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Scientists/Actress Say They Were 'Tricked' Into Geocentric Universe Movie
EwanPalmer (2536690) writes "Three scientists and Star Trek actress Kate Mulgrew say they were duped into appearing in a controversial documentary which claims the Earth is the center of the Universe. The Principle, a film which describes itself as 'destined to become one of the most controversial films of our time', argues the long-debunked theory of geocentrism – where the earth is the center of the Universe and the Sun resolves around it – is true and Nasa has tried to cover it up. The film features the narration of actress Mulgrew, who played the part of captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek Voyager, as well as three prominent scientists."
Time for them to feed
Supposedly a large # of the actors in the film Innocence of Muslims were duped into appearing in the film and had their lines (sloppily) edited after the fact to be about Mohammed instead of generic desert villain.
Monstar L
Where is the controversy?
The controversy is that the Bible disagrees with reality.
So it's not really a controversy except to Biblical literalists.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
in the Laimtre universe, the earth is as much the center of the unierse as any other point is.
The bible does not disagree with reality. Certain religious interpretation of religious concepts disagree with reality. It has been over two decades since the Vatican officially apologized for that particular incident, without the Pope renouncing God or the bible.
Rather than claim there is a fundemental conflict between religion and science, it would be more correct to say that there are some assholes who find modern times too confusing to keep up, and thus try to bring everyone back.
At least, that's the case for creationism. In this particular case, it might just be attention whoring.
Shachar
It doesn't really affect the "Best Star Trek Captain" discussions (I always answer with the *vision* the creators had for the character not how it was acted)...but Kate Mulgrew is kind of a ditz
In interviews (like in The Captains film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... ) she was clearly just doing Trek purely as a 'gig' for a paycheck...she had no personal connection to science or space whatsoever and did not see her role as a way to educate herself or broaden her horizons to improve her acting
to her it was all just "technobabble" which angers me to no end as a person who advocates for women in science...but it's her life and career so I'm not judging her choices necessarily...i just think it's unprofessional and lazy...her performance in Orange is the New Black is equally as bad, IMHO...very perfunctory
Mulgrew read the ***narration*** of the whole film...how could she do that and not know the film as about the earth being the *actual* center of the universe?
answer is in the subject line
Thank you Dave Raggett
"The Bible" says nothing concerning Earth status as center of the Universe, one way or the other.
The idea was popularized with the "Christian" tag in the dark ages, but long before that, it was a Greek thing.
wow only 2 decades, and you sound proud of it
I believe her. I fell that Kate is totally capable of being tricked into making a movie with such claims. I'm not sure that she has much of an argument though. She was paid to do something really really stupid and she did something really really stupid, and likely something that she even believed at the time until someone else explained it to her. By her argument she seems to be claiming that she shouldn't be permitted to make any films (which I completely support). If she finds out that there really isn't any "Starfleet" will she go after the Trek franchise too?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
fuck, man! the bible disagrees WITH ITSELF. have you not read it? google 'bible errancy' and you'll find more inconsistencies than you'll ever want to see.
really a piece of shit for writing and 'ethics'. do this and you should be stoned to death. do that and you should be killed. god gets pissed off at his own creations and decided to go all murderous on them, then decided to forgive them for following his wishes!
such bullshit.
no thinking person can read that and keep a straight face.
no thinking person would even try to compare this book of fiction with scientific concepts.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
That's great, but where does it say this planet is the center of the universe?
Yes, it does. Only an idiot wouldn't realize that.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
The Genesis cosmography is a rip off of the Sumero-akkadian cosmography, which was most definitely geocentric. Why do you think by the Hellenic age even the Jews had stopped interpreting Genesis literally?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
you mean you DON'T believe in talking snakes and the fact that eve was made out of adam's rib; hence, she was made from 'cheap cuts of meat' ?
what's not to believe about that? sounds pretty legit to me.
(rolls eyes)
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
the long-debunked idea of the Earth being the centre of the Solar System.
"...the long-debunked theory of geocentrism – where the Earth is the centre of the Universe and the Sun resolves around it..."
The linked clip never makes this claim.
This documentary appears to be about the modern theory of geocentrism, the idea among some creationist circles that the Solar System is somewhere near the centre of the universe - at these scales, of course, the Earth's movement around the Sun is negligible so the term "geocentrism" is reasonable.
I'm basing this partly by the appearance, in the linked clip, multiple times of a creationist (who I've met personally) who I know does not hold to the old "earth is the exact centre" view, but who has written some papers with evidence (red-shift patterns, I think - I'm not a cosmologist myself though) that the Solar System may be *near* the centre of the mass in the universe.
He is among the top scientists in cosmology. That must have taken some doing....or perhaps they were all just plain lied to.
yeah I know what you mean...but we're techies so our definition of "technobabble" is more narrow than a non-tech, even one with a good education.
to Mulgrew, anything "science-y" was "technobabble"
this is the problem, Star Trek had mixed results with scientific accuracy...in that sense it is "technobabble" because it is fictional science in a future setting they are using...however, depending on which series at which time, the quality of the science dialogue was educational
I **liked** the fictional future science of the later series...it wasn't completely believable, but they definitely had a science advisor and you could see the consistency
It was educational...in the sense that it exposed me to new ideas & motivated me to ***actually look up the real science***
one thing Trekkies overlook is that today its mostly **teens** who watch Trek...average, everyday teenagers...I know this from my teaching experience, I'd have cheerleader type chicks mention Trek in papers
Thank you Dave Raggett
Well it's really all relative isn't it? I mean, defining the center some other arbitrary place probably makes the math simpler but really all the bits are robiting each other and choosing any one as a set reference is just arbitrary, right?
without the Pope renouncing God or the bible
nuns could run bald through Vatican halls, pregnant, pleading Immaculate Conception; and they'd still not renounce god or the bible.
never let them see you sweat. even if they don't believe their own BS, they won't ever admit it. bad for 'business'.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It isn't a matter of what it looks like, it rips off the entire crystal dome notion. I don't know why that would bother you an more than the fact Hebrew is a Canaanite dialect written in a script that originates in Egyptian and Sumerian sources.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." - Psalm 104:5
"The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises." - Ecclesiastes 1:5
Curious, where does it say the earth is the center of the universe in the Bible?
Oh, probably around Genesis 1:1.
Actually, the whole chapter. It says much about the creation of the earth, and very little about the creation of any other celestial object. In other words, Genesis Chapter 1 is geocentric.
May I suggest that you try asking some, or at least enquire where your source is?
Because I happen to have had BJUP science textbooks in school, and I read Ken Ham as well as Gould, and the claim that literalists are geocentrists doesn't sound at all like any of the books I've read.
On the other hand, that claim does sound like a claim I've heard before, which is discussed in a paper by Lindgren (2014).
