Question about winter solstice

"Chris L Peterson" wrote
Saying with certainty that Jesus never existed is [...]

The problem, IMO, as I said, is "define 'Jesus'.". Who do you
mean by "Jesus" in your sentence above?

The guy claimed to have turned water into wine?

That person never existed.

So who was this "Jesus"? Yes, there may've been someone,
or several people, upon whom this character was based, but he/they
were not as described in the bible, so were they he? IMO, no.

I am as certain as I feel I need to be that the "Jesus" of the
bible never existed. I'm not really interested in a group of people upon
whom the character was loosely based.

Christianity does serve at least 2 useful purposes: It provides a good
definition of hypocrisy, and the lore surrounding it does make for some
moving and emotional song lyrics if one's prepared so suspend disbelief
for a while. "And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water, and
he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower, and when he
knew for certain only downing men could see him, he said 'All men
shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.'. But he himself
was broken long before the sky would open; forsaken; almost human, he sank
beneath your wisdom like a stone.".


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie

On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 23:20:17 -0000, "Fleetie"
wrote:

The problem, IMO, as I said, is "define 'Jesus'.". Who do you
mean by "Jesus" in your sentence above?

No, you asked for a definition of "Christ". That's entirely different.
"Christ" is a religious concept, with a religious definition. It is not
an appropriate term to use when referring to Jesus outside a purely
religious discussion.

So who was this "Jesus"? Yes, there may've been someone,
or several people, upon whom this character was based, but he/they
were not as described in the bible, so were they he? IMO, no.

And that is all I said. IMO no rational person believes that the stories
about the character Jesus found in the New Testament _accurately_
portray a real person. They may, however, rationally believe the person
was real.

I am as certain as I feel I need to be that the "Jesus" of the
bible never existed. I'm not really interested in a group of people upon
whom the character was loosely based.

Throw away the obvious garbage: the birth story, the resurrection, the
miracles, and what is left could certainly have a reasonable degree of
historicity. Or not- there's not enough evidence to answer one way or
the other. Jesus may have been a real, charismatic person and religious
teacher whose messages have survived, or a total fabrication based on
many previous mythological characters. Or something in between. But to
argue with certainty that this person never existed, by defining a
"Jesus of the Bible" makes little sense, unless you are also willing to
discard many other historical characters simply because the stories that
have come down to us have been corrupted in the process of telling.

As far as I'm concerned, there was no Christ, there can be no Christ,
and Christianity has no basis (as well as being morally bankrupt). And
while I believe it quite likely that Jesus never existed as a person, I
would never say it with absolute certainty.
_________________________________________________

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

"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
On Jan 4, 1:54 pm, wrote:
If the Gregorian calendar was fixed as
late as 1582, how can we be certain the birth of Christ fell on
December 25th going back to 0 AD?


The Scriptural evidence


Oxymoron!

"Fleetie" wrote in message
...
"Chris L Peterson" wrote
Saying with certainty that Jesus never existed is [...]

The problem, IMO, as I said, is "define 'Jesus'.". Who do you
mean by "Jesus" in your sentence above?

The guy claimed to have turned water into wine?

That person never existed.


That is a statement of (your personal) belief.

In uk.sci.astronomy message c9f1a36b-99d9-4418-96e6-b8f6831bd9ae@o4g200
0pra.googlegroups.com, Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:54:37,
posted:

Great! So Christmas will always fall within a few days from the winter
solstice, indefinitely, right? If the Gregorian calendar was fixed as
late as 1582, how can we be certain the birth of Christ fell on
December 25th going back to 0 AD? Is it an extrapolation of the
Gregorian calendar going back to that time that scientists have
determined?

The year numbering was unchanged by the Papal Bull of 1582. The basic
numbering used previously was continued. The previous numbering was
fixed by Dionysius Exiguus (Denis the Little), in about AD 530. He got
it slightly wrong.

