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Calculating the Date of Easter
The God Plays Dice blog has an entertaining post on how the date of Easter is calculated. Wikipedia has all the messy details of course, but the blog makes a good introduction to the topic. "Easter is the date of the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21... [T]he cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to the epact, each of which depend[s] only on the century; one repeats (modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every 375 centuries, so the [p]air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000 [years]."
In the UK the academic year is split according to the date of Easter. I recall hearing about an effort to move to a "metric" system which doesn't depend on Easter. This suddenly makes a lot of sense...
This is not a science article. Arguably it is a math article to the interested christians on /. but certainly not science.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
I always thought it was based on when the Hebrew calendar said the week of Passover was.
I've always thought that it is more fun to say the date of Easter is "the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox," rather than March 21st.
It sounds so much more Pagan my way.
Just because the date (and what it commemorates) is meaningless to you, is it really necessary to cast all those who do care about it as irrational?
Historical significance, for one. The history of time-keeping and astronomy are intimately tied to the need to celebrate religious events; this goes back much before Christianity. It's really a very neat subject, and it's really fascinating how much math developed simply out of a need to know when and how to throw a party for the gods.
And yet, it doesn't matter the slightest... over 5,000,000 possibilities to when easter will happen, and they all occur within 6 weeks of each other(Last 2 weeks of March, and all of April), all on Sundays... So I look at it as a 1 in 6 chance of knowing when easter will be each year.
Christianity?
Yeah. But which Christmas? Dec 25 or Jan 7?
The date of birth of Jesus was also pulled out of the ass of some Pope. Christian Holidays were set on their particular dates to get medieval folks to stop their 'pagan' rituals and instead celebrate Christian rituals. Christmas:Winter solstice Easter:Beginning of Spring (Ostara now for you Wicans). I'm such a lapsed Catholic I can't remember the Holy days for other celestial events.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Except that the number of the beast is 616, not 666.
Because they run a grocery store and need to know when to stock the chocolate bunnies and egg dyeing kits
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
Do you ever cast UFO believers as irrational?
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Science ? Yea, right. By that logic astrology would be science too.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
now, does all that fancy mathematics and statements about the repetition cycle of days include the Leap Year's Lead Day, as well as the fact that it didn't exist the last time this cycle started?
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Agreed, the history of time-keeping is a very interesting and important subject, however, an arcane method of determining the date for a specific holiday belongs in the category of 'curious minutiae' and is in and of it self just an obscure exercise, except for the devout adherents to it's attending myths.
In his defense, the picture tagged with the story is pi.
The day of his birth is very much not set in stone, certainly not if you ask people of two distinct denominations.
Religious scholars believe Jesus was born some time between 7-4 BC. The date of Christmas, December 25th, was chosen as was a day used by pagans to celebrate their various gods and goddesses, thus allowing Christians to celebrate without drawing too much attention to themselves. Candles and the ubiquitous fish symbol (the one without the feet;-)) are also left-overs of early Christianity's secrecy.
It's not like they kept extensive birth records on the children of peasants.
Why do computer geeks celebrate Halloween on Christmas? Because OCT 31 = DEC 25.
Would people care very much is we just settled for the first sunday in april?
Maybe your beast, but freedom of religion protects my delusions as much as yours. My beast which is absolutely just as real and valid as your beast has the number of 666.
... but found that he'd rather just spoon with two of his friends.
He had the number of 69
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Er, mods ... I was being completely serious.
Do not laugh at us! Or we will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
I find it quite amusing that the birth of Jesus is pretty much set in stone (at least if I believe that day to be Christmas), but the date of his death (or resurrection) isn't.
Yes, it's set in stone on the wrong date. Shepherds were living outside with their flocks when Jesus was born, yet they wouldn't be doing this in December. It's too cold in Israel. In addition, Jesus died on Nisan 14 (the first full moon after the vernal equinox)... not on a Friday year after year.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I seriously doubt that Mary went around saying that she became pregnant despite being a virgin, for two reasons. First, everyone would have read between the lines and assumed Jesus was the product of infidelity, then as now. Saying that Yahweh was the real father makes you look like you're not just loose, you're also batshit insane. The cover story would have been that Joseph was the father.
What's far more likely is that the virgin birth is a later addition to the story of Jesus. In comic book terminology, this is a retroactive alteration of the continuity, or "retcon". "Hm... how do we explain the origin of Jesus' amazing superpowers? How is he able to walk on water, cure leprosy, and feed multitudes using a single loaf of bread, if he's just some average Jew? It's just not plausible, our audience will never buy it. I KNOW! We have a special "Origins of Jesus" issue in the Bible, where we reveal that ACTUALLY, Jesus is the son of God! Now, the fact that he has these amazing superpowers makes sense!"
