Big Bene wrote:el_flesh wrote:BB: I have linked several proofs that say otherwise than what you claim.
Where?
You gave four links in total (of course not counting the trillions you posted in reference to the EU vs. Standard model discussion). If I have overlooked one, please correct me:
- http://www.landoverbaptist.org - A clearly satirical site with no claim on seriousnes whatsoever. I actually like it and find it absolutely hilarious. It's very obviousely targeted at fundamentailsts - expecially the small fundamentalist evangelical self-proclaimed "churches" that are so abundant in the US. The whole style of the website, the speech, and of course the topics, are clearly mimicing this kind of "christians".
They are a great source of many things you can do wrong whith misconcepted religion, e.g. when reading the bible literally as a explantation of nature.
In no way does it "proof" that the bible calls a dolphin a fish. - Thomas Figart, who claims a "doctorate": While this is not really a link, you may call it "citing a source". I only have the statement you cite:
"The Hebrew word used here is tachash, which has been defined in a number of ways, including the seal, dolphin, badger, porpoise or manatee". This only tells that a Tachash can possibly be a dolphin, which I never denied. It does not say that the bible calls it a "fish". - http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/signs1.htm: not a thological, historian or otherwise professional site, but just a reference collection of chrstian symbols, from which you cite "Often the dolphin is used to depict the whale of Jonah". The animal in queston is just called a "big fish" (dag gadol) in the book of Jonah, the term "whale" is a false translation by Luther and others. In any case, the medieval artistic renderings of this animal as an oversized version of a dolphin have of course nothing to do with the question if the bible called dolphins fishes.
- http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/12/02/how-many-people-were-killed-as-witches-in-europe-from-1200-to-the-present/: refers to witches, not to dolphins. I already did review this article above.
el_flesh wrote:While a tachash *might* not be a dolphin or a whale, the other cases are correct; focusing on one *possible* misconception doesn't disprove the premise that the entire book is rife with outright bovine waste, errors and hatred. I think Carl Sagan arrived at an even greater number of women killed due to religion in ISBN 0345409469.
It's not so much the point if the Tachash is a dolphin. Probably not, but the possibility remains. The point is that the bible doesn't call it a fish.
But you (and probably many others, since you didn't came up with it yourself, but took it from a source) make a stance that "the bible thinks dolphins are fishes". When someone points out this error and gives a more detailed explantation of the sources in question, you just can't sit back and learn, but give a list of other "scientific errors of the bible", which were totally out of question.
Yes, I'm focusing on one very real misconception (actually two, don't forget the bats), because this was what we were talking about.
You wrote something false. I wanted to correct it.
You gave the dolphins and bats that the bible allegedly calls fishes and birds respectively as an example that:
things aren't always what they look like, not as an example for the supposed bovinewastenes of the bible. It could have been a minor issue.
You widened the scope of the discussion, first listing other (unrelated) "scientific errors" of the bible, then trying a broadside attack on religion in general, up to the witch hunts. While I tried to answer to all that - or most of it, as my time allowed, I will not let you distract from the original subject.
I have neither the money to buy nor the time to read the book you referenced, although I hope I will at some time, as I normally like Paul Sagan. According to Wiki, the book mainly deals with misuse of science and pseudoscience. As I didn't read it, I really can't know what exactly you mean. Does he refer to witch hunts? Does he blame them on religion alone? What numbers does he give actually? What are his sources? In any case, it has still nothing to do with the dolphin problem or other "scientific errors" of the bible, though you cite it in the same paragraph.
el_flesh wrote:I have much more confidence in the estimates of Scientists than I do in historians.
Both scientists and historians have sources to work with and methods to interprete these sources. The result is a model that comes as close to reality as the sources allow, this means as close as we can get. I have confidence in the estimates of a biologist on biology, of a physicist on phisics, and of a historian on history. A scientist dilettating in history has no more credibility to him than a baker holding lectures in astrophysics.
el_flesh wrote:If a government claims that killing people is due to their being witches, you don't get to reassign the reason as you see fit. Whether or not the leader believed it, his minions that carried out his orders did.
I did not do such a thing. I just presented some historic detail.
