Answers in Genesis and fractals

[excreationist]

Christian logic often seems to me to work like this...we found a tomb in Jerusalem! It must be the tomb of Jesus! We have proved the Bible is true!

I love "But he had to send its son to save us or we'd be lost."

Apparently if he didn't send his son (which is also himself) everyone would go to hell forever - and most people are still going there anyway.

 

[excreationist]

Christian logic often seems to me to work like this...we found a tomb in Jerusalem! It must be the tomb of Jesus! We have proved the Bible is true!

Then there's this:
1 Corinthians 3:18-19
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”

Atheists might seem to be logical and wise but if you want to be saved you need to use logic that seems like foolishness....

Or perhaps someone who wrote to the Corinthians knew that to become wise, you have to first accept that you are wrong, for feeling yourself to be right is almost certainly walking foolishly into wrongness with your eyes closed.

Through faith you can "know" the Truth that Jesus in his infinite love saved you. They just appear to be foolish to those with fleshly wisdom.

 

[Learner]

Mathematics including fractals are human abstractions we superimpose over reality.

It's true, but we can devise ANY units of measure, of any length that takes one's fancy, a steve-bank unit, which would be a different measure of unit to the conventional, will still have a calculable expectancy, for example, the basic arithmetic can be determined or sussed out e.g., a cow in the field added to another cow, that's later aquired, is now twice the produce etc.. It just works naturally in reality.

What are you talking about? If there's one cow in the field, and another walks in and increases the count to two, that means Godditit? Do you realize how absurd that sounds

Obviously It goes without saying; naturally I would take to the belief, God created everything, as a theist .. but however, that's not what I said now is it? Do you mean technically I said, "Goddit?" Well regarding the post you previously quoted of mine, I have not said that counting cows was evidence or proof of God! I was talking about, what I still think amazing - for example, humans who are isolated far from each other - who would be counting their cows, goats or llama's etc.. - would find themselves coming up with the same basic arithmetic principles, whch is bound to be discovered universally.

Numbers are abstractions created by human minds to describe some aspects of reality. How can this fact be extrapolated to the arguments made by AiG? Can you explain please? Do you even understand AiG's position?

I know you're 'itching to go'.. responding to my posts, but don't be too excited, just read the above.

 

[Learner]

Christian logic often seems to me to work like this...we found a tomb in Jerusalem! It must be the tomb of Jesus! We have proved the Bible is true!

Then there's this:
1 Corinthians 3:18-19
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”

Atheists might seem to be logical and wise but if you want to be saved you need to use logic that seems like foolishness....

Yes you do have an interesting perspective of verses. Imo, It means, like someone professing to be "wise" when they're not actually wise, who is therefore foolish. Context that may be helpful, or stating the obvious: Prophets are known to be wise and are never called foolish, but boastful and the prideful are.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mathematics including fractals are human abstractions we superimpose over reality.

It's true, but we can devise ANY units of measure, of any length that takes one's fancy, a steve-bank unit, which would be a different measure of unit to the conventional, will still have a calculable expectancy, for example, the basic arithmetic can be determined or sussed out e.g., a cow in the field added to another cow, that's later aquired, is now twice the produce etc.. It just works naturally in reality.

What are you talking about? If there's one cow in the field, and another walks in and increases the count to two, that means Godditit? Do you realize how absurd that sounds

Obviously It goes without saying; naturally I would take to the belief, God created everything, as a theist .. but however, that's not what I said now is it? Do you mean technically I said, "Goddit?" Well regarding the post you previously quoted of mine, I have not said that counting cows was evidence or proof of God! I was talking about, what I still think amazing - for example, humans who are isolated far from each other - who would be counting their cows, goats or llama's etc.. - would find themselves coming up with the same basic arithmetic principles, whch is bound to be discovered universally.

Yeah, that isn't accurate at all. Math was developed and then some other group of people saw it and adapted to it. Babylonians originated Algebra. Geometry was mainly the Greeks. Calculus was developed by two people in non-isolated circumstances in western Europe. These things didn't come into existence across the globe independently.

