Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 12:02:17 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 1:31:50 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

Yes, Moses caused the Red Sea to part. And the world was created in
merely six days some 6000 years ago. All according to the Bible, a book
which even you have admitted is corrupt.

Twisting words is a form of dishonesty, Paul. The presence or errors does
not mean corrupt.

So call it unreliable if you so prefer. If the authors some 2000+ years
ago had bad intents or just were sloppy doesn't matter much today since
the end result is the same: the Bible cannot be trusted.

And it is indeed time that someone trustworthy could publish an errata
sheet for the Bible. But just one sheet would not be enough, many many
sheets would be needed...

Until then, perhaps you can point out the parts of the Bible which has
errors and which parts you find trustworthy. If no part of the Bible is
trustworthy, then why do you quote from it so extensively?

You are conflating "errors" with "totally corrupt" again. Most of the
Bible is correct, but there ARE errors. Rather than throwing out the baby
with the bathwater, there are ways to find out the truth.

There are two ways. The first is by inspiration from God:

"All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"
-- 2 Timothy 3:16

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation.
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." -- 1 Peter 1:20-21

So one my know the truth by the Holy Ghost. You might ask why do we need
scripture if we could get the truth from the H.G? Because it isn't easy.
You can read a scripture and ask and get a yea or nay easier than you
can receive a whole passage.

The second way is to ask a prophet:

"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets.+ -- Amos 3:7

If YOU heard his voice, you would follow him too.

Indeed I would ... if I was a sheep, that is...

You heard the voice of corrupt AGW advocates and you follow them like
a sheep.

Aren't you also going to say something like "You heard the voice of
corrupt round earth advocates and you follow them like a sheep" ???

When we were children, all of us followed our teachers like sheep, trusting
implicitly that they were telling the truth. Critical thinking came later.
When I was in the eighth grade, my science teacher claimed that the
reason we couldn't see the other side of the moon was because it was dark
there when that side faced the earth. I corrected him, not because I had
actually performed an experiment but because I believed I had been taught
correctly; that is, I was still a sheep even though I was right.

But there comes a time when you need to find out for yourself. You can do
this by "critical thinking":

"critical thinking is to be done objectively—meaning without influence from
personal feelings, opinions or biases—and it focuses solely on factual
information."

https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-ex...to-master-now/

"Identifying biases: This skill can be exceedingly difficult, as even the
smartest among us can fail to recognize biases."

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the
easiest person to fool.� -- Richard P. Feynman

If so, which churches teach the full truth? Please list them.

If I told you would you join one?

Do you think I'm stupid? You are here asking me to join any organisation
you point out. Would you do this yourself?

But I see your point. Your list of "churches which teach the full truth"
would be an empty list.

Nope. You are jumpimg to a biased conclusion again. That's not thinking
critically.

"It is not time yet for you to know what I see. When that time comes,
then you will know." ? Akiane Kramarik

None of my children did that. Most other children don't either. So your
poor child must have had a disease of some kind, or some other unusual
reason to suffer.

You were fortunate.

As were most of the people I know. No, I wasn't fortunate, instead it was
your child who was unfortunate.

I talked to some other people about that. You're right, I was unfortunate.
Or rather, my daughter was unfortunate :-(

Faith is belief without critical thinking.

Nope.

"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into
all truth" -- John 16:13

Another quote from an untrustworthy source...

How do you know that? Certainly not from critical thinking.

But even if some heat wave is unavoidable (we're in one heat wave
already), our actions can still determine how severe that heat wave
is goind to be.

Right now, I'm sitting in a cold house. I'm going to turn up the
thermostat.

How do you heat your house?

It's a real gas, man.

"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the
proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day
that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall
leave them neither root nor branch." -- Malachi 4:1

Another quote from a corrupt book...

Another claim from a corrupt mind.

If you think I am corrupt, why do you even talk to me? Wouldn't it be
better for you to spend your time talking to someone you think is free
from corruption?

Do you know anyone like that? :-)

“I never learned from a man that agreed with me.� – Robert A. Heinlein

That's one of the tricky details which MODTRAN probably isn't very good
at handling.

Actually, it is. It has an input for the amount of water vapor in the
atmosphere. The tricky part is determining how much to enter. For that
you need vapor pressure of water versus temperature, which is easy to
find.

Why do you think it's tricky to enter data which is easy to find?

Modtran doesn't have an explanation for how much water vapor (i.e., gm/cm3)
its standard of 1.0 refers to. I used a table of vapor pressures to
calculate the ratio for beginning and final temperatures and put that
ration into modtran for water vapor. The tricky part is not doing that,
but realizing that is the way to do it.

You cannot just trust what people claim. People imagine things and
fantasize about things. They hallucinate. Sometimes they even lie. But
human stories all by themselves are not very useful for science, they
must be supported by additional evidence.

An example: for a long long times astronomers denied that stones could
fall from the sky. They continued denying this until meteorites actually
were encountered, and could be shown to have a different origin than
terrestial rocks. After that, astronomers changed their mind.

And here is the core of science: to change your mind if and when solid
evidence for it is encountered.

If trolls and elves actually did exist, one can expect them to leave
remnants of some kind when they die. We ought to have found a large
number of skeletons of "little humans" from these trolls and elves. And
skeletons of "huge humans" from the giants. But these skeletons or other
remnants have not been found.

