What Christianity and alien abduction have in common
April 27th, 2006 by grumpypilgrimI just finished reading Michael Shermer’s book, “Why People Believe Weird Things.” It’s very long-winded — the book could easily be 1/10th its size and still make the same points — but it did make me realize one thing. The book discusses alien abduction as an example of a weird thing that many people believe, and points out that it is based entirely on anecdotal stories without a single shred of physical evidence. As I read this, I realized that the same can be said of Christianity or, indeed, any other religion. There is as much physical evidence for Christianity as there is for alien abduction: i.e., none. Indeed, if we consider the scars that supposed abductees claim were caused by alien medical experiments, there is actually more physical evidence for alien abduction than for Christianity.
Moreover, the mental processes that leads to both beliefs are remarkably similar. Both depend upon a leap of faith based on highly improbable stories told by people of unknown credibility. Both heavily rely on dreamlike visions: abductees call them “memories,” Christians call them “prophesies” or “revelations.”
And, significantly, both beliefs gained popularity during times when contemporaneous events caused large numbers of people to be receptive to the belief. It cannot be mere coincidence that the rate of reported alien abductions grew dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s, when the NASA space program — and the idea of space travel — was capturing attention around the globe. Likewise, Christianity arose at a time and place in human history when many people were claiming to be the Messiah, and many more were claiming to be prophets sent by God. The belief in witchcraft during the 17th century fits this same pattern.
Does this mean Christianity is invalid? No, but it does mean Christianity has a lot more in common with alien abduction and witchcraft than it does with, say, Darwin’s theory of evolution.
April 28th, 2006 at 11:17 am
I think it was back in 1985 or 86 when Bud Hopkins began publishing his “abduction” books that I came to see this whole phenomenon the same way–people desperate to have something of the divine or extraordinary in their lives and unable to cope with the mundanity of their lives, traumatized by “something” that they manage to rework into–this.
There is a book called “Watch The Skies” (author escapes me at the moment) that chronicles the UFO phenomena in this country. It doesn’t take a position, just relates the history, and you can see that in many ways the government was its own worst enemy in that everything it did, even when designed to refute the UFO myth, fueled the fanaticism.
Hopkins, for his part, I believe, has much to answer for. An artist by trade, he began practicing hypno-therapy on abductees and telling them that their “experiences” were real–that they had been adbucted by aliens.
I left the whole UFO craze long ago when it became clear, even in the Seventies, that these folks are far more invested in what they wish to believe and in any kind of fact-based truth.
One wonders if the same kind of “sorting out” happened in the 1st and 2nd century between skeptics and christians.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Here’s another interesting character in the alien abduction story: John Mack, a Harvard psychiatrist who seemed to take his patients’ claims of alien abduction at face value. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Mack
July 21st, 2006 at 7:50 am
Something else that Christianity and alien abduction have in common is a conspicuous lack of eye witnesses. Every time someone has claimed he or she was abducted by aliens, the alleged event occurred in some remote location, conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses who could confirm it. Likewise, every time the Bible describes someone being visited by God or his angels (e.g., God giving Moses the Ten Commandments, an angel in the form of a burning bush talking to Moses, the angel Gabriel telling Mary she will bear God’s child, God talking to Jesus in the desert, God resurrecting Jesus from the dead, etc.), the event occurs conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses. Not that it would make much difference, I suppose, if there were independent third-party witnesses, given that God supposedly speaks through dreams and visions, but it certainly is convenient.
“What about when God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape the pursuing Egyptian army?” you might ask. Well, as we see in Exodus 14, Pharoah’s *entire* army was conveniently exterminated by the alleged event, so the only eye witnesses were the Israelites: people whom we would expect to confirm the story. I don’t know about you, but I would find the story much more convincing if God had only killed half the army and allowed the other half to report back to Pharoah…and leave an independent written record of the event.
Moreover, one would expect that if the Red Sea were parted in the manner described, then other people living or working on the sea would have noticed and remarked on it…and maybe left an independent written record…yet there appear to be no such independent accounts.
So, here’s my question: if God is so eager to have everyone go to heaven, then doesn’t it seem strange…even inconsistent…for God to have given us with so little proof of the stories told in the Bible? Why, for example, do none of us get to see heaven until after we die? Wouldn’t it make more sense for God, instead of going through all the (conspicuously unsubstantiated) storytelling in the Bible, to simply snatch each of us up just once in our lives (i.e., before we die) and show us heaven? I would bet that would be a whole lot more effective at creating Believers than would anything God can do with the Bible.
Indeed, imagine a parent telling her young children to meet her somewhere — say, to be picked up after school. Isn’t the parent going to make absolutely certain that the children understand where and when she will meet them, and leave absolutely no uncertainty in the children’s minds? Why, then, if God is supposedly eager for all of us to go to heaven, has God left His children with so much uncertainty? Wouldn’t it make much more sense for God to behave like the good parent, and be so clear and unambiguous that the children could not possibly fail to be picked up?
July 21st, 2006 at 10:46 am
Is it surprising that the reported number of attempted alien abductions and reported personal appearances of angels, Gods, ghosts, elves and all manner of other-worldly beings seem to have dropped precipitously now that almost everyone has access to a camera (often on their always-toted cell phone) or video camera?
