If taken strictly literally than one has to ask if John really said "tie" or "carry", and that one of the two authors is lying. The point is that they can both be right only if NOT taken literally. Hence your use of the word "conditions". The fundamental idea Matthew and Luke were trying to get across is that as important a personage that John was, John openly considered himself of much lesser worth than Jesus. However, that is not a literal reading. That is a reworded surmising.
An earlier reply by nedlohs, using KJV, shows that the "firmament" has both fowls and stars in it. That is consistent with the Catholic New American bible.
In general, I agree with you. Being wrong doesn't make anyone anti-science. The problem is that the SS theory was found to be flawed once Hubble, Einstien, and Lemaitre settled on the BB, way back in the late 40s and early 50s. Hubble's evidence was incontestable even then. The Wikipedia article on Hoyle now states that Hoyle did not have problems with an expanding universe, only it's interpretation, but that is not true. It was Hoyle that invented the term Big Bang and on his radio show he used it in a very mocking way. He was using his credentials as an excellent scientist, and the presentation of his show as science, to put down what he saw as a religion backed theory.
Unless? Really? Your link leads to a 600BC Greek writing, showing that the Greeks of that day thought of it. The originally intended audience existed far, far before that. Even King David was roughly 1000BC! Besides, Genesis speaks of the columns of the earth, which clearly indicate that they thought the earth was held up by columns.
---Genesis doesn't say crap about an atmosphere or about astronomical bodies.
Huh? Several people, including myself, have already pointed out the relevant scriptures.
You need to know that each of your implications of what the Bible says is totally untrue. You are simply repeating lies. Your knowledge of scriptures seems extremely limited, but yet you make horrible pronouncements and attribute them to the scriptures. If there is something that you said that you think is accurate, please provide the publisher (NIV, NAS, KJV...), and the chapter and verse, as was done by myself and by the others of this thread.
As far as redefining fundamentalism, the Catholic church, for one, has been teaching the fundamentals of Christianity for nearly 2000 years. They are decidedly not literalists. If you cannot see the difference between fundamentalism and literalism there is not much I can say to you.
To me, the question "Why should such an ambiguous system be used?" is fundamental -pun inteneded.
Take a literal look at the two passages below, as reported by two different writers, about what John the Baptist said.
Matthew 3:11: whose sandals I am not fit to carry
Luke 3:15: I am not worthy to tie his sandals.
Obviously they cannot both be right. Is one of our saints lying? Are they remembering as best they can? Is this really ambiguous?
The answer to me is that they original authors were getting across the overall message that John thought that Jesus was much greater than he. The words the authors used to get across that message are just not that relevant.
Now apply that reasoning, in prayer, to Genesis. What is the message of the original author, as it would be understood by the originally intended recipients.
Looking for the intended message is a good, not a bad. God never said he did not use imagery..
In the first place, Jesus never mentioned anything about any scientific topic. It was a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître, that most pushed for the big ban theory, which was advanced science in that day. It was the atheists that were anti-science then, with their now-debunked "Static" theory. The anti-science business we are dealing with now is strictly a reaction to the theory of evolution. Those who want to take the Bible strictly literally need a 7 day creation. If the theory of evolution is correct - which I believe it is - then creation could not have been done in 7 days. At rock bottom, they know their experiences with God are real, so they just cannot understand why science says what it says. They think they have to chose between God and science.
There are also no "columns of the earth" that are holding up the earth. And, in spite of what Jesus said, there are no "four corners of the world" or "ends of the earth". The people of the day had no idea we live on a globe. I believe that if God can create all that is, he can create scriptures that speak to men of all ages. Once I got over the idea that the Bible had to be taken very literally, a whole new set of understandings came to be.
Genesis 7
God made the dome, and it separated the water below the dome from the water above the dome. And so it happened.
Genesis 8
God called the dome “sky.” Evening came, and morning followed—the second day... skip some verses..
Genesis 14
Then God said: Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the seasons, the days and the years,
Genesis 15
and serve as lights in the dome of the sky, to illuminate the earth. And so it happened:
Genesis 16
God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night, and the stars.
Fundamentalists (Read: believes in the fundamentals of Christianity) such as myself applaud such rulings very loudly. Our scriptures - Genesis - clearly portray the sun, moon and stars being in our atmosphere. If you really want to take the creation accounts literally, you cannot say "Oh, we know not to that that literally". But that is exactly what many literalist Christians say. Why do you then insist that you have to chose between science and a seven day creation?
CP/M was the OS in our computers when I got my masters degree in the mid 80s. It in no way was even close to DOS. DOS was so much different and better that I cannot imagine anyone even thinking that CP/M was used as the base for DOS. And DOS caught on because DOS was sold by MS at half the price of the closest rival. I remember thinking back then: "yeah for Microsoft".
