Astronomers Detect Mysterious Radio Signals Coming From Outside Our Galaxy (sciencealert.com)

This week the New York Post reported on "powerful radio signals which have been detected repeatedly in the same exact location in space," generating as much energy as the sun does in a whole day, in "the only known instance in which these signals have been found twice in the same location in space." Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes Science Alert: Back in March, scientists detected 10 powerful bursts of radio signals coming from the same location in space. And now researchers have just picked up six more of the signals seemingly emanating from the same region, far beyond our Milky Way... Currently, the leading hypothesis for the source of the Milky Way's FRB is the cataclysmic collision of two neutron stars, which forms a black hole. The idea is that as this collision happens, huge amounts of short-lived radio energy are blasted out into space. But the repeating nature of these distant signals, all coming from the same place, suggest that can't be the case... the most likely hypothesis at the moment for these outer-galactic FRB is that they're coming from an exotic object such as a young neutron star, that's rotating with enough power to regularly emit the extremely bright pulses.
But the New York Post thinks it's aliens.

Comments

Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you can have your fairy tales about aliens and neutron stars, but know that they're make-believe. There are no aliens, neutron stars, quasars, pulsars, or anything like that. The truth is that everything we see was created by God in seven days, and that this God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, so that we might be redeemed and have salvation. We have evidence of this through historical facts like the Resurrection. These are proven facts. Your so-called science with aliens and neutron stars is just a bunch of fairy tales. If you must believe your fairy tales, so be it. I'll gladly live in the real world and worship the one true God, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's he saying? Happy NYE?

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever. This site probably isn't a good one for you to be pushing your own fairy tales.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

If Jesus Christ is the literal Word of God, why were his last words "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Actually, Jesus's last words at the Crucifixion were "it is finished."

And after his resurrection, Jesus's last words in the Bible come in the Book of Revelation, where he says repeatedly, "Behold, I come quickly." And his last words are "Surely I come quickly" (Revelation 22:20).

One might equally wonder why our Lord suffered from sexual dysfunction that led him to highlight it so many times in the last chapter of the Bible.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

And after his resurrection, Jesus's last words in the Bible come in the Book of Revelation, where he says repeatedly, "Behold, I come quickly." And his last words are "Surely I come quickly" (Revelation 22:20).

One might equally wonder why our Lord suffered from sexual dysfunction that led him to highlight it so many times in the last chapter of the Bible.

Not only that but when he raped Mary, he came so fast he didn't even penetrate.

Re:Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

What proof do you have that Jesus is the son of God ? Other Abrahamic religions such as Jews and Muslims definitely don't accept this.
You're basing it entirely on the word of Luke, Paul, John and Matthew. Are these Apostles also Prophets? What qualifications do they have outside of Jesus selecting them? Because if this were a ruse by a huckster, then he would have selected men who supported his plan and not honest men.
We really have no evidence to believe either option.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Jesus never existed.

There are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived.

There is not a single mention in him in military records or dispatches back to Rome (and surely anyone who could command huge gatherings of people in a potentially disruptive province should be of interest). He is not mentioned in the records of Herod’s court nor is he mentioned in the records of the Temple or by any Priests. Surely if he was believed by some to be a prophet and others to be a false prophet some mention of the ruckus he was causing in Judean civic and religious society should have been recorded. Some people like to point to the supposed letters of Pontius Pilate as evidence of Jesus’ life but these were a work of fiction.

Jesus is a composite figure assembled from many, many previous myths that all feature the same story line:

Horus was one of the many Egyptian Gods (3100 B.C.)
He had 12 disciples.
One was born of a virgin in a cave.
Like Jesus, his birth was announced via a star.
And three wise men showed up!
He was baptized when he was 30 by Anup the Baptizer.
He rose a guy from the dead and walked on water.
Lastly, he was crucified, buried like Jesus in a tomb, and resurrected.

Buddha, (563 B.C.)
Healed the sick
Walked on water.
Fed 500 men from one basket of cakes.
Taught a lot of the same things Jesus taught, including equality for all.
He spent three days in jail.
Was resurrected when he died.

Mithra, an ancient Zoroastrian deity with similarities to Jesus (2000 B.C.)
Virginal birth on December 25th.
Swaddled and laid in a manger.
Tended by shepherds in the manger.
He had 12 companions (or disciples).
Performed miracles.
Gave his own life to save the world.
Dead for three days, then resurrected.
Called “the Way, the Truth and the Light.”
Has his own version of a Eucharistic-style “Lord’s supper.”

Krishna, (around 3000 B.C.)
A Hindu God.
Born after his mom was impregnated by a God.
Angels, wise men, and shepherds were at his birth.
Guess what gifts they gave him? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
A jealous bad guy ordered the slaughter of all newborns, just as happened with Jesus.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice fairy tale you've fallen for

god does not exist. Jesus Christ was a black carpenter who created a cult if he actually was a real person. Virgin Mary was no virgin she was fucked hard and fast and got knocked up. She was also black along with every other person in that region 2000 years ago.

80 to 100 percent of the people and stories the bible never existed or happened. They are stories. Plain and simple.

Sadly the vast majority of people believe in this bullshit because they can't handle the truth that we are here by pure circumstance and accident and have no purpose in this universe.

You probably also don't believe that humans have been on this planet for over 150000 years in our current state and that we evolved over millions of years

Every living thing on this planet evolved from the same few cells of life billions of years ago. Through mutations during the evolutionary process fish were created along with birds monkeys sharks trees and everything else. We are related to EVERYTHING living on this planet

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

A jealous bad guy ordered the slaughter of all newborns, just as happened with Jesus.

That was Moses, not Jesus.

Re: Fairy Tales

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Well, if our entire existence is nothing more than a huge game with changing, morphing rules...and the "reward" is being forced to spend all eternity in the direct company of the entity who set us all up, then "not getting into Heaven" is fine with me. "Literal word of God"...sure, if God itself actually wrote any of this down and gave it to humanity, in a form that was forever unchanging (and unchangeable by humans), then that would be far more convincing. What we actually have is translations of translations of translations of text that the "original" is long gone; shaped by political regimes of Emperors, Kings, Popes, bishops, and so forth. The "heretical" books paint a VERY different religion; yet modern Christians accept the decisions of a small (less than 300) group of Roman Catholic Christians of what books are "real" and which are "heretical".

Even Evangelicals, Protestants, Southern Baptists, and all the other major modern Christian sects accept what the Council of Nicaea decided. It's only through a few movies like Stigmata and The Matrix series that the public gets any exposure to Gnostic ideals. Maybe this is just my experience due to "American Exceptionalism", one of who's main goals is to ignore history outside of the boarders of the American meme empire, and citizens of other countries haven't "cleaned" their religious history to such an extent.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should tread the story of Herod

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus you sound like a smug Millenial asshole who needs to be stuffed in a locker.

Re: Fairy Tales

[war4peace]

As is typical, Slashdot bruisers can't haggle the broth, and mood it down to -1 so they can avoid teeing it. In this case, the broth is Asus Grit, the illiteral Word of Gourd, sent that we could have starvation. You can censor it all you want and believe your fairy tales now, but you'll still have to face Gourd when you dye. All your silly fairy tales about pralines and neutered stars won't get you into Haven.

Had a lil' bit of fun with the parent post.

Re: Fairy Tales

[ITRambo]

Flavius Josephus wrote about Jesus twice in 93. That;s about 60 years since Jesus' death. Josephus was a historian. That makes more than one recorded reference, and not none like you stated.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Flavius Josephus wrote about Jesus twice in 93.

1) First off, it was 60 years after his death, so he could not have seen or known Jesus personally.

2) Even worse, the writings by Josephus are now widely recognized as fake, that is, they're forgeries:

http://www.richardcarrier.info...:
In the TF, both grammatically and thematically, the] responsibility for the death of Jesus lies with Josephus’s fellow-countrymen, the Jews, not with the Romans, and in this too the Testimonium is hard to reconcile with Josephus’s denunciation of Pilate’s crimes against the Jews. The Josephus of the Testimonium is represented as aligning himself with the Christians (versus the Jews) and admitting that the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah lies with the Jews; it need hardly be said that such an admission on Josephus’s part is inconceivable.

Wikipedia:
Many Christian apologists cite Josephus to attempt to argue that even the "pagan"/Jewish/etc. Josephus acknowledged Jesus as a savior/miracleworker/etc., and that one should therefore believe in Jesus' divinity. However, citing Josephus as a source on Jesus argument has numerous flaws. For some reason these facts almost always come as a surprise to Christians who cite him. It's almost as if they just look up quotes without any understanding of what constitutes valid sources for determining historical events.

In Book 18, Chapter 3, Paragraph 3 of the Antiquities of the Jews (written ca. 93-94 CE), Josephus writes (Whiston’s translation):[2][3]
Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works — a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal man amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.

Is the Testimonium Flavianum authentic? There are several reasons to think not:

Scholarly consensus: Most scholars admit that at least some parts, if not all, of this paragraph cannot be authentic,[4][5] and some are convinced that the entire paragraph is an interpolation inserted by Christians at a later time.[6][7] Even Christian scholars consider the paragraph to be an overenthusiastic forgery,[8][9][10] and even the Catholic Encyclopedia concurs.[11]

Context: This paragraph breaks the flow of the chapter. Book 18 (“Containing the interval of 32 years from the banishment of Archelus to the departure from Babylon”) starts with the Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 CE and discusses various Jewish sects at the time, including the Essenes and a sect of Judas the Galilean, to which he devotes three times more space than to Jesus; Herod’s building of various cities, the succession of priests and procurators, and so on. Chapter 3 starts with sedition against Pilate, who planned to slaughter all the Jews but changed his mind. Pilate then used sacred money to supply water to Jerusalem. The Jews protested; Pilate sent spies into Jewish ranks with concealed weapons, and there was a great massacre. Then in the middle of all these troubles comes the curiously quiet paragraph about Jesus, followed immediately by: “And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews ...” Josephus would not have thought the Christian story to be “another terrible misfortune.” It is only a Christian (someone like Eusebius) who might have considered Jesus to be a Jewish tragedy. Paragraph three can be lift

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Your counter-case still falls within "no contemporaneous accounts". Anything else?

