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Bass
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Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« on: 2007-07-04 11:58:40 »
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Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.

This thread is partly related to Scientists find Extraterrestrial genes in Human DNA.  I have been watching documentaries on the possiblity that extraterrestrials where a large influence on modern civilization as argued and put forth in videos like these: Part 1 and Part 2.

Now I haven't actually looked into the evidence which they have provided but all of them seem to have the same thing in common (as do Religions) in which the God's were not as "Mythological" as they are made out to be, the possible reason I see for this being that they had no understanding of technology as we do today so all they could do was consider it "Magic" and from there it grew into all these religions. As time went by and humans separated from Egypt the stories changed with the people, but the basic beliefs have remained the same.

I myself was raised Catholic, however during my younger years I had no interest in it nor did I have the fear of "hell" and obviously grew to reject the Christian and such. However in the past few years I have grown a strong interest in the Aesir Gods (Odinn/Wotan/Wodanas, Thor, Loki, Baldr etc) and whilst some of the tales may seem a bit too out there, I do wonder how much of it could be true based on the documentaries listed above, and perhaps will start to look at it from a reasonable point of view.

Now we are living in a Society when we are actually starting to see ourselves as Gods, had we been able to travel through time I with our Technology and understanding (well for those that do) we may be considered Gods to them or at least Demi-gods.

At this time it I will look more into the ideas they came up with but for now because I do not know much about the other Patheon's but I will be looking into the Greek ones soon as they seem to have the most information. I must admit however that I am infected with this idea, I'm not saying that I entirely accept it, nor do I rule it out completely but I find it quite an interesting question to bring up and I am interested on hearing others thoughts on it.
« Last Edit: 2007-07-04 12:05:21 by Bass » Report to moderator   Logged
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #1 on: 2007-07-04 20:53:46 »
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I watched the video clips.

I am a huge fan of both Stargate SG1 and Atlantis, but not once have I had to remind myself "this is only entertaining fiction"

All the so called "evidence" that seems to have been put forward for this theory is of a circular nature.

Historical documentation reffering to other historical documentation reffering to heresay. Of course religions are built and borrow from each other heavily. The product of living on the same planet, enduring similar environments & hardships. Not forgetting the human brain, as imperfect as it is.

I'm fed up of people making hypothesis and calling them theories, worse, calling it fact. The link between an assumption and fact has to be established using "real" proof. Please don't get confused and distracted by the hand waving and waffling people do to convince you to come to their side of the argument. I've seen that scenario many times when students whom have not properly prepared for their presentations waffle and create circular arguments, misleading and misrepresenting the information, the bolder con-artists even stating pure gibberish as if it were absolute fact.

I hope future generations don't watch any of the Muppets shows and think that they were real. Although I think I spotted the Swedish Chef in town the other day.

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Case Study: Proof found: Planet Ground was host to A war between the Species Alliance led by a Mouse and the Cat people of East Asia.

Article from the Neo-New New York Times dated 4th July 3007

Last night it was reported that an historic discovery was made as Professor Walter and his team uncovered what is thought as the largest temple dedicated to the worship of the giant mouse like creature believed to be God Mickey.

Discovered amidst the ruins of what was once The largest American Cemetery and dying grounds, "The Minipolis of Eternal Sleep". It has to be noted that it is widely believed that the once picturesque Minipolis was founded over 700 years ago above the ancient state of Flowreeda.

This phenomenal discovery is further proof of the existence of aliens on our planet Ground.

Last months discovery of what is thought to be a smaller yet no less important Cathedral of Disney in the Norman province of Franco State in the US of Uuropa dumbfounded critics who had always claimed that the minor Church of Disney discovered nearly a decade ago in New-Tokyo 12 was nothing more than an oversized entertainment park.

So far these are the facts discovered so far:

- The Religion of Disney was a somewhat prudish simplistic moralistic society who believed in a white/black sense of morality.

- The religion is at least 2000 years old. Evidence of this was found in the northern state of Svedenland in the USU in the form of a Mickey brooch.

- Mickey was the leader. Although it is not clear wether Mickey did in fact possess super powers. Images of Mickey were uncovered showing that he had amazing telekinetic powers over objects, such as water and had commanded armies of what appear to be some form of primitive stick like drones, further research is still underway. Other images show him as a loving family mouse, others portray a more down to Ground creature.

