At the last couple of talks I’ve given out here on the west coast, I’ve begun by introducing the appalling ignorance and illogic of creationist arguments. I think I have a new favorite example.
To summarize: God ordered the soldiers of the Hebrews to march around Jericho 6 times on 6 days, which means they would have traversed 6 * 360°, or 2160 degrees. The moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles. Therefore, God exists.
Bonus points! If you argue that the Hebrews would not have used “miles” as units (although I would have first pointed out that degrees and any linear measurement aren’t directly comparable), that’s just proof that God knew about English units 3,000 years before they were invented. Therefore, God exists and knows everything.
Poe’s Law! I saw that video and thought for sure it had to be a spoof, until I saw it was from VenomFangX, one of the more infamous youtube creationists, and that it has a lot of comments praising his “logic”.
This twit deserves a 2,160 miles long collective moon. Pants down folks!
Ugh. I recognized his voice before I even scrolled down far enough to read his name. Venomfangx
I find this kid to be one of the creepiest creationist I have ever encountered. His arrogance is palpable and he matches that with the typical lack of intellectual honesty and abililty to reason.
I’ve seen a few of his videos on youtube, all of which are closed to any dissenting comment or rating, and all of which are full of insane babbling.
No, no no. SIX times in SIX days, as ordered by Yahweh in Joshua SIX = 666. Therefore, the Bible is clearly of The Beast told of in Revelation 13:18.
QED. I have spoken.
My head hurts…. is it too early to start drinking?
Well the only reason he only has comments praising his “logic” is because of two things. First, he has sock puppet accounts that he uses to both comment on his own videos as well as run up the rating before disabling it. Second, he censors all of the comments, so if anyone were to post something that would dare refute his points, you can bet your life that the “offending” comment will not be there for long.
You might want to look at Thunderf00t’s channel where he has spoken about this IDiot at length. Also, his video series “Why Do People Laugh At Creationsts?” is quite good in its own right. His channel can be found here.
You were right to call B.S. on this one PZ. It’s well known that Bob uses the metric system because it’s based on tens and God clearly has ten fingers and ten toes because we’re made in his image.
I don’t wanna watch. It’s wednesday, it’s the middle of the week, that day sucks by default and I Don’t want it to suck more. But by reading your explanation… Um…
God uses miles? I don’t think I ever saw miles in the bible.
So, to combine this with the previous post, scientists are not allowed to “interpret” fossils, but fundies can make giant leaps like this?
The human body is 70% water and the earth’s surface is 70% water. No wonder the human menstrual cycle is synchronized with the phases of the moon. Except when it isn’t.
He who lives by the argumentum ex culo… probably needs a mental colostomy bag.
(I have no idea what that means. It just sounded good.)
In the Book of Exodus, God gave ten (10) commandments to Moses. Scientists today have determined that VenomFangX has ten (10) letters in his nickname.
Coincidence? God does not work through coincidence.
It’s no worse than laminin proving god exists because it has a shape that can be construed as “cross shaped.”
Weren’t you asking for the strong arguments for God, PZ? I think these are as strong as any Plantinga conjured up out of his anachronistic metaphysics.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I knew Venomfang from way back on the IMDB message boards. He used to post on The Passion of the Christ board back when it was a popular debate venue. He used many of the same bad arguments back then (he considers himself a student of Kent Hovind) and used to get reamed pretty hard. However, like most creationists, he was utterly impervious to reason and would tune out all criticisms. The ability to moderate or censor comments on YouTube must tickle him to no end. He’s also got a little dictator in him screaming to get out.
Of course he does. God is an American!
Heathen, how can you doubt that self-evident truth?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I also immediately recognized it was VenomFangX by the voice. No one else quite has that mixture of complete stupidity and arrogant pride in his superior intellect that has to suffer explaining such simple concepts to complete morons (ironic, eh?).
Another one of his arguments is that water exists nowhere else in the Universe, ergo God made the Earth solely for Man. Yes, he says H20 exists only on Earth.
I thought that, among the historical facts one ‘can’ derive from the bible- Jericho was an abandoned city when Joshua arrived. Perhaps it was the original Straw Man.
Wow, free movies on the internet, even though they are pure insane crap! Even insane crap can be entertaining which only proves all the more our threshhold for the dregs of the brain.
@74westy: “No wonder the human menstrual cycle is synchronized with the phases of the moon. Except when it isn’t.”
Mine is 38. I scoff at the moon!
What kind of idiot uses VenomFangX as a screen name? It sounds like a rejected GI Joe.
According to radius of the moon listed on Wikipedia (I know, I know), the calculated diameter of the moon is actually 2158.7577 miles. Even if you use the equatorial radius for the calculations you get 2160.0602. So my question for VFX would be, “what is the exact distance traveled by the Hebrews? If it isn’t exactly the same, then…
Wait, I forgot that reason and logic don’t apply in instances like these. My bad.
silly creationist, logic is for everyone!
(unfortunately you are unable to use it)
Actually, it was seven times around Jericho, not six.
“Another one of his arguments is that water exists nowhere else in the Universe, ergo God made the Earth solely for Man. Yes, he says H20 exists only on Earth.”
*howls with laughter* Okay that made up for my lack of advil!
Be:
That’s sort of beside the point. You still need a radius as well as an angular measurement to make a meaningful comparison. Vanity of vanities, all is strained metaphoric vanity.
I was recently exhorted to view a vid at “thefirmament.org”, which went into exactly this sort of crap. The sun is 864,000 miles in diameter (except it isn’t), and Noah’s ark, if you assume cubits were two feet, and multiply the length times the width to get the area (gee. . . awfully flat ark Noah built, isn’t it?) you get 8,640,000. Oh. . . you cared about units? That’s 8 and a half million inches.
I was told all of this would “definitely change my mind” and that it “proved the Bible to be scientifically accurate”.
Yikes.
The human colon is shaped like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. And “colon” has five letters. Add one and you get six, which is the number of days required for Creation. Q.E.D.
Ah yes, Venomfangx. He is notorious for posting really, really brain-dead videos on youtube, and deleting each and every comment that is, in any way, remotely critical.
thunderf00t has raked this bozo over the coals quite thoroughly in his “why do people laugh at creationists” videos.
Water only on Earth? Where did he get that idea? Considering there’s ethanol and HCN in the interstellar medium, I find it unlikely that water wouldn’t be there too. Even if I didn’t know water was fairly abundant out there…
Blech. One of the basic results of statistics that everyone needs to take into account in critical thinking and going through your daily life, is that coincidences happend more often then you think.
Brian
I don’t know, that moldy peanut butter video sets the bar awfully high…
once a day for 6 days. and seven times on the seventh day. they marched around jericho thirteen times. i haven’t seen evidence that creationists can count, let alone do basic math.
Ah, yes, logic, as in:
P1: [Incredibly strained coincidence.]
C1: Therefore, God.
Other than that, I’m at a loss for words.
“2 objections I’ve received 1) They marched 6 times around the city in 6 days, then an additional 7 times on the 7th day 2) The diameter of the moon in 2159 not 2160. Both of these objections totally miss the point! Joshua 6:14 ” So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.” The 7th day is clearly distinct from the 6 days, as the scripture clearly separates them. Also, 2159 vs 2160 miles is simply nit-picky beyond reason.”- VenomFangX
SCREW YOU CONSISTANCY!
yeah VFX, really puts the “k” in home skooled.
