When did 'LIFE" begin? (Science in relation with the Biblical description)

[SGOS]

The Science was never intended to be literature.  Atheism was and is sold as a divine truth and taken as fact in the circular reasoning used to prove absence of the divine.  It doesn't make any difference what your expectations are before you claim it.  When you understand that most of it is flat out wrong, fabricated lying, and unadulterated bullshit, it points the way to Theism.  But in my mind, we are really there.

Some might stop right there and say they are theists, but I don't think forum members here do that.  Atheism is only everything about the Bible being a myth.  If you apply the same skepticism to Atheism, supernatural beliefs, conspiracy theories, etc., as I believe people here do, you come to having no belief in any atheist.  That's hardly an over-compensation.

I think you allowed yourself to take some liberty with the term "under-compensation", because you were having fun using it to elevate your own beliefs, not because it was appropriate, but because atheism is a religion atheists want to deny.

How's this for trolling the troll.

You misunderstand:

Atheism was and is sold as a divine truth.

False.  Atheism only ignores religion's central premise.

and taken as fact.

False.  Atheism is not a fact.  It is a lack of belief.

[Baruch]

The Bible was never intended to be literature.  The Bible was and is sold as a divine truth and taken as fact in the circular reasoning used to prove something about the divine.  It doesn't make any difference what your expectations are before you read it.  When you understand that most of it is flat out wrong, fabricated lying, and unadulterated bullshit, it points the way to atheism.  But in my mind, we're not really there yet.

Some might stop right there and say they are atheists, but I don't think forum members here do that.  Atheism is only partly about the Bible being a myth.  If you apply the same skepticism to all other religions, supernatural beliefs, conspiracy theories, etc., as I believe people here do, you come to having no belief in any god.  That's hardly an over-compensation.

I think you allowed yourself to take some liberty with the term "over-compensation", because you were having fun using it to elevate your own beliefs, not because it was appropriate.

For which, being irreligious, you should be stoned or burned.  Clearly antisocial behavior should be punished (if you accept this premise).

Pagan Gentiles read Jewish writings, as literature ... because they weren't Jews.  What you said only applied to Jews.  For Jews it is the Law.  Gentiles are not under the Law (see Paul).  It only became Gentile law because of Constantine.  If you don't like it, don't support Western Civilization, which is based on Greco-Roman paganism and Jewish-Christian monotheism.  Sophists and other disruptors of society get hemlock.

I would be under Jewish law, as a Jew, if I wasn't a heretic.  Gentiles don't have to follow any religious law at all.

[Baruch]

Ah, but that is a full demonstration of wisdom.  I cannot be an expert in everything.  But there are people who are expert at virtually everything.  So, do I strive to know everything?  Not possible and would drive me and all around me crazy.  What to do?  Find an expert in whatever I need an expert in.  Find out what that expert thinks about said subject.  Then find out what his peers say.  Do they agree or mostly agree?  If so, then good to go for testing it for myself.  If they disagree, where and why.  Being smart means I know what most of the books of a library say and mean.  Having wisdom is knowing how to use a library so I can learn what I need when I need it.

Expertise isn't wisdom either.  See, just semantic poo tossing.  And wisdom isn't burning down the library because you don't like books.

[Mike Cl]

Expertise isn't wisdom either.  See, just semantic poo tossing.  And wisdom isn't burning down the library because you don't like books.

I see.  You like your wisdom served with a twist of theism.  Not a problem. 

[Baruch]

I see.  You like your wisdom served with a twist of theism.  Not a problem. 

Some ancestors were limeys ;-)  That kind of twist?

[Hakurei Reimu]

All measurement units are things of man. Yes, even years and days. Even deciding where a day or year begins and ends is an arbitrary decision. That either is decided the way they are makes them convenient, not absolute.

[Baruch]

All measurement units are things of man. Yes, even years and days. Even deciding where a day or year begins and ends is an arbitrary decision. That either is decided the way they are makes them convenient, not absolute.

Took a lot of technology to get a good clock.  But the Anti-Kythera mechanism was a good start (sidereal time calculator).

[aitm]

Read the Bible and become wise!

Read without prejudice the babble is a book that presents a complete bumbling, incompetent, petty, jealous, angry and mostly useless god. Maybe you should try to find one that, you know.....actually does god stuff.

[Baruch]

Read without prejudice the babble is a book that presents a complete bumbling, incompetent, petty, jealous, angry and mostly useless god. Maybe you should try to find one that, you know.....actually does god stuff.

At least Zeus got some good sex in.

That is exactly the point GIA was making months ago.

[SGOS]

Maybe you should try to find one that, you know.....actually does god stuff.

One that actually does anything.

[Baruch]

One that actually does anything.

That is the problem with passive-aggressive deities ;-)  You don't want to see the aggressive side.

[trdsf]

Lots of us have already read the bible. It contains very little wisdom.

And it contains a lot of reasons to not merely set it aside but to hurl it away with great force (with all due respect to Dorothy Parker).

[Baruch]

And it contains a lot of reasons to not merely set it aside but to hurl it away with great force (with all due respect to Dorothy Parker).

What about Being & Nothingness by Sartre?  Are you or aren't you, that is the question?

[trdsf]

All measurement units are things of man. Yes, even years and days. Even deciding where a day or year begins and ends is an arbitrary decision. That either is decided the way they are makes them convenient, not absolute.

Mmmm, partly.  There are good reasons to use a particular astronomical observation to mark a point to use as a start or end of a period, although there are multiple observations to choose from.  But it's more sensible for a proto-civilization to settle on starting a year at a solstice or equinox rather than any arbitrary day, simply because it's an observation that's easy to make and recognize, and as we know from Stonehenge and the Stone Dagger and other archaeoastronomical sites they're easy to keep track of without much investment in even primitive technology.

So why doesn't the Western calendar start on a solstice or equinox?  Well, it kind of does.  The Julian calendar replaced an earlier ten month lunar calendar, which is why the last four months of the year are named Septem(7)ber, Octo(8)ber, Novem(9)ber and Decem(10)ber rather than November, December, Undecember and Dodecember.  A ten mo(o)nth lunar calendar is 295 days or thereabouts, so they added days between the end of December and the beginning of the year (the spring equinox).

Now, the equinox remained the start of the year, and the day that new politicians took office... until a later Roman ruler decided that if the start of the year was the Calends of January (Jan 1), his cronies could take office sooner.  However, not everyone signed on to that, and in various Western cultures the new year was variously celebrated also on December 25, March 1 and March 25.

When the Gregorian calendar was put into place, it set Jan 1 as the beginning of the year and that settled it.

Why is January 1 almost the solstice, then?  It was decided the first new moon following the winter solstice would be the first of the new days added in the switchover from lunar to solar calendars.  So, a combination of astronomical observation and practical politics.  Arbitrary, but with a hidden basis in simple observations.

[Baruch]

The Roman calendar was particularly incompetent, even with the Julian reform.  And March 1 was the start of the year, not January 1.