Now that everyone has the means to document (or disprove) real appearances, Gods and angels only seem to want to communicate through voices in our heads.
August 7th, 2007 at 1:17 am
I find it intriguing that theres about as much evidence if not more for aliens than there is for any other religion on this planet. I believe in 2012 the mayans predicted the age of enlightenment. Or the annunaki or Elohim will return. If they do not, I still think they will in the future either that or our own advancements will help us stubble across them. This is a big universe, and who knows how many paralell ones there are aswell… Any thing is possible until we have evidence, or the formula.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:28 am
I don’t subscribe to any “beliefs” per se: once you accept something as the truth you are by definition disbelieving all contrary ideas. However, I like to entertain the idea that both Christianity and the Alien Phenomenon are plausible and that have so many parallels that are just as likely to be intertwined as they are to be mutually exclusive.
If one day, for instance, it was officially announced that Aliens are real and are proven to be in contact with humanity then imagine the outcome on peoples’ belief systems. People who did not believe in God would believe these that these Aliens fit nicely into the accepted scientific Darwinist view of life. In fact many Christians would no doubt also lose their faith, also seeing Aliens as proof for Darwinism and against Creationism. Combine this with any revelations of knowledge/technology that these Aliens might divulge and the Christian viewpoint could look even more redundant.
A lot of the New Age accounts of spirit channelling and alien abductions fit nicely within what Christianity documents as being demonic possession. So think about this: if Aliens were in fact Demons, then there prerogative would be to misrepresent themselves to Man as being “of nature” (albeit space) more so disproving the existence of God and not proving his existence by being Demons (I’m guessing you can’t have demons without a God).
So to take this further and bring in the Christian Bible Armageddon/Second Coming prophecies - Aliens would fit the bill exactly for the demons/antichrist that would appear with all the false profits and try to Man from return of true Saviour.
Now I am no Christian so I will not regurgitate any bible passages etc - so have a read of the Book of Revelations or any books on the subject (there are a few alien books that I know that take the religious POV and correlate the prophecies etc). I have however seen an alien (I may have been abducted too - hey it might even have been a dream) and this was without a doubt the most fearful experience of my life and it looked pure evil (unlike a man in a space suit it reminded me of a spirit in a “matter suit”).
If you can prove the existence of Biblical “evil” then you have proof of God. If you have proof of aliens then you may well also have proof of God. If aliens were announced on the 6 o’clock news or by a public address of the President, I will be next in line for a quick baptism…
December 15th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Grumpy discounts anyone’s stated experiences as not credible unless they are scientifically corraborations with acceptable third party witnesses that happened during an age of unbridled skeptecism.
His words are:
“Likewise, every time the Bible describes someone being visited by God or his angels (e.g., God giving Moses the Ten Commandments, an angel in the form of a burning bush talking to Moses, the angel Gabriel telling Mary she will bear God’s child, God talking to Jesus in the desert, God resurrecting Jesus from the dead, etc.), the event occurs conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses.
Lets see, what the Bible actually says about a few of these matters.
The people who saw the fire and smoke (when Moses received the ten commandments on the mountain top) assumed Moses was toast, so they wanted Aaron and company to give them something to worship because no-one was going to go up and figure out if Moses was dead or alive.
On many occassions when Moses was interacting with the presence of God in the shekinah glory, the people around him knew this had happened because of the appearance of Moses’ face. However as time went by the glory upon his countenence would slowly fade away. Moses face shown so much that the people insisted he do something about it.
Gabriel first appeared by name in Daniel 8:15-17 and in Daniel 9:21-24.
The same angel Gabriel visited, Zachariah concerning the birth of John the Baptist. Luke 1:11-19.. A multitude of witnessses verified that something very unusual happened in the temple that day. The man physically could not speak until the child was named at the dedication in the temple.
The same angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Luke 1:26-35
As for the resurrection of Jesus this is one you apparently really don’t believe the written words in scripture because they clearly discount your ideas.
Eyewitness testimony of the resurrection, as recorded in the New Testament, is the basis of faith in Jesus as Christ. In John 15:27 and Acts 1:8, Jesus tells His apostles that they were to be witnesses. Peter speaks to the others in Acts 1 of David’s prophecy that God swore He would bring forth Christ and raise Him up. Peter said (2:31-32) he saw Jesus before the resurrection and “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” (Also read Acts 3:15,4:33, 10:39-41.)
However, the apostles were not the only ones who saw the risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James were the first (Mark 16). Paul lists several witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. Among Jesus’ disciples, there were 500 other witnesses. And the Jewish Law of Moses required at least two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6). Saul, later to become Paul, was an enemy of Jesus who was persecuting those who were witnesses of the resurrection when he was struck to the ground blind in the presence of others and he himself was said to have seen and spoke to Jesus in his full ascended glory. Those with Saul, had no clue what was happening, they simply stated that could not understand what they had seen or heard.
So how credible were all the “witnesses” claiming to have actually seen the resurrected Son of God? Their accounts have withstood the test of time (over 2000 years). Many of them were put to death since they stubbornly refused to renounce their testimonies of His resurrection. But are these recorded testimonies enough? No, No they are all suspect because they are folk tales by people with vivid imaginations.
