do you believe in god?

[liveforphysics]

A fractal is something you can analyze mathematically, and get precise info on the rate of direction change, branches, etc.

You can copy the Grand Canyon fractal pattern down to a very small margin of error by dropping a shovel scoop of wet sand of the proper consistency from a few feet up. lol

Other fractal patterns:
Lightning

Electrical discharge

 

[julesa]

Don't get me started on carbon dating... lol Don't tell them it's an Allosaurus leg bone they are dating, they come back telling you it's 16,000 years old... Submit the same sample, tell them it's an Allosaurus bone, they date it to 140,000,000 years back... lol Carbon dating is pretty effective for organic material inside about a 3,000year old window, and if that material hasn't had exposure to variables like other carbon sources etc during the 3,000 year period.

Exposure to other sources of carbon could only make organic material seem younger, not older. They test how much C14 is left since it decays into N14 at a known rate, and organic material absorbs C14 from the atmosphere while it's alive. Less C14=older, so it's pretty unlikely you'd be able to find anything that was actually 5000 years old and dated to 50,000 years. Where did all the C14 go?

Edited to add: The C14 half life is something like 6000 years, so it's quite accurate to dates a lot farther back than 3000 years. Once you start getting older than 50K years, yeah it gets a lot harder to measure the C14 precisely enough to be accurate. Where did you get the idea it's not accurate beyond about 3000 years?

 

[alan]

[youtube]JeUEzM7hsmY[/youtube]

Forgive the diversion. It's a pet interest.

This video is about believable as young earth creationists:
- It mater-of-factly states the width of the Bay of Marineris (Valles Marineris) is greater than that of the United States of America. Marineris is 4000 by 200 Km (2485 by 124 miles). The continental US is 4313 by 2546 Km (2680 by 1582 miles). Marineris is less wide, and far less high than the US, but that is not the impression in this video.
- It says Marineris is a "recent historical opening." This is meaningless and misleading, and entirely based on letting the stupid theory determine the facts (no science based facts are found here).
- It says it will show the closing of the gap "without using any tricks" followed by nothing but video tricks. Pure and simple tricks. Saying no tricks implies you are seeing it without any doctoring of of the actual video. There is no actual video. It is 100% video simulation on a photograph, which is 100% trickery.
- It says it is "simply pulling all the pieces together using a logical and sensible path." Once again, "logical and sensible" only as a trick to prove the theory. He is just creating his own facts to fit his own ridiculous theory. Nothing simple about the video simulation, nothing logical about the twisting and sliding of imagery such that the formations are selectively chosen to stay or fade so as to create the illusion. Nothing sensible about this at all.
- It says it is "not changing shapes [...] or deforming [shapes]" when that is EXACTLY how the video is made.

He is using the science of earth plate tectonics and applying it to a martian rift, and doing it in ways the science does not support. That the simulated imagery fits the ridiculous theory is then the "proof" that the erosion theory is wrong. I won't get in to the misstatements made about erosion theory, except to point out that it is ludicrous to assert erosion must leave the opposite edges of a rift with substantially different shapes.

No different than the magician who says "nothing up my sleeves" when he has something up his sleeves. Pure nonsense narrated with lies.

-- Alan

 

[michaelplogue]

SCIENCE: "There are many things for which we do not have an answer...... Until we do."

RELIGION: "We know all the answers, and that answer is 'God.' "


.

 

[Canis Lupus]

This video is about believable as young earth creationists:
- It mater-of-factly states the width of the Bay of Marineris (Valles Marineris) is greater than that of the United States of America. Marineris is 4000 by 200 Km (2485 by 124 miles). The continental US is 4313 by 2546 Km (2680 by 1582 miles). Marineris is less wide, and far less high than the US, but that is not the impression in this video.
- It says Marineris is a "recent historical opening." This is meaningless and misleading, and entirely based on letting the stupid theory determine the facts (no science based facts are found here).
- It says it will show the closing of the gap "without using any tricks" followed by nothing but video tricks. Pure and simple tricks. Saying no tricks implies you are seeing it without any doctoring of of the actual video. There is no actual video. It is 100% video simulation on a photograph, which is 100% trickery.
- It says it is "simply pulling all the pieces together using a logical and sensible path." Once again, "logical and sensible" only as a trick to prove the theory. He is just creating his own facts to fit his own ridiculous theory. Nothing simple about the video simulation, nothing logical about the twisting and sliding of imagery such that the formations are selectively chosen to stay or fade so as to create the illusion. Nothing sensible about this at all.
- It says it is "not changing shapes [...] or deforming [shapes]" when that is EXACTLY how the video is made.

