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Ancient Star Found, Estimated at 13.2 Billion Years Old
raguirre writes "An article on Physorg.org reports that a newly found star may be as old as the universe itself. Recent studies have concluded that the Big Bang occurred somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.7 Billion years ago. The star, a heavy-elements laden fossil labeled HE 1523-0901 on charts was probably born right around the same time; approximately 13.2 Billion years ago. 'Today, astronomer Anna Frebel of the the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory and her colleagues have deduced the star's age based on the amounts of radioactive elements it contains compared to certain other "anchor" elements, specifically europium, osmium and iridium.'"
Of course, according to some pastors, that star is only a few thousand years old. It barely predates The Flood.
--saint
Recent studies have concluded that the Big Bang occurred somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.7 Billion years ago. The star, a heavy-elements laden fossil labeled HE 1523-0901 on charts was probably born right around the same time; approximately 13.2 Billion years ago.
Since when was "right around the same time" the same thing as "500 million years later" ?
given an object like this, with a time reference to the big bang, the knowledge of the rate of expansion of the universe etc.. wonder if the origin of the big bang could be pinpointed.
"a newly found start may be as old as the universe itself"
Well, that's why they call it a 'start' isn't it?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
The star, a heavy-elements laden fossil labeled HE 1523-0901 on charts was probably born right around the same time; approximately 13.2 Billion years ago.
I thought early stars had very few heavy elements because there had yet to be multiple generations of stars to produce such. Thus, where did the heavy elements come from?
Table-ized A.I.
older than clint eastwood or james bronson? that are stars!
?
I only had time to skim TFA, but it says this ancient star contains heavy elements (Heavier than iron). Since the fusion reaction that produces iron consumes energy, the heavy elements must have come from a different star.
0.5 billion years seems quite quick for a few stars to go super nova, then condense into another star with the required heavy elements in.
Perhaps it is infinite in extent but finite in volume, just like the surface of any other celestial body. Or maybe it only appears infinite because we are looking at it inside out and the particles at the edges are moving so fast we'll never be able to see that far? See I can pull cosmology out of my ass, too.
Isn't everything as old as the universe; it just all shifted into different forms? (Like planet Earth)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
With all these stars turning up that are considerably older then, what is it, 6000 years, they'll probably start foaming at the mouth. I wish I knew one nowadays so I could show them this article and watch the mental gymnastics as they sought to refute it.
ah yes, the funs.
HE 1523-0901 also wanted to know if it was elegible for social security, and when the first cheque is arriving. It was also heard complaining about how expensive it's perscription medication is, as it has a heavy-elements imbalance.
Took 500 million years. So we should be able to work out how long God's days are!!!!
Deleted
Photo's weren't invented until much later than Jesus Christ lived and died. I also don't think the Romans had birth certificates, and if they did how many actually survive? Just because you probably don't believe he was the messiah, doesn't mean he never actually existed.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
-Ed
So you see what had happened was....
No, it just doesn't prove anything one way or the other. He may have existed (there is evidence consistent with his having done so), or he may not (that evidence may not be entirely reliable, since it contains claims that many find implausible).
.sig withheld by request
That star was what we looked like 26.4 billion years ago. Not we as in you and I, but we as in an area--and not just volummetric, but similar in mass and energy as well--roughly the same size as the observed star. The pictures that we take with the Hubble, ESO's VLT, and other deep space scanning arrays only see the radiation which has been reflected. They don't see the radiation which has kept going. We're not observing radiation which is coming from that star--we're seeing radiation which came from here, went to there, and is now reflecting back off of some deep space mirror--maybe a reflective atmosphere of some distant planet.
If I want to take that to the extreme one could hypothesize that we really are at the center of the universe, the Big Bang did start right here, and the light (or energy) which we are calling "HE 1523" started out here 26.4 billion years ago and now we're recording (photographing) the light which has reflected back off of something on a distant side of the universe.
Taking that to a further extreme one could say that every picture--each and every single one--or recording made of radiation observed from outer space is a mere reflection of radiation which originated here. That the stars and galaxies look different is only because the pictures are taken at different angles.
Imagine standing on the inside of an irregularly shaped egg with a perfectly reflective inner surface and looking around you. Conceptually the universe is somewhat similar to the spacecraft that young Superman travelled in as portrayed in the first Superman movie--except the boundaries are constantly shifting and changing according to God's whim.
The only thing left is to tie it in with string theory and envision a matrix of these irregularly shaped eggs, each infinitely enormous, each with its own 27.4 billion year old big bang.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Did someone dig up Bob Hope again?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Since everyone was supposed to be working together for the greater benefit of the entire society it wouldn't be such a good idea to be forthright and honest and flaunt the fact that the socioeconomic system is now, and has been for ten thousand years, rigged. It was (and still is) a tool of social control; a kind of obfuscated nepotism designed to perpetuate the socioeconomic stratification of society across generations, centuries, and millenia. It's the very reason why we have (in the world) nobility, gentry, serfs, slaves, an upper class, a middle class, and a lower class.
So, yes, after some fashion the Romans probably kept birth and/or marriage records. Historical scholars might even know in which library they're still kept.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
More importantly, they had tax records. But surely on a few fragments at most survive from that period.
.sig withheld by request
Nibblonians were .5 billon plus 17 years old by that time.
Today, astronomer Anna Frebel of the the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory and her colleagues have deduced the star's age based on the amounts of radioactive elements it contains"
Doesn't the amount of radiaton a star puts out vary from time to time depending on the stage of the star's life?
If so I don't know if you can accurately predict the age just by radiation. What if something outside stimulated the amount of radiation the star is putting off? This could probobly throw it off a couple hundred million years.
Even if they did have marriage records, Jesus was never married, (the evidence that says he was, is unreliable at best,) so he wouldn't have a marriage record. The best you would find would be that Joseph and Mary were married.
-Ed
So you see what had happened was....
IMHO the man existed but the Bible is rather exaggerated.
