mistermack

It sounds like Phi encountered what we in the UK call a nutter. Personally, I would avoid all eye contact, or just give him a smile and thumbs up. American nutters carry guns. It's in the constitution. Every nutter has the right to bear arms.

Again, you are posting from a position of little understanding of evolution. It's not unusual for species to take different evolutionary paths. You could just as correctly say that it was the other apes took a different evolutionary direction to us. And it was the rest of the world that was the sweet spot. Why do you pick Africa as the sweet spot? There was an Asian ape that stood ten feet tall, and weighed up to half a ton. The answer is that you are making the wrong assumption that we are somehow special. To us, yes we are. To evolution, we're just another ape. Actually, Africa WAS a sweet spot for apes, tens of millions of years ago. The recent history of apes has been of decline from a golden age. The general opinion is that apes have been losing out competitively to monkeys, who can eat fruit when it's unripe, that would give us and other apes a bad stomach.

All religions start with real humans. But they don't have to be ABOUT real humans. People used to worship the Sun.

There are a heck of a lot of animals that are most active at dawn and dusk for some reason. With human activity in the form of street lights and traffic, they might be getting confused about when night and day cross over. I know that song birds can get confused, and sing longer into the night, and maybe that has an affect on other animals.

It's definitely evaporation that provides the chill. That's how your freezer works. It would be safer and more practical to use exhaust heat to warm the air intake than the fuel. I don't know if modern engines do that. It's all fuel injection these days. I vaguely remember some coolant being directed to a carb in something I was fiddling with years ago. That would be safer than exhaust gases, but it wouldn't work till the engine got warm, and it's no use in an air cooled engine. Or you could warm the carb electrically.

It's not meant to be, it's my opinion of the psychology of ANYBODY. I simply can't believe that Paul or anybody would have composed those letters, only 25 years after the supposed dramas of the execution and rising from the dead of Jesus, and hardly put a word in about any of it. That REALLY is stretching my credulity too far. The religion is about Jesus. All about him rising from the dead. If it happened today, would the pope be writing an important letter with hardly a mention of it? It's just not possible. He should have been FULL of it. And Paul claiming to have met Peter and James, can hardly claim ignorance. Don't get me wrong, Eise, I'm not convinced fully either way, and am writing as devil's advocate really. I do appreciate your posts, and that's the whole idea, to bounce facts and opinions off each other. If you put yourself in Paul's shoes, how could you write such a letter, and not include a load of stuff about the real Jesus? Especially if he had just recently met with Peter, the sidekick of Jesus, and James, the actual BROTHER of the man. Where are the mentions of his parents, their parents, his home village, his occupation, his marital status, his words of wisdom etc etc ? Why is Paul relying on words spoken in a vision, when Peter and James would have repeated hours and hours of the ACTUAL words that Jesus spoke while he was alive? If it was all true, Paul would have been saying, "Jesus said this, Jesus did that, his parents did this and that, etc etc." There is also a massive contradiction in Paul's attitude to resurrection. Paul is clearly strongly making the point, that resurrection means that a SPIRITUAL body is what rises again, and the old dead body just rots away. And yet Peter and James would presumably have full information on the empty tomb and the physical appearances of Jesus in the flesh. It's not just a detail, rising from the dead is what the whole religion is based on. Why would there be an empty tomb, if Jesus just rose spiritually? So Paul was clearly not aware of the empty tomb story. How could that be, if Jesus was a real man, and he had recently spoken to Peter and James? So I do agree that Paul's epistles are the best, in fact the only real evidence for either side of the argument. But as I see it, it's between on one side, just a few words, that could easily have had a slightly different meaning, or been added later, versus on the other side, the entire text of the letters, and what they should be be including but aren't. I just can't buy the argument, that they could have been written that way, in the circumstances.

No, the scrap of paper I referred to is the earliest papyrus of Paul's epistle. A lack of embellishment doesn't prove it wasn't added. If one was all too obviously added, that shows a motive to add it. It definitely degrades the value of the other. Even if you accept the second as not a forged addition, you have to ask where Josephus got his information from. He wrote that in the year 94 approx. Paul's epistle apparently had the same phrase forty years earlier. Could be a clue there.

It's not meant to be, it's my opinion of the psychology of ANYBODY. I simply can't believe that Paul would have composed those letters, only 25 years after the supposed dramas of the execution and rising from the dead of Jesus, and hardly put a word in about any of it. That REALLY is stretching my credulity too far. The religion is about Jesus. All about him rising from the dead. If it happened today, would the pope be writing an important letter with hardly a mention of it? It's just not possible. He should have been FULL of it. And Paul claiming to have met Peter and James, can hardly claim ignorance.

