Wait, it's ok for Ehrman to use the content of the Bible to discuss its trustworthiness, but it's not ok for me? Please enlighten me here. And how does that translate in your mind into "All your arguments so far have been to point to the bible which is to say they have been an appeal to authority"??? I smell bias. how about you?
You put a wikipedia link to the Alexandrian manuscripts, but did you know that there are very little manuscriptual evidence that that codex is authentic and therefore almost all reputable modern translations of the Bible do not follow Codex Sinaiticus? They all follow the Textus Receptus (cant' remember the spelling) for the most part.
Finally how do you justify making a broad statement about the Bible as a whole in the middle of a specific discussion about details like comparing the Q doc theory with what's actually in the book of Luke? That's just name calling and not an intelligent conversation, I think. Oh, PS you still haven't told me what part of the Bible has been known to be false. What historical accounts in the Bible have been proven wrong? I'm dying to know. Please don't tell me to go read a book. If you've research to your satisfaction, you must know a specific example by heart, right? Besides, I believe in Jesus, which by your prejudice must mean I'm probably illiterate anyway (although I have a PhD)...
So how is Luke stating that he's a late comer in gospel writing unscientific? How does that conflict with any fact? It only conflicts with the Q doc THEORY. Don't base your facts on theories. But I know the type. You're probably one of those people who can't accept a single verse in Bible as fact because it's in the Bible. And don't preach to me about scientific in that derogatory manner unless you're qualified and it's necessary. I have a PhD in organic chemistry from UCSD:)
Also you appear to be misinformed about how modern (not the 15, 16th century stuff, but 17th and onward) translations of the Bible were made. For NT, they are direct translation from the Greek manuscripts. For OT, they're direct translation from the Hebrew manuscirpts although they do consult the Septuagint. Those manuscripts in the original languages are readily available. So when you're studying the Bible you can discern whether a particular translation of a word or a sentence is sound or not. I do that all the time.
I'll try to respond in full later, but your citation is Ehrman? Really? His book is simply textual criticism! I'm sure you know what that means practically. It just means scholars say "there are different tones in which text is written in this book. So there must be more than one author!" Even within one post on/., I change my tone sometimes. This is far from the Bible being "proven" to be altered.
Yes, I've heard about the Q doc. Just the fact that Luke admits to being a late comer in the gospel writing business alone puts that whole theory in doubt. There is nothing concrete that you've put forth here. Nice try tho
The bible is a suspect source for several reasons. One is that is known to have been changed over the centuries, another is that reference to events in it aren't referenced in other historical works of the era, yet another that the events it contains are "fantastical" (break natural law), etc. So is the Iliad, which is why historians don't accept it as anything other than fiction that was possibly inspired by actual events lost to history.
Really. When and what part of the Bible was changed? And WHO knows this? That's news to me. The AC above said that there are 1000 manuscripts of the NT, but that's inaccurate. there are ~25,000 manuscripts found to date of the NT. Except for some minor spelling errors, they're virtually totally identical. These manuscripts are found all over the world. If there was any error or change introduced in the past, that should have been reflected in some of the manuscripts, leaving the 25,000 manuscripts differing from each other. However, that's not the case. So it's one thing to say you don't believe the Bible was directly inspired by God, but it'd be disingenuous to believe that the Bible, especially the NT has been altered.
Also, the so-called "Q source" is most likely nothing more than the gospel of Mark, which was the earliest gospel of the four. I'm sure that the gospel of Mark inspired the others ones. In fact, here's how the gospel of Luke begins "Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught." (Luke 1:1-4, NLT)
So please do your homework. I'm not sure a quick search in Wikipedia really counts:Q
Please do some homework before putting people down. The oldest fragment of the gospel of mark that archeologist's have found come from the late AD 30's. Do you believe what's written in Homer's Iliad? There are ~1000 times more manuscriptual evidence for Jesus than anybody in Illiad.
