By the standards of the modern world, the people who wrote the Bible didn’t know much of anything. I will never understand why people put so much faith in ancient myths that have nothing to support them other than their appearance in a magic book. You would think if the Bible is really the word of God, then the discoveries of science would be confirming the Bible not contradicting it. No discovery of science ever pointed to the truth of any religious doctrine.
The commenters at Christian Post keep repeating that archaeological and scientific discoveries confirm the bible. It is useless to ask them to explain themselves.
The question becomes whether or not they can cite any HARD DATA to substantiate their position. My guess is that they can't, so they assert and assert without substance.
Which is what they do most if not all the time anyway.
Interesting, yet Davyboy seems to disagree with your findings! Yet Tyre was an economic hub during the Hellenistic period, does sound like prosperity to me!
The Tyre which was destroyed has never been rebuilt. The following is taken from another site.
If Tyre were to be truly “rebuilt,” then everything mentioned in Ezekiel 27 would have to be restored:
– national prominence and regional influence (see Ezekiel 27:3)
– national strength and security (see Ezekiel 27:10–11)
– wealth and prosperity and opulence (see Ezekiel 27:3–4, 33)
The prophecy of Ezekiel 26:14 does not mean there would never be anything built on the island. It means that, after its final defeat by wave after wave of conquerors, Tyre would never regain the status it held in Ezekiel’s day. Tyre would never again be a commercial superpower, a world trader, or a colonizer. Tyrians would never again possess the riches and prosperity they had in their city’s heyday.
That is not only quite possibly the most desperate example of begging the question I've ever come across, it amounts in its demand for precise replication in every particular to a "no true Scotsman" argument and so reduces "Tyre will never be rebuilt" to the most banal of observations.
I would respond that they found Athens so the Iliad is true and that proves that the Greek gods are real. At that point the jesusfuckers would either use special pleading or that is not real evidence line.
I have come to the conclusion that most jesusfuckers don’t understand the meaning of words like contemporary, evidence, facts; nor the phrase such as burden of proof, and peer review articles, etc.
They think because they are Christian that they have the “ultimate truth” and the rest of us should accept what ever they say as a fact and be thankful that they are imparting this knowledge to us. Yet, the Christians get upset and outrage when we (rest of us) ask for evidence, or question them. If they (jesusfuckers) have the ultimate truth, then IT SHOULD BE ABLE TO STAND UP TO QUESTIONS, CRITICISMS, AND MOCKERY!
Sorry for the rant, but I am tired of explaining to these jesusfuckers that I won’t blindly accept or obey just because they (Christians) tell me to obey due to a magical book that they believe in.
If you want to document that assertion to a fare-thee-well, complete with footnotes to a wealth of other scholarly sources, check out David Fitzgerald's "Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All" as well as his trilogy "PLAYING GOD: An Evolutionary History of World Religion" at http://davidfitzgerald.org/books/
Ohhhhh, yer talkin' to the WRONG GUY as it comes to that. My handle – "Troublesh00ter" – ain't some fanciful moniker. I spent 30 years as a Field Service Engineer, diagnosing and solving customers' problems with their devices or systems. Throughout all that time, I had to deal in FACTS and EVIDENCE to return those gadgets to functionality. The customers expected nothing less than that, never mind being upset that, in some cases, that widget being down was costing them as much as four figures (sometimes more!) for every hour it wasn't working. It took a while to build those skills, but they got built.
And they left me with an appreciation for facts and evidence which sticks with me to this day. As for "belief?" There's always this:
These are people for whom the comforting lies and myths they believe are their only reality. And because they get themselves elected to policy-making positions, they are able to impose their anti-reality worldview on all of us. They are destroying our ability as a society to plan ahead for natural and man-made disasters and ultimately will doom us to a failed civilization.
Plus there are archeaological records of entire civilizations being wiped out by climate change. Also the ice age didn't end ten thousand years ago. This woman knows nothing.
I think people "need" religion primarily as a psychological crutch to cope with the inherent suffering, uncertainty, and meaningless nature of existence. It provides them comfort and rationalizes suffering as having a higher purpose.
I can understand that. What I don’t understand is not wanting to create your own meaning to things/life.
If it isn't scientists telling us what we should do to save the environment, then who should we be listening to to save the environment? The rest of your statement suggests that you believe we should do nothing to save the environment, and just continue trashing it because you are expecting the world to end before any climate issues inconvenience you in any substantial way.
People who are actively rooting for the end of the world should not be allowed to govern the majority who do not wish for the world to end.