To all those who like to attribute to all Christians the extremist anti-science that perhaps 10% of us US Christians believe, please stop that. The result of such misleading is that you wind up with page upon page of people who know no better writing the same tired how-stupid-can-they-be responses. This thread is a perfect example of that.
I do agree that fear of the bible being wrong - and the concomitant possibility of their being no God - is the motivator behind most of the extremism. It is the same fear as in the day of Galileo. I would like to give the example because it highlights the root of most of the nonsense.
If the earth rotated around the sun, it meant that the earth was not the center of God's creation, and hence neither was man, which seemed quite logical. That seemed against the grain of the bible. Christians knew from personal experiences with God that He did indeed exist. The possibility of the bible being wrong therefore did not seem plausible, hence science must be wrong. The particular topics of today might be different, such as evolution, but the intransigence of some Christians to not look at evolution has the same root. Fear of confusion about God.
There are a much larger number of Christians who have doubts about evolution because they are not educated about it, and they are not interested enough in the subject find out about it. That is not whacky. That is simply a matter of having more to do in their lives. The mechanism God used to bring us into being is something they are simply not interested in. As a fundamentalist Christian (read: not a word-by-word literalist), I felt the need to read up on it in the last few years only because it seemed just a little too important to a few of my brethren. I was not stupid before I became educated about evolution. Nor was I fearful that it might be true. I simply did not care.
There is probably an even larger number of Christians who believe that evolution is true without reading up on it. I do not know if the great majority of people, atheists included, take the time to read up on such things, but I tend to doubt it. In any case, those Christians, too, have had personal experiences with God, and they also read the bible. They also hear science accepting evolution. These Christians see no conflict, so they accept it, too.
One very big problem is some of the Christian literalists that throw up convincing but bogus science about evolution. They, like the authors of most of the posts/responses in this thread, start with untrue assumptions about what most of the "other side" believes, and then spends page after page showing how whacky the original assumptions are.
I have to wonder if the same thing is happening in the Muslim world.
I also do not think it is Neweggs fault. I purchase a hardware a lot, and often from Newegg. They are one of the few outfits I trust. Twice in the last 6-8 years they refunded my money without too much of a hassle. One time because I received a "lot of" 10 usb drives that were waaaay too slow to be usb 2.0. Their supplier stood by their product and wrote a BS response, but Newegg saw through the BS and gave me my money back.
Two things wrong with the original explanations. 1)... it takes 160 days because... Wrong! Prior to computers, companies processed multinational paperwork in a single week. The cause is exactly as you have stated. 2) How many years to process a patent application? Wrong! It has already been 3 years for my software piracy application number 11678137, and the person assigned to it told me a month ago that it would be another two years before it gets looked into!!! I could pull my hair out over it, but there is nothing I can do.
I love bringing this patent application up. There are different ways of preventing software piracy, including the one applied for below. No points for guessing why I love writing about it. It is effective antipiracy without the overreaching DRM.
USPTO Application Number 11678137
Basically, each and every copy of a protected program gets it's own internal intelligence, interpretable only by itself, which includes time of program creation, etc., etc.. The only hitch is that each copy of the program must be compiled or otherwise created at the time of purchase. Also, the maker must keep track of each and every set of created special software in case the user emails in that he needs to reinstall. Perhaps even the purchasers name would be included as part of the intelligence. The number of permissible occurrences of requests for new key codes, say, 5 times, can be controlled by the program maker. If a pirate cracks the code for that single copy of the program, still, it will work only for that copy, and only in the time frame tat the internal intelligence says it can be installed.
The upshot is that program maker gets money, the purchaser can own it, install on more than one computer in his home, again within a day or so, and new key codes can be obtained in case of needed reinstalls, a reasonable amount of times.
There are alternatives to preventing software piracy. There are already companies that offer to wrap a developers code within their code, that will help prevent software piracy. A quick search of "Software Piracy" at the uspto (patent and trademark web site) will show my own pending alternative. There are (and will be more) choices to a single, over-arching lock in. We may think Linux is a hit, but over 95% of the world uses Windows or Apple operating systems. What we really need is to pass laws making it illegal for an operating system company to produce the applications that run on them. Each early iteration of the then superior Word Perfect would absolutely *not* run on each successive iteration of earlier Windows. Yet the Microsoft applications did. 2+2=4. With such a law, the OS developers would not, and could not, try to lock people into their own store-made DRM. Developers could go with the software piracy prevention method of their choice, and not have to worry about any tie-ins with the people who owned the road.
There are other ways to prevent software piracy without requiring constant internet access. Look up "Software Piracy" at the patent application section of the patent office. I have at least one proposal of my own. There are others. For one thing, having to go on line prevents parents with multiple children from enjoying multi-computer games with them. Allowing Big Brother to monitor what parents are doing with their children, or allowing what their children do, cannot be the right way to do this.