December 15th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I wrote, “…every time the Bible describes someone being visited by God or his angels…the event occurs conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses.”
Karl writes, “Lets see, what the Bible actually says about a few of these matters.” [sic]
Well, Karl, in the examples you mention, the “witnesses” either did not actually witness the event (e.g., people inferring things about smoke on a hilltop, people inferring the presence of god by the expression on Moses’ face, people inferring that something unusual had happened inside the temple, etc.) or they were not independent observers (e.g., the people who supposedly confirmed the resurrection of Jesus were already his apostles).
Karl continues, “So how credible were all the “witnesses” claiming to have actually seen the resurrected Son of God? Their accounts have withstood the test of time (over 2000 years). Many of them were put to death since they stubbornly refused to renounce their testimonies of His resurrection.”
Well, Karl, people of many faiths have been put to death for stubbornly refusing to renounce their beliefs, so that argument has no merit. Likewise, withstanding “the test of time” doesn’t prove anything, especially when when one is dealing with events that are entirely based on anecdote and for which there is no objective evidence.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Grumpy
It is as I said:
“But are these recorded testimonies enough? No, No they are all suspect because they are folk tales by people with vivid imaginations.”
Your level of proof requires a level of direct en mass observation by witnesses to historic events which to you will refuse be able to place a degree of confidence in because you think the witnesses are discredited. I have already rebutted your specific claims in claims in my recent post:
http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/04/27/what-christianity-and-alien-abduction-have-in-common/#comment-31616
I would suggest that you need to subject your trust in your scientific imagination concerning historical events as well. You do not possess the same level of direct witnessed proof you require of Christianity for evolution yet you consider the evidence overwhelming.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Your willing suspension of disbelief allows you to believe a just so story concerning naturalism and any possible time frame necessary, but actual recorded eye witness testimony you are greatly lacking. I’d say you have to have moew faith to believe in evolution than in the events you stated in the Bible were misinterpreteted by presently discredited witnesses.
By the way, there were more witnesses concerning the Resurrection that weren’t Jesus’ disciples, they all tried to explain it away as something else as well.
December 16th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Responding to Karl’s last comment, I will simply point out the notorious unreliability of so-called “eyewitness” testimony. Consider, for example, the eyewitness testimony that persuaded the population of 17th-century Salem, MA, that it was infested with witches. Or, the eyewitness testimony that convinced much of the U.S. population that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. History is full of examples of people deluded into believing things that were not true. Try googling “fallibility of eyewitness testimony” and you’ll find more than 25,000 hits. Here is just one of them: http://home.att.net/~whtbailey/blinder.pdf/. According to that article, eyewitness testimony is highly esteemed by juries but, paradoxically, it is perhaps the least reliable. Thus, while many people are willing to put great faith in eyewitness accounts of supposedly miraculous or divine events, I am not among them.
As regards evolution, the fallibility of eyewitness accounts is far less of a concern because research on evolution relies on the scientific method — and, unlike eyewitness accounts, the scientific method has proven to be very reliable.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:34 am
The method is relieable within limits, which you seem to think that there aren’t any.These limits include should include actual observable that are measureable and repeatable in time. space and imagination.
Imagination rules when it comes to the extent of the application of the scientific method to items of any time frame, proportions of space and human skepticism. Naturalism seems to have as vivid an imagination as you claim religion does in in these regards. At least someone claims to have been there and done that in the Bible.
December 17th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Actually, Gibbon pointed out that all miracles were attested only in succeeding generations—the stories were/are third or fourth generation removed accounts of events handed down orally by someone who knew someone. Gibbon sort of traced this phenomenon in his “Decline and Fall…” regarding miraculous events supposedly occurring in the christian era and then followed through to Old Testament accounts. In short, there are no eye witness accounts in the Bible.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Karl, the "imagination" that science uses to extrapolate is called mathematical rigor. This is similar to the dichotomy between the scientific meaning of “theory” (tested and proven) and the popular one (an idea).
The extensions from the observable in science are based on sternly tested mathematical models, not flights of fancy and wishful thinking. Given the continuity principle always observed in all natural phenomena, mathematical models are falsifiable. If a model matches all known observations, it is reasonable to assume that it also matches points not yet observed beyond the ends.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Dan says:
“As regards evolution, the fallibility of eyewitness accounts is far less of a concern because research on evolution relies on the scientific method — and, unlike eyewitness accounts, the scientific method has proven to be very reliable.”
Why in the world can anyone within reason say reliable eyewitnesses are needed in one regard (recorded historical observations), but that extrapolated sciences like evolution get a special passes in this regard?
Oh, I see the method could happen, so it must be true. That’s imagination at work to me, or as skeptics would put it a flying spagetti montser has been found in the works. How ever one can chose to call this one reliable if that’s one’s preference.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Karl seems to think that scientists aren’t first-hand witnessing the results of their experiments and field observations.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Further on the subject of Karl’s so-called “reliable eyewitnesses” to the alleged resurrection of Jesus, why should we only consider Jesus? History is loaded with “recorded historical observations” of supposedly resurrected deities. For example, Wikipedia lists more than three dozen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity/.