Sorry to say, but sincerely, you've shown your ignorance regarding the significance of the Dead Sea scrolls in the context of Christianity. Very briefly (somewhat watered-down version), the DSS are important to Christianity primarily because of the manuscripts of books like Isaiah, which contain detailed prophecies about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. The criticism against the Bible used to be that books like Isaiah contained way too much details about Jesus' death especially that the critics used to say "Isaiah must have been written/altered after Jesus of Nazareth came about because Isaiah couldn't have predicted all these details!". However, the dating of the DSS prove that the book of Isaiah was written at least before BC100 and had not been altered since.
Therefore it's impossible that anyone has altered the prophecies about Jesus after the fact. Also because the bulk of the DSS were written before Jesus' time, there is NO New Testament writing in the DSS collection. So no Christian scholar is looking for NT books like you're implying.
So many people here are talking about this like they actually injected the patient with HIV. They didn't! They just had to use a retrovirus to modify white blood cells' genes. It could've been any retrovirus, but HIV was apparently the choice. That's all. So there is no "trade off" between AIDS and cancer that they need to be concerned about. The only issue now is whether this approach will work with a statistically significant number of patients or not.
I am thankful I have a job and a house, etc. However, my take home pay is barely >$2,200 / month. I got my PhD from UCSD in 2009 and I do get paid more than my peers who also have doctorates and hold the same position as I. But I still get paid less than a lot of high school graduates I know of...:(
That is very true. In the "real" academic science world, there is often little or no grant funding that could be allocated to address criticism or disputed results that came from your lab. Consequently, disputed matters get left behind because "scientists" are more interested in doing new experiments that they could put in their next grant proposal. So in a weird way, the mythbusters are more scientific than "real scientists".
Adam and James may or may not be scientists, but I think there are "scientists" that are on the production team for the show. I'm a PhD chemist in the field of medicinal chemistry, and we've had TV documentary crews come in and film something about our work before. When they do the filming, they just merely ask us to pipet some random liquid into another container for no reason other than to provide some "science" looking video footage. So in effect, even though we are "real" scientists, when we're on TV, we're just actors, but there's science behind the info being disseminated. I tend to think of the mythbusters in a similar way.
I understand that even their methods are not up to the standards of science publication, but even we do try out things in the beginning in a way not too dissimilar to the Mythbuster way (ie not statistically significant, using some mock-up equipment, or whatever) before we fully commit to an experiment or before we purchase the proper equipment that would cost $50,000 or something. So yeah, the Mythbuster show is pretty scientific.
The question I have is:
Would there be any significant difference between wearing the phone on the hip via a holster thingy and having the phone in your pocket?
@knarfling, very well written. Good post!
I'll just add a few things here to your comments
1) Job 38 (and to some extent 37) briefly mentions how climate works (but not extensively as the intention here wasn't to teach Job how rain gets formed)
2) In the OT, the Lord had already talked about loving your neighbors
Leviticus 19:18 & 34
I have ~ a dozen "friends" who are
"First day of middle school.... I'm so nervous!!!"
But they never caught it. So it might have to very specific like
"Happy 12th birthday!"
Come to think of it, I think I've posted Bday wishes like that before...
This is more like finding worms eating a corpse, and then saying it's proof that the worms must have been there when the person was living.
I can assure you that those samples were intact all these years. Besides, most of the samples were in vials and not in flasks. How do I know this personally? I did my PhD work in a lab right next to Jeffrey Bada's (see the paper, he's one of the main authors). I was there when he found these samples from their storage or something and told us all about it.
Also any amino acids that were in the vials must have been synthesized in the Miller's apparatus since there was no starting materials left in those vials (remember the S.M. were gases). Even so this experiment is still irrelevant to the origin of life for the reasons I've discussed in another comment of mine (see below).
Regardless, this experiment is still irrelevant because those gases Miller used (H2S, H2, NH3, CO2, esp.) cannot coexist in the same place for any appreciable amount of time. Gases like CO2 would not exist without a significant amt of O2, but H2S, H2, NH3, etc (and the amino acid products) would be quickly oxidized at elevated temp in the presence of O2. Moreover, if O2 was absent, unfiltered UV radiation (w/out O2, no O3 layer) would also quickly destroy those reducing gases and amino acid products.