And that's what the real evidence for a real Jesus boils down to. I haven't been able to find anything stronger as yet. There's no denying the first. But to put it into context, Peter needed no introduction. He was Peter, the head of the Church, the top man. Every Christian would have known his name. To call him "the brother of Jesus" would have been out of the ordinary. He was just Peter. Like Madonna. Or Elvis. And it could have meant brother, as in "from the house of David" as I suggested. The other thing about that passage, is that it comes from a scrap of paper that was written no earlier than the year 200. Probably a good deal later. Which is a copy of a copy of a copy............. of stuff written by Paul around the year 55. So to base your confidence on a real Jesus just on that is overdoing it, I think. Anybody could have added it, in the intervening years. Talking of which, the Josephus passage absolutely screams forgery. It's simply obviously inserted later by a Christian. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

The OP is fairly typical of how a lot of people see evolution. They think it had a purpose, and that purpose was us. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution is and what it's for. There is no purpose to evolution. We humans are not the desired final product. And so there is no "sweet spot". Africa isn't a sweet spot. It's just a spot. Take away humans, and Africa is no sweeter than anywhere else. It's not about a place. It's about a line of apes that took a different direction. Or to be more accurate, directions, as there were a lot of slightly different species before our own line. Just as there are bonobos and chimpanzees, our ancestors split into several different lines.

Do you think Adam and Eve were real? Or Noah? What real person lies at the root of the Jewish religion?

If you look at the Mormons, a real person, Joseph Smith, took earlier stories, and started a new religion, with new stories which now has millions of followers. It can be done, and the original story doesn't need to be based on a real person. After all, if Jesus WAS a real person, he based his story on previous mythical Jewish characters, like God, Satan, Angel Gabriel, etc etc. My position at present is that Christianity might or might not be based on a real Jesus. But it's certainly based on a false Adam and Eve, talking snake, Noah, and God and Moses. So it certainly doesn't HAVE to be based on a real Jesus.

Thanks MathGeek, 1 corinthians was the next epistle on my reading list. It comes across very strongly that Paul is categorically NOT talking about human bodies being raised from the dead. He's quite clear that the body is perishable and discarded, and what rises is a spiritual body. Which matches with the Jesus that he claims he met on the road to Damascus. It's pretty obvious too, that he's regarding Jesus's appearance to apostles, and the throng of 500 as a spiritual appearance. So in modern terms, it's a series of "happenings". We had a lot of those in the hippy era. I even eyewitnessed a similar phenomenon in Ireland in 1985, I witnessed and heard normally sane people claiming to be seeing statues moving, including levitating and hovering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_statues The country went a little bit mad for a few weeks, and nearly every statue in every church had a little ring of people around it, praying and aching to see it move, with some declaring loudly that they saw it wobble. A sort of contagious mass hysteria. It did die out. There was a lot of mockery, as well as belief. The other thing that's clear from Corinthians 1 is that there was a clear narrative, that it was NECESSARY for Jesus to die and rise again, in order for sin to be forgiven, and for souls to be able to rise again at the end of the world. It seems that that was the pre-ordained part, and all the stories were in the process of being woven, around that basic narrative. And that's not an original idea. Very similar narratives had been proposed before, in other countries, with other gods.

Feathering would of course reduce the load on the main bearings, but not to zero, so it would make sense to not have it turning while such a big load is going through it. And of course, with a hurricane blowing, it's not a bad thing to have no power going through the cables till it's blown over. It's still impressive that they could run afterwards. I can't really see a wind farm making much of a dent in a hurricane's power. Even the biggest turbines only reach 700 feet at the top, whereas a hurricane can be the size of France, and reach an altitude of about 45,000 feet...

