lately, I haven't even done up a user page on the French site, and that's the site I'm spending the bulk of my time on.--TemlakosTalk 18:41, 22 November 2007 (EST)


 * You know, I think you're right. It is true that Benutzer is plural, as well as a masculine singular, depending on what article you use before it.  Benutzerin is the feminine singular.  Also, the translator I was using was translating it into "users".  But this page explains it.


 * Also, I received a reply to my email regarding Creation-related events in France, so I am going to forward it to your email so you can view the info he sent and also contact him if you want to. --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 09:53, 24 November 2007 (EST)


 * Thanks a million--or as the French say, thanks a thousand.--TemlakosTalk 09:57, 24 November 2007 (EST)


 * Yeah, no problem... --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 14:27, 24 November 2007 (EST)


 * Terry, did you get the email I forwarded to you? Just making sure it went through...  --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 13:22, 26 November 2007 (EST)

Amanda, I got your email from Monsieur Danis, and sent him one on my own. But yesterday (or maybe two days ago) I got a delayed-delivery message from my ISP, saying that they can't seem to reach M. Danis' ISP. Nothing further since. His site checks out, so that's in order. Now I'm just waiting for my message to get through, and for him to respond.--TemlakosTalk 13:56, 26 November 2007 (EST)


 * Well, that's weird...I received an email from him today that was pretty much the same as the one he sent originally. So I don't know If he's getting mixed up or what.  Have you tried to contact him through his blog?  --└Amanda M. ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 16:00, 26 November 2007 (EST)


 * That, I haven't tried. Maybe that will be next, perhaps tomorrow when I have more time.--TemlakosTalk 16:07, 26 November 2007 (EST)

Christmas
Hey there, I was just wondering something...at Christmas we celebrate Jesus' birth, but what about the other pagan religions that used the same time of year to celebrate their gods? Should we be celebrating Jesus at such a time? And, how about all our traditions? Some of them seem to have come from pagan customs! Scorpionman 21:18, 11 December 2007 (EST)


 * That debate might have to wait for another forum. That said, I predict that, during the Millennial Kingdom, we will not be celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ at this time of year at all. Instead, we will celebrate His Birth in the fall, and more particularly during the feast of Tabernacles.


 * This is not to say that we won't celebrate anything at this time of year. You want to know something ironic? We might still mark the Feast of Lights!--TemlakosTalk 21:25, 11 December 2007 (EST)


 * I wasn't exactly wondering about the Millenial Kingdom, no doubt we'll have all kinds of celebrations then. What I mean to say is does God forbid the traditions we have (lights, tinsel, Christmas trees, etc)? Scorpionman 15:19, 14 December 2007 (EST)

Well, if we had the Co-dwelling Glory in our midst, I have no doubt that God would absolutely forbid certain things in His Presence. We don't have that right now, so it's not as dangerous as was, say, burning incense with strange fire in the Holy of Holies on an unlooked-for day, by unauthorized persons who, to top it all, were drunk at the time.

But I'll tell you this: God does not appreciate half the traditions we observe. Yule logs. Decorated trees. Lighting your house up like a honky-tonk. And especially, Santa Claus. Have a look at my article on Saint Nicholas for some background on that one.

The best Christmas we're going to have, in my household, will be going to church where the choir (including me) will sing a full set of genuine hymns and odes.--TemlakosTalk 16:18, 14 December 2007 (EST)


 * You think Christmas trees are wrong? Hmmm...how about the Tree of Life? The Christian growth that can be symbolized by it? Not that a lot of Americans use it that way, but still...I wouldn't call it immoral. But of course, we sure don't need it! It is interesting how we can attribute various elements of the Incarnation to what we celebrate, though; the time of year, symbolizing the time of spiritual darkness in which Christ came, and the lights symbolizing the light He provides, and the tree (as I've already mentioned). One thing, though: obviously, we don't believe in Santa, but does that forbid us from enjoying literature based on him? Scorpionman 20:10, 24 December 2007 (EST)
 * Let me ask you something: Is it lawful for a parent to lie to his children about anything?
 * And more particularly, is it lawful for a parent to lie to his children concerning the existence, or non-existence, of God-substitutes in real life?
 * At our church, we sang a remarkable little ditty saying that we don't need "Santa Claus" to enjoy Christmas. After that, our assistant pastor told us a little of the story of Saint Nicholas--the real Saint Nicholas.
 * It might be acceptable to share some of that Santa Claus fiction with children--so long as we never say or imply that Santa Claus is a real person--nor distort the memory of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra and a man having a history almost as remarkable as that of Paul.--TemlakosTalk 20:42, 24 December 2007 (EST)