Likewise, "life after death" needs more solid evidence than just human
stories to be taken seriously by science.

Science will never accept NDEs unless it can be verified by the scientific
method.

But of course! That's the very purpose of science, to verify our
observations and build models upon these verified data. If you don't like
that method you should turn to e.g. religion instead, there they are
vastly more sloppy with the verification of data.

Most "religious" thinking is rather sloppy, but there is more to life than
what can be measured scientifically.

That's a limitation of science,

It's a strength of science. After all, it is useful to distinguish what
we actually know from what we merely believe. And you cannot blame
science itself for not having data about something you'd like to know
more about. Abandoning the scientific method will not give you any more
knowledge about it.

I'm not "abandoning" the scientific method. It has it's place, but life
is more than the scientific method.

"Palmer Joss: [Ellie challenges Palmer to prove the existence of God]
"Did you love your father?
"Ellie Arroway: Yes, very much.
"Palmer Joss: Prove it.

but it's a corruption of science when things are accepted without that
verification.

Excuse me, but this is not due to faults in the scientific method itself.
Yes, some individual scientists may commit such errors, but as you
pointed out earlier, the presence of some errors does not imply total
corruption in every respect.

I'm glad you're willing to admit that now.

And I don't think you'll find any scientific study that concludes that
god does not exist, or the human soul/spirit/whatever does not exist.
THose questions are simply outside the scope of science.

Yes, they are, now.

Correlation does not confirm causation.

True, but a correlation could have another common cause. It ought to be
investigated. Since you're fond of statistics, please compute the
probability that this correlation is due to pure chance, without any
common cause whatsoever.

I'll have to think about how to do that ...

Try the Monte Carlo method: assume there is some unknown mecahnism which
causes global warming. Also assume it starts working at some random point
of time, from at least many millions of years into the past to many
millions of years into the future. Repeat that as many times as needed
until you encounter at least half-a-dozen or so cases where this unknown
mechanism coincides with the rising CO2 close enough for us to see no
difference in time. Finally, find out in how small a fraction of all your
repetitions that this does happen. That will be the probability.

For that's the very definition of probability: if a process is repeated a
large number of times, the probability is the fraction of the cases where
you get a positive result (where "positive" simply is anything you wish
to see happen).


I see you've found a new religion - it's MODTRAN. Well, I don't share
your faith that MODTRAN is the absolute flawless truth...

Of course it isn't flawless. There are studies on this, but it actually
works and gives excellent results.

I wouldn't think the quite large discrepancies you pointed out as
"excellent results". MODTRAN is wrong by about a factor of two or more.

You KNOW that I have presented two possibilities and you still dishonestly
repeat this.

Yes - hypothetical, unexplained, and very unlikely possibilities...

Really? Water vapor is known to be THE major greenhouse gas and water
vapor in the atmosphere increases with temperature. ANYTHING that increases
temperature has a feedback effect. CO2 is not enough so other causes of
temperature rise must be investigated.

And God made man that way, didn't he? ;-)

That's what many misguided people believe. I don't.

You don't believe we were created by God?

Parts of us were, parts of us weren't.

Oh my! But maybe there is some hope for you after all...

Unlikely :-)

In article ,
says...

I'm far from alone in having that opinion...

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever
that it is not utterly absurd. -- Bertrand Russell

Apply that principle to the Christians of the world...

Apply it to "I'm far from alone in having that opinion"

You should live as you preach. Otherwise you'll appear as a hypocrite...

In article ,
says...

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 12:02:17 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 1:31:50 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

Yes, Moses caused the Red Sea to part. And the world was created in
merely six days some 6000 years ago. All according to the Bible, a book
which even you have admitted is corrupt.

Twisting words is a form of dishonesty, Paul. The presence or errors does
not mean corrupt.

So call it unreliable if you so prefer. If the authors some 2000+ years
ago had bad intents or just were sloppy doesn't matter much today since
the end result is the same: the Bible cannot be trusted.

And it is indeed time that someone trustworthy could publish an errata
sheet for the Bible. But just one sheet would not be enough, many many
sheets would be needed...

Until then, perhaps you can point out the parts of the Bible which has
errors and which parts you find trustworthy. If no part of the Bible is
trustworthy, then why do you quote from it so extensively?

You are conflating "errors" with "totally corrupt" again. Most of the
Bible is correct, but there ARE errors. Rather than throwing out the baby
with the bathwater, there are ways to find out the truth.

I know. The way to find the truth is science. We have no better way than
that.


There are two ways. The first is by inspiration from God:

"All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"
-- 2 Timothy 3:16

A circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?


"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation.
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." -- 1 Peter 1:20-21

Another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?


So one my know the truth by the Holy Ghost. You might ask why do we need
scripture if we could get the truth from the H.G? Because it isn't easy.
You can read a scripture and ask and get a yea or nay easier than you
can receive a whole passage.

The second way is to ask a prophet:

WHICH profet?

Mohammed, who created Islam?

Joseph Smith, who created Mormonism?

Both claimed that an angel explained "the truth" to them...


"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets.+ -- Amos 3:7

Yet another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the
Bible is correct. WHat else could you expect?


If YOU heard his voice, you would follow him too.

