Gulliver_in_LOS

These are verses from the Quran about befriending non-Muslims in general:

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[60:8] GOD does not enjoin you from befriending those who do not fight you because of religion, and do not evict you from your homes. You may befriend them and be equitable towards them. GOD loves the equitable.

[60:9] GOD enjoins you only from befriending those who fight you because of religion, evict you from your homes, and band together with others to banish you. You shall not befriend them. Those who befriend them are the transgressors.

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These refer to the Jews and Christians:

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[7:159] Among the followers of Moses there are those who guide in accordance with the truth, and the truth renders them righteous.

[5:46] Subsequent to them, we sent Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the previous scripture, the Torah. We gave him the Gospel, containing guidance and light, and confirming the previous scriptures, the Torah, and augmenting its guidance and light, and to enlighten the righteous.

[5:47] The people of the Gospel shall rule in accordance with GOD's revelations therein. Those who do not rule in accordance with GOD's revelations are the wicked.

[2:62 & 5:69] Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.

[3:113-114]. They are not all the same; among the followers of the scripture, there are those who are righteous. They recite GOD's revelations through the night, and they fall prostrate.

They believe in GOD and the Last Day, they advocate righteousness and forbid evil, and they hasten to do righteous works. These are the righteous.

[3:199] Surely, some followers of the previous scriptures do believe in GOD, and in what was revealed to you, and in what was revealed to them. They reverence GOD, and they never trade away GOD's revelations for a cheap price. These will receive their recompense from their Lord. GOD is the most efficient in reckoning.

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well my friend that is a scary comment but in my mind, also a very true comment. by the very nature of the beast the muslim religion [not people] does not want to co-exist or tolerate the infidels [any other religion]

I would have expected some solid references for your views after making such a dangerous comment. From my little knowledge about Islam, I know that Muslims are asked to respect Christians and Jews, and the latter are referred to as "the people of the book" in the Quran. A historical evidence for this is the seven centuries long Islamic reign in Spain (711-1492), where every Muslim, Christian, and Jew, was treated fairly and all lived in harmony (also called the Golden Age). On the other hand, the crusaders killed every Muslim and Jew when they captured Jerusalem in 1099, even the ones who sought refuge in Solomon's temple.

Now thinking about it, seems to me that some of the photos and comments in this thread, such as the ones "calling for the eradication of Islam" and so, are against the rules of this forum (see below). Therefore in the name of free speech we should either leave all the posted photos or delete them all.

3)Religious or racial slurs, rude and degrading comments towards women, or extremely negative views of Thailand will not be tolerated.

Gulliver_in_LOS>> Your analogy is flawed, since we are talking about postings in ANOTHER country.

Would Thais boycot Europe if someone posted a picture that mocked some of their icons?

Good question! Jyllands-Posten might even be interested in running a "test" on it.

Honestly couldn’t see the point in publishing these cartoons in the first place, knowing that obviously would provoke Muslims. If that was their initial aim, well they have bloody succeeded.

Gulliver if you read through some of the older postings you will find a copy of the letter from the editor of the newspaper which printed the cartoons, where he makes an apology for printing them, not realizing it would hurt so many people.

What I don't understand is why did it take 5 month for people to feel offended, the cartoons was first in the paper in September and no reaction, a month later they were reprinted in a Egyptian newspaper, still no reaction.

The whole problem didn't start before a group of " danish " Imams went on a tour of the countries in the Middle East to show the pictures, incl. pictures which had never been in the paper or had anything to do with Mohammed, I don't understand their motive for this tour.

Sonthaya I agree that the reaction in the Muslim world was highly disproportionate, when tens of people have died, and economical and diplomatic repercussions were imposed. In normal circumstances, the newpaper’s apology should have been enough. Unfortunately it was a golden opportunity given into the hands of extremists. But still think that the newspaper should have taken a more considerate approach before publication. By analogy, the media in Thailand are not allowed to publish derogatory materials about the Buddha or the King for example. Is this considered as against free-speech? I don’t believe so.

Honestly couldn’t see the point in publishing these cartoons in the first place, knowing that obviously would provoke Muslims. If that was their initial aim, well they have bloody succeeded.

Bank queue-jumper shot by annoyed security guard in mall

As he was turning to walk away, one of his arms accidentally hit Ms Patthira...

