And yet I know some people who do. At least they argue that we should as long as the passages in question support the conclusions that they like.
All I'm saying is that some room for interpretation HAS to be allowed. You seem to agree with that. But given that, you then need to accept that there will be debate about what to interpret and how to do so.
No, I'm not. But thanks for presuming to tell me what I am thinking. It definitely helps further the discussion, doesn't it?
You're making a straw-man, here. On several levels. First of all, I'm not saying that the entire Bible is wrong, just that you need to interpret it. There's just reasonable way to read it, otherwise. But once you allow for that point, you have to accept that there will be some debate about *how* to interpret it and where the line is drawn. I'm making no attempt to draw that line, merely saying that it's a debateable point.
And no one should be taking your high school textbooks, or any other of those boosk, as the literal word of god. Unfortunately, the claim under discussion here is that the Bible is exactly this and that there is no room for interpretion. (Including allowing for things to be written in more poetic terms or in ways that are metaphorical to help with comprehension.)
And the fact that the period table on your wall lacks elements in no way contradicts atomic theory in any way. At worst, it means that the theory was incomplete when the chart was created. More likely, the chart was simply not expaned to include all of the possible elements that the theory predicts but we've never seen. That in no way compares to a chart that has incorrect information on it, which would be the legitimate comparison.
So, that having been cleared up, would you like to try again. This time, with a reasonable argument rather than name-calling and straw-men?
So why can't Genesis be an allegory if Psalms are, too? Please, tell us how you can definitely tell what's literally true and what isn't. Because that does appear to be the crux of this issue. A lot of reasonable people disagree about which parts are factual and which parts are metaphor. The trouble is, people sometimes see their view as dogmatically correct and cannot even fathom an alternate point of view. Which is why you resort to insults rather than actually adding anything to the discussion, I suppose.
" You can believe the bible to be the inspired word of God and without error while not taking everything literally."
I do believe that you're making my point. The fact that you pretty much HAVE to accept that parts need to be interpretted doesn't make that the whole thing is bunk. It just opens up the debate about how to interpret. But the view that the book is all literally true is untenable and is also too dogmatic to allow for any real discussion.
I'm not arguing with that part of the Bible. Nor am I saying that the entire work is BS. If you read what I wrote carefully, you'll see that all I'm saying is that you need to interpret what's in there. You seem to be agreeing with this without realizing it.
No, but I believe that I am allowed to interpret that expression and that I should take what people says as literally true. Which is the point here, isn't it?
I've read the relevent passages, here. They say what I indicated. Your link provides only hand-waving arguments to the contrary. I think we all agree that pi rounds to three, but that still means that the Bible is not the literal truth. I mean, come on: the word "approximately" should have been inserted if they wanted to be perfectly accurate and still write thirty and ten.
So if you take all of the Bible literally, how do you handle things that we KNOW aren't accurate? Like "floodgates of heaven" to explain rain? Or a value of pi that's exactly three? The fact that the Bible pretty explicitly supports a geocentric universe, if you don't allow for any interpretation?
The way I see it, you can't refuse to allow any interpretation. If you do, the book is clearly wrong and therefore it's all suspect. So unless you're really keen on ignoring reality, you need to ask how *much* interpretation to allow. You might disagree with other people on where to draw the line, but that's a very different beast from saying that the Bible is literally true, no interpretation allowed.
Actually, as I understand it, it's more than General Relativity (not SR, mind you) just doesn't combine with Quantum Mechanics well. For small scales with high masses, you need both theories to describe what happens. Either one by itself is insufficent.
QM *does* actually fold in Special Relativity for small scales at high speeds. As far as I know, SR hasn't let us down yet.
Are you joking? If not, could you provide examples of what you mean? I know of no cases of anything going backward in time. Someone -- Hawking, I think -- showed that this would require negative energy. No one is sure if that even makes sense, so...
Yep. As I was putting together my public planetarium show, this issue occurred to me. Basically, hyperspace (as it is often envisioned) just doesn't work. You could go faster there, perhaps, but anything you brought into that space would probably be destroyed since atoms probably couldn't exist. Which sort of negates the point...
Still, that makes for lousy science-fiction, so it's best to ignore the problem.
"Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, appear to transmit information faster than light."
No. Entanglement allows for "spooky action at a distance" (Einstein's words). But, as you go on to point out (but don't actually outright say), you cannot transmit *information* that way. At least not as far as people have been able to show.
Yeah, that would be why I mentioned that the theory could be wrong at the end of the post, I suppose.
And yes, he would want us to test his theory. And we have. Extensively. It's passed every test we've pitched it so far. Which doesn't make it true, just accurate. And we have no reason to think he's wrong yet.
And now that you've brought it up, I probably should mention Alcubierre's warp drive when I talk about Star Trek. (Although I've long since learned that with Trek just think "magic" any time science or technology comes up. It's the only way to keep it form hurting.)
There's a lot of other research that implies that the study that showed that alpha (and therefore c) changes was wrong. There was some stuff done even before the fine-structure work that concluded that c was constant to some fairly absurd precision and follow-ups to that f-s study haven't been able to find the effect that they claimed. So I'm remaining very skeptical of the time-variablity claim for the time being. But that might also be variable:)
Actually, the sound-barrier analogy is misleading. For the speed of sound, people KNEW that things could exceed that speed long before we got planes to do it. The issue was one of technology: could we build a plane to withstand the stress?
For the speed of light issue, it's a different. If you believe Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, you just can't exceed that speed. At least not if you start below light speed and remain in this universe. There's a very clear physical law that prohibits this, not a concern about technology being up to the task.
Of course, the law might be wrong. Or there may be ways of side-stepping it. In fact, I'm giving a whole planetarium talk this very evening on that very issue.
I'm waiting for the day when we can raise the speed of light so we can go faster. Futurama predicted it'd be in 2508, but I'm hoping we get there sooner.
Er, the Kupier Belt Objects (including Pluto) formed in the same disk as the rest of us. Where do you think they formed and from what? And the compositions of these bodies are quite consistent with the rest of the planets, provided you realized that there was a temperature gradient in the disk so that the inner parts were hot and ices couldn't condense out of the gases. (Giant planets only have gas envelopes because they're big enough to. If they had never gotten that large, they'd be made of pretty much the same stuff as Pluto.)
That doesn't make KBOs planets, though. The asteroids also formed in this disk, but major planets they ain't.
Well, you really only have Pluto to draw on for the outer solar system that isn't a jovian planet. There are a few KBOs with moons, but we also know of a LOT of KBOs. (... But we don't *know* how many of those might have moons, I don't think. They're awfully faint.) So it's a big vague. But a very insightful question:-)
The answer is: it's easier to capture objects in the outer solar system because the spheres of influence are larger. To get into the region of space where Earth's gravity dominates over the Sun's, you need to be within 4 times the Earth-Moon distance. For Pluto, it's roughly twice that distance because the scaling increases linearly with distance from the Sun, but only as the cube-root of the mass.
There's more to it than just that, alas. You need to lose energy to capture a moon (note that our Moon was formed in a different way, akin to how Charon probably formed). We're still boggling over that one in the Kupier Belt.
Palpatine wasn't a Jedi, he was a Sith. But I see your point... now that you mention it, we never DID see Palpatine and Shmi in the same place at the same time. Come to think of it, where was Clark Kent when Anakin was conceived? Just wondering...
"Of course it's always possible that Anakins mother lied and Palpatine made Anakin the old-fashioned way..."
Then the best explanation for Anakin then is that his father was the post powerful Jedi around. That's right... Yoda nailed Shmi. Although we might imagine that a step-stool might have been required at times.
Sorry, but I just love watching everyone going looking for mental bleach to remove the mental images. Of course, we can take this joke further, but I'll leave that for everyone to do in the privacy of his or her own mind.
He doesn't run a dictatorship in the court. If you look at the Chief Justice's job description, it's not that much more than the Associate Justices'. If he were as powerful as it was implied, there wouldn't be much point in having other justices.
Actually, I use the BBC website a lot, myself. Also, NPR's site. There are certainly television news stations that do their jobs, but I think we can agree that they're the exception rather than the rule.
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And yet I know some people who do. At least they argue that we should as long as the passages in question support the conclusions that they like.
