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Revelation apart, Old and New Testaments do not mix.
You are a very wise modern man mocking ancient texts. I am only wondering what your ancestors, whoever they are, were writing 2900 years ago that gives you the right to mock the writings of the others.
Dear dear, you do misunderstand me. I don't mock. Back in Ptolemaic Egypt, could I have worked out that the earth was not flat with a dome over it? Could I have calculated the size of the earth? Could I have devised that portable planetarium? I don't think so. I have great respect for the achievements of these ancients. But that does not mean that we shouldn't find the flaws or gaps in their knowledge. Those thinkers who would be happy to see science build on their knowledge and progress to better understanding would not appreciate attempts to discredit the later findings by insisting on some sort of holy authority for their early efforts.
No. The Theory of Evolution claims the same thing in fact. Every single creature ever born has been of the same species as their parents. Evolution has never claimed otherwise. So the Scientific Facts are pretty much the same as the Fairy Tale book in this one regard.
Very true! A "species" per se is but a snapshot of progress in Evolutionary time, of a particular set of sufficiently differentiated geno-and pheno-types that allow us to classify an organisms as a unique and different type under the microscope or in the cage, one that has sufficiently differentiated from a predecessor, in biochemistry, ability to adapt to a specfic niche, or in physical appearance. Thus a giraffe is not simply a "kind" of cheetah, or even a kind of butterfly!
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
I have great respect for the achievements of these ancients. But that does not mean that we shouldn't find the flaws or gaps in their knowledge. Those thinkers who would be happy to see science build on their knowledge and progress to better understanding would not appreciate attempts to discredit the later findings by insisting on some sort of holy authority for their early efforts.
yes indeed! On the one hand we have the absolute and inerrant biblical literacy, while ion the other we have wild denigrations and criticisms of the continued "corrections" that science makes in its own determinations. OMG, huh?
Fact is, one of the best and more admirable aspects of the SM and it's educated and experienced utilizers is that we are completely unafraid to re-question anything in light of more up-to-date knowledge or methodologies that perhaps further enlighten a previous determination.
As in: we remain unafraid to re-test the waters, and to improve on our prior convictions. No massive and overbearing Ego to deal with, unlike the ego trip that is religion. Heck; they even invented their own God, in their own image (noting that His son Jesus is most often portrayed as a blonde-haired white guy, sorta just like Hitler would have designed him... a nice Aryan boy...)
Dear dear, you do misunderstand me. I don't mock. Back in Ptolemaic Egypt, could I have worked out that the earth was not flat with a dome over it? Could I have calculated the size of the earth? Could I have devised that portable planetarium? I don't think so. I have great respect for the achievements of these ancients. But that does not mean that we shouldn't find the flaws or gaps in their knowledge. Those thinkers who would be happy to see science build on their knowledge and progress to better understanding would not appreciate attempts to discredit the later findings by insisting on some sort of holy authority for their early efforts.
One thing is certain: we will never understand each other!
The holy authority’s miracles is a very recent development and you should not blame the ancients for the theological absurdities.
As for the intelligence of the Egyptians, they had the measurements of the earth long before the time of the Ptolemies. Surely you know of Eratosthenes boasting as having measured the length of the meridian. The data he used he obviously found in the Alexandrian Library because for the measurement he described a declination of the sun of 23 degrees 51 minutes was required (23 51 plus 15 minutes for the sun’s semidiameter gives 24 degrees 06 minutes, which is the latitude of the well at Syene) while the tropic at his time had shifted to 23 45 –today is 23 27).
The measurement had been effected by the Egyptians 2000 years before Eratosthenes' time.
Apart from prejudice, we, moderns, suffer from excessive arrogance.
One thing is certain: we will never understand each other!
The holy authority’s miracles is a very recent development and you should not blame the ancients for the theological absurdities.
As for the intelligence of the Egyptians, they had the measurements of the earth long before the time of the Ptolemies. Surely you know of Eratosthenes boasting as having measured the length of the meridian. The data he used he obviously found in the Alexandrian Library because for the measurement he described a declination of the sun of 23 degrees 51 minutes was required (23 51 plus 15 minutes for the sun’s semidiameter gives 24 degrees 06 minutes, which is the latitude of the well at Syene) while the tropic at his time had shifted to 23 45 –today is 23 27).