Of course, we should consider that a minimum number of resurrections, because we don’t know how many “historical observations” of other resurrections the early Christian church destroyed after declaring them to be heretical. Early Christians were, as we know, very diligent about destroying records of things that contradicted their doctrine. We should also assume they were very diligent about inflating the truth when it suited them, just as many Christian preachers today declare their utterly subjective beliefs about alleged supernatural events to be “the truth.”
December 17th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Erich stated:
“Karl seems to think that scientists aren’t first-hand witnessing the results of their experiments and field observations.”
I’m referring to extrapolated assumptions that are well beyond first hand eye witness proofs of what they state are logical conclusions.
Evoution is supposedly science, but it can not be observed as an historical even. Its evidence constantly shifts and morphs to make it appear reasonable.
Scientists can make observations galore, many of these mean they know very little about the why of their science, all they can describe is the who, what, where, when, and sometimes how.
They ceratinly use their imaginations to describe what casues many of the observatons they believe are reliable.
Examples:
1) Gravity exists, and something causes it to exist that either is or is not mass dependent. A case can be made for either use of the imagination.
2) Genetics of organisms are either independent or dependent upon the environment. A case can be made for evolution that necessitates inheritable genetic changes being influenced by environmental factors. A case can also be made that inheritable genetic changes are only the result of mutations that may sometimes be caused by environmental influences.
What kind of history is reliable to a skeptic who trust no one to tell the truth. What kind of recorded events are potentialy true and which are potentially false?
December 17th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Karl, that the evidence shifts and morphs IS the basis of the theory you are denigrating. Evolution has been observed, both in the lab and in the field, in the brief time since the theory was first suggested, 60 years before Chas. Darwin was born.
New traits appear out of nowhere. Populations shift to be dominated by descendants of members possessing beneficial traits. The genetic structure of an individual is not affected by the environment (contrary to the theories of Lamarck and Lysenko), yet the genetics of a population distinctly are (Darwin’s theory). Observed and documented over and over again in live species as well as in fossil studies.
Read “Once again, Egnor and Tautologies“, not so much to see one of the common fallacies of a currently popular anti-evolutionist debunked, as to read the epilogue. That is a personal story illuminating how ignorance of the principles of evolution actually kills people.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Karl, please take a freshman physics course. Gravity is one of two properties of mass. The other is inertia. Either property may be used to determine what the mass of an object is. They are inter-defined. No one has ever measured mass in such a way as to get a different reading of inertia than from attraction to another mass.
Where do you get, “Gravity exists, and something causes it to exist that either is or is not mass dependent. A case can be made for either use of the imagination”?
As with many of your assertions, I ask: Find me a case, any case, any evidence, anywhere from any time to indicate that gravity may not be dependent on mass.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Ooooh, ooooh, I know this one teacher!
Narratives written down from centuries-old oral traditions that go against all the laws of physics are probably NOT accurate historical accounts.
December 18th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Dan,
If an eye witness shifted or morphed his statements you’d discount their iinitial statements and then everyone thereafter now wouldn’t you.
A theory that says it can be morphed to never be proven false is a piece of work. Bravo, I complemnt you on scientific rigor.
Gravitational fields are not dependent upon the mass of the object placed in a specific location around the centralized object.. Only the mass of the object for which you are calculating the field strength is needed.
Newton’s Law of universal gravitation is a specific functon that assumes object have inertial rest mass regarding each other. It appears to have validity if objects are considerd stationary rest point masses with no initial motions regarding eqach other. Put one or both objects into motion regarding eachother and the force somehow can act, cause a change of motion yet be considered to be doing no work when an object is in orbit around the central object.. Explain how that can be.
Inertail balances measure relative rates of osscillations between obects that are connected elastically. This is not observing or measuring gravitational mass, this is observing inertial imass which we try to equate with gravitational mass.
As for an over active imaginatio how can new genetic traits appear out of now where? This would certainly be a supernatural statement of belief by your standards because you can not prove this. You did not witness this first hand , or could it have just been a “hidden natural law that you assume was undetectable therefor when it appeared (or was resurrected from the ash heap) it obviously occurred because that’s the only way to make the theory work?
Vicki, I know which “folk tales” you refuse to truct. You still didn’t answer what historical records you would trust.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Karl exhibits that he has never had a science course that required calculus. Newtons equations of motion describe the behavior of inertia and the attraction between masses, proved accurate to a dozen decimal places in all conditions of rest, motion, and acceleration. Einstein added another dozen or so decimal places, thus “morphing” the theory.
Gravity is the attraction of mass to mass. Period. Mass, in motion or otherwise, is attracted to mass proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the centers of the masses.
Anyone who knows some calculus sees how silly this supposition of yours that Newton assumed masses at rest. The first public display of his equations was to show exactly how a comet would move across the sky. Not at rest by any means.
I’ve seen a demonstration of the attraction of mass using 4 barrels of water, to show how low tech a direct demonstration of this attraction can be. The attraction between mere barrels of water can be seen, even in the overwhelming (1023 times greater) perpendicular field of the mass of the Earth. Of course, one had to be careful of air currents and electrical effects in order to see the subtle effect of gravity.