bible characters
You have added gobs of new people for our new properties we have on CreationWiki. However the article Bible character doesn't seem to have some, are all you adding biblical characters? Would u like help updating the Bible character page? --Tony Sommer 19:42, 27 December 2007 (EST)
 * Yes, indeed. If you can update that article, I can continue with what I'm doing.
 * Actually, the only new article that I have recently added is Dinah. The rest of my edits have all been semantic annotations--mostly with properties of my own invention.--TemlakosTalk 19:52, 27 December 2007 (EST)

Biblical history
On a different note, how do we know exactly what the writers of the Old Testament said, if we don't have the original manuscripts? Scorpionman 09:23, 31 December 2007 (EST)


 * We have copies that we have every reason to believe are authentic. The ancient Hebrew copyists used a checksumming process that modern archivists and official stenographers could probably learn from.--TemlakosTalk 09:49, 31 December 2007 (EST)

But what about the New Testament? It didn't recieve the same care that the OT did. Does that mean we shouldn't trust it? Scorpionman 14:02, 31 December 2007 (EST)


 * Happily, those manuscripts are far more recent, and so ordinary cross-checking works just as well.--TemlakosTalk 14:11, 31 December 2007 (EST)

What about the "gnostic gospels"? Are we supposed to believe those are part of the Bible? Is it possible that Paul was gnostic, a belief which Wikipedia seems to support? Scorpionman 14:49, 31 December 2007 (EST)


 * Oh, no. The Gnostic Gospels are fake. They talk about some kind of "secret knowledge" that you're supposed to have, and that's totally inconsistent with everything that Jesus and Paul said. More to the point, the Gnostic Gospels are full of lies, and deliberate ones.--TemlakosTalk 15:02, 31 December 2007 (EST)

What about those two "Gospels" (Thomas and Judas)? And how about the Gospel of Peter? Wasn't that held canonical by the church for centuries? Where do the Gnostic gospels lie? Who started gnosticism anyway? Sorry for all the questions, it's just that I'm right now arguing with some guys on Facebook and they almost have me convinced that the New Testament is false. For instance, isn't it a fact that most of the bishops around that time were illiterate, and why are there so many differences in the original texts? Scorpionman 15:55, 31 December 2007 (EST)


 * Hold on a minute. What do those Facebook guys mean by "bishops"? Don't forget, bishops in the Roman Catholic sense didn't exist until we had the Roman Catholic Church--and that didn't start until Constantine made Christianity (or at least Christianity as he saw it) the official state religion in the Roman Empire. And as for "illiterate"--well, Paul would be surprised to be described that way. He was a Pharisee born and bred, and a full natural-born citizen of Rome. (Remember, he told the tribune Claudius Lysias that he didn't come from any podunk city--or words to that effect.)


 * Forget the "Gospels" of Thomas, Jude, or Peter. Nobody accepts those as canonical today, and there's no reason to.


 * Here is a good link to start reading about the Gnostic heresy--I say heresy because that's what it is: something trumped up to divide people. Bottom line, nobody seems to know when and how Gnosticism started to creep into the church, or who started to bring it in. But the lines of thinking behind it go back even further than Christ Himself, from sources that Christ never acknowledged as real.--TemlakosTalk 16:48, 31 December 2007 (EST)

Whew, that does take a load off of my mind. But what I'm really wondering, is why the books we do have are canonical, and how do we know that what we read in English is actually what, essentially, was written in Greek? There are so many manuscripts, and the differences are many! Scorpionman 17:24, 31 December 2007 (EST)


 * The current canon comes largely from King James I of the UK--though the Geneva canon agrees with it. As to the fidelity of the New Testament English versions, I own a Greek New Testament, and I have a year of Greek from my pastor. I can vouch that the translations are as good as you can ever get when you translate from one language to another--at least, I'll vouch for the KJV as the translation that comes closest to the original meaning. The New American Standard is another fairly accurate version. (I even own a Geneva 1599 Bible, so I can do some really fancy cross-checking when I have to.)--TemlakosTalk 17:56, 31 December 2007 (EST)