Indeed I would ... if I was a sheep, that is...

You heard the voice of corrupt AGW advocates and you follow them like
a sheep.

Aren't you also going to say something like "You heard the voice of
corrupt round earth advocates and you follow them like a sheep" ???

When we were children, all of us followed our teachers like sheep,

I did that to my parents perhaps, for what else can an infant do? But
when I started school, I first objected strongly.

And parents usually teach their kids useful things. Those parents who
don't will run a much larger risk that their children die of some
accident because they weren't handled correctly. In the long run, such
parents will get extinct due to natural selection.


trusting
implicitly that they were telling the truth. Critical thinking came later.
When I was in the eighth grade, my science teacher claimed that the
reason we couldn't see the other side of the moon was because it was dark
there when that side faced the earth. I corrected him, not because I had
actually performed an experiment but because I believed I had been taught
correctly; that is, I was still a sheep even though I was right.

But there comes a time when you need to find out for yourself. You can do
this by "critical thinking":

"critical thinking is to be done objectively?meaning without influence from
personal feelings, opinions or biases?and it focuses solely on factual
information."

https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-ex...to-master-now/

"Identifying biases: This skill can be exceedingly difficult, as even the
smartest among us can fail to recognize biases."

?The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the
easiest person to fool.? -- Richard P. Feynman

If so, which churches teach the full truth? Please list them.

If I told you would you join one?

Do you think I'm stupid? You are here asking me to join any organisation
you point out. Would you do this yourself?

But I see your point. Your list of "churches which teach the full truth"
would be an empty list.

Nope. You are jumpimg to a biased conclusion again. That's not thinking
critically.

So wher is that list?


"It is not time yet for you to know what I see. When that time comes,
then you will know." ? Akiane Kramarik

None of my children did that. Most other children don't either. So your
poor child must have had a disease of some kind, or some other unusual
reason to suffer.

You were fortunate.

As were most of the people I know. No, I wasn't fortunate, instead it was
your child who was unfortunate.

I talked to some other people about that. You're right, I was unfortunate.
Or rather, my daughter was unfortunate :-(

Faith is belief without critical thinking.

Nope.

"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into
all truth" -- John 16:13

Another quote from an untrustworthy source...

How do you know that? Certainly not from critical thinking.

By information from you, who admitted that there are errors in the Bible.
And since there are errors there, it's not an untrustworthy source.

However, even then you are biased, since you think there are errors in my
Bible quotes, but not in yor Bible quotes.

But even if some heat wave is unavoidable (we're in one heat wave
already), our actions can still determine how severe that heat wave
is goind to be.

Right now, I'm sitting in a cold house. I'm going to turn up the
thermostat.

How do you heat your house?

It's a real gas, man.

"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the
proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day
that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall
leave them neither root nor branch." -- Malachi 4:1

Another quote from a corrupt book...

Another claim from a corrupt mind.

If you think I am corrupt, why do you even talk to me? Wouldn't it be
better for you to spend your time talking to someone you think is free
from corruption?

Do you know anyone like that? :-)

You see? Not even Jesus is free from corruption....

?I never learned from a man that agreed with me.? ? Robert A. Heinlein

That's one of the tricky details which MODTRAN probably isn't very good
at handling.

Actually, it is. It has an input for the amount of water vapor in the
atmosphere. The tricky part is determining how much to enter. For that
you need vapor pressure of water versus temperature, which is easy to
find.

Why do you think it's tricky to enter data which is easy to find?

Modtran doesn't have an explanation for how much water vapor (i.e., gm/cm3)
its standard of 1.0 refers to. I used a table of vapor pressures to
calculate the ratio for beginning and final temperatures and put that
ration into modtran for water vapor. The tricky part is not doing that,
but realizing that is the way to do it.

That's one major weakness of Modtran, or at least on how you use it. The
amount of water vapor is not a constant. It is not even in a constant
ratio relative to the saturation pressure of water vapor. The amount of
water vapor in our atmosphere is highly variable, and can be anything
between 0 percent and about 4 percent.

Does Modtran match well with the very low humidity over the Sahara
desert?


You cannot just trust what people claim. People imagine things and
fantasize about things. They hallucinate. Sometimes they even lie. But
human stories all by themselves are not very useful for science, they
must be supported by additional evidence.

An example: for a long long times astronomers denied that stones could
fall from the sky. They continued denying this until meteorites actually
were encountered, and could be shown to have a different origin than
terrestial rocks. After that, astronomers changed their mind.

And here is the core of science: to change your mind if and when solid
evidence for it is encountered.

If trolls and elves actually did exist, one can expect them to leave
remnants of some kind when they die. We ought to have found a large
number of skeletons of "little humans" from these trolls and elves. And
skeletons of "huge humans" from the giants. But these skeletons or other
remnants have not been found.

Likewise, "life after death" needs more solid evidence than just human
stories to be taken seriously by science.

Science will never accept NDEs unless it can be verified by the scientific
method.

But of course! That's the very purpose of science, to verify our
observations and build models upon these verified data. If you don't like
that method you should turn to e.g. religion instead, there they are
vastly more sloppy with the verification of data.

Most "religious" thinking is rather sloppy, but there is more to life than
what can be measured scientifically.

Of course. But when we can measure, we know more if we measure than if we
don't.