Here's a list of inconsistencies in the Bible backing the claim that it disagrees with itself. Now, to be honest, I have a low standard for religious works like the Bible or Das Kapital. But for these works to be applicable to the morals and ethics of the modern world, you have to filter them heavily. At some point, that becomes more work than it's worth.
I believe at one point god makes a circle with a diameter of 10 and a circumference of 30, which is a hell of a trick even for YHWH.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Because good hoaxes are hilarious.
I can just see that press conference now.
Pope declares: "Turns out this 'god' thing was a load of crap. Sorry everyone. You can all go home and get real jobs now."
Hebrew is an Akkadian dialect, and comes from further east than the Canaanites. And modern Hebrew script is Assyrian in origin. I don't know about the original script, though.
The bible does not disagree with reality.
Let's start with talking snakes.
An apple filled with knowledge.
Everybody is related to Adam and Eve, and completely inbred.
Two of every animal fit into a single boat, and none of them ate each other.
All the animals are inbred, back to the ark.
The bible does not disagree with reality.
Really?
I don't see how those are claiming earth is the center of the universe, "just" that it can't be moved, and that the sun moves around it.
But the Earth is the center of the universe! Look at your general theory of relativity! Any object can be consider the unmoving center of a frame of reference. Earth is at (0,0,0) and not rotating. Of course this implies large gravitional fields to keep the sun and the planets and the stars rotating around the Earth every 24 hours, and complex stuff like that. But that just makes the math more complicated. It is still a valid frame of reference.
But hey, why stop there? *** I *** am the center of the universe! All you people rotate around me! No need to bow down...
Draw it on a globe.
I really like Kate a lot.. she's an amazing actor but the irony of her being tricked into this role is too much! I can't help but laugh.. if it happened to Patrick Stewart I would feel the same way. But the tone of the comments in this thread is a bit depressing... everybody seems to miss the humor in this horrid travesty :)
and that story was translated from a yet unwritten story, that was found embedded on an uncooked russian sock.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The part you're searching for is "I Kings 7:23-26". I'd quote it, but it will vary by the version of the bible the particular reader prefers.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
interesting link...ok...this is going to have to be my last post on "technobabble"...let's untangle this mess
first, is it being used as a pejorative?
that's going to clear up alot of the mess right there...in the context does the speaker mean it as a negative, annoying thing
Mulgrew in her "The Captains" interview was *definitely* using the term as a pejorative...
others, including some from your Memory Alpha link, use it as a general term for any *TV dialogue* that involves scientific or technical language...just a neutral term
2nd, why are they using the term 'technobabble' as pejorative?
here on /. for us techies, we sometimes use 'technobabble' to indicate **obviously fake** technical language that was thrown in as an afterthought to either pander to the audience's need for "authenticity" or to move the plot along...Red Matterfrom JJ Abrams reboot is a good example
To make things confusing, non-techs use the term 'technobabble' as a pejorative regardless of its accuracy or usage in the plot...they do not know the difference at all...they just don't like having to learn strange words or think it's irrelevant to the story or are just kind of dumb and don't get it
my criticism of Mulgrew is that she is the latter...a person who is intellectually incurious & generally ignorant of science who calls any scientific language used in drama "technobabble"
Thank you Dave Raggett
sorry messed up the link in my post
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
if you don't know what it is in reference to Trek count yourself lucky
Thank you Dave Raggett
The earth is the centre of the visible universe and thanks to Einstein's relativity, everything moves around us. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with the geocentrist idea, it just complicates the orbital mechanics equations when you want to fly a space ship to Mars somewhat, that's all.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So the ether theory is back on the table?
Clearly, if the Earth is in fact the center of the universe, any repeat of the Michelson–Morley experiment would fail to detect a drift through the ether, since the Ether is in the same inertial reference frame as the Earth.
So, it's possible that there's ether, and the assumptions about Earth *not* being the center of the universe are what's responsible for the negative result, we just interpreted it incorrectly.
Oh good grief you're going to a part of scripture that is literally poem, and looking at a psalm where the context is about the scale of God's power. Its not making a cosmological argument about the status of the earth.
And if you really want to be pedantic about it, the earth IS stationary relative to the people writing about it. Movement is relative to context, and as the context is the earth, the author is technically right even though thats completely not what he was talking about.
And Ecclesiastes? The whole book is about the repetitive nature of the world and how nothing seems to ever change. It too is using poetic language; as if you've never heard of the sun rising and setting.
...are you being serious?
I have to wonder how the folks here got through middle school lit if terms like "sun rises" and "earth's foundations" are presenting problems for them.
Why are these pieces of shit messing with people's heads? Are they seeking attention or are they trying to push some sort of ignorance cult down people's throats?
Those who think I'm being anti-Christian here should note that the Church was not even an ignorance cult back when only just over half of the Cardinals decided to give Galileo a hard time for making fun of the Pope's geocentric ideas (he went down for insubordination and not for astronomy). The Church moved on long ago. It's new ignorance cults who ignore inconvenient bits of the Bible like "the good Samaritan" who are a problem.
It's worth noting that the Ecclesiastes verse is not in the context of astronomy, but rather highlighting the relative impermanence of human works. Humans and their ambitions come and go, but the days keep coming and the wind keeps blowing.
There's no reason to think it isn't referring to the apparent position of the sun, relative to an Earth-bound observer.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I believe if one reads that particular passage you'll find that the measurement hit ~3.1395.
Dont bring facts to a bible-bashing discussion; people dont want to hear truth, they want to spout things they heard on Zeitgeist no matter how wrong they are.
I believe Genesis 1 talks about the creation of a large number of celestial objects, including the sun, moon, and stars.
I like how people defend this stupid bullshit by saying that it's not meant to be taken literally. Guess what? Even if it's not meant to be taken literally, it's still just as retarded as ever.
And if it's not meant to be taken literally, then why do idiots buy into *any* of it? Why not just become atheists and admit it's all a fairy tale, since it's obviously rife with stories that aren't literal. Many times, when science advances, the religious move the goal posts and start claiming that the parts of their books they took literally before weren't meant to be taken literally. It's pathetic. Just give it up already.
The Biblical authors were simply advanced in their understanding of proper measurement technique.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The first maybe, but I've seen big enough changes between even King James and Good News that could completely change that meaning. The second is a very major stretch and we should laugh at your reading comprehension skills if you are going to take that so literally.
It's actually quite pathetic that we are even having this discussion. Bringing religion into science or vice versa is as irrelevant as asking yourself what sort of coffee Jesus would want to drink. We're only getting this shit because some merchants in the temple see science as a threat to getting more people through the turnstiles.
It wasn't meant to be taken literally, so it's all okay.
Except that, even if it isn't literal, it's still obviously a crock of bullshit, so why think of it as anything more than a series of nonsensical stories? It's about as literal as Harry Potter, and about as useful.
[End Of Line]
And we are using Arabic numbers so what is your point exactly?
Hebrew is in fact one of the Cannanite languages, which in turn is part of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic family. Akkadian, on the other hand, belongs to a different branch of Semitic, namely East Semitic. See here for the subgrouping under Semitic, which has been the mainstream for many decades now.
