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

In article ,
says...

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 8:49:31 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Thu, 1 Nov 2018 12:34:18 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 8:12:41 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
He pointed out that the experiment you're citing showed weight loss
in some, but not all cases, at the moment of death,

All four cases showed sudden weight loss at or near the time of death.

and it also showed similar sudden losses of weight at other times
after death in some cases.

They were not "sudden" since these weight changes were were measured
MINUTES after death, not seconds.

It is not impossible for sudden changes to happen minutes after
death...

But something very unusual happened at the time of death in all four cases.
Two of the four had NO anomalous weight change which happened after that.
The anomalous weight changes of the other two afterwards must be due to
some other phenomenon than the change that occurred simultaneously with
death.

Did you even consider the possibility that the soul leaves the body some
time after death rather than right at death? If the existence of the soul
is independent of the existence of a living body, why does the soul have
to leave the body right at death? ;-)

Citing the parting of the Red Sea in an argument about the existing of a god - especially that of a god as described in the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim texts is highly problematic.

There is no archaeological evidence Jews were in Egypt during the historical period described in Genesis. In fact archaeological evidence strongly suggest the Jewish kingdoms and faith coalescing in the Levant following the collapse of the Hittite Empire and the parallel retraction of Egypt from the area responding to what may have been the invasion of the ‘Sea People’ whoever they were, or, just as likely, general unrest, weather and other environmental pressures.

Nor were the Jews as unique as biblical historians often argue. In fact their approach to faith, along with many of the legends recorded in the Bible have close counterparts among the faiths of other cultural and political societies that formed in the region but were just not as lucky over time as the Jews.

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 9:21:57 PM UTC-6, palsing wrote:

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 8:39:49 AM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote:

There IS evidence that the earth is not flat, and
there IS evidence that there is a spirit which leaves the body at death.

Even assuming that your contention that the body loses weight coincidental
with dying is true,

That's what the evidence says, the only evidence that we have.

that is far from evidence that that the loss of weight represents a spirit
leaving the body. That is to say, there is ZERO evidence that the weight
loss is due to a spirit or soul fleeing, regardless of how much you want
that to be the case.

There is ZERO evidence that it's not, regardless of how much you want that
to be the case.

"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the
roof and gets stuck."
- George Carlin

It won't get stuck if Paul Schlyter's claim that it's a fart is correct :-)

Moses caused the Red Sea to part. Do you think he did this on his own?
He didn't. Faith is a principle of power, and that power comes from God.
And God doesn't do anything to satisfy someone's whim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.f952fe55e2ab

"If you grant Drews two very large assumptions -- 1) that he has the geography
right, and 2) that such a strong wind event happened to occur right when the
Israelites, as described in the Bible, were there to take advantage of it --
then it turns out that Moses just might be able to make it (miraculously or
not, of course, depending on your point of view)."

If you take the position that God simply works by the laws of nature (some
of which we understand, some we partially understand and some we don't
understand at all), then the miracle is that it happened just when Moses needed it.

Or again, as the lack of archaeological evidence strongly suggest, Moses and his followers were never there in the first place. Archaeology instead strongly suggests the Jews did not wander from far afield until they found a promised land. Rather their society coalesced among peoples who long lived in the Levant. The Old Testament tales were merely a method of cementing cultural and political identity.

This identity is quite important. As we know from ancient secular texts such as Gilgamesh and The Iliad, people then as now did question their political rulers when they asked them to attack others in order to cement that rulers authority. Religious identity was then as now a valuable tool for the leading class to assure the people the needed to fight for and maintain territory and wealth of their nations put in the necessary effort.

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

In article ,
says...

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 10:52:48 AM UTC-6, 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.

The faith to move mountains is based on righteousness, which is necessary
to receive power from God. No righteousness, no power, no mobile
mountains.

How do you know that? From the Bible? You have yourself admitted that the
Bible is corrupt...

Errors do not equal corrupt.

Isn't that the very definition of faith? Trusting someone or something
without the tiniest bit of evidence...

Nope. True faith is believing in what is true.

And how do you know what is true and what is not true?

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

"But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." -- John 14:26

Critical analysis aims at believing in what is true. True faith aims at
believing no matter what.

That's your corrupt opinion :-)

There are basic truths in the Bible and there are errors. And people
misunderstand the truths and some cling to the errors. The Old Testament
had prophets to guide the people and Jesus corrected the religious rulers
who were teaching false doctrine. So you bring up a good point: Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes. Who will correct the people today?

And how do **you** know what is true and what is not true in the Bible?

See the above quotations from the Book of John.

By your own judgement? Then you have become an arrogant ******* who
believes that you yourself are God (and what about others, who use their
own judgement and arrive at conclusions contradicting your conclusions -
who is then right?). Or do you use some other source? If so, which
source?

See the above quotations from the Book of John.

And how do you even manage to form your own religious belief?

I believe that everyone that comes into the world has a sense of what's
right and wrong.

Including Adolf Hitler?

When you reject it, you lose it. How are you doing with that?