He is using the science of earth plate tectonics and applying it to a martian rift, and doing it in ways the science does not support. That the simulated imagery fits the ridiculous theory is then the "proof" that the erosion theory is wrong. I won't get in to the misstatements made about erosion theory, except to point out that it is ludicrous to assert erosion must leave the opposite edges of a rift with substantially different shapes.

No different than the magician who says "nothing up my sleeves" when he has something up his sleeves. Pure nonsense narrated with lies.

-- Alan

What about this one of Europa, Alan? I'm just going to try and find any support for his claim in the video that NASA thinks it is a tectonic spread also.

[youtube]hH_5SFHXSzo[/youtube]

 

[alan]

What about this one of Europa, Alan? I'm just going to try and find any support for his claim in the video that NASA thinks it is a tectonic spread also.

The author and NASA are in agreement about the image shown representing tectonic spread. The author just adds unsupported assertions about why. He poo-poo's any possibility of subduction, as though the idea of subduction itself is nonsense. Nothing interesting presented here, scientifically speaking.

As an aside, the images contain so many lines, that it is not hard to identify some major lines that will properly align when photoshoped to close the spread, but if you pause on the example he shows at the end, you can see more of the smaller lines do not align than those that do. There is an optical illusion of near perfect alignment when you first see the animation, however. This does not mean anything, as there are many reasons that the sides could match even if tectonic spread did not cause the gap, or for the images to not align even if tectonic spread did cause the gap.

-- Alan

 

[Malcolm]

These tools think things like the grand canyon was caused by erosion... It's clearly a fractal pattern of silt being rapidly drained, NOT an erosion pattern.

Why shouldn’t erosion produce a fractal pattern? Flowing water by its very nature forms self-repeating patterns. You can find them on the beach too: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Erosion_Fractal_In_Beachsand.jpg

They have fossils of muscles and other modern marine lifeforms on the top of the Himalaya mountain range, and yet by the dating process...

The Himalayas are relatively young mountains, formed only 70 million years or so ago from an ancient seabed. Why shouldn’t there be mussels there?

 

[Canis Lupus]

The mystery of Valles Marineris, there's something in it for everyone.

Most researchers agree that Valles Marineris is a large tectonic "crack" in the Martian crust that formed as the crust rose in the Tharsis region to the west, and was subsequently widened by erosional forces. However, near the eastern flanks of the rift there appear to be some channels that may have been formed by water or carbon dioxide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valles_Marineris

 

[Canis Lupus]

SCIENCE: "There are many things for which we do not have an answer...... Until we do."

RELIGION: "We know all the answers, and that answer is 'God.' "


.

Science (pseudo): "We know all the answers ... the solution is accident and randomness"

Religion: "There are many things for which we do not have an answer ... humility in the face of something greater is not a vice."

 

[julesa]

I'm still waiting to hear about why carbon dating is supposed to be inaccurate beyond 3000 years. Surely there's some reasoning behind that statement?

 

[liveforphysics]

I'm still waiting to hear about why carbon dating is supposed to be inaccurate beyond 3000 years. Surely there's some reasoning behind that statement?

Loads of reasons. One of them being the distribution and creation of the very c14 being tested for. Its created when a nitrogen atom in the upper atmosphere gets hit with the right form of radiation from the certain types of sun activity. The rate of c14 creation vs c14 consumption and half-life decay is offset by somewhere between 28-35% depending on who's studies you want to trust.

Secondly, solar activity, magnetic pole shifts, jet stream activity etc all effect distribution of c14.

There are many other issues related to testing for the 1 in 1 trillion concentration levels as well, but you can google that stuff yourself.


Best Wishes,
-Luke

 

[julesa]

I'm still waiting to hear about why carbon dating is supposed to be inaccurate beyond 3000 years. Surely there's some reasoning behind that statement?

Loads of reasons. One of them being the distribution and creation of the very c14 being tested for. Its created when a nitrogen atom in the upper atmosphere gets hit with the right form of radiation from the certain types of sun activity. The rate of c14 creation vs c14 consumption and half-life decay is offset by somewhere between 28-35% depending on who's studies you want to trust.