Clone a man from a woman? Pretty hard. Do it the other way round, a Y chromosone is just a damaged X.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
The amphibian sex episode between the captain and Paris was the low point but the few dozen episodes I saw were crap no matter who was on the screen. There's no point blaming one actress just as there was no point blaming one actor for all the Wesley stuff in the previous series. They didn't let her run loose and fix bad material with improv like Robin Williams is allowed to do.
I never made it as far as 7 of 9 but the very idea of a cute friendly and cuddly borg makes as little sense in that setting as someone deliberately putting a rabid wolverine down their trousers just to keep warm. I only got about as far as where the actress playing the cute elf chick asked to be upgraded to speaking role wages and got fired. That shows what sort of cut price crap it was.
Voyager was so bad that it put me off the rest of Deep Space Nine and I never even started on Enterprise.
Your point is that the Bible should be read in context and should not be read literally, and I agree.
The problem is that some believers DO read the Bible literally and use it as justification for many acts which others may find abhorrent.
Such as the Bible phrases the controversial Westboro Church use to justify them hating on others.
Granted Westboro is an extreme case, but then again I have been shocked by the tone and hatred shown by some of the pro-life, anti-gay, anti-Semitic etc. crowd who object on religious grounds.
Before that a Vatican minion (and creationist) seeded the big bang theory, ... and we believed him.
"The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises." - Ecclesiastes 1:5
That is a lot stronger than geocentric. It claims that the sun circles around the earth _once a day_. Even with a geocentric model, that's insane. It would be much more likely that the earth rotates about once a day, and the sun rotates around it once a hear. You could just for fun calculate the centrifugal force.
The trailer is a laugh.
One line in there: "We are the only life in the entire universe."
HAHAHAHA. Okay.
A problem easily solved by making the sun smaller and closer. Just assume the sun is moon-sized and moon-orbit, and you get a day a month. Now move it in closer, and smaller, and... day!
Yeah, because we all know that by choosing a party affiliation, you suddenly become scientifically literate!
The film must have been a reference to a section of an Adams story where a survey marker was placed on earth to mark the center of the universe. IIRC
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Dude! Who said these "foundations" need to be make from, say stone? Just because someone is to daft to imagine gravity, does not mean God could not work it out. For the Sun bit I also have an obligatory XKCD: Centrifugal Force. Just because someone is also incapable of doing coordinate transformations, does not mean God can not do them. In addition, the Psalms are "just songs" and as thus are at maximum "inspired" and not divine word as such, in contrast to for example Genesis.
Why the hell does an atheist need to point out their narrow minded interpretation of the text?!?
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I became an atheist.
I dont care if actors have been porn start before their big time (many were) and i dont care if they appear in shiot adressing an audience which does not contain me.
Two unclean animals and seven clean animals. You are trying to misinform. And if you want to go full nut case you could even take dinosaurs and lizards etc on the ARK in the form of eggs thereby saving a shit-ton of space. Eggs don't usually eat each other. And gopher-wood is not made of gophers.
Congratulations! Please obey all traffic laws and posted signs, and enjoy your new GPS navigation system.
I live in Thailand; I can't even READ the posted signs. But smile and wave to the police and there is no problem. I don't have a Global Positioning System, I only have a MPS (Me Positioning System). Works fine, but it makes me cross-eyed.
Got it.
Altitude: 35,786km.
Angular diameter: 32 arcminutes.
Required diameter: 330km.
See? It can work. That's a little under one-tenth of the diameter of the moon. Not sure how you'd sustain fusion with such low size and mass, but... maybe a wizard did it.
Supposedly a large # of the actors in the film Innocence of Muslims were duped into appearing in the film and had their lines (sloppily) edited after the fact to be about Mohammed instead of generic desert villain.
Sort of mirror image ... in "Innocence of Muslims" actors were tricked into taking part in a film depicting the truth that was opposed by a religion and in this case they were tricked into a film depicting falshoods that are supported by a religion.
It was the basin in the temple - in Exodus I think. Diameter 10 cubits, circumference 30 cubits. To one significant digit, that is the correct value for Pi. On the other hand, remember that a 'cubit' is the distance from your fingertips to your elbow. You would be lucky if you used 40 men and got even one significant digit correct. They wouldn't use women in those days. If you used men for the circumference and women for the diameter you probably would get a value for Pi of less than 3.0.
That one with Stein and others from creationist do the same. inf act this is their basic modus operendi : misquoting.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
well it ends up with it being easy to prove that the earth isn't staying static on it's place.
or if it is then the whole universe works by magic and is just made to appear that earth goes around the sun and that the sun moves itself through the galaxy and...
and what does it matter what it says in the bible when the real issue is that these guys are trying to discredit science, theory of relativity etc by bullshitting people into believing that nasa is just trying to fool them into becoming heathens?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The problem with sane Christians, (like sane Atheists, Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Hindus, and pretty much any group you can think of) is they tend not to shout that loudly. That doesn't imply that they don't exist, or even that they may not be the majority.
If someone shouts too loudly, my suggestion is to ignore them, they will likely eventually go away.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
As opposed to: When I was a child, the bible talked for me, the bible thought for me, the bible reasoned for me. When I became a man, I remained indoctrinated.
Not that I'm particularly fond of that book, but only an idot would interprete a metaphor as fact.
well it ends up with it being easy to prove that the earth isn't staying static on it's place.
The four lunar eclipses occurring every six months starting next week, and visible from the west coasts of North and South America, ought to do the trick.
.: Semper Absurda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
When Jack Ryan's campaign for an open United States Senate seat in Illinois began in 2003, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have his records released. Both Jeri and Jack agreed to make their divorce, but not custody, records public, saying their release could be harmful to their son.[30]
On June 18, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider agreed to release the custody files.[31] The decision generated much controversy because it went against both parents' direct request, and reversed the decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child. It was revealed that six years earlier, Jeri had accused Jack Ryan of asking her to perform sexual acts with him in public,[32] and in sex clubs in New York, New Orleans, and Paris.[30][33] Jeri Ryan described one as "a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling."[34] Jack Ryan denied these allegations. Although Jeri Ryan only made a brief statement,[35] and she refused to comment on the matter during the campaign, the document disclosure led Jack Ryan to withdraw his candidacy;[36][37] his main opponent, Barack Obama, then won the 2004 United States Senate election in Illinois.[38]
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The problem is if you take it literally, with no room for metaphors or other linguistic sins. Never mind that it was King David who said the earth never moved, rather than a prophet or the voice of God. Or that from some views of special relativity you can assume the earth is fixed, or make any other point your reference. Or that it's obvious from earthquakes that the earth moves.
Someone secretly replaced the circle with an ellipsoid
But where do the turtles fit in?