One of the major reasons has to do with safety. The Miller experiment was done in a closed system of glassware that was under pressure from heat and sparks (albeit having a condenser). I got my PhD in a lab next door to Jeffrey Bada's lab (one of the authors and a former student of Miller's). So I used to use Prof. Bada's lab for their NH3 tank for Birch reduction, etc (our lab was not equipped with a liquid NH3 tank for EHS reasons), and I remember thinking there's no way I'd want to be close to this glassware if the Miller experiment was repeated especially given the presence of H2, etc. When you look at the video footage of Miller with the glassware, you'll notice he wasn't even wearing safety goggles. Chemists used to have a completely different mentality back then. For instance, some of my mentors used to smoke cigarettes right next to a squirt bottle of diethyl ether "back in the days". Today, it's unthinkable!!!
Regardless, this experiment is still irrelevant because those gases Miller used (H2S, H2, NH3, CO2, esp.) cannot coexist in the same place for any appreciable amount of time. Gases like CO2 would not exist without a significant amt of O2, but H2S, H2, NH3, etc (and the amino acid products) would be quickly oxidized at elevated temp in the presence of O2. Moreover, if O2 was absent, unfiltered UV radiation (w/out O2, no O3 layer) would also quickly destroy those reducing gases and amino acid products.
You're right, the air captured in amber fossils has provided evidence that O2 content used to be 50% more than it is now, but it still doesn't account for the fact that large reptiles (pterodactyls, etc) were able to fly.
The thing about Biblical creationism is that it doesn't make sense if you only take one aspect of it at time. For example, if you only look at the Genesis 1-3 creation account, the world described then is nowhere close to the world we live in now. However, if you combine it with the global flood account, everything fits together; eg fossil record, geologic layers, geologic features like grand canyon, etc. This is also true for the canopy theory. If it is true and if the global flood happened the way the Bible describes it (the water for the flood came from below the crust of the earth), the canopy would have been destroyed at the time of the flood. The canopy material (extremely cold ice) could have frozen some animals instantaneously and ushered in a short ice age, for which we see evidence today. So the only Biblical creationism makes sense is if you take all of it into account.
It always has been the government that defines what scientific research could be done anyways. In my field (pharmaceutical sciences), most of the funding comes from NIH, whose funding is determined by the Congress. In other fields of science, the major sources of grants are either NSF (and NIH for some chemistry stuff) or state agencies. At least in academia, money from the private sectors is limited even in pharmaceutical sciences.
So refreshing to see some non-bigoted and rational post about creationism on/.
Based on the so-called "separation of church and state" principle (not an article) in the constitution, this bill should be supported just like you said.
I, for one, am a professional scientist with a PhD in organic chemistry working at a state university (in the area of pharmaceutical sciences) and am also a pastor and a young-earth creationist. Although I used to be an atheist in college, nothing other than scientific evidence led me to believe in the validity of the Bible.
What you are suggesting could be true depending on the size of the "ice" (or at certain temp/pressure it could be more like metallic hydrogen). I never mentioned anything about the size because I don't know. a layer of ice that's 6 inches in thickness (assuming no impurities) would not block any significant amount of light, etc... Animals exploding, etc... such scenarios would only be true if there were tens (or more) of magnitutdes of atms difference. If the pressure difference is ~200-300%, you'd only get decompression sickness. So this is more like a straw man the video is making. I'm not necessarily a proponent of the canopy theory, but what explanation do you have for those large dinosaurs and insects' respiration?
Do you have the understanding that water, at extremely low temperature, can become completely magnetized and thus is able to float on top of another magnetic object like... the earth? It is well known that the earth's magnetic field is getting weaker every year. Besides this Meisner effect, there is the atmosphere pushing up against the canopy too. I'm just saying you should consider ALL of physics...
