Bisqwit,
What is your favorite book of the Bible?What is your favorite verse in the Bible?
What book of the Bible do you think is the most important?
Edit: Found answers to the first 2 on page 9. Thank goodness I started looking from page 1 instead of page 72
Found answers to the first 2 on page 9. Thank goodness I started looking from page 1 instead of page 72
Good thing you found them: I had to see it myself, as well. I had no idea what my anwers were. I guess I had a rather generic answer. If I had to answer today, I am not sure what my answer would be -- whether it would be different. I've grown fond of the so called "old" testament, i.e. Hebrew writings, lately, and I find usually myself reading more of it than the "new" testament. Just recently I have been fascinated with Ezekiel 20, for instance.
ledauphinbenoit wrote:
What book of the Bible do you think is the most important?
Today, I'd say Genesis. It contains everything important; everything that comes thereafter is already shown in Genesis. Or so I hear -- I am only beginning to find the extent of the veracity of that claim. But I cannot possibly see any other part of it as more important...
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Someone in the IRC channel linked to a reddit page discussing your recent video about your NES emulator.
In that page, someone linked to this.
I read it a bit and noticed this sentence
Where the Bible says that something happened, that something indeed happened.
There are a few things I'd like to discuss but I don't remember most of them now, except this one. It's a pretty obvious question and I'm sure you've stumbled upon it before.
In Genesis 1:3-5, during the 1st day, God creates light, and even calls it 'day' (and there was evening and morning too).
Pretty cool, but according to Genesis 1:14-19 he only creates the sun, moon and stars on the 4th day
Shall we assume that, on the 1st day, God created some sort of flashlight...?
Of course, the written description comes from the perception of a human observer (prophet).
Therefore not only has He created some sort of artificial light source, but also some device (an hourglass?) that allowed the prophet to measure time (evening and morning, he writes) without the sun, moon or stars.
What's your view on that? Did it really happen?
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
In Genesis 1:3-5, during the 1st day, God creates light, and even calls it 'day' (and there was evening and morning too).
Pretty cool, but according to Genesis 1:14-19 he only creates the sun, moon and stars on the 4th day
Shall we assume that, on the 1st day, God created some sort of flashlight...?
Obviously, God did not create the sun, moon and the stars for the purpose of providing light, but for some other reason (to indicate times and seasons). There was light even when there was only waters and God's voice. Today, we know from science that it is possible for there to be light even when there is nothing but water and sound. Look up sonoluminescence. (Not to say that that's what God did, he might have just as well provided raw light by willing the light into existence.)
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
also some device (an hourglass?) that allowed the prophet to measure time (evening and morning, he writes) without the sun, moon or stars.
There was no prophet to measure time before a human was created, and by then, everything else was already in place for the first Shabbath. And we can safely assume God can measure time perfectly without any devices.
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Bisqwit wrote:
Obviously, God did not create the sun, moon and the stars for the purpose of providing light, but for some other reason (to indicate times and seasons).
It's not just obvious, it's explicit: "And God said: 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;"
Bisqwit wrote:
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
also some device (an hourglass?) that allowed the prophet to measure time (evening and morning, he writes) without the sun, moon or stars.
There was no prophet to measure time before a human was created, and by then, everything else was already in place for the first Shabbath. And we can safely assume God can measure time perfectly without any devices.
Indeed, that's also further there: "And God said: 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;"
Meaning there already was day and night, but now we're getting indicators for mankind.
pirate_sephiroth: All these questions of yours are well covered by practically every commentary on the bible. Instead of just reading some version with the text itself, get a commentary which answers all these obvious questions.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Obviously, God did not create the sun, moon and the stars for the purpose of providing light, but for some other reason (to indicate times and seasons). There was light even when there was only waters and God's voice. Today, we know from science that it is possible for there to be light even when there is nothing but water and sound. Look up sonoluminescence. (Not to say that that's what God did, he might have just as well provided raw light by willing the light into existence.)
Taking the Genesis story completely literally is problematic because it contradicts almost everything that is known as, for all intents and purposes, facts by science. The most prominent one is that either the formation of the solar system as we know it today took several billions of years, or God created it in an instant and made it look like it's billions of years old using all possible ways of measuring it (for reasons unknown). Among other things, he would have had to make star light from very distant stars and galaxies reach the Earth in an instant, make all radioactive materials on Earth decay the precise amount to make all of them agree on the age of the Earth, and so on.