This stupid ninny thinks that there can be absolutes in a relative world. Worse, she wants ALL OF US to rely on HER "absolute" to reassure us that it's all going to be okay, pat-pat. The indoctrination couldn't be stronger in her if she had spent her life going to Jesus Camp.
And I doubt there's much if any cure for her. She knows what she believes and cannot be bothered with inconvenient things like FACTS.
These people WANT the world to end and are literally doing everything they can to hasten its decline because they really do think that Jesus is going to float down on a cloud and save them while the rest of us heathens suffer and die in the fire.
I have been convinced for the longest time that people like that can barely tolerate the weight of responsibility of living their own lives and making their own choices. They're SCARED SHITLESS of choosing wrong or guessing wrong, and they genuinely want Jesus to take the wheel.
Reality can't be argued with or told, "No, that can't be what is; besides, I don't like it!" It's childish and reductive and it helps no one. And let's keep in mind, too:
Based upon my background in science, I believe that "true" should be understood as subject to revision depending upon new facts or understanding of natural phenomena. Science is not prescriptive in the sense of telling you "what should be". It deals with "what is".
Religiots are fond of pointing out that science has in the past made mistakes, and they are certainly correct about that. Too bad they fail to then proceed to the next step in the process, which is that the WAY we discovered that they WERE mistakes was not thru religion but thru more science. Furthermore, moving to a better understanding was almost always achieved by refining existing almost-correct explanations, not throwing them all out for something completely different (let alone based on woo).
Science is a tool. An imperfect one, but it is always self-correcting and the best tool we have to determine fact from fiction
What the religidiots fail to grasp is that scientists will cheerfully admit when they are wrong (unlike the religious). They will openly embrace new knowledge that has been rigorously tested, thoroughly scrutinized and peer-reviwed.
Rule of thumb for scientists: No matter how dearly a theory is held, it must be thrown out in favor the new theory if it meets all the requirements of the scientific process.
The problem remains that religion makes nothing BUT mistakes, then when called on them, they tend to double down. Then again, they have to. If they were to admit to the massive number of mistakes made by religion, regardless of the flavor, religion would collapse around them.
And wouldn't THAT be nice? [No, still not holding my breath here]
I take a somewhat different view. What scientific theories are is the current best explanation of the way things are, but they are both contingent and corrigible.
“There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed.”
—Sir Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989), British philosopher, Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ch. 4 (1982)
I just roll my eyes at religionists who claim that, just because THEY can't understand something, the only possible explanation for it is not their ignorance or lack of mental capacity but rather "Goddidit!". IOW, they think they DO have an explanation, even if it's one that somebody totally made up.
Science, OTOH, freely admits when it doesn't know what's going on, and doesn't feel so insecure that it has to invent (and then defend with all its might) some woo-woo secret agent behind it all. Case in point: “I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‘But how can it be like that?’ because you will go ‘down the drain’ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. NOBODY knows how it can be like that.” —Richard Feynman (1918-1988), American physicist, Nobel laureate
I think our views have more in common than you think. What concerns me is how science as a tool to better understand our world loses support when it's hijacked by partisans for their own purposes or scientific results are shaded by ideology. The ongoing problem with lack of replication and outright fraud in scientific studies makes it easier for the anti-science forces to get an audience.
The Egyptian Pyramids, domesticated cats (with the exception of one verse in the Apocrypha), Non-avian dinosaurs (mythical animals falsely branded as dinosaurs don't count!), one cell animals, bacteria, people living in the Americas, Australia, Antarctica, China, Japan, India, and other East Asian regions. None of them are found in the Bible.
So go ahead deny them all, you ignoramus boob. They're not going away at all.
I cannot STAND people who say "If it's not in my 2000 year old book of myths and fables then it doesn't exist." I mean how the fuck do people like this even function in modern society?
Better get rid of your car, your phone, your computer, your stove, your washer and dryer, and every other modern convenience then.
I remember seeing a book at my local Wal*Mart store which claims that there are over a thousand (alleged) things you can find in the Bible, including dinosaurs and computers. And I'm like, "Where do they get such stupid ideas to create such trash from?"
Evolution is not at all found in the Bible, neither is chemistry, electricity, the fossil record, canyons or volcanoes. Does it mean we have to deny their existence now in spite of them confirming to be real?
People like Franson are the morons who took the phrase "global warming" literally, thinking it meant that there would never be snow or cold weather ever again. They're too stupid to understand that a change of one degree is enough to completely alter weather patterns. Where do they think carbon dioxide and vehicle emissions go? Out into space? They just disappear?