Only an idiot doesn't realize that, by claiming that the text is a metaphor, one can arbitrarily twist its meaning until it vaguely seems to make sense.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Yeah yeah, but I didn't ask for "random silly things in the Bible", I asked about a specific silly thing. Substituting other silly things doesn't count.
maybe a wizard did it.
Remember that back when that was written most people believed that things that appeared in the sky were gods in their own right, particular importance was placed on the sun and the moon because of the influence they have on the seasons and the timing of animal migrations and fish spawning's. Understanding these cycles is critical to forming a civilization as evidenced by massive structures like stone henge dotted all over the planet, these are basically gigantic "farmer's almanac calculators", telling the owners when to plant, harvest, look for salmon runs, birds eggs, etc. They certainly did not think of the Moon as a lifeless rock circling the Earth, it was the physical manifestation of a God in the heavens. The bible changed all this by claiming there was one true God and what went on in the heavens was his doing.
There was no such thing as astronomy and the claims made in your post would appear to be gibberish to them, they could see with their own eyes that the gods played in the heavens that encircled the Earth [hamburgeruniverse.com]. The idea of the dome is reflected in the domes of temples and churches. Genesis waffles on about god separating the waters above from the waters below with a dome, not sure if that's referring to rain, the fact that the sky is blue, or something else.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Cosmologists say that when we look in the sky and all the stars and planets, we can see them escaping us. This explains that the universe is expanding. But if we can observe the same thing from every side of Earth, wouldn't it mean that we are in the center?
There is no description of the earth's foundations (and I'm sorry, but the original text is NOT the King's English anyway). For all we know, this "foundation" could be a reference to the orbit the Earth is set upon and a statement that the Earth cannot be moved from that foundation (not be moved by the readers, anyway). There's LITERALLY nothing there describing the "foundation" - not size, not shape, not composition, nothing. It's also true that land is often referred to as Earth, so it could even be a reference to that what supports dry land above the Earth's molten core. You can actually choose to take the Bible totally literally (even with a talking serpent) and still see that it is NOT an engineering or astrophysics text book with cutaway drawings, dimensions, etc. The texts (taken literally or metaphorically) simply lack details... and that's just FINE. Nobody complains when Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawkingwrites a book that lacks every little detail about the universe. I see no ammunition here for arguing pro/con this bit of scripture.
As for the sun, allow me to point out that we all (of all, and no, religions) use these expressions. Even those of us who fully understand celestial mechanics involved still say to our kids "be home by sunset" or "we'll be having dinner when the sun goes down" rather than "be home by the time this spot on the Earth's surface has rotated sufficiently away from the sun that it is no longer visible" or some other such nonsense. This is about as silly as when Bill Nye tried to slam the Bible as anti-science because it has a verse that refers to the moon as a light (and HE points out that it's not a source of light, just reflecting sunlight). Apparently in Mr. Nye's world, couples do not go out for a romantic stroll in the "moonlight", nobody goes for a "moonlight" swim, etc. The man's an idiot.
What it all really comes down to is something every person working Guidance and Navigation at the Johnson Space Center is quite familiar with: "Frame of Reference". If you set your frame of reference to the center of the sun, then everything (including all the other galaxies) goes around the sun. If you set your frame of reference to the center of the Earth, then everything, including the sun and the rest of the universe, goes around the Earth (and this is a common frame of reference used in orbital spaceflight). You could set your frame of reference to the center of the moon, or the ISS in Low Earth Orbit, or any other arbitrary point in space. It's all relative (in the basic geometric sense rather than the Einstein sense). Taking a Bible verse about sunrise and sunset an using it to claim that the book is wrong, would be like running down the street denouncing every person who speaks of sunrise or sunset - sheer lunacy. The biggest joke of all in this argument about taking the Bible "literally" is that most of those (both for and against the Bible) who claim to be taking it "literally" are actually NOT; they're almost always projecting lots of junk onto it that is plainly (literally?) NOT there.
Allow me to propose a simple rule-of-thumb for Bible readers (both "the faithful" and the skeptics) as follows: Do not criticize it any differently than you criticize every other book (i.e. use consistent standards) and do not take individual sentences out-of-context from ANY book. Bible "verses" are just sentences and they were NOT numbered in the original text (the numbers were added to aid in navigating the text). If person A gets to use individual Bible sentences, person B gets to use individual sentences from any other book. If person A gets to heap his own interpretations onto the clear text of the Bible, then person B gets to do likewise with other books.
Am I the only one that wished 7of9 wore **more** clothes?
Seriously it was embarassing to watch the show with a female in the room....and this is the show with the woman captain that was supposed to be all female inclusive. TOS had boobs everywhere but it's old enough to get away with it.
If I want porn i just look at...you know....pr0n
And the answer to my question is in the subject for this one too...
Thank you Dave Raggett
>Before that a Vatican minion (and creationist) seeded the big bang theory, ... and we believed him.
But for that one - he offered compelling scientific arguments. Even so it was largely discounted by science for several more decades (scientists hate singularities) and it wasn't until Hawking's work in the 1960's that the big bang started gaining serious credibility among scientists.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Wow there. You're not saying that the Bible is open to interpretation are you? Surely not the Holy Bible. This isn't some philosophical text. It is the word of the Lord. His very power guided the hands that put the words on the paper. Or so many people will have you believe.
As an aside I totally read your nick as Satan-X
They did not know about planets 2000 years ago? Yhea, right...
From wiki [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astronomy]
Planetary theory
The Babylonians were the first civilization known to possess a functional theory of the planets. The oldest surviving planetary astronomical text is the Babylonian Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, a 7th-century BC copy of a list of observations of the motions of the planet Venus that probably dates as early as the second millennium BC.[6] The Babylonian astrologers also laid the foundations of what would eventually become Western astrology.[7] The Enuma anu enlil, written during the Neo-Assyrian period in the 7th century BC,[8] comprises a list of omens and their relationships with various celestial phenomena including the motions of the planets.[9]
doing it as a gig is fine from a "food on the table" perspective...no judgement its work we'd all do
i'm criticizing her acting, especially in the captain role
i'm saying that as a professional in something like Star Trek that has built-in millions of fans as an actor you can **remain an airhead** and phone in your work or you can use it to launch a much more successful career
Shatner and Patrick Stewart are, give or take, about as famous as people their age can be...Voyager was on for 6 or 7 seasons IIRC
people *love* those guys...even non-Trek fans
they obviously chose, as professionals, to take the sillyness seriously and grow professionally...fans know how silly it all looks too...people running around in pajamas and whatnot...but the cultural effect is undeniable ($$$)
Mulgrew should have known better...that's what I'm really saying
she did get a pretty sweet gig as the cook on Orange is the New Black, but IMHO her acting is just as empty and wooden and predictable in that as well
Thank you Dave Raggett
Who would make such a 'documentary' and why? What do they hope to gain from doing so?
An this, is exactly why metaphors should not be weighted as facts.