- Although there were records of cats or cat like creatures discovered, it seems the personalities of such characters were questionable. Either as untrustworthy or bullies,  if not using direct aggression they would resort to some sort of hypnotic powers using their young offspring to control the desired victim with something they called "cute".

- There were distinct uniforms worn by the priesthood, it is thought that this was a very structured and ordered Religion underlying what at first may look chaotic.

Theologians weyken that this proves the long held belief that the great war between the Disney civilisation and the Sanrio civilisation had actually occurred.

Evidence of this long forgotten event had come to light in documentation discovered last century with the discovery of "Kitty Land" in Neo-Tokyo 11 (the monoethnic Cat like peoples lead by the "cute" Hello Kitty).

We are sure to learn more about those two great civilisations as the new evidence is further analysed and reported.

Please be sure to tune your audio spore implants to the next installment of the Neo-New New York Times Broadcast Service, sponsored by Microogle Linus Industries makers of affordable premium grade implants & cloned upgrades.

--

I made up the scenario in a few minutes. Not very well thought out. Some ideas stolen from forgotten sources over the years, so if you think it sounds familiar, it probably is.

teh
« Last Edit: 2007-07-05 13:56:40 by teh » Report to moderator   Logged
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #2 on: 2007-07-05 08:49:10 »
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Teh, please put "evidence" in quotes or italics. In my opinion one would need to be very uneducated in the fields, very desperate to believe that something is out there, off your antipsychotics or most likely some combination of the above to accept as even potentially valid* any of the supposed "evidence" I have seen for extraterrestrial involvement with earth - except for possible evidence of potential DNA or preDNA activity from meteorite core samples.

Kind Regards

Hermit

*Even just as information supporting the formulation of an hypothesis satisfying Ockham's razor, let alone as a basis for an explanation or prediction.

PS as you can see, I'm not even coming near this one with a bargepole. It is drivel and anybody rational enough to follow the arguments which can be made or even to evaluate the evidence objectively already knows that it is drivel.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #3 on: 2007-07-05 14:10:47 »
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[Hermit] Teh, please put "evidence" in quotes or italics

Done and done.

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[Hermit] PS as you can see, I'm not even coming near this one with a bargepole. It is drivel and anybody rational enough to follow the arguments which can be made or even to evaluate the evidence objectively already knows that it is drivel.

I completely agree. Although occasionally these things do get under my skin. Specially when the memes propagation seems to be gaining momentum rather than being laughed out of existence.

teh
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #4 on: 2007-07-06 16:45:35 »
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Well I respect your opinion Hermit, and thank-you also teh for your imput.

However, this would explain a lot of coincidences that appear in the world's older religions and perhaps some of the newer ones. So many gods of completely different cultures are similar, even ones that have had no contact with the others. Why is it that polytheism ran so rampant before the monotheistic religions gained ground? I would think that there would be a little more diversity that just polytheistic and the Jews in the ancient world (obviously there's more, but you rarely hear about them). Who knows? Aliens could have played a role in a Stargate-esque scenario, or perhaps it's simply human nature.

Also, the fact that the Meso-American cultures and the Egyptian cultures both had pyramids is pretty questionable. And I've always thought that religion itself isn't bad. Rather it's the people who misinterpret it and/or abuse it, are the ones to blame.

Examining some of the things make sense so long as you take away the "Myth" and perhaps replace magic with Technology.

One of the things that is currently worrying some people has been the threat of another Ice Age, I watched this documentary where the dug out this huge long piece of ice and examined the layers. What they found was that unlike most people think an "Ice Age" is much more common than earlier thought and they stated the fact that it has been so warm for so long is the real odd occurrence (Wether this is true or not its up to you how you take). Anyway anybody who knows the event's of Ragnarök, one of the signs that it was about to happen was Fimbulwinter in which there is meant to be 3 Consecutive Winters with no Summer, then there would be war and the "Gods" Would return. Perhaps they had studied the Earths Climate changes and planed on coming back during these events?

There are other small parts that could have been just miss-interpreted such as the Yggdrasil tree being some sort of root through the other planets. Perhaps the Northern Dragon was some kind of large Airship they couldn't quite see properly? Really it's all just theory and I am well aware of that, but it is something I find quite insightful to think about and try and question the reality behind it, I have many other ideas as well.