If we accept that the solar system was formed in the slow way, then it's also justified to assume that it formed in the natural way that star systems form: The central star forms by accretion of nebular material, and material that ends up orbiting the star accretes to form planets. We also would have to accept that most visible stars are much older than our Sun (IIRC the Sun is estimated to be a "third-generation" star; iow. a star that formed from the remnants of stars which formed from the remnants of primordial stars, the ones that first formed after the Big Bang; there are many reasons why this is a justified hypothesis in astrophysics). In other words, the Sun and the stars were formed way before the Earth.
The order in which animals were created in the story is also contradictory to what we find in sedimentary layers. If the story is literally true, then God would have had to deliberately create fossils in their proper sediments and consistent ages to make it look like the Earth and its lifeforms are billions of years old, and that older lifeforms are relatively simpler than newer ones. If not, if all animals were created in a matter of days, we would find all types of animal fossils in all sedimentary layers (rather than there being a clear order), or if "day" means something much longer but otherwise the order of creation is accurate, we would find animals in the wrong sedimentary layers (such as birds below land animals).
Why does the genesis story have to be taken so literally? Other parts of the Bible are not taken literally either. If they were, then you would think that Heaven is full of sheep.
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Warp wrote:
Taking the Genesis story completely literally is problematic because it contradicts almost everything that is known as, for all intents and purposes, facts by science.
That's just the problem of science. The current paradigma sucks hard.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Warp wrote:
Taking the Genesis story completely literally is problematic because it contradicts almost everything that is known as, for all intents and purposes, facts by science. The most prominent one is that either the formation of the solar system as we know it today took several billions of years, or God created it in an instant and made it look like it's billions of years old using all possible ways of measuring it (for reasons unknown).
The story itself tells us about Adam who on the day he was born was commanded certain things, named animals, his wife, and ate fruit. Obviously he was born as an adult not as a baby.
It stands to reason that at that point, the rest of the universe was in "adult form" too.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Yeah, I don't really see how this is worth discussing. The Bible is full of "everything goes as planned" and "everything is intended this way", and speculating on the point of its authors knowing way less about how things work than we do now is pointless because the defense is absolute. How do you argue against the absolute defense? You don't.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Warp, you seem to underestimate God a lot. They can do anything. They could have looked at things as they were then, decided they weren't yet quite done, so they created the big bang in the past, thereby elegantly creating the universe in the then. The way I read Genesis, God have always been independent of time as we know it, but during creation they focused on a specific point in space (the Earth) and time (~6000 years ago) and tweaked the surrounding 4 dimensions (or more) till they saw that it was good. There's no need for them to forge evidence, that's truly ridiculous and only the Satan would do that.
The only thing I don't take quite literally is the word "day". To me, it rather seems to be corresponding to a day in God's reference frame and not in ours. The seventh day hasn't ended, they saw that it was good, so this is still their seventh day of resting. Else, we wouldn't be here. They saw everything, all the times, all the places, decided it had been good and they could rest, and now we are here. Them resting doesn't mean you can't reach and talk to them though or that they don't interfere at all anymore, they aren't exactly sleeping, just resting. Not that I believe in any of this, but this is my reading.
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Nach wrote:
Indeed, that's also further there: "And God said: 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;"
yeah, that's pretty nice as well... EXCEPT that was said on the 3rd day. Days were been counted before day and night could be defined.
moozooh wrote:
How do you argue against the absolute defense? You don't.
Indeed it's impossible for knowledge to overpower imagination, but I like to see people struggling to create a forced answer.
But anyway my favourite thing in this story is how seriously people take this fable... why do they believe it? Because it was apparently written (or actually, 'recorded') like, 3400 years ago (or so the catholic church made it look like it was) and also millions of people believe it therefore it can't be false
The bigger the trick and the older the trick, the easier it is to pull, because they think it can't be that old... they think it can't be that big... for so many people to have fallen for it.
So in a couple thousand years there will be people believing Dragon Ball, Final Fantasy and Super Mario Bros. were prophetic visions and they'll make their beautiful cults about those ancient (and therefore true) stories.
Goku died for your sins, by the way.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
There's no need for them to forge evidence, that's truly ridiculous and only the Satan would do that.
The genesis story says that birds were created before land animals, and that sea life and birds were created at the same time, yet all the evidence points to the contrary. Either the genesis story is figurative, not literal, or God deliberately made the world look like it contradicts the real events.
What puzzles me is why so many Christians so desperately cling to the genesis story being literal. Why does it have to be literal? There are lots of parables and figurative text elsewhere, and people don't have any problem with them. But the genesis story? It must be literally exact! Some even go so far as to claim that God deliberately made the world look different than what is described in the genesis story, just to confuse non-believers. (In other words, it's more plausible that God is deliberately deceiving people than it is that the genesis story is figurative.) Why?
