ScienceWhopper:Natural History According to Jeffrey Holland

[_Buffalo]

Two generations later the Lord was so pained by that generation “without affection” (Moses 7:33) that he opened the windows of heaven and cleansed the entire earth with water. Thus, the “everlasting decree” (Ether 2:10) was first taught that he who will not obey the Lord in righteousness will be swept from his sacred land. The lesson would be tragically retaught in dispensations yet to come.



Holy scripture records that “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof.” (Ether 13:2.) Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune. To guarantee such sanctity the very surface of the earth was rent. In response to God’s decree, the great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.



With care and selectivity, the Lord began almost at once to repeople the promised land. The Jaredites came first, with stories of the great flood fresh in their memories and the Lord’s solemn declaration ringing in their ears: “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them.” (Ether 2:8.)



Despite such counsel, however, the Jaredite civilization steadily degenerated into a violent society which forced a man to keep “the hilt of his sword in his right hand” (Ether 14:2)—until finally he “ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow.” (Ether 15:26.)



But even as the last light flickered on Jaredite civilization, a bold new sun rose to illuminate a thousand years of Nephite-Lamanite experience on the same soil. Despite periods of war and rebellion, these people nevertheless had great moments of power and purity, including the personal ministry of the resurrected Christ, who walked and talked and prayed with these New World inhabitants for three indescribable days. There in the meridian of time the land enjoyed three generations of peace and perfection, which it would not know again until the Master’s millennial reign.

Not only is this woefully unscientific, but it contradicts decades of apologetic equivocating about the Book of Mormon. Sorry, apologists, you've been Hollandowned!

[_Buffalo]

Many try and place a man made box around God. I don't do that.

Thus, all the misguided appeals to faster than light travel and so on were just unnecessary.
You may as well cut to the chase and just say that God can use magic to do anything he wants. If there is laws or logic in the way, he just changes the logic or rules. Better yet he can just directly violate the laws without changing them at all.

With the all purpose notion of miracle in hand, the religionist is unstoppable.

QFT

[_keithb]

I see so objects really can't travel at the speed of light. Yet you believe in an expanding universe where galaxies can travel faster than the speed of light. Or maybe you don't believe in an expanding universe.

"Some of the misunderstandings surrounding this topic might come from confusion over what is meant by the universe "expanding faster than the speed of light." However, for the simplest interpretation of your question, the answer is that the universe does expand faster than the speed of light, and, perhaps more surprisingly, some of the galaxies we can see right now are currently moving away from us faster than the speed of light! As a consequence of their great speeds, these galaxies will likely not be visible to us forever; some of them are right now emitting their last bit of light that will ever be able to make it all the way across space and reach us (billions of years from now). After that, we will observe them to freeze and fade, never to be heard from again."

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/questi ... number=575

So if in the expanding universe theory galaxies can move faster than light then why not a single body. If indeed God is master of space and time it would make sense that He could do what one of His created galaxies can do. What about worm holes? Do you believe they exist? Or do you just think they exist for man and not for anybody else?

The standard answer from physics is that, while no object can move through space-time at a velocity faster than light, space-time itself can expand faster than light.

To me, discussions like this are interesting and valuable (because it's always valuable to question how the universe works -- that's how a lot of great physics starts out) but they have very little to do with religion. The empirical evidence strongly suggests that the Genesis account of the creation was written down by a bunch of ignorant tribesmen. You are trying to justify a belief in this using the very modern ideas of quantum physics, special and general relativity, and a whole slew of ideas that would have been completely foreign to our tribal ancestors and that our ancestors could have never derived from the Biblical text. It's almost as if you and other Creationists have created a weird hybrid between science and religion where you contort the former to make the latter vaguely possible.

In a way, the problem here is that we are discussing the concept of possibility versus probability. I have to admit that I can't prove 100% that god doesn't exist, which seems to be the standard that you're holding up in order for you to concede that your beliefs are false. In the same way, I can't prove 100% that you won't win the lottery 10 times in a row. However, I find both the lottery proposition and the proposition that the writers of Genesis were somehow writing down code for special relativity in the text to be highly, highly unlikely -- though not impossible.

