Atheist knowledge

[Marty_d]

What if the previous tenant doesn't leave? Nev

Hide a kilo of raw prawns around the place every couple of weeks. They'll leave.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

So , your happy for me ( re 144)

 

In all honesty , i dont think so .

You would be wrong Mike, I am very happy to see people content with their lot, those Gospel Churches in the States blow me away for example and I hope to get to visit one day. I have already mentioned a (now dead) good Mate was a devoted Born Again, he wasn't the only friend I've ever had that was dedicated to religion and who I have been more than happy to spend time with (and stir up!).

 

My Uncle and Aunt are Jo Ho's. Ok, they are weird and not very friendly either.

 

I just don't like it when it's attempted to be forced on to my patch.

 

I love dreaming. Anything can and does happen.

As Pamela Anderson can attest to. If she knew.

 

 

[turboplanner]

I love churches, would like to convert a disused one. Mainly because of the ceiling height, light, and open plan interior. Cathedrals too - I marvel at the engineering knowledge and craftsmanship of those ancient builders.

You might have to go back to God then.

 

There are stories that under attack from Muslims the people of Jerusalem buried their treasure and secrets under Solomons Temple. which had been built in 1000 BC and housed the Ark of the Covenant. (The Qumran copper scroll tells how the Qumran community hid its treasures under Herod’s Temple shortly before AD70

 

The Knights Templar were established in northern France to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.

 

They established themselves as "The Order of the Poor Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, and the earliest evidence of them was 1121 AD

 

Nine of them spent ten years excavating under the Temple of Solomon on what is Temple Mount today. At the time they were excavating the building above ground was King Herod's Temple.

 

The excavations finished abruptly and they went back to France quickly becoming some of the richest and most powerful people in the world, inventing the cheque and eventually founding Switzerland.

 

They also immediately started building cathedrals - not the traditional churches which required walls several metres thick to support the roof loads and having tiny windows, but massive structures not only with egg shell thin walls but with massive windows.

 

None of them were engineers or architects and the speed with which they developed these revolutionary skills was stunning. Chartres Cathedral was one of their designs and it was built between 1194 and 1250 AD.

 

The engineering is easy for us to understand today http://www.cathedrale-chartres.org/architecture-cathedrale-chartres but was unknown to the world, without any evolutionary development before that era.

 

The end for the Templars came on Friday 13th October 1307 when King Phillip of France tried to kill the lot out of jealousy, but many escaped along with their fleet of ships.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Which university?, when?, were there pictures?, video? documentation? This surely must be repeatable.

 

I couldn’t find the University I mentioned, but believe it was MIT, I was remembering from about 30 years ago, but did find one MIT reference about changing something.

 

There are a lot of stories suggesting the Ark design is a powerful capacitor, building an electrical charge up over time and releasing it all at once – similar to a Leyden Jar.

 

Benjamin Franklin thought he could kill a Turkey with a charge but only succeeded in knocking himself unconscious.

 

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/106/reengineering_the_ark.html

 

Mythbusters built one but only produced a tiny spark.

 

I can’t vouch for this one, only found it today and it was an unfinished project when published, but it does give some theories and show an attempt to build one

 

http://www.hutchisoneffect.ca/Ark%20Of%20The%20Covenant%20II.php

 

The Ark of the Covenant was carried into battle at Jericho, being carried around the walls for seven days preceded by priests sounding trumpets of rams’ horns, before the walls fell down.

 

If we look at what knowledge is around on an instrument which either transmits electricity, or enhances sympathetic resonance:

 

Nikola Telstra’s work in the 19th and 20th Century in producing resonance and transmitting electricity some miles is similar. http://www.damninteresting.com/teslas-tower-of-power/

 

The civilization attributed to Atlantis is claimed to have powered aircraft from a central source and possessed weapons which could transmit electric beams.

 

The Ark may well date back to a time before the Egyptians, but it certainly stretches the imagination to suggest that the God which created everything from darkness had to be carried around in an acacia box by the Israelites for forty years, all the while spitting and snarling.

 

 

[dazza 38]

I think a bloke called Indiana Jones and the Nazi's had something to do with the Ark or it's were abouts.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Turbo, you are into some WEIRD sh1t.

 

I think I'll stick with more mundane explanations, like, someone trying to get more light into cathedrals thought really hard, experimented with scale models, and figured out the engineering principles required. Or at least some of them, and others improved on them. Just as we have brilliant minds in modern times, there would have been brilliant minds a thousand years ago. All it takes would be one of those minds within the body of a master builder, he does something spectacular, other builders would flock to this and learn. Hey presto the new method starts springing up all over western Europe.