This one is the best I’ve seen yet.
From Ted Talks:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ORYKKNoRcDc
Clearly, this fellow is an idiot.
Unfortunately, that never stopped any of the other apologists from talking, and it probably won’t stop him.
Oh well.
Oh great, another reason to bring up the “circle of the Earth” argument again.
Too bad for this VenomFangX idiot that while the Hebrews may have covered a cumulative 2160 degrees, they did not walk 2160 English miles, and their marching (however far it was) would have been a practice of traveling the (nearly exactly circular?) circumference of the city, not the diameter, which is a straight line. The circumference of the moon is over 3 times 2160 miles.
VFX = EPIC FAIL
Ahem. Book of Joshua, chapter the sixth, verses twelve through seventeen:
“3,000 years before the mile was invented by the English”
YES!!!
Daniel: While I know I could easily check on my own, please tell me that even VenomFangX didn’t write that…
Brian
You know, I was disinclined to believe that argument until I saw that it was endorsed by cartoon characters.
3. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
OK, that’s 6 times: once-a-day for 6 days.
4. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.
And that’s 7 times in one day.
I’ve checked this in several different bibles and it’s once a day for six days and 7 times in one day for a total of 13 times.
Now, 13*360=4680, which is (almost exactly) the rotational speed of the moon in metres per second.
Proof that a random atheist can invent numerological bullshit… and do it better than a creotard.
He censors the comments. Not all hope is lost.
Forget the complex arithmetic. The fact that the sun’s disk is perfectly covered by the moon’s during a total solar eclipse is proof enough of God.
here is some real creation science from Hovind spawn:
http://www.youtube.com/user/thecreationguys
listen as Eric hovind teaches about intellectual honesty
I highly recommend that anyone wanting to get a better idea of just how poorly educated VenomFangX is could do no better than to watch this rebuke by a Christian Doctor:
(Venomfangx response by DonExodus2). Also, DonExodus2’s videos on evolution (in particular his intro) are interesting and full of details. Pity he’s a Christian still, but you can’t win them all.
If someone responded with a video like that to something I’d made, I’d be shamed out of existence. Won’t stop VFX though.
ash
Re: my #42 s/metres/millimetres/
Doh!
To answer the title of this blog post…
Yes. It is very stupid.
As Ed would say, this is another episode of simple answers to simple questions.
Glad I could clear that up for ya, PZed. =)
Any other questions?
@Brian X
In addition to water in other bodies of the solar system (Europa is the clearest example, but Jupiter and Saturn also have water ice clouds) astronomers do find water molecules in interstellar clouds, along with the molecules that you cited. For example, water masers (like lasers, but in the microwave) are detected in star forming regions and around super massive black holes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysical_maser
Oh, and who can forget comets!
You came here to have your brain fried by creationist nonsense, but you learned something about water instead :-)
Regarding video: LOL, *cry*, and don’t deface Tiny Toons!
And thus we learn that Système Internationale is indeed decadent and ungodly!
BUT BUT BUT the distance from the poles to the Equator is EXACTOMUNDO 10 000 km! Take that! G-D clearly works in metric!
Oh, and circumference != diameter, duh… So they didn’t go around the moon, they cleverly went through it in order to walk it’s diameter?
Whoa, good point on #42
I can distill the existence of god down to three letters:
Yep.
Take that, VenomMuscleCrusaderHeroXXX!
To summarize: God ordered the soldiers of the Hebrews to march around Jericho 6 times on 6 days, which means they would have traversed 6 * 360°, or 2160 degrees. The moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles. Therefore, God exists.
Actually the moon has a diameter of 1/4 earth. The soldiers were off by 2,159 and 3/4 earths.
Therefore, free pizza!
None of you are exhibiting the kind of awe VenomFangX probably thinks his name deserves.
It probably took him a long time to think up, he no doubt hugged himself with glee, possibly committed the sin of Onan (who I think got a really raw deal) when he settled on it, so be nice.
Hmmm… Well, I don’t think it manages to prove Gawd or anything like that… But it certainly proves this fellow needs better video editing skills.
Also, to use Tiny Toons in such a way!
I think I’m gonna cry. :(
I hope not. I’ve got half an ass full already.
The thing is, in my drunken stupor, I’ve noticed some suspicious characters around here. They may be pawns of VenomWangX…
So, Brian X and 386sx?
I’ve got my eye on you… I’d better not see any shenanigans.
We need to “belive” god is speaking to us in our time. And we can still prove the existence of god with this story. Venomferangy just forgot to add the days. 13 circuits x 360 = 4680. Now this has to be Kilometers, because why would god only include miles. He needs to prove he knew bout both systems. Now convert Kilometer to Miles and you get 2908 miles.
And we all know this is pretty damn close to the driving distance of 2927 miles (god knew the interstate system too, duh) of The Blue Moon Tavern and Grill in Portland Oregon and the University of Florida which has a sycamore tree that was once a seed aboard the Apollo 14 mission to… the MOON!!!
Therefore God Must Exist. Who else would have known of NASA, a cold beer and a good road trip in 1400 B.C.
Refreshing this blog page, I note that the top link says:
“Now on Scienceblogs: Growing Brain Cells to Treat Depression. A clinical trial”
Do you think we could maybe have those folks ship some spares to VenomFangX and his compatriots? Maybe they can do some examination into teh Stoopid as well? I mean Depression is important and all, but surely it is nowhere near as prevalent as just plain dumbosity?
JC
2160 miles? How many bananas (the perfect fruit shaped to fit human hands) does that work out to be? I bet it something even more mystical and god-proving-like.
The thing is, in my drunken stupor, I’ve noticed some suspicious characters around here. They may be pawns of VenomWangX…
So, Brian X and 386sx?
I’m not a pawn of VenomFangX, but I do think he’s playing a joke on people though! He can’t be serious with all that stuff he posts. You never know though. (I guess.)
Looks to me like this number 2160 is an astronomical/astrological) reference. This is how many years it takes for the Earth to precess through one house of the zodiac.
Since religoid nonsense is mostly bastardized from astronomy/astrology I expect many such “magic” numbers can be found in the Bible as well as other mythological texts.
Forget the complex arithmetic. The fact that the sun’s disk is perfectly covered by the moon’s during a total solar eclipse is proof enough of God.
Sh! Don’t tell Kenny!
Ugh, VenomFangx. At best, he’s good for a chuckle. Tf00t and many others take him to task well enough.
with all do respect Mr. Myers. i love your blog and what you’re doing to criticize creationism and intelligent design. but i think you’re wasting your time (as well as your reader’s time, including mine) addressing “appalling ignorance” of some creationists. if you look close enough there are a lot of stupid videos out there on different topics whether be it religion, politics, spirituality, new age, or cooking.
what i want to see is intelligent discussion or debate on religion, science, and philosophy between people like you, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, or Robert Thurman, to name a couple of them.
for example, here’s what Taleb says about religion.
“Scientists don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about religion. Religion has nothing to do with belief, and I don’t believe it has any negative impact on people’s lives outside of intolerance. Why do I go to church? It’s like asking, why did you marry that woman? You make up reasons, but it’s probably just smell. I love the smell of candles. It’s an aesthetic thing.”
