Iggy

You still aren't getting the negation thing. I'll stop The fact that *you* didn't lump hundreds of authors and dozens of books written over a thousand years together makes your willingness to throw them all in the same bag all the more odd. I don't know why you're talking about "a policeman". The analogy would be: 'If I can show that some police lied then all police are untrustworthy.' When someone says "there are a lot of different police who act very differently" you can say, 'I didn't group them together. Somebody else did that. The whole force is untrustworthy' I truly believe that in any other area you would see the problem, but when you're doing it on the topic of religion you can't. All police scripture are untrustworthy if some are shown false? I'm afraid I'll just have to respectfully disagree. Which group of books? There are many libraries that contain many groupings of books. Is it just the bible that follows this principle?

What source? If Jesus saying something wrong then makes a book written 400 years earlier untrustworthy... yeah, you'll have to explain. I might as well make a post lumping together your posts with somebody else's, show that person wrong, and call you untrustworthy. I can't believe you don't see the problem with this. Jesus saying "you'll get reward and punishment after you die" does nothing to make Solomon untrustworthy when he says "you won't get reward and punishment". Just because some Romans grouped the books together in a volume doesn't mean we get to call the whole thing untrustworthy. I think you would agree with me if you weren't intent on arguing with me. I knew you wouldn't get that, and you continue to do it here... The bible is like the second trio, but the first trio is NOT its negation. It therefore doesn't belong in the argument. I might as well make a list of things that are wrong and say "it can't be trusted", then make a list that is partially correct and say that it therefore "can be trusted". I wouldn't be comparing like to like, and neither are you. If you want to make a list of things that are entirely correct then you better be saying that the bible is entirely wrong. And, yes, I know you *are not* saying that. Just because you can't figure out how what I'm saying applies to what you've said doesn't make it a strawman. Showing some parts of some books wrong doesn't mean that you can group those books together with a bunch of other books and call them all untrustworthy

No, I didn't. I'm asking if proving that part of the bible is wrong automatically makes the following quote untrustworthy. Not asking you what you think is true or not. In other words, does proving one person wrong automatically make something written 400 years earlier by another author untrustworthy? The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t... The same destiny overtakes all... For whoever is joined with all the living, there is hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward Ecc 9.2 You already said it does. You said that finding some part of a collection of books mistaken makes the whole collection untrustworthy. You said, "Once you can show that some bits are wrong, you have shown that all of it is untrustworthy." Do you not see how this is fallacious? That some parts of the bible are wrong isn't the same as it being totally inaccurate as far as we know. The corollary is therefore the following: If some parts of the bible are shown false then the whole thing is untrustworthy If some parts of the bible are shown true then the whole thing is trustworthy I think both are mistaken

Again, too literal. "Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus" is a type of argument, not something I specifically accused you of saying word-for-word. Imagine if I said, "some parts of the bible are shown true, therefore the whole thing can be trusted". That would be just as bad as your statement "once you can show that some bits are wrong, you have shown that all of it is untrustworthy". There are roughly 70 books in the bible. There are some very good ones written by some very intelligent people. Look at what Solomon wrote: The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t... The same destiny overtakes all... For whoever is joined with all the living, there is hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward Ecc 9.2 Are you going to say that the above is untrustworthy because someone decided to put it in the same book as Jesus and heaven and reward and punishment and all that BS? You should not, because this: Is fallacious reasoning. I did read the post which I replied to, thank you for asking. You said both, "Once you can show that some bits are wrong, you have shown that all of it is untrustworthy." "Even if some bits of the (various) scriptures were correct by divine inspiration, you wouldn't know which bits were right and which were wrong." I'm responding to the former.

'Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus' is fallacious. It is poetic imagery. That chapter is written in parallelism -- synonymous parallelism (poetic verse), and 'the world cannot be moved' is in all likelihood an old Hebrew idiom... like someone saying "God has an axe to grind" and hearing you say "God doesn't have an axe". Too literal. I can give you loads of concrete contradictions and outright false statements in the bible, but this one really isn't worth it.

Or a song, yeah, I should have looked it up

While Chronicles is a history book, I do take your point. The language could well be idiomatic... Taking it seriously could be like hearing "Abraham was on cloud nine", and thinking that the bible says Abraham could fly. By the way, LabRat, you said the bible was "originally translated to Latin", but one way we know the oldest Latin copies (the Old Italic) came from Greek (from the Septuagint) is because they contain literal translations of Greek idioms. So, it went... Hebrew -> Greek -> Old Latin -> New Latin (the Vulgate) -> English. It's a wonder there aren't more translation problems.

Are you saying this to me? That is exactly what I've been saying. LabRat said that immovable means in the center, and I've been telling him no. Perhaps you were addressing him.