The truth is State Rep. Mary Franson and many other Christians are life-denying, life-hating peoples. The way we treat our only home (planet earth) is a reflection of the influence and power they have had for far too long. They don’t care if the “world ends” or everyone and everything dies because they believe a better life will follow. I saw a clip of State Rep. Mary Franson spewing this nonsense before I read this piece. Absolutely embarrassing this idiot was elected to represent anyone! Absolutely embarrassing for this country to add to a very long list. It’s like waking up into a fresh hell every morning.
"The Pale Blue Dot." Yet more brilliance from a brilliant man.
The first time I was confronted by JWs at my old place up north, I asked them if they knew who Carl Sagan was. No great surprise, they didn't. And I told him that great maxim: "I don't want to believe; I want to KNOW." I doubt that got what I had to say or even cared that I said it ... or the massive difference between believing and knowing. [sigh]
And really, more words either written or inspired by Carl Sagan. I read or listen to those words and I feel amazed and inspired. Someone like Franson hears them and what? She's scared? Non-plussed? Confused?
Whether interstellar exploration is possible at all, I love the idea that we're pursuing at least interplanetary exploration, because of all we will discover AND because of the neat technologies that will benefit all of us right here on this Pale Blue Dot.
All of this makes me wonder if Franson has any sense of wonder at all.
And here we have the very quintessence of MAGAtous intelligence, such as it is.
The smart people are trying to fix it now. But you don’t want to listen to them because you’re smarter than they are. Your God may be giving us time right now, but you don’t want to believe that your God is giving us time right now because that would contradict your MAGAtous faith in the far right..
As i said in my other comment, we cannot reach these people. They are blind to their own contradictions. They are blinded to their own blindness. Maybe it’s the severe case of recto-cranial inversion. It’s not only going around right now, it seems to be epidemic, and running for office.
I wonder if she is aware that we ALREADY have the people who know how to "fix it." Problem is that Donnie Dumb-Ass doesn't WANT to fix it, doesn't even believe that it needs to be fixed, and would prefer to go on his own merry way while Rome burns.
You do not want to guess how much that INFURIATES me to write that.
Insert joke about the guy who drowns in a predicted flood and asks God why he didn’t answer his prayers. The experts are here! Just like the pickup truck that came by to save the idiot.
From the time God gave us, 30 years have already been wasted. While the smart people were trying to fix climate change, their efforts were sabotaged, first by a stupid US president withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, and then by an even stupider president withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and then doing it again in his second term.
I just heard from my lovely daughter that I'm a grandpa for the second time. At once, I think that's both wonderful and tragic. The kids are GORGEOUS, but I can't help but wonder what kind of world they will live in.
I'm an old soak, but that don't mean I don't give one hell of a damn about all of 'em.
I am an LGBTQ person who has retired in Jonesboro, Arkansas because my only child and grandchildren live here. Congratulations! Keep fighting to make a better world for them! Before too long you can introduce them to Severence Hall.
Well, at the current time, they and the work they do are in the mythical land of The Garden State, New Jersey. It may be that, sometime or other, they will come for a visit or I'll go there.
The sycophantic leader worship of the MAGAt cult is just so... 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴. It'd be gross even without their constant efforts to stamp his name on literally everything, so that the rest of us are forced to participate in their acts of mindless fawning devotion to Dear Leader. Well, fuck them and fuck him. I am going to deface every single bill I receive with that disgusting man's signature on it, and I'm going to keep a box of black markers on hand, dedicated to that exclusive purpose, for the rest of my fucking life.
We were just at a national park, deciding whether or not to get the annual pass. We did since we figured ther is a good chance we'll use it a few times this year. We forgot what was on it.
We are doing a 45 minute flight-seeing plane tour of the Grand Canyon. We did a helicopter tour of Kenai Alaska a few years ago and it was incredible. Worth every penny.
Been to Bryce and Zion and Arches and Fairy Goblins with the kids when they were 6 and 8. They still talk about that trip 20 years later. Never been to AZ. Besides Grand Canyon, we are flying into Phoenix and going to a desert botanical garden, we want to see the desert in bloom, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Petrified Forest, Crater National Park, and a couple of other stops.
I bought ours 6 months ago. We have long been in the habit of planning vacations 6-12 months in advance. When we went to Yosemite I booked accommodations 365 days in advance. I was on the internet at 3 AM my time so it was midnight PT.
How many believers have sold everything they had in anticipation of one Rapture or another that never came? The endless gullibility of some is positively shameful.