All I'm saying is that some room for interpretation HAS to be allowed. You seem to agree with that. But given that, you then need to accept that there will be debate about what to interpret and how to do so.
" You're just trying to be a tool."
No, I'm not. But thanks for presuming to tell me what I am thinking. It definitely helps further the discussion, doesn't it?
You're making a straw-man, here. On several levels. First of all, I'm not saying that the entire Bible is wrong, just that you need to interpret it. There's just reasonable way to read it, otherwise. But once you allow for that point, you have to accept that there will be some debate about *how* to interpret it and where the line is drawn. I'm making no attempt to draw that line, merely saying that it's a debateable point.
And no one should be taking your high school textbooks, or any other of those boosk, as the literal word of god. Unfortunately, the claim under discussion here is that the Bible is exactly this and that there is no room for interpretion. (Including allowing for things to be written in more poetic terms or in ways that are metaphorical to help with comprehension.)
And the fact that the period table on your wall lacks elements in no way contradicts atomic theory in any way. At worst, it means that the theory was incomplete when the chart was created. More likely, the chart was simply not expaned to include all of the possible elements that the theory predicts but we've never seen. That in no way compares to a chart that has incorrect information on it, which would be the legitimate comparison.
So, that having been cleared up, would you like to try again. This time, with a reasonable argument rather than name-calling and straw-men?
So why can't Genesis be an allegory if Psalms are, too? Please, tell us how you can definitely tell what's literally true and what isn't. Because that does appear to be the crux of this issue. A lot of reasonable people disagree about which parts are factual and which parts are metaphor. The trouble is, people sometimes see their view as dogmatically correct and cannot even fathom an alternate point of view. Which is why you resort to insults rather than actually adding anything to the discussion, I suppose.
" You can believe the bible to be the inspired word of God and without error while not taking everything literally."
I do believe that you're making my point. The fact that you pretty much HAVE to accept that parts need to be interpretted doesn't make that the whole thing is bunk. It just opens up the debate about how to interpret. But the view that the book is all literally true is untenable and is also too dogmatic to allow for any real discussion.
I'm not arguing with that part of the Bible. Nor am I saying that the entire work is BS. If you read what I wrote carefully, you'll see that all I'm saying is that you need to interpret what's in there. You seem to be agreeing with this without realizing it.
No, but I believe that I am allowed to interpret that expression and that I should take what people says as literally true. Which is the point here, isn't it?
I've read the relevent passages, here. They say what I indicated. Your link provides only hand-waving arguments to the contrary. I think we all agree that pi rounds to three, but that still means that the Bible is not the literal truth. I mean, come on: the word "approximately" should have been inserted if they wanted to be perfectly accurate and still write thirty and ten.
So if you take all of the Bible literally, how do you handle things that we KNOW aren't accurate? Like "floodgates of heaven" to explain rain? Or a value of pi that's exactly three? The fact that the Bible pretty explicitly supports a geocentric universe, if you don't allow for any interpretation?
The way I see it, you can't refuse to allow any interpretation. If you do, the book is clearly wrong and therefore it's all suspect. So unless you're really keen on ignoring reality, you need to ask how *much* interpretation to allow. You might disagree with other people on where to draw the line, but that's a very different beast from saying that the Bible is literally true, no interpretation allowed.
Actually, as I understand it, it's more than General Relativity (not SR, mind you) just doesn't combine with Quantum Mechanics well. For small scales with high masses, you need both theories to describe what happens. Either one by itself is insufficent.
QM *does* actually fold in Special Relativity for small scales at high speeds. As far as I know, SR hasn't let us down yet.
If only we could harness middle-managers for good!
Are you joking? If not, could you provide examples of what you mean? I know of no cases of anything going backward in time. Someone -- Hawking, I think -- showed that this would require negative energy. No one is sure if that even makes sense, so...
Yep. As I was putting together my public planetarium show, this issue occurred to me. Basically, hyperspace (as it is often envisioned) just doesn't work. You could go faster there, perhaps, but anything you brought into that space would probably be destroyed since atoms probably couldn't exist. Which sort of negates the point...
Still, that makes for lousy science-fiction, so it's best to ignore the problem.
"Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, appear to transmit information faster than light."
No. Entanglement allows for "spooky action at a distance" (Einstein's words). But, as you go on to point out (but don't actually outright say), you cannot transmit *information* that way. At least not as far as people have been able to show.
Yeah, that would be why I mentioned that the theory could be wrong at the end of the post, I suppose.
And yes, he would want us to test his theory. And we have. Extensively. It's passed every test we've pitched it so far. Which doesn't make it true, just accurate. And we have no reason to think he's wrong yet.
Yep, that's me. Both nights.
And now that you've brought it up, I probably should mention Alcubierre's warp drive when I talk about Star Trek. (Although I've long since learned that with Trek just think "magic" any time science or technology comes up. It's the only way to keep it form hurting.)
There's a lot of other research that implies that the study that showed that alpha (and therefore c) changes was wrong. There was some stuff done even before the fine-structure work that concluded that c was constant to some fairly absurd precision and follow-ups to that f-s study haven't been able to find the effect that they claimed. So I'm remaining very skeptical of the time-variablity claim for the time being. But that might also be variable :)
Actually, the sound-barrier analogy is misleading. For the speed of sound, people KNEW that things could exceed that speed long before we got planes to do it. The issue was one of technology: could we build a plane to withstand the stress?
For the speed of light issue, it's a different. If you believe Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, you just can't exceed that speed. At least not if you start below light speed and remain in this universe. There's a very clear physical law that prohibits this, not a concern about technology being up to the task.
Of course, the law might be wrong. Or there may be ways of side-stepping it. In fact, I'm giving a whole planetarium talk this very evening on that very issue.
I'm waiting for the day when we can raise the speed of light so we can go faster. Futurama predicted it'd be in 2508, but I'm hoping we get there sooner.
Er, the Kupier Belt Objects (including Pluto) formed in the same disk as the rest of us. Where do you think they formed and from what? And the compositions of these bodies are quite consistent with the rest of the planets, provided you realized that there was a temperature gradient in the disk so that the inner parts were hot and ices couldn't condense out of the gases. (Giant planets only have gas envelopes because they're big enough to. If they had never gotten that large, they'd be made of pretty much the same stuff as Pluto.)
That doesn't make KBOs planets, though. The asteroids also formed in this disk, but major planets they ain't.
Well, you really only have Pluto to draw on for the outer solar system that isn't a jovian planet. There are a few KBOs with moons, but we also know of a LOT of KBOs. (... But we don't *know* how many of those might have moons, I don't think. They're awfully faint.) So it's a big vague. But a very insightful question :-)
The answer is: it's easier to capture objects in the outer solar system because the spheres of influence are larger. To get into the region of space where Earth's gravity dominates over the Sun's, you need to be within 4 times the Earth-Moon distance. For Pluto, it's roughly twice that distance because the scaling increases linearly with distance from the Sun, but only as the cube-root of the mass.
There's more to it than just that, alas. You need to lose energy to capture a moon (note that our Moon was formed in a different way, akin to how Charon probably formed). We're still boggling over that one in the Kupier Belt.
Palpatine wasn't a Jedi, he was a Sith. But I see your point... now that you mention it, we never DID see Palpatine and Shmi in the same place at the same time. Come to think of it, where was Clark Kent when Anakin was conceived? Just wondering...
"Of course it's always possible that Anakins mother lied and Palpatine made Anakin the old-fashioned way..."
Then the best explanation for Anakin then is that his father was the post powerful Jedi around. That's right... Yoda nailed Shmi. Although we might imagine that a step-stool might have been required at times.
Sorry, but I just love watching everyone going looking for mental bleach to remove the mental images. Of course, we can take this joke further, but I'll leave that for everyone to do in the privacy of his or her own mind.
He doesn't run a dictatorship in the court. If you look at the Chief Justice's job description, it's not that much more than the Associate Justices'. If he were as powerful as it was implied, there wouldn't be much point in having other justices.
How did you know how he voted on whether to take the case or not? I don't see it anywhere in the article.
Actually, I use the BBC website a lot, myself. Also, NPR's site. There are certainly television news stations that do their jobs, but I think we can agree that they're the exception rather than the rule.