Source: Bangkok Post - Friday February 10, 2006

The mobile cabinet meeting will be held at Wareekunchorn (วารีกุญชร) room in Chiang Mai Night Safari. The zoo will close to the public on February 7 for one day to accommodate the cabinet meeting.

Please don't disturb: "monkey business"

I think asking for a second (or more) medical opinion, or searching for information in the internet or elsewhere is wise. However taking self-prescribed medication is very dangerous and inane to say the least.

Just became a dad for the first time 3 months ago... I'm still a newbie... it's the best feeling in the world, but let me tell you, you need to get ready for some major sleep deprivation. Treasure every full night's sleep you get for the next 9 months because it's gonna be awhile before you get another one.

Our five months old baby can work as a "height detector": once he is put down starts crying

Congrats to the OP

Darn decent of you to pay what you had promised him in advance!

True; don't think he would of risked it without a little help

Doing 150kph all the way there with no traffic.

Wouldn't of got away with that on Friday at 4pm

And still alive...

Have you tried first to use the "Search forum" buttton located at the top of thi page?

I was invited on a "hot" double date with a friend a few years ago, and I felt unconfortable with it. I thought of it as cheating. I went to the bar instead and barfined a hottie, but it didn't feel like cheating, strange isn't it ?

I think the difference is because a date is an emotional event as initially you get to know some aspects of the other person's life and so on. The second case is like a business transaction where both people agreed from the onset about the required "service" and the price. But personally even in this case I will still feel guilty.

The great thing about Thai women is that they have "certain" expectations about men, and it doesn't conflict with their feelings toward them. They "understand" it as long as they don't see it or know about it.

May be they will not react as strongly as a Western woman. But I am sure that deep down they would feel very hurt about it.

As for woman cheating on men, this is a different issue as the "obsessive" physical needs are not there so they have no excuse

Agree. It is a scientific fact that men's "urges" are much stronger than women's. But is it an excuse for cheating? I believe no.

Oh! I missed the One-Two-Go part! Anyway, I think a one way Thai Airways's ticket is about 1000 bht more expensive than the 12GO's (2000 bht is saved for two people).

Are you flying Thai Airways? If so, you should not worry too much because in my experience the flights from Bangkok to Chiangmai are never full. Therefore even if you miss the earlier flight you can take the next one without problem (it happened to me once!). But I think that 90 mins are more than enough.

Cheers,

G

Anyone know if Ram do allergy testing?

You can check from the list of doctors at CM Ram Hospital. Also you can search for a particular doctor's name or a specialty in here, and then by clicking on the <Appointment> link you get the doctor's brief resume.

Cheers,

G

(BTW Dr Tosporn does really exist )

Looking at this thread and some others, I think it is clearly more important to have information about doctors themselves than about any particular hospital. A "white" list for recommended doctors, and unfortunately a "black" list for bad doctors, seems to be a reasonable idea for this forum.

G

I'm guessing you missed the intent of the original post ...

Truth=Reality -> Origin of Reality?

Discount card - Ask at Information. They used to cost 200 Baht and give, if I remember right, 10% discount. The Mrs. lent ours to a friend and we never got it back.

Thank you. I'll ask for one next time.

Never had any of the problems described above. Maybe I've been living here too long and got too used to Thai ways.

I didn't want to be the first to raise this issue. But seems to me that sometimes Westerners, especially tourists, "appear" to the Thais to be rude or patronizing from their general behavior, such as voice intonation, facial expression, and body posture. I said "appear" because I think in most cases it is nothing else than a cultural difference.

IMHO.

G

Although I agree with Abandon that parallels between science and Buddhism are usually overextended, I would say there is a sort of empiricism at work in some areas of Buddhism (and the degree of empiricism varies from school to school), and that probability theory/uncertainty principle appears to go along with the Buddhist notion that nama (mind/mentality) interacts with rupa (physical form) to create a perceived reality. The measurement becomes reality, for that which perceives.

I am aware of this interaction between physics and Buddhism, such as the visit of the Dalai Lama to a physics laboratory to observe some quantum effects of light.

It will be amusing to see what comes next in the worlds of philosopy and physics. In Buddhism all theories, like the evidential objects upon which they are based, must be impermanent, ie, subject to change and decay.

Interesting. It seems to me from this statement that Buddhism is not interested in the questions that philosophy and physics are trying to answer. But personally cannot understand this self-satisfaction when questions, like the origin of man and the universe, are not addressed in Buddhism. For example, all I could find in this thread was centered on the notions of suffering and enlightment, which I think do not give a satisfactory reply to the original poster's question.