Where is the controversy? If someone says the earth is the center of the universe, either they are dumb, or very conceited and really mean they are the center of the universe, but don't want to offend the rest of us. Oh wait, I get it now...
Relativity actually says that the Earth is in fact the centre of the universe, from Earth's perspective. It's exactly age of universe times speed of light from the borders of the Universe. That does not mean that Earth is special, however. The same is true for any other place in the universe.
Darwin is right.
Claus
Einstein taught us that no point of reference is special. It's perfectly legitimate to state that everything goes around the earth. It does make the movements of everything else very complex though, since they then don't follow Keplerian orbits. It also breaks some of Newton's laws (like inertia, since other planets sometimes reverse course).
But, fixing all of that is just a matter of using different math and creating different physical laws. The accepted convention of the Earth orbiting the Sun is simply the one which we've found to have the simplest math and laws.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Actually the Earth is the center of the Universe.
Every place is the center of the Universe. AKA theory of relativity. Of course it at also is not the center of the Universe or even the center solar system once you expand your frame of reference.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
To be fair, even from an evolutionary standpoint the "Adam and Eve" story isn't all that far off base. Somewhere in history there was the first mutant ape that was classified as some form of human. It's *extremely* unlikely that multiple apes developed the same mutation at the same time.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Every halfway sane human being knows the world does not revolve around them, but that they play a rather small part. That the earth or even our galaxy does so as well on a cosmic scale should neither be a surprise nor a problem. What is their angle? Is this about discrediting science in general because these people are trying to sell some scam?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
In a universe that seems to be infinite in size (or a closed manifold), any point can be declared to be the centre. The reason for saying that Earth and the other planets circle the Sun is that it makes it easy to understand the observable orbits of the planets. But, it is perfectly valid to put Earth in the middle, if you have a wish to do so, just not very useful.
Evolution describes a population, not individuals. Sure, some individuals were born with more human like traits, but those individuals have interbreed with other individuals that had probably less human like traits. Also there are dominant traits and recessive traits, see Mendelian inheritance laws. So to talk about individuals that were our first ancestors is just wrong. Evolution is a drift of a population, that generation after generation adapting to the environment by natural selection and accumulates traits that were advantageous in some way.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
The universe isn't infinite in size, but there's no "edge" of the universe. The most common analogy is that the universe is like the surface of an inflating balloon, just extend the 2D surface to three dimensions. So if you were able to go infinitely fast, and you started off in any direction, you'd eventually end up back where you started, the same way if you got on a plane (with a giant-ass fuel tank) and flew off in a straight line in any direction, you'd end up back where you started.
The idea that the Sun revolves around the Earth, particularly from our reverence point, is completely a valid and true observation. That is just not the best reference point if you want the simplest explanation/model. But just because it is simple does not make it any truer.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The Old Testament has many other references to a firmament a dome where the sun passes over a stationary earth. Just like the rest of the Jews of the time who have more references in other "non canon" books. Yes, the passages are written from the perspective of an earth bound observer, but no place mentions a correct cosmology even when talking about things from God's perspective. Is it so hard to believe that an ancient culture wrote a book using the incorrect cosmology of the time?
Amos 9:6
The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens and has founded His vaulted dome over the earth,
Job 38:18
Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror?
Joshua 10
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.
Psalm 93:1
The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.
Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
Habakkuk 3:11
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.
Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.
Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
How about some other references outside of Ecclesiastes.
Joshua 10:12-13
Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon." And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
Habakkuk 3:11
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.
Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.
Isaiah 14:12-13
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north;
NASA says the balloon analogy sucks.
Thu 4/10/14 9:11 am. The trailer I looked at it *did not* say the sun revolved around the earth. I assume slashdot is lying about it intentionally; or perhaps the actual film has a whole segment slashdot didn't tell us about. ... The trailer said the earth was "special" and quoted cosmologists who are professionally confused about various complicated matters, mostly to be sure in an effort to get more funding for cosmology. The universe may be created by a guy with a beard, and a teapot may be simmering on the other side of the moon, but the trailer didn't say anything around the sun revolving around the earth.
You might not, but humans as a whole do consider social status as the ultimate standard of success - even more than wealth. In most cases, fame is used as a proxy for social status.
Somewhere in history there was the first mutant ape that was classified as some form of human.
This is unlikely and even if true meaningless. Speciation is a human concept, it has very little reality in the actual real world. Change happens so gradually and across such a large population (even a population of a few hundred is "large" in this context) that you can't put a line in the sand and say human on this side, non-human on the other.
All humans can track their lineage back to a common single ancestor.....
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
No. She didn't win a lawsuit. All she "won" was an unconstitutional prior restraint against Youtube (google)
forcing them to remove the segment of the movie she's in.
The actual Kozinski ruling suggests that actors HAVE a copyright in the final work despite decades
of copyright law to the contrary.
Google has appealed. This will be decided back the way it should be (that actors don't magically get
copyright laws).
The case -- in case you want to read the facts instead of making them up -- is Garcia v Google.
E
Why are they dumb?
The earth IS the center of the universe. To say any other point in the universe is the center of the universe is equally as dumb, if not more so.
We can observe from here that the earth is the center of the universe. If we measure the expansion of the universe, EVERY SINGLE THING IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE IS MOVING AWAY FROM THE EARTH AT ALMOST PRECISELY THE SAME RATE AS EVERY OTHER THING. This is because the universe is expanding.
Allow me to illustrate. This is what it looks like from Earth. If point A is Earth, and point A is where you are, that's what the universe looks like. See?
By contrast, This is what it looks like from Alpha Centauri Bb. If point B is Alpha Centauri Bb, and point B is where you are, this is what the universe looks like. See?
Because we are only able to measure from fairly close to "on the Earth", the only observable reality is that the Earth is the center of the universe.
Do you get it now? Or does a more compact diagram help?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Depends on the facts stated in the article. If you're trying to talk people out of science and fact (like gravity) then the movie is wrong. But if it says it's all about the frame of reference, and which one you prefer, then it's not wrong to say the sun moves around us. It's just that most people pick Sol because it makes more sense. Picking the center of the galaxy would make even more sense (in which case we would still be revolving around the sun) but I digress...
"The sun also rises" --Hemmingway
Is it that hard to believe that someone who spent the best 7 years of her life lost in deep space could get tricked into this?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Had you actually STUDIED those oft-circulated talking points, you'd know how dishonest and false the list is.
Well, given that the site is called "evilbible.com", I guess we have to expect a little bias.
Give it a break already... probably no book you have ever read can look consistent if attacked in this dishonest way and it's always very telling that people who hate the Bible so often need to use deceit to attack it rather than legitimate analysis. Try not to pick up a copy of "Green Eggs and Ham"...
Because the word of God should be treated no differently than the words of Dr. Seuss? And just because you call it "deceit" doesn't mean it actually is, though I agree that there does appear to be some Bible hating going on in the link I provided earlier.
