Atheist knowledge

[bexrbetter]

You have to love the foresight, tolerance and scientific wisdom of the Bible. I can remember left handed children being caned for using their left hand to do anything especially writing.

I was wondering why that was so as a kid. My little sister had some minor issues with that at school but I believe mostly passed by then, late 1960/early 70's.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Throughout the old world, before modern cutlery, it was common for people to eat food out of a communal bowl with the right hand: the left one was reserved for wiping your ar$e.

Still standard fare in China although you use chopsticks and are supposed to take food only from you side of the dish.

 

I have a sister in law who's habit is too run her chopsticks through the entire dish (after it's been in her mouth of course) looking for best bits, it's hard to hold your temper sometimes.

 

And of course half way through the meal Mama wants to stir up the dish to get the sauce that's drained down to the bottom all the way though - and they wonder why I'm "not hungry" some days ...

 

 

[turboplanner]

SBS ran a good documentary on Roslyn Chapel a couple of weeks ago; should still be on "SBS On demand"

 

The current owner (wife of a St Clair descendant) has just spent $23 million refurbishing it......that much for a building which is not a Chapel, and was built as an adjunct to a castle out in the country (Rosslyn village was built by William St. Clair for the people who worked on the chapel). They haver drilled and found chambers under the chapel.

 

 

[Bruce]

Those old scribes didn't know about germs, and unaccountably God didn't tell them, nor did Jesus ( or were God and JC the same person with different hats?) I've read that even in 1900 many surgeons didn't wash their hands between operations or after going to the dunny.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Those old scribes didn't know about germs, and unaccountably God didn't tell them, nor did Jesus ( or were God and JC the same person with different hats?) I've read that even in 1900 many surgeons didn't wash their hands between operations or after going to the dunny.

Trivia:

 

In the 1800s, Ignaz Semmelweiss was the first physician to notice a relationship between washing hands and patient health. However there was no understanding of how or why this could be the case and so his work was largely ignored until a french bloke by the name of Louis Pasteur came onto the scene and provided the first theoretical principles regarding germs and infection.

 

English surgeon Joseph Lister who lived in the same era was the one who put all this together and pioneered the techniques and principles of antiseptic surgery, which were starting to become much more accepted in medicine around the turn of the century. But of course back then, news and medical or scientific breakthroughs didn't travel very fast.

 

Of course, despite the existence and effects of these microscopic particles being proven beyond any doubt at all as technology and our ability to make observations improved, there are even today "Germ Theory denialists" who believe it's all a big con and there's no such thing.

 

If someone has something set in their mind, you can put forward whatever evidence you like in whatever overwhelming volume you like, and they'll still find a way to deny it. Sound familiar?

 

 

[Marty_d]

pigs, which are so similar to humans (that one's a bit of a challenge to Darwinism).

Have you not seen Clive Palmer?

 

 

[PA.]

Abraham Lincoln did not die because he was shot. He did because all the doctors kept putting their dirty fingers in his wound so he did due to infection.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Lincoln was shot at close range in the back of the head in Ford's Theatre at 10:20pm and was immediately paralysed with severe breathing difficulties. He was pronounced dead at 7:20am. I'm not sure wound infection had much to do with it.

 

 

[Marty_d]

If anyone wants some mind-bending hard science reads I can highly recommend these - first one is "A Universe from Nothing" (non-fiction) by Lawrence Krauss, second one is "The Three Body Problem" (fiction novel) by Cixin Liu (translated from the original Chinese).

 

It's the first time I've read 2 books back to back which both talked about Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation, quantum entanglement, Planck's constant and general relativity...

 

 

[Pearo]

If anyone wants some mind-bending hard science reads I can highly recommend these - first one is "A Universe from Nothing" (non-fiction) by Lawrence Krauss, second one is "The Three Body Problem" (fiction novel) by Cixin Liu (translated from the original Chinese).

It's the first time I've read 2 books back to back which both talked about Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation, quantum entanglement, Planck's constant and general relativity...

I have seen (and met) Laurence Krauss a few times. He would have to been one of the best speakers I have seen in the scientific world. His stuff is beyond me, I dont get any of it, but the way he explains the more simple things is pretty impressive. What is more impressive, is that he is one of those people when he speaks, never prepares anything, he just gets up and starts talking. I would love to read his book, but I think it would be over my head.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

I like that Einstein didn't like Quantum Theory - it made his head hurt.

 

It turns my brain to jelly but then so did most of Einstein's stuff.

 

I love science but it is leaving me behind and I now find I'm taking a lot of it on trust.

 

 

[facthunter]

The more you study the universe, the more you find there is to know. Certainly a place of infinite wonder, and it's only in the last few hundred years the means to explore has increased incredibly and is available to most who actually wish to. All the Telescopes and other equipment that some have had the foresight to spend money on is from inspired minds . Nev

 

 

[hihosland]

There was a young man called quantum

 

Who found it quite a conundrum

 

That planes planes do fly

 

And babes do cry

 

While Schrodinger’s cat seeks asylum

 

 

[Bruce]

Yes I agree, there is a book I got called " why E=MCsquared", and to my embarrassment it was too hard for me to understand.