Heck, base 10 numbers wasn't the only base number system developed on by early groups, by far!

 

[Learner]

Mathematics including fractals are human abstractions we superimpose over reality.

It's true, but we can devise ANY units of measure, of any length that takes one's fancy, a steve-bank unit, which would be a different measure of unit to the conventional, will still have a calculable expectancy, for example, the basic arithmetic can be determined or sussed out e.g., a cow in the field added to another cow, that's later aquired, is now twice the produce etc.. It just works naturally in reality.

What are you talking about? If there's one cow in the field, and another walks in and increases the count to two, that means Godditit? Do you realize how absurd that sounds

Obviously It goes without saying; naturally I would take to the belief, God created everything, as a theist .. but however, that's not what I said now is it? Do you mean technically I said, "Goddit?" Well regarding the post you previously quoted of mine, I have not said that counting cows was evidence or proof of God! I was talking about, what I still think amazing - for example, humans who are isolated far from each other - who would be counting their cows, goats or llama's etc.. - would find themselves coming up with the same basic arithmetic principles, whch is bound to be discovered universally.

Yeah, that isn't accurate at all. Math was developed and then some other group of people saw it and adapted to it. Babylonians originated Algebra. Geometry was mainly the Greeks. Calculus was developed by two people in non-isolated circumstances in western Europe. These things didn't come into existence across the globe independently.

Heck, base 10 numbers wasn't the only base number system developed on by early groups, by far!

You have jumped a step or two regarding the maths advancing development. There would be various units of measure, depending where it is in the world.... as my previous post in red highlights. It doesn't matter what advanced maths is developed LATER because it's simply the basic priciples of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication that gets discovered, simply by counting cows etc..

 

[steve_bank]

The history of math and all the threads leading up to modern math today are traceable. I read a history of math in the 70s.

Pretty much all civilizations in turn made contributions. Egypt, Greece, Arabs, Persians, China, India. There is no one inventor or creator of mast individually or a group.

I did know an Evangelical who insisted the ancient nomadic Jews invented mathematics.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mathematics including fractals are human abstractions we superimpose over reality.

It's true, but we can devise ANY units of measure, of any length that takes one's fancy, a steve-bank unit, which would be a different measure of unit to the conventional, will still have a calculable expectancy, for example, the basic arithmetic can be determined or sussed out e.g., a cow in the field added to another cow, that's later aquired, is now twice the produce etc.. It just works naturally in reality.

What are you talking about? If there's one cow in the field, and another walks in and increases the count to two, that means Godditit? Do you realize how absurd that sounds

Obviously It goes without saying; naturally I would take to the belief, God created everything, as a theist .. but however, that's not what I said now is it? Do you mean technically I said, "Goddit?" Well regarding the post you previously quoted of mine, I have not said that counting cows was evidence or proof of God! I was talking about, what I still think amazing - for example, humans who are isolated far from each other - who would be counting their cows, goats or llama's etc.. - would find themselves coming up with the same basic arithmetic principles, whch is bound to be discovered universally.

Yeah, that isn't accurate at all. Math was developed and then some other group of people saw it and adapted to it. Babylonians originated Algebra. Geometry was mainly the Greeks. Calculus was developed by two people in non-isolated circumstances in western Europe. These things didn't come into existence across the globe independently.

Heck, base 10 numbers wasn't the only base number system developed on by early groups, by far!

You have jumped a step or two regarding the maths advancing development. There would be various units of measure, depending where it is in the world.... as my previous post in red highlights. It doesn't matter what advanced maths is developed LATER because it's simply the basic priciples of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication that gets discovered, simply by counting cows etc..

Addition and subtraction is simply counting, multiplication and division is fancy counting. And as noted, base number system used to count was not the same across the globe, so this function wasn't quite as universal. To celebrate such a concept as being meaningful is ridiculous.

 

[excreationist]

About the idea that God invented math and its foundation for the universe...