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me"
-- John 10:27

Why do you quote from a book that is corrupt?

If a source containing errors means that it is totally corrupt then there is
NO source that is not corrupt. So why do YOU believe AGW sources when it is
obvious that it contains errors? It's not nice to be a hypocrite.

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.

All of today's churches are corrupt, you say, because they don't follow
the Bible.

I didn't say that. I said ALMOST all do not teach the full truth.

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

If I told you would you join one?

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

---------
Babies cry to draw their very first breath of air.

My first child cried her eyes out for WEEKS.

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.

--------
Well, most people do not directly remember their birth. My very first
memories is from when I was 3-4 years old.

I remember events leading up to getting my tonsils removed and coming home
afterwards. I was probably late two or early three.

I seem to remember riding on a tractor with my grandfather at a much earlier
age.

True faith is belief in things that are true.

A circular argument. Who wouldn't believe in something they knew was
true?

But you avoid the real problem: how do you know what is true and what is
not true? You must know that in order to decide what to believe in. So
how do you find that out? Yep, that's right, by critical thinking and
examining evidence.

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

I agree. The focus should be to avoid the heat wave in some 50-100 years
and not to avoid an ice age 100 times farther into the future.

This may be unavoidable;

It's actually up to us and our actions.

You have hit upon a very valid point:

"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

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.

On Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 1:34:10 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 8:49:31 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

It is not impossible for sudden changes to happen minutes after
death...

But something very unusual happened at the time of death in all four
cases. Two of the four had NO anomalous weight change which happened
after that. The anomalous weight changes of the other two afterwards
must be due to some other phenomenon than the change that occurred
simultaneously with death.

Did you even consider the possibility that the soul leaves the body some
time after death rather than right at death? If the existence of the soul
is independent of the existence of a living body, why does the soul have
to leave the body right at death? ;-)

SOMETHING leaves at the moment of death, so THAT is what should be focused
on. Because of know physiological changes that occur minutes before and
after death, it would seem to be hopeless to separate unknowns.

It is more reasonable that the spirit resides in the mass of the
body. And if the body is destroyed, so is the spirit.

Only in your conceited opinion :-)

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

Apparently you don't know what those words mean. In many NDE cases
the patient was DEAD by medical standards - brain dead.

For a few minutes, yes, but not for long enough to have irreversible
changes in the body happen. It is a big difference in being clinically
dead for a few minutes, and to be dead for months or years. Old corpses
do not rise to become alive again, zombies are a human fantasy.

"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept
arose," -- Matthew 27:52

There is another option: standing at the gates of heaven and telling
St Peter that you'd rather go to hell. And why would anyone make such
a choice? Perhaps because one would die from boredom by sitting on a
beautiful cloud and play beautiful music on a harp for ever and ever
till the end of time. In hell there is at least some more action...

That agrees with Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth" and heinlein's
"Job: A Comedy of Justice" :-)

On Sun, 4 Nov 2018 06:09:28 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
SOMETHING leaves at the moment of death, so THAT is what should be
focused
on. Because of know physiological changes that occur minutes
before and
after death, it would seem to be hopeless to separate unknowns.

You see? Your conclusion "the soul leaves the body at death" is
premature. But OF COURSE there are substances leaving a dead body,
otherwise it would not smell bad...


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...


"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which
slept
arose," -- Matthew 27:52

Another quote from a corrupt source...

On Sun, 4 Nov 2018 04:41:13 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
If you take the position that God simply works by the laws of
nature (some
of which we understand, some we partially understand and some we
don't
understand at all), then the miracle is that it happened just when
Moses needed it.

If you define "miracle" as merely an unlikely event, then it is a
"miracle" whenever someone wins the lottery. Such "miracles" happen
all the time.

In article ,
says...

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

In article ,
says...

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 10:52:48 AM UTC-6, 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?


The faith to move mountains is based on righteousness, which is necessary
to receive power from God. No righteousness, no power, no mobile
mountains.

How do you know that? From the Bible? You have yourself admitted that the
Bible is corrupt...

Errors do not equal corrupt.

OK, let's call it not trustworthy then, if you so prefer.

Isn't that the very definition of faith? Trusting someone or something
without the tiniest bit of evidence...

Nope. True faith is believing in what is true.

And how do you know what is true and what is not true?

"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...


"But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." -- John 14:26

Critical analysis aims at believing in what is true. True faith aims at
believing no matter what.

That's your corrupt opinion :-)

Not just mine:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith


There are basic truths in the Bible and there are errors. And people
misunderstand the truths and some cling to the errors. The Old Testament
had prophets to guide the people and Jesus corrected the religious rulers
who were teaching false doctrine. So you bring up a good point: Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes. Who will correct the people today?

And how do **you** know what is true and what is not true in the Bible?

See the above quotations from the Book of John.

Another quote from an untrustworthy source...



By your own judgement? Then you have become an arrogant ******* who
believes that you yourself are God (and what about others, who use their
own judgement and arrive at conclusions contradicting your conclusions -
who is then right?). Or do you use some other source? If so, which
source?