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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Nach wrote:
Indeed, that's also further there: "And God said: 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;"
yeah, that's pretty nice as well... EXCEPT that was said on the 3rd day. Days were been counted before day and night could be defined.
That's exactly what the text says if you read it closely.
To make it clearer: "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to [visually] divide the day from the night"
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
The genesis story says that birds were created before land animals, and that sea life and birds were created at the same time, yet all the evidence points to the contrary. Either the genesis story is figurative, not literal, or God deliberately made the world look like it contradicts the real events.
I assume Warp is talking about the fossil record, which has life starting in the oceans, proceeding from there onto the land, and only then moving into the air. That would make concurrent creation of air and sea creatures difficult.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
God just tucked some of the animals He created under the carpet layers of soil and rock, and arranged them into patterns as He saw fit. There.
(I think I'm getting the hang of this now...)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I assume Warp is talking about the fossil record, which has life starting in the oceans, proceeding from there onto the land, and only then moving into the air. That would make concurrent creation of air and sea creatures difficult.
In that case, how exactly have they come up with a chronological order of fossil records?
Carbon dating?
I assume Warp is talking about the fossil record, which has life starting in the oceans, proceeding from there onto the land, and only then moving into the air. That would make concurrent creation of air and sea creatures difficult.
In that case, how exactly have they come up with a chronological order of fossil records?
Carbon dating?
They made some assumptions about the universe, life, etc. (like the idea that they came about purely by naturalistic means or that life progressed from "simple" to "complex" forms); interpreted observations they made in light of those assumptions (e.g., rocks with "simpler" forms of life are older than those with more "complex" forms); and interpreted further observations based on the earlier stuff (e.g., fossils show aquatic life, then terrestrial life, then aerial life, so life started in water, then moved to land, and then started flying).
Ideally, the assumptions and earlier interpretations should be changed or even discarded when incompatible observations come up, but that may not happen due to concerns about reputation, popular opinion, and many other sources of bias.
Yeah, carbon dating is a nice red herring. "Yardsticks are so unreliable after a few dozen yards, how can anyone claim to have accurately measured the size of earth?"
Besides, your link is attempting to disclaim measurements of absolute ages, not about relative ages (i.e. "this fish is older than that mammal").
Deeper rock beds tend to be older than the ones above, because there are very very few methods to lift a couple of layers of rock, neatly push a newer layer in between, then settle it down and walk away nonchalantly. God could have done so, but if so he failed to mention it in his instruction manual.
There's also relative measurement. If I find this species A right next to a species B, chances are both creatures existed during the same age.
And of course evolutionary connections. We know that mankind has more similarities to apes than fish, so we can draw a line between those species in the tree of evolution. Doing so often enough, and we can find common ancestors and create rough timelines of who came first. But of course creationists don't like talking about the mutated elephant in the room.
No, I'm not a geologist, evolutionists, biologist or anyone with expertise on these fields. I can't judge the evidence about an upper bound for the age of the earth. But I can judge a paper by the bullshit factor, i.e. the amount of fallacies and handwaving in comparison to actual arguments.
My favourite gems from the thing you linked:
When a ‘date’ differs from that expected, researchers readily invent excuses for rejecting the result. The common application of such posterior reasoning shows that radiometric dating has serious problems.
Application of posterior reasoning is indeed more common than the author of that pdf cares to admit. He accepts the bible as truth, and attempts to fit all observations into that truth, ignoring those that don't fit. This whole paragraph is a very amusing statement about the colour of kettles.
The atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admitted:
‘Most of what I learned of the field [evolutionary biology] in graduate (1964–68) school is either wrong or significantly changed.’
Most of what I learned in the field of [computer science] in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or significantly changed. Is that unusual in *any* field of science, especially those that benefit from the invention of microchips?
Supernova remnants (SNRs) should keep expanding for hundreds of thousands of years, according to the physical equations. Yet there are no very old, widely expanded (Stage 3) SNRs, and few moderately old (Stage 1) ones in our galaxy, the Milky Way, or in its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds.
Our radio telescopes have not yet found any old, widely expanded stage 3 SNRs in our galaxy, thus they cannot exist.
Our radio telescopes have not yet found god, thus he cannot exist either.
The conclusion is either premature, or there's a crucial step missing in this argumentation: why would you expect telescopes to have found them?
Basing this claim on a paper from 1994 is very suspect. 1994 was the first year where Hubble actually worked. It's not surprising that older, less bright SNRs couldn't be found using the technology back then.