He would have been just your ordinary religious fanatic.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Yes, it is. However the strength of the evidence certainly varies depending on numerous criteria.
What if it's the Star Wormwood? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormwood_(star)
Yeah, the star of Boston Legal is 13.2 billion years old!
As typical as it is to suggest the acts of JC are hugely exaggerated, by modern standards they're pretty tame. All over the world, especially in some of the older surviving civilizations like Russia, China, India, etc. there are people who can show you much more impressive feats at a moment's natice, and they don't claim to have inherited any powers of God. There's just a lot about science we haven't charted yet, but that doesn't mean the practice of unscientific feats is impossible. As has been said, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. While I'm not suggesting JC performed the feats attributed to him, I am suggesting it wouldn't be otherworldly if somebody did. It's unscientific to insist upon impossibility, despite what most people seem to instinctively believe about science.
Sam ty sig.
Would the Guardians please send someone over to sort out this business with Sinestro ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H George Bush?
That argument usually sets a creationist's hair on fire.
....The Star or the Universe..
Ha....ha....
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
No, it just doesn't prove anything one way or the other. He may have existed (there is evidence consistent with his having done so), or he may not (that evidence may not be entirely reliable, since it contains claims that many find implausible).
What evidence is there that he ever lived?
As far as I can tell there isn't one single scrap.
I had thought that the life cycle of stars was pretty much figured out, including how long they last.
But TFA talks as if it is a unusual and surprising that it is so old.
So what gives?
Do they need to completely rethink their models or were they just really making generalizations in the first place?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I could also ride my bicycle the 25mi. that I normally drive my car every day, but I don't. If you can make a human, why make a monkey... and then turn it into a human? Your argument isn't being made out of sincere curiosity and reasoning, but rather to belittle and frustrate others who believe differently than you.
For the Steady State, Alfven, or colliding brane cosmologies to be falsifiable, it must be (in principle) possible to radioactively date a star, or meteorite, or speck of interstellar dust as, say, 10^10 (ten billion) years old. Or a trillion.
But what would it mean to radioactively date an object as having negative age?
I ask both as a former Astronomy professor, and as a science fiction author...
-- Jonathan Vos Post
Check out Gerald Schroeder's "Science of God". He considers the creation account in the book of Genesis as a view from the beginning looking forward, whereas modern scientists are looking from our point in time backward. Using some mathematics and relativity, he demonstrates that a handful of thousand years from "Day 1" equate to the 13 billion years to May 12, 2007. I heard his presentation years ago, else I'd explain it better. Bottom line is that the whole time frame disagreement is simply a matter of relative position on the time line.
There is a little confusion about how the elements are created, and where HE1523 got all it's metals from...so here is a quick primer on the way things work.
The big bang forms hydrogen, dueterium, some helium, and a tiny amount of lithium. In fact, the theory of what should be formed (called Big Bang Nucleosynthesis), and what is observed, agree incredibly well.
Most stars just burn hydrogen into helium, fusing the two hydrogen atoms. More massive stars burn hotter, and so they can ignite helium burning, forming carbon, nitrogen, oxygen etc. The hotter the star gets, the heavier things can be fused, all the way up to iron. All of these processes *release* energy, if you can get it hot enough to start the reaction.
After iron, to make heavier elements you have to *put in* energy, so the way elements are formed is different. Instead of fusing two things together, you now just add a single neutron to the nucleus. This is a very different process (called neutron capture)...and can happen veeeery slowly (in stars) or very rapidly (in supernova explosions).
So, uranium and thorium are both elements which are made in the rapid process (r-process) -- they are only made in supernova explosions...because in a supernova, the neutron density is very high, so catching one is more likely.
Anyway...the point of all this is that, by observing uranium, we KNOW there had to have been at least one dying star going supernova, which made the uranium. Then that gas collapsed again later, to make anna's star.
So far, no-one has yet managed to find a first-generation star, but it's a big area of research at the moment, and is one of the things anna is trying hard to find. By looking at these very old stars, we get a good picture of how a supernova works, because we see the product of ONLY ONE of them. With young stars, there might have been hundreds, all polluting the gas at different times...and disentangling that is really tough.
As for the age of the universe, WMAP told us that very precisely -- 13.7Gyr (with an error of only ~0.1Gyr). The age we derived from HE1523 is much less precise...but nucleocosmochronometry (stellar age dating), is an incredibly tough thing to do, but it does offer independant confirmationg of the WMAP result.
If you can make a human, why make a monkey... and then turn it into a human?
Why not? What's the point of making man anyway? Do you know that, so that you can comment on the method God may or may not have chosen to create man?
And saying evolution is anti-religious is also extremely presumptive. Anyone who says that is presuming to tell God Himself that He is not allowed to use evolution to create man in His own image. Do you really think God is limited by the capabilities and beliefs of your mind?
I don't presume to be able to say God did or didn't do anything, or even would or wouldn't do anything. I just follow the only evidence I can see - evidence that isn't based on nothing more than something somebody else told me.
I can go out an verify how old a star is myself, were I wont to do so. I can go see actual fossils of myriads of extinct species. I can actually touch rocks that all the evidence we can gather tells us are billions of years old.
You can do all that, too.
And we can all actually see evolution in action - witness the documented changes in the different breeds of dogs over the past several thousand years. I'd have to say chihuahuas and Saint Bernard's are pretty close to becoming separate species...
An ancient sun.
An alien with a secret.
An astronomer with a past.
A galaxy thorn asunder.
An astronaut on the edge.
A hidden moon.
A mythical planet.
An ancient.. mythical.. secret.. planet sun guy.
And a flaming chicken.
In 2009, none of these things, happen in ATHF 2.
Except the flaming chicken.
I wish I had mod points...
Jesus himself was from Nazareth, which was, at the time, a poor farming community. In modern day China, with strict record keeping for the one child policy, remote farming villages are ignored.
Charismatic cult leader with a messiah complex. His cult members to exaggerate their stories about him after his death.