It is clear that Christ was not born in AD 0, and probably not in
December either. The day-of-year is not historical; it was chosen to
supersede an existing celebration. The historical events related in the
Acts as occurring around the time of the Birth were actually a few years
earlier - King Herod the Great died in the year which is now known as 4
BC.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc : URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/ - see 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm moredate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.

On Jan 4, 10:05*pm, Dave Typinski wrote:
wrote:

The perihelion is anchored to the ecliptic itself, not to the first
point of Aries. *Since the first point of Aries--and thus the
seasons--slide along the ecliptic while the perihelion remains
stationary on the ecliptic, the perihelion moves with respect to the
seasons.
--

So what your sayin is that the Earth will always be at perihelion on
about Jan 4th every year, so long as our calendar remains in its
present format?

On Jan 6, 4:47*am, wrote:

So what your sayin is that the Earth will always be at perihelion on
about Jan 4th every year, so long as our calendar remains in its
present format?

No. We will have the vernal equinox at about March 23rd every year, as
long as our calendar:

a) remains in its present format, and

b) is slightly updated and modified to improve its accuracy over the
longer term (i.e. not having a leap year in the year 4,000).

That will keep it in pace with the *tropical* year.

The time between perhelions and aphelions, however, is the
*anomalistic* year, which is not the same length. (Like the siderial
year, it's slightly longer than 365 1/4 days, unlike the tropical
year, which is slightly shorter than 365 1/4 days.) Since we don't
track that, gradually, the date of perhelion will go all over the
calendar.

John Savard

On Jan 4, 3:05*pm, Dave Typinski wrote:
Since the first point of Aries--and thus the
seasons--slide along the ecliptic while the perihelion remains
stationary on the ecliptic, the perihelion moves with respect to the
seasons.

The anomalistic year is not equal to the sidereal year; perihelion
doesn't just move with respect to the seasons, it also moves with
respect to the stars.

Tropical year:
365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 5.1875 seconds.

Siderial year:
365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 9.7676 seconds.

Anomalistic year:
365 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, and 52.53865 seconds.

The discrepancy between the tropical year and the sidereal year is 21
minutes and 15 seconds, while the sidereal year and the anomalistic
year only differ by just under 5 minutes, so while precession advances
the seasons through the constellations in a cycle of about 24,000
years, that of perihelion takes over four times as long, so you are
approximately right...

John Savard

wrote in message
...
On Jan 4, 10:05 pm, Dave Typinski wrote:
wrote:

The perihelion is anchored to the ecliptic itself, not to the first
point of Aries. Since the first point of Aries--and thus the
seasons--slide along the ecliptic while the perihelion remains
stationary on the ecliptic, the perihelion moves with respect to the
seasons.
--

... So what your sayin is that the Earth will always be at perihelion on
... about Jan 4th every year, so long as our calendar remains in its
... present format?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The actual perihelion advance of Earth's orbit is essentially given by the
difference between the sidereal year (Earth returns to the same position
relative to some distant star) and the anomalistic year (the period from one
perihelion to the next). The seasons are related to the tropical year (from
one Vernal Equinox to the next).

It takes about 21,000 yr for the date of perihelion to advance once around
the calendar (about 1 day every 58 yr) and the Earth's orbital ellipse
rotates once relative to the stars every 112,000 years. So no, the calendar
date of perihelion is far from fixed.

And yes, the previous response is correct that the perihelion point remains
in the ecliptic plane, but of course it moves along the ecliptic in a cycle
that takes 112,000 yr.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

On Tue, 6 Jan 2009 03:47:29 -0800 (PST), wrote:

So what your sayin is that the Earth will always be at perihelion on
about Jan 4th every year, so long as our calendar remains in its
present format?

Definitely not. As previously noted, the position of perihelion rotates
through the seasons every 21,000 years. Since the seasons are fixed to
the calendar, perihelion is not.
_________________________________________________

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