 

There was a lot of pressure and competition for builders to produce impressive cathedrals. The only employer in town was the church, and they knew that awe-inspiring cathedrals drew pilgrims and hence money to an area.

 

It isn't as much fun as your conspiracy theory, but to paraphrase Occam's Razor, the most mundane explanation is usually the right one.

 

 

[AVOCET]

Wh

 

Tesla's Free energy machines would have put an end to the oil industries wealth generation in double quick time with free energy for the rich and the poor, so he had to be stopped!

Whats this " free energy " machine ,

 

Havent met one machine yet that was free ,

 

Even the dunnys at flinders st. station used to cost a penney ,

 

!!!!

 

Mike

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Well, I just made the terrible mistake of catching up on the 228 posts since I last visited this thread. Mistake? I should have taken my own advice and Turbos and stayed away until Ian implemented a "really stupid" button - not that he would.

 

A couple of corrections for those who weren't aware:

 

• AD is no more it is now CE (Common Era) and BC is gone as well now being BCE (yes, you guessed it, Before Common Era). For convenience sake we still work with the Gregorian calendar although some in the world haven't seen the need to move on from the flawed Julian Calendar.
   
   
   
  
• As many have said, not believing in something can not logically be described as a "faith".
   
   
  
• Somebody smarter than me said "An idea is not responsible for the people who adopt it".
  Apply that to Atheism and you can understand that we are not as a group desirous of a totalitarian government with us in charge. While there has been one famous form of totalitarian government that claimed to be atheistic (Communism) most totalitarian governments are based on religion. The Bolsheviks didn't want to control Russia to get rid of religion, they did it because they wanted to break the stranglehold of the Russian Royal family and the Orthodox Church. A prime example of a religion based totalitarian regime is the United Kingdom. It has an absolute ruler who is the head of the Church of England. Sound like Iran to anyone? ISIL? And, no, Nazis were not atheists, they were formed by a bunch of Bavarian Catholics and not opposed by the then Pope.
   
  

 

GG, I am sure you would object to the lack of religious freedom you currently enjoy if Sharia Law became entrenched for all Australians. I am certain you would demand freedom of religion. By the same token, atheists would like your support to be free FROM religion. We are not asking you to give up your belief systems however weird we might think them to be. But we are asking that we do not have to live under your Christian version of Sharia Law sometimes called Canon Law.

 

Religious instruction in schools is fine if it is taught in an unbiased way as comparative religions. But I doubt this is something that Primary School Children need to be exposed to. It is good that teenagers have the opportunity to learn about all the various forms of religion from Judeo/Christian/Muslim to Shinto, Taoism and even Scientology. How else can they be prepared to chose wisely to be or not to be religious?

 

Unfortunately, GG you seem to have swallowed, hook line and sinker, some extremist Christian ideology that has no basis in common sense let alone science or logic. You appear from your writings to be rigidly prejudiced against anything anyone says on this forum that is not in 100% agreement with you and that makes it a waste of everyone's time debating with you.

 

The only thing I would like you to explain to me is why your religion is the one true religion. Why is not Shinto or Hindu or even Scientology the one true religion?

 

The one thing I would like you to take away is that the Judeo/Christian/Muslims are just branches of the same faith with the same GOD. Christians broke away in CE 1 and Muslims broke away about 700 years later. Muslims accept Jewish prophets as true prophets but simply claim Mohammed was the last prophet and that there will be no more prophets. But, Mohammed was the servant of the Judeo/Christina God when he founded Islam. Ask your nearest minister and they will confirm that for you.

 

 

[Bikky]

GG can believe what he chooses. I will fight for his right to say or think what he wants. Whether I agree with his opinions is another matter. For me discussion about supreme beings, free energy machines, nostril fairies, underpants gnomes, Atlantis, heaven or hell is amusing and the history of religion is truly fascinating but I remain a skeptic - thoroughly unconvinced.

 

Not my choice. Who knows, one day I may have an illuminated moment and start believing!

 

One thing's for sure, I'm not going to waste a minute waiting and I won't be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

 

Obvious reality and the universal laws that govern our existence are incredibly fascinating to me and enrich my existence no end.

 

Fractal geometry, quantum physics, the science of ethics to name a few, do far more for me than religion and worrying about my salvation from who knows what.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Turbo, you are into some WEIRD sh1t.

I think I'll stick with more mundane explanations, like, someone trying to get more light into cathedrals thought really hard, experimented with scale models, and figured out the engineering principles required. Or at least some of them, and others improved on them. Just as we have brilliant minds in modern times, there would have been brilliant minds a thousand years ago. All it takes would be one of those minds within the body of a master builder, he does something spectacular, other builders would flock to this and learn. Hey presto the new method starts springing up all over western Europe.