You've wasted something like 248 words, and the creationist would simply reply with one: "Faith". Why do you people even address those doofuses? Live your life. If their god cared about any of us he'd make more than one appearance every two thousand years. You know, maybe end disease, or enforce an end to self-serving corruption in all national governments. Perhaps something more meaningful than supplying extra wine at weddings, something more enriching than drowning children in tsunamis.
Didn't they just find his tomb, complete with wife and kid?
Play Command HQ online
Why not? Either God's all powerful and making a human from a monkey is exactly as easy as making a human from scratch, or God's not all powerful. Besides, assuming the all-powerful-but-lazy God of your argument, wouldn't creating the universe and just letting life sorta happen be easier than doing it all by hand?
Play Command HQ online
There are people all over the world who can show me "much more impressive feats at a moment's notice" than raising the dead, resurrecting themselves three days after a brutal execution and ascending to the heavens? Mind telling me who these people are?
(Note: I'm not saying that Jesus actually did any of these things. But I'm having trouble coming up with a neater trick for a human to perform than overcoming mortality.)
By his logic mankind did not exist before the 19th century, when photos were invented. That's a "-1 cretin" mod if I ever saw one.
You can't take the sky from me...
I think this one is Zsa-Zsa. :)
Inquiring minds want to know...
...somebody edit Conservapedia!
No, by that logic, if you have no historical record of a person, then you can't assert that person's existence is a fact. Sorry you didn't understand that, but I didn't think it was that difficult to understand.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Nah, that is a false assumption. :)
God can do anything without the need of motive.
Of course HE may have motive if HE wants some
It is soo much easier to debate on the creationist side.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
It's appalling how many people think Darwin's theory implies we (humans) evolved from apes. The actual theory is rather that humans and apes share a common ancestor, and so if you go back far enough, we were once a single species. Owing to variation within that species, however, it gradually split in two, by way of natural and sexual selection, with one branch evolving into apes whilst the other evolved into humans (and other, now extinct, branches).
The writings of Flavius Josephus mention Jesus. There are several versions of these scripts, and some have been edited to contain things such as "He was the Messiah". Latest research was able to identify what was modified, and the conclusion was that Jesus and his followers are mentioned, but not that he was described as the Messiah by Flavius Josephus.
BTW, I'm an Atheist, so I don't believe that Jesus was some kind of supernatural deity or the son of a supernatural deity, but from what I learned so far, the account of Flavius Josephus seems pretty authentic.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
-Ed Your last piece of logic is undeniably true. However, it works both ways. You cannot go around saying that it's a FACT that christ existed. If A says it's a FACT something happened, then B is quite correct in asking where is the basis for these "facts". So I can't understand why this is insightful. Also sarcasm is beyond you as well.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
(Note: I'm not saying that Jesus actually did any of these things. But I'm having trouble coming up with a neater trick for a human to perform than overcoming mortality.)
There are show magicians who saw their victims - or themselves - in half --- now, that's brutal! Then the victim gets up (smoke might be involved here), whole and sound. And this is not three days later, but a few minutes later. Really, that J-man is totally outclassed.
Why can't people accept that even if he existed (and some people make a good case that he didn't), he was most likely a charlatan?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
It's appalling how many people think Darwin's theory implies we (humans) evolved from apes.
What is your problem with humans evolving from apes?
Of course we did not evolve from modern apes but from creatures who we, if we met them today, would probably call apes. And we share common ancestors with every known creature.
Btw. zoologically speaking we are apes!
For once I have mod points - and there's no -2 Stupid.
Very few people from two thousand years ago are better documented as having existed. If Jesus existed is not really an open question. If his claims are truthful is though. Not many imaginary people create religious movements.
Yuri Geller actually exists, even if I don't believe that he can magically bend spoons.
Best Slashdot comment ever
Wait. Did you just seriously imply that to disagree with the notion that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is unscientific? The polar opposite is actually true; absence of evidence *is* evidence (although not proof) of absence, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Denying THAT is unscientific.
butter the donkey
What is your problem with humans evolving from apes?
The same problem I would have if someone described my brother as my ancestor: it's simply wrong. My brother and I share the same parents, but he's not my ancestor, and nor am I his ancestor.
Of course we did not evolve from modern apes but from creatures who we, if we met them today, would probably call apes.
You're completely missing the point. The term "ape", in normal usage, refers to animals that live now: chimpanzees, gorillas and so on. If you say, "we evolved from apes", you're implying we evolved from chimpanzees, gorillas, et al., which is absolutely not what evolution implies.
We did not evolve from other animals living now. Amongst other thing, this means we should not expect to find a "missing link" that is halfway between us and any particular species of ape. Why not? Because chimpanzees, gorillas, et al. have been evolving too. Our most recent common ancestor was thus not some sort of amalgam of modern humans and chimpanzees (or gorillas, etc.).
I can't count the number of times I've read creationist comments claiming the lack of "half-man/half-gorilla" (or "half-man/half-chimpanzee", etc.) fossils disproves evolution, and this is a direct result of misinterpreting evolutionary theory as implying that currently living species evolved from other currently living species.
And we share common ancestors with every known creature.
Precisely. Would you therefore claim we evolved from every known creature? Such a claim is patently absurd.
Btw. zoologically speaking we are apes!
Zoologically speaking we're all primates, mammals and animals too. I fail to see how that is in the least bit relevant.
At the end of the day, saying "we evolved from apes" spreads the misleading idea that evolution means some sort of magical transformation from one currently existing species to another currently existing species. When presented this way, it's no wonder that seemingly intelligent people can reject the idea. When presented in terms of what the theory actually means, it is far more intuitive, and less likely to be rejected by intelligent people.
You're saying that people that were known to be blind since birth, were actually not? People who are missing a limb can be healed by modern magicians? A man who dies because of sickness and is in the grave for 4 days and begins to decompose can actually be alive? Can you seriously support this claim?