It's exactly like how Marvel went back and created a backstory to explain the origins of the super-powers of the X-men. In the case of Marvel, alien visitors altered the DNA of ancient humans which resulted in mutants like Wolverine. In the case of the Catholic Church, a super-powerful being impregnates Jesus' mom. It's a really ancient theme. If you recall many of Greek heroes, such as Hercules, had gods for parents, which explained why they were so powerful. Achilles was more like the Incredible Hulk, in that exposure to magic (the waters of the River Styx in the case of Achilles, gamma rays in the case of the Hulk) give them their powers. But Odysseus is like Batman- he doesn't have any superpowers, he's just clever.
I'll tag it "wedontcarethatyoudontcare".
And then some. "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you." - Confucius
Much of the philosophy was borrowed from Taoism and Buddhism and other Eastern thought.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Thank-you from someone who celebrates on Jan 7. (and everyone gives me funny looks when I take that day off work)
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Ah! The March of progress.
Next year it will be April again though.
paintball
Ahh, but a number of Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar. And December 25th in the Julian calendar is January 7th in the Gregorian (for the next 92 years - 2100 will be a Julian leap year, and the difference will increase by another day.)
So, yes, Christmas is always December 25th, but not everyone agrees which day that is...
Hope we see a followup article on how Passover is calculated - after all, they roughly conincided at least once 2000 years ago.....
Could this be the solution to the mystery of Rapa Nui?
...when you said first sunday after the first full moon after the equinox.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It's the first Sunday after the vernal equinox.
The problem isn't that the date is not consistent; it's that the date is set using a DIFFERENT CALENDAR SYSTEM.
paintball
Thanks as well ! (just wanted to be counted, kind of curious how many of us are here on Slashdot)
If it is (I think it is) then the calculation of the date of Easter is an interesting demonstration of how the patriarchal Jewish religion has in fact got roots in a matriarchal religion, since its calendar is based on a lunar rather than a solar cycle. (I'm simplifying). There are plenty of clues in the OT for the educated - but educating a few Protestant fundies as to the real underpinnings of their religion might hopefully get them thinking, and thinking helps cure ignorance, and curing ignorance helps do things like stop school boards from requiring teaching Creationism. So yes, it is a scientific article.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I don't care about the myths - the chocolate bunnies and eggs are good enough for me.
Save the earth! It is the *only* planet with chocolate!
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Yes, it's set in stone on the wrong date.
Right. Because we have to celebrate everything in exact intervals of one earth-sun-revolution, and only whole-number interval offsets from the time of the original event.
There's no such thing as the 'right' and 'wrong' date. An event happens. Choosing to celebrate that event once a year (where "year" is the amount of time it takes the earth to go around the sun once) is arbitrary in the first place. It would be just as 'right' to celebrate it every 12 moon-earth revolutions, or 2 mercury-sun revolutions.
If you're already going to base your celebration intervals on the convenience of how often one ball of rock revolves around one ball of gas because you happen to live on said ball of rock, you might as well always celebrate something on the 259th day of the year, or the 4th time the 4th day of the week falls in the 11th month of the year, or the 1st 7th day of the week following the vernal equinox.
Getting bent out of shape because the commemoration/celebration of an event doesn't have the same calendar date as the original event - especially when the original event occured in a time period where the calendar you're using didn't even exist - seems pretty silly. Especially when you're celebrating the birth/death of the son of God.
paintball
sub GetEasterDate {
my($year)=@_;
# http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/nature1876.html
my $a=$year%19;
my $b=int($year/100);
my $c=$year%100;
my $d=int($b/4);
my $e=$b%4;
my $f=int(($b+8)/25);
my $g=int(($b-$f+1)/3);
my $h=(19*$a+$b-$d-$g+15)%30;
my $i=int($c/4);
my $k=$c%4;
my $l=(32+2*$e+2*$i-$h-$k)%7;
my $m=int(($a+11*$h+22*$l)/451);
my $month=int(($h+$l-7*$m+114)/31);
my $p=($h+$l-7*$m+114)%31;
my $day=$p+1;
return (0,0,0,$day,$month-1,$year-1900);
};
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Well, I do care deeply. I had at least 4 chocolate bunnies this year.