That's a limitation of science,

It's a strength of science. After all, it is useful to distinguish what
we actually know from what we merely believe. And you cannot blame
science itself for not having data about something you'd like to know
more about. Abandoning the scientific method will not give you any more
knowledge about it.

I'm not "abandoning" the scientific method. It has it's place, but life
is more than the scientific method.

"Palmer Joss: [Ellie challenges Palmer to prove the existence of God]
"Did you love your father?
"Ellie Arroway: Yes, very much.
"Palmer Joss: Prove it.

That's something different.

Palmer Joss asks Ellis Arroway to prove his feelings for his father. But
Palmer Joss does not question that the father did exist.

I'm not questioning your religious faith. You could lie about your faith
of course, but I see no reason why you should lie about that, so I
believe you. After all, there are a large number of religious people, so
there's nothing remarkable about that.

So what I'm questioning is not your feelings, but the existence of the
object of your feelings.


but it's a corruption of science when things are accepted without that
verification.

Excuse me, but this is not due to faults in the scientific method itself.
Yes, some individual scientists may commit such errors, but as you
pointed out earlier, the presence of some errors does not imply total
corruption in every respect.

I'm glad you're willing to admit that now.

And I don't think you'll find any scientific study that concludes that
god does not exist, or the human soul/spirit/whatever does not exist.
THose questions are simply outside the scope of science.

Yes, they are, now.

Since when?


Correlation does not confirm causation.

True, but a correlation could have another common cause. It ought to be
investigated. Since you're fond of statistics, please compute the
probability that this correlation is due to pure chance, without any
common cause whatsoever.

I'll have to think about how to do that ...

Try the Monte Carlo method: assume there is some unknown mecahnism which
causes global warming. Also assume it starts working at some random point
of time, from at least many millions of years into the past to many
millions of years into the future. Repeat that as many times as needed
until you encounter at least half-a-dozen or so cases where this unknown
mechanism coincides with the rising CO2 close enough for us to see no
difference in time. Finally, find out in how small a fraction of all your
repetitions that this does happen. That will be the probability.

For that's the very definition of probability: if a process is repeated a
large number of times, the probability is the fraction of the cases where
you get a positive result (where "positive" simply is anything you wish
to see happen).

No comment on this?


I see you've found a new religion - it's MODTRAN. Well, I don't share
your faith that MODTRAN is the absolute flawless truth...

Of course it isn't flawless. There are studies on this, but it actually
works and gives excellent results.

I wouldn't think the quite large discrepancies you pointed out as
"excellent results". MODTRAN is wrong by about a factor of two or more.

You KNOW that I have presented two possibilities and you still dishonestly
repeat this.

Yes - hypothetical, unexplained, and very unlikely possibilities...

Really? Water vapor is known to be THE major greenhouse gas and water
vapor in the atmosphere increases with temperature. ANYTHING that increases
temperature has a feedback effect. CO2 is not enough so other causes of
temperature rise must be investigated.

It is very plausible that H2O provides a positive feedback loop,
amplifying the heating due to increased CO2. Also, when the air gets
warmer, more water evaporates from the oceans, causing even more water
vapor in the atmosphere.

However, humans are burning fossil coal at a large scale. If we instead
had burnt hydrogen at a large scale, there would have been large amounts
of human produced water vapor in the atmosphere. But we don't burn
hydrogen at a large scale, we burn coal at a large scale. Therefore the
major human contribution is CO2, not H2O.


And God made man that way, didn't he? ;-)

That's what many misguided people believe. I don't.

You don't believe we were created by God?

Parts of us were, parts of us weren't.

Which parts weren't?

And how did these parts not created by God come into existence? By
evolution perhaps? :-)


Oh my! But maybe there is some hope for you after all...

Unlikely :-)

Yep, religion is like a hard drug. Once you're stuck it is extremely hard
to release yourself from it...

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 7:36:36 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 12:02:17 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

Until then, perhaps you can point out the parts of the Bible which has
errors and which parts you find trustworthy. If no part of the Bible is
trustworthy, then why do you quote from it so extensively?

You are conflating "errors" with "totally corrupt" again. Most of the
Bible is correct, but there ARE errors. Rather than throwing out the baby
with the bathwater, there are ways to find out the truth.

I know. The way to find the truth is science. We have no better way than
that.

Nope. We've already discussed that science is incapable of discerning
truth where phenomena cannot be controlled.

There are two ways. The first is by inspiration from God:

"All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"
-- 2 Timothy 3:16

A circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?

What else could a closed mind say?

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation.
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." -- 1 Peter 1:20-21

Another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?

You are being dishonest. It's not really circular at all. It is saying
that a mortal has no right to interpret scripture by himself.

So one my know the truth by the Holy Ghost. You might ask why do we need
scripture if we could get the truth from the H.G? Because it isn't easy.
You can read a scripture and ask and get a yea or nay easier than you
can receive a whole passage.

The second way is to ask a prophet:

WHICH profet?

Mohammed, who created Islam?

Joseph Smith, who created Mormonism?

Both claimed that an angel explained "the truth" to them...

MANY people have claimed that they have seen and spoken to angels. THAT
alone does not give them the right to start a religion.

"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets.+ -- Amos 3:7

Yet another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the
Bible is correct. WHat else could you expect?