As far as I'm aware, nothing about physical phenomena that appear in ordinary life on earth is missing an explanation, if you exclude the open questions of science. What I mean is that there is no scientist that could possibly claim with any degree of certainty that people can do today what Jesus did 2000 years ago. In trying to refute this truth, you reach irrational conclusions via irrational (and wrong) assumptions.
As for the historical evidence about the existence of Jesus, someone would think that we have at least 6 accounts for that by His students and one more by Josephus, a jewish historian. I'm really curious about who says otherwise and whether his claims are accepted by the scientific community.
People accept Jesus as God himself, because everything He said and did is true. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was copying what was already said, but yes, that is a botched way to phrase it. I welcome your correction - thank you.
What I meant to say, and I hope this part is clear, is that the purpose of science largely involves discovering what isn't considered common knowledge yet. Sometimes that involves investigating what has previously been regarded preposterous. The earth isn't flat. That's just something we couldn't easily see from where we were before.
Maybe in a few centuries, miracle resurrection will be a hobby and not an act of God. It doesn't have to come from technology - we could just discover how to use some innate human power. We can't seriously say that's not at all possible.
Sam ty sig.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection#Resurrec tion_miracles
If you're willing to believe that resurrection is something that non-Jesus people can do, then you have to take it as something that's *not* a great power. And you can't have it half way - if you're going to believe the accounts that Jesus raised the dead, all of the other resurrection miracles have to apply too.
You also can't take "ascending to the heavens" as a feat. If it's just about going straight up a few kilometers, we've been doing a good job of that lately with spaceflight. If it's about crossing from this mortal world into another, how can anyone actually attest that the person arrived in any other world? For all we know they could have been vaporised or otherwise concealed.
Sam ty sig.
The existence of Jesus is a fact since at least 5 people (His students) wrote about Him, which also did the Jewish historian Josephus. His existence is accepted by the historians around the world as far as I know.
No, he's right. There's evidence I'm a 2,000ft-tall fighting robot, as there aren't any other 2,000ft-tall fighting robots around me. Clear evidence I fought them off, surely.
Then why don't you accept what Jesus did and said 2000+ years before these things become well-known human capabilities or the equivalent technology is invented?
Who says I don't? That's not part of my argument at all. In fact I hope it's clear I'm suggesting that a lot of things that the garden variety atheist would consider impossible aren't absolutely so, which means I entirely accept the possibility of a lot of Jesus' work being factual. There's not much point splitting hairs on exactly what's obvious, probable, improbable, etc.
My personal faith is in science, that we'll probably get a good lot of research done before the human race is extinguished entirely by the Nth Bush administration. We're dying less from diseases and more from stupidity. Real scientific success will be curing stupidity. Or maybe that's a real miracle. If there's a Second Coming, I hope it will be to address this growing concern.
Sam ty sig.
It might be a bit more frightening to think of it as apes evolved from human ancestors but what I said is absolutely valid.
There are people all over the world who can show me "much more impressive feats at a moment's notice" than raising the dead, resurrecting themselves three days after a brutal execution and ascending to the heavens? Mind telling me who these people are?
The Sumerians seems to be able to do it rather frequently.
Based on your logic, 2000 years down the road, FSM would be deemed to have existed, because so many people had written about it and spotted it.
"IN the beginning there was light..." light requires time no time no light; between now and then is relative. Think about the balloon example, if we're one of the dots and a dimension beyond time like "God" is blowing up the balloons how can you think of star dating or God dating in such lunacy as years and seconds.
IN the beginning there was light..." light requires time no time no light; between now and then is relative. Think about the balloon example, if we're one of the dots and a dimension beyond time like "God" is blowing up the balloons how can you think of star dating or God dating in such lunacy as years and seconds.
I assume you mean the flying spaghetti monster by FSM in the following.
The Old and New Testament are generally accepted as historically accurate in the scientific community. There do exist facts described there about which we don't have alternative sources, but that's not much of a problem. What Jesus says is that anyone who follows His word will be able to reproduce the effects He mentions on his life and existence. That cannot be claimed by the believers of the FSM or any other religion around the world, except, of course, for nourishment when consuming the spaghetti the FSM is made of, if you'll ever be able to capture it. I'm talking about empirical verification of what Jesus said. That's why it's the only and true belief.
Appears to. A man, who apparently was blind since birth and so forth. Look, magicians are good, they could easily fake all of the above. I once saw two magician (apparently) shoot each other with bullets (marked on the scene by a volunteer), through 3 panes of glass. Both caught the other's bullet with his teeth. Apparently. Yet, though I have no idea how, I do not believe that they actually did this. Same with the Jesus myth: If he actually appeared to do any of the stuff he is attributed to doing, he was faking it. In other words, a charlatan.
As far as I'm aware, nothing about physical phenomena that appear in ordinary life on earth is missing an explanation, if you exclude the open questions of science. What I mean is that there is no scientist that could possibly claim with any degree of certainty that people can do today what Jesus did 2000 years ago. In trying to refute this truth, you reach irrational conclusions via irrational (and wrong) assumptions.Little evidence have survived the 2000 year span. My assumptions is the same with Jesus as anyone else: If they appear to do the impossible, most likely the appearances are deceiving. Of course, giving enough hard evidence, I might revise my idea of impossible, but if anything, the J-myth are backed by very dubious evidence.
As for the historical evidence about the existence of Jesus, someone would think that we have at least 6 accounts for that by His students and one more by Josephus, a jewish historian. I'm really curious about who says otherwise and whether his claims are accepted by the scientific community.Hmm. I forget the name, it was an entire book. Darn, I hate my poor memory. Ah, google to the rescue: Did Jesus exists?. I don't have the necessary feel with the historical community to know whether this is an accepted historical hypothesis. Myself, I am undecided. He was either non-existing, a charlatan or a tool.