I understand geocentrism, Labrat. We weren't discussing a particular ancient model. They had Heliocentric models too. You may have gotten lost in the conversation. I said, "[the bible] says that God fixed the earth on a foundation so that it was firm and immovable." In post 555 you replied: "There's not a single verse in the bible that states that Earth is the center of the universe. " Which is something you keep doing. You keep disagreeing with things I never said. My reply was very simple: "I didn't say that the bible says anything about the center of the universe." In order to explain you offer: "To say that all things in the sky are movable but the Earth isn't is to say that the Earth is the center." which isn't true. It may be true in an orrery, but that assumes the earth is at the center... you aren't showing that earth has to be in the center, you're assuming it is. Put the solar system anywhere in a sphere and rotate the sphere around the solar system. To say that all things in the sky are movable but the Earth isn't is not to say that the Earth is the center of the universe.

You don't understand. I'm proving this statement wrong: "To say that all things in the sky are movable but the Earth isn't is to say that the Earth is the center." I'm using your example of a spinning top as a counterexample. If the universe is the shape of a top, and earth is in the handle, then everything moves and earth isn't at the center. A rotating sky doesn't imply a spherically symmetric sky

The former does not imply the latter. Rotation does not imply spherical symmetry. You can spin every point around any point in any shaped object of any number of dimensions and no points will intersect the center of rotation. Translation: the top's handle isn't the center of the top. I may have to step away from these tangents you're doing as I am extremely busy.

I didn't say that the bible says anything about the center of the universe. Please stop doing that. It's starting to feel like you're doing it on purpose. 1 Chronicles 16:30: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable." Psalm 93:1: "Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ..." Psalm 96:10: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ..." Psalm 104:5: "Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken." Isaiah 45:18: "...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast..."

No doubt, an incoherent idea doesn't bode well for the idea, but I see shades of gray even in that. Democritus introduced the idea of an atom, for example, long before it was a coherent or testable idea. He debated the properties and structure of atoms with his contemporaries, and as far as they knew it would forever be a fuzzy metaphysical question -- like you say about debating whether He-Man or the Hulk is stronger, or how many angels on the head of a needle. So I guess I'd say it can be a benefit for science and humanity to have someone introduce into the lexicon, and advocate the existence, of a poorly defined, speculative, and untestable thing. I think we're in pretty good agreement. Assuming that God doesn't exist, at least, makes sense to me as well. I don't assume he does. I, nevertheless, have no way of knowing if God (a deistic god that created the universe let's say) is more likely than some other explanation. So, I respect people who believe differently... and above all, I think it is a question that needs investigated scientifically rather than being addressed with faith. It says that God fixed the earth on a foundation so that it was firm and immovable. The idea, which was quite reasonable at the time, was that everything in the universe could move (especially things in the sky) but that the earth was different because it was immovable. This has been squarely falsified. If you want to start a thread I'll give verses and stuff.

I'm sorry, I did not. I know, Right? I just made this post: trying to get us back on topic, and now we've spent a page arguing over something it doesn't even say.

This means that the intention of science was not to disprove, but to prove. No, it says (and means) that the intention of theistic scientists might be to prove. Like John just said with Galileo. Galileo did falsify a religious claim. He was not trying to falsify a religious claim. His motives and the result of his actions are distinctly different things.

I didn't say that anybody said "that". Of course they should have. I didn't say otherwise. I didn't say that he did. We agree there. I can tell you're trying to disagree with me, John, but... maybe you could read the last page or so of discussion because it looks like you're trying to argue against an implication that was never there.

I don't follow. I said, and you replied, to the following: You may be arguing against something I didn't say. I said to turn your statement around in order to make a point about the thread's title. You'll have to show me exactly what you're disagreeing with and how. By "the falsification of religion" I mean, for example, proving things in the bible wrong. Seriously? My point is that it would be inappropriate for science to ignore the age of the earth and say "Hey... it's up to religious people to answer that. They claimed it first and they have no evidence". How do you think what you just said in any way disagrees with what I said? Galileo was falsifying a religious claim. His motive doesn't matter. I'm saying that it would have been anti-scientific for him to put the telescope down, and tell religious people that their idea is stupid and it's up to them to investigate the heavens because their claims about it are stupid.

Let me give you an example that doesn't involve religion in case you're missing the point based on feelings on the topic. "A philosopher's stone exists which can turn lead into gold" The above is a profoundly stupid thing to say, but think of how much knowledge mankind gained trying to test it. A lot of chemistry came from that profoundly stupid claim. Imagine, instead, if philosophers ignored the claim because it had no supporting evidence. The attitude of science is NOT to dismiss things that have no evidence solely on the basis of that lack of evidence. Now turn it around. Think of how much science was done by religious people who were trying to prove the claims of religion true (but ended up falsifying them). Those people... those theistic scientists... are doing science when they do that. Testing the claim "the earth is 10,000 years old", and proving it wrong, is what science is all about.