Damn, got to go and get more before they are all sold out...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Only valid between 1583 and 4899
function! s:EasterSunday(year, return_value)
if a:year 4089
return 0
endif
let a = a:year / 100
let b = a:year % 100
let c = (3 * (a + 25)) / 4
let d = (3 * (a + 25)) % 4
let e = (8 * (a + 11)) / 25
let f = (5 * a + b) % 19
let g = (19 * f + c - e) % 30
let h = (f + 11 * g) / 319
let j = (60 * (5 - d) + b) / 4
let k = (60 * (5 - d) + b) % 4
let m = ( 2 * j - k - g + h) % 7
let n = ( g - h + m + 114) / 31
let p = ( g - h + m + 114) % 31
if a:return_value == 1
let easterday = p + 1
return easterday
else
let eastermonth = n
return eastermonth
endif
endfunction
Is it just me or does it seem like anything posted having to do with politics or religion turns into a mod point black hole?
The game.
In my part of the world the Monday after Easter is a national holiday. I've actually implemented the Gaus algorithm to compute the date of Easter in multiple programs, to check if people working on a given date were entitled to extra compensation for working on a holiday.
I won't hesitate to recommend the book 'Marking Time' by Duncan Steel - it's a great book about the history and evolution of calendars. The date of easter is a particularly interesting question and Duncan goes as far as to explain how the date of Easter was at the core of an English plan to attack the legitimacy of the Catholic church and how this plan was what triggered Britain's first attempts to colonize America, great stuff.
More East.
*Ta-da-boom*
I first saw this in a Tandberg cartoon years and years ago. PIty I can't find the original.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Calendars are funny things.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
I'm actually worried that in 500 years or so, FSM will be the dominant religion. :)
Easter is always either early or late. It's never when it's supposed to be.
Why does Easter change date every year and Christmas does not. Were they set based on different calendars? Otherwise it would be indeed weird that the number of months between the two days switches all the time.
Just because I'm curious : where does it say that (not that it changes anything about the meaning of the bible if it does indeed say that, but I'm curious nonetheless) ?
... (I'm sure you can fill this in, this seems to be a smaller group though)
Besides, religion isn't irrational : this article gives a few hints on why (note : if you know a bit of stuff about the differences between religions you'll find that while the arguments presented are not about one single religion, they do exclude a lot of religions, in short the article makes a lot of sense when interpreted to a christian context, and specifically compares this christian(-oriented*) belief system to atheism, it states that atheist societies exist for about 20 years while christian communities generally survive for 150 years, with a number of them being older than any reliable records (about 200 years that is))
* -oriented because of 2 facts :
1) some members of other religions are "cryptochristian", ie they believe and practice the principles of christianity, even when in direct contradiction with their stated religion
2) some christians
Of course, when these calculations consider the addition of the Easter Bunny, the Fibonacci sequence, represented as an infinite mathematical set, must be applied to the cycle result. In the end you'll find it's bunnies all the way down.
That's not the point, nor is that claimed. What the article meant was that the cycle is that long, not that we'd still be using it when it starts repeating.
I gather from your post that you have nothing but contempt for anybody who you consider to be a fundamentalist. That's your privilege, of course. However, I see no reason for you to bring it into this discussion of the mathematical calculations behind determining the date of a religious holiday celebrated around the world by millions of people, few of whom could possibly be considered fundamentalists.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I, for one, need to know when to set my Easter Bunny traps.
Perhaps you fail to notice that this is a long term pseudo-random number generator. A subject near and dear to the hearts of every /.er. Not bad considering the hardware they back in the day had was only slide rules and abacuses.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Yes. Every time. Just to give the religious a taste of how irritating door-to-door evangelicals are.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
the way he would have had to if this were a Muslim story
Or, you know, a Jewish or Christian one. The penalty of death by stoning for adultery is straight out of the Old Testament.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Ironically you're trying to show the illogical nature of one who professes to dislike Fundamentalists (presumably because of their illogical nature).
... I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Of course, the person in question probably has no idea where the term Fundamentalist comes from in modern Christian terms, so their Worldview on the issue is most likely to be entirely based in the media. Yes, the very media from which science should not be learned either.
Or, "Fundamentalism
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
And it was March 19 in California. Leap day made is seem earlier.
Some people use solar calendar, some lunar. If you were truly lunar like Jewish calendar, then you could celebrate resurrection three days after Passover. But that is only on Sunday once every seven years on average. Roman church want to always celebrate Easter on a Sunday, so they developed their quirky estimate of Easter.