People accept Jesus as God himself, because everything He said and did is true. Nothing more, nothing less.Then people are delusional. There is no garden gnomes, no fairies, no flying ufos or any other wishful thinking. There is just you, me and everyone and everything else.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Then we have many things in common. My enemy though is not stupidity, but the evil that dominates the world today, which actually is stupid and at the same time very powerful and cunning. I also think that many problems in life are very important and science cannot provide adequate answers to them, which narrows its domain of applicability.
Well, that depends what you call science. I consider anything science if it's already out there waiting to be discovered or defined, and anything artificial an art, technology, etc.
I also firmly believe that evil gains its power through the stupidity (or at the very least cowardice) of others. One person, no matter how evil, can't get very far in a world that looks after itself intelligently. Tyrants get into power by swaying weak minds. It's like a poison taking over a body with a poor immune system. A good social immune system - one complete with intelligence, knowledge and good character - can destroy evil readily. It's a whole other matter in some societies where the poison is the norm and not the exception. There's very little that can be done about that. At that stage, any good and pure thought is supressed.
Sam ty sig.
"The existence of Jesus is a fact since at least 5 people (His students) wrote about Him , which also did the Jewish historian Josephus."
I just want to point out that the number of people who have written on the subject of a person is no garantee that the person has actually existed. Zeus, Krishna, Thor, Xipe Totec and Santa Claus have also had a lot of people write about them. It's all about how realiable the sources actually are.
-HT
If the Big Bang occurred some 13.7 billion years ago, and the age of the solar system is only 4.7 bn years, then what happened in the interim?
Or another way of putting it, what's the age of our galaxy, and of the local cluster, and of the local cluster of clusters, etc etc, and can we deduce anything at all about the period 13.7 bn to 4.7 bn years before now?
Well, I personally think he is a fictional character that never existed and is a collective image of different people (none of whom are actually gods.)
You can't handle the truth.
Cheers, Chris
From the article, "Surprisingly, it is very hard to pin down the age of a star." Well, duh, I could have told you that. Who ever heard of a star revealing their age. It may just be a coincidence, but I believe 13.2 billion years is the age of Joan Collins.
Letter To Iran
If they appear to do the impossible, most likely the appearances are deceiving That's not how science works. Science needs evidence and nothing is impossible, provided that it can be observed and reproduced. the J-myth are backed by very dubious evidence. Have you tried to see whether what Jesus was claiming is true? That's the essence of His teaching, that's the only way to prove that He was wrong. I know that He was right; so do lots of people around the world. I know it's not of much use to you, that's why I'm offering a way to check my facts. He was either non-existing, a charlatan or a tool. What's the evidence that supports that He wasn't who He said He was? What makes that evidence more worthy than mine? Then people are delusional What makes them delusional and not you? Why don't you prove to yourself that what Jesus said was false, as far as the reproducible part of the New Testament is concerned? Is it because you think it's a waste of time? Because of prejudice? There is no garden gnomes, no fairies, no flying ufos or any other wishful thinking Why has belief in these ceased nowadays, yet belief in Christ hasn't? How does the existence of gnomes etc. affect your life? What does the theory about them provide as a way to reproduce phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise? There is just you, me and everyone and everything else. Is this because you can see, talk to and react with other people?
I agree with you, the fact is that at least 5 people's account of Jesus' life match and that Josephus is acknowledged by historians as an independent and reliable source that Jesus did exist. Check the wikipedia article .
Clearly, it has to be named Zamora.
I thought the whole Jesus tale started about 40ish years after his purported death. Surely such a threat to Roman society would have volumes of text written about him. You can, though, find tax records for textile merchants and other mundane stuff.
Trolling is a art,
What evidence is there that he ever lived? As far as I can tell there isn't one single scrap.
That's what I thought. The first fairy tales about a son-of-a-superbeing walking the planet only game around decades after he died. Not much different than, say, if someone started a cult of John F. Kennedy. Except that JFK was real.
Trolling is a art,
Interesting, I'll have to read up on this. I had always understood that the first authentic mention of JC was some time after his supposed execution.
Trolling is a art,
I consider science anything that can be reproducibly observed and scientific theory the logical results deduced by such observation.
I mostly agree with what you say, still I cannot say that non-intelligent people are more prone to cause harm. It's not always intelligence that liberates a human's mind, otherwise how could you explain that the majority of the German scientists co-operated with the Nazis during the WW2?
>It's appalling how many people think Darwin's theory implies we (humans) evolved from apes.
Humans didn't evolve from apes. Humans *are* apes.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
The writings of Flavius Josephus mention Jesus. There are several versions of these scripts, and some have been edited to contain things such as "He was the Messiah". Latest research was able to identify what was modified, and the conclusion was that Jesus and his followers are mentioned, but not that he was described as the Messiah by Flavius Josephus.
Not so.
Depending on how charitable the expert is, the Josephus document's mention of Jesus was either added later maliciously, or as an error in transcription.
It fits neither the style, nor the flow of the document.
but from what I learned so far, the account of Flavius Josephus seems pretty authentic.
Here's some more to learn then
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Christ did exist, and so did Rabbi Akiva. They were in the same "group" or school. And it was differences that caused the split and the birth of a new religion.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
The Old and New Testament are generally accepted as historically accurate in the scientific community.
I'm sure they were, 200 years ago. We've had Geology, Charles Darwin and Cosmology since then.
Stick Men
This thread is full of assertion and fail.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
What happens if the next ancient Star is found to have been born 14.5 Billion years ago? Will scientists heads start popping?
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
none of the disciple's accounts are written around the time of his life, or even just after. The accounts are full of borrowings from each other. They're all a bit suspicously fluent for fishermen.
s timonium_Flavianum And if you take out the amount of christian spin, plus the fact J borrowed a lot from Luke, you'd probably say that J wrote something about somebody who might have been JC but no one's sure.
Similar problems with Josephus, writing years after the event; and the texts are disputed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Te
Interesting, from the Wiki article, Muslims dispute the fact that JC was crucified. Christians usually cite the fact that crucifixion-derived religions are rare.