Here's the problem I have with what you're saying: Interpretation of what you said in your comment, which is very much ironic. The willfully-ignorant religious nutjobs will stop reading after "The bible does not disagree wtih reality".
In this day and age where we do very much so have willfully ignorant people running around spreading their ignorance, superstition, and religious nonsense to anyone gullible enough, unintelligent enough, or under-educated enough to listen, we need to keep pressing the point that things like science, education, independent thought, and the search for knowledge and actual truth are important, real, and right, and that sticking your head in the sand is wrong. We've still got more than enough ability, as a race, to destroy ourselves utterly, as a race, and my money says that the willfully ignorant pseudo-religious nonsense that we see more and more of lately may be what triggers it. We've got people out there who not only believe in the Apocalypse, but are waiting for it with baited breath because they think that The End will fix everything that's wrong with the world, and they'll be "taken home" by their God.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
While this is generally true, sane people sometimes need to speak up. For every loud Hitler, there is a loud Martin Luther King Jr.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
It is the word of the Lord. His very power guided the hands that put the words on the paper.
Why can't that be the case? Why isn't it possible that God would write by proxy the truth as he wanted it to be known at the time?
In the Beginning, God created a multi-dimensional manifold, having three large spacial dimensions and one large temporal dimension. Within this space he created a ball of superheated free fermions, and endowed with complimentary bosons, but you're not going to know about those for two thousand years. Then He relaxed the pull of gravity just a bit, and the whole thing exploded in an event so large that your language doesn't have a word for it, and your brain can't really even comprehend the scale of what happened. Then, after a time that you also can't comprehend, and a series of events you also can't comprehend, the rock you're standing on was formed.
In comparison: In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... And we'll just leave it at that for now, okay?
Frankly, I like to think the Bible has just passed its expiration date.
As an aside I totally read your nick as Satan-X
You're not the first. I find it amusing.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Nobody in their right mind would insist on reading it literally (and, yes, I am suggesting that people who read it literally are not in their right minds). It was not written that way, and was not interpreted that way until fairly recently.
Shachar
I like how people defend this stupid bullshit by saying that it's not meant to be taken literally. Guess what? Even if it's not meant to be taken literally, it's still just as retarded as ever.
Why is using an idiom that we still use today "retarded"? You've never heard the phrases "solid as a rock", "immoveable as the earth", or "the sun rises"? For goodness sake, theres even a famous Hemmingway novel titled "The Sun Also Rises", why does noone remark on how retarded Hemmingway is?
The Bible has many books in many genres. Psalms is neither scientific treatise nor historical record; its a collection of songs and poems. It uses simile, allegory, and metaphor.
And if it's not meant to be taken literally, then why do idiots buy into *any* of it?
Because there is such a thing as "genre" and "context". In the Psalm being referred to, the following literary devices are used
Simile:
* The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment
* he stretches out the heavens like a tent
* You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment
Metaphor:
* He makes the clouds his chariot
* and rides on the wings of the wind.
* He makes winds his messengers,
* flames of fire his servants.
Anthropomorphism:
* The high mountains belong to the wild goats
* [The springs] give water to all the beasts of the field;
Hyperbole:
* teeming with creatures beyond number
I dont think its unreasonable to look at all that, see something like "the sun rises" or "the earth is immoveable" and think "yea, thats yet more poetic language". Contrast with Chronicles or Kings where there is a focus on facts and a lot less poetic language, and you can see a clear differentiation of genre.
I have found that generally people making claims like
since it's obviously rife with stories that aren't literal
tend not to be well versed in what it actually says and instead are repeating things theyve seen elsewhere, which tend to be quite wrong (for instance Zeitgeist's claims about Osiris / Jesus, or the claim that the Bible says pi=3). There is a sad irony, because all too often the people crying for Christians to listen to facts and be reasonable are neither interested in fact nor in a reasonable discussion.
I didnt say none of it should be read literally; some parts are clearly meant factually and others are clearly not. When Solomon talks of "everything is a vanity and chasing after the wind", I think a reasonable person can see that and understand he is talking about futility, not an actual chasing of wind currents.
Joshua is a historical record. Yes, the claim is that the sun stood still (relative to the earth).
Habakkuk is more prophetic and a lot more poetic; I'd have to study that verse but I dont think he is recording historical fact there given the context of the book as I remember it.
That Psalm is very clearly using metaphor and simile. Some of those comparisons we still use today.
Im not sure what you're asking with Isaiah.
TL;DR.
Seriously, though, I agree with your objectives, but not with your suggested methods.
I think the trend of never conceding anything for the sake of winning the argument is one that hurts our ability to conduct actual conversations. I also think that, when the numbers are tallied, it is a counter-productive one. People will see you as a zealot and disregard you. I refuse to participate in it.
Shachar
it's just a work of surrealist fiction
Its not one work.
I am happy to engage people on why I believe the bible to be accurate, but it is helpful at the outset to discard rumor and myth; if someone has told you that the Bible was written by such and such as a single work at such and such time, that is incorrect. Likewise, if they tell you that the Bible is a single genre, they are also not correct.
I tend to avoid rationalwiki because 99% of what I have seen on there is deliberately misleading /out of context, like this discussion on "the earth stands still" / "sun rises". If the context were posted, with all of its simile and metaphor, noone would be having this discussion because it would be crystal clear that those particular passages are not literal but idiomatic. The sad truth is that people going to rationalwiki are almost never looking to have a rational discussion but to be argumentative.
According to my GPS display the center of the universe is my car. The whole universe revolves when I make a left turn, the whole universe moves when I drive. Looks like this movie is on to something. Except it does not go far enough. We need to promote 140mandak262jamuna'sCarCentrism.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As far as I know that is not what the theory of relativity is; it refers to relative frames of reference (in terms of time / speed), not location.
The Westboro church isn't Christian. Just because someone claims they are Christian doesn't mean they are. The Christian faith is about believing in Jesus and treating those around you as you would treat yourself. The Westboro's believe neither as they held their preacher above Christ himself and certainly don't treat others as they would treat themselves.
Almost no one treats every part of the Bible literally. The parts that are to be taken as interpretations are pretty clear on the fact they are interpreted. This strawman atheists poor out about fundamentalists and literal interpretation is old, played out and not substantiated in fact.
The Bible is and always has been referred to as the "Inspired Word of God." Just as a movie is inspired by the book it uses as source material so the Bible is inspired by God but interpreted by man.
As to your other strawman about hate from pro-life, anti-gay etc I can show you ten times the amount of hate from your side just in your post alone. So get over yourself.
Hollywood people in a fundamental way don't 'do' science, which is why it's so easy to pull them into any sort of Luddite anti-science cause. With no critical tools to evaluate science claims made by someone producing a film, they can be made to serve that person's cause by use of the appropriate political button-pushing phraseology.
I can imagine these actors being told that the film would be "a bold initiative against heliocentric privilege exercised by an unshielded, cancer-causing fusion reactor in Earth's vicinity."