By the standards of the modern world, the people who wrote the Bible didn’t know much of anything. I will never understand why people put so much faith in ancient myths that have nothing to support them other than their appearance in a magic book. You would think if the Bible is really the word of God, then the discoveries of science would be confirming the Bible not contradicting it. No discovery of science ever pointed to the truth of any religious doctrine.
The commenters at Christian Post keep repeating that archaeological and scientific discoveries confirm the bible. It is useless to ask them to explain themselves.
The question becomes whether or not they can cite any HARD DATA to substantiate their position. My guess is that they can't, so they assert and assert without substance.
Which is what they do most if not all the time anyway.
"They found Jericho, and it was destroyed!"
But it wasn't a massive walled city, and the destruction layers predate the conquest by centuries. It wasn't there when Joshua allegedly conquered it.
"But they found Jericho and it was destroyed!"
...
The bible said the city of Tyre was destroyed and never to be rebuilt.
Take a gander at the wikipage on the very real present-day Tyre. It calls the bible a liar without actually needing to call the bible a liar.
Interesting, yet Davyboy seems to disagree with your findings! Yet Tyre was an economic hub during the Hellenistic period, does sound like prosperity to me!
You know you're getting to him with facts when he responds to you despite the fact that you aren't even talking to him. :)
The Tyre which was destroyed has never been rebuilt. The following is taken from another site.
If Tyre were to be truly “rebuilt,” then everything mentioned in Ezekiel 27 would have to be restored:
– national prominence and regional influence (see Ezekiel 27:3)
– national strength and security (see Ezekiel 27:10–11)
– wealth and prosperity and opulence (see Ezekiel 27:3–4, 33)
The prophecy of Ezekiel 26:14 does not mean there would never be anything built on the island. It means that, after its final defeat by wave after wave of conquerors, Tyre would never regain the status it held in Ezekiel’s day. Tyre would never again be a commercial superpower, a world trader, or a colonizer. Tyrians would never again possess the riches and prosperity they had in their city’s heyday.
That is not only quite possibly the most desperate example of begging the question I've ever come across, it amounts in its demand for precise replication in every particular to a "no true Scotsman" argument and so reduces "Tyre will never be rebuilt" to the most banal of observations.
I would respond that they found Athens so the Iliad is true and that proves that the Greek gods are real. At that point the jesusfuckers would either use special pleading or that is not real evidence line.
I have come to the conclusion that most jesusfuckers don’t understand the meaning of words like contemporary, evidence, facts; nor the phrase such as burden of proof, and peer review articles, etc.
They think because they are Christian that they have the “ultimate truth” and the rest of us should accept what ever they say as a fact and be thankful that they are imparting this knowledge to us. Yet, the Christians get upset and outrage when we (rest of us) ask for evidence, or question them. If they (jesusfuckers) have the ultimate truth, then IT SHOULD BE ABLE TO STAND UP TO QUESTIONS, CRITICISMS, AND MOCKERY!
Sorry for the rant, but I am tired of explaining to these jesusfuckers that I won’t blindly accept or obey just because they (Christians) tell me to obey due to a magical book that they believe in.
They found Troy, so Brad Pitt really was Achilles. 😜
LOL 😳
They really don’t seem to understand the difference between a claim and evidence for the claim.
Albert Lin the archaeologist did prove that the city of Sodom actually existed and was actually destroyed by a... wait for it... NEARBY METEOR STRIKE.
And to early non-scientific humans it would look like God smote the city. But it had nothing to do with homosexuality at all.
There is no definitive evidence Jesus ever existed.
Or Moses. Or Abraham.
Or God!
Boom!💥
There ISN'T??? Ohmygoodnessgraciousme! And besides that, Heavens to Mergatroyd (with apologies to Snagglepuss!).
There really is just no dealing with some people, sad to say.
If you want to document that assertion to a fare-thee-well, complete with footnotes to a wealth of other scholarly sources, check out David Fitzgerald's "Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All" as well as his trilogy "PLAYING GOD: An Evolutionary History of World Religion" at http://davidfitzgerald.org/books/
Sounds like a certain resident Christian that we all know!
You just have to believe what we tell and don't go looking at all the evidence that proves us wrong.
Ohhhhh, yer talkin' to the WRONG GUY as it comes to that. My handle – "Troublesh00ter" – ain't some fanciful moniker. I spent 30 years as a Field Service Engineer, diagnosing and solving customers' problems with their devices or systems. Throughout all that time, I had to deal in FACTS and EVIDENCE to return those gadgets to functionality. The customers expected nothing less than that, never mind being upset that, in some cases, that widget being down was costing them as much as four figures (sometimes more!) for every hour it wasn't working. It took a while to build those skills, but they got built.