Back to the point. Astronomers following Jewish rules have calculated that Passover was on a Thursday during Pontius Pilate rule in year 30 (April 6) and 33 (April 2). The Bibilical King Herod died on March 13, 749 years after the founding of Rome, which is 4 BC in our calendar. So Jesus was born a little before Herolds death making Him 34ish or 37ish at death depending on the date. More people prefer the younger year if you google it. I guess he'd be about 2012 years old now, beating Mesthusaleuh!
There are millions of people who did not celebrate Easter today (23 March 2008) because they will be celebrating on 27 April 2008 (yep, 5 weeks later ... this is an unusual year). Orthodox Easter is computed to always fall after Passover (because, recall, the Last Supper was a Passover Seder).
Here's a web site that is more, um, shall we say, enlightened: http://www.assa.org.au/edm.html
One of the main differences between the calculations for Roman Catholic Easter and Eastern Orthodox Easter is in which calendar (Gregorian or Julian) is used. Use Google. It's actually quite interesting because of all the history and politics involved. It's not just simple (eg, exactly when is the moon full? over which point on the earth?) as one might think.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
But communion will be delicious.
Your superior intellect is obvious.
fuxake.... yeah, at least those that believe what is unidentified are extraterrestrials(queue ferimin weeee oooo ooooo), they're quite tiresome along with the Bigfoot believers, Nessie believers, astrologers et al. Numpties all.
Oh, I know what fundamentalists are like ... used to be one myself, when I mistakenly strayed from atheism. Of course, the logical contradictions, both in the bible, and in christian faith, belief, and action, killed that.
All religion is a crock, not just the fundies, so its not like I treat them as a "special case".
I'm sorry, I didn't realize calculating the date of Easter was such an interesting topic to you. I'll go back to my troll hole and keep not giving a shit.
Or it's all a mistranslation and she just wasn't married.
If you want to say that Passover's date is set at spring pagan holiday time, you'll need to argue with your rabbi or maybe Lehrhaus Judaica about whether your druids are at all the same kinds of pagans as Caananites were. And if you want to say that the name "Easter" and the bunnies and and eggs and marshmallow chickens are ripped off from Germanic spring fertility goddess stuff, you'll have a tough time getting anybody to argue the other side except maybe some atheists who'll say that the Germanic fertility goddess folks ripped that off from nature, which provided the bunnies and eggs, or from the chemical industry who brought us marshmallow peeps.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
$unixdatenum = easter_date($year);
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I've always thought it rather bizarre that Jesus is supposed to have been born on a fixed day (25th December), but his death (which is arguably even more important to Christianity) just kind of floats about sometime in spring. Yet presumably in Easter services the priest/vicar goes on about how "Jesus died on this day", as if it was actually a fixed date.
Why can't they just agree on a single date and stick to it? I mean, they make up so much other nonsense and claim it as hard fact, so why not this as well?
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Without delving into the (overly?) detailed explanation at Wikipedia, I do not see any reason whatever for the celebration of someone's resurrection to be tied to the full moon. A simple calendar date would suffice, as it does for other holidays. For historical reasons, the celebration of Easter was originally tied to Passover, but there is really no reason for that to still be the case. A simple "the first Sunday after March 21" or something like that would work just fine.
Sometimes I think "the Church" makes things complicated on purpose, just to make it easier for them to retain control.
The phrase meaning "young woman" was mistranslated as "virgin". I am sure you can see how easy that would be to do, especially in a time when ALL "young women" were expected to be virgins. The historical record bears this out.
Weird how your opinion doesn't map to everybody, huh? The world is crazy like that. I suspect your troll hole is not entirely metaphorical.
In my opinion, Jesus was just an early terrorist, with a good PR company! Okay, you believers, if he was around now, and railed against the establishment in the way the bible says (especially in the UK or US) he would be locked away immediately! If he had carried out his 'miracles' in the middle ages in the UK, he would have been burned at the stake as a witch! If the same 'miracles' were to be performed today, he would either be making a fortune as a stage magician, or be busy being dissected by scientists. Never mind that his mother got pregnant out of wedlock, in an age when women could be, and were, stoned to death for this 'crime'; she just got lucky and managed to fool most of the people, most of the time! Perhaps Pontius Pilate was one of the few people to see things clearly, in much he same way the UK and US governments do now - kill Osama Bin Laden, and the party has no host! They just need to remember what Pontius forgot - clear all the records so there is no evidence; in the same way that the Whitehouse have done with their E-mails. Sorry to all you believers, please don't be offended - I'm a believer too, I just believe differently to you!
