March 14th, (3/14), is International Pi day for a somewhat obvious reason. Visit this old site to hear Pi spoken in French (or many other languages) to hundreds of digits, plus links to much pi stuff. Here's the wiki for pi day. Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day 1879,…
I just found out about Conservapedia, an online service started to combat the educated, generally well-researched, illuminating, and therefore Left-wing, Liberal postings at Wikipedia. Read about what a Democrat really is, in a way that even Fox News wouldn't claim. Read about Evolution, which begins with the chapter "Lack of…
The practice of shifting clocks twice a year is an annoyance to everyone. Its roots go back to the Enlightenment, when such luminaries as Ben Franklin suggested the practice in part to keep urbanites, who lived by the clock, in better summertime sync with the rural majority who lived by…
Such good irony.
I can’t help but shake my head at the many Christians who are temporarily putting on their Skeptic Hats to deal with a bold claim by a Discovery Channel documentary. That documentary is claiming that a tomb discovered in Israel in 1980 held the bones of Jesus. If true, the documentary’s claim would conflict with the alleged resurrection of Jesus.
[Note: there is controversy about the resurrection, based upon the original writings from the Gospel according to Mark]
Ebonmuse, an atheist, has pointed out many reasons to doubt the claims of the television documentary that the tomb discovered in 1980 was the tomb of Jesus. He concludes:
I believe the most likely scenario is that this is a genuine tomb from biblical times, containing several ordinary people with names common from the time, which has been hyped beyond what the evidence supports by overzealous filmmakers trying to create a sensation. It is not a magic bullet to destroy Christianity . . .
Based upon the points raised in his article, I agree Ebonmuse. For those same reasons, I agree with the many Christians who are now attacking the Discovery Channel documentary. There are, indeed, many good reasons to doubt these claims. It’s fun to engage in skeptical inquiry, marching side-by-side with devout Christian believers for a change!
No sooner are they finished criticizing the claim about the tomb of Jesus, though, you can hear many of these same believers asserting, as undeniable facts, all of those ancient …
What I actually did was to pay $199 for a Western Digital “MyBook” 500 Gb external hard drive. While comparing hard drive prices, however, I stopped a moment to consider how incredibly far hard drive prices have fallen over the years. I concluded that I was getting a windfall no…