And they left me with an appreciation for facts and evidence which sticks with me to this day. As for "belief?" There's always this:
𝑁𝑜 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑓 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡.
-- James Randi
These are people for whom the comforting lies and myths they believe are their only reality. And because they get themselves elected to policy-making positions, they are able to impose their anti-reality worldview on all of us. They are destroying our ability as a society to plan ahead for natural and man-made disasters and ultimately will doom us to a failed civilization.
They can't so they resort to lying, stupidity, denial, slander, projections of themselves, etc.
So does DG. They live in a fantasy world.
One has to wonder why they need science to confirm the bible, especially if it's the inerrant word of their creator.
The Bible doesn't even come close to getting the age of the earth and the universe right.
"I will never understand why people put so much faith in ancient myths"
There are lots of different mythological systems, I fail to understand why we should accept one and discount all the others.
Plus there are archeaological records of entire civilizations being wiped out by climate change. Also the ice age didn't end ten thousand years ago. This woman knows nothing.
I think people "need" religion primarily as a psychological crutch to cope with the inherent suffering, uncertainty, and meaningless nature of existence. It provides them comfort and rationalizes suffering as having a higher purpose.
I can understand that. What I don’t understand is not wanting to create your own meaning to things/life.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOFOyXLkg4r/?igsh=djFiN3J2cXR2dTJk
𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑑𝑜 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡. 𝐵𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡, 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡? 𝐻𝑒’𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦, 𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑤, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟. 𝑌𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑑𝑎𝑦. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑜, 𝑢𝑚, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤, 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑘, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠. 𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒.
Hey Franson:
If it isn't scientists telling us what we should do to save the environment, then who should we be listening to to save the environment? The rest of your statement suggests that you believe we should do nothing to save the environment, and just continue trashing it because you are expecting the world to end before any climate issues inconvenience you in any substantial way.
People who are actively rooting for the end of the world should not be allowed to govern the majority who do not wish for the world to end.
This stupid ninny thinks that there can be absolutes in a relative world. Worse, she wants ALL OF US to rely on HER "absolute" to reassure us that it's all going to be okay, pat-pat. The indoctrination couldn't be stronger in her if she had spent her life going to Jesus Camp.
And I doubt there's much if any cure for her. She knows what she believes and cannot be bothered with inconvenient things like FACTS.
If I had a $ for every time the BIBLE tells us to be "good stewards" of the home given us...
I could save Earth myself!
How do all those verses just get skipped over? (Yeah, I know. Just like they skip over the Sermon On the Mount.)
They would have actually read the book to know what was in it, but that is too hard.
The "Patron Saint of Stupid" wouldn't have like it.
But, she got one thing right - her Jesus is the same today, tomorrow and forever - undetectable and most likely non-existent.
These people WANT the world to end and are literally doing everything they can to hasten its decline because they really do think that Jesus is going to float down on a cloud and save them while the rest of us heathens suffer and die in the fire.
These are truly dangerous people.
I have been convinced for the longest time that people like that can barely tolerate the weight of responsibility of living their own lives and making their own choices. They're SCARED SHITLESS of choosing wrong or guessing wrong, and they genuinely want Jesus to take the wheel.
Boggles the mind, don't it?
THIS is the very reason the key founders wanted church and state to be kept as far apart as possible.
Well, that and thousands of years of sectarian warfare in Europe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson might have been talking to Franson when he said this:
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑡, 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑔𝑜 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦.
-- Philip K. Dick
Reality can't be argued with or told, "No, that can't be what is; besides, I don't like it!" It's childish and reductive and it helps no one. And let's keep in mind, too:
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜𝑥𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠, 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑖𝑛'𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑠 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡.
-- me
Reality can be denied especially if you live in an echo chamber. But, eventually, reality bites back as I think we're seeing with Trump.
And John Cleese was DEFINITELY talking to Franson when he said "If you are very very stupid how can you possibly know that you are very very stupid?"
Based upon my background in science, I believe that "true" should be understood as subject to revision depending upon new facts or understanding of natural phenomena. Science is not prescriptive in the sense of telling you "what should be". It deals with "what is".
Religiots are fond of pointing out that science has in the past made mistakes, and they are certainly correct about that. Too bad they fail to then proceed to the next step in the process, which is that the WAY we discovered that they WERE mistakes was not thru religion but thru more science. Furthermore, moving to a better understanding was almost always achieved by refining existing almost-correct explanations, not throwing them all out for something completely different (let alone based on woo).