Genesis 1:14

Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years

The vault of the sky is yet another verse that suggests a flat earth. Apparently only a few thousand individual stars are visible to the naked eye even though there are about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and 2 trillion galaxies in the visible Universe. It would have made a lot more sense if there were 360.0 days in a year rather than approximately 365.24238 (and this figure is changing).

 

[Learner]

About the idea that God invented math and its foundation for the universe...

Genesis 1:14

Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years

The vault of the sky is yet another verse that suggests a flat earth. Apparently only a few thousand individual stars are visible to the naked eye even though there are about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and 2 trillion galaxies in the visible Universe.

In terms of the general concept of 'God the Almighty' who is said to see everything. I suppose one could also say, that such an entity, could see the world as flat, when viewing from His heavenly seat in the spiritual domain/dimension. God doesn't have the human physical limitations/awarness IOW.

It would have made a lot more sense if there were 360.0 days in a year rather than approximately 365.24238 (and this figure is changing).

The Ancient Hebrews and other ancients like the Chinese used the lunar system e.g., full moon making each month 29.5 days which has been consistent (no leap years, clocks going forward and backward etc..).

 

[Jarhyn]

No, learner, our world under the "vault of the sky" is not flat. Our universe may be flat, but our world is not.

The only "vault" over our sky is an ever-expanding sphere of microwave radiation emitting plasma which hasn't even been there for 14 billion years, wherever it is, which will never even correlate to "here". From our perspective it's future does not exist.

It does not follow that just because you might be able to transform the orbits of the planets to an epicycle description, that the earth does not orbit the sun. It is a tortured transformation..

I could have a good long and rather enjoyable discussion about what "spiritual" things are.

I would at no time purport that what I see as "spiritual" things are non-existent. I believe that the things you say are spiritual exist, as real material phenomena! I can in fact point to what those phenomena are. I just don't think you would like very much where that discussion goes.

What it doesn't do is sensibly flatten the sphere of the earth.

 

[excreationist]

In terms of the general concept of 'God the Almighty' who is said to see everything. I suppose one could also say, that such an entity, could see the world as flat, when viewing from His heavenly seat in the spiritual domain/dimension. God doesn't have the human physical limitations/awarness IOW.

That reminds me of:
Isaiah 40:22
"God sits on his throne high above the earth. Its people look like grasshoppers to him. He spreads out the heavens like a cover. He sets it up like a tent to live in."

The tent and seeing everyone suggests a flat earth - if it was a ball it would be hard to put a tent on it and see all of the people like grasshoppers (unless you had x-ray vision)

The Ancient Hebrews and other ancients like the Chinese used the lunar system e.g., full moon making each month 29.5 days which has been consistent (no leap years, clocks going forward and backward etc..).

Actually there's about 29.5306 days in a lunar month...

 

[Learner]

No, learner, our world under the "vault of the sky" is not flat. Our universe may be flat, but our world is not
The only "vault" over our sky is an ever-expanding sphere of microwave radiation emitting plasma which hasn't even been there for 14 billion years, wherever it is, which will never even correlate to "here". From our perspective it's future does not exist.

From our perspective, yes ... as mere mortals, I'm ok with not knowing eveything about the universe, or the bible.

It does not follow that just because you might be able to transform the orbits of the planets to an epicycle description, that the earth does not orbit the sun. It is a tortured transformation..

ok, no dispute here.

I could have a good long and rather enjoyable discussion about what "spiritual" things are.

I would at no time purport that what I see as "spiritual" things are non-existent. I believe that the things you say are spiritual exist, as real material phenomena! I can in fact point to what those phenomena are. I just don't think you would like very much where that discussion goes.

I would be very intrigued where the discussion goes, if the topic was on spiritual things, I would gladly engage. Perhaps for another thread though, different from the topic of the OP..

What it doesn't do is sensibly flatten the sphere of the earth.

Fair enough, I haven't defended the flat earth idea anyway, only the bible.

 

[Learner]

In terms of the general concept of 'God the Almighty' who is said to see everything. I suppose one could also say, that such an entity, could see the world as flat, when viewing from His heavenly seat in the spiritual domain/dimension. God doesn't have the human physical limitations/awarness IOW.