Minor nitpick: Achilles was also half-divine, according to the Iliad. His mother was Thetis. Odysseus also had divine ancestors, but they were more distant.
"Your notation sucks!" -- Serge Lang (1927-2005)
The hilarity continues... When is your next club date so I can be sure to get tickets well in advance? Back to my troll hole I go.
easter_date($year);
Her family would have been the one's to promote the story, not her. Seem more plausible now?
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Every day is Easter! People like to kill Christ over and over and then make the point of reminding us in detail of the crucifiction over and over. It happened once and He lives now and forever. The Church has a habit of missing the point of much of God's Word and this puts Christians in a position to be taunted,contradicted and mis-led. I do celebrate Christian holidays but more low-key. Christians are to celebrate Christ 24/7/365. I do think it's neat how this formula was derived though and I'd rather see that as the topic here than see negative comments about Easter. A true Christian would not dare insult Islam or Judeism or any other religion but offer to share Christ's teachings instead. Please be respectful or the mod-man will stike.
When all that needs to be done is follow the seasons and the eqinoxes and you have your dates already. I find this much ado about nothing for a stolen pagan holiday
The Tao that can be named is not the Tao
While I admire you're attempt to rationalize your position based on the structure of a backstory, I believe you have missed some key points in your doctrinal viewpoint.
You were close to hitting the target when you suggested the potential theme of infidelity. But the story goes deeper than that. First and foremost, Joseph was not yet married to Mary when she was with child. They were only betrothed (engaged/arranged to be married) at the time, and under Jewish law, this was as good as being married, sans the nuptials and the writ of marriage. Since a child out of wedlock would have been seen as a disgrace (especially to Joseph), under Jewish law, Joseph had every right to have Mary exposed for infidelity (obviously since Joseph was not the child's father). However, Joseph, being the Godly man that he was had actually planned on giving Mary a writ of divorce (Joseph's other alternative under Jewish law) and to quietly let her drift off into anonymity with her bastard child. Fortunately, Joseph had a visit from an angel of God in a dream and therefore Joseph had a change of heart.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.. - Matthew 1:18-25, ESV
Now, onto your cross-comparison of the virgin birth in comparison to other religions, such as Greek mythology, etc. First, let's examine what the Bible claims has happened.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. - Luke 1:26-38, ESV
You are correct in noticing that it's an ancient "theme", but the Christian theme has a slight twist that no other religion (that I am aware of) describes. As we can see from the scriptural reference, the method for the conception of Christ is completely different than other religions/mythology. Other religions/mythology state that some god-like being (i.e. Zeus, father of Hercul
It was the only profession which left time for science and contemplation ;)
only one everything
I disagree. Science tells us that, if we don't eat in a certain way, we will die prematurely. It tells us that we must recycle more plastic in order to save the planet. It tells us that the cure for depression is medication. And when we've done all those things (because we'd be stupid, lazy, immoral if we didn't) a whole new lot of science comes along and proves that the opposite is true.
A good scientific education may teach you how to think, but for most people science is something that dictates government policy, legislation, and lifestyle choices without their actually having to understand any of the details or processes. For most people, science becomes a faith. I'd bet that the average American or Briton does more things based on the latest scientific evidence than s/he does based on religious belief.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Copernicus: 1473-1543 Mendel: 1822-1884 Kelvin: 1824-1907 Planck: 1858-1947 Eddington: 1882-1944 Lemaitre: 1894-1966 Knuth: 1938-
So, Copernicus may have been a Christian for the sake of convenience, but I think the others had/have other choices!
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Oh okay, so you're fully aware that the name comes from a series of articles and books called "The Fundamentals", an attempt to document the most essential parts of the Christian Faith so that believers would have a reference as to what they had in common with each other despite their other differences?
You knew then that "Fundamentalist" simply referred within the Christian community to a group of people who accepted those fundamentalists, not to "radicals" or any other term you've aggregated with it since?
Just because I know people who call themselves scientists doesn't mean they represent science and just because you knew people who called themselves fundamentalists doesn't mean all or any of their behaviours represented that title.
But you knew that.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Yes, but if they start trying to calculate the date of some event tied with the next return of a specific comet, that will still be science.
There is a lot of science involved in determining the date of easter, and a little politics too. Religion has nothing to do with it, its a historical and cultural reality, religion aside. Considering Easter Friday is the date of the historical death of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, there's nothing strange or cooky about figuring out the date in question for commemeration's sake alone.
