whtknt

What is the purpose of humans in the scheme of Intelligent Design? If God merely wanted people to worship Him, he could have hard-wired that into the design at the time of creation. Instead, we are given "free-will," but punished if we stray from the path He has chosen. I don't get it... really.

I'm not trying to be rude or to downplay anyone's beliefs, I just don't understand the purpose of designing faulty humans, then blaming them for making mistakes that an omnipotent being should know full well they will make!

You can't tell me that God, who knows all, didn't know that Eve would be tempted and would tempt Adam. And if He did know, why put them through that when He need only have set them outside the Garden in the first place. Was He fulfilling some need to justify His decision?

What kind of craftsman does not correct obvious flaws in the design phase, but instead markets a flawed product?

I have been scanning some documents at work and making them into PDF files for inclusion on our archive. A co-worker was cropping them, reorienting pages, etc. When the file is scanned, it might only be 750 KB in size, but after she has reoriented, cropped, and added a single text edit, the file is suddenly 24 MB! (This is a real example, I have the original and the altered file.) Why did it suddenly increase in size ten-fold and how can I avoid this?

Please do not simply tell me to use something other than Acrobat unless it is freeware or open source; I do not have an option. The boss wants PDF and thinks Acrobat is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so that's what we use. It just seems silly to me that these files should inflate so much from a little editing.

The original scans are being done on a Toshiba copier and alterations are done using Acrobat Standard 6.0.05, if that helps.

It seems to me that if some intelligence really was responsible for the creation of everything, more logic would have gone into it. Humans cannot subsist on a diet too heavy in one type of food and too light in another. Diabetics cannot have complex sugars in excess, for example, and vegans must take vitamin supplements or risk a whole host of diseases.

So it seems to me that there is no real order to the way of things. Humans may have gotten the larger brains and ability to reason, but we got short-changed in the diet department. If we eat too much of one thing, we get fat; too little of another, we risk disease; and there are some things that can kill us outright.

If there is a benevolent force in the universe that wants us to be happy, why can't we eat what we like with no ill effects? And if this force doesn't necessarily want us to be happy, why should I care what it thinks?

...that doesn't want to charge me for information regarding my own family history?

It seems as though every place I go (even Federal archives), it all links back to Ancestry.com. Doesn't anyone have reliable info for free? I do this research as a hobby, not to make a living. I might even deign to join Ancestry.giveusallyourmoney.com if they offered a reasonable lifetime membership (instead of monthly payments).

Any suggestions?

Serious answers only, please. Nonsense answers will be reported.

One thing I've noted here on Y!A is that a lot of people tend to be very judgmental of others. What is most important to you in a potential friend? Do you judge by gender, race, religion, political party; or is it something much deeper? What does it take for you to call someone "friend?"

Honest answers only, please. Trolls will be given a thumbs down and reported.

I'm considering leaving Yahoo! Answers for good. It seems to be a waste of my time. I try to provide thoughtful and insightful answers (usually), and many times, the asker never bothers to choose a Best Answer or even address the subject after the question has been asked.

Furthermore, the hatred displayed in the Religion and Spirituality forum is depressing. People create accounts that are obviously designed to do nothing more than troll, and Yahoo seems to ignore it when these people are reported. Avatars have blatantly pornographic imagery and nothing is done. It seems as though I spend half my time on here reporting people for various infractions of the ToS.

Some people don't seem to comprehend that this is a Q&A site, not their personal soapbox! They ask questions that aren't questions (just rants) and they award the Best Answer to those who post an agreement with their views, rather than someone who gave an insightful response.

So, why should I stay and would anyone care?

...if people would only learn how to conduct an Internet search? I mean, honestly, I answer questions every single day that ten minutes of research on Google or Wikipedia would provide logical and concise answers to. I can understand asking questions that require some rumination or questions that have no "right" or "wrong" answer, but what is the point of asking something that you could look up yourself?

To help people who don't know how to find the answers they seek (or are too lazy to try), here are some helpful links:

http://www.google.com/

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.snopes.com/

http://www.straightdope.com/

Another of those thinking questions that everyone loves so much. Serious answers only please; anything else wastes your time and mine. As there is no "right" or "wrong" answer, I will award the 10 points to the answer I find most interesting or intriguing.

The Earth is doomed and there is no hope of saving it, but by some miracle, you have the ability to save just 20 people, including yourself (should you desire).

Who do you save, are you included, and why did you choose the people you named?

Okay, this is a question that will require some thought. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer, so I will award the 10 points to the answer that I find most interesting or intriguing.

Scientists have discovered a giant asteroid hurtling towards the Earth. It will be here in one week. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it. The human race is doomed. There is nowhere you can run and no where to hide to escape the effects.

How do you spend your last week on Earth?

Do you believe that Nancy was wrong in the way she handled the interview with Melinda Duckett. Did her hard-hitting style drive this young woman to suicide?

Or do you believe that Duckett was guilty of her son's abduction and possible murder all along and that Grace was only getting too close to the truth.

You must explain your answer.

I can build a site with CSS and it looks great in Mozilla, Netscrape, even Oprah, but let me open it with IE and I can guarantee something will be wrong. What is the problem? Why doesn't Microshaft come into the 21st century with the rest of us?