As to how do new traits appear out of nowhere, it helps to know some chemistry. But in brief, three of the frequent types of DNA replication errors are duplication, substitution, and transcription. That is, a stutter in the process creates duplicate copies of part of a gene, or a base pair is swapped with another, or a wrong pair is inserted in the copy. Read the actual paper behind this post: Historical Contingency Proven in Labs… It shows a carefully observed multiple site genetic mutation resulting in a beneficial trait not present in any ancestral genotype nor phenotype.
Like Newton’s laws, the much more detailed theory of evolution does change. Each time it “morphs”, we gain a metaphorical decimal place in the accuracy of our understanding. The basic idea that modern species have evolved from extinct predecessors hasn’t changed since decades before Darwin learned to read.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Karl writes:—”Gravitational fields are not dependent upon the mass of the object placed in a specific location around the centralized object.. Only the mass of the object for which you are calculating the field strength is needed.”
Mark responds: Say what…?
December 18th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Dan,
Show me where all this has been measured in a non-inertial reference frame?
I stated that Newton’s laws assume non-inertial reference frames, but that can not be shown to exist anywhere.
December 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Karl, please define your understanding of "a non-inertial reference frame".
Newtons laws assume attraction of mass, and inertia. Where within that definition is an inertia-free space possible? If there is no inertia, then any force immediately imparts the maximum velocity. There is no field nor medium necessary to his definitions. Einstein took it a step further, postulating no medium for electromagnetic effects, either.
The non-inertial reference frame is used to try to explain the laws of motion without using calculus, and to conceal the essence of relativity. It usually leads to bad assumptions, like observing “centrifugal force” and “Coriolus force” as if they are real forces rather than simple derivatives of existing motions (dV/dT)
Newton, the discoverer of basic calculus, did not use that pre-calculus framework to derive his formulas. Nor is it used to prove them.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Um Gottes Willen! Das war Herr Leibniz, du Schweinehund!
December 18th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
There needs to be distinct interactions of environment factors with genetics that results in all of the errors you claim appear out of no where. These are not random events or natural selection is totally random happenstance.
Unfortunately, the vast majority (perhaps in the range of 99 % plus percentage) of those errors are deleterious for the organism.
Combining very rare beneficial errors into sufficient accumulated errors to create a new species is beyond the scope of meaningful probabilities.
The imagination of the evolutionist works overtime and therefore is in constant need of either more time or some natural law for increasing meaningful information, which is contrary to teh natural laws of entropy.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
The calculus controversy is quite a heated matter of national pride. (wiki: Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy). Leibniz was privy to an unpublished work of Newton’s before he wrote anything on the subject. Whether one of them is truly “the father of calculus”, or whether it emerged from their interactions is an interesting and insoluble historical riddle.
But if you want to find the first source of trans-finite calculations of integration and differentiation, Archimedes got almost as far as those two, long before he was killed by a Roman soldier. But his work was thought completely lost, until recently.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Dan asks:
Karl, please define your understanding of “a non-inertial reference frame”.
This would be any place where the effects of motion of the observer could not possibly be a factor in any measurements being made.
For example, the earth’s motions appear fairly invariant to us as riders on the big blue marble. If we were to try to get off of the planet and then if we were to actually somehow to try to bring all of our motions to a stop, where would we end up?
December 19th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Dan says:
“If there is no inertia, then any force immediately imparts the maximum velocity.”
This is why light can be assumed to have both a force behind its motion yet an instantaneous maximum velocity once it is produced.
No rest mass for light also implies no measurable inertial effects.
December 19th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Yet Einstein theorized and it was subsequently proved that light is affected by gravity, ergo it has some mass. Demonstrating a rest mass might be difficult, but it’s a given according to the previous fact. Neutrinos so far as the only particles that seem demonstrably to have no mass, and they are affected by nothing.
December 19th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Light has relativistic mass, and is affected by the curvature of space. Photons may not have a rest mass, as with the other virtual particles.
Neutrinos can be detected, and therefore do affect other matter in subtle ways.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
No takers on the question?
If we were to try to get off of the planet and then if we were to actually somehow to try to bring all of our motions to a stop, where would we end up?
I believe we would be propelledy away from the center of the most predominant gravitatonal field in a given locality of space. The increase in speed would be proportional to the increases in rotational inertia that were used to try to bring our motions to a stand still.
What would this look like? Put a gyroscope into motion and then either gradually or quickly increase the rate of its revolution and see what it ends up doing in space?
The more subtle the increase in rotational inertia the slower our speed would be, the more rapid the increase in the rotationsl inertia the faster the increase in velocity would be.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Karl, Motion is always relative to something. There is not absolute motion, nor absolute stillness.
I didn’t see a question in you previous response.
What assumptions underlie your belief that lack of motion causes anti-gravity? How can one change the angular momentum of a gyroscope without including external forces?
December 20th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Dan asked
What assumptions underlie your belief that lack of motion causes anti-gravity? How can one change the angular momentum of a gyroscope without including external forces?
Internal impulses that varythe rate of an objects rostaion would change the angular momentum as would a change of the shape of the rotating obkectas well. These could all be produced within the object itself, or from energy supplied internally.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Color commentary from Admin: I can only assume that Karl is once again trying to convince readers that the laws of physics leave room for sporadic Divine intervention into the affairs of humans.