Jesus had a huge cultural effect on the people of his time and people since, and the study of those effects is also science, in case you're confused about everything outside physics, biology and chemistry being studiable.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
One still has to take into account what is really going on when the word 'virgin' is used, based on the context of the writing. Even if the translation is literal, a writer might assume that a young woman is 'virginal' when she is, in fact, not. At any given time, not many people have that actual knowledge about an individual, and so it is usually nothing but an assumption, in any time or place. And given the actual record of history, that assumption is probably wrong more often than right.
The 1917 articles that made up "The Fundamentals" was never all that widely distributed.
As the saying goes - do the math. 12 volumes. ~ 2 million books total. That means less than 170,000 sets total distribution over the course of 80 years, or 2,083 sets per annum. Not very influential in the great scheme of things ...
The term "fundamentalists" as currently used refers to the descendents of the evangelical fundamentalist "revival" / "Moral Majority" radicalization/polticization in North America in the '70s and the '80s'. to paraphrase the Buick commercial, its not your grandfather's fundamentalism.
The basics never changed - sola scriptura, sola fida, sola gracia. The way they are applied in the social and political context is what changed, and why fundies are derided - both because the bible is internally inconsistent (so much for "sola scriptura"), and because fundies continually "put their foot in it" by their conduct, both in public and in private, demonstrating that the "christian virtues" are more "honoured in the breech" than anything else. Also, it doesn't help that science is able to show that some of the claims of the bible (for example, that homosexuality is a "sin") are just plain stupid talk by ignorant fools, and that same-sex activity is normal for many mammals, contrary to the ignorant ramblings preached from pulpits every weekend. I'm sure if you've been to any fundie church, you've heard sermons claiming that "no other animal engages in such behaviour". Its like none of these preachers has ever seen a dog try to hump their leg - same sex AND bestiality rolled into one ...
But that's what you get when "faith" and "you gotta believe" is more important than the evidence of your own eyes, and why its so EASY to make fun of fundies.
Fe word fat i fink you are looking thore is "theremin". Thee thigh though thumb, I hear fe sound oth a theremin.
The
You're both wrong! The mark of the beast is 999! Satan (Or is that Santa) is upside down! But wait, what if I'm in Peru? Then am I upside down and Satan is right-side up? Damnit! Christianity is too confusing. I'm going to bed.
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oh where are my mod points?!
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DISCLAIMER: I am an independant protestant with what is probably an unintended bias.
*sigh*
I'm tired of having to go over this with my atheist friends.
Please. Remember this, if you remember nothing else.
The term "Zombie Jesus" makes no sense.
The religious belief is that Jesus "came back from the dead", or "rose from the dead". The angel said "Why seek ye the living among the dead?".
Zombies, on the other hand, are not living OR dead. They are the undead, which is a different thing entirely.
You would think since atheists believe both are make believe, they would be able to distinguish among the two.
Then again maybe the real issue is that most of them don't understand the belief, so most of their comments sound like retardedness to those of us who do believe.
Case in point: The last time I explained this to an atheist, their response was "Well why didn't he just come back again the 2nd time he died?"
Really? If you are ignorant enough to be able to make that comment, you are too ignorant to argue against that establishment of religion.
RAmen to that!
Take the reminder of 5700000 after division by 66 to get 42. That's the answer to everything. But that is not all. The remainder of 66 divided by 42 is 24, the opposite answer to everything. Then 42 modulo 24 is 18. Finally, 24 modulo 18 is 6. This means that the greatest common divisor of 5700000 and 66 is 6. We can simply concatenate the last two numbers to get 666, the number of the beast. There are many more connections to the number of the beast that does not fit in this post.
The sun rises in a different place on the horizon every day due to the tilt of the earth. The date of Xmas is when that location makes it's first percievable change back in the other direction from the extremity of the winter. It was when Sol Invictus (the state religion of Rome at the time when the council of Nicae first drafted the bible) celebrated the rebirth of the sun and the beginning of the end of winter. It has nothing to do with christianity except for the politics of keeping the festival days intact so the transition to christianity could be accomplished with more ease.
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
The virgin birth was/is an essential part of the Messianic prophecies of the Jewish people. It derives from Isaiah 7:14:
This passage has been dated to a date prior to the death of Christ in the Dead Sea Scrolls -- somewhere between 335 and 107 BC. So the idea of a virgin birth was well established long before Jesus' actual birth as are many of the miracles that Jesus performed. In fact, if you study the history of the time you will find that there were many others who claimed to be the Messiah and fulfill various prophecies including King Herod himself (the king who killed all of the male babies in Bethlehem in an attempt to end Jesus' life). According to the gospels in the New Testament, Jesus has fulfilled nearly every Messianic prophecy -- far more than any other figure in history.