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, it's ok for Ehrman to use the content of the Bible to discuss its trustworthiness, but it's not ok for me? Please enlighten me here. And how does that translate in your mind into "All your arguments so far have been to point to the bible which is to say they have been an appeal to authority"??? I smell bias. how about you?
You put a wikipedia link to the Alexandrian manuscripts, but did you know that there are very little manuscriptual evidence that that codex is authentic and therefore almost all reputable modern translations of the Bible do not follow Codex Sinaiticus? They all follow the Textus Receptus (cant' remember the spelling) for the most part.
Finally how do you justify making a broad statement about the Bible as a whole in the middle of a specific discussion about details like comparing the Q doc theory with what's actually in the book of Luke? That's just name calling and not an intelligent conversation, I think. Oh, PS you still haven't told me what part of the Bible has been known to be false. What historical accounts in the Bible have been proven wrong? I'm dying to know. Please don't tell me to go read a book. If you've research to your satisfaction, you must know a specific example by heart, right? Besides, I believe in Jesus, which by your prejudice must mean I'm probably illiterate anyway (although I have a PhD)...
So how is Luke stating that he's a late comer in gospel writing unscientific? How does that conflict with any fact? It only conflicts with the Q doc THEORY. Don't base your facts on theories. But I know the type. You're probably one of those people who can't accept a single verse in Bible as fact because it's in the Bible. And don't preach to me about scientific in that derogatory manner unless you're qualified and it's necessary. I have a PhD in organic chemistry from UCSD :)
Also you appear to be misinformed about how modern (not the 15, 16th century stuff, but 17th and onward) translations of the Bible were made. For NT, they are direct translation from the Greek manuscripts. For OT, they're direct translation from the Hebrew manuscirpts although they do consult the Septuagint. Those manuscripts in the original languages are readily available. So when you're studying the Bible you can discern whether a particular translation of a word or a sentence is sound or not. I do that all the time.
Yes, I've heard about the Q doc. Just the fact that Luke admits to being a late comer in the gospel writing business alone puts that whole theory in doubt. There is nothing concrete that you've put forth here. Nice try tho
The bible is a suspect source for several reasons. One is that is known to have been changed over the centuries, another is that reference to events in it aren't referenced in other historical works of the era, yet another that the events it contains are "fantastical" (break natural law), etc. So is the Iliad, which is why historians don't accept it as anything other than fiction that was possibly inspired by actual events lost to history.
Really. When and what part of the Bible was changed? And WHO knows this? That's news to me. The AC above said that there are 1000 manuscripts of the NT, but that's inaccurate. there are ~25,000 manuscripts found to date of the NT. Except for some minor spelling errors, they're virtually totally identical. These manuscripts are found all over the world. If there was any error or change introduced in the past, that should have been reflected in some of the manuscripts, leaving the 25,000 manuscripts differing from each other. However, that's not the case. So it's one thing to say you don't believe the Bible was directly inspired by God, but it'd be disingenuous to believe that the Bible, especially the NT has been altered.
Also, the so-called "Q source" is most likely nothing more than the gospel of Mark, which was the earliest gospel of the four. I'm sure that the gospel of Mark inspired the others ones. In fact, here's how the gospel of Luke begins "Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught." (Luke 1:1-4, NLT)
So please do your homework. I'm not sure a quick search in Wikipedia really counts :Q
Please do some homework before putting people down. The oldest fragment of the gospel of mark that archeologist's have found come from the late AD 30's. Do you believe what's written in Homer's Iliad? There are ~1000 times more manuscriptual evidence for Jesus than anybody in Illiad.
Bingo! I wish I had mod points for this most informative post in the thread!
Sorry to say, but sincerely, you've shown your ignorance regarding the significance of the Dead Sea scrolls in the context of Christianity. Very briefly (somewhat watered-down version), the DSS are important to Christianity primarily because of the manuscripts of books like Isaiah, which contain detailed prophecies about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. The criticism against the Bible used to be that books like Isaiah contained way too much details about Jesus' death especially that the critics used to say "Isaiah must have been written/altered after Jesus of Nazareth came about because Isaiah couldn't have predicted all these details!". However, the dating of the DSS prove that the book of Isaiah was written at least before BC100 and had not been altered since.
