Iggy

You don't understand what I said. I explained how you can use science to answer your own question. May I ask, have you ever had a class in science -- maybe in high school? There is a difference between non-science and incorrect science. Astrology, for example, is non-science or pseudo science. Kepler's laws are not exactly correct but are scientific. The difference has to do with the scientific method. Are you familiar with the scientific method? I have a feeling you are not because you misunderstood what I meant about testing an assumption.

It sounds right to me. You multiply them. The next time you are in the car with your daughter (or any future such time) the probability of the coincidence repeating itself is the probability that you happen to be discussing 101 dalmatians times the probability that an adjacent car carries a dalmatian. To make it easier, like you say, the probability that 1) you are discussing 101 dalmatians 2) there is an adjacent car visible 3) that car carries a dog and 4) the dog is a dalmatian would be the product of the probability of 1,2,3, and 4.

Photons are elementary particles in the standard model. They aren't made of love or any constituent parts capable of expressing or feeling love or any other emotion. I'm also not a physicist, but I know something about science that might be helpful with your idea of mixing God with science. Science works by comparing predictions to reality. If the prediction is wrong then the model responsible for the prediction is wrong. You would ask "what if God were in a photon?" or "what if love were the property of photons?". What predictions can you make from that assumption? A loving entity would try to do good and avoid doing harm to others. A photon that lands on a person whether they have a sunburn or not is indifferent.

Probably Einstein or Mach would be happiest with us saying that the "bucket rotates relative to the rest of the universe". In a coordinate system where the bucket is at rest the background stars rotate and in a coordinate system where the background stars are at rest the bucket rotates... that they are two ways of describing the same thing. It is the same thing to say "the bucket rotates relative to the background stars" and "the background stars rotate relative to the bucket". EDIT... IM, you said it much better: ...EDIT It might be better to think in terms of an accelerating rocket. If a rocket is accelerating in a straight line in deep space, Mach would have us say "the rocket accelerates relative to the background stars". In a coordinate system where the background stars are at rest it must be a logical fact that the rocket accelerates. It changes velocity in that coordinate system. In a coordinate system where the rocket is at rest it must logically follow that the background stars accelerate. They change velocity. What accelerates would then be a matter of choice. It depends on frame. Right. The rocket is likewise not an inertial frame. Inertial pseudo forces exist in the frame. In a coordinate system where the rocket accelerates (the background mass is at rest) the inertial forces are expected in the rocket. In a coordinate system where the background mass accelerates (the rocket is at rest) the force that the people on the rocket feel is gravitational. The accelerating background mass creates a uniform gravitational field throughout the universe pointing in the rocket's aft direction. So, the rocket is fixed in this coordinate system... 'held' in place. Everything else in the universe is falling, and accelerating as it falls toward the rear direction of the rocket. The background stars don't feel as if they are accelerating because they are falling weightless in a uniform gravitational field. The rocket feels as if it is accelerating because even though it is at rest in this frame, it is at rest in a gravitational field... like a person standing on a planet's surface. The general principle of relativity therefore implies that acceleration is not absolute even though it can be said in an absolute sense that some frames are inertial and some are not. One reason why the above argument (with the linearly accelerating rocket) is compelling is for the twin paradox. Using general relativity you can let the 'traveling' twin be at rest for the whole thought experiment. Even though the earth twin is moving in that frame and the rocket twin is at rest, the rocket twin is still younger at the end because of the time dilation produced by the uniform gravitational field. With GR you can choose a coordinate system where the earth twin is at rest or choose a frame where the rocket twin is at rest and either way the earth twin is older at the conclusion. The ergosphere of a rotating black hole is a good example of how non-local velocity (if that concept can even have meaning in GR) is greater than c.

If man can climb down a chimney then why not Santa Claus? You assume that snakes can talk because you assume that Satan is real the same way that a child assumes that someone from the north pole can leave them presents because Santa Claus is real. The evidence is against articulate snakes and elves living at the north pole. Do you follow?

Deluxe was explaining that the two genealogies in the NT that try to establish that Jesus comes from the line of David are consistent. Did Mr. Ed just get issued as evidence of talking snakes? I'm literally as speechless as that crazy talking horse!

I never said you made it up. It would clearly take a creative mind some time to manufacture what you just quoted.

h2g2 not reputable!?!? Well... I guess that may be, but I've heard it is "more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?" I'm certain I don't. I did, however, find a good read on the role of Mach's principle in GR.

Actually, every point you've made appears to be completely made up. Nowhere does the bible say that Heli was the father-in-law of Joseph. Not only is that completely fabricated, it is further fabricated that Jews often list a father-in-law as a father in their genealogies. You've stacked lie upon lie to try and cover up what is clearly an obvious contradiction. I seriously doubt this as well. Both ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew have words for father-in-law and son-in-law and they are used liberally in the bible. Luke says exactly the opposite of your fabricated lie. Why do you feel the need to lie about what the bible says? The bible is correct when it said that Jacob was the father of Joseph and the bible was correct when it said that Heli was the father of Joseph... and that is no contradiction... What more is there to say...? Your faith is beyond reason.