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice fairy tale you've fallen for

god does not exist. Jesus Christ was a black carpenter who created a cult if he actually was a real person. Virgin Mary was no virgin she was fucked hard and fast and got knocked up. She was also black along with every other person in that region 2000 years ago.

....

I see you've bought the "Egyptians (and a bunch of others) were black" revisionist BULLSHIT hook, line, and sinker.

The really funny thing is you're too stupid to even know you're stupid.

Re: Fairy Tales

[gtall]

Absolutely correct. Now let's make some changes. The U.S., being a Christian nation, and in the spirit of Jesus will accept all refugees from Muslim nations. The U.S. will also accept the refugees from Central America, the U.S. being partially to blame for the wretched state of affairs in those countries.

Now the poor people get a raw deal. In the spirit of Jesus, the ACA will be affirmed by Congress and strengthened because if you don't have your health, you have nothing.

In the loving spirit of Jesus Christ, homosexuals and any LBGT will be accepted by society. They didn't ask for their genetics, G-d supplied those, so He must approve and Jesus would certainly approve. After all, he ran around with 12 guys for a few years.

Let's celebrate Jesus and Christmas.

Re: Fairy Tales

[gtall]

In addition, G-d is some weird Dude. Apparently, he buried dinosaur fossils damn near everywhere knowing full well they'd be found and dated by scientist to be over 65 million years older than the 6 thousand the Bible says. I'd say that's a bit sneaky. However, he didn't stop there. He fixed things so that evolution could be traced in the fossil record to show birds descended from dinosaurs, humans from near humans, etc.

Then, just throw a spanner into the works, He stops major cosmic miracles and no more walls are blown down by trumpets, bushes don't start burning without being consumed, snakes suddenly lost the ability to talk (frankly, I would rather snakes still retained this ability...."Go ahead punkssssss, make my dayssss!!!").

Of course, He never did square the issue of all them people who never heard of Him somehow being destined for Hell...or was it Limbo. Anyhow, dancing under a low bar for eternity or getting your kiester fried forever seems a poor reward for never hearing of Him.

Re: Fairy Tales

[vtcodger]

"That was Moses, not Jesus."

That was God, not Moses who was only following orders. Reference:Exodus 11

Re: Fairy Tales

[AthanasiusKircher]

Jesus never existed.

Let me start with saying that I have no personal stake in whether or not Jesus was a historical figure. I don't really care about the historicity. However, I DO care about the validity of historical arguments, and you're making a statement here with certainty that is completely unjustified.

Basically, rather than objectively evaluating the evidence, you're stacking the deck unfairly against the other side. The reality is that there isn't really a way to CONFIRM the existence of Jesus after 2000 years, but using criteria applied to other historical figures from that era, Jesus has a stronger than average case for historicity. What that means is that if you're going to apply your same criteria for discounting Jesus to other historical figures, be prepared to throw out around 1/3 of the text of most textbooks with titles like "Ancient History," along with hundreds of other historical figures that we don't commonly doubt the historicity of.

There are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived.

Please reference the fraction of non-elite persons in a non-central Roman province that have such contemporaneous records at that time. Writers, aristocrats, and government officials have records of their existence. Not children of carpenters. And even for elite folks, the details are often quite sketchy and we often have to interpolate information from historians who wrote of these events a century or two later.

There is not a single mention in him in military records or dispatches back to Rome (and surely anyone who could command huge gatherings of people in a potentially disruptive province should be of interest). He is not mentioned in the records of Herodâ(TM)s court nor is he mentioned in the records of the Temple or by any Priests.

What the heck are you talking about? Do you have any sense of the small number of such records that exist today? There are no detailed accounts of "Herod's court" nor any detailed extant "records of the Temple" or writings of contemporary priests. These sorts of records simply don't exist today for the most part, and the few that do exist are incredibly fragmentary. It's not like we have some sort of "daily log" of events for Roman soldiers and "happenings at the Court and at Temple." (And we do have a number of possible references in the Talmud, though there's a lot that's unclear there.)

Surely if he was believed by some to be a prophet and others to be a false prophet some mention of the ruckus he was causing in Judean civic and religious society should have been recorded.

Unless his "ruckus" wasn't as notable as you think. We DO have evidence that there were a number of claimants of "false messiahs" who went around Judea during that era. We don't really know much about most of them, because why would we about some guy who was followed around by a small group of people who mostly did NOT "cause a ruckus" at first (recall that Jesus's message, at least as recorded, was mostly peaceful).

Anyhow, as for records aside from the Bible, there are several. First, you have Josephus, and your other reply to another post is either ill-informed or disingenuous, because while there ARE likely forgeries in Josephus (notably the Testamonim Flavianum), there are other passages that most historians accept as very likely to be genuine.

Then you have Tacitus, one of the MOST respect

Re: Fairy Tales

[ColdWetDog]

That that Jesus.

Jeez....

Re:Fairy Tales

[__aaclcg7560]

Your assumption that man is the only intelligent life form in the universe is racist.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgive you

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought a Roman historian wrote a first-hand description of him, noting a strong build and piercing blue eyes (which would seem odd to me).

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustOK]

Ducks and Drakes tis not a puzzle, tis a board game.

Re:Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't this modded +5 Funny? I think everyone in this thread completely missed what you were going for.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Dorianny]

The real question bekens whether Jesus would have wanted to have existed, had he known he would end up as the central figure of a Religion based in Rome that ends up persecuting his Jewish people in his own name

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost right, as in wrong. "Ducks and Drakes" originally involved skimming stones on flat water, the resulting intersecting waves resembling the patterns left on the water as a duck attempts to take off. This meaning dates back to at least 1585, and may have been a pun referring to Drakes Voyages, seen by some as pointless vainglorious ventures back then. (Some of Drake's Piracy _was_ actually sanctioned by Elizabeth...)

And now for something completely different:
"An Occurrence On Owl Creek Bridge" is now being broadcast as part of the "Twilight Zone" marathon. Is this the actual third broadcast? References state that it was only aired twice due to Rights, but is available on some boxed sets. (I saw the original French film, "La rivière du hibou", in English Class, around 1971...)

Re: Fairy Tales

[quenda]

The reality is that there isn't really a way to CONFIRM the existence of Jesus after 2000 years,

Many people would find this a revelation! They regard Jesus as a real historical figure like the prophets Mohammed or John Smith.
They think Jesus is as real a Julius Caesar or Socrates, but it turns out to be a story that may or may not be based on a real person.

The Jesus we know is from stories written well after his death by people who never met him. How many Christians wrongly think the gospels were written by the apostles? The stories were circulated verbally for decades before being written down in something like their current form.

The oldest books in the new testament are by St Paul (who wrote about half of the letters that are traditionally ascribed to him), who also never met Jesus. He is the main source of the Jesus character, and we have no way of knowing how accurate Paul was, how much of his version is invention. But there are certainly many similarities between Paul's Jesus, and previous figures of legend. At the least, Jesus of Nazareth is a composite character.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

You are so fucking stupid. I use the word fucking here to assure you I'm not just another Bible thumper. Jesus is one of the most historically recorded figures. There are multiple books, accounts, and eye witness recordings about him. How much more do you want from a figure that existed in antiquity?

Re: Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

He knew. "Pick up your cross, and follow me..." True Christians are to expect a similar treatment to what Jesus received. The reward is worth it...

Re: Fairy Tales

[drinkypoo]

Jesus has a stronger than average case for historicity.

That's completely false. In a court of law you'd throw out the case for the existence of Jesus simply because literally everyone who claims to have met him and subsequently wrote about it had a stake in whether the story was believed. They wouldn't be considered credible witnesses. Every supposed historical account of the existence of Jesus Christ is either fake, or hearsay, with the possible exception of Tacitus. Tacitus would not have been present for the events in question and provides no source for his information. When someone does that in contemporary writing, we ignore them.

There are various reasons why these passages are deemed authentic, which you can read about in the links.

I read your links. There are reasons why those passages are in doubt, as well, which you can read about in the links.

Again, I don't really care whether Jesus was a "real" historical figure or not.

You spend a lot of time arguing about this for someone who doesn't care.

Re: Fairy Tales

[drinkypoo]

After all, he ran around with 12 guys for a few years.

...and at least one woman who was a whore, although she's been written out of the official canon.

Re: Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

If you'd honestly like answers to these and many more questions I highly recommend the work of Chuck Missler and Koinonia House... https://www.youtube.com/playli... I've been studying the Bible for ~30 years and Dr. Missler's approach and insight are a real blessing for me. Most of us technically minded types should find his discussions enlightening. He comes from an old school info-tech background and some of his "proofs" are based on statistical analysis of the original texts themselves. Really worth the time if you're curious about why that old book holds so much fascination for so many of us...

Re: Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

Here's the full playlist... https://www.youtube.com/playli... for his "Learn the Bible in 24 hours" series since KHouse's YT channel only has his first 12 sessions listed. I'd recommend checking out sessions 1, 13, 14, and 24 to get a taste of his style and approach and then dig into the rest of them if you want to see just how much there is that most people don't know about in the Bible.

Re:Fairy Tales

[mmell]

"Fairy Tales" - like the tale of that fairy Jesus Christ? Always portrayed in art as an effeminate European male.

(with apologies to the LGBTQ community)

Re: Fairy Tales

[mmell]

Not just another Bible thumper - a vulgar Bible thumper.

Also a goat-thumper, or are you still sticking to sheep?