Take away religion, he says, and people start believing in nationalism, which has killed far more people. Religion is also a good way of handling uncertainty. It lowers blood pressure. He’s convinced that religious people take fewer financial risks.
here’s what Thurman says about religion. in essence he agrees with the “New Atheists” but note that Thurman is a western Buddhist monk.
“Today, we are in this situation where religious fundamentalism has reared its ugly head all over the planet. It’s very dangerous and it isn’t just as simple as Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins writing some big blast that religion is all crazy.
“It’s very important that the clash of these ideas happen in a dialogue form. The department is creating a new center for the critical study of the world religions, which will be a place where basically we’ll go after the fundamentalists.”
what say you?
it’s one thing to make fun of stupid creationist videos. that’s so easy. it’s another to have real conscientious discussions with people who are as intelligent and evolved as you but don’t necessarily agree with your views on religion.
my two cents.
~C
You scoffers, remember god had his highest success with the moon. When he wrote his book of books he kind of screwed up with the relative motions of the sun, all the planets and stars to the earth, but he got the moon right!! It does rotate around the earth.
Coupled with this new revelation of rotations of Jericho = diameter of the moon how can you continue your unrelenting to-hell condemning campaign of derision?
Oh yea the Romans defined the mile (1000 Romans paces, 2 steps). God was only 1200 years ahead.
I love Venom, he is pure entertainment. I usually comment on his videos in a rather sarcastic way so I can get my comment through his filter:
Stepididntsee: “Woah, how could that be in the bible if it isn’t true? These atheists are getting very desperate totally twisting logic! They latch on to anything to prove their “theory” just because they wish it to be true.
God bless you Venom.”
He says he has only been a Christian for 2 years but he must have really jumped in head first. All of his Kent Hovind arguments have been debunked over and over by Thunderfoot, Donexodus, and Angry Atheist. However he still just keeps on going, lying through his teeth because he feels he is justified as long as he’s saving souls.
I’m worried about him a little. After watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFYBmBB-7pE you just have to wonder what is going on in his mind. He dresses up as batman and pretends that he is “Allah” … in case you don’t feel like watching it.
God bless you Venom, god bless you.
Oh … my … god …
I can only conclude someone else made this up as a joke and this clueless guy didn’t realize it was a joke and posted it in seriousness with his label on it.
I mean it *reeks* of satire.
Um, is the moon’s diameter 2,160 miles?
No, but He is English. After all, isn’t the King James Version the one true Bible”?
I knew it was VenomFangX as soon as he opened his mouth and I was in for a load of virulent stupidity. He didn’t disappoint either. Unfortunately, that’s probably more rational than some of the nonsense he has up on YouTube, but it demonstrates the kind of wishful thinking that creationists use to “prove” their case.
The only good VenomFangX does is show the common man just how stupid theists are.
~C4Chaos, there are many different kinds of posts around here, you should poke your head around and see its not all just kooks.
All the benefits of religion can be gained in other ways. You know what they say, the drunk person is happier than the sober person, anyway.
If you get rid of religion, you say there will be nationalism. So lets get rid of nationalism too. You/that person is committing the Perfect solution fallacy.
Thus spoke God, “Fuck the metric system.”
Guys, guys, you are making your lives SO complicated. 13 is simply the number of times the Moon orbits the Earth per year.
(Actually, it’s more like 13.36 times, but then, we don’t really want to be decimally-inclined smartypants, do we?)
VenomfangX is wrong. God works in radians.
How do I know? Well, six circles makes 12(pi), or, about 37.7 radians. And, if I look at this one playlist I have on iTunes, and add White Moon, by the White Stripes, its time comes out to 37.7 minutes. So, there. God even knew what music I’d be listening to, about 3400 years before I or my songs existed.
Never mind all that marching and turning. Pay attention to what God’s soldiers did once they got inside the city:
Nice, eh?
Check out this “highlight” reel of VenomFangX’s rantings. The lyrics to the song even call him a “fucktard,” which is my personal favorite label for creationists:
This is what happens to your brain when you go through all of college without getting a single blow job.
#1 – The proper tune while you moon –
Row, row, row, your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Belts off, trouser’s down,
Isn’t life a scream?
Hugh Laurie
@74: All except for the Prostitute/Harlot (version-dependent), of course. Maybe her name was Brenda?? ;-)
JC
@75: Actually, the song is calling Kent Hovind a “Fucktard” – but it sure fits VFX and innumerable others. But I enjoyed the video – Thanks!
JC
VenomFangX may be on to something. Here’s another godly proof I just
pulled out my assdeduced:The number 40 is mentioned extremely often in the Bible (especially OT). 40 days of rain, 40 years wandering the desert, Egypt cursed for 40 years, Moses staying on the mountain for 40 days, various kings ruling for 40 years, and probably 40 other examples.
How do you explain the number of times 40 appears compared to, say, 39? By the laws of statistics, 39 ought to appear as frequently as 40, yet it does not! CLEARLY this is proof of divine planning.
Take that, unbelievers!
Logic? Of course, the diameter of the moon is not 2160 miles exactly anyway. Nor is it in fact even uniform at all spots.
Also, it is interesting that god order some folks to do something that turns out to have a number that is close to the diameter of the moon. But if God told someone to do something that in its self would be proof of God. Of course, there is the issue of verification, etc.
This isn’t real…right? Like, this is a joke…err, right?
Brian, it is a VFX quote from the youtube video comment section. He really is that retarded.
Chaos @ 64 To use your cited quote: “Religion has nothing to do with belief”. Huh? You mean it’s just like saying that a rectum has nothing to do with feces? It’s just incredible what religion can make unsound minds formulate such insane crap!
With arguments like these I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. “… and god chose to corelated the diameter of the moon to the number of times they walked around Jericho because …..?” I mean if this is beyond coincidence, it must be for a purpose. Wouldn’t knowing the purpose be part of the argument.
Um, not only is the “mile” an arbitrary measure, so is the “degree”. Don’t know if anyone pointed that out. …. oh, lot’s of you did …. well, good on you!
VFX is training to replace Kent Hovind, at least while he is in jail.
I thought this was a joke too… ARGH! It’s even more upsetting that people are praising his logic in the comments section of the video. GRR! crappy ass logic for mentally incompetent sheep.
Whenever I see his videos or hear his voice, I always get the impression that VFX should just come out of the closet already. He’d be much happier.
(I’ve only seen his schtick via Thundef00t and DonExodus2. I refuse to actually watch that drivel directly as my brain would melt)
I’ve only seen VFX’s schtick via Thundef00t and DonExodus2. I refuse to actually watch that drivel directly as my brain would melt
ditto
Thanks for the warning – I cannot STAND venomfangx. Something about his voice, arrogance and what he says always makes me want to reach through the screen and slap him. Clips from venomfangx that are included for rebuttal purposes are the only real downside to watching thunderfoot’s stuff. Added bonus – Tfoot’s voice and what he has to say are teh sexy (math… physics… logic, yum :) ), which acts as an antidote.
My favourite comment on YouTube:
“Wow…atheists simply can’t reject this!”
Wouldn’t it have been easier for God to just say “the diameter of The Moon is 2159 miles”?
VenomFangX is dead last of the entire internets. Together with only the Chiquita Bros and Chuck “peanut butter” Missler.