 

There was a lot of pressure and competition for builders to produce impressive cathedrals. The only employer in town was the church, and they knew that awe-inspiring cathedrals drew pilgrims and hence money to an area.

 

It isn't as much fun as your conspiracy theory, but to paraphrase Occam's Razor, the most mundane explanation is usually the right one.

\

In normal circumstances I would agree with you, because working in design I usually look at an existing product, research what the market wants, and try to design something better, and these days, more cost effective. Now and again someone makes a breakthrough, like Alex Issigonis with the Mini, a jet engine is invented etc, but it is usually a process of evolution.

 

For example, today's architecture mostly dates back through the German Bauhaus and Frank Lloyd Wright to the breakthrough of Hatshepsut's Memorial Temple.

 

Hapshepsut, a woman became co-Pharaoh in Egypt with her stepson in 1473 BC and died in 1458 BC. Her greatest achievement was the memorial ar Deir el-Bahri.

 

http://discoveringegypt.com/ancient-egyptian-kings-queens/hatshepsut/

 

In looking at the photo of the temple, the design could be built as a corporate office today and wouldn't look out of place.

 

That's why I spent time dwelling on evolution, and how our perceptions have gone through a paradigm revolution with new information in the last 20 years or so.

 

I've been posting information from memory which has come from 500 page books, and when someone queries something I've gone back to the books for the information, but you can't squeeze hundreds of pages into a forum post, particularly the background, research and detailed explanations of what happened.

 

In the case of the Cathedrals, the key to the mystery is that these designs didn't evolve. There was no evolutionary process of structural development, just an extremely complex structural design which used several different unheard of principles to carry the weight. In the link I posted there is a cross section which shows an inner support section for the cathedral, keystone, arches etc. There was a documentary on the design in the last year or so, and it took an hour or two to cover each complementary step in the structure.

 

And I mentioned that none of the Templars who built these amazing structures had any engineering experience.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Well, I just made the terrible mistake of catching up on the 228 posts since I last visited this thread. Mistake? I should have taken my own advice and Turbos and stayed away until Ian implemented a "really stupid" button - not that he would.

If you want to call us stupid it's a free world.

 

If you, as you explained look at a gorilla and look in a mirror and see where you came from, who am I to argue. Many of the rest of us are starting to reap the benefits of new technology and research, and know different.

 

This thread started with a great joke and perhaps we can finish with a p!ssweak one?

You would have gagged the thread at post #104 - we've had one of the most interesting debates in a number of years with a lot of us opening our minds and learning new things we'd never thought of and we're out to post #485 without being bored.

 

A couple of corrections for those who weren't aware:AD is no more it is now CE (Common Era) and BC is gone as well now being BCE (yes, you guessed it, Before Common Era). For convenience sake we still work with the Gregorian calendar although some in the world haven't seen the need to move on from the flawed Julian Calendar.

Atheist dating has by no means taken hold; if the Jewish people say they don't need it that's good enough for me.

 

 

[rankamateur]

The only thing I would like you to explain to me is why your religion is the one true religion. Why is not Shinto or Hindu or even Scientology the one true religion?

The one thing I would like you to take away is that the Judeo/Christian/Muslims are just branches of the same faith with the same GOD. Christians broke away in CE 1 and Muslims broke away about 700 years later. Muslims accept Jewish prophets as true prophets but simply claim Mohammed was the last prophet and that there will be no more prophets. But, Mohammed was the servant of the Judeo/Christina God when he founded Islam. Ask your nearest minister and they will confirm that for you.

Everyone has there own spiritual path, all these religions are just a convenient RETAIL packaged version of spirituality for those who don't have the time or inclination to seek their own path, so of course each is going to claim to be the only true religion, the only true path! That is why they all need money, lots and lots of money, from their adherants, IT IS MARKETING, no more, no less!

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

And tax evasion - don't lose sight of that Mastodon.

 

 

[Marty_d]

And tax evasion - don't lose sight of that Mastodon.

When I read this I thought "why are you calling rankamateur 'Mastodon'"?

 

 

[rgmwa]

When I read this I thought "why are you calling rankamateur 'Mastodon'"?

Biblical version of elephant in the room?

 

rgmwa

 

 

[turboplanner]

Whats this " free energy " machine

Nikola Tesla found a way to transmit electricity through the air - I think lighting globes up about 18 miles away then built this tower.