The whole new testament is spin and jive; a hotch-potch of mis-translations, propelled by the most successful organisation in human history. The NT is as about a reliable a document as a drunk faced with a bottle of whisky.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Full of assertion yes, about "fail", what does the scientific method, that is generally approved, say that differs substantially than what I claim? The only difference, as far as I know, is that in science the experimental results in general are visible and tangible to others. That cannot be said about all scientific branches though.
My point is that there is one religion that can have reproducible effects on human lives. It's not Catholicism though, it's Christianity and I speak from personal experience. If you learn some things about its history beginning with Jesus onwards, you'll find out what went wrong and why some things don't fit together today. I'm fully aware of the crimes that have been committed in the name of Christ, yet I cannot reject Christianity because of them. It's just so much valuable.
What process started the actual "burning" process of stars? What provides that initial spark?
The inital "spark" is provided by gravity. When a star forms, it is from a slowly collapsing gas cloud. As the gas contracts under gravity, it heats up, eventually reaching a temperature for fusion to begin. The temperature is important, because the hydrogen nuclei (i.e. protons) normally repel each other...thus they need a fair bit of energy to overcome the repulsion, and get close enough to "stick"...i.e. fusion.
This is very similar to the ideal gas law, PV = nkT....i.e. as the pressure goes up, there must be a corresponding increase in temperature. A cool experiment to illustate this is to put your finger over the pointy end of a fat syringe, and then press really hard. The increased pressure will heat the gas. This is also way scuba tanks need to be filled in a bath of water...compressing the gas to put into the tank creates a fair amount of heat.
Errr..you do realize the New Testament was written at least one and in some cases two or three generations after JC's death. The capabilities of humans to embroider stories is known, the propensity is often overlooked. You cannot *know* anything about the truth of what JC was saying. You can believe, you can have faith, you can blow your horn as loud as you want about it, but you cannot know it.
Truth is a slippery concept when conjoined with the concept of knowledge. What Christians, Muslisms, etc. postuate as truth is usually merely vociferous belief. Truth, in the abstract, is a bit useless and quite sterile or non-subjective in a mathematics sense. Proof, on the other hand, is quite useful as a way of justifying that something is true and hence can become knowledge. How are we to prove to ourselves what you believe is truth? By which procedures? Is it repeatable?
Science works with proof, it aims at truth, but it rarely claims absolute truth. It merely indicates that something holds as true to within some percent, GIVEN the hypotheses hold. Belief can get along quite nicely without proof. It always amazed me how the Creationists and other True Believers always seem to be grasping at proving things are the way they say they are and not being honsest enough to simply say, you should have faith. It makes one think they have no faith themselves when they grasp at straws to prove to themselves, and anyone who'll listen, they are not mistaken.
Gerry
I just mean that weak-minded people are likely to empower those would who cause harm. Those scientists were terrified of the harm that would come to them if they didn't cooperate. Some even believed the propaganda at the time. One person refusing to cooperate gets themselves killed, an entire country refusing to cooperate means a powerless leader. No amount of evil can push a population around if there's nobody willing to apply that evil. It's exceptionally unlikely that most nations would ever have such a level of social hygeine though.
Sam ty sig.
I was working on a Larry King joke but yours is better.
> My brother and I share the same parents, but he's not my ancestor, and nor am I his ancestor. Bad analogy. The word ape is defined to include humans and all other modern apes as well as ancestral organisms that are common ancestors to humans and modern apes. The word 'brother' isn't defined like that. That's it. There is no more discussion to have. If you don't like this fact then you're simply using the word 'ape' unconventionally meaning you're not speaking the same language as the rest of us.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
And in other news, another element was discovered to be emanating from this star.
It has been named bloddyoldium.
I agree fully with this, I just prefer the view that the problem is on the personal level and not on the society, because it's not well defined in the latter case (at least for me). I believe that if people would just change the way they treat others and themselves to the better, the world would have been a much better place to live in.
You've displayed an interesting pattern with your posts in this thread: you accept whatever fits your worldview, and you reject anything that doesn't.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
It certainly is an open question, unless you know a way to go back 2000 years and observe him. Writings and assertions are no evidence of existence, unless you're also prepared to accept the existence of the pantheon of Greek gods, for example. There may well be what you (and others) consider to be a preponderance of evidence, but without an unbroken chain of observation, it is ultimately an opinion with no positive proof.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Precisely, and applying that on a mass scale would weed out a lot of problems. It just won't really take place on a large enough scale to e.g. create world peace. What we *can* do is continue to improve education and culture to help the process along as much as possible. I hope it's clear to everyone that cultural influence does play a significant role in the 'character' of an individual and therefore their resistance to corruption. I consider it a valuable part of real education, so it's a shame many schools neutralise it in fear of offending other cultures. I guess that one will be up for debate forever.
Sam ty sig.
Owing to variation within that species, however, it gradually split in two, by way of natural and sexual selection, with one branch evolving into apes whilst the other evolved into humans (and other, now extinct, branches).
Human's are a sub-branch of the ape tree, not a separate branch.
In short: it would be bad mmm-kay?
r y/
What it would prove is that the big bang was not a singular event and that material from other big bangs has floated into our region. This sort of idea has been put forward by various string theorists and often in connection with p-branes.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane_cosmology/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_Universe_Theo
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
I'm afraid not. If you look in an English dictionary, you'll find that the standard definition of "ape" does not include humans or the common ancestors of humans and apes.
I just looked in three of the most popular dictionaries (two UK and one US), and all of them define "ape" in the way I used it, not in the way you claim it's used. Perhaps you're confusing normal usage with scientific terminology, which puts humans and apes in the same family. Even then, however, I'd say your usage is fairly dubious.
It was a nice try, but alas, you're simply wrong. Cheers.
In short: it would be bad mmm-kay?