The measurement had been effected by the Egyptians 2000 years before Eratosthenes' time.
Apart from prejudice, we, moderns, suffer from excessive arrogance.
We will certainly never understand one another when you persist in misrepresenting me and applying to me opinions and attitudes about the ancients that exist only in your own head.
The last thing I do is blame the ancients for those (recent or not) who plaster some sort of holy authority on the earlier thinkers either in books of science, myth, philosophy or religion, simply to resist new discoveries that might unsettle their theological views which had become somehow attached to those earlier efforts.
The ones I mock and denigrate are those who use appeal to the former great names as a pretext for denying more recent thinking and science.
"The measurement had been effected by the Egyptians 2000 years before Eratosthenes' time." Now I concede that is something I hadn't heard and it does surprise me. I shall check it out. You had better not be peddling tripe or I shall make you squirm.
Later...well I won't make you do that. You seem to have been thinking, though in a misguided way. You would have done better to do some researching.
His measurements were subject to several inaccuracies: (1) though at the summer solstice the noon sun is overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, Syene was not exactly on the tropic (which was at 23° 43' latitude in that day) but about 22 geographical miles to the north; (2) the difference of latitude between Alexandria (31.2 degrees north latitude) and Syene (24.1 degrees) is really 7.1 degrees rather than the perhaps rounded (1/50 of a circle) value of 7° 12' that Eratosthenes used; (4) the actual solstice zenith distance of the noon sun at Alexandria was 31° 12' − 23° 43' = 7° 29' or about 1/48 of a circle not 1/50 = 7° 12', an error closely consistent with use of a vertical gnomon which fixes not the sun's center but the solar upper limb 16' higher; (5) the most importantly flawed element, whether he measured or adopted it, was the latitudinal distance from Alexandria to Syene (or the true Tropic somewhat further south) which he appears to have overestimated by a factor that relates to most of the error in his resulting circumference of the earth.
There are other opinions that the stadia might not be exactly the size we now think it to be.
Either way, there is not the slightest support for your contention that the reason for the difference was because Eratosthenes re-used old measurements by Old Kingdom Egyptians (using your two thousands years reference)
Anyway, this is drifting off -topic. I suppose it arose because you accused me of mocking the barely scientific guesswork of Genesis and the poor attempt at animal classification in Leviticus (for ritual rather than scientific) purposes.
The mocking is not so much directed at the Book, any more than I mock at the Illiad or the Ramayana, or indeed the myths of Egypt, Persia or Mesopotamia, but I mock at those today, who should know better, when they try to maintain that these old books are factually or historically reliable and thus the god -claims must be reliable too. Such people deserve mockery, since, (even if they do contain some facts or history) those old books are basically mythological.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-23-2012 at 08:14 AM..
We will certainly never understand one another when you persist in misrepresenting me and applying to me opinions and attitudes about the ancients that exist only in your own head.
It was not me the one that wrote: Back in Ptolemaic Egypt, could I have worked out that the earth was not flat with a dome over it? Could I have calculated the size of the earth? I don't think so.
Now you know you were unforgivably wrong. I do not know what you understood from the explanation of the Wikipedia but the point is that the Egyptians built a well in that latitude where the rays from the sun’s northern limb will manage to reach the bottom of the well. That was possible 2000 years before the time of Eratosthenes. Since then the rays of the sun never reached the bottom of that well (it takes approximately 26,000 years for the cycle to be completed) and therefore Eratosthenes was a big liar and a big thief.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
The ones I mock and denigrate are those who use appeal to the former great names as a pretext for denying more recent thinking and science.
No one denies contemporary science. However, we should not deny the fact that today’s scientists stand on the shoulders of the ancient Greeks who passed to them all the knowledge they acquired in Egypt.
I’ll give you a piece of information you cannot find in Wikipedia: The Great Pyramid has eight sides and not four. The plane of every side is divided into two.
The information is that the angle by which the end of the southern side was lifted up in order to create the required effect equals the semi-diameter of the sun. When the center of the sun at sunrise is exactly on the plane of the southern side, that side “flashes.” The phenomenon is still visible with the pyramid in its present condition. You can imagine the spectacle when the lining of the pyramid was intact.
We did drift off topic but not in vain, because it is the religious texts of the people who built the Great Pyramid that our wise scholars regard as silly magical incantations.