 

http://www.teslasociety.com/tesla_tower.htm

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

GG, I am sure you would object to the lack of religious freedom you currently enjoy if Sharia Law became entrenched for all Australians. I am certain you would demand freedom of religion. By the same token, atheists would like your support to be free FROM religion.

It's exactly the opposite Don and you know it. No Christians is demanding you to surrender your atheism, that is absurd. Yet the atheists here are the ones demanding the closing of the thread (you still recall saying that?) and the blocking of children's ears from hearing any discussion of faith or even daring to point out the lack of scientific evidence for the holy atheist doctrine of Darwinian evolution. Anyone can look at the fruits - atheist governments have historically murdered the most people of all and give the least freedom, you'll just have to live with that inconvenient fact.

 

See you are not just an atheist Don you are specifically anti-Christian. All of the other faiths don't bother you like this one does, I'm sure if you hit your thumb you don't curse Mohammad or Buddha. That is your choice however every day you enjoy the benefits and freedoms and laws that the western world has, a good deal of which has come from Christianity. So I tend to view anti-Christian bigots living in the west as just freeloaders who despise the very culture they benefit from.

 

The one thing I would like you to take away is that the Judeo/Christian/Muslims are just branches of the same faith with the same GOD. Christians broke away in CE 1 and Muslims broke away about 700 years later. Muslims accept Jewish prophets as true prophets but simply claim Mohammed was the last prophet and that there will be no more prophets. But, Mohammed was the servant of the Judeo/Christina God when he founded Islam.

Still pedaling this utter dishonesty I see. I don't suppose you actually read what Mohammad said after his first revelation in the cave? Because at the time he didn't even claim this himself. See if you actually read the primary sources you can understand this stuff and then don't have to rely on fabrications and quotes from fundamental atheist websites. Unless you prefer to stick with the latter of course.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Nikola Tesla found a way to transmit electricity through the air - I think lighting globes up about 18 miles away then built this tower.

Cool, this idea would make Greenies head explode. Maybe dress them as a windmill?

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Turbo,

 

You would be close to the last person I know that I would use a mythical "Stupid" button for - if I were ever to be so crass. I should make it plain that I was feeling a little frustrated by those who do not do what you do - research and apply rigid logic to to their learnings and still keep an open mind to future new knowledge.

 

A "stupid" button has no place on RecFlying as I did obliquely indicate.

 

You and I have been known to disagree strongly on some key issues, but I'd be prepared to bet that we have a meeting of minds on a lot more things than we would disagree on.

 

In the 228 posts there were some highs and lows. Some brilliant humour and some insightful argument. But there was also mindless trotting out of other people's reputed words from many millennia past with no attempt at understanding of those obtuse quotes or their veracity or provenance.

 

And in terms of productivity, while it has been at times I agree a stimulating discussion, I doubt that anyone has moved one millimetre.

 

My suggestion to terminate was that continuing the discussion was likely to generate little in the end other than ill will. Extremist, fundamentalist christians have no doubt lowered their personal regard for people whose opinions they previously respected. And it is hard not to view with great distaste and personal affront the illogical, unsupported assertions of the immorality, worthlessness, purposelessness and megalomania attributed to people who have not accepted as gospel any of the thousands of myths pushed on them by people who have forsaken reason for spiritual one-upmanship.

 

You would have gagged the thread at post #104 - we've had one of the most interesting debates in a number of years with a lot of us opening our minds and learning new things we'd never thought of and we're out to post #485 without being bored.

(Turbo)

To everyone's credit the heat has been managed and civility largely remains intact. But I still believe more damage has been done than personal enlightenment achieved.

 

Perhaps I take it too seriously and should just enjoy the creativity?

 

[ATTACH]47482._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

[turboplanner]

Well if you start on Creationism you'll touch off another set of paradigms, and if you take the next path of catastrophism things should get really cooking.

 

 

[Marty_d]

In the case of the Cathedrals, the key to the mystery is that these designs didn't evolve. There was no evolutionary process of structural development, just an extremely complex structural design which used several different unheard of principles to carry the weight. In the link I posted there is a cross section which shows an inner support section for the cathedral, keystone, arches etc. There was a documentary on the design in the last year or so, and it took an hour or two to cover each complementary step in the structure.

 

And I mentioned that none of the Templars who built these amazing structures had any engineering experience.

Couple of points here that I disagree with slightly.

 

Cathedrals (as in the awe-inspiring Gothic light-filled ones) DID evolve from the existing Romanesque styles at the time. There are 3 features which Gothic cathedrals usually have - pointed arches, rib-vaulted ceilings and flying buttresses.