The only prophecy Jesus has yet to fulfill is the establishment of an eternal government of peace and holiness which Christians believe will occur at his second coming. The fact that he did not fulfill this prophecy is one of the primary reasons that Jews of that day and even today rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
There is a lot more information here to cover than I can possibly relate in a Slashdot post, but there is far, far more to Biblical and Messianic prophecies that you realize. Each miraculous act and many of the statements attributed to Jesus in the New Testament are loaded with meaning and significance to people who understand the Old Testament -- most clearly in the book of Isaiah.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
> ...same-sex activity is normal for many mammals,
> contrary to the ignorant ramblings preached from pulpits every weekend.
You fail Critical Thinking 101.
You can't get an "ought" from an "is". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem
The fact that certain behaviors among animals can be observed in nature doesn't imply any moral (or amoral) imperative among humans. There are lots of things animals do that no one would consider OK for humans to do.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
It was a way to eliminate hereditary title surely. After all, the christians were a cult following somebody they claimed that existed and who was the king of the jews. The king of the jews meant he was next in line to the thrown of David. They were trying to sell this to the romans remember. How far do you think they would have got if they said it was a bout the rightful king via succession to a thrown that had been usurped by the Roman Empire? Far better to say that his father was not Joseph who was from the line of David but rather the creator of the universe instead. Imagine if they'd said instead "Come follow the rightful king that wanted to kick the Romans out of Palestine". Wouldn't it have been easier to just jump into the ring with the lions voluntarily and cut out the middle man?
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
Actually, you're the one who fails basic science as well as critical thinking. Humans are mammals.
You also take what YOU think "ought to be human morality" and you try to impose that value judgment contrary to what actually is. Science doesn't make moral judgments - it makes observations. Fundies seeking to impose their morality on others are the judgmental ones, and as such, deserve condemnation for their "magnificent hypocrisy".
Besides, last I looked, humans have been more "creative" about cruelty than most other mammals.
If you want to make a moral judgment, try this one on for size - the reason we're at the top of the food chain is because as a species we're the meanest, cruelest, least civilized, most amoral and dangerous animal in the world today. I can't think of one animal that comes anywhere near as close to the panalopy of cruelty and sheer inhumanity of humans - and a LOT of that was done "in the name of god." Just read the accounts of genocide that "god commanded" in the bible.
Hi,
nice theory. But how comes that jesaja, the prophet who lived a couple of hundred years before jesus, prophesized this virgin birth? Was that too a "marvellous" addition?
Btw, who are "they" that altered the original story? I would like to know these people in charge of the content of the bible.
Yt,
Gunnar
they = the council of Nicae. Creating a text about something that happened hundreds of years earlier so that it fits an even older prophesy isn't exactly a difficult thing to do. Nothing marvelous about it.
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
almost, according to some friends with insight it stated that she was young, rather than a virgin, and the later translation made that "small" error :-)
and have it on whatever day Astara is? Since Easter is yet another holiday stolen from the pagans they hate so much.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I can't find my links to it, but I had one claiming some significance to Dec. 25 before the pope declared it official which pretty much says the same as you.
People tend to forget that rome outlawed Christianity and ordered everything mentioning it destroyed. It isn't until sometime around 90 AD that Jesus is first mentioned in recorded history by Josephus- a roman historian who wrote in his volume titled Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII.III
Except that most religious events are not in fact celebrated because of of the religious holiday. Almost every single event celebrated today was done so due to seasonal activity revolving around the planting or harvesting work. The churches assimilated various celebratory activites that were already in practice long before the church came to town.
People already had celebrations frequently, and for a variety of reasons. These celebrations peaked when work peaked (spring and fall) and the timing of most of these events was typically based around the lunar schedule, first thaw, first frost, solstice, etc. When the church wanted to interest new cultures, they did so generally through celebration, and denoted their own holidays, found similarities of one cultures pratcies to a religios event, and then created the holiday. After a hundred years of practicing the holiday on the day of a particular festival, it simply became known by the name the church provided for it, especially if a large portion of the population had converted.
I would bother to link you to articles about St Valentine, Ishtar (Easter), All Hallows, Yule, St Patrics Day (Spring equinox, AKA rebirth of trees, AKA celebration of all things green) Mother's and Father's Day, Beltane (May Day), and even thanksgiving (the practice and seasonal timing, not necessarily the American reasonings behind the current celebrated date for it) as all being Pagan holidays overtaken by the church, but then, that's what search engines are for...