I fully agree. It is a huge problem. The trouble is, in our sensationalist media, who do you give more air-time to? Westboro? Or, say John Lennox(or any other vocal Christian who'd be against Westboro)? Which sells better? A dry boring treatise on why Westboro are really really wrong or pictures of some idiots picketing a funeral?
Society doesn't want to see logic and reason from anyone! No, we as consumers demand sensationalism. That way we can vilify anyone who is wrong and we don't really have to think about it too hard.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
What? Hebrew is a West/Central Semitic language, and Akkadian was an East Semitic language (there is no extant East Semitic language spoken today). Hebrew was a dialect of Canaanite, and closely related to the Phoenician language. Both Phenician and Hebrew were written in alphabetical scripts that cribbed a good deal of Egyptian writing.
Nothing you wrote was right.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." - Psalm 104:5
"The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises." - Ecclesiastes 1:5
So the Bible teaches Newtonian relativity. Where's the conflict?
Because obviously when you grow up, you have to throw away all of your core beliefs.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Ah crap, misfire. Sorry :P
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Note which one of those was assassinated...
This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost for ever.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I kept searching for Ms. Mulgrew's statement online to the effect of feeling duped, dumb, stupid, fooled into acting in something, but all I could find talked about giant space salamanders or something.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Because I'm sure telling long, rambling stories about a different planet we wouldn't get to for 2000 years wouldn't possibly be mocked by anyone...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
It's really cute how he thinks that NASA is powerful enough to suppress a fundamental cosmological arrangement observable by anyone.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Mod up...would that I hadn't posted already in here...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
If you watch the trailer (ugh! I did), and listen critically, you'll notice that the soundbites were all fairly innocuous and non-specific. The quotes used were not in any way related to the premise of the film, they were general in the extreme: "We don't know what we don't know" or "Everything we know about the universe is wrong". I've heard similar quotes in almost every popular science-related film.
We'll see what the movie looks like. There is, however, no doubt in my mind that the two guys who made it, Robert Sungenis (Dr Sungenis, thanks to a mail-order doctorate from a "university" in Vanuatu) and Rick DeLano (his blog says it all: http://magisterialfundies.blog...) are grade-A, raving nutters. They are Catholic fundamentalists with an agenda.
You're just full of irony, aren't you, calling me a zealot?
How can we 'concede' any points at all to people who aren't being rational in the first place? Really, it makes no sense.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The big problem is that bashing christianity with statements-- whether true or not-- invariably is "popular" as measured by upvotes or moderations on whatever forum you happen to be on. Apologetic refutations are invariably less popular.
Perhaps if people want less "insanity" they should stop upvoting it.
What I meant, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't as hard to understand as you make it out to be, is that you do not refrain from raising a true point merely because it seems to weaken your case.
If you do so, your best case is that you will be ignored, and your worst case is that you will be no more right than the people you are arguing with. Constraint yourself to making any and all relevant true points, and then pick up your opinion so that it is still correct. Otherwise, how do you know you are right?
Shachar
The longer you spend arguing with an idiot, the higher the chances he's doing the same thing.
Eat bags of bags of dicks please. -Redmancometh
Wow... this documentary is just plain stupid. We live in a tiny solar system way of in a "rural" burb... no where near the center. We are way out on the edge of the milkyway... not even near our own galaxy's center. As far as center of the Universe... I think the idiots don't know what the Universe is. Think of it as something smaller than anything you can imagine.... then a balloon expanding and expanding larger and larger and larger. Nothing exists outside of the Universe, the Universe encompasses everything.
Even our current meteorological forecasts reference a "sun set".
Why is it people's ability to parse human language reverts to a first grade level when applying a critical eye to scripture? Are you completely unfamiliar with idiomatic expression?
You would find christians more willing to engage with you in a reasoned discussion if you didnt use strawmen. Somehow when reading ASOIAF or LotR I dont think you stumble over idomatic usages, or metaphors. Why when encountering the Bible-- if you are so sure of your case against it-- must you resort to the false dichotomy of "all of it has to be literal, or all of it metaphor"?
Christians are called to give a defense of any who ask, but I am convinced that posts like the ones you and Himmy32 are posting are not "asking", theyre just trying to be contrary and argumentative. Again: If you are so sure of your position, you should not need to resort to tactics like ripping out context, ignoring genre, and ignoring literary device.
It is obvious that the Earth is the bottom of the universe. Look up, everything else is above us.
How is that proof? Everyone knows that's just a giant space dragon swallowing the moon.
...as is every other point in the Universe.
destined to become one of the most ridiculed films of our time
FTF them. Seriously, the only people who are going to take this seriously are the ones who have already drifted away from reality a long time ago. I for one welcome this movie as a very blatant showcase of how people in a certain political corner are willing to deny science and engage in misinformation for religious regions. (Yeah, broke the "I for one" meme and all that.) Keep that ammo coming!
If you're going to force it to be binary that way, it's more political. I was thinking of it more as it's progressive in a 'science is good!' type way.
I don't read AC A human right
"Allow me to propose a simple rule-of-thumb for Bible readers (both "the faithful" and the skeptics) as follows: Do not criticize it any differently than you criticize every other book (i.e. use consistent standards) and do not take individual sentences out-of-context from ANY book."
I'll do that for the harry potter book as soon as the harry potter book (and every other book) will be taken as "litteral truth" like the bible is by some people.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
Technically only for female, no age of consent for male. Also technically it made what we consider children prostitution (12)legal. In fact if you compare mariage age without parent assent to age of consent it was
pretty clear the age for mariage was only to make sure the previous generation had a strong say in how the assets were handled and only that. I would also had that in welsh the mariage age was 12-14 (1550 or so). Age of consent was only raised to 16 much later (19th century).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Oh - while I didn't especially care for Star Trek: Voyager Lost In Space, I think Ms. Mulgrew is a fine actress. I'm sorry she got suckered in to this. And . . . Remo Williams Lives!.
I'm quite prepared to accept that; I don't see any need to be disingenuous when it comes to the Bible.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
It is all about relative frames of references.
Think about this. When we think of the solar system we imagine the sun sitting still and the planets going around it.
However the Sun does not sit still it is moving around the center of the galaxy more or less.
When you are sitting at your desk you think that you are sitting still but you are not.
Everyplace is the center of the universe and no place is the center of the universe. However the idea of limiting your frame of reference to just the earth is just dumb and really should not be done when dealing with anything off the earth like the planets and the Solar system.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Resources are finite. If the availability of resources is increased a million-fold, they will still be finite.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I never shy away from casting moral judgement on past events using modern standards and I think nobody should. Slavery was wrong then. is wrong now.