Thanks. I haven't got the book, but I have seen Bart discussing it on youtube, as well as Richard Carrier. I like Bart Ehrman, not so keen on Carrier, but to be honest, I was very disappointed by the weakness of Ehrman's evidence in the youtube videos. He puts it over really well, but when I looked critically at what he was saying, it's not very convincing. He makes an awful lot of just one or two instances in Paul's epistles, where Paul says something like "I met Peter, and James, the brother of Jesus". I think it's a very ambiguous passage. Peter was Peter, every Christian knew he was considered the Leader. And James the brother of Jesus could have just signified he was a disciple, one of the "brotherhood", or it could mean that James was from the House of David, which was claimed for Jesus, as it was in line with the prophesies. What I suspect happened was that there was an archangel Jesus (which there was in Jewish folklore) and tales were being put around that he was going to be the Messiah. He battled Satan in heaven, was killed, and rose again, like in various prophesies. That was then morphed into a more human Messiah, and stories grew up turning him into an Earth based saviour. Why I can't buy the real person story, is that Paul, only 20 years after the apparent death of Jesus, and having met his supposed sidekick Peter in person, wasn't FULL of Jesus in his letters. And yet there's hardly a mention. It should have been Jesus this, Jesus that, right through from beginning to end. 20 years is not a lot, and Peter, as a suppose EYEWITNESS, should have filled him in, and given him the full lowdown on everything. Paul's letters are simply NOT the letters of someone talking about a real person. Put yourself in Paul's position. He's dedicating his life to the cult of Jesus. He's only ever met Jesus in a blinding vision. Then he meets Peter and James. What would you do? If Jesus had been a real human, I would be extracting EVERY SCRAP of information about Jesus the man from the two of them, and writing it all down, and sharing it in my letters. If you read any of the epistles with that in mind, it just hasn't happened. It jumps off the page at you. Either he didn't meet the two of them, or they had nothing to tell him, because all the stories hadn't yet been written. There really is virtually nothing about Jesus the man, when there should have been a torrent.

Well pointed out. I had heard of that sort of thing, and obviously forgotten it again. I wish that they could produce a drug to improve the memory. One of my "false memories" was a bit of sales chat that I used to use on a regular basis. It wasn't true, but I didn't regard it as lying, just something to keep the conversation going. I repeated it so often, I must have started believing it, because I told the same story back to the friend who originally told it to me. (as if it had actually happened to me). He gave me a funny look, and commented that the the exact same thing had happened to him ! I got a real shock when I realised it was just a much repeated fib that had become a false memory.

Thanks very much. I did do a search before I started the thread, but didn't find that for some reason. I would have posted on it instead, if I had found the thread. If the mods want to merge it, it's fine by me. Like you said, it's a long thread, so there's plenty of reading there. I haven't seen any good evidence for your bulleted points, so I'll be looking at the previous thread, but would appreciate it if you have any or know where to look. Cheers.

That's right. Most watches used to have "quartz" written on the face as reference to the quartz crystal used. Now a lot of clocks are kept accurate by radio signal, but I think this just provides a periodic correction, and the oscillators are still crystal based.

That's right, and it's easy to check. Check the voltage across your battery when the car is running and it will read about 13.25. Check it with the engine off and it's about 12.5, so when the car's running, the battery is receiving charge, not discharging. Anyway, my car's a diesel. They built an installation like that in Wales, about forty or fifty years ago. Of course, it wouldn't make sense to use hydro power to pump water back up. But at the time, it wasn't cost effective to power down some of the generation plant at night or other periods of low demand, so they had to store power some way, or dump it. I think modern generating plant is more responsive now, but it might still make sense to store wind energy that way.

You can, and they do, but it's not very economic. Rechargeable batteries are either very expensive or not very efficient. Or a bit of both. Lead Acid batteries, like in a car, can last a long time. But that's in a car, where they get very little use, and are kept fully charged all the time. If you use them for power, you have to keep charging them up, and running them down. They don't last very long, once you start using them like that. Also, you don't get the same energy out that you put in. They waste a lot, and you lose more energy transforming the current backwards and forwards to AC/DC high voltage/low etc. So it can be a useful option, but only where the alternative is expensive.