You have blinded your mind with this baloney. That scripture (and many
others) isn't telling you to believe the Bible: It's telling you to pay
attention to prophets.

Aren't you also going to say something like "You heard the voice of
corrupt round earth advocates and you follow them like a sheep" ???

When we were children, all of us followed our teachers like sheep,

I did that to my parents perhaps, for what else can an infant do? But
when I started school, I first objected strongly.

And parents usually teach their kids useful things. Those parents who
don't will run a much larger risk that their children die of some
accident because they weren't handled correctly. In the long run, such
parents will get extinct due to natural selection.

If your parents didn't have any children, the chances are that you won't
either :-)

But I see your point. Your list of "churches which teach the full truth"
would be an empty list.

Nope. You are jumpimg to a biased conclusion again. That's not thinking
critically.

So wher is that list?

Of course, since religions aren't in ageement with each other, there can only
be either one or none in that list.

"I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the
sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that
all were wrong)—and which I should join." __ Joseph Smith

So your claim that an angel "explained the truth" to Joseph Smith is
egregiously incomplete and misleading. He claimed the Father and the Son
visited him. When he asked which church he should join, he was told none
of them. And he didn't run off and start a religion after having an
experience MUCH more profound that Mohammed.

.....

Another quote from an untrustworthy source...

How do you know that? Certainly not from critical thinking.

By information from you, who admitted that there are errors in the Bible.
And since there are errors there, it's not an untrustworthy source.

And since there are errors in the climate models used by the IPCC, they
are untrustworthy sources. If you maintain one is trustworthy but the
other is not, you are a hypocrite.

However, even then you are biased, since you think there are errors in my
Bible quotes, but not in yor Bible quotes.

What evidence do you have that YOUR quotes are correct? None at all.
You're just playing word games. I explained how you can tell.

If you think I am corrupt, why do you even talk to me? Wouldn't it be
better for you to spend your time talking to someone you think is free
from corruption?

Do you know anyone like that? :-)

You see? Not even Jesus is free from corruption....

I was asking YOU. I don't know for sure any mortals that are, but I know
MANY who are much closer than you or I.

Why do you think it's tricky to enter data which is easy to find?

Modtran doesn't have an explanation for how much water vapor (i.e.,
gm/cm3) its standard of 1.0 refers to. I used a table of vapor pressures
to calculate the ratio for beginning and final temperatures and put that
ration into modtran for water vapor. The tricky part is not doing that,
but realizing that is the way to do it.

That's one major weakness of Modtran, or at least on how you use it.
The amount of water vapor is not a constant.

Umm, THAT'S why it can be changed in the program, of course :-))

It is not even in a constant ratio relative to the saturation pressure
of water vapor. The amount of water vapor in our atmosphere is highly
variable, and can be anything between 0 percent and about 4 percent.

That's why the IPCC models just throw in the towel and ASSUME that that
the effect of CO2 is multiplied by a fixed constant.

Does Modtran match well with the very low humidity over the Sahara
desert?

Do the IPCC models? Of course not. "Sauce for the goose is sauve for the
gander."

But of course! That's the very purpose of science, to verify our
observations and build models upon these verified data. If you
don't like that method you should turn to e.g. religion instead,
there they are vastly more sloppy with the verification of data.

Most "religious" thinking is rather sloppy, but there is more to life than
what can be measured scientifically.

Of course. But when we can measure, we know more if we measure than if we
don't.

And MacDougall made measurements, so we know more than we did before.

That's a limitation of science,

It's a strength of science. After all, it is useful to distinguish what
we actually know from what we merely believe. And you cannot blame
science itself for not having data about something you'd like to know
more about. Abandoning the scientific method will not give you any more
knowledge about it.

I'm not "abandoning" the scientific method. It has it's place, but life
is more than the scientific method.

"Palmer Joss: [Ellie challenges Palmer to prove the existence of God]
"Did you love your father?
"Ellie Arroway: Yes, very much.
"Palmer Joss: Prove it.

That's something different.

Palmer Joss asks Ellis Arroway to prove his feelings for his father. But
Palmer Joss does not question that the father did exist.

Right, but point is that there are important things, like love, memories,
and, yes, even experiences that lie outside of science. And some actual
evidence, even though it was captured by a fighter jet's targeting computer,
isn't "scientific" because it cannot be controlled "scientifically."

I'm not questioning your religious faith. You could lie about your faith
of course, but I see no reason why you should lie about that, so I
believe you. After all, there are a large number of religious people, so
there's nothing remarkable about that.

So what I'm questioning is not your feelings, but the existence of the
object of your feelings.

If you require "scientific evidence" for that object, you're outta luck!

And I don't think you'll find any scientific study that concludes that
god does not exist, or the human soul/spirit/whatever does not exist.
THose questions are simply outside the scope of science.

Yes, they are, now.

Since when?

I was referring to the future, not the past.

"I believe God himself will someday debate with and answer every objection
arrogant men can come up with against him" -- Criss Jami

Try the Monte Carlo method: assume there is some unknown mecahnism
which causes global warming....

Yes - hypothetical, unexplained, and very unlikely possibilities...

Really? Water vapor is known to be THE major greenhouse gas and water
vapor in the atmosphere increases with temperature. ANYTHING that
increases temperature has a feedback effect. CO2 is not enough so
other causes of temperature rise must be investigated.