Re: Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

You should look into the work of Chuck Missler. https://www.youtube.com/result... Definitely worth the time for anyone genuinely interested in the Bible's authenticity, accuracy, and application in our lives.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

No I've been fucking cows. Thats why your mother wasn't home last night;)

Re:Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

http://biblehub.com/2_corinthi...
http://biblehub.com/hebrews/10...
http://biblehub.com/hebrews/11...
"Faith is the portal into the eternal." -dbreeze

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

but using criteria applied to other historical figures from that era, Jesus has a stronger than average case for historicity.

Sorry, but this is utter bullshit, and in fact the exact opposite is true. As I said before, there are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived. Nothing, zero, zip, nada.

There are, however, plenty of accounts both written and physical of other well known figures who existed around the time during which Jesus supposedly lived.

  Augustus of Primaporta, Dioscurides, Caesar Augustus, Emperor Ai of Han, etc etc etc....these people and many others were written about, had statues and figurines caved of them, paintings were made of them, and so on. But not a single record ANY ANY KIND exists for a guy who (supposedly) walked on water, fed 5,000 people with "five barley loaves and two small fish", who healed the sick, cured the blind, raised a man from the dead, healed lepers, and who then died and then came back to life.

Apparently none of that was noteworthy enough for anyone to jot down even a single note about. At the same time, however, the scribes and scholars of the time were busy recording the minutiae of everyday life, including the people mentioned above and many others...but not a single word about this amazing person, the "Son of God". Not. One. Fucking. Word.

The most reasonable explanation, the ONLY one that makes any sense at all is that he didn't exist, which is why he left not a single trace whatsoever.

Re: Fairy Tales

[AthanasiusKircher]

That's completely false. In a court of law you'd throw out the case for the existence of Jesus simply because literally everyone who claims to have met him and subsequently wrote about it had a stake in whether the story was believed.

Uh, in addition to Tacitus (which you acknowledge) what about Josephus? He wasn't a Christian. He DID have long lists of all the false claimants to be a "Messiah" that went wandering around Judea in the first century (including Jesus, according to his standard for "false" messiah). At least one of his passages is corroborated in other quotations by early writers (within a few centuries), so that passage is very unlikely to be a medieval forgery/interpolation.

When someone does that in contemporary writing, we ignore them.

Again, I said repeatedly that such passages can not possibly PROVE Jesus existed (beyond a reasonable doubt, or whatever standard you want). What I said (again repeatedly) is that IF you throw out Jesus as a historical figure because of lack of evidence, you have to throw out literally HUNDREDS of other well-known figures from ancient history for lack of contemporary evidence too.

Standards for ancient sources are simply different than they would be for modern sources, because we have so few of them. I'm fine if you want to throw Jesus out of history books as a historical figure, but if you do so, please be sure to throw out a significant percentage of ancient history along with him.

Again, I don't really care whether Jesus was a "real" historical figure or not.

You spend a lot of time arguing about this for someone who doesn't care.

Actually, what really pisses me off about this debate isn't anything about Jesus. I hate conspiracy theorists. I will fight them wherever I see them. The Jesus mythicists or whatever they want to call themselves are mostly a breed of internet conspiracy theorists. As far as I know, there are only two credentialed historians with expertise in ancient history who actually have argued in favor of this theory in recent years -- the rest of legitimate historians think this is mostly a crackpot theory.... but it has gained traction on the internet just like climate skepticism and other BS.

So yeah, I do have a reason to fight about this, but it isn't the one you seem to think it might be. I don't give a crap about the historicity of Jesus -- I care about standards of history that are watered down by ignorant arguments. (By the way -- just to be clear -- at no point did I argue in favor of the miracle-working mythological Jesus... in fact, I explicitly said I was NOT trying to argue for that. I'm just pointing out that the case for some dude wandering around Judea in the first century named Jesus who served as an inspiration for the later Christian movement seems rather well-attested compared to other historical figures of the time).

Re: Fairy Tales

[AthanasiusKircher]

Sorry, but this is utter bullshit, and in fact the exact opposite is true. As I said before, there are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one.

And again, there are literally hundreds of well-known historical figures that we could say the SAME THING about. Are you also going to go on a quest to remove them from history books on the same basis? (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc., etc. The best you can say about most of these figures is that they MIGHT have existed as a physical person, but we don't have clear evidence. And that's a perfectly fair assessment. Yet you somehow want to claim that you can PROVE Jesus didn't exist.)

There are, however, plenty of accounts both written and physical of other well known figures who existed around the time during which Jesus supposedly lived.

Yep, and plenty of OTHER figures for which we have similar evidence to Jesus, i.e., no contemporary evidence, and only references by 3rd parties from decades or sometimes centuries later.

But not a single record ANY ANY KIND exists for a guy who (supposedly) walked on water, fed 5,000 people with "five barley loaves and two small fish", who healed the sick, cured the blind, raised a man from the dead, healed lepers, and who then died and then came back to life.

And at no point did I EVER argue that such a person existed. As I said, there was a dude named Jesus wandering around Judea in the first century or so, he was apparently killed by Pontius Pilate, and he apparently became the inspiration for folks who would later identify as "Christians." Beyond that, I think a lot of stuff is likely fabricated, as you do. BUT, we seem to have a number of sources for the dude existing.

The most reasonable explanation, the ONLY one that makes any sense at all is that he didn't exist, which is why he left not a single trace whatsoever.

I'm not going to go on with this argument, since there are plenty of better sources out there you could just be reading to realize how ridiculous this all is. But let me just point out what I consider the most serious flaw in all your "most reasonable explanation" -- we have absolutely NO ONE in the centuries after Jesus existed who made the claim that Jesus did NOT exist as an actual human.

If there were even the slightest doubt or rumor that that was true, it would be a boon not only to the enemies of Christianity (Romans, Jews, etc.), but to early Christian sects that are now described as heretics, many of which would have WELCOMED a Jesus that had no physical existence (the Gnostics, perhaps most prominently).

It takes a certain kind of hubris if you know anything about the early Christian heresy debates to look back at all of that and say that if ANYONE suspected Jesus wasn't a real "in the flesh" person that many groups would not have argued that to promote their causes.

So, at a minimum, what we do know is that within a few decades after Jesus's death, EVERYBODY -- from "mainstream" Christians to heretics to Jews who wanted to argue against this new emerging religion to Romans who persecuted them actively -- seemed to think... for whatever reason... that Jesus (called "Christ" by followers) was supposedly based on a real person. We know that to be true, based on historical evidence.

Beyond that, you can choose to believe the historical sources that would be more than sufficient for the existence of plenty of other folks, or you can doubt them and doubt the existence of many historical figures (as many scholars doubt the existence of other major historical figures like Socrates, etc.). I frankly don't give a crap. But don't go around saying you have PROOF that Jesus didn't exist.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

No one writes THAT MUCH unless they are emotionally invested. You lie about your indifference.

Re: Fairy Tales

[cheesybagel]

There are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived.

They are called 'The Gospels' and are collected in a book called 'The Bible' namely 'The New Testament' section. Other religions transmitted stories orally before they were formally written down including the Hindus with the Vedas. There are written reports of the time that there were many religious movements in Judea back then so his could have basically been lost among the multitude. Even the Bible itself talks about John the Baptist who is basically another prophet of the same era. There are other possibilies for there being few records; 'damnatio memoriae' is one, another could be the fact that quite simply a lot of things back then were not written at all. Some people actually claimed that Pontius Pilate himself was a fictional character at one point, until the Pilate Stone was discovered in Israel in 1961. Another thing. Judea was the shithole of the Roman Empire back then so it is hardly surprising there are few records. There is Josephus which is the best you're gonna find regarding the circumstances.

As for there being common tropes with prior religions, you said it yourself, these prior religions have common tropes among themselves as well. Oh and remember the twelve tribes of Israel? The slaughter of the newborns in the Ancient Testament regarding Moses? Is the story about Noah in the Ancient Testament a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh?

Also just because Germany invaded France through Belgium twice in WWI and WWII does that mean WWII never happened? Because it couldn't happen that the French could be suckered into it twice right? Repetition of events isn't proof of it being a lie. Also most of the miracles in the New Testament to me are a lot less fantastic than the things you see in the Ancient Testament especially the stuff around Moses.

To me quite a lot of the 'miracles' in the New Testament could be explained scientifically. Take Lazarus. For all I know he was in a deep coma and never actually died. Same thing could have happened to Jesus after the crucifixion. But that kinda takes the magic away.

Re: Fairy Tales

[pdavisgenoa]

You're an uneducated moron. Historian - Josephus. Contemporaneous accounts of Jesus' life. He Washington one of many historians of the time. He was a real person historically and you're the one spreading fairytales. And not very good ones.

Re: Fairy Tales

[guruevi]

It does seem like there was a person the Jesus character was based upon, however the evidence points more towards an offshoot or composite of contemporary cult leaders. There is more acceptable evidence for other, more charismatic cult leaders that era by name if you try to pinpoint a particular person, Jesus the individual not so much.