Eddington was testing Einstein's idea. One idea, not two. You ask how a deistic god could be tested. One can't rule out the possibility that it could be. The storyline for stargate universe is the first example that comes to mind. If an intelligence created the universe then we may yet find evidence of that. It is verifiable. You confuse that with falsifiable... I agree, a deistic God is not falsifiable while GR certainly is. They are, therefore, not even in the same ballpark. Relativity is far more scientific. Where you go wrong is calling my comparison invalid. This is what Moontanman said: God and Dragons are equivalent in one undeniable way... the amount of evidence for their existence... GR and Newton's gravity were equivalent in that same one undeniable way prior to Eddington. If that is all Eddington saw then he never would have been testing Einstein's theory. If "god is equivalent to dragon poop because they both lack evidence" is all an atheist sees then they likewise wouldn't be trying to falsify god. A major part of science has been the falsification of religion. It is precisely for that reason that "god is equivalent to dragon poop because they both lack evidence" is profoundly anti-scientific. Why does that matter to my point? Einstein talked about how positivists lose something when they think that all meaning and truth comes from verified empiricism, as do positive (or 'strong') atheists. He can personally believe in a pantheistic god and still make the same point.

I don't believe so, no. An atheist who says "I don't believe in God" doesn't have to explain the cause of the big bang (if there even is a cause). An atheist who says "God does not exist" has bigger problems than needing to explain the big bang, and it is a very rare atheist indeed who says that outright. My point is only that there are scientists like Einstein who are willing to imagine God, and even try to explain how the idea makes some sense. People like Einstein who take the idea seriously... are immeasurably more scientific than people willing to compare God to dragon poop and leprechaun erections. And, Moontanman's willingness to take UFOs seriously (because I forgot to say this before) is praiseworthy indeed.

I picture Eddington in 1919 sitting in the blistering heat of equatorial Guinea waiting for a solar eclipse... you know, like people do. He's thinking about Newton's law of gravity. The law is scientifically perfect. It is fully self-consistent, and for 250 years it had been tested, verified, confirmed, supported, and hailed as the pinnacle of science. But, there is a different idea that lives in Einstein's imagination. General relativity says that Newton and 250 years of verified observations are wrong, and as Eddington sits there he thinks, "this bizarre private belief of Einstein has not one thing to support it". Not one supported observation. Nothing. Then Eddington thinks, "General Relativity and dragons are equivalent in one undeniable way... the amount of evidence for their existence". So he gets up and walks away -- not even looking up when the moon eclipses the sun. He probably walks into the jungle chuckling, "GR and dragon poop are equivalent", so sure he is that Newton is right -- and we live in a very different world indeed. Every significant scientific achievement has happened directly because someone was willing to imagine the bizarre existence of something that had never been observed. And, real scientists like Eddington are willing to test the ideas instead of comparing them to dragon poop, don't you think?

Yeah, I think two. No hablo. Combining such sentences truly confuses me as much as the Spanish bellhop who once tried speaking English to me while I spoke fluent Spanish. He made no sense at all, but was clearly looking for a bigger tip. It was embarrassing. I can't figure it out. I think we'll just get past this. No hablo.

iNow saying that God is equivalent to dragon poop is embarrassing? That's what you're agreeing to? Yeah. Quite true. Tar saying that God is equivalent to the 'majesty of the universe' is embarrassing too. Where do these people find the time to make such embarrassing arguments?

I just made a slur? I just made a slur against half the world? Dear God. Please quote exactly where I did that, and please prove I did. Thanks. No, iNow said they are equivalent. He did it first. I'm sure you're about to press him just as hard to show his ridiculous claim. It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to open a dictionary and show that God is different from Dragon poop, but I don't have to do it. Go ahead and drag that guy through the mud for doing such a stupid thing as saying they're equivalent. He said they are equivalent first, before I pointed out his equivocation fallacy. And, I've gone so far as to prove that consensus makes them different. This is not on me. Why are you asking me? This is a science site. This is embarrassing.

iNow didn't say the latter. He actually said "they're equivalent... I'm happy to show they're equivalent". As far as me saying they're different. Popularity is a difference. If A is more popular than B then A is not equal to B, because consensus makes a definition not the other way 'round. If 85% of the population find one thing more likely than another then they aren't the same. If a dictionary defines them equally then it is the dictionary that is wrong. And, let's all remember whose argument this is. Do you really think iNow is saying that God is equivalent to dragon poop because hordes of people are coming to the site saying "believe in God because he's different from dragon poop"? That would make no sense. This is iNow's argument. This is his show. You think somebody else said that first? He's the one comparing them. Let him prove it. Otherwise... it is equivocation just like Tar does when he says "let's believe in god because god is equivalent to child's laughter" (or some version of that). It is equivocation either way. It's beneath atheism.