But he has me a bit perplexed – there’s SOMETHING in him, that wants to think. Seriously. He likes to try and think, but somehow it just goes horribly wrong and gets him into the most extraordinary insanity…
Re:#75, The song is Tribute to Kent Hovind by EddyGoombah (animation in this version by Chrisboe4ever). Kent was sent to jail the same week as his birthday. Earlier this year, the first anniversary of his incarceration and his 55th birthday turned up some pretty vicious stuff during “Kent Hovind Week”.
I’ve been letting my kids watch VFX’s videos so they have an example of how stupid believing that big black book can make you. And Thunderfoot takes VFX to school. I’ve been letting them watch Thunderfoot’s, too.
A couple weeks ago, VFX challenged Thunderfoot to a debate. It’s right on VFX’s profile page.
First thought that came to my mind: Wow, dude, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.
Second thought: Cool!
“…invented by the English”
Wow, so by redefining an already existing measurement I can be an inventor? Cool, I now define a mile as 1,000 lengths of Dawkins’ arm as measure by his tailor on June 2, 2007. I is an inventor! Question is, did God foresee that?
What did the Romans ever do for us? – answer 2160: Invent the mile.
Ok, so the Roaman mile is shorter than the English one (must be all that marching in skirts that did it).. But God used the English mile to get 2160.
Therefore God is an Englishman.
QED.
I’m convinced most fundie death cultists and creos like VFX who care enough to babble endlessly on the internet are mentally ill.
How else can someone pretend that all of modern science is wrong and the basis of our civilization and the crowning achievement of mankind is malevolent and to be destroyed.
The mentally ill often have lots of time to fill up every day and little idea of how to actually do it. VFX is quite likely that 1% of the population that is schizophrenic.
. The lyrics to the song even call him a “fucktard,” which is my personal favorite label for creationists:
actually, that song was written as a tribute to the biggest fucktard of them all:
From the video:
Oh dear. A proselytising theist arguing that the Bible is divinely inspired begs the question, for the n-thousandth time. Do they never learn?
<headdesk>
I wonder whether some people take VFX seriously. If I had to guess, I’d say there are such people. I find that to be a very discouraging and frightening thought.
I thought they had to go around 7 times. I’m not going to go back and re-read that part of that miserable book, so maybe someone else here will confirm it or tell me I am a retard.
VenomFangX is a retard plagiarist. Have any of you seen the videos of people exposing him? He takes word-for-word from Kent Hovind’s talks that are online. It is so bad that he uses the same timing, and even at time, Kent Hovind’s facial expressions. If you’re curious, it is not difficult to find those videos.
Actualy, he’s off by about 9/10 of a mile. It’s realy about 2159.1 miles in diameter. (BTW it’s ridiculous that the english system is still around). This may not seem like much but we are talking about a sphere like object here so the radius matters a great deal. Remember:
V=(4/3)*pi*r^3
and
SA=4*pi*r^2
Do the math and his SA is off by about 12,000 mi^2 and his volume is off by about 6.6 million mi^3
see solarsystem(dot)nasa(dot)gov
Actualy, he’s off by about 9/10 of a mile. It’s realy about 2159.1 miles in diameter.
And, as the saying goes, the Devil is in the details, right? Therefore, the moon is slightly too big and THIS PROVES THAT BOTH GOD AND SATAN EXIST!!1!
I don’t know about you all, but I’M off to join a megachurch. Praise Jeebus!
Hey, were those cartoon characters always in there?
Isn’t God off by a mile plus change?
He had sex with his sister-in-law but pulled out????
Does anyone have a nifty coincidence that “proves” the truth of the Bhagavad-Gita?
“No, no no. SIX times in SIX days, as ordered by Yahweh in Joshua SIX = 666. Therefore, the Bible is clearly of The Beast told of in Revelation 13:18.
QED. I have spoken.”
You should put this up on the comments at YouTube. That ought to blow a few minds.
Y’know, 6 times around the moon is 2160 deg., too. Uncanny, isn’t it?
And if you went for 13 times around Jericho, it would be the same number of degrees as 13 times around the moon.
Plus, this works as well with radians.
We’re getting to the fact that not only are miles an arbitrary unit, so are degrees. Radians are not.
I think that what we can take from all of this is that sometimes numbers in unrelated phenomena actually come out to be very similar. And of such are miracles. If one wants to argue with these people, they can always resort to saying that the understandability (hence quantification) of the universe is a miracle, like Gonzalez did (oh yeah, that’s tenure-track thinking).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
(ahem)
Teh Stoooopid! It burns!
(chuckle)
Honestly, now! This is almost as amusingly silly as Mister Chariots of the Gawds! Or some Masonic apologetics. Or even Grail Theory, which was so much cooler before Dan Brown wrote his novel.
The MadPanda, FCD
At first, I thought “Brilliant!” But, then I thought, “What if our measurements of the moon are just a little bit off? What if the moon is really 2159 miles in diameter? Good God! We would have to redefine a circle to be 359.833 degrees!”
In continental Europe we use kilometres, not miles. Therefore there is no god here.
God on Abraham: “I wonder if he’s really loyal to me. Guess I’ll ask him to make a bloody, burnt sacrifice of his son Isaac to check.”
God on humanity: “I’ve designed them perfectly, in my own image, and I know every move and every thought they’ll all ever make. Time to micromanage them to find out what they’re doing.”
God on defying the laws of the universe on the random whim of individual people: “Sure, trust me that I may or may not do that, and always believe that there’s an excuse… err… reason either way.”
God on the Garden of Eden, causing the Great Flood, the sinning of humanity, constant wayward god creation, etc: “Whoops!”
God on all present and future scientific findings, units of measurement, and random hare-brained comparison: “I knew all of that.”
So apparently, God is really the pointy haired boss, which would make Dilbert, Wally et all apostles. And Scott Adams becomes Dawkins’ answer to “who created the creator”. At least this makes more sense than venomfangx does.
By the way, if science is so evil, how come creationalists keep using it and claiming it as a part of God’s knowledge?
#112: In continental Europe we use kilometres, not miles. Therefore there is no god here.
For some reason this reminded me of Billy Crystal’s statement, in “City Slickers” that “women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.” It occurs to me that, whenever fundamentalist wackos insist that atheists can’t be moral, they’re saying something similar. Fundamentalists need a big, angry, vengeful god watching over them at all times to be moral, decent, good people; atheists just need a place.
Comment #39: “‘3,000 years before the mile was invented by the English’ YES!!!”
So the creationists can’t even get historical facts right. Invented by the English?? Here I always thought that the mile was a Roman measurement—“mille passus” (a thousand paces).
We would have to redefine a circle to be 359.833 degrees!
Even worse then is sin(2pi)=-.0028274296209389
This is catastrophic!
Re: #108
VenomfangX actually censors his comments. They have to be approved first. Hence, it would never make it on there. That faggoty-ass plagiarist even disables ratings because in his early days too many people more intelligent than him recognized that he is an idiot and gave him 1 star.
I have actually been following him and his critics (or rationalists, I should say) for a while. My favorite is actually a newcomer to YouTube. Search for the “DonExodus2” channel. He is a christian (as always, lack of caps intentional), but not a creationist, in fact, an evolutionary biologist. He now has a decent amount of educational videos on evolution. I think PZ actually has used a couple of his videos in the past. At least one.
One word: Yugoslavia.
Two more words: Northern Ireland.
In Poland, too, the denomination is a part of national identity, though the wars about it are all several hundred years in the past.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
You will scroll back up and read the 100 comments above of yours. Actually, even reading a random sample of 20 should guarantee that you read one about this topic.