So why is it that of all forty or so accounts of Jesus' life, only four of those got put in? Scorpionman 10:11, 1 January 2008 (EST)


 * Those four are generally held to be the most reliable.--TemlakosTalk 10:23, 1 January 2008 (EST)

By what standards? Scorpionman 20:27, 1 January 2008 (EST)
 * Consistency with other Scriptures, including Scriptures that the accounts specifically quote, and other Old Testament prophecies that address New Testament events.--TemlakosTalk 20:31, 1 January 2008 (EST)

Aha. Is that why the Gospels of Thomas, Judas and Peter didn't "make the cut", along with the numerous other accounts of Jesus' life? Scorpionman 22:55, 1 January 2008 (EST)
 * Very likely, it was. The fundamental axioms of what I would call "canonical criticism" are:
 * That God wrote the Bible and used various human beings as scriveners.
 * That God doesn't change his mind nor need to issue clarifications later on.--TemlakosTalk 06:52, 2 January 2008 (EST)

Now Jesus did tell John that anyone who added to or removed from His words would be condemned. If the Gospels of Thomas or Judas are His words, then aren't we condemned for removing them? Scorpionman 11:31, 2 January 2008 (EST)


 * That question presupposes that these Gnostic Gospels (of Thomas and Judas) are accurate. Space does not allow me to discuss what's wrong with them here, but mark my words: they are definitely in error, and rather serious error.--TemlakosTalk 12:03, 2 January 2008 (EST)

Having read more about the Gospel of Thomas, I am convinced that it is indeed NOT the work of Christ. Could you, perhaps, recommend any good books on the subject of New Testament canon to me? I'm rather interested in reading more about this. Scorpionman 12:34, 2 January 2008 (EST)

Jacob
That was an amazing amount of text you added to Jacob. Had you put it all together elsewhere, and copied it over, or did you really sit there and type out 9k all at once? ~ MD Otley (talk) 02:38, 1 January 2008 (EST)


 * I work largely off-line, and use a text editor. I have memorized most of the Wiki codes, so I know how to make tags and new section headers and so on. (Better yet, OpenOffice.org is coming out with a new version that actually exports documents to MediaWiki format--though I won't vouch that they can handle semantic annotation.)


 * So I simply copied the original source onto my own machine, and then worked on it, and then when I felt that I had done enough for one day, I pasted the whole thing back onto the page. That's probably why I don't normally make ten to twenty edits to get an article up. Many times I create it off-line, chase down all the references, and then put it up in one step--with a few more steps needed only if I made a mistake in coding somewhere.


 * You'll notice that I also did some relatively minor edits to the articles on Jacobs sons--and created one for his daughter. I did that mainly to take advantage of the semantic-annotation capabilities. But I have more--much more--to add.--TemlakosTalk 10:31, 1 January 2008 (EST)


 * I kinda figured that's probably what you did. If I were to do a major expansion of an article, I would probably do something like that.  Actually, I didn't notice the changes to his kids' articles, but I'm glad you included that in your project. Thanks for your work! ~ MD Otley (talk) 14:13, 1 January 2008 (EST)

deleting the article on Kent Hovind
User:Rucas just suggested deleting the article on Kent Hovind. Of course I understand why he's afraid of that subject; Kent Hovind got himself into trouble with the taxman. Rucas seems to think that the article takes a pro-atheistic perspective, when all it does is set forth the details of Hovind's tax troubles and associated copyright controvereies.

I suggested that instead he ought to post suggestions for improvement of the Kent Hovind article to its associated talk page.

I thought I'd let you know about this. Shall I put an item into the CreationWiki:Help wanted page about the Kent Hovind article?--TemlakosTalk 22:37, 15 January 2008 (EST)


 * I wouldn't. The article could use improvements, but its not really a priority.


 * He's making a big fuss about the discussion regarding CSE's recall of videos they had previously released into the public domain. From what I've heard there is some validity to that, but I don't at all consider reporting it to be an attack.


 * It seems perfectly reasonable for Kent to want to reinstate his copyrights on those videos if they are being used in a negative manner. Not being well versed on copyright law, I would assume he's within his rights to do so. I know that Creative Commons Licenses are changed and even recalled. --Mr. Ashcraft - (talk) 22:51, 15 January 2008 (EST)