Markovich wrote on 08/05/10 at 13:56:38:

If this holds its own I predict a Nobel prize.

sloughter wrote on 08/04/10 at 18:26:15:


I am sure that Jesus will be quite depressed when he learns that his miracles have failed to impress sloughter.  I only wish that sloughter had been the Son of God -- then there would have been some really impressive miracles.  

Since, however, the discussion appears to be wandering into the nature of space-time, here is something worth noting:  http://www.fqxi.org/community/articles/display/132

There was a longer article in NY Times a couple of weeks ago.  Relatedly, apparently someone named Jacobsen has demonstrated that relativivity and the laws of thermodynamics are merely different ways of expressing the same thing, a rather startling idea to this mere student of science.

Uruk wrote on 08/05/10 at 02:17:51:

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

sloughter wrote on 08/04/10 at 21:45:20:


The energy given from the sun (and the entropy won there) very much allows for the decrease in entropy.
Dont bs about spiritual energy, because it prolly only goes for humans...

Markovich wrote on 06/27/10 at 00:15:28:

That post is a real classic.

Markovich wrote on 08/04/10 at 13:39:42:


It would have been nice to see Jesus walk on water, but some of the other miracles I find unimpressive. For instance, raising Lazarus from the dead. An interesting article on line featured some of the common sources of popular sayings; some of the items covered was the origin of such things as a "wake", the "graveyard shift" and a "dead ringer".

Upon opening coffins where burial plots were often reused, it was discovered upon opening the coffins that roughly one in 25 had claw marks on the underside of the coffin lids where people had been buried alive.

To deal with this bells would be tied to the fingers of the deceased and someone had to sit up all night to listen for the bell to ring hence the term, "graveyard shift", and, of course, if someone actually rang the bell they would be a "dead ringer". A wake was designed to see if the dead would "wake" up, thus a party was held in the hopes that the deceased would wake up.

To raise Lazarus from the dead would be more impressive if he had been embalmed and his brain in a jar, before he rose from the dead.

Water into wine---a magician could do that easily just by passing his hand over the water with dried out wine powder in the palm of his hand.

Jesus lasted on the cross a "mere" 6 hours. Normally, it took a grown man in good health to take two to three days to die on the cross. And, of course, when he was stabbed, he bled.

According to a copyrighted movie script I wrote called the Christ Chronicles, Christ survived crucifixion, met with God, awoke in the sarcophagus, met the Mary's and his apostles, then holed up in a leper colony where he continued his writings for 30 years. 

Unbeknowst to a beautiful archaeologist, she finds his corpse and his writings but they take a long time to decode because they are so fragile. Slowly it dawns on her that she had discovered the body of Christ and 30 years of additional writing. This provides the basis for the stories as she recreates the logic battles between Christ, writing in parables, and his mysterious scribe, Swadu.

When I told the idea to a producer, he was shocked and horrified because it would destroy the basis of Christianity i.e. that Christ died for our sins. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was just a movie script but it does suggest that Christians are not warm to the idea that Christ did not die on the cross.

Uruk wrote on 08/04/10 at 05:11:50:


I am delighted to see that I am not the only devotee here of Abner of Shrewsbury!