Not really. If a star that appears to be significantly older than the universe is discovered, well that's happened before. There have been times when we thought that the universe was one age and then got back results from measuring the age of certain star and globular clusters that were older than what we thought was the age of the universe. When something like this usually means that either method of measuring the age of the or the method of measuring the age of the universe is wrong. Most astronomers today seem pretty confident in the current method of measuring the age of the universe so if a too ancient star is found they are more likely to question their method of estimating the age of the star.
What it would prove is that the big bang was not a singular event and that material from other big bangs has floated into our region. This sort of idea has been put forward by various string theorists and often in connection with p-branes.
I was under the impression that brane theories suggest that the only way different branes could interact was through gravity. You wouldn't get actual matter floating in from one brane to another. In any case material from other big bangs would likely have been created under a different set of physical laws and would be like nothing else in "our" universe.
Does this
You cannot *know* anything about the truth of what JC was saying Of course I can. That's how I found out parts of some faith related to Christianity that people claimed were true to be false. You just need to know how to look for them and have the right qualification available. Even a priest I know insisted otherwise; now he's slowly finding out the truth.
How are we to prove to ourselves what you believe is truth? By which procedures? Is it repeatable? I claim that what is written in the New Testament is the truth. I also claim that if you apply the teaching of Jesus to your life along with some faith, you'll reproduce the results He mentions. The reason many people don't see the results are, in my opinion, that they don't know much about the subject, that they don't have much faith and that their priests do not succeed the Apostles. If you check the history of Christianity in the early centuries, you'll be able to find out why I think so. By the way, Jesus Christ said that the one who eats His flesh and drinks His blood will stay with Him and He will stay with that person. Was this a symbolic expression? I have found out that it wasn't. I have also found out what Jesus meant when He said He would stay with me. I'm not talking about self-persuasion, auto-suggestion and other mentally ill practices, I'm talking about the truth, that I found out having faith, yet keeping my mind alert to spot any inconsistencies and reasons to doubt not the essence of faith, but some details that people have misunderstood over the centuries, the details that matter most.
Can you seriously support that Jesus Christ and His students staged all the events known as "miracles"?
That is one of the possibilities. Most likely it is a combination of fraud, gullibility and wishful thinking.
Can you seriously support that today 13 people can stage everything mentioned in the New Testament in public view without any of the viewers ever finding out the truth, all these in a actively hostile to the performers environment and outside a TV studio?
if you change "any of the viewers" to "any significant number of viewers"...sure.
You basically claim that they were the best magicians of all time, yet no one ever learned their tricks so as to reproduce them today?
That seems pretty standard for magician. But I still didn't say I really believe it was all magician's tricks. Most of it is probably made up.
Why didn't the Jewish scribes and priests preserve the evidence that proves the falseness of the New Testament?
Why would they? The had an agenda.
A big part of the civilised world has been tricked by those 13 people?
Yep. Not the first, nor the last time that has happended. Remember e.g. the corn circles? To quote: The human capacity to believe what it wants to believe, rather than what is likely, or even possible, has never ceased to astound me. "God has not been proven not to exist, ergo, he must exist".
Why did the entire world for 2000 years conspire to hide the evidence to the contrary?
Do you know the Spanish inquisition? Today there is no lack of such evidence.
Does your belief assume that Roman guards, some Jews, Jesus and a dozen of fishermen (among other professions) where able to conspire in order to trick the entire world for 2000 years?
Not the entire world. They tricked enough for long enough, then arms, thumbscrews and human gullibility did the rest.
What was the motive of their performance?
Fame? Greed? Wishful thinking? Desire to make people nice to each other? Wouldn't you lie if it would make men stop raping women? Would you lie for world peace?
Does their writings' spirit and line of thought match this expectation? They were the people to advocate "love each other" for the first time in history, yet they were trying to manipulate everyone else that Jesus is the God? Why? Why cannot I apply your logic to physical phenomena and treat everything as staged by a very clever magician?
You can, but a wall would still hurt you if you walk into it :)
If they appear to do the impossible, most likely the appearances are deceiving
That's not how science works. Science needs evidence and nothing is impossible, provided that it can be observed and reproduced.
What I wrote. But extraordinary claims requires extraordinary proofs, and it is not my job to dig that up for every mad claim out there. I could do little else, then.
the J-myth are backed by very dubious evidence.
Have you tried to see whether what Jesus was claiming is true? That's the essence of His teaching, that's the only way to prove that He was wrong. I know that He was right; so do lots of people around the world. I know it's not of much use to you, that's why I'm offering a way to check my facts.
Thanks, but I'll leave that to others. I am only one man, and I have no time for this particular silliness :) Not that am I against the idea of turning the other cheek and so far. I just don't believe this god silliness.
He was either non-existing, a charlatan or a tool.
What's the evidence that supports that He wasn't who He said He was? What makes that evidence more worthy than mine?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Most likely it is a combination of fraud, gullibility and wishful thinking.
It must be such a unique combination that has lasted so long. You could be right, of course.
if you change "any of the viewers" to "any significant number of viewers"...sure.
If I assume that some viewers found out the falseness of the claims, why wouldn't they document their findings so as to help the entire world avoid such misguided beliefs, while the entire population at the time was actively hostile to such beliefs? Jesus was one of the few persons that did miracles all over the place. They could just document one single instance of false belief and everything would collapse. Where is it? Or is it just that they didn't pay attention to Him? Then why did they crucify Him? Why do they claim that He was an impostor?
The had an agenda.
You may be aware that Jewish faith states that Jesus was an impostor. What's simpler than preserving the evidence that proves that? Why hasn't it happened? Did even foreign dogmas conspire to spread a lie that would undermine them?
Let me put this a different way: A big part of the civilized world has been tricked by those 13 people for 2000 years?
Today there is no lack of such evidence.
What evidence? Has there ever existed before a conspiracy that lasts for over 2000 years, with the only purpose of spreading "love each other"? This doesn't mean that it cannot exist, it just makes it extremely unlikely and stupid.