Secondly, solar activity, magnetic pole shifts, jet stream activity etc all effect distribution of c14.

There are many other issues related to testing for the 1 in 1 trillion concentration levels as well, but you can google that stuff yourself.


Best Wishes,
-Luke

The concentration levels explain why it's pretty useless beyond about 50,000 years. C14 levels in the atmosphere do fluctuate, but those fluctuations are accounted for with the calibration curves derived from data taken from deep marine sediment cores, coral samples, tree rings, and other sources.

You said, "Carbon dating is pretty effective for organic material inside about a 3,000year old window, and if that material hasn't had exposure to variables like other carbon sources etc during the 3,000 year period."

I'm wondering what you think happens around the 3000 year mark to make it transition from "useful, if not perfectly accurate, tool," to "laughably useless." since 3000 years is less than the C14 half life period and there's a long ways to go before you're having any measurement difficulties.

 

[alan]

Do you know there are like 300 prophecies about Christ that were fulfilled?

I stated some specific problems with some prophecies above, but it seems I was more confusing then enlightening. Let me try the 50,000' view of this issue, as I see it.

The Old Testament (OT) is supposed to contain words from God relayed through Prophets which contain prophesies that describe specifics about the coming Messiah. The prophesies proclaim that a savior is coming to save mankind, that saving mankind means ending all war, all hunger, and all disease, and that this Messiah will be recognized by fulfillment of many of the various prophesies that will uniquely identify him. The New Testament (NT) proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah described by the OT Prophets with supporting proof of this being that He fulfilled all of those prophesies.

Any problems with the above overview of the prophesies of Jesus in the Bible?

This raises some questions for me:

1) Since the fundamental reason for the OT prophesies of a savior was to end all war, famine, and pestilence, and since we still have war, famine, and pestilence 2000 years after Jesus died, doesn't that disprove Jesus was the Messiah?

2) The NT claims that Jesus will return to finish his job, and that his second coming will be within about 80 years (before the generation of people alive when he was crucified are all dead). Since that NT proclamation is over 1900 years past due...

3) The NT claims that Jesus fulfilled the clearly identified OT prophesies (with wording like "you have heard it said the Messiah will come and He will ..."), and the specifics of the NT retelling of the prophesies correspond pretty uniquely to specific verses in the OT. However, most of those OT verses read a bit differently. Some refer to history and not prophesy. Some include additional prophesy that Jesus clearly did not fulfill. Some are so vague or trivial that nearly everyone alive at the time of Jesus fulfilled them. Where are the "good" OT prophesies that Jesus miraculously fulfilled?

4) If a savior came to earth and really did end war, hunger, and disease, why would anyone need to know he was named Immanuel, or that he rode an ass, or that he did 300 other insignificant things? More importantly, why are those 300 other trivial things more important than the fact that Jesus did not end war, hunger and disease; not then, or 100 years later, or 2000 years later?

-- Alan

 

[Canis Lupus]

Alan, by asking such well thought out and expressed questions, do you think a fundamentalist will be led anywhere? Fundamentalist Christians already deny most of the world's religious and spiritual experiences as being a waste of time at best, including some who call themselves Christian, at worst it is the work of Satin, including those of by-gone eras - what hope then for your query?

I've always been intrigued why fundamentalists put so much importance on the historical-physical perspective of the Bible when it supposed to be about spiritual matters. Whether there was a historical Christ or not, makes little difference to me in determining whether the New Testament is spiritually true or helpful.

 

[michaelplogue]

........at worst it is the work of Satin, ......

Damn that Satin to Hell!!!.....

 

[alan]

Alan, by asking such well thought out and expressed questions, do you think a fundamentalist will be led anywhere? [...] - what hope then for your query?

There are the inerrant fundamentalist Christians, and there are very liberal relativist Christians. Your question suggests all Christians are in one of these two extremes. I pose my question to the believer who is capable of discussing his religion intelligently. I happen to think this target is the majority of Christians, if not the headline grabbing, Loud Spoken, too large minority of extremist fundies. Probably not too dissimilar to the ratio of islamist radicals to the average Moslem.

-- Alan

 

[julesa]

I've been checking back here periodically to see if LFP has answered my question yet...

 

[EMF]

........at worst it is the work of Satin, ......

Damn that Satin to Hell!!!.....

I never thought of Satin as a man of the cloth....until now.