 

The same thing has happened with the Higgs Boson. I love the stuff, but its above me.

 

Last time I was at the doctor, I asked him for some smart pills, but he said there was no such thing. I reckon he took them all himself.

 

 

[Marty_d]

One of the girls I work with used to be a graduate astrophysicist (not much call for them in Australia any more). We had an interesting water-cooler discussion today about studying black holes, time dilation near the event horizon, and how you'd be "spaghettified" (her word not mine) if you got sucked in. But yes my brain turns to mush too when I consider this stuff... wish I'd gone to uni when I was younger. Maybe I'll do a science degree when the kids grow up and bugger off.

 

 

[Jabiru7252]

I'm currently reading 'Gravity, Black Holes and the Universe' by Iain Nicolson. I'm finding it easier to understand than a lot of other books on the subject because it's not full of the unnecessary math that some authors think they need to include to 'impress' their readers.

 

 

[eightyknots]

One of the girls I work with used to be a graduate astrophysicist (not much call for them in Australia any more). We had an interesting water-cooler discussion today about studying black holes, time dilation near the event horizon, and how you'd be "spaghettified" (her word not mine) if you got sucked in. But yes my brain turns to mush too when I consider this stuff... wish I'd gone to uni when I was younger. Maybe I'll do a science degree when the kids grow up and bugger off.

There isn't much to see when studying black holes.

 

 

[dutchroll]

I love science but it is leaving me behind and I now find I'm taking a lot of it on trust.

Not everyone can understand everything and our ability to observe things on either microscopic or interstellar scales is progressing exponentially. So it gets exponentially harder to understand some of it. The people who do understand it have been working in those fields of discovery for many years or even decades.

 

Many ordinary folk are fearful of taking science on trust, which is quite natural. However it pays to remember that science is largely a self-correcting endeavour. Contrary to the occasional impression that science is full of all sorts of conspiracies among scientists, the reality is that there's nothing the average scientist enjoys more than proving one of their fellow scientists wrong. So to get a new discovery or theory to withstand scrutiny and become largely accepted in the scientific world is no easy endeavour. It's actually extremely hard.

 

By the time most scientific knowledge or theories makes it into the mainstream, they've been well studied and supported by a convincing body of evidence - even if people object to some of them on principle.

 

 

[octave]

What I find mind blowing about Einstein (and others) is that the mathematics preceded the actual observations. The implications of Einstein's theory of general and special relativity must have seemed like nonsense to those who were unable to understand the maths and yet we now, many years after Einstein's death, have observational proof .

 

The same applies to the Higgs boson, black holes and recently gravitational waves. What a great time to be alive.

 

In terms of belief, I would say that I do not believe in science but I do believe that scientific method is the best way to work towards truth. The strength of science is that it is self scrutinizing.

 

Some religious people accuse people like me of being religious and that my religion is science. I of course reject this notion, but if it were a religion at least would be a religion that changes and evolves as new discoveries are made rather than one that is fixed and unalterable. The bible (insert any of the religious texts) is not up for peer review.

 

 

[Marty_d]

There isn't much to see when studying black holes.

Apparently there is. Even though matter and most radiation (including light) can't escape the gravity well, there are some forms of radiation that get flung out of the disk thingy. It's up in the 300mm wavelength I believe.

 

The spectrum of radiation our eyes see (visible light) is tiny in the scheme of things. Now they've confirmed gravity waves it may lead to other ways of looking at the universe.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

However it pays to remember that science is largely a self-correcting endeavour. Contrary to the occasional impression that science is full of all sorts of conspiracies among scientists,

Exactly, real science is the discovery of all that's unknown as well as the continual investigation of all that is known, it never sleeps.

 

 

[PA.]

My wife asked me, What are my plans for Easter?

 

I replied, Same as Jesus. Disappear Friday, turn up Monday.

 

 

[Bruce]

A good day to invade Australia would be Easter thursday lunchtime. It would not be noticed until late the next tues morning.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Interesting that none of the Christian Churches object to fixing the date of the currently movable feast of Easter.

 

On a day that is the holiest of holy, there is an admission that (a) they don't know when it might actually have been and (b) that the current date for Easter was filched from on old pagan festival much the same as the old pagan midwinter feast became Christmas.

 

Another thing that occurred to me the other day is that none of the people who allegedly wrote the new testament knew personally, anything of Yeshua's life until he went public at about the age of 30 years. Since life expectancy then would have been lucky to be 45 years. this was pretty late in life. So all the schizophrenic stuff about visitations from angels, virgin births and the great party trick of turning water into wine is just, at absolute best, a folk story and utterly uncorroborated by anyone who was actually around at the time.

 

 

[turboplanner]

No sense rabbiting on about the New Testament since most of it is contrived fiction started by Saul and a good little earner for the Catholic Church, as we discovered a couple of hundred pages back.