Silly people who built magnificent monuments and then they were afraid that the dead may destroy them (according to the silly translations of the wise scholars, of course!)
It was not me the one that wrote: Back in Ptolemaic Egypt, could I have worked out that the earth was not flat with a dome over it? Could I have calculated the size of the earth? I don't think so.
Now you know you were unforgivably wrong. I do not know what you understood from the explanation of the Wikipedia but the point is that the Egyptians built a well in that latitude where the rays from the sun’s northern limb will manage to reach the bottom of the well. That was possible 2000 years before the time of Eratosthenes. Since then the rays of the sun never reached the bottom of that well (it takes approximately 26,000 years for the cycle to be completed) and therefore Eratosthenes was a big liar and a big thief.
I repeat "Either way, there is not the slightest support for your contention that the reason for the difference was because Eratosthenes re-used old measurements by Old Kingdom Egyptians (using your two thousands years reference)"
That means that there s not the slighted support for your contention that the Old Kingdom Egyptians measured to size of the earth using a well or anything else. The remarkable accuracy of the construction of the pyramids is neither here nor there. Do you have anything to show that the Egyptians even thought the world was round so as to give them the idea of measuring it? Doubts about the paintings showing a flat earth with a sky dome over it are merely your refusal to accept what is in front of your eyes.
I’ll give you a piece of information you cannot find in Wikipedia: The Great Pyramid has eight sides and not four. The plane of every side is divided into two.
The information is that the angle by which the end of the southern side was lifted up in order to create the required effect equals the semi-diameter of the sun. When the center of the sun at sunrise is exactly on the plane of the southern side, that side “flashes.” The phenomenon is still visible with the pyramid in its present condition.
Would you mind sharing the source of this information?
I repeat "Either way, there is not the slightest support for your contention that the reason for the difference was because Eratosthenes re-used old measurements by Old Kingdom Egyptians (using your two thousands years reference)"
Go to Wiki page for Eratosthenes and look at the diagram showing how the measurement was realized –or any other diagram, you can find lots of them.
It is indispensable for the sun’s rays to reach the bottom of the well. PERIOD
Once the rays of the sun do not reach the bottom of the well the measurement is impossible because one cannot now what the sun’s declination is.
Eratosthenes never show the bottom of the well being illuminated by the sun rays. He found the information in the Library of Alexandria and presented it as his own. The Egyptians performed the measuring 2000 years before the time of Eratosthenes because it was then that the value of sun's declination was 23 51 (do you want me to repeat all this in Greek so that you can eventually understand what I am talking about?)
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Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Would you mind sharing the source of this information?
I have not yet read the thread and so I do not know whether an explanation for the “flashing” phenomenon is provided but when I had the passion for the pyramid, 40 years ago, I found by simple trigonometry that the angle causing the concavity of the south side equals the sun’s semi-diameter (approximately 15 minutes of a degree). However, if one wants to know the exact time the center of the sun is on a given plane one has to construct that plane in such a form that the rays of the sun can “see” only part of the plane.
The Great pyramid is the one on the upper part of the picture. As you can see the eastern part of the south side of the pyramid is illuminated. Due to refraction the limb of the sun providing these first rays vibrates and so the illuminated eastern part will for a few seconds go dark again and then there will be an interchange between light and shadow that causes the effects of “flashing; before the entire south side of the pyramid is illuminated.
Of course, the exact measurements of the now lost outer lining of the pyramid will never be known.
dtango "Eratosthenes never show the bottom of the well being illuminated by the sun rays. He found the information in the Library of Alexandria and presented it as his own. The Egyptians performed the measuring 2000 years before the time of Eratosthenes because it was then that the value of sun's declination was 23 51 (do you want me to repeat all this in Greek so that you can eventually understand what I am talking about?)"
Indeed I do. Eratothenes' calculations were based on an incomplete experiment which, you argue, show that he never did it himself but re-used material from elsewhere which you assume he found in the Library (admittedly a likely place to find it) and further assume that it was based on a far older experiment based on your calculations that the experiment must have been done in the Old Kingdom to make it accurate.
Your attempts to drag the pyramids into this is a red - herring so save it until I can see whether your claims have merit.
Anyway...damn' how did we get onto this from 'after their kinds'? I thought for a minute we were on the 'circle of the earth' thread.
Jesus! - talk about Herding cats! That is easy compared to keeping theists on topic.
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