I work for a large company whose policy is ALWAYS to run the hard drives from old pcs though a magnetic eraser. They are then thrown away. It is the most cost effective way to dispose of them. People at home typically throw out their entire PC, hard drive and all, now don't they?
I agree. Microsoft will not be left without a good Product Activation scheme. z4 technologies and CHRISM Software are both very small companies with radically different product activation schemes. If worse came to worse Microsoft could just buy one of them out and incorporate the technology.
Slashdot Mirror
If taken strictly literally than one has to ask if John really said "tie" or "carry", and that one of the two authors is lying. The point is that they can both be right only if NOT taken literally. Hence your use of the word "conditions". The fundamental idea Matthew and Luke were trying to get across is that as important a personage that John was, John openly considered himself of much lesser worth than Jesus. However, that is not a literal reading. That is a reworded surmising.
An earlier reply by nedlohs, using KJV, shows that the "firmament" has both fowls and stars in it. That is consistent with the Catholic New American bible.
You are right. I will guess that we watched the same NOVA DVDs. I love being able to get them online!
This is kind of nit-picking, so I will stop here.
Unless? Really? Your link leads to a 600BC Greek writing, showing that the Greeks of that day thought of it. The originally intended audience existed far, far before that. Even King David was roughly 1000BC! Besides, Genesis speaks of the columns of the earth, which clearly indicate that they thought the earth was held up by columns.
Huh? Several people, including myself, have already pointed out the relevant scriptures.
You need to know that each of your implications of what the Bible says is totally untrue. You are simply repeating lies. Your knowledge of scriptures seems extremely limited, but yet you make horrible pronouncements and attribute them to the scriptures. If there is something that you said that you think is accurate, please provide the publisher (NIV, NAS, KJV ...), and the chapter and verse, as was done by myself and by the others of this thread.
As far as redefining fundamentalism, the Catholic church, for one, has been teaching the fundamentals of Christianity for nearly 2000 years. They are decidedly not literalists. If you cannot see the difference between fundamentalism and literalism there is not much I can say to you.
Take a literal look at the two passages below, as reported by two different writers, about what John the Baptist said.
Matthew 3:11: whose sandals I am not fit to carry
Luke 3:15: I am not worthy to tie his sandals.
Obviously they cannot both be right. Is one of our saints lying? Are they remembering as best they can? Is this really ambiguous?
The answer to me is that they original authors were getting across the overall message that John thought that Jesus was much greater than he. The words the authors used to get across that message are just not that relevant.
Now apply that reasoning, in prayer, to Genesis. What is the message of the original author, as it would be understood by the originally intended recipients.
Looking for the intended message is a good, not a bad. God never said he did not use imagery..
In the first place, Jesus never mentioned anything about any scientific topic. It was a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître, that most pushed for the big ban theory, which was advanced science in that day. It was the atheists that were anti-science then, with their now-debunked "Static" theory. The anti-science business we are dealing with now is strictly a reaction to the theory of evolution. Those who want to take the Bible strictly literally need a 7 day creation. If the theory of evolution is correct - which I believe it is - then creation could not have been done in 7 days. At rock bottom, they know their experiences with God are real, so they just cannot understand why science says what it says. They think they have to chose between God and science.
There are also no "columns of the earth" that are holding up the earth. And, in spite of what Jesus said, there are no "four corners of the world" or "ends of the earth". The people of the day had no idea we live on a globe. I believe that if God can create all that is, he can create scriptures that speak to men of all ages. Once I got over the idea that the Bible had to be taken very literally, a whole new set of understandings came to be.
Remember, God is here calling the "dome" sky. (verse 8) See http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/1
Fundamentalists (Read: believes in the fundamentals of Christianity) such as myself applaud such rulings very loudly. Our scriptures - Genesis - clearly portray the sun, moon and stars being in our atmosphere. If you really want to take the creation accounts literally, you cannot say "Oh, we know not to that that literally". But that is exactly what many literalist Christians say. Why do you then insist that you have to chose between science and a seven day creation?
CP/M was the OS in our computers when I got my masters degree in the mid 80s. It in no way was even close to DOS. DOS was so much different and better that I cannot imagine anyone even thinking that CP/M was used as the base for DOS. And DOS caught on because DOS was sold by MS at half the price of the closest rival. I remember thinking back then: "yeah for Microsoft".