Science is a tool. An imperfect one, but it is always self-correcting and the best tool we have to determine fact from fiction
What the religidiots fail to grasp is that scientists will cheerfully admit when they are wrong (unlike the religious). They will openly embrace new knowledge that has been rigorously tested, thoroughly scrutinized and peer-reviwed.
Rule of thumb for scientists: No matter how dearly a theory is held, it must be thrown out in favor the new theory if it meets all the requirements of the scientific process.
The problem remains that religion makes nothing BUT mistakes, then when called on them, they tend to double down. Then again, they have to. If they were to admit to the massive number of mistakes made by religion, regardless of the flavor, religion would collapse around them.
And wouldn't THAT be nice? [No, still not holding my breath here]
I take a somewhat different view. What scientific theories are is the current best explanation of the way things are, but they are both contingent and corrigible.
“There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed.”
—Sir Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989), British philosopher, Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ch. 4 (1982)
Hence the idea that what we seek in science is the "Inference to the Best Explanation" - https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/files/lipton-inference.pdf
All this stems from the demonstration by a philosopher who lived a little south of where I now live, that induction cannot be justified - https://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2012/10/problem-of-induction-explained-simply.html
I just roll my eyes at religionists who claim that, just because THEY can't understand something, the only possible explanation for it is not their ignorance or lack of mental capacity but rather "Goddidit!". IOW, they think they DO have an explanation, even if it's one that somebody totally made up.
Science, OTOH, freely admits when it doesn't know what's going on, and doesn't feel so insecure that it has to invent (and then defend with all its might) some woo-woo secret agent behind it all. Case in point: “I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‘But how can it be like that?’ because you will go ‘down the drain’ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. NOBODY knows how it can be like that.” —Richard Feynman (1918-1988), American physicist, Nobel laureate
I think our views have more in common than you think. What concerns me is how science as a tool to better understand our world loses support when it's hijacked by partisans for their own purposes or scientific results are shaded by ideology. The ongoing problem with lack of replication and outright fraud in scientific studies makes it easier for the anti-science forces to get an audience.
I am forever trying to figure out the origin of names - is yours Finnish?
Ever see the "Police Academy" movies? David Graf was the name of the actor who played Eugene Tackleberry. He died in 2001.
The question was actually aimed at poster Kukaan Ei Missaan.
(in Emily Litella's voice): "Oh. Well, that's different. *pause* Never mind. :) "
To add: Kukaan is Scottish.
Don't think so.
The defense Dept. produces a document outlining the impact of climate on thier property and bases.Info & science saves lives,$,resources.
Agree,thanks🗞✅️💠🗽
It's your god that's a hoax, Franson.
What isn't a hoax is the very real threat you and your brethren are to everyone on the planet.
A threat to everyone, and to every part of human society!
Like I said in yesterday thread: United States exporting Christian fascism is one export that the world doesn’t NEED OR WANT!
The Egyptian Pyramids, domesticated cats (with the exception of one verse in the Apocrypha), Non-avian dinosaurs (mythical animals falsely branded as dinosaurs don't count!), one cell animals, bacteria, people living in the Americas, Australia, Antarctica, China, Japan, India, and other East Asian regions. None of them are found in the Bible.
So go ahead deny them all, you ignoramus boob. They're not going away at all.
I have two of the beasts sitting on me as I type this. Domesticated cats is an oxymoron!
I cannot STAND people who say "If it's not in my 2000 year old book of myths and fables then it doesn't exist." I mean how the fuck do people like this even function in modern society?
Better get rid of your car, your phone, your computer, your stove, your washer and dryer, and every other modern convenience then.
I remember seeing a book at my local Wal*Mart store which claims that there are over a thousand (alleged) things you can find in the Bible, including dinosaurs and computers. And I'm like, "Where do they get such stupid ideas to create such trash from?"
Yeah that certainly takes a tremendous amount of logical pretzel making.
Never mind that there are worlds beyond our own world that actually exist in spite of the Bible saying absolutely nothing about it.
Evolution is not at all found in the Bible, neither is chemistry, electricity, the fossil record, canyons or volcanoes. Does it mean we have to deny their existence now in spite of them confirming to be real?
Well, the MAGAturds ARE gutting science funding and education in this country.
Agree,measles is coming back😑⚠️👀 why? sad📑🔍thanks
No 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘴? Well, that's all the evidence 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 should need that the whole religion is bullshit.