However the Jesus as described in the bible is total fiction most of it cooked up by Paul but there were other Christian sects at that point which Paul references in his letters as well as many of the so-called apocryphal texts that were later cut and/or destroyed and some of the extant scriptures were conflicting on many of Jesus' "life facts" (including birth, parents, family, adulthood, miracles and death) and not in the official biblical canon. Remember most of the biblical text was written centuries later and adjusted to fit a narrative and even then they couldn't get all the "facts" straight with conflicts of narrative between verses in Matthew, Mark, John and Luke.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

And you sound like the old fart who thinks bullying is just a part of life and nerds deserve to be stuffed into lockers because they don't play football.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus H Christ, you've got this all goddamned wrong, you God and Country-hating terrorist! Jesus SAVES! (He is a Jew, after all. And he always has backups, which is just good geek hygiene. And he's a Black Friday BOSS. And he saves Joel Osteen from having to live a pathetic lower middle-class life.) Of course a great host offers a full open bar, not just really young cheap wine, but hey, I'm not a choosy beggar, so that's not much of a gripe. Dude was a healer; before my time, but I imagine he was something like Ernest Angely, but not a televangelist since his dad hadn't invented TV (or any other cool stuff) back then. I give him props for being a carpenter, since I actually love building furniture and stuff, though I have no idea if he ever built anything (apparently his life's work is not documented, and likely isn't impressive). I mean, it isn't like anyone in the last 2000-some-odd years has claimed they were divine, said that they'd be back (some day, God only knows when since they conveniently skimped on details), made vague predictions that could later be creatively interpreted as true, or were variously considered to be godly, evil, a pain in the government's ass, a cool dude, a prude, or a subversive criminal, depending on who you asked. Oral traditions like the game telephone never get anything wrong, so a supposedly 2000 year-old "book" that was written by a whole bunch of obscure people, with content that even devout believers can not agree on, MUST be our manual to live by. So I'm a goddamned Christian, damn it, and if you don't like it I'll kill you, or at least keep you away from this land that He personally gave me. And Jesus obviously loves the Yankees, Steelers, Tom Brady, Celtics, Brazil (ball-kicking), and U.S. of A. (olympics, world wars, cars, money and everything else) the most, since they win.

In summation, AMERICA is the best, because Jesus!

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

The original source of this information is the book, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, by Gerald Massey.

The December 25 date is not found in the Gospels or the New Testament regarding Jesus' birth. The Catholic Church chose that date, as least as early as 336 AD, in order to co-opt and replace the pagan festival in Rome of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ("the birthday of the Unconquered Sun").

As for Buddha, any influence on the Gospels would have required the Buddhist teachings have reached Palestine in the first century. Yet there are no literary or archaeological remains of Buddhism in Palestine, Egypt, or Greece. No remains of even a single Buddhist monastery or stupa in these countries, not a single Greek translation of a Buddhist book, and not even a single reference in all of Greek literature to the existence of a Buddhist community the Greek world. The very name of Buddha is mentioned for the first time only in the second century (in the writings of Clement of Alexandria). The legendary features of Buddha's life, that provide the most striking resemblances to incidents related to Jesus in the Gospels, are found only in works of a later date than the Gospels. Any "borrowing of stories" has been plainly on the side of Buddhism borrowing from the Gospels.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

He said no "contemporaneous" references, not no references - 60 years after the fact is not a contemporary reference.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

You saw a french movie in english class ? I don't get it.

Re: Fairy Tales

[DamnOregonian]

True Christians... I wish you an expedient journey to your 72 virgins, or pearly gates, or whatever it is you're rewarded with.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

The character of Jesus is described as an archangel. All of it was a celestial story. It's only with the personal improvements (known practice) of copists that he became a human.

Another funny thing is that it's my understanding that Buddha was an historical character whose origin has been found by archeologists. Mahomet did most likely exist. But nothing of the sort for Jesus the king of Hell.

Re: Fairy Tales

[DamnOregonian]

I think the real problem with Jesus vs. any other figure from that time period is simply the mythological factor involving Jesus.
A lot of Greeks wrote terribly untrue shit about their Gods. The Bible has to be thrown out of the evidence pile right off the bat due to the conflict of interest.
Later writers that don't really corroborate each other, and barely corroborate that the guy existed aren't worth a hell of a lot, either, mostly because their writings existed (or were altered) long after a myth could have taken hold.

I don't think one needs a conspiracy theory to doubt the historicity of Jesus, particularly when so many people are so willing to make some really wild shit up to desperate prove he was a historical figure. A lot of people had 2000 years to push a narrative they were willing to kill over forcing people to believe in. It throws an air of suspicion on it all. Me? I don't really care if he existed or not. He wasn't a God, whether he did or not. I don't believe Hercules existed, either- but a ton of Greeks wrote of him do some miraculous shit that they heard about in the not-so-distant past.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Why with apologies?
The hell with the political correctness fascists.
And your excuse points out there may be something wrong being effeminate which in turn may be hurtful or whatever to a snowflake.

Re: Fairy Tales

[DamnOregonian]

Contemporaneous accounts of Jesus' life

That word... I do not think it means what you think it means. His passages about Jesus are also widely believed to be forgeries inserted by the Church later on.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Dog-Cow]

They are called 'The Gospels' and are collected in a book called 'The Bible' namely 'The New Testament' section.

Every single word of which was written after Jesus is supposed to have lived. It's almost as if you didn't even read the comment you responded to.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, quote Yeats' "The Second Coming" at Slashdot, and get a -1. Well, that's Slashdot for you; lightweight illiterate Linux Loons, who underneath it all, are still scared by that Old Time Religion and things that go bump in the night. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. .

Re: Fairy Tales

[drinkypoo]

At least one of his passages is corroborated in other quotations by early writers (within a few centuries), so that passage is very unlikely to be a medieval forgery/interpolation.

One passage, which is outnumbered by the passages we know to be fake, and "corroborated" by more people who weren't there? Not actually interesting, let alone valid.

Again, I said repeatedly that such passages can not possibly PROVE Jesus existed (beyond a reasonable doubt, or whatever standard you want). What I said (again repeatedly) is that IF you throw out Jesus as a historical figure because of lack of evidence, you have to throw out literally HUNDREDS of other well-known figures from ancient history for lack of contemporary evidence too.

You also said that the case for Jesus was stronger than most, and that's bullshit. The case for most of those other well-known figures is actually a lot stronger than for Jesus, with artifacts and so on, and not just artifacts shown to be fakes either. You're engaging in false equivalence. Why stoop to logical fallacy unless you are actually invested in this?

Actually, what really pisses me off about this debate isn't anything about Jesus. I hate conspiracy theorists.

There's a conspiracy to sell us Jesus, and you're a willing part of it due to cognitive dissonance. Jesus can't possibly be a fib! That would turn the world on its head! Let's defend him!

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And again, there are literally hundreds of well-known historical figures that we could say the SAME THING about. Are you also going to go on a quest to remove them from history books on the same basis? (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc., etc. The best you can say about most of these figures is that they MIGHT have existed as a physical person, but we don't have clear evidence.

But for most of the people you mention, we do have pretty clear evidence that they really did exist.

We have multiple contemporary accounts of all of these historical figures (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc) from their own time and by writers who were not unknown.

In most cases there are sculptures or paintings or drawings or written records of these people created during their life. If you don't see the glaring difference in the quality of the evidence between them and Jesus then I'm not sure what else to say.

To think that Jesus could have done the things he supposedly did and not leave a single trace behind is to suspend one's disbelief to the point of epic gullibility.

I mean, seriously- he died and then came back to life, and no one wrote a single fucking word about it?

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

They are called 'The Gospels' and are collected in a book called 'The Bible' namely 'The New Testament' section.

Oh please, give me a fuckin' break. Did you even read my comment? No one knows who wrote the Gospels, but we DO know that they were written long after Jesus' supposed death. In other words (pay attention) they in no way prove anything about him, including whether or not he existed.

-

As for there being common tropes with prior religions, you said it yourself, these prior religions have common tropes among themselves as well. Oh and remember the twelve tribes of Israel? The slaughter of the newborns in the Ancient Testament regarding Moses? Is the story about Noah in the Ancient Testament a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh?

You're proving my point for me but you're too stupid to realize it. Were all of the common tropes with all their miracles real? Were all of those stories true in terms of their extra-super-magical events?

-

Also just because Germany invaded France through Belgium twice in WWI and WWII does that mean WWII never happened?

I may be wrong, but I think we have hundreds of thousands of multiple independent accounts along with literally tons of supporting evidence to show that those things happened. Photos, memorabilia, military records, physical evidence, etc etc etc. I'd say there's good reason to believe it happened, unlike the "just-believe-my-story-about-the-guy-who-died-and-came-back-to-life" Jesus myth.

-

Repetition of events isn't proof of it being a lie.

And it isn't proof of it being true, either. When you have duplicate fantastical stories all of which claim the same thing, you aren't being unreasonable to think that they were patterned after one another down through the ages.

If the stories had been about a guy going to the store and getting a sandwich, sure, I'd believe it. But the whole virgin birth, three wise men, star in the sky, died and came back to life thing starts to sound like repeated bullshit the second or third time around. Certainly by the 5th or 6th time, unless you're just incredibly gullible.

-

For all I know he was in a deep coma and never actually died.

"For all I know..." I rest my case. So in other words, as far as you know, the story is bullshit.

You're making this waaaaay too easy, but thanks for playing.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

"An Occurrence On Owl Creek Bridge" Ambrose Bierce, SF Examiner, 1890. A significant contribution to Am. Lit.
Hitchcock had a go at it once, with James Coburn no less, but this little French Film, broadcast only twice on "The Twilight Zone", won the Oscar afterwards. (The applicable Emmy that year went to "The Outer Limits".)

And, well, this was the _Fourth_ Broadcast actually. Seefee, or whatever they call themselves these days, broadcast the "Twilight Zone" version last year, different time, different channel, same "Twilight Zone". But now with commercials.
Ambrose Bierce's concept of Fairy Tales may still shock some. His "A Devil's Dictionary" led directly to "A Devil's DP Dictionary" by a chap with the delightful name of Stan Kelly-Bootle, RIP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Kelly-Bootle

Re: Fairy Tales

[cheesybagel]

Oh please, give me a fuckin' break. Did you even read my comment? No one knows who wrote the Gospels, but we DO know that they were written long after Jesus' supposed death. In other words (pay attention) they in no way prove anything about him, including whether or not he existed.

The Iliad was written even longer after its events were supposed to have happened. Yet Hissarlik is there. Sure the events may have been fantasized or romanticized a bit but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Another story which I suspect actually happened from the Greek Tragedies is the events in the Seven Against Thebes which were also written a long time after the events were supposed to happen.