I could give 100 fabricated examples. That's not what I asked for. Read my question and get back to me if you have an example, otherwise your "that's how Jews did their genealogy" point will just be something else that's apparently made up.

There is no confusion. You presented a complete fabrication as a cited biblical account. I'll assume you did so by accident based on further comments you made saying that you misspoke. And, as long as I'm assuming you're a penitent Christian, I'll go ahead and assume that your implication that I'm somehow confused is your way of thanking me for astutely correcting your honest accident. That is an interesting admission you make. Luke and Matthew also disagree on the story of the nativity. Would you again say that the author's concern was that Jesus "of Nazareth" be born in Bethlehem. It's almost like we have two different witnesses in two different rooms giving wildly different stories to support the main points of a mutual alibi. I wouldn't feel comfortable taking your word on this. There are many genealogies in the bible. Can you give some examples where a confirmed (not fabricated) father-in-law is called "father" in a genealogy? For example, if there were a genealogy which said "Jethro begat Moses" -- that type of thing. If that is how they did it, then can we have some examples of them doing it?

I read the quote in context and I honestly don't quite get it either. I'm not familiar with Pfister and Braun's work, but I would have assumed that their solution proved Mach's principle positive in the case of a rotating universe (where the universe is approximated by a rotating shell) but that the solution did not disprove the principle in terms of an empty universe. But, I really don't know. While they are not equal (they are, after all, different frames) I believe it has been pretty well shown that the same thing happens in each coordinate system. The solution of each gives the same future. The thing that makes the fictitious forces equal is the mass itself. In the frame where the bucket is at rest there is a tremendous amount of mass rotating around the bucket. In GR, if you move mass you get a gravitational force analogous to the way moving a charge classically gives you an electromagnetic force. So, rotating a lot of mass around something should create a gravitational field that seems to have the exact same effect as the classical pseudo-forces. Einstein gave a sort of philosophical outlook on this in something he wrote... that I'm having a hard time finding... ah!... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dialog_about_objections_against_the_theory_of_relativity I don't have time to re-read it at the moment so I can't quote a salient part, but I suspect that the paragraph starting "There are several reasons that compel us to willingly accept" would hit the nail more or less on the head.

Before GR, the concave shape of the water was explainable by a fixed background. Newton said that it proved as much. Einstein hoped that relativity would do away with a fixed background making all motion relative, an idea he coined Mach's principle (that is a good wiki article on the issue -- section 2 and 3 especially). There is debate, though, as to whether GR fully realizes Mach's principle. This paper would, I believe, support the specific idea that rotating a universe around a resting bucket of water causes the water to act as we expect... using GR I should say. Why do you say this?

Before I explain how ridiculous that is, can you tell me where the bible says the following?... I will apologize profusely if I am wrong, but I suspect it is a complete fabrication -- completely made up. If the bible nowhere says that Neri gave a daughter to Shealtiel I will seriously question your intellectual honesty.

You haven't answered either. Please curtail the gibberish if you want to converse. These versus contradict each other: And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli (Luke 3:23) And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. (Matthew 1:16) Luke says that Heli is the father of Joseph -- it does not say that Heli is the father of Mary. I don't know where you got that idea but as you can plainly see it is false.

I wouldn't be surprised. Realism has been asserting some funny and unsubstantiated things lately

That is closer to what you said. The rest of that post is worthless preaching. You sound like a parishioner leading a sunday school class. I wonder if that's how you talk in real life. No, Luke 3:23 says that Joseph was the son of Heli, not Mary. Care to try again?

Nope -- it doesn't say it there. You misunderstand 2 Peter 1:20-21. It isn't talking about the reader's interpretation of the bible, but the author's influence in writing it. This isn't very apparent in the "New American Standard Bible", but it is more so in the NIV: 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+1%3A20-21&version=NIV If the different translations befuddle you, you can consider the original Greek which uses the word "γίνομαι" which means "to arise" or "to come about". In other words, biblical prophecy came about not by the interpretation of the prophet, but by the influence of God. This is strikingly different from your original statement which has to do with the bible interpreting itself for the reader. I don't expect you to retract or revisit your statement or to try again at answering my question of it. 'Science types' are so awful at learning. May I suggest, like you say, that you leave the thread and the forum for a long while and return at some future point and see if we learned anything...? Let me guess -- it has never occurred to you that theology and religion are appropriate topics of scientific inquiry? Religion, for you, is something to be preached (not studied scientifically). Bibles are something to be thumped (not investigated empirically). Is that about right? I won't argue that scoffing and audacity is afoot. Speaking of looking at evidence, did you get the examples of biblical contradictions I supplied? Nothing to say on that account? Believe me, it would not be on your account that I felt bad preaching. The act itself would make me feel dirty and nauseated because it is a dogmatic and conceited form of communication. I would feel quite despicable if I viewed any of humanity so low that I felt the need to preach at them -- not you in particular.

I woudI think he's saying that the person holding the flashlight will measure the velocity of light to be c, using the Earth's frame of reference. But he has said before that the velocity "relative to the ship" or "relative to the flashlight" is c. Using Owl's mechanics, and the thought experiment he has given, there is no frame (either privileged or not) where the speed of light relative to both flashlights is c. Here is an example, Alpha Centauri and earth are no different from the ships in Owl's latest jousting thought experiment. If they are approaching one another with any speed then the speed of light relative to one needs to be the same as the speed of light relative to the other... and they both need to be c to be consistent with Owl's worldview. He obviously can't make that work. Here are the two pertinent frames animated I offered to help him try (I omitted a photon because it's superfluous and the distance isn't 1au because that would be inconvenient, but the principle remains the same):

Better in the forum than in person?. That is sure something. I wouldn't lie -- I'm quite serious when I say that your preaching would stand up to any Falwell or Hugh Hewitt. I'm not sure I could explain it, but if I had to I'd say that there is an affinity that evangelism has with gratuitous audacity and your firm grasp of the latter gives you a seemingly effortless ability with the former. Do you preach the Word on a lot of forums or just this one? Where does it say that? I'm reminded of Timothy saying that Jesus is the only mediator between man and God, but that's as close as my mind takes me. Also, which denomination follows the bible's interpretation of itself? Let me guess -- it's Jehovah's Witness, isn't it? I admit that this is hard. Try to tell a scientist that pi = 3 because I Kings 7:23 says so and they are nothing but skeptical. They say that 3.14159(...) works better, but it's just like the way biologists reject talking snakes. They ignore the obvious truth because they are brainwashed by evidence. And I thought you said you've only answered two. Be that the case or not, I gave two more in post 138. Should I lump all instances of "talking about science" together or just say that it is not necessarily not preaching to talk science (i.e. it is indeed possible to preach science). "Science" is the name we give to a body of information. Any information can be preached. Would you like me to preach some science to you? Actually, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. I would feel like a conceited dogmatist ignoring the scientific method on a science forum of all places and I would feel like I'm demeaning your intelligence by assuming you needed things preached at you rather than relayed directly. No, very uncomfortable with that approach -- like I needed a shower afterward -- I'm sure I'd feel.

Do you have any backup or support that such a property is precluded from realism? Thank you

That's beautiful preaching. You should write sermons! I couldn't tell - were you conceding that the Bible contradicts itself? It may be that you answered, but I couldn't find it amidst the beautiful preaching surrounding it. The preaching was so beautiful, in fact, that it strung my heart to the point of making me nauseous, so I may have missed your answer while your preaching was inspiring a gut-wrenching feeling... an expulsion-of-the-gut-wrenching feeling to be perfectly honest.

Deluxe, you are a living example of how God makes all things possible with faith. No doubt you believe 'Heli was the father of Joseph' (Luke 3:23) and 'Jacob was the father of Joseph' (Matthew 1:16) are perfectly consistent. Or, that the 28 generations between King David and Jesus in Matthew 1 fit the 43 generations between King David and Jesus in Luke 3. Without even leaving the first chapter of the first book of the new testament these examples of contradictions are obvious to any rational human, but I know from experience that you cannot see them that way. Believe me, I understand your thinking. I used to share it... If heaven, earth, logic, and literal meaning must be set aside so that scripture remains consistent and your denomination remains correct then it is a small matter to move them. And I honestly think that is fine. You are a free-thinking human and if you care to harbor irrational thoughts concerning a protestant version of a Christian interpretation of some ancient Jewish manuscripts then so be it. But, you went some ways beyond that and decided to assert their truth on a science forum. More than that, you insult the scholarship that exists on the subject. Substantial literary and historical work has been done by both secular and religious experts establishing not only which parts of the bible are contradictory, but what the nature of the contradictions themselves tell us about the text being written. You can google "documentary hypothesis" to see what I mean about that. In any case, there is no point in arguing. I'm sure that whatever argument you might make so that 'Joseph + Father = Heli' and 'Joseph + Father = Jacob' are consistent would transcend argument to the contrary... just like how math would do nothing to persuade you against the idea that '1+1=2' and '1+1=3' are inconsistent if your faith led you to believe such a thing. Truly, with you God makes all things possible... so why wouldn't it be possible that 'Joseph + Father = Heli' rationally compliments 'Joseph + Father = Jacob' or that '1 + 1 = 2' rationally compliments '1 + 1 = 3'? These are small trivialities compared to one's impression of a book written by the infallible creator of all existence.

By the way, this can be proven remarkably easily by assuming an invariant speed of light. You could just derive the relative nature of time with a light clock then solve the relative distance that light travels considering time dilation. Any instance of time dilation necessitates length contraction. Of course, this method does not work with illogical deductions and mistaken notions of invariance conceived out of bias, so it hardly needs mentioned in this thread.

and a good dose of smelling salts first.