You linked an article as source whose author wanted to make a claim that standard history downplays the number of victims. Do back this up, he included the Stedingers into his account of the witch-hunts. Other people may read your post without actually following the link or proof-read the article, so I gave some information, so everyone can make his own judgement based on facts. I did not downplay the suffering of the Stedingers or justified the actions of the authorities. In fact, I remember calling it "genocide". I
did say that religion here rather was used as an excuse for material interests, which you can hardly deny, and wich is part of the context of the events. The "minions believing it" is naturally a part of this excuse.
By the way, the Stedingers were not called "witches" by the government. This is of course nick-picking, and I hate how you make me nick-picking by making an irrelevant, but false claim in a subordinate close. The main accusation was "heresy", not "witchcraft". "Fortune telling" was only an addition, and was not, legally or theologically, equalled with witchcraft, as "modern" people may think.
el_flesh wrote:Galileo WAS threatened with actual torture as a punishment for promoting the helicentric model. That is where the "threat" is derived from seeing actual instruments of torture that could be used on you. Seriously - are you going to drop down to BWB's level of intelligence on this one? You don't get to claim how much of a threat Galileo did or did not feel.
Neither do you. You just stated that he was threatened with torture, I put in context. I didn't say this not threatening at all. But knowing that it is just a part of the official procedure is still another thing than being personally and explecitely threatened with torture. How much the difference was in the mind of Galileo, we can't know. But to get an idea, it's better to know the details and circumstances.
el_flesh wrote:The equations work out, and describe reality? Then it is a proof. You don't get to declare what is a description and what is a proof; Science and Mathematics will do that.
Kopernikus did give a mathematical description of a simplified version of the orbits of the then known planets around the sun. As it was based on observation, it was clear that it worked out and described reality. It did not predict anything back then and it did not explain how and why the planets would move according to these mathematical rules, i.e. he could not provide a set of underlying rules that were simpler than just a complete description of the observated events and that would lead to these events. Newton's gravity model did provide such rules. Only after this one could really say that the Heliocentric model explains the observations "simpler" or with "fewer assumptions" than the geocentric one. This is of course only referring to the movement of the planets in principle, not to details that were not known to Kopernikus, but discovered before Newton, like the Venus phases.
As I already said, there was vivid research and discussion in this matter, agents of the church taking part on both sides, and we all know it lead eventually to the general acceptance of the heliocentric system. On this path, the Venus phases and the Galilean moons were strong indices for the heliocentric model, but not proofs, as they still could be explained (and
were explained, by scientists, not by the church) by a modified version of the geocentric model, the one presented by Tycho Brahe beeing the most popular. To call it a load of whatever-fecal-word-you-prefer is way over the top.
el_flesh wrote:You demonstrate a lack of knowledge of geometry and astronomy to claim that [the obove mentioned observations are proofs of the geocentric model].
Where did I make such a claim?
el_flesh wrote:The Geocentric model was insisted on by the church because it appears in the bible.
Other than referring to the visible path of the sun in phrases as "the sun goes up/down" or "the sun moves through the sky", as we still use today, the bible does not make any statement about the relative movement of sun or earth. Some people, agents of the church and others, interpreted this as a support of the geocentric model, others didn't. The church did not insist on the geocentric model. In fact, it accepted the heliocentric one as a means of calender calculations long before academical researchers did. Some books supporting it were found inappropriate and put on the index, but not all of them and not for this reason alone.
el_flesh wrote:Bruno read Copernicus. In Copernicus' book there are the data and proofs. How would you know if he understood them or ignored them? Whether he saw them as proof of what he already thought, or whether he advanced his ideas based upon Copernicus's proofs, he was burned alive for his ideas. You don't get to declare what Bruno believed or didn't believe; the things he wrote about it might declare that, might not. I sure as hell won't take what the lying, weaseling church claimed he said at face value!
I don't have to, I can read his own works. And while I can't look into his head, I can make a fair guess on his reasoning about the heliocentric model when I put it in context of his worldview, for wich I only have -oops, his own word. Of course, you can't look into his head, either. But still, you mentioned him in the first place, trying to make him a matyr of science. Well, we can't really know for sure. We have to work with the source we have. And those sources, by his own hand, point heavily in the direction of him not being really interested in astronomy, but accepting the heliocentric system just because it fits his theology.
Well, I've wasted too much time on this again.
I officiall will restrict myself on only looking into this thread twice a week from now on.