Are you 100% committed to that view? I think Thomas Jefferson was a pretty great guy, despite the fact that he was a slaveowner. In 2014, he'd be arrested for that. In 1770, the feedback he was getting from most of his peers was, "you're doing it right." Do you cut T.J. any slack at all for being "a product of his times"?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
GP claimed that the AVERAGE age of marriage was below 16 and that the practice was common. It was not. My comment said nothing about age of consent or earliest marriage possible, which obviously were lower in the past (in royal marriages, it was perfectly possible for a 9 year old girl to "marry" a 5 year old boy, though consummation would obviously take place later). If you read my earlier comment, you'll note that I discussed aristocratic marriages, which were (rarely) involving very young... and even the quote in the post you responded to mentioned one girl married at 13. My response to GP was solely addressing the question of the AVERAGE and what most people did... on that point, he was clearly in error.
Turtles all the way down.
Haha no problem, if since I like to ramble, without knowing the context of that statement, I'll still say that when you grow, period, you will have to keep re-evaluating anything you hold true.
Maybe not everything has to be thrown out all the time, but you *have* to be ready and able to do it, and I think that's hard for anyone, we tend to protect the integrity of the image we are making of ourselves. And we do that just fine without religion, too -- like believing one is even remotely objective just because one doesn't believe in talking snakes and arks of holding. Yet they say truly crazy people think they're not crazy, and likewise, I think knowing you are not and likely never can be objective, is slightly more objective than absolutey claiming objectivity while making big talk about science most of us don't even know first-hand. To me that's the secular side of the same coin, and this bit from "This Be The Verse" comes to mind:
[..] fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Whatever we think today, whatever is state of the art, chances are great it will be fodder for jokes in 1000 years... but we keep thinking this time it's different, that we are special. I guess it's natural, but still, bleh :P
The very concept of being on more than prisoner-jailer terms means "friendly and cuddly" compared with the kill on sight borg in the rest of the setting.
"All I know is that I know nothing."
This was the one I was trying to reply to, anyway: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Thanks for bothering to look something up. A lot of people seem to not even be interested in doing that.
So, here are a couple verses that get quoted in this context:
Psalm 112:6: "Surely he [a good man] shall not be moved forever; the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
"moved" is the same word in Hebrew.
The argument goes something like this:
Job 26:7: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the world upon nothing."
...a giant space dragon with a round shadow, to boot.
.: Semper Absurda
if she just did the trailer that would change things...idk it seemed she narrated the whole thing b/c she mentioned going down the studio multiple times IIRC
Thank you Dave Raggett
I can interpret the verses any way I want because fundamentalists do the same.
That 'he stretches out the heavens like a tent' for example. I've seen creationists use that one many times to claim that the bible predicted an expanding universe, that this demonstrates scientific foreknowledge in the bible, and this proves the book is divinely inspired.
The tree was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eating the fruit was the act of doing wrong, which bestowed the knowledge of good and evil. But before a choice to do wrong is put before you, you can't do wrong. A modern corollary is that a guilty mind is required to commit a crime. If you can't conceive that what you're doing is wrong, you're criminally insane.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
I was raised as an American Lutheran Scientist. I have always leaned towards resolving apparent conflicts between the Bible and Science. For example, Creationism and Evolution may just be a question of whose experience is being described - the Martians or the animals.
However, I must admit that the Bible has some "facts" which can not be true. Noah's flood is one. The Bible says that the water went down underground, but geology today proves that that much water just isn't there.
Just because some people make terrible arguments doesnt mean that other people have to accept it when you do it.
I mean if you're saying that you intend to build strawmen and purposefully take sentences out of context to make your points, Ill just make a note to not engage with you in the future as it would be a complete waste of time. I'm not making those arguments, so its pointless to try to justify your fallacies to me because you've seen others doing them-- regardless of whether they claim to be under the same "banner" as me.
The impression I get is that people latch onto the Bible passages that suit their prejudices and either take those literally or come up with a similar meaning they claim is literal. (For example, that Leviticus verse on homosexuality says absolutely nothing against hot girl-on-girl action.) I have a devout Christian friend who rather likes to quote other Bible passages at such people. There's plenty of self-contradiction in the Bible, and lots of things various people just ignore. (Consider what Jesus said on taxes and material wealth. There's a lot of people calling themselves Christian who insist that God wants them to make lots of money. They never do tell me what the did to tick of God so God wants them to have the booby prize.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Honestly, you sound like someone who doesn't take a stand on something unless someone's got a gun (figuratively, or literally) to your head. I really don't think fence-sitting is an option anymore; if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. But whatever.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Ever heard somebody described as "that lying snake"? Snakes get a lot of bad press, and it is a somewhat common derogatory term for a person.
I don't believe the Bible ever specifies what sort of fruit it is. Not that a "fruit" is necessarily a part of plant reproduction, since it has other meanings. "By their fruits you shall know them" doesn't mean you should treat people who like bananas differently from those who prefer oranges.
When the "mitochondrial Eve" hypothesis was going around, nobody seemed to be claiming it was absolutely ridiculous, but rather arguing about evidence and such. (I didn't follow how that turned out.) As far as inbreeding goes, Adam and Eve's sons did go out and get married to some women or other, so the Bible refers to other people at the time who were not Adam and Eve or their descendants. This particular theological question has been debated for a LONG time.
As far as the flood and ark stuff, of course, you're right.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Just because the Earth is hollow and dinosaurs live there, doesn't mean the Sun revolves around the Earth, after all.
Now excuse me, I have to design a method to keep ships from being damaged when they float off the edge of the Earth.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
As much as she says she was "duped", I'm both going to call "BULLSHIT" and say, "WHO CARES"?
Having known many working actors--even for stuff that is stupid or just plain idiotic, ONLY FOOLS turn down a legal paycheck very often.
Huh?
Don't get me wrong. If that's what gets you through the night, go right ahead in thinking that. Otherwise, my profile page has previous comments I've written on many subjects.
Click with care, however.. That link might prove you wrong.
Shachar
My bible history is sketchy at best; I'm not surprised I got some "facts" wrong.
So, Adam was the first human.
Eve was made from Adam's rib?
There are now two humans on the planet.
They had sons, who went out and got married.
Where did those women come from? How could the women be anything other than their own sisters - or at best, the daughter of their own brother and sister. Fucking creepy.
Wait a minute here.. how is my stance 'wrong' in any sense of the word?
How is seeking actual knowledge and challenging things like 'doctine' and 'dogma' wrong? How is discouraging blind faith wrong?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Janeway making anti-heliocentric remarks.
To what demographic could this possibly appeal?
The Brits used to suffer from schemers who made crap movies for cheap and ran off with government subsidies that exceeded their minimal costs - the wild extension of Hollywood accounting.
If you follow the money, in what cesspit do we arrive?
--
Patrick Stewart, William Shattner, $PLEASE_DONT_TELL_ME_ WHERE_THIS_SEQUENCE_LEADS
* :)
Does that represent you crying, drooling, or what?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
As I said, people have been arguing over that for a long, long time. (Also, Cain was worried that anybody who saw him would kill him after he killed Abel. The only other people apparently alive were Adam and Eve.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes