Why are most galaxies and solar systems 'flat'?

Hey, Dave, don't be so restrained; tell him what you *really* think! :-)

Best,
Stephen

Remove footfrommouth to reply

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"Stephen Tonkin" wrote in message
news
MDJ wrote:
I will (...) stick to the facts.

...and then attempted to pass off as his own:
[snip creationist trash copied verbatim, and without attribution, from
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3542.asp]

Best,
Stephen

Yes, of course I didn't write it myself - I could have done and maybe would
have spotted the error regarding the saucepan but that doesn't take away
from the facts of the argument.

Anyway, Live long and prosper. I think I'm finished with this thread. Hoping
to get some clear skies here soon.

MarkDJ

"The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his
handiwork" (Psalm 19: 1).

"Gavin Whittaker" wrote in message
...

The first chapters
of Genesis are not a literal narrative, they is a Jewish interpretation of
contemporaneous creation theories.

They are literal. When the Bible speaks in parables then it is clearly
stated. I think the article below covers your literal/theories argument
quite clearly.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1231.asp


If you wish to take the Bible literally, I suggest that you examine
how you are going to cope with Matthew 5:29 - oh, and you can't get a
surgeon to do it, as the text says that you should pluck it out.

Let's read the words in context, shall we?

5:27Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not
commit adultery: 5:28But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman
to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already
in his heart. 5:29And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
5:30And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee:
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not
that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

What the bible is teaching is that any form of evil should be cast off and
not be a hindrance to being saved and becoming a Christian. The state of
the mind and heart should be in accordance with God's Law.

That's
before we tackle the laws in Leviticus, whose continuing authority is
dealt
with in Matthew 5:18.

5:17Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil. 5:18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from
the law, till all be fulfilled. 5:19Whosoever therefore shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and
teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

5:18 referring to the prophecy in scripture that is yet to be fulfilled.

Is the song of Solomon literal? Are his lover's
breasts *really* like two fawns that feed among the lilies? Do his
lover's lips distil nectar? Choose yes, and you have the ugliest woman in
history.

2 fawns that feed among the lilies is painting a very beautiful picture.

Choose no, and you accept that some parts of the Bible are not
literal. If you decide that it is not literal, what or who gave you or
anyone else the authority to decide that Genesis 1 IS literal?

When the Bible is either literal or speaking in describing words, it ALWAYS
makes it clear to even the uneducated if it is literal or not.

When St Paul tells us to be fools for the sake of the Gospel, he's
referring to the seeming foolishness of the death of Christ.

What you are saying is utter blasphemy. For without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins.

Here's the text.

4:9For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were
appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to
angels, and to men. 4:10We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in
Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are
despised.

What this is saying is that the world (unbelievers) pass Christians for
fools, and Christians are despised as such, so that the wisdom of God and
the honour of the gospel may, by this means, be secured and displayed.



MarkDJ

In article ,
says...

What cannot be disputed is that the Bible is a real book and was written by
many different writers from 2000BC to 200AD. Now, if you can accept that,
then read the following extract from the book of Job, written in 1500BC.


And what seems to have gone missing from the original, and all
subsequent copies is that page at the front that says:

All characters in in this book are fictitious, any similarity to any
persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

--

Regards

Nick

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:29:09 -0000, in uk.sci.astronomy , "MDJ"
wrote:


"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...


Unlike "Creationism", which you regard as obvious and proven??? Oh, yes,
please tell me the scientific theory of Creationism. You know, the one
that
can be subjected to experimental and observational investigation. The one
that hasn't already been refuted by 400 years of scientific experiments.


See the other message regarding the truth of the bible and one piece of
evidence that the Bible is true.

Oh, I've no doubt htat some parts of hte bible are factual. That
doesn't mean its all factual, any more than Erich von Daniken's books
are true, or the works of El Ron. And before you say it, you started
this truth thing, so this is not an ad hominem attack on the Bible. On
the overall veracity of the message, I make no judgement.

Take radiometric dating. I have read many articles on carbon dating methods
but read here for an interesting set. http://tinyurl.com/sghw

In the article below, fossil wood was dated at 45 million years old and then

Wood from 45MY and in a lava flow ? I think not. Also, I hesitate to
point out that there is absolutely no reference to this supposed find,
except on Creationist websites. Doubtless some will say its a
conspiracy, but I prefer independent authentication of scientific
discoveries.

was retested (without prior knowledge) using carbon14 dating.

C14 dating is useless over a couple of KY. Its presence or absence is
meaningless. Somewhat like your arguments really., "full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing"

--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
CLC readme: http://www.angelfire.com/ms3/bchambless0/welcome_to_clc.html


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"Martin Frey" wrote in message
...
"Michael A. Covington"

Er... which side is being rigid and intolerant here?

Those that shoot up abortion clinics, those that ban text books with
evolution, those that believe a book containing Deuteronomy is
literally true and to be enforced and obeyed to the letter?
[quotes passage about stoning women for infidelity]

Such people are extremely rare. I know of no recorded case of someone
meeting all three of your criteria. They may exist somewhere. People who
meet even one of the criteria are quite uncommon.

Please note that it is unfair to try to characterize Christians (or any
other religion) as a group by pointing out the worst or oddest examples you
can find.

JRS: In article , seen in
news:uk.sci.astronomy, Michael A. Covington
ns.com.for.address posted at Mon, 27 Oct 2003 10:52:36 :-

Also that the "4004 B.C." creation date is not part of traditional
Christianity. (Augustine, for instance, thought it obvious that we don't
know the age of the universe, and he said some quite profound things about
cosmology back at the beginning of the Middle Ages.) 4004 B.C. was promoted
in the 19th century by various sects that were pushing new schemes for
interpreting Old Testament prophecies.