What I just said.
Fucking Israel!!!
Late at night as it is, I forgot the most blatant example. I’ll go to bed.
Oh, again, you’re just being defensive and expressing anger at God.
I wonder if VFX knows god has a prize for him for his brilliant work with the number 2160. Here it is, Venom, the Blowout Jet Urinal. Surely god wanted you to have it because he gave it the part number… 2160! Mounting screws are furnished. However, I don’t know if the two inch waste adapter is going to be big enough. I also don’t know if you’ll be okay having both male and female parts.
http://www.acorneng.com/acorn_catalog/PDF/catalogpdf/d/2160.pdfHe also misspells the Hebrew for Jericho. Look at around 20 seconds. He’s missing the second yud between the reish and the chet. Also, he partially vowelizes. He has the dot above the final letter but no other vowels. Hebrew is either written with vowels or without vowels (generally without). I don’t believe I’ve seen partial vowelization before. .
#118, I’m a drunk. I am way too fucking lazy to read through everything before my post. Oh, and I have better things to do… sometimes, than read everything every person that responds to PZ. I read PZ’s response and responded.
It would have been handy if you would have put a response number that I should have viewed to prove me a retard or correct.
So doG knew about the English mile and missed by a mile out of 2160? I guess he forgot to read into ISO-9000 certifications…
it’s one thing to make fun of stupid creationist videos. that’s so easy. it’s another to have real conscientious discussions with people who are as intelligent and evolved as you but don’t necessarily agree with your views on religion.
Oddly enough, every single person I’ve ever met who is as intelligent and as evolved as I am yet with different religious viewpoints, have all come to same conclussion on their own that religious intolerence is a harmful poison, the religious disagreements are inevitable and irresolvable, and a neutral secular ground of respect is the only practical universal behavoir.
Oddly… I can live with that.
====
VangFux or whatever the hell his name is has a video called “How to falsify evolution in 11 minutes” He spends a *looong* time pounding home the concept that an unfalsifiable theory *must* be dismissed as speculative and that if you can *not* prove the alternative false nor prove the unfalsifiable on true, you *must* dismiss the unfalsifiable theory as false.
Fucking idiot. Doesn’t realize he just proved that God doesn’t exist for all of us!
“God exists” is certainly unfalsifiable, right? I could grind the universe to atoms and paint my soul with spirtually litmus aether and if I failed to find an atom or vapor of God, “God exists” will still not be falsified as God can always hide if he really wants to. Hence “God exists” must be discarded and regarded as false. Thanks VangFux! for stating so assertively what few of us were really able to pin down beyond doubt.
HELL is 2,160 degrees, too…
Right?
~Dan
http://jazzsick.wordpress.com/
So exactly how sure are we that this guy isn’t a Poe?
by the way, don’t know if someone has mentioned this yet, but all archaeological data to date has ruled out the idea that the Hebrews ever attacked “Jericho”
you can check out the summary of the data by Hector Avalos (worth listening to in any case):
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/04/hector-avalos-how-archaeology-killed.html
or find further quick support here:
http://atheism.about.com/od/bibleplacescities/p/Jericho.htm
Ha! He’s saying the we English are gods!
Pay your taxes to King George, you rebel scum!
I can only conclude someone else made this up as a joke and this clueless guy didn’t realize it was a joke and posted it in seriousness with his label on it.
Seen his other videos now. I take it back. He *is* that stupid. Actually, honestly, he’s bordering on mentally ill. One can simply can not be capible of following a train of thought and comprehend the rules of logic as he does and make such utterly *wrong* arguments without being mentally ill. I’m serious.
I posted a comment on his video and VenomFangX responded:
My post:
Wow. That’s eerie in its precision. Quick question: how did people prove the existence of god prior to the creation of English Units?
His response:
Great question.
God exists outside of time, so He knows the future. The Bible is the only religious text in the world that dares to predict the future, and is correct every time. No other book in the world is like it, and no other religion dares to expose themselves with false-predictions. However, The Bible boldly predicts the future, proclaiming that it is the inspired word of God proudly and authoritatively. The Bible is divided into 2 parts; the Old Testament, and the New Testament. The Old Testament was written over 2000 years ago, before the birth of Christ, and foretold His coming in intricate detail.
Isaiah 42:9 God declares “Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” and Isaiah 46:9-10 God says ‘I am God and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done’
As I said, since God exists beyond time, He sees the entire timeline and is able to tell us what will happen before it happens. Let’s look at some prophecy in Jewish scripture that was written BEFORE Christ by many hundreds of years;
Isaiah 49 The Messiah had to be bring the non-jewish people of the world (Gentiles) to worship the God of Israel
Isaiah 53 says this Messiah will be bruised, beaten, and killed, be rejected by His own people, buried with the rich, and then have His days prolonged (ressurrection).
Daniel 9:24 says the Messiah will come and die for our sins BEFORE the destruction of the 2nd temple (2000 years ago!)
Micah 5:2 The Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem.
Isaiah 7:14 The Messiah had to be born of a virgin.
Psalm 22 reveals that the Messiah was to be crucified, peirced through the hands and feet and have his bones all out of joint
Jesus came according to prophecy right when He had to before the destruction 2nd temple 2000 years ago, and was rejected by Israel, crucified, buried with the rich (which was a rarity for convincted criminals), and then rose from the dead, then the temple was destroyed. The jews have been without a temple now for around 2000 years, and now, 2000 years later, the Gentile world now worships the God of Israel because of this Jesus of Nazareth, the most influential jew in the history of mankind; the most influential man in the history of mankind.
There are hundreds of prophecies in The Bible, this is just one of them that is so powerful, it’s undeniable.
http://freehovind.com/watch-4308235066145651150
Watch the first video called the Age of the Earth.
There is nothing better for my money than this idiot God-thing decreeing (Kings) that there be a large gold vessel constructed for the temple in Jerusalem with a circumference exactly three times the diameter! Now even at the time of this God-inspired request the value of Pi was known to better than zero decimal places. If God had quoted a value of Pi to a couple of hundred decimal places, then I’d believe. Alas, an all-knowing god with a value of 3.0 for Pi cannot exist.
James is a Hovind troll!
whee!
dogpile on the James.
… he can’t recognize sarcasm …
I get it! The video is only 2 hrs but it feels like 4 months… so the world is only 6,000 years but it *feels* like 36,000,000 millenia! All clear!
Gosh, the God fella is clever. Let’s see… I’m feel almost 49 years old so that means I must *really* be just under 7 days old! No wonder I haven’t achieved what I expected to!
Faggoty-assed??? I’m offended.
VFX’s posts are complete reguritations from other creationist sites. I do think he is mentally disturbed.
Wasn’t Joshua the one who made the sun stand still so he could finish a battle? Wasn’t that “missing day” found by NASA. That’s what the National Council on Bible Curriculum said.
Haha I love how he waits for one of his cronies to give him a 5 star rating then disables rating. I thought that honesty was a Christian virtue… apparently not.
Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! I have a proof!
There are up to 100,000 human hairs on a human head. Thus if you were to meet someone the odds of him having the *exact* same number of hairs on his head as you have on yours is just 1 in 100,000.