[Guest]

Speaking of science...here is proof that the second coming is on it's way.
These signs of the Second Coming are all around us and seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity. For example, the list of major earthquakes in The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2004 shows twice as many earthquakes in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s as in the two preceding decades (pp. 189–90). It also shows further sharp increases in the first several years of this century. The list of notable floods and tidal waves and the list of hurricanes, typhoons, and blizzards worldwide show similar increases in recent years (pp. 188–89). Increases by comparison with 50 years ago can be dismissed as changes in reporting criteria, but the accelerating pattern of natural disasters in the last few decades is ominous.

Dr W, does Oaks have a valid point?

jon,

Sorry for taking so long to respond to your question. First of all, I certainly have no special expertise in the area of the occurrence or frequency of natural disasters. Nor, I would venture to say, does Dalin Oaks.

What anyone can do, however (including Dalin Oaks) is to simply have a look at the data. Dalin Oaks has looked and apparently seen what he wants to see. While he recognizes a reporting bias, he then dismisses it as not relevant to his assertion by picking a specific period of time wherein the frequency of reported storms and earthquakes seems to be on the increase and says that such an increase is a sure sign of the second coming.

Pastafarians claim that the reduction of the population of Pirates in the world is directly tied to global warming.

Hurricanes and tornadoes affect a relatively small proportion of the world population because of where they occur. And since the occurrence of these disasters, as well as that of of floods to some extent, has been linked to global warming (anthropogenic or otherwise), I decided to look at the real biblical stuff, volcanoes and earthquakes. These latter events are more evenly distributed around the globe than tornadoes and hurricanes, and just the kind of natural disaster that a vengful God (especially one who has proclaimed a "NO MORE FLOOD" policy), might use to clean things up before his arrival.

I looked at the worst volcanoes and earthquakes in terms of reported loss of life over time.

Here are the ten most deadly volcanoes in recorded history:

1.
Mt. Tambora, Indonesia
April 10 - 15, 1816
Death Toll: 92,000
2.
Mt. Pelee, West Indies
April 25 - May 8, 1902
Death Toll: 40,000
3.
Mt. Krakatoa, Indonesia
August 26 - 28, 1883
Death Toll: 36,000
4.
Nevado del Ruiz, Columbia
November 13, 1985
Death Toll: 23,000
5.
Mt. Unzen, Japan
1792
Death Toll: 12,000 - 15,000
6.
Mt. Vesuvius, Italy
April 24, AD 79
Death Toll: 10,000+
7.
The Laki Volcanic System, Iceland
June 8, 1783 - February 1784
Death Toll: 9350
8.
Mt. Vesuvius, Italy
December 1631
Death Toll: 6,000
9.
Mt. Kelut, Indonesia
May 19, 1919
Death Toll: 5,110
10.
Mt. Galunggung, Java, Indonesia
1882
Death Toll: 4,011

Here are the most deadly earthquakes in recorded history:

Earthquakes By Death Toll

Date Location Deaths Magnitude
Jan. 23, 1556 Shansi, China 830,000 ~8
July 27, 1976 Tangshan, China 255,0001 7.5
Aug. 9, 1138 Aleppo, Syria 230,000 n.a.
Dec. 26, 2004 off west coast of Sumatra 225,000+ 9.0
Jan. 12, 2010 Haiti 222,570 7.0
Dec. 22, 8562 Damghan, Iran 200,000 n.a.
May 22, 1927 near Xining, Tsinghai, China 200,000 7.9
Dec. 16, 1920 Gansu, China 200,000 7.8
March 23, 893 Ardabil, Iran 150,000 n.a.
Sept. 1, 1923 Kwanto, Japan 143,000 7.9
Oct. 5, 1948 Turkmenistan, USSR 110,000 7.3
Dec. 28, 1908 Messina, Italy 70,000– 100,0003 7.2
Sept. 1290 Chihli, China 100,000 n.a.
May 12, 2008 Eastern Sichuan, China 87,587 7.9
Oct. 8, 2005 Pakistan 80,361 7.6
Nov. 1667 Shemakha, Caucasia 80,000 n.a.
Nov. 18, 1727 Tabriz, Iran 77,000 n.a.
Dec. 25, 1932 Gansu, China 70,000 7.6
Nov. 1, 1755 Lisbon, Portugal 70,000 8.7
May 31, 1970 Peru 66,000 7.9
May 30, 1935 Quetta, Pakistan 30,000– 60,000 7.5
Jan. 11, 1693 Sicily, Italy 60,000 n.a.
1268 Silicia, Asia Minor 60,000 n.a.
June 20, 1990 Iran 50,000 7.7
Feb. 4, 1783 Calabria, Italy 50,000 n.a.