Therefore it's impossible that anyone has altered the prophecies about Jesus after the fact. Also because the bulk of the DSS were written before Jesus' time, there is NO New Testament writing in the DSS collection. So no Christian scholar is looking for NT books like you're implying.
So many people here are talking about this like they actually injected the patient with HIV. They didn't! They just had to use a retrovirus to modify white blood cells' genes. It could've been any retrovirus, but HIV was apparently the choice. That's all. So there is no "trade off" between AIDS and cancer that they need to be concerned about. The only issue now is whether this approach will work with a statistically significant number of patients or not.
I want to see when something's sucking the CPU without having to run the full System Monitor.
Just type in "top" in a terminal. When done, hold Ctrl and press c. It's the best way to see what's using CPU w/out impacting the CPU usage.
I am thankful I have a job and a house, etc. However, my take home pay is barely >$2,200 / month. I got my PhD from UCSD in 2009 and I do get paid more than my peers who also have doctorates and hold the same position as I. But I still get paid less than a lot of high school graduates I know of... :(
That is very true. In the "real" academic science world, there is often little or no grant funding that could be allocated to address criticism or disputed results that came from your lab. Consequently, disputed matters get left behind because "scientists" are more interested in doing new experiments that they could put in their next grant proposal. So in a weird way, the mythbusters are more scientific than "real scientists".
You're a good dad! Way to go!
Adam and James may or may not be scientists, but I think there are "scientists" that are on the production team for the show. I'm a PhD chemist in the field of medicinal chemistry, and we've had TV documentary crews come in and film something about our work before. When they do the filming, they just merely ask us to pipet some random liquid into another container for no reason other than to provide some "science" looking video footage. So in effect, even though we are "real" scientists, when we're on TV, we're just actors, but there's science behind the info being disseminated. I tend to think of the mythbusters in a similar way.
I understand that even their methods are not up to the standards of science publication, but even we do try out things in the beginning in a way not too dissimilar to the Mythbuster way (ie not statistically significant, using some mock-up equipment, or whatever) before we fully commit to an experiment or before we purchase the proper equipment that would cost $50,000 or something. So yeah, the Mythbuster show is pretty scientific.
The question I have is:
Would there be any significant difference between wearing the phone on the hip via a holster thingy and having the phone in your pocket?
@knarfling, very well written. Good post!
I'll just add a few things here to your comments
1) Job 38 (and to some extent 37) briefly mentions how climate works (but not extensively as the intention here wasn't to teach Job how rain gets formed)
2) In the OT, the Lord had already talked about loving your neighbors
Leviticus 19:18 & 34
I have ~ a dozen "friends" who are "First day of middle school.... I'm so nervous!!!"
But they never caught it. So it might have to very specific like
"Happy 12th birthday!"
Come to think of it, I think I've posted Bday wishes like that before...
Your analogy is broken...
This is more like finding worms eating a corpse, and then saying it's proof that the worms must have been there when the person was living.
I can assure you that those samples were intact all these years. Besides, most of the samples were in vials and not in flasks. How do I know this personally? I did my PhD work in a lab right next to Jeffrey Bada's (see the paper, he's one of the main authors). I was there when he found these samples from their storage or something and told us all about it.
Also any amino acids that were in the vials must have been synthesized in the Miller's apparatus since there was no starting materials left in those vials (remember the S.M. were gases). Even so this experiment is still irrelevant to the origin of life for the reasons I've discussed in another comment of mine (see below).
Regardless, this experiment is still irrelevant because those gases Miller used (H2S, H2, NH3, CO2, esp.) cannot coexist in the same place for any appreciable amount of time. Gases like CO2 would not exist without a significant amt of O2, but H2S, H2, NH3, etc (and the amino acid products) would be quickly oxidized at elevated temp in the presence of O2. Moreover, if O2 was absent, unfiltered UV radiation (w/out O2, no O3 layer) would also quickly destroy those reducing gases and amino acid products.