It is very plausible that H2O provides a positive feedback loop,
amplifying the heating due to increased CO2. Also, when the air gets
warmer, more water evaporates from the oceans, causing even more water
vapor in the atmosphere.

However, humans are burning fossil coal at a large scale. If we instead
had burnt hydrogen at a large scale, there would have been large amounts
of human produced water vapor in the atmosphere. But we don't burn
hydrogen at a large scale, we burn coal at a large scale. Therefore the
major human contribution is CO2, not H2O.

Two hundred years to double the CO2 level and produce a 1.1 degree rise
in global temperatures. Something else is happening and we'd better find
out what it is before our great great great grandchildren burn up.

Coal use has dropped significantly in the U.S. and probably will all over
the world in the coming decades.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/glo...emissions-data

Electricity and heat production account for 1/4 of the GHG emissions,
industry almost as much and agriculture, forestry and land use an equal
amount. Transportation is only 1/9. So how do we cut the CO2 production
in half without cutting our throats, too?

And half isn't good enough. That still puts an additional 1 ppm/year
into the atmosphere (assuming the same ratio going into other sinks
as now). It'll just take twice as long for the burn to happen.

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 2:50:49 PM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote:

So your claim that an angel "explained the truth" to Joseph Smith is
egregiously incomplete and misleading. He claimed the Father and the Son
visited him. When he asked which church he should join, he was told none
of them. And he didn't run off and start a religion after having an
experience MUCH more profound that Mohammed.

He started a denomination, if not a religion. Although one could claim that
Christianity is a sect within Judaism, so it's not clear to me that this is an
important distinction.

He started a group of people with a particular set of beliefs, distinct from
everyone else. How closely their beliefs might be related to some other people's
doean't seem to me to be a significant factor.

Also "after having an experience" implies that you accept his claims for what he
had experienced. Why would anyone be even remotely inclined to do that?

John Savard

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 1:50:49 PM UTC-8, Gary Harnagel wrote:
On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 7:36:36 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:


Another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?

You are being dishonest. It's not really circular at all. It is saying
that a mortal has no right to interpret scripture by himself.

So, a group of mortals is better at interpreting scripture than a single mortal? You mean, like the Supreme Court? They are among the most learned of the most learned, but they can flip-flop the same as anyone...

"Teamwork is important because it allows you to share the blame."

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 3:08:27 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 2:50:49 PM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote:

So your claim that an angel "explained the truth" to Joseph Smith is
egregiously incomplete and misleading. He claimed the Father and the Son
visited him. When he asked which church he should join, he was told none
of them. And he didn't run off and start a religion after having an
experience MUCH more profound that Mohammed.

He started a denomination, if not a religion.

Ten years later.

Although one could claim that Christianity is a sect within Judaism,
so it's not clear to me that this is an important distinction.

He started a group of people with a particular set of beliefs, distinct
from everyone else. How closely their beliefs might be related to some
other people's doesn't seem to me to be a significant factor.

Also "after having an experience" implies that you accept his claims
for what he had experienced. Why would anyone be even remotely inclined
to do that?

John Savard

That was just his first experience. He had quite a few similar experiences,
many with others who corroborated them. And then there was the Book of
Mormon.

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-8, Gary Harnagel wrote:
On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 3:08:27 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

Also "after having an experience" implies that you accept his claims
for what he had experienced. Why would anyone be even remotely inclined
to do that?

John Savard

That was just his first experience. He had quite a few similar experiences,
many with others who corroborated them. And then there was the Book of
Mormon.

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. � (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)

Yeah, right, I'll buy that!

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 6:08:46 PM UTC-8, palsing wrote:
On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 1:50:49 PM UTC-8, Gary Harnagel wrote:
On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 7:36:36 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:


Another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?

You are being dishonest. It's not really circular at all. It is saying
that a mortal has no right to interpret scripture by himself.

So, a group of mortals is better at interpreting scripture than a single mortal? You mean, like the Supreme Court? They are among the most learned of the most learned, but they can flip-flop the same as anyone...

"Teamwork is important because it allows you to share the blame."

Also...

"One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork."
- Edward Abbey

In article ,
says...

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 7:36:36 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Monday, November 5, 2018 at 12:02:17 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

Until then, perhaps you can point out the parts of the Bible which has
errors and which parts you find trustworthy. If no part of the Bible is
trustworthy, then why do you quote from it so extensively?

You are conflating "errors" with "totally corrupt" again. Most of the
Bible is correct, but there ARE errors. Rather than throwing out the baby
with the bathwater, there are ways to find out the truth.

I know. The way to find the truth is science. We have no better way than
that.

Nope. We've already discussed that science is incapable of discerning
truth where phenomena cannot be controlled.

OBSERVED !!! Not controlled... Science has e.g. been fully capable of
discerning many interesting facts about the universe, even though we are
unable to control the universe...


There are two ways. The first is by inspiration from God:

"All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"
-- 2 Timothy 3:16

A circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?

What else could a closed mind say?

A closed mind would think that quote was the "truth from God". A closed
mind is incapable of even considering any other possibility...


"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation.
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." -- 1 Peter 1:20-21

Another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the Bible is
correct. WHat else could you expect?