Cats have the distinct advantage of being real.
Delusional bullshit and imaginary friends.
People like Franson are the morons who took the phrase "global warming" literally, thinking it meant that there would never be snow or cold weather ever again. They're too stupid to understand that a change of one degree is enough to completely alter weather patterns. Where do they think carbon dioxide and vehicle emissions go? Out into space? They just disappear?
Yes, that is exactly what they think (I use that term loosely).
Yet, the same fuckwits believe in a goddybitch that they can’t see, but claim IT IS REAL!
You can’t figure out how stupid people think, for that would be like trying to think about how a neutron thinks. It is in the realm of impossibility!
The truth is State Rep. Mary Franson and many other Christians are life-denying, life-hating peoples. The way we treat our only home (planet earth) is a reflection of the influence and power they have had for far too long. They don’t care if the “world ends” or everyone and everything dies because they believe a better life will follow. I saw a clip of State Rep. Mary Franson spewing this nonsense before I read this piece. Absolutely embarrassing this idiot was elected to represent anyone! Absolutely embarrassing for this country to add to a very long list. It’s like waking up into a fresh hell every morning.
Do we need loud speakers blasting this everywhere? I know, they won’t hear it anyway:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUwZWuhkYBr/?igsh=MXN5N3R5bHB3dGd2aA==
"The Pale Blue Dot." Yet more brilliance from a brilliant man.
The first time I was confronted by JWs at my old place up north, I asked them if they knew who Carl Sagan was. No great surprise, they didn't. And I told him that great maxim: "I don't want to believe; I want to KNOW." I doubt that got what I had to say or even cared that I said it ... or the massive difference between believing and knowing. [sigh]
The fuckwits would hear it, but they won’t UNDERSTAND it!
𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑢𝑙, 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟... 𝐴 𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛... 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑢𝑠, 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑦, ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑤... 𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑒! 𝐴 𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑢𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 *𝑛𝑜𝑡*, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒!
-- Jody Foster as Ellie Arroway, Contact
And really, more words either written or inspired by Carl Sagan. I read or listen to those words and I feel amazed and inspired. Someone like Franson hears them and what? She's scared? Non-plussed? Confused?
Whether interstellar exploration is possible at all, I love the idea that we're pursuing at least interplanetary exploration, because of all we will discover AND because of the neat technologies that will benefit all of us right here on this Pale Blue Dot.
All of this makes me wonder if Franson has any sense of wonder at all.
Sadly about right.
They need to hear the WHOLE thing. All 3 and a half minutes
youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g
😭😭😭
One of the temptations of Jesus Christ was literally "Do something stupid because God said he'd protect you."
Yeah _-_-Self sufficient not self dependent.Who would be responsible if not me🌐🫡 thanks- respectfully
There is also this:
“𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒, 𝐼 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 [𝐺𝑜𝑑] 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑓𝑖𝑥 𝑖𝑡.”
And here we have the very quintessence of MAGAtous intelligence, such as it is.
The smart people are trying to fix it now. But you don’t want to listen to them because you’re smarter than they are. Your God may be giving us time right now, but you don’t want to believe that your God is giving us time right now because that would contradict your MAGAtous faith in the far right..
As i said in my other comment, we cannot reach these people. They are blind to their own contradictions. They are blinded to their own blindness. Maybe it’s the severe case of recto-cranial inversion. It’s not only going around right now, it seems to be epidemic, and running for office.
I wonder if she is aware that we ALREADY have the people who know how to "fix it." Problem is that Donnie Dumb-Ass doesn't WANT to fix it, doesn't even believe that it needs to be fixed, and would prefer to go on his own merry way while Rome burns.
You do not want to guess how much that INFURIATES me to write that.
Donnie Dumb-Ass is using our tax dollars to block fixing it.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climate-totalenergies-interior-9e7d909510473f9eb13904c8035fe047
I was scrolling through YouTube Shorts when I ran onto THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5S4hk-1mBYY
Insert joke about the guy who drowns in a predicted flood and asks God why he didn’t answer his prayers. The experts are here! Just like the pickup truck that came by to save the idiot.
The joke about the religious flood victim comes to mind.
I was actually thinking of that myself this morning.
And someone else posted it downthread.
If Mary Franson wants to let the bible guide her decisions:
https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/7ea98b3c7151ea27d1ae00dfbc8783a5b99cb45d2e4f44c9b7e2ec7911429716_1.jpg
Purrxactly.