That reminds me of:
Isaiah 40:22
"God sits on his throne high above the earth. Its people look like grasshoppers to him. He spreads out the heavens like a cover. He sets it up like a tent to live in."

All I see is a discription by mere mortal man who seems to be explaining with words available to him - that he can only fathomly describe and comprehend.

The tent and seeing everyone suggests a flat earth - if it was a ball it would be hard to put a tent on it and see all of the people like grasshoppers (unless you had x-ray vision)

Or unless you were like God? Even I, a mere mortal can see the whole world on my phone via google maps.

The Ancient Hebrews and other ancients like the Chinese used the lunar system e.g., full moon making each month 29.5 days which has been consistent (no leap years, clocks going forward and backward etc..).

Actually there's about 29.5306 days in a lunar month...

I see what you mean...

Pedantcally there's actually quite a big difference?

 

[excreationist]

In terms of the general concept of 'God the Almighty' who is said to see everything. I suppose one could also say, that such an entity, could see the world as flat, when viewing from His heavenly seat in the spiritual domain/dimension. God doesn't have the human physical limitations/awarness IOW.

That reminds me of:
Isaiah 40:22
"God sits on his throne high above the earth. Its people look like grasshoppers to him. He spreads out the heavens like a cover. He sets it up like a tent to live in."

All I see is a description by mere mortal man who seems to be explaining with words available to him - that he can only fathomly describe and comprehend.

It could have added that the people on the side of the earth near God's throne look like grasshoppers. It could say the heavens are like a shell - shells are typically around ball-shaped objects. Though the heavens are actually a huge distance away.

The tent and seeing everyone suggests a flat earth - if it was a ball it would be hard to put a tent on it and see all of the people like grasshoppers (unless you had x-ray vision)

Or unless you were like God? Even I, a mere mortal can see the whole world on my phone via google maps.

It appears to be talking about God's view from this throne above the earth. But I guess you have a point - in Google maps you have a virtual viewing location. Though you can't see people live - either you'd need to be using a satellite or a simulation.

The Ancient Hebrews and other ancients like the Chinese used the lunar system e.g., full moon making each month 29.5 days which has been consistent (no leap years, clocks going forward and backward etc..).

Actually there's about 29.5306 days in a lunar month...

I see what you mean...

... Pedantcally there is quite a big difference?

28.00000 or 29.5000000 days is very neat - and seems designed. 29.5306 days (but still not exact) appears like what you'd expect from an accident.

 

[bilby]

Though the heavens are actually a huge distance away.

Are they?

During the daytime, the blue light from the sky originates only a few km up.

Obviously the 'fixed stars' of the night sky are dramatically further away (a minimum of a few light years, and mostly much farther than that); But did the writers of Isiah know that there was such a huge difference? I suspect that they would have estimated the heavens to be pretty close by - more the distance of the daytime sky than the night sky - probably just high enough to clear the tops of the mountains.

After all, the tower of Babel is supposed to have plausibly reached (or at least nearly reached) the heavens.

 

[excreationist]

Though the heavens are actually a huge distance away.

Are they?

I mean some of the heavens are actually far away.... (according to science - not the Bible)
Genesis 1:16b-17
"He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth"

During the daytime, the blue light from the sky originates only a few km up.

Obviously the 'fixed stars' of the night sky are dramatically further away (a minimum of a few light years, and mostly much farther than that); But did the writers of Isiah know that there was such a huge difference? I suspect that they would have estimated the heavens to be pretty close by - more the distance of the daytime sky than the night sky - probably just high enough to clear the tops of the mountains.

After all, the tower of Babel is supposed to have plausibly reached (or at least nearly reached) the heavens.

Yes as usual the Bible supports the flat earth view with all of the stars being inside the firmament.

 

[Learner]

In terms of the general concept of 'God the Almighty' who is said to see everything. I suppose one could also say, that such an entity, could see the world as flat, when viewing from His heavenly seat in the spiritual domain/dimension. God doesn't have the human physical limitations/awarness IOW.