You are being dishonest. It's not really circular at all. It is saying
that a mortal has no right to interpret scripture by himself.

In Europe some 100+ years ago, that rule was enforced by the authorities.
Back then you could be sent to jail for having had a religious meeting
without any priest present during the meeting. That was then a strong
motivation for religious minorities to emigrate to North America. And
there you have the reason for the very strong religiosity of todays
Americans. In the U.S. it is unthinkable for a politician to publicly
admit being an atheist -- their political career would end very soon
after having done that. In Europe, doing the same thing wouldn't be such
a big deal. After all, running a country is not the same thing as running
a church.


So one my know the truth by the Holy Ghost. You might ask why do we need
scripture if we could get the truth from the H.G? Because it isn't easy.
You can read a scripture and ask and get a yea or nay easier than you
can receive a whole passage.

The second way is to ask a prophet:

WHICH profet?

Mohammed, who created Islam?

Joseph Smith, who created Mormonism?

Both claimed that an angel explained "the truth" to them...

MANY people have claimed that they have seen and spoken to angels. THAT
alone does not give them the right to start a religion.

Are you against freedom of religion?

Perhaps you are against freedom of speech too?


"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets.+ -- Amos 3:7

Yet another circular "proof". I already know the Bible says that the
Bible is correct. WHat else could you expect?

You have blinded your mind with this baloney. That scripture (and many
others) isn't telling you to believe the Bible: It's telling you to pay
attention to prophets.

If I don't believe the Bible, why should I care when the Bible says I
should pay attention to some prophets?

And who are these "certified" prophets? Is Muhammed included? Or Joseph
Smith?


Aren't you also going to say something like "You heard the voice of
corrupt round earth advocates and you follow them like a sheep" ???

When we were children, all of us followed our teachers like sheep,

I did that to my parents perhaps, for what else can an infant do? But
when I started school, I first objected strongly.

And parents usually teach their kids useful things. Those parents who
don't will run a much larger risk that their children die of some
accident because they weren't handled correctly. In the long run, such
parents will get extinct due to natural selection.

If your parents didn't have any children, the chances are that you won't
either :-)

Claiming that a non-existent person "has no children" is like claiming
that a non-existent God is evil, or good. The fundamental requirement for
having any property at all is that you exist. :-)


But I see your point. Your list of "churches which teach the full truth"
would be an empty list.

Nope. You are jumpimg to a biased conclusion again. That's not thinking
critically.

So where is that list?

Of course, since religions aren't in ageement with each other, there can only
be either one or none in that list.

And you've already excluded that the list is empty. So your list must
contain exactly one religion. Which one is it? And don't just say
"Christianity" because that's too unspecific. Since you condemn most of
Christianity, you must tell what branch of Christianity you approve.


"I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the
sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that
all were wrong)?and which I should join." __ Joseph Smith

So your claim that an angel "explained the truth" to Joseph Smith is
egregiously incomplete and misleading. He claimed the Father and the Son
visited him. When he asked which church he should join, he was told none
of them.

OK, replace "angel" with "deity" then. But this doesn't apply to you
since you earlier said that your list of approvable religions was not an
empty list.


And he didn't run off and start a religion after having an
experience MUCH more profound that Mohammed.

So what do YOU KNOW about the experience of Mohammed? Not much I would
suppose...


....

Another quote from an untrustworthy source...

How do you know that? Certainly not from critical thinking.

By information from you, who admitted that there are errors in the Bible.
And since there are errors there, it's not an untrustworthy source.

And since there are errors in the climate models used by the IPCC, they
are untrustworthy sources. If you maintain one is trustworthy but the
other is not, you are a hypocrite.

They should of course not be blindly trusted, as you tend to do with
MODTRAN. Science is, as always, about critical thinking, not about blind
faith.


However, even then you are biased, since you think there are errors in my
Bible quotes, but not in yor Bible quotes.

What evidence do you have that YOUR quotes are correct? None at all.
You're just playing word games. I explained how you can tell.

Well, what evidence do you have that YOUR quotes are correct?


If you think I am corrupt, why do you even talk to me? Wouldn't it be
better for you to spend your time talking to someone you think is free
from corruption?

Do you know anyone like that? :-)

You see? Not even Jesus is free from corruption....

I was asking YOU. I don't know for sure any mortals that are, but I know
MANY who are much closer than you or I.

Do you know any immortals who are?

And since you earlier said that being in error does not imply being
corrupt - I agree with that. Being corrput is having a bad intent to
deceive others. Everyone is in error from time to time, nobody is
flawless. But not everyone have bad intents.


Why do you think it's tricky to enter data which is easy to find?

Modtran doesn't have an explanation for how much water vapor (i.e.,
gm/cm3) its standard of 1.0 refers to. I used a table of vapor pressures
to calculate the ratio for beginning and final temperatures and put that
ration into modtran for water vapor. The tricky part is not doing that,
but realizing that is the way to do it.

That's one major weakness of Modtran, or at least on how you use it.
The amount of water vapor is not a constant.

Umm, THAT'S why it can be changed in the program, of course :-))

So why do you have to enter a value, if the program sets new values by
itself?


It is not even in a constant ratio relative to the saturation pressure
of water vapor. The amount of water vapor in our atmosphere is highly
variable, and can be anything between 0 percent and about 4 percent.