There are over 6,000,000,000 people on the planet. Thus for possible number of hairs one *could* have there are on average 60,000 people with that number of hairs. But the odds are only 1 in 100,000 that two people have this number so the odds of *60,000* having that number are 1 in 100,000 to the 60,000th power. But there aren’t just 60,000 people with *that* number of hair. There are 60,000 people with *any* of the 100,000 numbers. The odds of that is 1 in 100,000 to the 60,000th to the 100,000th !! That is 1 in 10^30,000,000,000!!!!! *That* is more unlikely than anything ever, ever, ever calculated so God must exist. Not just God! but Shiva and Odin and Athena and Batman and the Hulk and Aslan and Anubis. Why if it takes God to make something with 1 in 10^1,023 odds to exist, it’ll take 30,000,000 Gods to make *this* happen!!!!
Notice how VenomFangX assumes that Jericho is shaped exactly like a circle. That’s the only way that 1 movement around the perimeters of the city = 360 degrees.
Scott @136.
It’s been alleged that it’s him, using sock puppet accounts to run up his ratings.
_____
No True Christian(TM) would lie and scheme like he does, right?
Let’s not forget how difficult it is to get a few hundred to a few thousand men, women and children to march in a perfect circle! :-P
Agreed. I particularly love Thunderfoot’s eviscerations of VFX. Anyone see Tf’s latest “debate” with VFX? Comedy gold!
I just love this response:
For all those who keep asking whether VFX is for real or not, I’m positive he’s sincere, but I’ll let you judge for yourselves. Here’s his youtube channel.
Here’s an excellent (and always amusing) parody of creationists, Edward Current.
Here’s his youtube channel.
His most viewed video EVER:
298,255
dramatic chipmunk:
8,673,550
Whenever someone uses a silly argument form numbers(9/11 has an amazing array of numerical coincidences) it always helps to translate the numbers into binary (or some other system of numbers), and the measures in Planck units, its wicked illustrative(if a slow and kind of stupid process to transcribe).
Reminds me of Francesco Sizzi, the guy who insisted Galileo was wrong because there could obviously only be seven planets. His reasoning ran thus –
“There are seven windows in the head: two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth. So also in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two unfavorable, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. From all this, and from other such natural phenomena, such as seven metals, etc., all too pointless to enumerate, we can conclude that the number of planets is necessarily seven.” “Furthermore, the alleged satellites of Jupiter are invisible to the naked eye, and therefore can have no influence on earth, and therefore would be useless, and therefore do not exist.” “Besides all this, the Jews and other ancient peoples as well as modern Europeans have always divided the week into seven days and have named them after the seven planets. Now if we, like Galileo, increase the number of planets, this whole and beautiful system falls to the ground.”
Convinced?
I’ve never posted before – just a behind-the-scenes reader usually. But I dared to cruise over to the youtube page and read the blatantly sockpuppeted comments… I had to post this beautiful response to his dissenters (I suppose acknowledging them means he can argue fair time for both sides, since he doesn’t dare allow one to actually post?)… All emphasis is mine.
VenomFangX (5 hours ago) Show Hide
Marked as spam
2 objections I’d like to answer 1) They marched 6 times around the city in 6 days, then an additional 7 times on the 7th day 2) The diameter of the moon in 2159 not 2160. Both of these objections totally miss the point! Joshua 6:14 ” So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.” The 7th day is clearly distinct from the 6 days, as the scripture clearly separates them. Also, 2159 vs 2160 miles is simply nit-picky beyond reason.
Wait, what? So God knew about the measurement of a mile 3,000+ years ago, but was just too sloppy and imprecise to give a damn about actually finishing the job of matching the moon up to his 2,160 degrees? And as a side note, thanks for the lesson in reason, sport.
P.S. – I’m no mathematician, so please bear with my liberal arts education, but isn’t 360 degrees around the same circle still just 360 degrees? Isn’t that all that fits into a circle?
Observation: Evidence for the tooth fairy was first unearthed in the year 1900. If you add up the digits in that year you get 1+9+0+0=10. There are ten letters in “tooth fairy”.
Conclusion: Tooth fairies exist.
” thnk y’r wstng yr tm (s wll s yr rdr’s tm, ncldng mn) ddrssng “ppllng gnrnc” f sm crtnsts. f y lk cls ngh thr r lt f stpd vds t thr n dffrnt tpcs whthr b t rlgn, pltcs, sprtlty, nw g, r ckng.”
Qtd fr trth. cld nt gr mr.
So how long would it take to march an large army around a presumably quite large city seven times times? They must have been on steroids to make it seven times in a day…?
@ Davem (#96)
How much do you want to bet that if the diameter of the moon *just happened* to be 2160 ROMAN miles as opposed to English miles, VFX would have leapt on that measure as the *original* mile, instead of using the English?
I love how, in VFX’s own comments he says that 2160 versus 2159 miles is nitpicking, yet in his video he says that the diameter of the moon is EXACTLY 2160 miles.
In case anyone here doesn’t know (we can’t all be YouTube junkies – I suppose some of you actually have better things to do), the reason that there seem to be so many comments praising this travesty is that VenomFangX requires comments to be approved (by him) before they are posted. You can guess which one’s he’ll approve. If you ever feel the urge to correct one of his videos (SIWOTI syndrome), check out VenomFongX (note the “o”), who mirrors all of his videos because he enjoys seeing a list of one star ratings or something.
Irrelevant. If the story has any ground at all in history, the army was necessarily fairly small and the city almost certainly tiny.
Wow, watching that video just made me want to remove both my eyes as well as my brain. Human stupidity on YouTube has reached new levels.
@Greymalkin: JUST reached new levels? It’s been there for ages.
What the hell is kenny still doin around?
3400 year ago, which is approximately 1400 year BC, the Israelites were commanded to, as documented in the book of Joshua..
1400 BCE… that would be approximately 150 years after the destruction of Jericho’s walls.
Jericho, ‘the city of the moon’…
There is no small debate on the etymology of the word ‘Jericho’. If it is derived from the Canaanite Jerah then it is, more properly, “The Monthly City” as that word is only used as a time indicator in re to the moon. A more accepted etymology is that it is from j’riah meaning ‘scent’ or ‘fragrance’; “The Fragrant City”.
However, the city’s nickname – as documented in Deuteronomy 24:3 – was (and is) “The City of Palms”.
If it’s “The Fragrant City,” perhaps it was used ironically?
That reminds me of a comment from my brother. Some pseudoscientist was going on about all the 5s and multiples of 5 used in constructing a pyramid. The reviewer demolished that argument with the observation that “there’s considerable fiveness about the Washington Monument.” And, as far as we know, it was not constructed to be a paean in stone to the number five.
Notice how VenomFangX assumes that Jericho is shaped exactly like a circle. That’s the only way that 1 movement around the perimeters of the city = 360 degrees.
No,movement around any closed loop is 360 degrees. I think you are confusing degrees with distance.
Some pseudoscientist was going on about all the 5s and multiples of 5 used in constructing a pyramid.
I love it when people miss the entire point of the ‘Law of Fives’.
AFAIK, it was originally proposed by Robert Anton Wilson as a means of demonstrating that you can take an arbitrary number (5 in this case) and, given enough ingenuity, relate it to ANYTHING.
Observation: Evidence for the tooth fairy was first unearthed in the year 1900. If you add up the digits in that year you get 1+9+0+0=10. There are ten letters in “tooth fairy”.
Here’s a better one. Consider the words “EASTER BUNNY”. There are 6 letters in EASTER and 5 letters in BUNNY. 6*5 is 30 which is the number of days in April; the month during which Easter most frequently occurs.