 

Durham Cathedral was built from 1093, 101 years before Chartres was started. It features rib-vaulted ceilings and pointed arches, but not the massive types like in Chartres. Pointed arches have been used by the Romans in bridges and other civil structures.

 

Flying buttresses are the logical solution to handling racking pressures from the roof weights and wind pressure, enabling the outer walls to be thinner which allows for those huge windows. Buttresses have been around since ancient times - have a look at the Grand Baths of Salamis-Constantia, Cyprus, built from the 3rd century AD - which has flying buttresses supporting the sub-structure.

 

Far from being "unheard of principles to carry the weight", all of the structural features of Gothic architecture have their evolution from other styles.

 

The other point I have to pull you up on is "none of the Templars who built these amazing structures had any engineering experience."

 

I don't think the knights laid down their armour, pulled on their work gear and started sketching the cathedrals. They may have funded the construction of some of them, but saying "the Templars built the cathedral" is like saying "Donald Trump built Trump Towers". Then, as now, the client fronts up the money and hires the professionals to turn their wishes into reality.

 

 

[Marty_d]

As Pamela Anderson can attest to. If she knew.

Yes, Borat.

 

 

[AVOCET]

Nikola Tesla found a way to transmit electricity through the air - I think lighting globes up about 18 miles away then built this tower.http://www.teslasociety.com/tesla_tower.htm

So wheres this machine now , or better still the Tesla's reserch ?

 

Surly this is just another ..( you tell me )?

 

 

[Marty_d]

It's exactly the opposite Don and you know it. No Christians is demanding you to surrender your atheism, that is absurd. Yet the atheists here are the ones demanding the closing of the thread (you still recall saying that?) and the blocking of children's ears from hearing any discussion of faith or even daring to point out the lack of scientific evidence for the holy atheist doctrine of Darwinian evolution. Anyone can look at the fruits - atheist governments have historically murdered the most people of all and give the least freedom, you'll just have to live with that inconvenient fact.

See you are not just an atheist Don you are specifically anti-Christian. All of the other faiths don't bother you like this one does, I'm sure if you hit your thumb you don't curse Mohammad or Buddha. That is your choice however every day you enjoy the benefits and freedoms and laws that the western world has, a good deal of which has come from Christianity. So I tend to view anti-Christian bigots living in the west as just freeloaders who despise the very culture they benefit from.

 

Still pedaling this utter dishonesty I see. I don't suppose you actually read what Mohammad said after his first revelation in the cave? Because at the time he didn't even claim this himself. See if you actually read the primary sources you can understand this stuff and then don't have to rely on fabrications and quotes from fundamental atheist websites. Unless you prefer to stick with the latter of course.

Thanks for the laugh GG.

 

The only reason that the western world has benefits and freedoms we can enjoy, is that church and state have been (nominally) separated and the power of the church diminished. Sounds like your world view is stuck a few centuries ago. Ever thought of switching to islam and going to live somewhere that still enjoys the full benefits and freedoms of a religious society? Sounds like you'd enjoy it, you wouldn't be surrounded by freeloading atheist bigots who worship the "holy atheist doctrine of Darwinian evolution". (Darwin was a christian by the way, don't know how he founded an atheist doctrine.)

 

 

[DonRamsay]

. . . Atheist dating has by no means taken hold; if the Jewish people say they don't need it that's good enough for me.

The adoption of BCE and CE by academia seemed a little unnecessary to me but it is an attempt by historians and scientists to recognise that BC / AD is a reference to somebody that only a small proportion of the world's population would actually recognise as having possibly existed and for whom the date AD of 1/1/1 is a stab in the dark. It is only known by reference to other calendars of the day notably the Roman Julian calendar.

 

Personally, I'd have gone with an "absolute" date of, say 10,000 BC as year 1 being about the time of recorded history and worked forward so you don't have to do the mental gymnastics of count down to year 1 and count up from year 1. Should Year 1 have been year "0"? But, a five digit year number would have caused more problems than the day after New Year's Eve 1999. So we are, for practical purposes, stuck in the third millennium CE - get used to it.

 

I don't judge anyone with a genuine religious commitment as long as the rules of their religion don't require me to do anything but particularly:

 

• believe the same stuff or be cruelly murdered;
   
  
• be sadistically murdered if I give up that belief;
   
  
• be tortured and murdered if I said or wrote something about their particular deity they didn't like (blasphemy);
   
  
• be slowly, brutally stoned to death for consensual heterosexual acts outside of a marriage to their rules.
   
  
• or be tortured to death for however many other things their "principles" demanded.
   
  

 

These after all were the enforced rules of Christianity until recent times and are the current rules of a certain branch of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic "faiths".