Take the creation myths, for example. The Nordic creation myth mentions the world being created from the body parts of the giant Ymir. Well, the Chinese creation myths mentions the same thing; the world was made from the parts of a cosmic giant named Pan Gu. If you take a look at these myths and what we currently believe of the world's origin based on science, you can see that the myths are a rough, colorful descriptions of Earth and Sun being made from stardusts of a previous exploding star or "cosmic giant."

Similarly, the Nordic description of Ginungagap of fire and ice is very similar to the environment of the frigid cold space and the hot furnace of the stars or molten young planets.

The cyclic nature of the many universes as described by the Hindu is very similar to String Theory's description of the multiverse.

I'd like to think that these similarities have some tiny grains of truth in them. That they are similar because they describe the ultimate universal truth. Afterall, the word "universe" contains "uni" = "One" or "united" and "verse" = "song" If we take all the seemingly random yet similar notes and put them together in the right order, we may just hear that song.

I was watching this program on the Science Channel or National Geographic Channel last night about the involvment of extraterrestrials in civilizations predating Christ. It came on pretty late, and I actually fell asleep during the program so I didn't get to watch it all. Plus I was playing my SNES during the beginning of it. The only thing I remember was the use of light bulbs and electricity. There were people that used home-made batteries made of a hollow copper rod that had a solid iron rod inside of it dipped in a jar of vinegar. It actually pruduced about .5 volts. I think it was called a Baghdad Battery. There was another segment about ancient Egyptians using light bulbs to light the way through the pyramids as they were building them. The Egyptians even wrote, with the use of heiroglyphs, about using them. The program stated that such technology could only have come with the help of alien civilazations. If anyone wants to look this up, it was a program called, "Is It Real?" It aired from 12:00 - 1:00 am CST.

Anyway, sorry for ranting there - just though it might be interesting to bring something up with hasn't really been discussed here at the CoV before.

Regards

Bass
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #5 on: 2007-07-07 02:38:07 »
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In the same way that gods are brutish because the poor creatures that invent them tend to be brutish, gods are similar because the poor creatures that invent them are similar. Likewise the stories are similar because the things they purport to address (by preventing a meaningful search for answers) are similar (where do we come from, what is our purpose, why do bad things happen to us good people, should we sacrifice our children or our neighbours to appease our angry gods?) And given that stacking unstabilized materials  in a heap leads to a pyramid shape (think slope stability), and a shortage of big beams leads to the substitution of smaller pieces and columnar layouts, we should not be amazed when these features reappear on a regular basis in the different cultures of the world. Even leaving out the fact of cultural interchange the nature of materials we have dictates it should be so.

Not having seen the programs alluded to (and not wanting to), you have me at a slight disadvantage. But the reason I don't want to is that the claims made are so outrageously wrong that I don't want to waste my time with them.

Take just one example. To make light from electricity you need the ability to form a competent vacuum. Either in the production of light itself (incandescent, fluorescent, metal halide) or in the production of the light producing materials (LED, EL film). No evidence of which I am aware suggests that the Egyptians were competent to produce a meaningful vacuum, or had the technology to produce materials capable of dealing with vacuum on any production scale.

I have spent enough time in museums and digs to know that the Egyptians left a vast legacy of continuously evolving stone lamps and wick technologies. Had they had electric light, lamp evolution would likely not have continued; we would likely have samples and most importantly, we would have signs from their materials technology that they knew how to deal with other related "difficult" problems that beset them for over 3000 years. Problems like the challenge of making carriage wheels that didn't deform if left standing overnight (never solved), of table joints that were made of materials other than pathetically weak and horribly expensive wood joints (never solved), of much larger glass samples than the metalized beads which were highly cherished (i.e. rare can be inferred by their use of jewellery and the care taken with them), ships which were so weak that they deformed if removed from water and required windlass tightened ropes to maintain their hull shapes, stone and brass tools which rapidly wore out and were discarded by the bushel, the use of scrapped bronze to produce mirrors, and so on. I say again, the only people who make assertions about chronologically challenging "advanced technology" in ancient times are those who know very little about ancient times, little about technology and its development, little about material and design sciences or a combination. To go from the complete lack of evidence for any such chronologically challenging advanced technology to the assertion that it exists and then to infer that these advanced technologies must have been delivered to our ancestors by UFOs - for which all evidence is also lacking, requires poor education, wilful gullibility, diagnosible psychiatric disorders or powerful drugs. Or some combination.