P.S. – I’m no mathematician, so please bear with my liberal arts education, but isn’t 360 degrees around the same circle still just 360 degrees? Isn’t that all that fits into a circle?
The funny thing about an astonishingly stupid argument is how smart people can’t help by try to add inference to it. I don’t thing VangFux was actually trying infer that walking around the city six times and adding up the degrees mathematically and meaningfully translates to the diameter of the moon. He’s simply stating 6*360 = 2,160; 2,160 is diameter of the moon;
Removing the utter insignificance of the math from the argument, the inference is still faulty. Suppose for instance, we discover the if you take the first letter of the chapter titles of J.K. Rowlings third book and discovered the mathematically significant astonding fact that the spell “I did it. Methamphetamines. Again.” Would this then be proof that J.K. Rowlings is Britney Spears mother? (Methamphetamines => Mother’s little helper, I did it again=>Britney) Okay, the math is astonishing but in what way should we figure an astonishing beyond possibility event should be a message and a message interpretted in that way and if it is a message why was it revealed in that way, in that book…
Also, 2159 vs 2160 miles is simply nit-picky beyond reason.
It’s a margin of error of .05%. Good enough for government work. However the utter arbitrariness of using english miles (as opposed to feet, furlongs, kilometers, angstroms, kilograms, pounds, square miles, etc.) the moon’s diameter (as opposed to mass, radius, circumference, distance from earth, surface area, etc) and the degrees in a cirle (as opposed to radians) and the arbitrariness of this passage as opposed to any other passage, renders renders a result with a margin of .05% out of thousands of other potential results utterly insignificant.
As for deleting his comments… He claims it’s because he knows Satan can speak through them and he’s not going to let Satan do that.
*sigh* The boy just ain’t right ….*shakes head sadly*
He is verily risen, and still hasn’t bodily ascended to heaven as he should have done long ago.
Hongkong is literally the smelling harbor.
Guys, we may be missing something here. I Googled 2160 and I found a file called 2160.pdf. Now the astonishing thing is – this PDF is about
PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM THE LUNAR PROSPECTOR ALPHA PARTICLE SPECTROMETER.
I wonder how long it will be before someone plays “Bible Code” with the Harry Potter series, or the Lord of the Rings, or perhaps the Jack Ryan novels?
Even better, perhaps, would be Origin of the Species…
As for VFX deleting the comments he doesn’t like, well, it just shows his cowardice, IMHO.
I’ve noticed that most ‘christian’ websites (and virtually all ‘christian’ blogs) censor comments as well, yet cry ‘foul!’ when an abusive troll gets banned from PZ, or BA, or any of the other Scince-related sites.
Wow. That is a great lecture. I’d *really* like to divulge onto a tangent about it!
I don’t know much about history. I’m a bit surprised to find there is *no* evidence of an exodus, a King David, a Solomon, and a Jesus. I always just assumed the biblical accounts were folkloric rendations based on actual time periods but there are *non*.
Though I’d like to know a bit about presumed dates. Exodus is supposed to have occured 1400 B.C. Solomon’s empire 1100B.C and Jesus, by definition, first century B.C. but these dates come from Biblical Scholars reading the bible, assuming it’s validity and deducing. To *now* critically study these figures (to either verify or discredit) and look at those dates because that’s what the earlier scholars had is circular logic. The three building in the right place to fit a biblical structure in Solomon were taken as verification that Solomon existed. But dating revealed them to be 9th (not 11th) century at the earliest. But why should we continue to maintain the idea that Solomon was 11th Century. Likewise the earliest reference we have to Jesus is 3rd century A.D. but why is the date of Jesus presumed to be first century. Well, I guess it’s that Augustus Ceasar and the King Herod reference. But, screw! anyone with a 2nd grade education can confuse Teddy Roosevelt with Franklin Roosevelt so why not Gaius Julius Maximus (Imperator Caesar NN. Pius Felix Invictus Augustus) with Gaius Octavius Thurinus (IMPERATOR•CÆSAR•DIVI•FILIVS•AVGVSTVS)?
Anyhow… I wish I knew more…
So there’s all those atheists in Europe because they use metric?
That’s a lot of stupid in 55 seconds.
Anyhow… I wish I knew more…
Actually, I would suggest you write to Hector himself.
He has appeared here several times, is a really nice guy, and very accessible.
I think I posted a link to his university contact info.
seriously, I think he would not only be able to answer your questions far better than anyone else here could, but would probably toss a folder of references your way.
cheers
#131 James quoted VFX:
So god knew Eve would end up eating the fruit and yet, despite being omnipotent, did nothing to prevent that course of events — and then punished his non-omniscient beings for this? What an ass.
Also, not entirely sure how this fits with the “free will” thing….
Etha #167 wrote:
I’ve commented a few times on how much easier it would be for the Abrahamics in general if they’d presented god as uber-powerful rather than omnimax. Then they wouldn’t have to deal with pesky passages that have him surprised at what occurs. They do seem to have fixed that in the later stories, though – my example of this is always how JC knew Judas would betray him.
Of course, it’d also help if they’d described god as a jealous, angry, evil prick rather than all-loving…
This has an interesting analysis of Archaeology and the Old Testament:
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.html
(this site has lots of other interesting essays, but the above is a basic overview of the archaeology of the Egypt-Sinai-Palestine area)(Avalos may have more to point at, of course)
Actually, I would suggest you write to Hector himself.
Really, I *don’t* want to be one of those people who write to PhD’s and say:
“Dear Dr. PZ Myers, I don’t know anything about biology but I want to discuss evolution with you. However I want to clear up the concept of ‘species’ first. Now I heard that cows evolved into whales so would I be correct in saying whales and cows are the same species? When you clear this up for me I have a thousand other questions and some fascinating ideas I wonder if anyone else has ever consider that I hope will be of interest to you. But first I need to get up to speed.”
@#168 Wowbagger —
Which has always struck me as enormously unfair for Judas, who (depending on the account you believe) ended up killing himself or died when he “burst asunder in the midst [of his field], and all his bowels gushed out.” Presumably, he went to hell after this.
The sacrifice & suffering of JC you could almost reconcile as ethical since, if you accept trinitarian doctrine, JC is God, and thus was a willing sacrifice (though other parts of the gospels seem to cast doubt on this; the need for the sacrifice also raises further issues for god’s omniscience…), but Judas had absolutely no say in his fate as betrayer. He seems to be regarded as a disposable person, useful for fulfilling the prophecy and unimportant as far as his own personal suffering was concerned.
I repeat: the god of the bible, omnimax or not, is an ass. To put it very, very mildly.
As I’ve said before, I’m pretty sure that people noticing this a long time ago is how Gnosticism came about.
God’s massive about-face from early OT to the modern day concept espoused by theologians is a dead giveaway that society changed over time. Suddenly wiping out whole nations and races wasn’t so acceptable; they realised they’d better change their ideas of god to reflect that.
Ditto the interaction. It was all well and good to talk about handing out stone tablets and talking through flaming bushes back then, but the distinct lack of non-foodstuff miracles in recent times meant they’d better have god go all nebulous and hands-off to avoid those awkward questions about his existence.