Even the fact that you go to church on Sundays was an attempt in 321CE when Pope Constantine ordered worship services moved from the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday so that the pagan ritual of worshiping the Sun God at dawn would be replaced by other practices. He even made it punishable by death 11 years later to worship God on a Saturday to enforce the idea of making Sunday the standard day and thus force pagans to choose one god over the other (since they would not be able to worship both at the same time or same pace).
Check this out, even Christmas Day, December 25th, birthday of Jesus, was placed as the day after the solstice, the first day of the year that began to get longer, grow in light, and hence the birthday celebration for the Sun God since in the original calendar that date was penned by the Cristian church, the 24th was actually the 22nd, the solstice being the 21st.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I think you mean "idiots savants" or just "savants".
Admittedly Copernicus is the odd man out there, though note that he was actually a priest, which is a step beyond adhering to Christianity because you have to. It's dangerous to assume that a medieval person was only a Christian because they had to be, even if it makes you feel better about some famous scientific figures of the past. Christianity was an absolutely monolithic force in society, and it's more likely that any given person believed in it than not.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Zeller's Congruence has been around for many years. I have a perl program that implements it. Calculating Easter (Western) isn't rocket science.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
The penalty of death by stoning for adultery is straight out of the Old Testament.
...
It's in the new one as well. Pretty famous part actually
send + more == money?
Those who belong to the latter are anti-scientists who seek to replace science with religion.
Which has already been demonstrated. See the fruit fly experiment where a population of fruit flies is split in two, and after a while they stop being able to interbreed. Speciation has taken place. You also have Nylonase, where a completely new enzyme/protein has been formed in the last few decades, and if there is no limit to how proteins can change there is no limit to how the organism itself can change. You can also observe for example domestic breeding of dogs, where huge differences in both appearance and functionality (sense of smell, hearing, etc.) have arisen by artificial selection.
I notice that you still can't point to the specific barrier which prevents small changes from resulting in large changes over time. That's because you are willfully ignorant, and ignore all facts that don't match your religion.
Wrong. It is only you who are either ignorant or even willfully ignorant on the matter, YEC.
That's because Slashdot blocks replies after a while, and I'm not going to let you get away with lying and willfully ignoring facts.
I did. DNA evidence shows that we and Neanderthals share a common ancestor rather than being on the same branch.
No, I am pointing out the fact that actual scientists show YECs to be wrong.
I don't need to since real scientists are doing it already.
Show me one single example of that. Show me one single piece of new, original research by creationists published in an actual scientific journal. AiG's circle-jerk "publication" doesn't count.
You are. You are promoting pseudoscience.
No, I have pointed out that you are promoting pseudoscience and willfully ignoring facts that do not match your religion. Just because I give you shit over being an ignorant moron doesn't make the actual science behind the fact that evolution, micro or macro, any less scientific.
Wrong. An "educated guess" is called "hypothesis" in science. Evolution (macro or micro) is not a hypothesis, but a scientific theory. Educate yourself: "In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations. It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ulti
Clever signature text goes here.
=FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(C9/38)/2+56)&"/"&C9,7)-34
Why do you need a reason other than a "Fun With Calendars" exercise?
I'm a Christian, but as far as religious purposes go it really doesn't matter when it falls, and if I need to know for some reason I just look at the calendar on the wall.
This article is all about the math and history of the thing, and the appeal to me is all about the geekiness of knowing obscure and complicated things.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Are you confusing 'immaculate conception' with being even the slightest bit more realistic than virgin birth?
Your mistranslations are pointless, it's the common perception perpetrated by the church.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
It's even more "off" than that.
One of the biggest problems the Council of Nicaea faced regarding the dating of Easter was that the imperfection of the Julian Calendar had already thrown off the date of the Spring Equinox by about 4 days in the four centuries since it had been enacted. But rather than resetting the calendar (as they did about 1300 years later with the Gregorian reforms), the Council decided to simply redefine the dates of the equinoxes.
December 25 (the old Winter Equinox) was already becoming popular at the time for Jesus's "birthday;" but it wasn't yet officially established. By the time it became "officially" recognized as such (a few decades later), everyone had forgotten why the date was chosen in the first place (the Equinox), or even that the date wasn't even the original December 25th in the first place!
I think you need to learn a bit more of history, GCH.
The