Regards

Hermit

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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #6 on: 2007-07-07 13:00:59 »
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Some good points Hermit...

But, while I do not doubt you, all that evidence is circumstantial and is full of probablies and most likelies. There is no proof either way, so why you're trying to prove it wrong (if that is what you're trying to do here) I'm not sure. No one is saying that it did happen. People are speculating and are bringing up perfectly legitimate points. Saying "it's human nature" is as much an out as saying aliens were involved. The difference is that everyone else knows that they can't prove anything and doesn't assume they're correct; it's all hypthetical.

Regards

Bass
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #7 on: 2007-07-07 16:36:28 »
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Quote from: Bass on 2007-07-07 13:00:59   
But, while I do not doubt you, all that evidence is circumstantial and is full of probablies and most likelies. There is no proof either way, so why you're trying to prove it wrong (if that is what you're trying to do here) I'm not sure. No one is saying that it did happen. People are speculating and are bringing up perfectly legitimate points. Saying "it's human nature" is as much an out as saying aliens were involved. The difference is that everyone else knows that they can't prove anything and doesn't assume they're correct; it's all hypthetical.

I thought that Hermit was merely bringing up his side of a debateable argument. He basically said, from his own extensive knowledge, that it wouldn't be plausible. I don't recollect anything about him saying that nothing happened. He only brought up interesting facts supporting his side of the debate.
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #8 on: 2007-07-07 22:42:43 »
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I'm not going to discuss and disprove every bit of supposed evidence, I'll make my point quickly and hit the hay. (avoiding long, tedious discussions of linguistics, behavioural science, psychology etc.)


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[Bass] Also, the fact that the Meso-American cultures and the Egyptian cultures both had pyramids is pretty questionable.

Is it possible that humans travelled from the one location to the other?
There are a few, somewhat unproven (yet with more evidence than the alien theory), hypothesis suggesting that travel may have occurred between the two civilisations.
You must also take into account the time frames of construction of these pyramids. For example, It took 30 years for the largest pyramid in Giza to be built, most pyramids had a time gap of years sometimes decades between the end of one and the start of another.
Humans had to travel to reach and populate those two locations! no?
It would seem somewhat ridiculous to assume no travel occurred, and a possible ideological or cultural exchange had not occurred.
^^^^^
I'm not trying to disprove, I'm pointing out possible, simpler, more plausible reasoning. I may be wrong. Just one out of many theories. please refer to Occam's razor


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[Bass] The only thing I remember was the use of light bulbs and electricity. There were people that used home-made batteries made of a hollow copper rod that had a solid iron rod inside of it dipped in a jar of vinegar. It actually pruduced about .5 volts. I think it was called a Baghdad Battery. There was another segment about ancient Egyptians using light bulbs to light the way through the pyramids as they were building them. The Egyptians even wrote, with the use of heiroglyphs, about using them. The program stated that such technology could only have come with the help of alien civilazations.

please do not waste your time looking for this program, I watched it. Pure ignorant nonsensical irresponsible program making.
Entertainment? Possible
Educational? No.

If you want to prove your point, find the hieroglyphics they were reffering to, then find the entire script not just that small area of the script they focused on, you will realise how miserably ignorant and misleading the program makers were.

Something I like to do when reading or watching something that interests me, is find the sources and/or information about the sources if possible.
Although I understand and empathise with Hermits unwillingness to even approach this subject, I suggest to any person who believes this theory, to try exercising some form of "real verification" of the evidence and learn more about alternate theories and background before clutching on to this one. ;-)

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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #9 on: 2007-07-09 10:25:17 »
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[Bass] Some good points Hermit...

[Hermit] I know.

[Bass] But, while I do not doubt you, all that evidence is circumstantial and is full of probablies and most likelies.

[Hermit] I did not make what you called a "hypothesis", I merely stated (once again) that making an hypothesis in the absense of evidence necessitating that hypothesis is invalid and unsupportable.