One of the major reasons has to do with safety. The Miller experiment was done in a closed system of glassware that was under pressure from heat and sparks (albeit having a condenser). I got my PhD in a lab next door to Jeffrey Bada's lab (one of the authors and a former student of Miller's). So I used to use Prof. Bada's lab for their NH3 tank for Birch reduction, etc (our lab was not equipped with a liquid NH3 tank for EHS reasons), and I remember thinking there's no way I'd want to be close to this glassware if the Miller experiment was repeated especially given the presence of H2, etc. When you look at the video footage of Miller with the glassware, you'll notice he wasn't even wearing safety goggles. Chemists used to have a completely different mentality back then. For instance, some of my mentors used to smoke cigarettes right next to a squirt bottle of diethyl ether "back in the days". Today, it's unthinkable!!!
Regardless, this experiment is still irrelevant because those gases Miller used (H2S, H2, NH3, CO2, esp.) cannot coexist in the same place for any appreciable amount of time. Gases like CO2 would not exist without a significant amt of O2, but H2S, H2, NH3, etc (and the amino acid products) would be quickly oxidized at elevated temp in the presence of O2. Moreover, if O2 was absent, unfiltered UV radiation (w/out O2, no O3 layer) would also quickly destroy those reducing gases and amino acid products.
You're right, the air captured in amber fossils has provided evidence that O2 content used to be 50% more than it is now, but it still doesn't account for the fact that large reptiles (pterodactyls, etc) were able to fly.
The thing about Biblical creationism is that it doesn't make sense if you only take one aspect of it at time. For example, if you only look at the Genesis 1-3 creation account, the world described then is nowhere close to the world we live in now. However, if you combine it with the global flood account, everything fits together; eg fossil record, geologic layers, geologic features like grand canyon, etc. This is also true for the canopy theory. If it is true and if the global flood happened the way the Bible describes it (the water for the flood came from below the crust of the earth), the canopy would have been destroyed at the time of the flood. The canopy material (extremely cold ice) could have frozen some animals instantaneously and ushered in a short ice age, for which we see evidence today. So the only Biblical creationism makes sense is if you take all of it into account.
It always has been the government that defines what scientific research could be done anyways. In my field (pharmaceutical sciences), most of the funding comes from NIH, whose funding is determined by the Congress. In other fields of science, the major sources of grants are either NSF (and NIH for some chemistry stuff) or state agencies. At least in academia, money from the private sectors is limited even in pharmaceutical sciences.
So refreshing to see some non-bigoted and rational post about creationism on /.
Based on the so-called "separation of church and state" principle (not an article) in the constitution, this bill should be supported just like you said. I, for one, am a professional scientist with a PhD in organic chemistry working at a state university (in the area of pharmaceutical sciences) and am also a pastor and a young-earth creationist. Although I used to be an atheist in college, nothing other than scientific evidence led me to believe in the validity of the Bible.
What you are suggesting could be true depending on the size of the "ice" (or at certain temp/pressure it could be more like metallic hydrogen). I never mentioned anything about the size because I don't know. a layer of ice that's 6 inches in thickness (assuming no impurities) would not block any significant amount of light, etc... Animals exploding, etc... such scenarios would only be true if there were tens (or more) of magnitutdes of atms difference. If the pressure difference is ~200-300%, you'd only get decompression sickness. So this is more like a straw man the video is making. I'm not necessarily a proponent of the canopy theory, but what explanation do you have for those large dinosaurs and insects' respiration?
According to the PDF on this site, the blackouts go from ~7AM to 9PM. http://teidenjapan.appspot.com/en.html#tepco
What you're envisioning would be cool looking, but from what I've heard, the blackouts happen during the day...
Do you have the understanding that water, at extremely low temperature, can become completely magnetized and thus is able to float on top of another magnetic object like... the earth? It is well known that the earth's magnetic field is getting weaker every year. Besides this Meisner effect, there is the atmosphere pushing up against the canopy too. I'm just saying you should consider ALL of physics...