December 20th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Karl wrote, “Evoution is supposedly science, but it can not be observed as an historical even.” [sic]
Creationists, like Karl, like to make strawman arguments about evolution. Evolution actually has only three components: heredity, mutation & selection criteria. Heredity refers to the fact that offspring inherit the genes of their parents. Mutation refers to the fact that offspring sometimes don’t inherit perfect copies of the genes of their parents. Selection criteria refers to the fact that some offspring are more likely than others to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on the genes of that line. Before Darwin came along, biologists and Christian theologians didn’t argue about the first two components of evolution (because these were well-proven facts), they argued over the third. The theologians asserted that God was the sole selection criteria — that God, alone, decided if someone would reproduce and how long each person would survive. Biologists had no convincing counter argument, so theologians basically carried the day. Then Darwin came along and suggested that *natural selection* was the only selection criteria that was needed, and that no god was necessary to explain observed selection processes. That was Darwin’s “theory of evolution” and that is what initially set the Christian establishment against him. It wasn’t evolution *per se* that bothered Christians, it was that Darwin’s theory of *natural selection* provided an explanation for the mechanism of evolution which did not depend on the Christian god. Only many years later did Creationists, out of complete ignorance of what evolution actually is and what Darwin actually wrote abou it, suggest that evolution *per se* was invalid.
Accordingly, when people like Karl assert that, “Evoution is supposedly science, but it can not be observed as an historical even.” [sic], they display a profound ignorance both of what evolution actually is and of the nexus of the actual historical controversy. Evolution *is* scientific and *is* observable; what is theory is whether or not a supernatural deity is involved with the mechanism of evolution; i.e., the selection criteria. So far, despite a century and a half of experiments, there is no scientific data to support supernatural intervention. In the absence of such support, natural selection is considered by far the most likely explanation, regardless of whatever observed data people such as Karl demand. Indeed, given that scientific experiments will always have some degree of uncertainty, people like Karl will always be able to find some excuse to hang onto their beliefs, no matter how irrational or incredible those beliefs might be.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I just wanted you all to know that I consider my footing to be just as sure if not more certain than that of the atheistic evolutionist who would do what ever is needed to discount any historical or scientific evidence that doesn’t support his or her beliefs.
As for the diversity found in living species. Why wouldn’t it be conceivable that a designer of tremendous ability could have enabled a process that could create tremendous variety from interactions between organisms and their environement?
This really is the crux of the problem that evolutionist have with variation in living things. They believe that new genes have to somehow come into existence to make a new variety of species possible. But in all likelihood the potentiial for variety could already be present in a species based upon multiple factors such as temperature, available sunlight, available raw materials, available frequencies of energy sources man made verses natural foods and even the positions of the sun, moon and the planets.
As long as the environment is steady state we shouldn’t expect to see much natural selection at work now should we. Then when one variety of a species is impacted by one of these factors the evoltuionist jumps to the wild conclusion that the DNA as been altered through mutation.
Strangley, it has been shown that after years of producing a new strain of fruit flies the variations disappear after normal environmental conditions and full population interaction is once again permitted.
This does not point to changes to the hereditary information in a species now does it?
December 21st, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Karl, you have demonstrated repeatedly that you don’t know what the "theory of evolution" is, that you are not familiar with the basic math necessary to take university level science classes, and that you are unfamiliar with most of 20th century advances in chemistry, physics, astronomy, and biology.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think your footing in arguing these topics is as secure as that of those of us with degrees in science, or a lifetime of critically examining these issues in light of the Christian foundations of (pre-Enlightenment) Western knowledge.
You clearly are not aware of the differences between Lamarckian evolutionary theory (favored by Hitler and Stalin) and Darwinian evolution (books of which were burned by Hitler).
New genes (as we have pointed out repeatedly directly to you) do appear out of nothing, regularly. Other genes vanish, just as regularly.
You have argued both that all species are as they have always been, and that species changed with supernatural rapidity after The Flood, which occurred well within the era of human documentation.
As to scientists discounting evidence: My most frequent request to you is, “show me”. Better yet, show real experts this hypothetical evidence that you claim is ignored. As I have pointed out several times under several subjects, such evidence is craved by any scientist who hopes for a Nobel prize. Disproving an established theory is the way to success in science.
Scientists do ignore bad procedures, like long discredited methods. Even the ICR and Discovery Institute have been trying to stop producing yet more egregious examples of “new evidence” based on silly errors. Like claiming that traces of C-14 well within the measurement error of infinity means that something “must be” young.
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:49 am
Dan,
Examine what you are saying. You decry the lack of eye witness accounts for any religion and then you come off with a statement like this.
New genes (as we have pointed out repeatedly directly to you) do appear out of nothing, regularly. Other genes vanish, just as regularly. Surely science can look for a reason for how these genes appear besides the glossy overused mantra of random mutation.
It obvious cancer and genetic defects have roots in mutations where the genetic code is garbled.
The genes that vanish are caused by entropy or a loss of organized information in heredity. This is reverse evolutiion, don’t claim these changes create new species - that’s insane.