[Hermit] For my position there is a wealth of negative evidence. Let me rephrase in the hope that you might grasp it. As far as we know, it takes a vacuum to make a useful electric light, as we have no method that I, a skilled practitioner in the art, am aware of for producing useful light from electricity without being able to produce a reasonably good vacuum. The evidence is overwhelming that the Egyptians did not have the materials or the technology to make the kind of vacuum we think is needed to produce light from electricity. Had the Egyptians had the materials or technology they undoubtedly would have used it elsewhere, as while they showed great ingenuity and perserverence at attempting to solve a number of technical problems that beset them, their utter failure is evident, as is the fact that the requirements for the materials needed to solve the problems I identified are much less strenuous than those required to produce and hold reasonable vacuums. Thus for the Egyptians to have an electric light they would have needed some non-vacuum-dependent electric-light-producing method. This is critical to the formation of any related hypothesis for it to be meaningful (have explicatory power). As you failed to present such a method, and did not present any evidence that the Egyptians could form or hold a vacuum (and as far as my extensive knowledge of ancient technologies is concerned, such evidence does not exist). Thus whatever you presented had no explicatory power and thus was not, could not be, an hypothesis.

[Hermit] For the other side there is no affirmative evidence. Note what you say next. Read it. Breathe it in.

[Bass] There is no proof either way,

[Hermit] As you explicitly agree that there is no affirmative evidence for the dribble that Egyptians had electric lights, the supposed "hypothesis" can be seen to be nothing of the sort. Indeed, it is mere speculation not susceptible to analysis through the scientific method at all. You might as well waste your time speculating about fairies which have much more "evidence" (fabricated by their supporters) rather than the blatant evidential cherry picking which is what any UFOlogist has to do to pretend there is something for them to look at.

[Bass]  so why you're trying to prove it wrong (if that is what you're trying to do here) I'm not sure.

[Hermit] I'm not "trying to prove it wrong." As the supposed "search for weapons of mass delusion" proved in Iraq one can't prove something which has no foundation in reality right or wrong. I am telling you why I won't prove it wrong, that I don't have to prove it wrong, that the supporters of such lunacy have to prove why I should waste time on their hairbrained notions.

[Bass] No one is saying that it did happen.

[Hermit] It sounded to me as if you - based on others - were attempting to say exactly that.

[Bass] People are speculating and are bringing up perfectly legitimate points.

[Hermit] No. This sort of "speculation" is not legitimate. As proved - from your words and repetition of your words - this is speculation at its most unsupportable worst. It can't be treated seriously or you are surfuing the slippery slopes.

[Bass] Also, the fact that the Meso-American cultures and the Egyptian cultures both had pyramids is pretty questionable.

[Hermit] Only in La-La land. For the rest of us, there is no question at all. For Pyramids in the Americas, try googling for "Chichen Itza" (e.g. http://www.google.com/images?q=Mexico+chichen+Itza&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS224US224 and for North Africa, google for "Great Pyramid" (e.g. http://www.google.com/images?svnum=100&hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS224US224&q=Great+Pyramid&btnG=Search+Images) .
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #10 on: 2007-07-09 12:38:59 »
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[Blunderov] Just to be complete, there is a method of producing light without a vacuum; carbon arc lighting. But this would have been way beyond the capacity of the Egyptians which is I'm sure why the Hermit did not mention it. Carbon arc lighting requires, if memory serves, about 80 amps of direct current in order to ignite the arc between electrodes. That's a lot. Enough to kill a person quite quickly.

Talking of 'weapons of mass delusion' the belated thought strikes me that the usual phrase 'weapons of mass destruction' is very telling. Why not 'weapons of mass carnage'? By their memes ye shall know them; we must conclude that property is of far more concern to the powers that be than humans and their piffling little lives.
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #11 on: 2007-07-09 13:54:51 »
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[Blunderov] Just to be complete, there is a method of producing light without a vacuum; carbon arc lighting. But this would have been way beyond the capacity of the Egyptians which is I'm sure why the Hermit did not mention it. Carbon arc lighting requires, if memory serves, about 80 amps of direct current in order to ignite the arc between electrodes. That's a lot. Enough to kill a person quite quickly.

[Hermit] While Arc lighting proved very challenging to control into the highly experienced and industrialized 1870s, and so would have proved extremely challenging to any previous culture, this wasn't my reason for leaving them - and related technologies out. Bear in mind that my answer related to the "speculative" lights in "There was another segment about ancient Egyptians using light bulbs to light the way through the pyramids as they were building them"

[Hermit] So when I said "lights, in my mind I was only responding to "light bulbs," and as noted in my posts, attempted to address all of the possible "useful" technologies . As a carbon arcs are tricky creature at the best of times and quite decidedly do not fit into a bulb of any conventional glass (such as the Egyptians had), I omitted it along with other non-useful or non-light bulb oriented possibilities: like flash wire; flash powder; glow plugs; bare carbon and pure tungsten filaments; X-ray fluorescing materials; other gas plasmas; electrostatics; raw sparks and such forth - as these are not useful for the stated purpose being too short lived, providing insufficient light, being not sufficiently reliant on electricity (even if discharged electrically), or not doable in bulbs, or both.