4004 BC was determined by Abp. James Ussher (1581-1656) of Armagh, in
the mid 1600s. BTW, the Abp. was more-or-less present at the
Decapitation.

I find that the date given is consistent with Genesis and the Calendar -
i.e. he got the days of the week right - provided that one recalls that
days used to start a few hours early.

URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/critdate.htm#n22 refers.

I believe that 4004 BC was cited as a Note to Genesis 1 i in Bibles of
c17/c18, but I don't know details.

4004 is also, IIRC, significant w.r.t. the creation of the
microprocessor; I don't know whether Intel intended that.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. Turnpike v4.00 MIME. ©
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.

"Mark McIntyre" wrote:

Oh, I've no doubt htat some parts of hte bible are factual.

Well, land is (broadly speaking) distinct from sea; night is
(broadly speaking) distinct from day, and prostitution is a very
old profession. Beyond that, ....

so this is not an ad hominem attack on the Bible.

Such a thing would be impressive to behold, owing to its not being
a person! There are those who'd say that were it so, it'd deserve
a good kicking!


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk

MDJ writted:

: "Gavin Whittaker" wrote in message
: ...

: The first chapters
: of Genesis are not a literal narrative, they is a Jewish interpretation of
: contemporaneous creation theories.

: They are literal. When the Bible speaks in parables then it is clearly
: stated.

In parables, yes it often does. I don't recall seeing a sign at the
start of the Song of Solomon to say it is not literal. It says it is a
song, but I know plenty of songs whose words are literal narratives.

: surgeon to do it, as the text says that you should pluck it out.
: Let's read the words in context, shall we?

Context or not, by what right do YOU decide whether it is literal or not?

: What the bible is teaching is that any form of evil should be cast off and
: not be a hindrance to being saved and becoming a Christian. The state of
: the mind and heart should be in accordance with God's Law.

I know what it is teaching. That is not the issue.
What it SAYS is PLUCK IT OUT. YOU have chosen to take Genesis 1
literally, in spite of the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is
not a literal text. If you take Gen1 literally under these
circumstances, you have no grounds, other than its inconvenience, than
to take Matthew literally, like it or not.

: breasts *really* like two fawns that feed among the lilies? Do his
: lover's lips distil nectar? Choose yes, and you have the ugliest woman in
: history.

: 2 fawns that feed among the lilies is painting a very beautiful picture.

Yes, it is. In most of the text, the lover or the beloved is 'like' X
or Y. In SoS5:14 'His arms ARE rods of gold set with chrysolite'. Not
_like_ gold, they ARE gold.

Why is it not literal? Who are you to say that Solomon didn't have
prosthetic arms when the literal interpretation you have chosen to adopt
for Genesis indicates that he did?

: Choose no, and you accept that some parts of the Bible are not
: literal. If you decide that it is not literal, what or who gave you or
: anyone else the authority to decide that Genesis 1 IS literal?

: When the Bible is either literal or speaking in describing words, it ALWAYS
: makes it clear to even the uneducated if it is literal or not.

Evidently not that clear, as the creationist scientists are still with
us.

: When St Paul tells us to be fools for the sake of the Gospel, he's
: referring to the seeming foolishness of the death of Christ.
: What you are saying is utter blasphemy.

So quick to judge. I was rather thinking of

1Cor1 18 et seq.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing..."

But that's not what creationism is about, is it?

Creationism isn't faith, it's stupidity. It isn't about a heavenly God
who gets his hands dirty saving us, it's about men who have a need for power
to ridicule what they won't understand. It peddles a second-rate political
vacuoisity masquerading as real faith, and in doing so saves people the
bother of dealing with the issues that Christ told us to deal with. It
justifies hatred of scientists and teachers, many of whom like myself, are
Christians, simply because it can't handle the truth. Worst of all, it
distorts God into something so inadequate that he needs to be protected from
the things that we can reproducibly measure by lies, half-truths and
distortion. Sorry, but that's not Christianity.

Gavin

"Michael A. Covington"
wrote:


"Martin Frey" wrote in message
.. .
"Michael A. Covington"

Er... which side is being rigid and intolerant here?

Those that shoot up abortion clinics, those that ban text books with
evolution, those that believe a book containing Deuteronomy is
literally true and to be enforced and obeyed to the letter?
[quotes passage about stoning women for infidelity]

Such people are extremely rare. I know of no recorded case of someone
meeting all three of your criteria. They may exist somewhere. People who
meet even one of the criteria are quite uncommon.

There were no ands between the examples - and they were examples not
criteria, as you very well know.

You have dismissed the biblical quotes - they are moderately important
to those that believe in literal truth, and to those of us that don't
that we can see what sort of extremist intolerance we are up against
when fundamentalists take power.

Please note that it is unfair to try to characterize Christians (or any
other religion) as a group by pointing out the worst or oddest examples you
can find.

Agreed. But I'm not sure these examples are particulalry odd - there
seem to be a lot of quite violent christians in the US and Darwin is
banned in a number of states and unavailable in the central school
purchasing lists of more.

There comes a moment when the minority becomes significant and makes
the most noise. If good people don't speak against them, they start to
prevail. The US is a prime example - but there are others - India,
Pakistan, too many Islamic countries to enumerate emulating the
Taliban.

Believe me, I'm not going for christians - it's the religious of
whatever flavour that scare me.

Cheers

Martin

--------------
Martin Frey
N 51 02 E 0 47
--------------