"... 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒, 𝐼 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 [𝐺𝑜𝑑] 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑓𝑖𝑥 𝑖𝑡.”
From the time God gave us, 30 years have already been wasted. While the smart people were trying to fix climate change, their efforts were sabotaged, first by a stupid US president withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, and then by an even stupider president withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and then doing it again in his second term.
I just heard from my lovely daughter that I'm a grandpa for the second time. At once, I think that's both wonderful and tragic. The kids are GORGEOUS, but I can't help but wonder what kind of world they will live in.
I'm an old soak, but that don't mean I don't give one hell of a damn about all of 'em.
I am an LGBTQ person who has retired in Jonesboro, Arkansas because my only child and grandchildren live here. Congratulations! Keep fighting to make a better world for them! Before too long you can introduce them to Severence Hall.
Well, at the current time, they and the work they do are in the mythical land of The Garden State, New Jersey. It may be that, sometime or other, they will come for a visit or I'll go there.
We'll get there, sometime or other.
Congrats on being a grandpa again! 👍👍👍👍😄
Thanks a lot, John!
Congrats! I would like to be a grandpa, especially before I get too old, but that is not a thing I say to my sons.
ETA: And like you, I worry about the future. Hell, I worry about my kid’s future.
Molte grazie, bro.
The smart people will TRY to fix it but the stupid people will sabotage them at every step.
Don't look up.
ADD ,paid profiteers.Lobbists,liars,pillagers.These are future generation's resources being squandered⚠️🦺
Agree,thanks
OT- Great, now I'm going to have to add "go to the bank to exchange all my paper money for new bills without the spray-tanned shitgibbon's graffiti on them" to the list of things to do when 2029 rolls around: https://apnews.com/article/trump-currency-signiture-treasury-first-d919877e39f907eba1172a07920ea80e
The sycophantic leader worship of the MAGAt cult is just so... 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴. It'd be gross even without their constant efforts to stamp his name on literally everything, so that the rest of us are forced to participate in their acts of mindless fawning devotion to Dear Leader. Well, fuck them and fuck him. I am going to deface every single bill I receive with that disgusting man's signature on it, and I'm going to keep a box of black markers on hand, dedicated to that exclusive purpose, for the rest of my fucking life.
I bought a stamp a few years ago to cover Andrew Jackson’s face with Harriet Tubman. Some enterprising person will do this for the pedophile dollar.
A stamp with Epstein's signature to cover tRump's seems appropriate.
I suspect I will be buying one of those on Etsy or some other site soon.
We were just at a national park, deciding whether or not to get the annual pass. We did since we figured ther is a good chance we'll use it a few times this year. We forgot what was on it.
We got the Golden Pass recently. We are heading to Arizona next week and will be hitting several NPs.
I think I've only been to Grand Canyon there, I love Brice and Zion up in Utah.
We are doing a 45 minute flight-seeing plane tour of the Grand Canyon. We did a helicopter tour of Kenai Alaska a few years ago and it was incredible. Worth every penny.
Been to Bryce and Zion and Arches and Fairy Goblins with the kids when they were 6 and 8. They still talk about that trip 20 years later. Never been to AZ. Besides Grand Canyon, we are flying into Phoenix and going to a desert botanical garden, we want to see the desert in bloom, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Petrified Forest, Crater National Park, and a couple of other stops.
Antelope Canyon is on my bucket list, I've heard it's tough to schedule tours.
I bought ours 6 months ago. We have long been in the habit of planning vacations 6-12 months in advance. When we went to Yosemite I booked accommodations 365 days in advance. I was on the internet at 3 AM my time so it was midnight PT.
I’d like to see The Wave but the odds are against that. 64 people per day are allowed and approximately 1000 people per day enter the lottery.
I think I'll add "is a dick", "is an asshole", "sucks farts out of movie seat cushions", etc. after his signature on bills.
Heard = lawsuit- he has to be deceased first(1898 law)🤞what did he do, got rid of the penny🤡
Darn good idea- nip it in the bud,,,that face gives me nightmares,thanks
“The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what [God] is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
And yet, he's wearing glasses over God's perfect eyes.
Good grief. It's like burning down your house because Jesus said he was going to prepare a place for you.
How many believers have sold everything they had in anticipation of one Rapture or another that never came? The endless gullibility of some is positively shameful.
Shall we mention all the madness that Harold Camping inspired? Oh dear, I think I just did.
One can make good money on predicting raptures and buying up alll the property cheap, then reselling it back when it doesn't happen.
But in this case she also wants to burn down the whole neighborhood.