I may be wrong, but I think we have hundreds of thousands of multiple independent accounts along with literally tons of supporting evidence to show that those things happened. Photos, memorabilia, military records, physical evidence, etc etc etc. I'd say there's good reason to believe it happened, unlike the "just-believe-my-story-about-the-guy-who-died-and-came-back-to-life" Jesus myth.

WWII happened less than a century ago. It's still in living memory as were the events surrounding Christ's life and death at the time the Gospels or Josephus were written. In a thousand or two thousand years who's to tell how many records will remain? Especially if there is a cataclysmic event like the Fall of the Roman Empire or the Greek Dark Ages. I don't know how much what is written in the Gospels actually happened but to dismiss the entire thing out of hand seems a bit reckless to me. To think Jesus himself did not exist seems even more idiotic to me when there are multiple sources talking about him. Like I said the only physical remains extant that Pilate actually lived is a small stone and he was a much more important person back then than Jesus.

"For all I know..." I rest my case. So in other words, as far as you know, the story is bullshit.

It's a matter of faith. Either you have it or you don't. If you don't you can try to rationalize the events. I take the events as an article of faith but it doesn't mean I can't try to rationalize them if I want to.

Re: Fairy Tales

[kilodelta]

Very good point you make. I'll also add that if one reads the Bible (King James Version please!) you find that God himself tells several lies.

And recall didn't their God wipe out civilization with a flood because allegedly mankind was so evil that God had to do so? But then had to send himself as human to pay for those 'sins'. It's all holy horse shit and nothing more.

Re: Fairy Tales

[LinuxLuver]

The "record" of what a supposed "Jesus" said at his supposed crucifixion was invented 350 years after the supposed event. Quick! Let's write down a transcript from a event in 1665! Today, we call that historical fiction (at best).

Re: Fairy Tales

[LinuxLuver]

It's not contemporary. Sixty years a long time. I forgot to mention this other really significant figure from 1956 that no one has previously talked about. If we just keep taking about him, he'll eventually seen real in a few hundred years. Then, in 2306 someone can invent a detailed account of his life, just the Gospel according to John.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

you are fucking crazy man

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that the Egyptians painted pictures of their people all over the place right? They had a range of colors to work with as far as pigments go, but they still used pigments that made them look very dark skinned. Why do you think that might be, when they could have used different pigments to color them what you clearly think would be a more accurate color?

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for this summation.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Our True Lord Quetzalcoatl will have your pussy boy for dinner and make sure there are no virgins around.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

>>again, there are literally hundreds of well-known historical figures that we could say the SAME THING about. Re: Pythagoras

There's lots of known information about Pythagoras. Where he was born, worked, went to, stuff he said and did there, went back to, speeches he made, etc.

So if that is your logic, then it sucks. I'm with JustAnotherOldGuy on this one.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Does this prove Jesus didn't exist? No. What it does do, however, is clearly lay out why the current claims of "evidence" don't stand in any way worthy of proving that he did.

So the total lack of any credible supporting evidence isn't enough to make you doubt a claim? What would it take for you to doubt?

-

It's a matter of faith. Either you have it or you don't.

Faith is belief without supporting evidence, and I don't play that game. Or, if you like, "faith is believing in something you know ain't true", as per Samuel Clemmons, writing as Mark Twain.

Re: Fairy Tales

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Hi. Militant atheist here. I'm no historian, and it seems like you guys know a lot more about this subject than I do, so I'm not even trying to participate in this discussion on any meaningful level. But...

Perhaps I'm being pedantic here, but it seems like you're somewhat surprised that nobody wrote about Jesus's alleged resurrection during his lifetime. But, in a strict sense, if they had, wouldn't that constitute prophecy? Since his alleged resurrection would've happened until after his life had already ended?

Re: Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

"Well done, my good and faithful servant" holds a value for me beyond your current ability to comprehend. Go see if Chuck Missler can help enlighten you. Thanks for the wish nonetheless...

Re:Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... This is must see for anyone arguing the veracity of the Bible as God's Word.

Re: Fairy Tales

[dbreeze]

I'd encourage you to examine this analysis.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

...it seems like you're somewhat surprised that nobody wrote about Jesus's alleged resurrection during his lifetime. But, in a strict sense, if they had, wouldn't that constitute prophecy?

No one is claiming they should have written about his death/resurrection before it happened, at least not me and not anyone in this thread that I'm aware of. (??) What I've said is that no one wrote a single word about him during the time in which he supposedly lived.

In the real world, had his death/resurrection actually happened, they would have written about in the weeks and months following this astounding event. It would have been a big deal and they would hardly have waited 50 or 60 years to make start making mention of it. It beggars belief to think that no one at the time would bother to make a note about someone dying and then coming back to life. Even if it happened during football season.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes it clear now! You seem to have faith that Jesus never existed. Your whole argument boils down to "show me sources" and despite a shit ton of them being thrown at you, somehow, you still have the faith to believe that there were none. "Oh I don't like that one because, oh but he probably lived like a couple of years after, well everyone knows that guy shouldn't count cause it doesn't fit my narrative."

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comments are informative and mostly well reasoned. There are a couple nits to pick.

Are you also going to go on a quest to remove them from history books on the same basis? (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc., etc.

The bolded part is a bit of a straw man argument (unless there are some comments I am missing). Christ can't be removed from the history books even if he wasn't a real person. Christianity has had too big of an impact on history for it to be otherwise. Also, the historicity of Sun Tzu has indeed been questioned.

So, at a minimum, what we do know is that within a few decades after Jesus's death, EVERYBODY -- from "mainstream" Christians to heretics to Jews who wanted to argue against this new emerging religion to Romans who persecuted them actively -- seemed to think... for whatever reason... that Jesus (called "Christ" by followers) was supposedly based on a real person. We know that to be true, based on historical evidence.

I would suggest that the paucity of records from the era that you referenced earlier could also apply here. The absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Further, depending on how many decades the few your refer to are, the absence of evidence might well make sense. Would the opponents that many decades later be more likely to question whether he actually existed or just assume that he was just one of the many "messiahs" that were cropping up at the time?

Re: Fairy Tales

[NoImNotNineVolt]

While I agree with the general sentiment you're expressing...

In most cases there are sculptures or paintings or drawings or written records of these people created during their life.

Here you set the bar at "during their life".

I mean, seriously- he died and then came back to life, and no one wrote a single fucking word about it?

Here you identify alleged resurrection (had it occurred) as sufficiently noteworthy to have merited some mention.

Re: Fairy Tales

[cheesybagel]

That's why I think atheism is a non-scientific stand as much as theism is. The only correct stand for a properly science minded person is to be agnostic regarding the whole matter.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Here you set the bar at "during their life".

What's so unreasonably restrictive about that? After all the amazing shit he supposedly did you'd think that someone would want to capture his likeness, no?

-

Here you identify alleged resurrection (had it occurred) as sufficiently noteworthy to have merited some mention.

Yes...well, maybe it's just me, but I think dying and them coming back to life is one of those things that might seem noteworthy to the average Joe. It should raise a few eyebrows at the very least. But no one wrote a single word about it, not one word. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that it's a lot easier to make fantastic claims about something when everyone who might have disagreed with your claim is dead and gone?

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Jesus is one of the most historically recorded figures. There are multiple books, accounts, and eye witness recordings about him.

I was just about to say the same thing about Superman and Harry Potter and Batman and Sherlock Holmes and SpongeBob SquarePants and Darth Vader, but you totally convinced me.

Hell, they even have movin' pictures of most of those guys!

Re: Fairy Tales

[31415926535897]

You have a lot you've written that could be responded to--for instance, while historians would generally agree that Josephus was altered, most also agree that the citation to Jesus' existence are genuine. Or is consensus only allowed for global warming?

Anyway, the part that really comes off the wrong way is that you basically say, "If we didn't have the New Testament, then we wouldn't have any evidence of the existence of Jesus." Which is ridiculous because you can't simply dismiss the NT out of hand. That's right, we don't have any primary source material except for these HUNDREDS of pages that talk about him.

Now before you start to hand-wave them away, consider that there is a pretty good science around historical documents and that we have EXCELLENT evidence that they were written by eye-witnesses and that they haven't been altered beyond the message in the originals.

On the reliability of the NT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
On the statistical historicity of the NT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Is any of this going to convince you? Probably not, and that wouldn't be surprising. But what you've written needs a response because it only presents the evidence of an angry critic.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

while historians would generally agree that Josephus was altered

But that's NOT what they say...historians now all pretty much agree that Josephus is a complete forgery from start to finish and that it was done specifically to shore up the fairy tale it presumes to reference. And it's all still bullshit, just like if I came out with a story that "revealed" that Harry Potter secretly worked as a shoe salesman while he attended Hogwarts.

-

Is any of this going to convince you?

No, because I'm not a gullible fucking idiot. When the whole premise that all this crap rests on is that there's an omnipotent invisible super-being who created the universe, then no, I probably won't believe any of it, including all of the ridiculous interpretations and add-ons that every Tom, Dick, and Joesephus have tried to shoehorn into the story.

You're arguing the finer points of a story that is itself a load of bollocks, so you'll just have to pardon me if I don't play along. Minutiae about what Batman had for breakfast last Thursday would be just as relevant.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Which is ridiculous because you can't simply dismiss the NT out of hand.

Watch closely and you'll see me do just that.

I don't care how revered your book of Bronze-Age fairy tales is, it's rubbish to anyone who has two brain cells to rub together.

Re: Fairy Tales

[david_thornley]

Are you also going to go on a quest to remove them from history books on the same basis? (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc., etc

Amateur historian here. Off the top of my head.... >p> I'm not all that keen on including people known only for authorship here. We know somebody or several people wrote the Iliad and Odyssey, reputed to be Homer. The history stops there. Similarly someone, generally called Lao-Tse, or something similar, wrote the Tao Te Ching. In either case, the works could have been written by multiple people. (The Xena: Warrior Princess episode in which she meets Lao-Tse and she's a woman with a pen name is historically possible.) A quick look at Wikipedia finds that Homer, Lao-Tse, and Sun-Tzu are considered dubious historical figures. Jesus didn't leave writings behind, and we know of him (if he existed) by what he is said to have been and done.