That reminds me of:
Isaiah 40:22
"God sits on his throne high above the earth. Its people look like grasshoppers to him. He spreads out the heavens like a cover. He sets it up like a tent to live in."

All I see is a description by mere mortal man who seems to be explaining with words available to him - that he can only fathomly describe and comprehend.

It could have added that the people on the side of the earth near God's throne look like grasshoppers. It could say the heavens are like a shell - shells are typically around ball-shaped objects. Though the heavens are actually a huge distance away.

It could have added that, but it may not of been that important in mind to mention.

Daniel couldn't understand his own prophecies, and was also using words available to him, that he could only describe.
He was to seal up his words for the last generations who would eventually understand it.

Daniel 12: 8-10
8. And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? 9. And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

The tent and seeing everyone suggests a flat earth - if it was a ball it would be hard to put a tent on it and see all of the people like grasshoppers (unless you had x-ray vision)

Or unless you were like God? Even I, a mere mortal can see the whole world on my phone via google maps.

It appears to be talking about God's view from this throne above the earth. But I guess you have a point - in Google maps you have a virtual viewing location. Though you can't see people live - either you'd need to be using a satellite or a simulation.

The Ancient Hebrews and other ancients like the Chinese used the lunar system e.g., full moon making each month 29.5 days which has been consistent (no leap years, clocks going forward and backward etc..).

Actually there's about 29.5306 days in a lunar month...

I see what you mean...

... Pedantcally there is quite a big difference?

28.00000 or 29.5000000 days is very neat - and seems designed. 29.5306 days (but still not exact) appears like what you'd expect from an accident.

Thats a flawed way of determining design or not, when you can easily adjust 'conventional' units of time to fit exactly, by stretching the gaps between the incxrements, setting a new and precise standard.

You see I have always had a little trouble with the concept of a 'digitized perfection', like the matrix etc.. Because logically to me, It would actually be an inferiror design imo, fawlty and quite crash-prone. In short : This physical and natural world, would be far more advanced as a design, compared to, lets say, the binary code for a computer example e.g., one fault or bit error in a word byte could disrupt the whole program, etc...

The natural world, organically does NOT necessarily need to work according to increments of processing digital precision, as you seem to define it, when we see for ourselves it functions and adapts accordingly quite well, contrary to your idea. Each life form has its own timing witin its own particular life span or life cycle, depending on the various time scales it follows, just not a human one. A multitude of differing systems should in our minds, clash, but only if... we were to take the particualr view, that a perfect design means being similar to a digitized on-off state, switch universe - which imo is an inferior design.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

After all, the tower of Babel is supposed to have plausibly reached (or at least nearly reached) the heavens.

Plausibly? God feared it!

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Ironic—because they did this to not be scattered over the face of the whole earth, but their actions actually caused the Lord to scatter them over the face of the whole earth. 10 DAMN!

 

[excreationist]

It could have added that the people on the side of the earth near God's throne look like grasshoppers. It could say the heavens are like a shell - shells are typically around ball-shaped objects. Though the heavens are actually a huge distance away.

It could have added that, but it may not of been that important in mind to mention.

If it said the heavens are like a shell around the ball of the earth then there would have been at least one Bible verse against a flat earth. BTW in the NIV Isaiah 40:22 says above "the circle of the earth".

28.00000 or 29.5000000 days is very neat - and seems designed. 29.5306 days (but still not exact) appears like what you'd expect from an accident.

Thats a flawed way of determining design or not, when you can easily adjust 'conventional' units of time to fit exactly, by stretching the gaps between the increments, setting a new and precise standard.

The 365.24238 days in a year probably has endless random seeming decimal digits. And this isn't consistent - apparently millions of years ago there were more than 400 days in a year

How long was an early Earth year?

Roughly how long did it use to take for the early Earth 4.5~ billion years ago to complete one revolution around the Sun? (I know the Earth was spinning much faster, so a day would only take 2-3 h...

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