The genes you state have magical appearance are about as founded scientifically as alien abductions. I myself would rather point to variations on existing species that science really has shown are either dominant or recessive traits.
When does the dominant trait of a newly appeared gene overcome the populations ability to remove its significance?
I know the answer to that one. When the original population is reduced to only the recessive traits’ carriers. Funny how evolution theory constantly downplays the need for the ancestral forms to vanish but we have untold number of species that have existed for millions of years unchanged, how strange that many of these were once presumed extinct by evolution, but many have miraculously been resurrected as well.
You claim science as a method has every right to state the extrapolated as provable because of the naturalistic support for the probabilities. What you are really saying is, you are forced to believe such or the atheists will laugh at you. Well, you know what, you laugh at me, insult me and treat me as if I had a mental illness or purposelessly have lied about my education. Think what you will, it doesn’t bother me.
The facts don’t bother me, intellectual honesty and integrity are important to me even though you think I’m ignornat because I state matters that make you have to think about what you believe.
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Karl, you apparently don’t bother going to the links we specifically provide for you.
There is nothing “magical” about how new genes appear. The simple (well documented, often observed) transcription errors cited above are all that is needed. They happen stochastically, a more precise term that may be read “randomly” to people without chemistry, biochemistry, quantum physics, and biology training.
When these errors combine to form a new gene, sometimes there is a visible difference in the development, growth, or behavior of the organism. Most transcription errors result in either no difference, or a prenatally fatal difference. In the minority of other cases, there is some noticeable physical effect, like extended color vision or the ability to digest things your ancestors found indigestible or dying sooner from Huntington’s disease.
Those differences can increase or decrease lines of descent from a gene pool. If a single mutation confers a 1% advantage in survival or procreation, it will likely constitute 90% of the population in less than 65 generations (1.0165 = 1.91, or about a thousand years in pre-urban human evolution). Now compound this with many such mutations every generation, and hybrid vigor calculations, and one necessarily sees an exponential change in any species. And this is observed.
The old ideas about binary dominant and recessive genes only applies to a small minority of characteristics. For example, eye color is loosely connected this way, but skin color is not.
Science has no need to cite a causative agent. It simply describes what happens due entirely to known natural processes. I don’t denounce religious beliefs for the lack of credible witnesses; I do it because they claim validity in contradicting direct observations via ancient writ.
Example (that we’ve been over): The world is at least hundreds of millions of years old according to dozens of completely independent dating methods, many predating Darwin. The crust first froze nearly 5 billion years ago, according to a handful of others. The universe in which it floats is showing us deeper and deeper time, the more carefully we look. Yet a small minority of Christian and Muslim scholars claim that their interpretation of an old book (totally disconnected from repeatable observation) proves that the universe and the Earth cannot be older than a few thousand years.
We naturalists and 90% of the rest of the world accept the dozens of (verified, always testing, never accepted as dogma) methods as producers of facts, and the old book as a faith-based view of a minority. The descendants of this minority will accept what we know now about geology and biology, as they now easily accept that the sky is neither a closed sphere nor a canopy, nor is the world flat, nor does light exist apart from sources to emit it, nor vision without those sources, nor disease as a result of sin (all traditional Bible-based understandings).
I don’t think that you, Karl, are stupid. We wouldn’t bother engaging with you if we did. But must you so often make claims that run counter to massively reinforced human knowledge of how the universe actually behaves?
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Karl wrote, “Surely science can look for a reason for how these genes appear besides the glossy overused mantra of random mutation.”
Karl, the reason why geneticists refer to processes as being “random” is because that is what the mathematics shows the processes to be. Random processes behave in particular ways — a normal or “Gaussian” distribution, for example. When experimental data fits a Gaussian distribution curve, the process is said to be random because, by definition, that’s what it is. This doesn’t require any deep knowledge about what causes the process to be random, it is merely a recognition that the process *is* random because it behaves exactly the same way that other, known random processes behave.
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I make statements that obvious make it hard for you to understand how I discount what seems to be overwhelming evidence to you. Any amount of circularly reinforced human theories that have been put together as much by imagination purported to be field stidies and analytic investigations should be questioned more than it is accepted.
Darwin said so himself, but his postulates and theories were pushed into the forefront of modern science by atheistic lawyers and those opposed to existing religions in general.
Accepting any naturalistic philosophy that purports to answer questions of a metaphysical nature are futile and will continue to only cause dissention among scientists world wide.
University scientists may believe they have a corner on what is approved metaphysical explanations for matters beyond scientific observations, but even the majority of Americans still believe there is more to life than meets the eye. Most Americans still believe in matters of the spirit, including God. Atheistic scientists who think they do mankind a service by pushing matters of the spirit out of everyday life are only asking for trouble, especially those who deny an intelligent creator.
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I make statements that obvious make it hard for you to understand how I discount what seems to be overwhelming evidence to you. Any amount of circularly reinforced human theories that have been put together as much by imagination purported to be field stidies and analytic investigations should be questioned more than they are accepted.
Darwin said so himself, but his postulates and theories were pushed into the forefront of modern science by atheistic lawyers and those opposed to existing religions in general.