Socrates is attested to by Plato and Xenophon, IIRC, who knew him well personally.

I'm not familiar enough to go through all of your examples, but you seem to be talking about people who may or may not have been historical along with people we seem to have better evidence of of than of Jesus. I'm not really impressed with this line of reasoning.

Re: Fairy Tales

[david_thornley]

WWII happened less than a century ago. It's still in living memory as were the events surrounding Christ's life and death at the time the Gospels or Josephus were written.

Right. What we know about WWII, we get from contemporaneous accounts (including books written after the war from personal experience, and have turned out to be rather unreliable) and physical evidence We aren't sitting down now to write about World War II for the first time. If all the historians of 4016 had were relatively few pop histories written now that didn't have citations, assuming all the physical evidence was gone, would they consider WWII historical?

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

One can certainly see that you were raised very poorly !.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you admit Josephus is a fraud there are exactly zero, since every one if the gospels was written after 90 ad

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that other figures aren't a giant ball of contradictions.

Jesus started his gospel in 32 ad, two years after "the death of John the Baptist" who is a known historical figure.

And John the Baptist died in 36 ad. Which would put Jesus at 38 ad. After Pontius pilot left Judea. The whole thing breaks down. None of it, even internally, is consistent enough to be true

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

That just makes you a coward.

"I don't believe in gods, I have no reason to believe in gods, I've never seen any compelling reason to believe in gods, but I'm going to say I'm on the fence because I don't understand evolution well enough to realize that the entire concept of a soul is patently absurd and impossible and I don't want to offend anyone"

Re:Fairy Tales

[Maritz]

That a troll as obvious as this got quite so many replies is a very bad sign of the intelligence of slashdot posters.

Re:Fairy Tales

[Maritz]

lol. Your book is fiction, and if the jokers who wrote it could see you now they'd be laughing their asses off.

Re: Fairy Tales

[31415926535897]

You're conflating two things, and I cannot tell if you're doing this out of ignorance (please do tell me about your two brain cells) or because you've just built up that much animosity.

I wasn't telling you to accept everything about the NT. I was telling you to consider it a viable primary source for the existence of Jesus. You can still do that and not accept the story. And the truth is that it is a very credible source (also see http://www.timothypauljones.co...). But I suspect you don't even want to do that, because as soon as you give them any shred of historical credibility, then you have to wrestle with the fact that more might be true than the mere existence of Jesus.

Re: Fairy Tales

[Anonymous Coward]

The archaeological record would be in disagreement with you.

Fragments of Matthew date between 150-250. Fragments of Mark date to 250. Fragments of Luke date between 175-250. Fragments of John date between 125-250. On the whole there are 5,800 greek manuscripts, 10,000 latin, and 9,300 in other languages. A little under 6,000 of the fragments date to within 100 years of the original authoring. The New Testament is remarkably well preserved when placed up against other ancient works. The Iliad is the second best preserved with just 647 manuscripts. Other classics typically have a handful of dozen of fragments that are dated to 700-1400 years after the original writing.

Suffice it to say... when you have fragments of the four Gospels that date to within a century of the event in question it's not likely that they came up with it 350 years after the fact. You would be better off making the argument that the current version is not the original version and that it was intentionally changed and it just so happens that the changes in question aren't effectively contradicted by NT fragments or that it's a matter of a specific translation getting something wrong.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I was telling you to consider it a viable primary source for the existence of Jesus.

Except that it's not. All things considered, it's a viable primary source that tends to show he never existed. They fucked up when they wrote it, and then they fucked up some more when they tried to amend it with forgeries and bogus supporting evidence. They weren't as clever as they thought they were.

-

And the truth is that it is a very credible source (also see http://www.timothypauljones.co...).

But it's not a "very credible source", the text basically disproves itself with all the mistakes and force-fit revisions it contains. Talking snakes, demon pigs, virgin births, etc etc etc. Yeah, it's all so very credible.

-

But I suspect you don't even want to do that, because as soon as you give them any shred of historical credibility, then you have to wrestle with the fact that more might be true than the mere existence of Jesus.

No, I don't have to wrestle with the idea that a Bronze-age fairy tale about a magical god-man might be true. :)

Re: Fairy Tales

[david_thornley]

It's perfectly reasonable to think that one can't know whether or not there is something reasonably describable as a god. It's perfectly reasonable to think evolution is how God created species. The concept of a "soul" is not currently subject to scientific analysis, and can't be said to be impossible or patently absurd. It's perfectly reasonable to think no such thing exists, which is a different proposition.

Re: Fairy Tales

[31415926535897]

Fair enough--we'll go with malicious ignorance.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Fair enough--we'll go with malicious ignorance.

Lol, that's what bible thumpers always say when they encounter someone who's unwilling to buy their silly stories.

Re: Fairy Tales

[31415926535897]

Fair enough--we'll go with malicious ignorance.

Lol, that's what bible thumpers always say when they encounter someone who's unwilling to buy their silly stories.

Tell me, where was the thumping of the Bible? Bible thumpers would have started quoting scripture against your assertions. You can't even get your name calling right. I've been working to argue on your grounds (historical textual criticism) and you're unwilling to actually have an intelligent conversation. You're choosing to ignore the evidence and then attacking the position you disagree with. That's malicious ignorance.

The truth is that you haven't even begun to think about these things. You've come to your materialistic atheistic conclusion by faith and you refuse to acknowledge any evidence that might contradict your beliefs. You should welcome yourself into the camp you despise.

Do me a favor and listen to this before you make any more ridiculous remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: Fairy Tales

[camazotz]

You're giving me a headache here. First to clarify: staunch atheist here but with a background in archaeology and a more than lifelong interest in mythology. You can, and likely do, have a historical figure on whom a great many archaic beliefs and concepts are placed both to recognize the generational and cultural symbolism of what came before and to make the newer faith more tenable to the older pagan believers who might need to sense that this Jesus guy is on par with Mithras and others. This is not evidence that there was no historical figure, but rather evidence that there was a great deal of syncretism in effect. This is a pretty well establish phenomenon that is going on, and while it is fascinating, it is not a compelling argument against the existence of a live spiritual figure that is later retconned into something much, much greater than he was in life when the need arose.

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You've come to your materialistic atheistic conclusion by faith

Ummm, no. I've come to my "materialistic atheistic conclusion" through logic and reason, which is more than I can say for anyone who believes any of the fantastical stories in the bible. "Faith" is the last thing that I would use to determine the true nature of anything.

-

Do me a favor and listen to this before you make any more ridiculous remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

No, I'm not going to waste an hour of my life listening to someone trying to convince me that the whole "god story" makes some kind of sense. It doesn't; it's self-contradictory and would be akin to mental masturbation.

This incredible omnipotent god can't even make a dollar bill. In fact, he can't do a whole list of things that I can do, so why should I believe he's omnipotent?

Re: Fairy Tales

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

it is not a compelling argument against the existence of a live spiritual figure that is later retconned into something much, much greater than he was in life when the need arose.

The compelling argument is that he left not a single trace of his existence behind, whether he was a magical super-being or just some ordinary schmuck. If he was just some ordinary schmuck then we can stop right there. If he wasn't, then it's clear that the evidence doesn't support any part of the story that he's the central figure in.

I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Hognoxious]

I'm not saying it's aliens, because it's probably a microwave or garage door opener like it was the last time, and the time before that.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot: news for pathetic losers and science-haters.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Tablizer]

I'm not saying it's aliens, because it's probably a microwave or garage door opener like it was the last time

Zerg is toasting pop-tarts again in Auriga Gamma? Silly Zerg.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch, you don't understand the science even if they knew what it was so no one gives a good fuck what your thoughts are on this matter. Stick to what you know; comic books, smoking dicks and CGI movies. Go fuck yourself with a butcher's knife.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Hognoxious]

Oh look, Francis Bacon is posting on slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/s...

https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

(To any aspiedants reading, it's true that the Earth is orbit around a sun-like star. But that's not what it means).

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/malware-used-in-dnc-breach-found-tracking-ukraine-military/d/d-id/1327778

Donald, you don't have to cover for Putin on every story. Just the ones where he undermines our national sovereignty, like your election did.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying it's aliens, because it's probably a microwave or garage door opener like it was the last time, and the time before that.

Who said these aliens are not using a microwave or opening their garage door? Maybe they're really big aliens with giant SUVs and the munchies for popcorn.

  Like com'on people, Occam's Razor here..

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with Bacon, though...

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[gtall]

My money is on the Greek guy with the electric hair orbiting a really old monument to ancient astronauts while shining a laser beam at the heavens to signal them he's ready to be taken.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Hognoxious]

Demis Roussos? I think he died last year.

TYMNK: Best known as a crooning granny-pleaser, he was previously in Aphrodite's Child who were a Greek equivalent of Yes/Genesis.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[uvajed_ekil]

Slashdot: news for pathetic losers and science-haters.

You forgot: Anonymous Cowards who crap on everyone else's fun but won't show their faces when they grace us all with their glorious proclamations and failed attempts at ironic humor.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[uvajed_ekil]

(To any aspiedants reading, it's true that the Earth is orbit around a sun-like star. But that's not what it means).

(No, Earth is not orbit).

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[uvajed_ekil]

There's nothing wrong with Bacon, though...

Except that eating 2 strips of bacon a day increases your odds of getting heart disease by 20%. All pork in moderation.

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's those meddling Russian Hackers again!

Not RUSHEN HAXORZ, CATZ is in UR SERVIRZ and TELI-SCOPZ!!!