Keeping in mind that the death toll from these natural disasters is bound to increase with increasing world population, one needs to factor in an appropriate discount for the more recent events.

Sorry, but a quick look at the data for these disasters does not show any strong trend when considered over recorded history. In the case of volcanoes, it would seem that the 19th century was the winner in terms of both number of significant events and lives lost.

Can't tell for certain by inspection, but my guess is that there is not a significant increase here in the last 50 years either when compared to recorded history, keeping in mind that we need to weight number of deaths as a percentage of the world population.

I am confident that Dalin Oaks can back up his statements about the frequency and intensity of storms and earthquakes with data. Not so sure about the significance when considered in terms of the relative damage to the human population on Earth.

Pretty sure that he has no more physical data linking the increases he cites to the second coming than the Pastafarians have linking global warming to the disappearance of Pirates.

[_Franktalk]

Many try and place a man made box around God. I don't do that.

Thus, all the misguided appeals to faster than light travel and so on were just unnecessary.
You may as well cut to the chase and just say that God can use magic to do anything he wants. If there is laws or logic in the way, he just changes the logic or rules. Better yet he can just directly violate the laws without changing them at all.

With the all purpose notion of miracle in hand, the religionist is unstoppable.

I am not the one saying God can't do things that are indeed possible for us to rap our heads around. Faster than light speed is possible but we see it as narrow in application. But maybe it is our own understanding that stands in the way of a wider application. My belief in God has little to do with a discussion of science and if man thinks some things are possible. Personally I don't think the universe is expanding like Hubble said. I find other theories a better match to the universe.

Like when Einstein and Hubble rejected the idea of an earth centered universe because it seemed to Biblical. They bend space so every point in the universe would appear as the center by observation. But a bulk of Quasars are mostly the same distance from us. So this sphere in a sphere observation makes bent space unlikely. And as for redshift Arp has killed that distance relationship. So where you see me as anti-science I am actually for more knowledge. My study of anomalies has given me more respect for scientist, just not the ones you may hold dear. That actually makes me more open to new data than most scientist.

[_DrW]

I am not the one saying God can't do things that are indeed possible for us to rap our heads around. Faster than light speed is possible but we see it as narrow in application. But maybe it is our own understanding that stands in the way of a wider application. My belief in God has little to do with a discussion of science and if man thinks some things are possible. Personally I don't think the universe is expanding like Hubble said. I find other theories a better match to the universe.

Like when Einstein and Hubble rejected the idea of an earth centered universe because it seemed to Biblical. They bend space so every point in the universe would appear as the center by observation. But a bulk of Quasars are mostly the same distance from us. So this sphere in a sphere observation makes bent space unlikely. And as for redshift Arp has killed that distance relationship. So where you see me as anti-science I am actually for more knowledge. My study of anomalies has given me more respect for scientist, just not the ones you may hold dear. That actually makes me more open to new data than most scientist.

Franktalk,

I am again stunned. All I can say is:

Do everyone a favor (including yourself) and don't quit your day job.

[_Franktalk]

Franktalk,

I am again stunned. All I can say is:

Do everyone a favor (including yourself) and don't quit your day job.

I am doing just fine in my study of different aspects of the natural world. I am so glad that I threw off the restraints from mainstream science some years ago. I do come across many people who are stuck in current dogma and refuse to even examine other thought. I on the other hand am always looking for some new discovery or theory to read about. Some are real strange and don't seem to tie to data so I discard them but others seem to tie to data and seem to explain the past much better than currently accepted thought.

So be stunned and sit back in the reassurance that what you know is fact and nothing will ever change it. There are millions just like you.

[_Tarski]

I am again stunned.

We have been seriously wasting our time.

[_Morley]

I am again stunned.

We have been seriously wasting our time.

Franktalk, you had me at "...all of the other rivers in the United States all add up to the same sediment discharge number of the Mississippi. So 2.64 x 10^17 cu ft / (2) x 11.22 x 10^9 cu ft / year = 11.75 x 10^6 years to erode the United States."

[_jon]

DrW,

Thank you for your considered and researched post.
I think statistics can be used to 'prove' any point of view, even that of Pastafarians (who I mistakenly thought were a 19th century band of Italian linguini manufacturers...).

What's that phrase "lies, damned lies and statistics".

People will read what they want to read into world phenomena, Franktalk And Oaks are points in case....