Symantec: Religious Sites "Riskier Than Porn For Viruses" 343
First time accepted submitter kongshem writes "According to Symantec's annual Internet Security Threat Report, religious and ideological websites have far more security threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. Why is that? Symantec's theory: 'We hypothesize that this is because pornographic Web site owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interested in keeping their sites malware-free — it's not good for repeat business,'"
Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
First they infect the children. Then they infect the computer.
Luckily a little bit of reading usually helps with the disinfection process.
Same for sex (Score:4, Insightful)
There, someone had to say it :-)
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:0, Insightful)
interesting how every single one of the symptoms described applies to Atheists as much as any of the faiths Dawkins intends to deride.
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been many empires in world history that invested in religion.
Those investments are now nice tourist sites.
Go Jebus!
Re:Religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't like religion? COMMUNIST SOCIALIST HITLER!
Really, that's what you've boiled this shit down to now?
Re:Same for sex (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Some religions?
I dare you to tell me a single religion that has not used to made money from the stup... believers.
Best scam ever, if you tell the victims about it they become mad at you.
Jesus loves you long time. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding right? Monetisation is the backbone of all major and proselytising religions.
I think we should give porn (and other commercial sex services like prostitution) the tax free status possessed by all religions, no matter how stupid, dangerous, or just obviously fraudulent. If scientology, sleazebag televangelists and the pope can all soak the gullible for millions and not pay a cent in taxes, why shouldn't porn stars and prostitutes? At least they're honest when they lie to you.
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree. Agnosticism is just weak atheism, and only relevant if you ascribe special importance to some religions and their gods. Otherwise, what's the point of being agnostic about EVERYTHING you can't know whether it exists or not? It's nonsense. "Oh, I'm an agnostic about the invisible pink unicorn (blessed be her holy hooves), and about Kropal the mighty God of Making Holes in Socks, and about Thor and about Klaatu and about Mohammed and about Jesus and about Cats being the avatars of our master race and about ...".
Anyone who can seriously invent a god and then say that the only scientific viewpoint is to be agnostic about it (because you know, who knows, right?), is just hiding behind their mother's skirts.
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:3, Insightful)
How so? Let's look at them one-by-one.
1. Deep conviction of truth without evidence. Atheists in general have so such conviction. Atheism is the absence of belief, not an alternative belief. 0 points.
2. Unshakable faith. Most atheists and certainly most atheist scholars argue against dogmatism and in favor of evidence-based belief and decision making. 0 points.
3. Mystery as such is inherently good. I'm going to skip this one; ascribing it to atheists seems "not even wrong." 0 points.
4. Intolerant behavior toward rival faiths. Atheists may be intolerant of religious people, true, but profession of atheism has been a killing offence in many places for thousands of years. Atheists also do not claim that people who disagree with them deserve and will suffer an eternity of pain. Let's say, half a point.
5. Particular convictions are likely to resemble those of one's parents. Probably true of people in general, however atheists are also much more likely to have different beliefs than do their parents. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and a full point.
6. If beliefs differ from the parents, a singular charismatic individual may be responsible. I think it's much more common for people to become atheists due to internal reflection and external observations, than it is for them to become religious. However, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. fall into the category of "charismatic individuals". 1 point.
7. Internal feelings may be similar to romantic love. I don't think anyone is really experiencing the passion of the nothing that way, and their are no wives of the nothing (i.e. atheist nuns) either. 0 points.
So of the 7 "symptoms" Dawkins describes, just 2.5 of them can be fairly ascribed to atheists.
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:2, Insightful)
Several of the arguments you're making do not hold up.
Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.
Your first assertion is the equivalent of the common, "why would a perfect god allow X?" That is not a refutation of the existence of God. It suggests that God doesn't exist OR we have an imperfect understanding of either God or the universe. The second point is a note that there is a lack of evidence, which again doesn't point one way or the other.
Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.
You claim that if real proof of God's existence were offered then most Atheists would recant their positions. But you also seem to be assuming that the inverse is not true. I see no basis for thinking that a religious person would not recant his position if the opposite one were proven. Neither position is currently proven, and I don't foresee that happening any time soon.
Many of the the most prominent atheists in the media are scientists, a kind of person who by definition delves into mysteries to see how they actually work. I personally find that atheism arises most in those with a questioning mind, the kind of mind that finds that understanding, for example, how the transition of electrons through particular quantum states governs the colour of the light emitted, does not diminish the beauty of phenomena like their aurora borealis, but instead enhances it.
Does the scientist delve in to the mystery because he dislikes it? I think you'll find as many scientists claiming to like the mystery he's exploring as you'll find theologists with the same claim.
I don't think atheists have a woody for the absence of a deity. I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something. I think atheists, just like everyone else, can have displacement of their sexual urges in a fetishistic style for other things, but I think the main difference is that we get excited by things we chose, or happened upon by chance, or had advertised to us, instead of something we were told to find exciting by a preacher man.
The idea of God's existence and the idea of God's inexistence are just two more "things." Either can be and are fetishised, as you note humans sometimes do,or not. As for how you come across them I think you're making a distinction without a difference. You can chance across a "preacher man." You can choose the religion. You can choose the atheism. And it seems to me that from a non-religious point of view the advertiser and the "preacher man" are markedly similar.
Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity. Theism is the belief, without evidence, in the existence of some deity or deities or their rough equivalents. Both are unproven and (probably) non-falsifiable beliefs.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to say something along the same lines "that users feel safer" [in the house of their lord].
But I was also going to say "uhm... you think churches DON'T make money?!" They make LOTSA... tax-free money.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyways, I don't mind religion being in the minds of the feeble people. I just mind those people being bale to dictate what I can do, and what my government does. Besides, the real problem isn't the flocks of idiots, it's the somewhat clever people leading those flocks.
Re:Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it just be that murderers are bad, regardless of their religious beliefs? Saying that trying to limit the scope of religion is bad because of Stalin is the same as saying the teachings of Jesus are bad because of the Crusades & Inquisition. Both are simply stupid.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how these threads immediately devolve into endless religion-bashing.
I haven't read the actual article, only the summary and the (few) comments here that leave the silly religion-bashing and actually try to figure out what's going on. It's actually quite simple: organizations which take their Web presence seriously will have full-time staff devoted to maintaining it properly -- be they porn, religious, political, or otherwise.
Smaller organizations will try to "roll their own" -- and I'll bet some of them are running ancient IIS or Apache installs that have never been patched. Or, if their Web presence isn't vital to them (they've only got a Website because someone told them they needed one), and especially if they're with a small-time ISP or hosting provider that only checks and patches once a year, then yes, they're going to be attacked.
It's really quite simple.
Re:Dawkins/GODSPOT-0DAY (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to see it please.
Re:Religion (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been many empires in world history that invested in religion.
Those investments are now nice tourist sites.
Go Jebus!
Praising religion for the monuments is like praising the mafia for inspiring good movies.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
> "I have jebus so I don't need to understand anything like technology"
You know, I normally ignore comments like this, because this is arguably off-topic. Besides, you have a right to believe as you wish, and I will defend that right. But this time, I'm going to make an exception.
It actually amuses me the number of people who insist that belief in God automatically prevents critical thinking. Or, as you imply here, that religious people are happy to be "ignorant." (Or whatever.) ANY large group of people, however you sort them, will contain a preponderance of "sheeple" (to use the most common perjorative) who are happy to let others tell them what to believe. That has ALWAYS been true.
But there are plenty of us who believe very strongly in God and admire His design in nature and want to learn more about it. Those who think this is impossible -- sorry, but I'm going to say it anyway: just because YOU are incapable of simultaneously imagining the existence of a higher power and engaging in rational, critical thinking, don't assume that everyone is as narrowminded and limited as YOU.
Of the millions of examples that I could give, I'll provide one: St. Jude's Hospital right up the road from me in Memphis. Many of the doctors and researchers there are devout believers in God, and yet they rigorously apply the scientific method to their research. They don't just pray and sing when sick kids come from treatment, they throw everything in their medical arsenal at that poor child. Further, their SCIENTIFIC research is directly credited with lowering (again, just one example of many) the survival rates of certain types of leukemia in just a few short decades. In the 70's, a child diagnosed with one of these illnesses died, period. Nowadays, the survival rates are over 90%.
All because these *BELIEVING* doctors -- people who actually (*gasp*) believe in God, no less -- are perfectly capable of applying rational, critical thinking to research and methodology. Imagine that. :)
Re:Religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't that belief in god prevents critical thinking, it is that some people use their belief as a reason to never have to apply any critical thinking. I have met more than a couple people who are like ones the GP describes, and not just related to computers. They don't take the time to understand anything, and their justification is "Jesus will protect me," or "Jesus will provide." They seems to think if they just pray hard enough, believe enough, that's all they have to do and an invisible parent will take care of everything.
It really is a childish, in the literal sense, view. As a child, you see your parents as the ones who will protect you and make things right. "Dad will protect me," is something kids can say and mean it, and children count on their parents to bail them out if they get themselves in a situation they can't solve (which is why abusive and negligent parents are so harmful to development).
That is usually something people slowly grow out of. As they are exposed to the world they start to understand that they have to be responsible for themselves, that nobody else is going to be there to protect them or look out for their self interest in all cases, so they have to take responsibility for themselves and their own life.
However some people never grow out of the mentality. It isn't their parents, but something else, religion sometimes, that they see as the parental figure that will take responsibility for things when they can't or won't.
Re:JEBUS will protect me! (Score:2, Insightful)
Jesus didn't go to hell when he died.
He "preached to the spirits in prison", whatever that means (1 Pet. 3:19). It doesn't say they were human spirits, it doesn't say they were dead human's spirits, and it doesn't say that they were in hell. And he did that "by the Spirit", if that helps.
There is nothing that would indicate that Jesus went to a place known as hell. His body went into the grave; "descended into the abyss", in the Apostles' Creed - this is NOT a statement that "he descended into hell", as it is often wrongly translated. His spirit went to paradise, as he told the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43).
He was in literal, actual hell when he was separated from God the Father, before he died, but that was not the place known as hell, the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels, into which nonbelievers will be cast after the final judgement, the "second death" (Rev. 20:14-15). And there is also an implied place of sleep or rest, where souls are awaiting that final judgement; whether or not Jesus went there is unclear, but from a scope which is outside of time itself and in which time is largely irrelevant, I'm not sure it even matters. Being asleep implies being unaware of the passage of time.