The stars in the heavens - God promise to Abraham

On Jul 28, 10:46 am, "Chris.B" wrote:

---snip---
It
may have been the chance occurrence of two customers requiring
completely opposite prescription simultaneously which finally lead to
the discovery of the "Galilean" telescope. It should not be
underestimated how difficult it really is to invent a useful telescope
even by complete chance.

Hi
Even a Galilean telescope would be hard to use. The negative lens
creates quite a bit of vinetting. It wasn't all that practical. It
would
be especially difficult to do a star survey with such a poor field of
view.
Dwight

On Jul 28, 11:25*pm, "
wrote:

Hi
*Even a Galilean telescope would be hard to use. The negative lens
creates quite a bit of vignetting. It wasn't all that practical. It
would
be especially difficult to do a star survey with such a poor field of
view.
Dwight

Even the practice of holding a lens up to the eye and another at arms
length is a learned procedure and assumes a fairly precise matching
pair of very different lenses of high polish and reasonable clarity.
Without the expectation of something useful happening why would one
even try one lens against another? Consider the global rarity of
useful lenses in the past and the chances of prior invention become
vanishingly small.

I watched 10,000BC last night and was amused to see a telescope being
used by the high priest to view Orion to confirm the "shape" of the
constellation.
Ironic that they were able to recognise the shape in the scars on the
hand of a slave girl but still needed to view the sacred constellation
to refresh their memories.
It seems Hollywood has yet to discover the basics of the practical
telescope and its use in astronomy. Another case of childishly "bad
science" in popular entertainment and quite unnecessary IMO.

In article 78750a3e-2bf0-4577-ad63-aefc34cb3962@
34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com, says...
SolomonW wrote:
SteveP wrote:
SolomonW wrote:
--------------------------------------------------
"Look at the sky and
see if you can count the stars. That's how many descendants you will
have."
-------------------------------------------------------------
"I will bless you and give you such a large family, that
someday your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky
or the grains of sand along the beach.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++

trying to resolve these two quotes one possible solution, the writer
of this chapter states that ancients might have had a telescope.

Any thoughts?

Thoughts? Sure.

The quotes are not ambiguous unless taken literally. Each indicates
simply that his descendents would be too numerous to count.

To have a population too numerous to count, would be a feat even in
biblical times.

I don't think so. Too numerous to count for me is probably anything
over 100 or so, where my mind would begin to wander. Heck, I have
trouble counting the Skee Ball tickets I win at Chuck E Cheese with
the kids. Thank goodness they make a ticket counter to save us all the
trouble. :-)


Abraham was a wealthy herdsmen with considerable flock. I am sure he
could count over a hundred. His livelihood would depend on it.


The bible for example talks of "ten thousand times ten thousand", that
is 100 million.

Are we still talking about descendants of Abraham? If so, are we
talking living only, or all descendants past, present, and future? Are
we talking about "spritual" descendants, or only physical, blood line
descendants?


I am not sure Abraham in the bibles would be so concerned about his
actual descendants. He seems to be okay with Lot his nephew being his
heir, then makes his servant Eliezer heir, later he throws Ishmael his
son out, then makes Isaac who he makes his heir and finally throws out
his other six sons.

I suspect it is spiritual.


Most (if not all) of the Bible is written as a spiritual text, and in
the context of spirituality, family and descendants are not limted to
the physcal realm. For example, Jesus claims that all who do the will
of the father are sons. He was of course referring to acting on behalf
of others, to bring about spiritual renewal, joy, happiness, relief
from their suffering.

And there's the crux. The Bible is a spiritual book, not concerned
with the physical in any context. Hence it is filled with tales of
evil, death, pain, and suffering. Much of which are not inaccurate
historically, even if taken liberty with in the telling.

Too bad both "sides" miss that extremely important point of
distinction in their evangelism and propoganda.


The bible maybe that but it also has history and science in it too.


Trying to reconcile Biblical quotes as literal, one against the other,
is an exercise in futility.

Which I am not really trying to do!

Yeah, I got that. :-)

It was the author of your reference that seems to be trying to
reconcile what he perceives as inconsistencies, based on his own bias
toward finding fault with the text, rather than simply appreciating it
for what it is.

Typically, his battle is instigated not by the text itself, but by
what other's claim about the text. I understand that completely.
Again, these are two factions on opposite sides of the text, neither
of whom is interested in the intent of the text, but rather in
defending a way of life in which the text is exerting undo influence,
whether pro or con, whether directly or indirectly.

Me? I have no side. I try to "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and
unto God what is God's". What I actually believe is Caesar's and what
I actually believe is God's, is between me and them. Not me and anyone
else.


I believe that every word in the old testament has been discussed and
edited many times over by some very clever people. If something is in
there it is for a reason.


-SteveP
Live and let live.

Interesting post. Thank you.


Two positive lenses make an inverted telescope image with lots of false
colour fringes.

Surely even if inverted and fuzzy it could still be used for simple
astronomy .

..

Had the all-powerful clergy
been asked to examine any new invention torture and murder is sure to
have followed swiftly to close any wormhole towards enlightenment,
education and progress.

Clergy were not always like that. Even in Galileo's time.

..

You might find this page interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Lippershey

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:27:08 +1000, SolomonW
wrote:

The bible maybe that but it also has history and science in it too.

There is so little "science" as to say none. As far as history... well,
you have such a mix of fiction and distortion that trying to extract
reliable history is a huge problem, full of uncertainty and ambiguity.
It provides hints to our distant past, but not much more than that.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Chris.B wrote:
I watched 10,000BC last night and was amused to see a telescope being
used by the high priest to view Orion to confirm the "shape" of the
constellation.

Orion's so big if you look at it through a telescope, you can't
see it!

--
JGH

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:57:18 -0400, Pastor Dave
wrote:

You assume it's a fable.

There's no rational reason to assume otherwise. Of course, much
mythology can be assumed related to real events, but the historical
evidence may well be so thin that the truth cannot be separated from the
fiction. That's certainly the case with much of the OT. These writings
can sometimes be used in conjunction with independent sources to provide
historical insights. But no story in the OT, taken by itself, should be
considered an accurate description of a real event. And there is no
shortage of obvious fiction (voices from burning bushes, people turned
into pillars of salt, frogs raining from the sky, Adam and Eve, the
Garden of Eden, fiery chariots in the sky, the Flood, the origin of
languages, the Sun standing still... the list is a long one).

A religious person can take whatever they want from the OT. An historian
needs to be very careful.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:39:07 -0600, Chris L Peterson
spake thusly:


On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:57:18 -0400, Pastor Dave
wrote:

You assume it's a fable.

There's no rational reason to assume otherwise.

That is a claim, not proof. Again, enjoy assuming yourself
to be God and that rational thought is only what you define
it to be.

You go ahead and believe that dead chemicals came to life
all on their own, even though that's impossible and cannot
be tested, nor proved and then keep telling us how what
you believe is "rational". (:

--

When blondes have more fun, do they know it?

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:54:09 -0400, Pastor Dave
wrote:

You go ahead and believe that dead chemicals came to life
all on their own...

I don't believe that. The chemicals are still dead.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Also even if such an ancient telescope existed, the number of stars you
can see is still only in the tens of thousands. Unless you know that a
star can be a galaxy.

Any thoughts?

Ya God was jerking Abes chain. God was a liar. And none of that ever
happened!