Re:I'm not saying it's aliens.

[Maritz]

Wrong. Go ahead and link the study you're talking about. It doesn't say that.

Aliens.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's aliens. Case closed. Let's take care of the numerous problems with this planet and humanity/life forms, then?

Most plausible theory is...

[_xanthus_47]

Aliens! No! You stop it you with your science and rational explanations!

Re:Most plausible theory is...

[msauve]

It's an extragalactic Federal Reserve Bank. At least that's what Google tells me FRB stands for.

Re:Most plausible theory is...

[uvajed_ekil]

It's an extragalactic Federal Reserve Bank. At least that's what Google tells me FRB stands for.

I hope their science is more advanced than that of our earthly Fed, or we and the rest of the Local Group are in for one hell of a financial ride.

I'm not sayings it was aliens...

[Anonymous Coward]

But was aliens!

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ancient-aliens

Re: I'm not sayings it was aliens...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not saying it was the Russians...

Aliens!

[Frosty Piss]

Neutron star my ass!

Re:Aliens!

[hey!]

The angelic choir, putting on a performance of Julius Caesar on an Aldiss Lamp.

Re: Aliens!

[Matt.Battey]

What if it were aliens in control of a neutron star, and the whole device was used to transmit 4 dimensional representations of an alien version of soccer (or probably football, because it's only soccer in the US and obviously aliens wouldn't be playing soccer on 4dTV, because it would be footbalz).

Re:Aliens!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's "Aldis Lamp" you empty-headed animal food trough wiper.
From what great heights you have wuthered...

Supermassive black holes eat matter, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Trumpies will be along to explain that science is a liberal hoax and obviously Obama is distracting us from his impending 3rd term machinations using fake radio magic. Saint Breitbart, keepin it real.

Trump won, quick, run blue beam!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like, legitimately, it would be great if it were aliens. But I will continue the tradition of 2016 (that of relating all things to US presidential politics), on the last day of that much-beloved year, by assuming that this is actually the new world order trying to keep control in the face of a Trump presidency.

Most likely scenario

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that Kanye West dropped his new single.

Nova Bombs

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously.

Re:Supermassive black holes eat matter, news at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

black holes matter!

Watch this space - no pun intended

[coastwalker]

Public imagination is a fickle thing often focused on the here and now. The great thing about FRB is that they are truly mysterious at the moment and a little over excitement is forgivable because science is often thought of as threatening or boring. Politicians are driven by the imperative to put bread on the tables of their voters and science often loses out because of it because it does not make money directly and it poses irritating questions such as climate change. So I say FRB being posed as something fantastic is not necessarily a bad thing. No doubt they are the boring result of some mechanistic behavior of the universe but just the idea of them being something more important knocks on the door of peoples imagination. It sells the story of why we do science at all, it is all about human curiosity which is a defining human quality. We are curious. The big questions in science are already literally fantastic and the answers we already have are beyond imagination. If you put up a big gravestone to the human race I think it might show the most significant progress in the area of scientific understanding. Fair enough we have encoded effective social progress in religious systems for living but the real hard work I think has been in the imagination that can comprehend outside common experience. If you insist that humans require a second party for meaning - a god - then it would seem a trivial existence not to investigate what they have created. FRB's are cool and I want to know what they are.

A whole day? Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

"generating as much energy as the sun does in a whole day"

Over what span of time is generating this energy that the sun does 'in a whole day'? Seconds? A day? A year? It's a meaningless statement otherwise, giving no hint of the power of the signal.

I yearn for a time someone with a basic grounding in science was writing these summaries, for which the above would stand out like a sore thumb.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the paper, a few milliseconds.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[thinkwaitfast]

That line gave me a headache. It's why I have to avoid most media. It's not fake news, it's retard news.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[mmell]

That's why it's called a summary - because you have to read the linked article to get all of the facts presented in the linked article.

It's not just Slashdot, but the whole world that's getting dumber. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you also summarize "3+5 = 8" with "3 = 8" (read the linked article to get the missing details)? Because they've done the same thing, they removed information that is needed for the summary to make sense.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiener being paranoid. News at 10

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[uvajed_ekil]

According to the paper, a few milliseconds.

Of course, Score:0 for the correct answer, Score:5 for the non-RTFA question.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[gumbi west]

units aren't a detail--they are essential.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[RockDoctor]

the whole world that's getting dumber. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Adhere to the standards you were trained to and you'll look better by comparison each year.

Except to retards seeking other retards.

Re:A whole day? Wow!

[Maritz]

It's not just Slashdot, but the whole world that's getting dumber. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

We're drowning in idiots and you're not sure if it's a good thing or not?

Stanislaw Lem - His Master's Voice

[Anonymous Coward]

It reminds me of the plot of this wonderful SF book by Stanislaw Lem, better known for Solaris. This is the story of an emission coming from the stars and the efforts of the scientific community to find out if it is natural or artificial and to decipher it.

"signal" is a leading word

[Glasswire]

Calling the emission a "signal" immediately suggests it the artifact of some intelligence rather than an natural phenomena - and that has definately not been established yet.
Following is Googled definition of signal and I can't see any version of meaning which could imply something coming from a natural source:
signal
noun
1. a gesture, action, or sound that is used to convey information or instructions, typically by prearrangement between the parties concerned.
"the firing of the gun was the signal for a chain of beacons to be lit"
synonyms: gesture, sign, wave, gesticulation, cue, indication, warning, motion
"a signal to stop"
2. an electrical impulse or radio wave transmitted or received.
"equipment for receiving TV signals"
verb
1. transmit information or instructions by means of a gesture, action, or sound.
"hold your fire until I signal"

Re:"signal" is a leading word

[Anonymous Coward]

2. an electrical impulse or radio wave transmitted or received.
indicates nothing about there being an artefact. The sun does that, for example.

Re:"signal" is a leading word

[DamnOregonian]

Actually, the technical definition of signal requires no intelligent generation. It is merely a waveform that can be distinguished from noise.

Re:"signal" is a leading word

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. In radio astronomy we use, for example "signal-to-noise ratio" to refer to the ratio between the signal (radio emission from an astronomical object) and the noise (e.g. thermal noise in the telescope receiver).

Redshift

[SlithyMagister]

The fact that we see the phenomenon as "radio" doesn't imply that they are "signals" --- it could be normal behaviour. "Signals" implies intent
Since the source is so far away, the original emissions could have been higher up in the spectrum.

All the best in 2017

Re:Redshift

[gtall]

Alien to his buddy, "Hey, watch what I do to this star, we'll confuse the hell out of those dumb rubes over in there in that galaxy looking for "intelligent" life."

Re:Redshift

[DamnOregonian]

Since the source is so far away, the original emissions could have been higher up in the spectrum.

Shit! Good point- I bet the authors forgot to factor GR and Hubble constants into the calculations. You should send them an email....

Obligatory

[andydread]

I think this guy can explain the FRBs .....

Re:Obligatory

[wonkey_monkey]

That oughta hold the little FRBs.

drive

[Anonymous Coward]

Giant alien em-drive being switched on..

Re:Supermassive black holes eat matter, news at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

That movie sounds interesting.

Obviously aliens using EM-Drive v3.0

[gweihir]

That one does not only generate a lot of thrust, it does so without needing energy from the outside! These aliens seem to have a leak in their very large EM drive v3.0 and the signal is from them testing it and shutting it off again (...damn, still leaks....).

Re:Obviously aliens using EM-Drive v3.0

[mmell]

The signals don't generally recur in the same place because all of the aliens testing an EM drive that failed so spectacularly are usually dead afterward. These are obviously smarter than your average LGM.

Re:Obviously aliens using EM-Drive v3.0

[DamnOregonian]

Reminds me of an Outsider Planetary Drive from Known Space. I always thought to myself, "If these things can turn a planetoid into relativistic shrapnel, they've got to make one hell of a signal for distant radio telescopes when they pop..."

Re:Obviously aliens using EM-Drive v3.0

[Maritz]

EM Drive is perfectly safe. It does nothing whatsoever.

maybe it is our own radio waves

[FudRucker]

bouncing off the edge of the universe and coming back, if you listen closely you can hear wolfman jack howling and playing 60's era rock & roll

Sounds familiar...

[jochberg]

Is it another microwave oven nearby?

Fake news

[schwit1]

But the New York Post thinks it's aliens.

Nowhere in the article does the paper say THEY think it's aliens.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

[OneHundredAndTen]

The original Star Wars feed is at last getting here.

Re:A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

[thinkwaitfast]

And strangely enough, Episodes I-III are very accurate.

Theory

[DanielRavenNest]

My guess is it's a precessing pulsar with an offset magnetic field. Pulsars are well known to produce repeating pulses as their magnetic poles rotate in and out of view. To see the pulses requires they cross our field of view, meaning a specific alignment of the rotation axis vs location of the magnetic pole (which don't have to be the same). If there is a second body near the pulsar, with an orbit offset from the equator, it would cause the rotation axis to precess, just like the Earth's does due to the Moon and Sun. Therefore the alignment of the magnetic pole would move in and out of view, and we only see pulses on the rare occasions they line up just right.

This guess would be defeated if the pulses look nothing like normal ones from pulsars, and confirmed if enough data is collected to detect the orbital motion of a second body.

Re:Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is it's a precessing pulsar with an offset magnetic field.

The trouble with this is that fast radio bursts are far too powerful to be regular pulsar pulses. The dispersion of a radio signal - the way the signal sweeps from high to low frequencies - tells you how far the signal has travelled, and the dispersion measures for fast radio bursts indicate that they come from well outside our own galaxy. For them to be that far away, and still be detectable, they must be far more powerful than a regular pulsar.

(There are ways to try to get around this, however: say, a dense cloud of ionised hydrogen between us and the source of the burst, causing it to appear to be as dispersed as if it had come from a long way away.)