Not the entire world. They tricked enough for long enough, then arms, thumbscrews and human gullibility did the rest.
Why did the early Christians sacrifice their lives for this faith? They were gullible or forced by arms? Does this mean that Christians were the most stupid people ever to appear on earth so as to give their lives for the tricks of a magician, for whom there must have been rumours that he was a fake god? What made them ignore everything despite the fact that he was crucified? Do their writings reflect such an opinion of them?
Desire to make people nice to each other? Wouldn't you lie if it would make men stop raping women? Would you lie for world peace?
Even when Jesus himself says that He hasn't come on earth to bring peace but conflict? Or does that contradict himself? Do you also think that a lie is enough to make every human capable of loving? So Christianity started because of the good will of 13 people (fishermen were most of them) to make others love each other, added some "miracles" and bizarre theory to make it convincing and spread this to the world, sacrificing their lives for a lie. So they basically used auto-suggestion to make themselves believe the lie and die. So now that people know that the world isn't a much better place than the apostles' era, people start abandoning this faith (it's a lie afterall). Now my question: what makes these assumptions not applicable to any view of the world? What restricts them from being applied to human knowledge, science, art, politics, economics, engineering etc. ? I could claim that the world as we know it is the result of a bunch of liars that simply tried to make the world a better place and started spreading lies about what is known, what can be proved, what is nice, what keeps people in order, what keeps people fed, what makes them build things etc. What prevents me from doing so, provided that I'm not irrational?
You can, but a wall would still hurt you if you walk into it
So the senses are the means that differentiates truth and lie? Can you elaborate that?
But extraordinary claims requires extraordinary proofs, and it is not my job to dig that up for every mad claim out there
What differentiates an extraordinary claim from an ordinary one? I agree about the latter part.
Thanks, but I'll leave that to others. I am only one man, and I have no time for th
The existence of Jesus isn't the controversial part, his existence has been more or less accepted by historians.
The controversial part is the rest of it. Only a few tidbits of information concerning what he accomplished in his short life have enough verification to be attributed to him. Most of it is still up in the air, possibly fabricated by his followers after his death.
During Jesus's life, he was fairly unimportant. Saviors and "Sons of God" like him weren't uncommon, and there were several others making similar claims and performing "miracles".
So his existence is pretty much accepted as "fact", the controversy is whether or not his existence is important or not. The events that came afterward were obviously important since it spawned a powerful religion, but the solid facts around his life so far doesn't show the actual man to be all that special for his time.
Could you be more specific? What's wrong with what I claim? What do I reject without sufficient reasoning?
Hello. We're talking science here. Hadn't you noticed? (And ancestral apes fit the definition in every dictionary I've looked in.) I bet you're one of those people who complains about the chemist's use of the word organic because it doesn't fit in with common usage down the supermarket. Idiot.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
if you change "any of the viewers" to "any significant number of viewers"...sure.
If I assume that some viewers found out the falseness of the claims, why wouldn't they document their findings so as to help the entire world avoid such misguided beliefs, while the entire population at the time was actively hostile to such beliefs?
Have you ever watched Life of Brian? I think that movie shows how such things could happen well enough, if with more than a touch of sarcasm :) There are always some willing to believe - and defend their beliefs - any crackpot. At first the authorities will ignore those early fanatics. Usually such groups die out quickly, but occasionally the group grows numerous. When the authorities inevitable attempts to rein in or destroy the group, they sometimes fails. At this point, the group has an external enemy, which you know is the single best thing to keep the group together. When you get to the stage where people have believed some nonsense all their life, they are very unwilling to let go, and teach it to their children. Who was it who said "misery loves company"? Fooliness is another human trait that loves company, and spreads.
Jesus was one of the few persons that did miracles all over the place.
Lol. Jesus, if he existed, performed no miracles. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, and for the same reasons.
They could just document one single instance of false belief and everything would collapse.
Where is it? Or is it just that they didn't pay attention to Him? Then why did they crucify Him? Why do they claim that He was an impostor?
According to the bible, they crucified him for rioting, didn't they? I'm sorry, I am not well versed in this particular fable. The jewish priesthood had a lot of reason (centered around power) for killing him. A bad move anyway, probably. Then, it might just be a fictional story.
The had an agenda.
You may be aware that Jewish faith states that Jesus was an impostor. What's simpler than preserving the evidence that proves that? Why hasn't it happened? Did even foreign dogmas conspire to spread a lie that would undermine them?
No doubt they tried, and failed. Also, considering that the jewish were hard pressed by an occupation at the time, they might not have been terrible interested in what must have been a little oddball religion at the time.
Let me put this a different way: A big part of the civilized world has been tricked by those 13 people for 2000 years?
It wouldn't have been the first time, nor the last. Of course, they were helped by a lot of people. Even today, if I walk into a church, I will find a man who will swear that a bread and wine turns into human tissue and blood in a cannibalistic ritual. Do you believe that? Does he? Somehow I doubt he really does, deep down.
Today there is no lack of such evidence.
What evidence? Has there ever existed before a conspiracy that lasts for over 2000 years, with the only purpose of spreading "love each other"? This doesn't mean that it cannot exist, it just makes it extremely unlikely and stupid.
I haven't mentioned any conspiracy, nor do I believe there really is one. Religion is just gullibility, wishful thinking and self-delusion. No conspiracy necessary, though of course there are those who will see the power in religion an twist it to their own purpose. As religious people have no sound foundation on which to build their personal philosophy, I suspect that they are particulary volunerable to this sort of explotation.
Not the entire world. They tricked enough for long enough, then arms, thumbscrews and human gullibility did the rest.
Why did the early Christians sacrifice their lives for this faith? They were gullible or for
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Speaking of radiant...
http://www.as.utexas.edu/~anna/
I'd like to probe her elements!
No, nationalrevolution.net is _not_ really a trustworthy source...
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Yes, you're correct, this doesn't negate the fact that the general consensus among scholars is that Josephus did in fact write about Jesus.