To all those who like to attribute to all Christians the extremist anti-science that perhaps 10% of us US Christians believe, please stop that. The result of such misleading is that you wind up with page upon page of people who know no better writing the same tired how-stupid-can-they-be responses. This thread is a perfect example of that. I do agree that fear of the bible being wrong - and the concomitant possibility of their being no God - is the motivator behind most of the extremism. It is the same fear as in the day of Galileo. I would like to give the example because it highlights the root of most of the nonsense. If the earth rotated around the sun, it meant that the earth was not the center of God's creation, and hence neither was man, which seemed quite logical. That seemed against the grain of the bible. Christians knew from personal experiences with God that He did indeed exist. The possibility of the bible being wrong therefore did not seem plausible, hence science must be wrong. The particular topics of today might be different, such as evolution, but the intransigence of some Christians to not look at evolution has the same root. Fear of confusion about God. There are a much larger number of Christians who have doubts about evolution because they are not educated about it, and they are not interested enough in the subject find out about it. That is not whacky. That is simply a matter of having more to do in their lives. The mechanism God used to bring us into being is something they are simply not interested in. As a fundamentalist Christian (read: not a word-by-word literalist), I felt the need to read up on it in the last few years only because it seemed just a little too important to a few of my brethren. I was not stupid before I became educated about evolution. Nor was I fearful that it might be true. I simply did not care. There is probably an even larger number of Christians who believe that evolution is true without reading up on it. I do not know if the great majority of people, atheists included, take the time to read up on such things, but I tend to doubt it. In any case, those Christians, too, have had personal experiences with God, and they also read the bible. They also hear science accepting evolution. These Christians see no conflict, so they accept it, too. One very big problem is some of the Christian literalists that throw up convincing but bogus science about evolution. They, like the authors of most of the posts/responses in this thread, start with untrue assumptions about what most of the "other side" believes, and then spends page after page showing how whacky the original assumptions are. I have to wonder if the same thing is happening in the Muslim world.
I also do not think it is Neweggs fault. I purchase a hardware a lot, and often from Newegg. They are one of the few outfits I trust. Twice in the last 6-8 years they refunded my money without too much of a hassle. One time because I received a "lot of" 10 usb drives that were waaaay too slow to be usb 2.0. Their supplier stood by their product and wrote a BS response, but Newegg saw through the BS and gave me my money back.
Two things wrong with the original explanations. 1) ... it takes 160 days because ... Wrong! Prior to computers, companies processed multinational paperwork in a single week. The cause is exactly as you have stated. 2) How many years to process a patent application? Wrong! It has already been 3 years for my software piracy application number 11678137, and the person assigned to it told me a month ago that it would be another two years before it gets looked into!!! I could pull my hair out over it, but there is nothing I can do.
I love bringing this patent application up. There are different ways of preventing software piracy, including the one applied for below. No points for guessing why I love writing about it. It is effective antipiracy without the overreaching DRM.
USPTO Application Number 11678137
Basically, each and every copy of a protected program gets it's own internal intelligence, interpretable only by itself, which includes time of program creation, etc., etc.. The only hitch is that each copy of the program must be compiled or otherwise created at the time of purchase. Also, the maker must keep track of each and every set of created special software in case the user emails in that he needs to reinstall. Perhaps even the purchasers name would be included as part of the intelligence. The number of permissible occurrences of requests for new key codes, say, 5 times, can be controlled by the program maker. If a pirate cracks the code for that single copy of the program, still, it will work only for that copy, and only in the time frame tat the internal intelligence says it can be installed.
The upshot is that program maker gets money, the purchaser can own it, install on more than one computer in his home, again within a day or so, and new key codes can be obtained in case of needed reinstalls, a reasonable amount of times.
There are alternatives to preventing software piracy. There are already companies that offer to wrap a developers code within their code, that will help prevent software piracy. A quick search of "Software Piracy" at the uspto (patent and trademark web site) will show my own pending alternative. There are (and will be more) choices to a single, over-arching lock in. We may think Linux is a hit, but over 95% of the world uses Windows or Apple operating systems. What we really need is to pass laws making it illegal for an operating system company to produce the applications that run on them. Each early iteration of the then superior Word Perfect would absolutely *not* run on each successive iteration of earlier Windows. Yet the Microsoft applications did. 2+2=4. With such a law, the OS developers would not, and could not, try to lock people into their own store-made DRM. Developers could go with the software piracy prevention method of their choice, and not have to worry about any tie-ins with the people who owned the road.
There are other ways to prevent software piracy without requiring constant internet access. Look up "Software Piracy" at the patent application section of the patent office. I have at least one proposal of my own. There are others. For one thing, having to go on line prevents parents with multiple children from enjoying multi-computer games with them. Allowing Big Brother to monitor what parents are doing with their children, or allowing what their children do, cannot be the right way to do this.
I work for a large company whose policy is ALWAYS to run the hard drives from old pcs though a magnetic eraser. They are then thrown away. It is the most cost effective way to dispose of them. People at home typically throw out their entire PC, hard drive and all, now don't they?
I agree. Microsoft will not be left without a good Product Activation scheme. z4 technologies and CHRISM Software are both very small companies with radically different product activation schemes. If worse came to worse Microsoft could just buy one of them out and incorporate the technology.