Can't give you an online medical diagnosis through this forum However I can say that we have received an excellent service in the New Born Clinic (Dr Amnuay) and Pediatric (Dr Nareelak).

Cheers,

G

P.S. Never heard about a discount card or been offered one. Does anybody know about it?

I should have mentioned in my previous posts that I was referering to a free electron or particle in space-time. As correctly mentioned above, the presence of a nucleus (protons and neutrons) in an atom affects the probability distribution of the electrons around it.

This doesn't sound right, either- if the probability distribution were equal over all the volume of space, you wouldn't be able to predict with any accuracy at all where it was- when in fact free electrons are fairly predictable, if you know some initial conditions like velocity. If you aim an electron beam from across a room at a luminescent screen, the beam still arrives at the screen even after leaving the zone of accelerating potential- demonstrated by the bright spot seen on the screen; it doesn't suddenly spread throughout the universe with equal probability. I would expect an electron to have a "free" probability distribution similar to a sphere of rather high probability density dropping off in all directions.

To stay in-topic, the main issue which I wanted to present here is the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, which states that a physical quantity, such the position of an electron in space or in an atom, can not be determined exactly (i.e. has a finite probability to have a value from a range of values) before doing the act of measurement. Philosophically it means that we created a "reality", for example the presence of an electron at a specific position, only because of the act of measurement. Or in other words, “realty” does not exist by itself but conceived from our interference. Einstein was strongly against it, and had famous debates with Bohr about it (if it is permitted here I am referring to Einstein within a scientific context).

(off-topic.

1-“free electrons are fairly predictable, if you know some initial conditions like velocity”:

but you have already made a measurement of their velocity which made their probability distribution more "narrower" (more predictable), but not fully predictable (pls see point 2).

2- “the beam still arrives at the screen even after leaving the zone of accelerating potential- demonstrated by the bright spot seen on the screen; it doesn't suddenly spread throughout the universe with equal probability.”

According the probabilistic interpretation, the act of putting the screen is a kind of measurement which made the electrons to appear at the spot. Quantum mechanics tells us that before putting the screen the electrons have a probability distribution across the whole space, with a higher values along the velocity direction, but still there is a very small but no-zero values to be on the moon for example!).

I have the feeling this whole electron thing is off-topic...

I don't think it's off-topic because this probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that the act of measurement made the particle to appear somewhere at some time. In other words, "reality" appears only after a measurement (a mesurement inludes vision, hearing, etc). I admit though that it's may be "off-forum"...

I have the feeling this whole electron thing is off-topic, but I have to agree with the previous disagreement- the greatest probability of the location of the electron (around a particular atom) is *in its orbit*- that's why we distinguish the location of the orbit from the rest of space. I'm not sure at exactly what point the line is drawn (arbitrarily, no doubt) separating the higher-probability orbit from the increasingly lower chance area of space outside it, but the probability is *not* equal and does drop off as distance from the orbit increases.

To quote from McMurry 4th Edition, "[the probability function of the electron] for an s orbital is greatest near the nucleus and then drops off rapidly as distance from the nucleus increases, although it never goes all the way to zero, even at a large distance. As a result, there is no definite boundary to the atom and no definite "size." For purposes of convenience and diagramming, however, we usually imagine a boundary surface enclosing the volume where the electron spends most (say, 95%) of its time."

I should have mentioned in my previous posts that I was referering to a free electron or particle in space-time. As correctly mentioned above, the presence of a nucleus (protons and neutrons) in an atom affects the probability distribution of the electrons around it.

Interesting. This view reminds me of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics(championed by the physicist Nils Bohr). It basically states that just before you measure one particle’s specific property, for example the location of an electron, the electron could be anywhere in space-time with equal probability. In other words, the act of measurement has made it to appear in a specific position, or to exist. Today this interpretation is the orthodox view of quantum physics. But Einstein was strongly against it, and said famously that “God does not play the dices with the world”. Personally I don’t believe that the mind creates reality.

OFF TOPIC

I may be wrong but I believe that an electron can be anywhere it space-time but not with equal probability....I believe that it has a FINITE probability to be at any location...not an equal probability.

I meant to say that before the measurement is done the probabilities of finding the electron at any location in space-time are equal. In other words, the electron can be located anywhere, and have no preffered position before the measurement. Yes, this probability has a "finite" value if space-time is quantized...