With hindsight I should have made this explicit. Thank as usual for your careful attention to detail and beautifully literal accuracy :-)

Kindest Regards

Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #12 on: 2007-07-09 18:49:02 »
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[Hermit] I did not make what you called a "hypothesis", I merely stated (once again) that making an hypothesis in the absense of evidence necessitating that hypothesis is invalid and unsupportable.

[Bass] I haven't called anything a hypothesis. I'm not using the scientific method, at lest I don't think I am.

[Bass] Also, you seem to be making too many assumptions. Aliens could easily have technology that makes the creation of a lightbulb far simpler than it is today. It's like when people say that no life can exist on so and so planet because there are no traces of water. It's an assumption that they need water. Same deal. When dealing with topics like this, it's impossible to use the scientific method to prove things wrong based on our current knowledge. There is a world outside science.

[Hermit] You might as well waste your time speculating about fairies.

[Bass] Sounds marvelous, but we're talking about aliens.

[Hermit] As you explicitly agree that there is no affirmative evidence for the dribble that Egyptians had electric lights, the supposed "hypothesis" can be seen to be nothing of the sort.

[Bass] Indeed, this isn't science.

Regards

Bass

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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #13 on: 2007-07-09 20:46:56 »
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[Bass] The difference is that everyone else knows that they can't prove anything and doesn't assume they're correct; it's all hypthetical.

[Hermit] "Hypothetical" ie an hypothesis

[Bass] I haven't called anything a hypothesis.

[Hermit] Huh?

[Bass] I'm not using the scientific method, at lest I don't think I am.

[Hermit] I can confirm you are not "using the scientific method". Indeed, I am trying to point out that your assertions are outside of the bounds of the rational. They fail Ockham. They fail the elementary tests of provisional falsifiability, of having a basis in something observable, and of making a significant (testable) statement. In other words, on any objective basis, your statements are irrational. They never get sufficiently past first base to enable a rational discourse about them. They are mere piss and wind.

[Hermit] This, readers other than Bass, is why I said that I didn't want to go here. This is sooo predictable when dealing with true believers and even those who "merely" really, really want to believe.

[Hermit] Bass: Without evidence, the default position is the "ordinary" explanation, not gods, not weird "science" and certainly not UFOs (which are not explanations but questions even if only because they are unidentified. Your hypothetical-non-hypothesis (and what a wonderful oxymoron that is) is multiplying entities to a remarkable degree. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor before continuing with this dialog in the hopes that you will discover why this is a bad idea.

« Last Edit: 2008-07-23 17:07:09 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #14 on: 2007-07-11 11:21:50 »
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EDIT: (Actually, thinking about it...)

[Hermit] "Hypothetical" ie an hypothesis.

[Bass] No, hypathetical ie a scenario based on "what ifs". Not a hypothesis that I intend to prove. If they meant exactly the same thing, there would be no need for them both. Ask any linguist that.

[Bass] But if your going to use Ockhams razor here on me to try and validate yourself I don't think it will work.

Ockhams razor basically says that the simplist solution always tends to be the right one, making as few assumptions as possible.  But if you use that then I could just as easily retort that some supernatural alien (god, deity, ect) simply just created man instead of the complexity of evolution. That would apply to ockhams razor more wouldn't it?

Supporting my bet is that even evolution is hypothetical. If Man evolved from Primates, then why are Primates still around? Selective evolution and other forms are all theories and hypotheses. No one will know for sure, probably ever, until some sort of time machine is invented and brings back proof of either. Neither group can really disprove the other, or any group in between, except maybe those who lack any rationality at all, of course. (cough, radical conspiracy theorists, cough cough

So I could just simply (Ockham) say that man has not lived millions of years yet (and what evidence is there that he even has?), so everything before then is faded until a time of understanding is upon us; When will this understanding come about? Probably when man is no more.

Regards

Bass


« Last Edit: 2007-07-11 11:44:38 by Bass » Report to moderator   Logged
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