Was there a REAL person, at the heart of the Christian religion? Of course, if you're a Christian, you will answer yes. But most atheists (like me) would probably say yes as well. There is so much detail written, that you would think that there probably was a real person, around who the tales were woven. That's been my position for years. I have heard of claims by some people that there never was a historical Jesus, but always thought that they were a bit like conspiracy theorists, bending reality to match their obsessive belief. On a whim, I thought I'd have a look at the evidence for a historical Jesus, at the root of it all. And I was amazed. At the lack of it. And the rubbish quality of what little IS out there. So I thought I'd start a thread on it, and give some facts and links, for anyone who's interested, and invite comments, hopefully from people who know a bit. Just to give a basic outline of the question, and the available evidence, I'll start with a time-line. The EARLIEST physical evidence for the story is scraps of documents, written on papyrus. The very earliest are mostly tiny scraps containing a few dozen words. And the very oldest of these are dated about the year 200. That's right ! The year 200. Useful wiki reading here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript#New_Testament_manuscripts Now there is a general consensus among historians that these are faithful copies of much earlier documents. In fact, copies of copies of copies of copies. That's how documents had to be distributed in those days. You wrote copies by hand. And rarely had the original to copy. So after 150 odd years, there had to be a lot of copying of copies. At any point in those 150 years, changes could be made. Words could be added or removed. "corrections" could be inserted. Improvements could be added. The oldest COMPLETE new testament is from about the year 350. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus#Date_of_the_codex If you are looking for details about a historical Jesus, the gospels are full of it. All of the familiar stories. The problem is, that's what it is. Stories. Proper historians don't regard the gospels as historical data. They are anonymous, full of false facts and contradictions, and are not backed up by any other sources, like Roman historical documents, or inscriptions on walls, etc. etc. The other problem with the gospels is their dates. Mark is the earliest, around the year 68. Then came Matthew, around the year 90. Then came Luke around the year 100, (although it was being changed and revised for many years after) And then John was the last of the four, dated to probably shortly after Luke. Other historians date these gospels to much later, but few go for any earlier. And, as I said, these dates are of documents long destroyed. We only have copies, dating from centuries later. Matthew and Luke seem to rely heavily on the earlier Mark, whereas John seems different in lots of ways. So historically, nothing in the gospels can be taken as history, and certainly, none of it is written by eye witnesses, or backed up by other sources. And it's all originally written at least 40 years after the events, and mostly much more. Unfortunately, everything else in the bible has the same problems, apart from the letters, or epistles, of Paul. So if you are looking for actual historical evidence of a real Jesus, Paul is your only chance. Having come to that conclusion, for the first time in my life, I started reading Paul's epistles. I should say here, that out of 14 epistles, only 7 are considered authentic and by Paul. So there are 7 genuine, and 7 forgeries. Not great for the confidence. And the more you read about the Bible, the more accepted forgeries you come across. The genuine ones are : 1 Thessalonians Romans Galatians 1 and 2 Corinthians Philippians Philemon And they were written over about 10 years, beginning with year 52. So, that's ALL there is, remotely reliable written about a historical Jesus. (and the oldest scrap of Paul's epistles is dated about the year 200) If you're interested in reading what he wrote, the links are here : https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/ I was amazed when I started reading them. He simply is NOT writing about the real live Jesus in the gospels. In fact, there is hardly anything about the man at all. He does say that Jesus died and rose again. And once or twice he refers to someone as Jesus's "brother", but in an ambiguous way. But, for a man writing about a supposed god who lived on Earth, he hardly gives him a mention. I find it quite astounding, and can only agree with the theorists who propose that the Jesus figure started out as an archangel figure, who morphed into the Jewish Messiah character, and was constantly embellished from that time onwards, till what we have today. Anyway, anybody agree, or disagree, or more familiar with the story? I'm open to any knowledgeable corrections, or to be convinced the other way, but at the moment, I'm thinking it's highly likely there never was a real man behind the myth.

I'm not arguing for private enterprise, I'm not a fan of it for monopolies. But public ownership has it's problems too. I can't speak for the US, but in the UK, it's the unions that are the problem. (in my opinion). Public ownership gives them huge power to hold the country to ransom, and that's why the UK has historically split the sector up into myriads of private companies. Fragment and rule seems to be the tactic. We've had the UK working a 3 day week in the past, during a miners strike. And power generation unions have had similar power in the past. I can't see why they can't draft laws to control it, but there doesn't seem any appetite over here to go back to increased public ownership. We had a gut full in the sixties and seventies and eighties. And we still have similar problems with firefighter unions and train drivers. Anywhere where people have a monopoly, they like to turn the screw, on both sides of industry. But really, the ownership doesn't affect how the economics of the various technologies stack up against each other.

There are states that don't need to rely on private enterprise though, and they don't have a great record. If any country has a chance of doing what you suggest, it's China, as those in charge can take direct control if they want. They also have the incentive, with mainly dirty fossil fuel reserves, and pollution problems. So it's most likely that the biggest developments will be coming from there.

Yeh, I'm aware of the potential and keen to see progress. Flywheels have a lot of potential, but I don't think the economics is there as yet. Going from memory, they are very good, for projects that need a lot of power in a hurry, like fusion research etc. But it's money that makes the world go round. If they get profitable, people will dive in. It's frustrating that most methods seem to be only just economic, with the right subsidies and grants. But like I said, find one that's CLEARLY economic, and you can order the yacht and start learning to sail.

I think it might be possible in the future to modify the memory with drugs and suggestion. Who can tell what drugs will be developed? People can acquire false memories without drugs, it's happened to me at least twice. Whether it could be directed by vocal suggestion and powerful drugs, I'm guessing that it will be possible one day.