That's why the IPCC models just throw in the towel and ASSUME that that
the effect of CO2 is multiplied by a fixed constant.

Does Modtran match well with the very low humidity over the Sahara
desert?

Do the IPCC models? Of course not. "Sauce for the goose is sauve for the
gander."

**Any** GCM model of the atmosphere should produce low humidity areas
where we have our deserts, or else that model would be pretty worthless.

However, there are local models and there are global models. Which kind
of model is MODTRAN?


But of course! That's the very purpose of science, to verify our
observations and build models upon these verified data. If you
don't like that method you should turn to e.g. religion instead,
there they are vastly more sloppy with the verification of data.

Most "religious" thinking is rather sloppy, but there is more to life than
what can be measured scientifically.

Of course. But when we can measure, we know more if we measure than if we
don't.

And MacDougall made measurements, so we know more than we did before.

Not nearly as much as we'd wish to know though. MacDougall realized that
himself, that's why he concluded that his experiment would have to be
repeated - not just once or twice but many times - before any conclusions
could be made.


That's a limitation of science,

It's a strength of science. After all, it is useful to distinguish what
we actually know from what we merely believe. And you cannot blame
science itself for not having data about something you'd like to know
more about. Abandoning the scientific method will not give you any more
knowledge about it.

I'm not "abandoning" the scientific method. It has it's place, but life
is more than the scientific method.

"Palmer Joss: [Ellie challenges Palmer to prove the existence of God]
"Did you love your father?
"Ellie Arroway: Yes, very much.
"Palmer Joss: Prove it.

That's something different.

Palmer Joss asks Ellis Arroway to prove his feelings for his father. But
Palmer Joss does not question that the father did exist.

Right, but point is that there are important things, like love, memories,
and, yes, even experiences that lie outside of science. And some actual
evidence, even though it was captured by a fighter jet's targeting computer,
isn't "scientific" because it cannot be controlled "scientifically."

Any subjective experience is of course outside the scope of science.
There is only one way we can find out if someone had a subjective
expericence or not: ask that person, and hope she doesn't lie.

One could then argue that religion is nothing but a subjective
experience, and I would happily agree with that. Religious experiences do
indeed exist, no doubt about that. But if God exists is much more
doubtful. However, we can feel much more sure about that some (actually
many) specific God does not exist. This applies to Thor, Woden, Mars,
Saturn, ...and also the Abrahamic "one and only" God.

But the religious experiences around this non-existend Abrahamic God,
these experiences do exist. Just like hallucinations exist even though
the objects being hallucinated may very well, and often are, non-
existent.


I'm not questioning your religious faith. You could lie about your faith
of course, but I see no reason why you should lie about that, so I
believe you. After all, there are a large number of religious people, so
there's nothing remarkable about that.

So what I'm questioning is not your feelings, but the existence of the
object of your feelings.

If you require "scientific evidence" for that object, you're outta luck!

I know. As I explained earlier, those feelings are outside the scope of
science. However, I too have feelings, and these feelings I cannot
scientifically prove to others. But I find it reasonable that other human
beings, including you, also have feelings. Therefore I don't doubt your
feelings. But I'll have to view you as a "black box" (i.e. a device I
know nothing about the inside of, all I can do is to subject it to
various stimula and then observe the responses).


And I don't think you'll find any scientific study that concludes that
god does not exist, or the human soul/spirit/whatever does not exist.
THose questions are simply outside the scope of science.

Yes, they are, now.

Since when?

I was referring to the future, not the past.

Then you should have said "Yes, they will be in the future", not "Yes,
they are now"... :-)


"I believe God himself will someday debate with and answer every objection
arrogant men can come up with against him" -- Criss Jami

Try the Monte Carlo method: assume there is some unknown mecahnism
which causes global warming....

Yes - hypothetical, unexplained, and very unlikely possibilities...

Really? Water vapor is known to be THE major greenhouse gas and water
vapor in the atmosphere increases with temperature. ANYTHING that
increases temperature has a feedback effect. CO2 is not enough so
other causes of temperature rise must be investigated.

It is very plausible that H2O provides a positive feedback loop,
amplifying the heating due to increased CO2. Also, when the air gets
warmer, more water evaporates from the oceans, causing even more water
vapor in the atmosphere.

However, humans are burning fossil coal at a large scale. If we instead
had burnt hydrogen at a large scale, there would have been large amounts
of human produced water vapor in the atmosphere. But we don't burn
hydrogen at a large scale, we burn coal at a large scale. Therefore the
major human contribution is CO2, not H2O.

Two hundred years to double the CO2 level and produce a 1.1 degree rise
in global temperatures. Something else is happening and we'd better find
out what it is before our great great great grandchildren burn up.

Coal use has dropped significantly in the U.S. and probably will all over
the world in the coming decades.

That is your expectation. It remains to be seen what actually will
happen.


https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/glo...emissions-data

Electricity and heat production account for 1/4 of the GHG emissions,
industry almost as much and agriculture, forestry and land use an equal
amount. Transportation is only 1/9. So how do we cut the CO2 production
in half without cutting our throats, too?

And half isn't good enough. That still puts an additional 1 ppm/year
into the atmosphere (assuming the same ratio going into other sinks
as now). It'll just take twice as long for the burn to happen.