Accepting any naturalistic philosophy that purports to answer questions of a metaphysical nature are futile and will continue to only cause dissention among scientists world wide.
University scientists may believe they have a corner on what is approved metaphysical explanations for matters beyond scientific observations, but even the majority of Americans still believe there is more to life than meets the eye. Most Americans still believe in matters of the spirit, including God. Atheistic scientists who think they do mankind a service by pushing matters of the spirit out of everyday life are only asking for trouble, especially those who deny an intelligent creator.
As for Mark wanting to know what could replace the vacuum caused by the collapse of any modern scientific theory, have you considered that nothing stands a chance because of the climate in modern univeristies today?
Intelligent design can’t even be discussed by other departments in universities without the biology departments breathing down their necks.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
You assume that because there is no canopy now that there never was one (bad assumption). You assume that the Bible teaches that the world is flat, when it clearly does not. Disease came into the world as a result of sin. That does not mean that disease that comes today is the result of individual sins (original sin brought it). There is a connection between sin and STD’s (common sense teaches that). Where does the Bible teach that light emits apart from a source? God is light so as long as He exists then there is a source. Again, pay attention to the details sir and you might learn not to make regurgitated remarks that others have made mistakenly.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Karl: You have failed in your attempt to divide the world into “atheistic scientists” and people of faith. Beliefnet has published an article indicating that 30% of biologists are theists. Although this brief article doesn’t lock the issue down with precision, apparently LOTS of scientists both believe in God AND accept a naturalistic world view. http://www.beliefnet.com/News/1999/12/Scientific-Semi-Belief.aspx
Perhaps you should call up Francis Collins and try to convince him that he is really an atheist.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/collins.html
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:58 am
Karl writes:—”Intelligent design can’t even be discussed by other departments in universities without the biology departments breathing down their necks.”
Karl. Let’s try this one more time.
Intelligent Design IS NOT SCIENCE.
Nothing’s stopping universities from discussing it in Philosophy Courses.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
“Nothing’s stopping universities from discussing it in Philosophy Courses.”
Tell that to the philosphy teachers who don’t have tenure.
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Erich,
Your 40-60 split for university scientists in general verses 30-70 split for biologists and even a greater 23-77 split for physicists/astronomers are just the tip of the iceberg. The are social definitions that tell little about really is going on in the heads of those responding to these questions.
These surveys are not scientific and are by no means representative of anything other than how these scientists believe they are suppose to be responding to the question in the context of how and why it is being asked.
I’ve never been trying to divide the world into clear cut lines of theists versus atheists. People who are uncertain of what they believe will always stay open to ideas other than their own. If someone could convince me with truly overwhelming naturalistic evidence that ruled out the existence of any thing other than a naturalistic physical existence, I would be fully insane to hold to what I believe.
You can never get me to sell out the importance of values to my thought process. No amount of overwhelming circular physical evidence will ever make me ammenable to a strict naturalistic point of view. You may not understand this, but it is because I believe the second commandment is exactly what is says it is.
The tendency of everyman and woman to create a god in their own image is exactly as it states. Dan seems to call it pimping what you believe in, I call it idolatry. Naturalism taken to the extreme of modern science is nothing short of idolatry.
I point to tendencies in most scientific minds as being fully capable of creating through the use of their imagination a description of the world that limits their conceptions of god, but they still believe they are theists in the process. Those who have no problems with the assumed meanings of field observations and inconceivably low possibilities must use imaginations that work overtime to keep god in the box they have created.
I do not judge people as being stupid or ignorant that read books like The God Delusion, I am only saddened when readres are overwhelmed by the naturalistic perspective it presents of a writer who denies the existence of God but who chose to worship a god of their own imaginations.
Calling unproven hypothetical science reliable and fully trustworthy is the same as saying I can believe what I chose to imagine but no further.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Erik writes: “There is a connection between sin and STD’s (common sense teaches that).”
Erik, what is the connection between a young mother and cancer? I have known two 30-something mothers of young children who have recently died painful deaths from cancer and left behind bewildered children. Did God do that to them and why?
December 24th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Mike,
you took my comment on STD and sin and then spin it to ask me about a young mother and cancer, do you not see the difference in the two? Or are you just trying to set a trap for me to fall in so that you can later write “see, Erik Brewer wrote such and such”? Be honest.
I have several stories from being over seas where people were totally anti-God until they became sick with an illness/disease and then they turned to God in repentance and He used that situation to strengthen the faith of the person and use that person to bring others to Him. Sometimes the person was healed and other times the person was not. In both cases, people’s lives were changed for the better.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Erik, I was merely trying to point out that your cause-and-effect, sex=sin=STD=God’s punishment, doesn’t hold water with me.
As I’ve said to you before, the concept of a God who would punish someone with a painful disease who didn’t believe in Him (after making proof of His existence somewhat hazy to begin with) seems excessively petty and spiteful to me.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Mike,
I understand what you are trying to do. What I do not understand is the fact that you do not see the connection between sexual immorality (sin) and STD’s.
I never said that God punishes those who do not believe in Him. Sin (a choice made by man and all of mankind) brings death and suffering. Again, please do not blame God for what people do.
You are assuming what you say instead of knowing the facts.