Someone needs to quote Aquinas at VenomFangX. Unfortunately he’s closed the comments on his video. Aquinas basically said even non-Christians know something about the world (or universe) and can not be fooled by silly Christians that foolishly try to convince them by literally interpreting the Bible when the interpretation contradicts nature because that makes Christians look foolish and gives the heathen no reason to believe anything else they say. So making things up in a vain effort to prove God when these made up things go against reality actually drives away those you intend to recruit.
But lame-o VFX doesn’t want to hear the real honest truth, he prefers his God imaginary.
John B. Sandlin
Dear Dr. PZ Myers, I don’t know anything about biology but I want to discuss evolution with you.
woozy-
the difference between you and a creationist, is that creationists don’t assume they don’t know. They preach, they don’t ask.
that’s a big difference.
I don’t know a single professor I have ever met that treats basic questions with disdain.
there was a reason I said Hector was accessible.
seriously, if you just shoot him an email, say you gained an interest in biblical archeology from a discussion on Pharyngula, and was wondering what would be some good references to answer some basic questions, I KNOW he would be more than happy to respond.
especially if you compliment him on his lectures, or ask specific questions from them.
for example, watch the Q&A session at the end of the second video of his talk at the Minnesota Atheists. There were a lot of basic questions asked that he was more than happy to answer.
He will let you know quickly just how much time he has available to answer your questions.
I think you’re thinking of Augustine of Hippo. Although I suppose Aquinas might have said something similar.
That’s because God loves™ Judas, just as He loves™ all of us.
Think with your heart, Etha, not with your head.
Of course, it’d also help if they’d described god as a jealous, angry, evil prick rather than all-loving…
Well, you know fathers. They smack you around when they’re drunk; they call you a slut in front of your friends; they crawl into your bed at night and tell you it’ll be your fault for destroying the family if you tell anyone; they call you a cold-hearted bitch when you need to go to school and they want you to rob a liquor store for them. But you always know they love you, don’t you? I mean, my father really does love me, doesn’t he?
#114 Posted by: Christopher Waldrop | June 4, 2008 8:09 PM
FTW!
JBS
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.html
Thank you, owlmirror. It looks interesting. I’m not particularly interested in it to debunk but I’d like to know what history was *really* like. And as folk-lore, this stuff *is* fascinating. I mean, what *was* that snake biz really?
I do find it hard to imagine the Isrealites would have a mythology of slavery in Egypt if they were never *in* Egypt, though. (*woozy starts speculating to himself* But, I suppose, if they interbred or conquered or were conquered by another group they could easily have acquire the other group’s mythologies.)
#176 Posted by: Owlmirror | June 6, 2008 2:02 AM
That’s certainly possible, I was pulling that from memory. I should look it up, and book mark the reference. Either way, the sentiment is that trying to prove god by lying or making stuff up (or literally interpreting something meant as metaphor) is a sure way to look like a fool and drive people away from Christianity.
Thanks for catching that.
JBS
woozy: the evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus is a scrap bit better than you say it is. The earliest source matterial for the gosopels date back to about 70 AD and Tacictus wrote Pontius Pilate executing Jesus in 110 AD.
That said, it should be a tip off that the later source matterial gets more and more miraculous the further we get from the alleged events, but there probably was an itinerant preacher of sorts that the historical Jesus is based on.
Hardly impressive if we are supposed to believe that this was God in the flesh visiting earth, but it is greater than zero.
Wowbagger @173:
Nonono; god is eternal and unchanging.
He just got a different Public Relations team, is all.
I tried leaving a “nice message” on his YouTube site but, for some unfathomable reason, he would not “approve” it. Perhaps I mentioned the word “idiot” a few too many times!
“The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it.” (Robert G. Ingersoll)
How true and how sad!
Brian: #182
That’s what I would have thought.
However according the lecture given by Hector Avolas all examples of roman accounts (including presumably the one by Tacictus) date only to the middle ages and the earliest artifact pertaining to the gospels are a few fragments of Mark (or was it Mathew?) dating to 230 A.D.
Now whom am I going to believe?
That’s why I wish I knew more.
Now whom am I going to believe?
last time:
write Hector and find out what his sources are, then judge for yourself.
Speaking of archaeology, I thought that this was an interesting interpretation of the bible based on myths from the Ugaritic and Canaanite (I think the link was posted to Pharyngula fairly recently, but I cannot recall exactly where or by who – sorry!):
http://www.georgeleonard.com/yahweh.html
Sorry Ichthyic,
I will. I just need to put my thoughts and questions in order.
All I meant was, yes, I would have thought there was a letter from Tacictus and then there was the grave of Jesus’ brother… but the hearsay about them may have been invalid, so it’d be good and interesting to get to the source.
Also, I found this essay to be interesting as well:
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/God/el-goi.htm
The author’s website no longer exists, but most of it is available through the Internet Archive.
http://web.archive.org/*/www.angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael/
I don’t know how accurate any of these pages are, but I think they give reasonable arguments and provide some evidence of ancient syncretism being recorded in the bible, such as the religious language describing Ptah of Egypt being very similar to the descriptions of El. And so on.
My background is not in archaeology, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.
Heh, heh. Not sure I buy it for a second but it makes me want to write a comic book called “The adventures of YHWH; The boy God”. Also reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon “God as a kid tries to make a chicken in his room”.
I like the idea of God making man as a pet. Getting concerned about man’s melancholy loneliness so deciding to make him a pet and creating all the animals one by one to no success. So who’s the serpant? God’s older sister who goes into God’s room when God is at school and decides to mess around?
God comes home. Sees things are screwed up and throws a tantrum. Love it!
So who’s the serpant? God’s older sister who goes into God’s room when God is at school and decides to mess around?
That’d be me, and I’d be his younger sister! I mean l’il Elfie (that’s his name, by the way, Elohim) made these real cool little people to play with … and he *never once* took their clothes off and put them on top of each other!!!!
*pfffffthhh* … boys!
Thunderf00t’s brilliant response
Bokanovsky Process #3:
No, no no. SIX times in SIX days, as ordered by Yahweh in Joshua SIX = 666. Therefore, the Bible is clearly of The Beast told of in Revelation 13:18.
QED. I have spoken.
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Thunderf00t’s brilliant response
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great minds think alike, apparently.
I tried commenting on the YouTube post:
‘”…he also knew the English mile 3000 years before it was invented by the English”
Based on what? You’re going to have to refer me to the chapter and verse documrnting this, because I’ve never heard such a thing before!’
It’s now “pending approval”. Good to know this guy approves the free exchange of ideas.
Also,#10: “He who lives by the argumentum ex culo… probably needs a mental colostomy bag.”
My understandig of latin is as piss-poor as my understanding of the finer points of biology, but I believe “argumentum ex anus” would be closer to the mark. That said,I think VenomFangX HAS a mental colostomy bag and has been emptying it into the YouTube.
“…he also knew the English mile 3000 years before it was invented by the English”
Based on what?
Um, I’m assuming based on Jushua 6. The fact that 6*(#number of degrees in circle) = (diameter of moon in english miles)
is to VangFux, proof that
a: god knew of the measuring of degrees in circles whenever that occured and of
b: god knew of english miles before they occured
c: god knew the diameter of the moon and
d: god exists
the trouble is just that you are too smart to even consider the idea of a proof by coincidence would contain and *require* it’s own rebutal to its objection as a premise, thus you assume the nescessary claim that god know what a mile was as something needing verification rather than its claim was actually the conclussion via the need for for it to be so.