Re:Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Regular pulsar pulses don't have nearly the energy of these Fast Radio Bursts. These FRBs are catastrophic releases of energy.

It's nice to see some science based comments

[ITRambo]

I'm amazed at how off-topic some comments are. It's sad that so many people think their wit and humor are worth sharing with all of us. Of course, there may have been some partying going on before posting on 2016-12-31. The radio emissions are from a yet undefined natural source. That's how everything discovered starts out, without knowing everything.

Re:It's nice to see some science based comments

[drinkypoo]

It's sad that so many people think their wit and humor are worth sharing with all of us.

Welcome to Slashdot. You must be new here.

Re:It's nice to see some science based comments

[Maritz]

I saw no wit or humour, but I saw a lot of religious dickheads spouting their fantasist mumbo-jumbo.

Microwave oven?

[will_vK]

Either that or someone's using the microwave next to the telescope again.

Pak Protectors, obviously.

[Grog6]

I hope they brought more Thallium.

Where's Jack Brennan when you need him?

Aliens

[Anonymous Coward]

It's gotta be aliens. I mean SETI got it wrong everytime but this time, it's gotta be aliens. I bet my wife on it.

sonic screwdriver

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just that we're picking up that sonic screwdriver's emissions again. Would somebody tell Dr. Who to keep his screwdriver inside an RFI blocking bag, and stop using it willy-nilly?

My new "rule of thumb".

[Locke2005]

EVERY phenomena astronomers can't explain has a simple explanation: black holes. They just don't understand black holes. "Dark matter"? Nope, black holes. Gamma radiation bursts? That's just stars getting sucked into black holes. The "alien megastructure" around Tabby's star? Ok, that one might just be cosmic dust.

Re:My new "rule of thumb".

[Maritz]

I think "not even wrong" applies perfectly to that comment.

Someone's letting us know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone's letting us know they're about to clear this space for a galactic highway.

Aliens? Deathstar!

[manu0601]

Aliens? Nope, this is just the deathstar being used to zap some celestial bodies.

Re:Aliens? Deathstar!

[uvajed_ekil]

Aliens? Nope, this is just the deathstar being used to zap some celestial bodies.

Obviously wrong, since the Deathstar was destroyed a long time ago and required a huge crew of aliens. So it couldn't have been the Deathstar, and there would definitely have been aliens there if it were present and operational.

Re:Aliens? Deathstar!

[manu0601]

the Deathstar was destroyed a long time ago

If the plans were not lost, it could have been rebuilt.

At long last

[theendlessnow]

At long last, the location of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has been found.

10 years ago vs now

[Anonymous Coward]

This day 10 years ago, the Slashdot front page was full of stories from. PC World, Engadget, MIT Technology Review, Wired and other (at the time) at least vaguely reputable nerd news sources.

Today, the main sources for articles seems to be the New York Post, Daily Mail, The Sun, and other mainstream tabloids that are neither interesting to nerds, nor reputable as sources or news. Slashdot is done. My New Year's resolution this year is to stop wasting my time with this shit.

Re:10 years ago vs now

[Maritz]

Bye

Sooo funny..

[pdavisgenoa]

Oh, but but the New York Post thinks it's aliens. I get it. It's funny because you know.. aliens. Hahahaha. Yeah, real funny. Ask any physicist in the world, any astronomer, any scientist period, what the chances are that there are extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy and a high 80 to 90 percentile will say very likely to certain. And yet when ANY celestial phenomenon comes up that "could" have signs of extraterrestrial activity as a viable theory everyone grins, smirks or cracks a joke. People need to make a choice - including you in the press that are usually the first ones to be sarcastic and condescending - is there a high probability of extraterrestrial life in our galaxy or not. You don't get to have it both ways.

Re: Sooo funny..

[guruevi]

There is a very high probability of life in the Universe, it's 1. Whether it's intelligent, depends on your viewpoint, I'm sure your average ape thinks it is intelligent as it does its tricks to get a treat, look I've got them trained every time I push this button they feed me.

As far as an intelligent life form controlling that kind of power, highly unlikely and if it does, then you *should* shit your pants (on a geological timescale). On the other hand, if it is, it would be highly unlikely we would recognize it as such unless it's doing some thing we cannot model as a Newtonian motion. As long as shit is spinning around and circle shaped we wouldn't recognize a space ship if it were a hundred miles away.

Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
By all measures, the Life and Times of Jesus Christ is such a dramatic, influential story that we should expect exceptionally solid evidence.
And we don't have ANY.
So Occam's Razor instructs us that the vastly more probably rational conclusion is that it's all fairy tales.
The previous well-documented ALMOST IDENTICAL fairy tales are instructive.
By the way, this terribly famous Mohammed never existed either, and he sure as shit didn't write any of the various Korans, and the Hadith are almost certainly NOT accurate either.
The greek gods were imaginary too.
And the roman gods.
And the hindu, shinto, animist and all other deities are convenient fictions.
It's turtle bollocks, all the way down.

Re: Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

he existed like bradley manning. and boty were eventually crucified for the sin of exposing evil.

Re: Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

both

I know the truth

[AndyKron]

It's really coming from a black obelisk on the Moon. I seen it in a movie once.

Not meaningful

[fyngyrz]

The Iliad was written even longer after its events were supposed to have happened. Yet Hissarlik is there.

Incorporating historical touchstones is a common technique among fiction authors.

In Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October", the CIA is mentioned, Russia, the USA, England, real cities within those countries, various real weapons systems, poltical positions, and so on for a long list of 100% real things.

But Jack Ryan, the central character of the story, is a complete work of fiction. Yet, if this book were treated the way theists treat the OT and NT, Ryan's actual existence would be unquestioned. That's the entire problem with your position.

Bottom line is that a mention in a book is not proof of existence by itself. For historical events, you need multiple contemporaneous sources. Physical evidence doesn't hurt either, though after a certain point, when the accounts of contemporaneous sources hang together, the odds improve considerably.

However, the NT contains no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus. There aren't any elsewhere that have come to light, either.

Cornelius Tacitus, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, Yosef Ben Matityahu (Josephus), Pliny the Younger... none of these oft-quoted sources were even alive before C.E. 30; so they never saw or knew any person who died be C.E. 30. Anything they have written or said is, at best, second hand, or even less close to any possible source.

Does this prove Jesus didn't exist? No. What it does do, however, is clearly lay out why the current claims of "evidence" don't stand in any way worthy of proving that he did.

That's all without having to even go into the superstitious nonsense that disqualifies the OT and the NT both from being anything but fiction.

Re:Not meaningful

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

But Jack Ryan, the central character of the story, is a complete work of fiction. Yet, if this book were treated the way theists treat the OT and NT, Ryan's actual existence would be unquestioned. That's the entire problem with your position.

Well said.

The unquestioning belief in the error-ridden text of the bible by most theists is always a thing of wonder for me. One one hand they discount things for which there is considerable proof, yet manage to suspend their disbelief for the most fantastical claims.

For example, many of them simply ignore the failed prophecies in the bible (flat-out denying them in many cases) while refusing to believe in something like evolution which has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.

To induce cognitive dissonance one can hardly find a better source than the bible.

And in some ways I don't blame them- most believers were brought up being told fairy tales from birth by authority figures whom they trusted (parents, church members, etc), and who were lying to them or who had been mislead themselves in the same way. Coming to terms with the fact that much of what your parents told you is difficult for most people, but after you reach an age where you can reason for yourself you should be able realize that it's all a load of utter nonsense.

Once you realize that there is no god, the universe and everything in it suddenly makes perfect sense. It all behaves exactly as it would if there was no magical, omnipotent, invisible super-being controlling everything behind the scenes.

Re:Not meaningful

[dbreeze]

Try to explain away this analysis... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
All in all, it's about faith to some extent, but there is considerable evidence that the Bible is God's Word...

Re:Not meaningful

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Try to explain away this analysis... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Sorry but I'm not going to watch two and a half hours of bullshit trying to prove something true that I know to be false. It might as well be two and a half hours of "leprechauns are real!"

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All in all, it's about faith to some extent,

All in all it's about suspending your disbelief to the level of a kindergartner.

Your claim of "faith" is the worst possible way to try and convince any thinking person of your position, especially when your position includes fantastical claims cobbled together 20 centuries ago by ignorant, desert-dwelling sheep herders, most of whom lived their entire lives within about 10 miles of the place they'd been born.

-

but there is considerable evidence that the Bible is God's Word...

If the bible is god's word, why are there so many silly mistakes in it? Why are there so many blatant contradictions in it? And while we're on the subject, which of the 600 or so versions of the bible are we talking about, anyway?

Faith

[fyngyrz]

Faith is the portal into the eternal.

Faith that you won't fall and die when stepping off a very high cliff without any safety gear or flying device is uncalled for, and serves only as a portal to splattering your very faithful self all over the rocks below. Although yes, the decision is utterly final: You are done, and eternity is quite relevant in that sense.

All faith in things that are not real inherently present this class of pitfall:

You believe it, but it matters not that you do, or why you do, because what you believe is not true. Regardless of the level of your conviction, or anyone else's level of conviction.

Faith led the Heaven's Gate UFO cult to off themselves. That's a very convincing demonstration of the power of faith. They served as their own rocks at the base of their own cliff, and fell fatally upon their own convictions at a high rate of bewilderment.

Sorry. Really, I am. I wish you only clear-headed enjoyment of this wonderful world. But that's what faith, unsupported by anything in objective reality, is all about. Being blind to what is, and basing one's actions upon what isn't.

Astronomers pinpoint the source of mysterious radi

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems part of the mystery has been solved...
Big news: Astronomers pinpoint the source of mysterious radio signals
http://www.sciencealert.com/big-news-scientists-have-pinpointed-the-origin-of-one-of-space-s-most-mysterious-radio-signals
We finally know the origin of a fast radio burst.
FIONA MACDONALD 5 JAN 2017