 

[El_Steak]

Maybe its because he loves to get down 'n dirty with Saddam in satin sheets...

 

[Canis Lupus]

I must order myself some sheets.

 

[EMF]

Nah, I just checked out your sig link. If you are going to order something... :wink:
http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-Sleeve/dp/B002HJ377A
Hahahha! Check out the comments if you never have seen this before. They're pretty funny.

 

[Canis Lupus]

Hahahha! Check out the comments if you never have seen this before. They're pretty funny.

The video on the page was also entertaining. Apparently the t-shirt has the ability to raise people from the dead - among other things. Surely, a must have, at least as bed clothes, when slipping in between satan sheets at night.

[youtube]QPB45AUmchM[/youtube]

Here's a good comment from the page:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything it was supposed to be!
How can words describe the power I feel upon donning THE shirt? Truly I am revealed as the god I've always hidden inside. All things are possible!

Talking about God:

Alan, by asking such well thought out and expressed questions, do you think a fundamentalist will be led anywhere? [...] - what hope then for your query?

There are the inerrant fundamentalist Christians, and there are very liberal relativist Christians. Your question suggests all Christians are in one of these two extremes. I pose my question to the believer who is capable of discussing his religion intelligently. I happen to think this target is the majority of Christians, if not the headline grabbing, Loud Spoken, too large minority of extremist fundies. Probably not too dissimilar to the ratio of islamist radicals to the average Moslem.

-- Alan

I think you are reading too much into my post by concluding I think Christians are either of one of two extremes, especially as I don't even understand one of those extremes, "liberal relativist Christians". Could you explain to me the meaning of that term, Alan?

I tend to think that most Christians are fundamentalists. It is the minority who are not. Usually, but not always, it comes down to literal interpretations of the Bible, particularly this verse:

""I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

The usual interpretation of this verse by Christians, which views the "I am" referred to as a historical-physical figure (a superman archetype seen in many movies), means most Christians are fundamentalists. It's just that some are not as vehement about pressing their points, tending more to value politeness and manners. Push them hard enough though, they are, in their thinking, every bit as literal, physical and fundamental as any fire and brimstone preacher. Fundamentalism comes in different forms. "Creationalists", (or is it, "creationists") who believe the universe or world is between 6000-10000 years old are just one type.

But back to "Christian relativists": I'm sure out there such a thing exists, but does it make any sense? I don't know what it means, but at first glance it appears to be a contradiction. How can a relativist be a Christian or anything else which values objective truth?

 

[alan]

I think you are reading too much into my post by concluding I think Christians are either of one of two extremes, especially as I don't even understand one of those extremes, "liberal relativist Christians". Could you explain to me the meaning of that term, Alan?

I tend to think that most Christians are fundamentalists. It is the minority who are not. Usually, but not always, it comes down to literal interpretations of the Bible, particularly this verse:

Let's start with this definition of fundamentalism:
1. a form of Protestant Christianity that upholds belief in the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible, including its narratives, doctrines, prophecies, and moral laws.

Conversely, if you are a Christian, and do not believe that everything in the Christian Bible (OT and NT) is strictly true, then, at least for the parts you do not think are strictly true, you are a relativist. Here is a fair, but not great definition of relativist:
1. Any view that maintains that the truth or falsity of statements of a certain class depends on the person making the statement or upon his circumstances or society.

OK, the adjective relativist applied to Christian is not a perfect fit for what I meant, so let me try again. On the one extreme end of Christianity is the Fundamentalist, as defined above. If one is not a Fundamentalist Christian (FC), then I would say such a Christian is "non-fundamentalist." I would call the extreme opposite of a Fundamentalist within the ranks of Christian a Very Liberally Relativist Christian (VLRC). To the FC, the Bible is absolute Truth as the FC understands what it says. To the VLRC, any aspect of Christian doctrine may be doubted, to the extent that most would wonder why the VLRC considers themselves Christian.

I don't find either the FC or the VLRC very interesting, and doubt that either represents a majority of Christians. My earlier questions about prophesies were not intended for either extreme, but for the non-fundamentalist. I am curious what the rest of the Christians think about this problem in the NT and OT. If one is relativist enough, it probably is not an issue. If one is more fundamentalist, then I suppose I am just a devil trying to trick them. That still leaves a large group of Christians that I do not understand, but would like to better understand.

-- Alan

 

[lesspedal]

I began praying when I got into ebikes.

 

[zenon]

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