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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.
But the New York Post thinks it's aliens.
"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.
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.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
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?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...