In either case, he acknowledges the existence of supernova and accepts the current scientific research as true by citing their expected duration. Then surely he also accepts the current scientific research for the creation of supernova, which requires a star going through much of his lifecycle, thus being at least a few million years old (hey, it's the same formulas!). Another lower bound for the age of the universe is his mention of the magellan clouds, being 200.000 light years away, yet clearly visible to us. Or the milky way itself, some ten thousand light years from us to the furthest star.
On the other hand, he claims evidence that "the world is really only a few thousand years old". What'd I miss? Why wouldn't he have lost any last bit of credibility at this point?
There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old Earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old.
There are many anomalies in current scientific results, which instantly invalidates everything every "evolutionist" scientist has ever said about the age of anything. There are also a few anomalies that might be construed in a way that's compatible with the bible, so we'll use them as evidence for creation (see also quote #1).
A prominent argument is that natural constants, such as c could have changed over time, citing evidence that it has already changed since its first measurement.
In that case, how exactly have they come up with a chronological order of fossil records?
When sedimentary layers are studied, they are pretty consistent: Lower layers consistently contain certain types of fossils that upper layers don't, and vice-versa, and this throughout the world. The mineral contents of these layers are also often pretty consistent. The formation of sedimentary layers is pretty well understood in geology. The only possible rational conclusion is that there were only certain types of animals in existence when those layers formed, and no animals of much lower or much higher layers.
The radiometric dating of crystallized igneous rocks is pretty reliable (with an error margin of about 1%), contrary to the lies that young-earth creationists spout. The reason for this is that the contents of a crystallized rock are preserved superbly, and they do not get contaminated. The formation and contents of such rocks is also pretty well understood, because it can be measured and tested both in nature and in a lab. (You can go and measure rocks created in volcanic eruptions that happened last month, 100 years ago and a thousand years ago, from all around the world, and verify that the content of radioactive material vs material they decay into is consistent. You can also pretty accurately measure the half-life of such materials.)
A layer of crystallized lava is a pretty good timestamp in geological strata. It's pretty certain that layers under it are older and layers over it are younger. (Sometimes geological changes cause sediments to fold, making them vertical and even invert them, but these cases can be traced and determined.)
Do not believe the lies and distortions of young-earth creationists. They are no different from any other conspiracy theories. They use all the same tactics of cherry-picking, building straw men, misinterpreting and distorting science and evidence to try to justify their arguments. None of it holds any credibility when you examine them further.
Kuwaga wrote:
A prominent argument is that natural constants, such as c could have changed over time, citing evidence that it has already changed since its first measurement.
I find it amusing that some creationists argue how the natural constants have been "perfectly fine-tuned for life to be possible", yet others claim (without any evidence, of course) that natural constants have changed. So which is it? They can't get their story straight.
There's no compelling evidence or any reason to believe that c has ever changed. And even if it had, it would have to had changed really drastically in order to make the light from galaxies which are billions of light years away reach the Earth in a few thousand years. That's like six orders of magnitude in difference. That's such a humongous change in such a short period of time that c would still be measurably changing today. Or are these creationists going to explain why c isn't changing anymore?
I find it deeply insulting nobody has challenged my excellent claim.
Tub wrote:
If I find this species A right next to a species B, chances are both creatures existed during the same age.
I think I've found a great way to troll future generations of geologists: take a few modern-day items, take some dead people, visit an excavation that exposes items from another era, and bury the dead with the modern-day items. Repeat throughout the world.
A few hundred years from now, future geologists will find ancient remains right next to early 2000s' ones and won't be able to solve this conundrum!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
A prominent argument is that natural constants, such as c could have changed over time, citing evidence that it has already changed since its first measurement.
Well, that might address the "x light years away" lower bound, but not the higher lower bound[1] of "the age of a star going supernova".
In either way, the challenge would then be to:
put forth a theory of the initial values of these constants, and how they changed over time
apply those constants to the formulas of GR and QM and see which results you're getting
Check whether those results contradict any existing observations, like the temperature of the CBR. If so, go back to step one or give up.
Check whether those results make any verifyable predictions that current theories don't.
Verify them.
Depending on the results, either sulk or gloat.
That's how science works. So far, I haven't even seen step 1 being done in a coherent way (but then again, I don't frequent literature labeled as "creationist".)
Until that's done, any claims about changes of natural constants are merely excuses to dismiss unpleasant evidence.
[1] Yes, I said "higher lower bound" while still being semantically correct. Hah!
I find it deeply insulting nobody has challenged my excellent claim.
Let's say that the universe is in fact only a picosecond old. Everything up to one picosecond ago was carefully set up by God to seem just as if the current time were a perfectly natural result of those initial conditions.
Does it matter?
In other words, a god that "lies" by "artificially" setting everything up in an apparently completely natural way is functionally equivalent to no god at all.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