See the above quotations from the Book of John.

Another quote from an untrustworthy source...



And how do you even manage to form your own religious belief?

I believe that everyone that comes into the world has a sense of what's
right and wrong.

Including Adolf Hitler?

When you reject it, you lose it. How are you doing with that?

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me"
-- John 10:27

Why do you quote from a book that is corrupt?

If a source containing errors means that it is totally corrupt then there is
NO source that is not corrupt. So why do YOU believe AGW sources when it is
obvious that it contains errors? It's not nice to be a hypocrite.

Because the measured global warming clearly exceeds the error bars.


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" ???

All of today's churches are corrupt, you say, because they don't follow
the Bible.

I didn't say that. I said ALMOST all do not teach the full truth.

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.

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

---------
Babies cry to draw their very first breath of air.

My first child cried her eyes out for WEEKS.

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.

--------
Well, most people do not directly remember their birth. My very first
memories is from when I was 3-4 years old.

I remember events leading up to getting my tonsils removed and coming home
afterwards. I was probably late two or early three.

I seem to remember riding on a tractor with my grandfather at a much earlier
age.

True faith is belief in things that are true.

A circular argument. Who wouldn't believe in something they knew was
true?

But you avoid the real problem: how do you know what is true and what is
not true? You must know that in order to decide what to believe in. So
how do you find that out? Yep, that's right, by critical thinking and
examining evidence.

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...


I agree. The focus should be to avoid the heat wave in some 50-100 years
and not to avoid an ice age 100 times farther into the future.

This may be unavoidable;

It's actually up to us and our actions.

You have hit upon a very valid point:

"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

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?


"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?


Any idea what that extra warming is coming from then?

I wonder if we're having more cloudiness and humidity today than in the
past. Cloudiness would have a long-term cooling effect but a short-term
warming effect, and higher humidity would have a greater greenhouse
effect.

https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...imate-humidity

"most regions experienced moister-than-average atmospheric conditions
(in 2013 than in 1981-2010) including the midlatitude northern Pacific
and northern Atlantic, Southeast Asia, and most of tropical Africa."

Thus a larger greenhouse effect, which will warm the oceans and produce
more moisture in the atmosphere.

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?


Precisely! It's the huge difference in confidence levens which is the
reason for different conclusions.

Millions of people have experienced NDEs. THEY are VERY confident about
life after death. Perhaps doubters should try for an experience rather
than doubt. After all, that's the scientific method :-)

Millions of people also "have seen" UFO's and even have been taken aboard
a UFO and travelled with it for awhile. And they are very convinced that
it actually happened. If this was true, the Earth must have had a massive
invasion of alien spacecrafts.

In the past, millions of people "have seen" elves, trolls, giants,
witches, and various other kinds of creatures believed to live in the
woods where people did not live. Some were believed to have lived near
human settlements, or even in human houses. A large number of poor women
were burnt alive because they were accused of witchcraft.

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.

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.

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.

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.


The above responses did not mention any such alternative reason. Please
either answer the question, or admit that you don't have any answer.

I did. Do you have Alzheimer's?

(2) Why is this other cause in perfect synchronisation with the rising
CO2 levels?

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...


So why don't you help them by suggesting what this other cause might be?
And why this other cause is in perfect synchronisation with rising CO2
levels?

Perhaps CO2 levels are a result of GW and not a cause. Or they may be
independent. Modtran suggests that CO2 is only partly responsible for GW.

And what about the CO2 produced by us humans? Does it just vanish into
thin air? (pun intended)

Humans are producing CO2 at a rate that should put 7 ppm/year into the
atmosphere if it had nowhere else to go, but atmospheric CO2 is rising
at only 2 ppm/year. Other sinks for CO2 are detritus, vegetation and
the oceans. Ocean acidification may be a problem in the future, but the
pH is still basic right now.

True. But there are several claims for a "universal doctrine". And one
"universal doctrine" could be expected from one single God, couldn't it?

Man doesn't necessarily obey God.

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


But if we give up the idea of one single God, and instead view
Christianity as a method for several gorernments in the world to
dominate the other governments, then it becomes quite natural that
several mutually different and mutually competing, "universal
doctrines" co-exist.

You're forgetting this:

"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be one in us" -- John 17:21

Yet another quote from a corrupt book...

Yet another claim from a corrupt mind.

OK, I'll change that to "Yet another quote from an unreliable book".

Satisfied?

On Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 10:18:09 PM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Sun, 4 Nov 2018 06:09:28 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

SOMETHING leaves at the moment of death, so THAT is what should be
focused on. Because of know physiological changes that occur minutes
before and after death, it would seem to be hopeless to separate unknowns.

You see? Your conclusion "the soul leaves the body at death" is
premature. But OF COURSE there are substances leaving a dead body,
otherwise it would not smell bad...

You are conflating sudden versus slow changes again. That's dishonest.

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"

"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept
arose," -- Matthew 27:52

Another quote from a corrupt source...

Corrupt claim. "Errors" are not the same as corrupt.