How Harry Potter flew: Wind is the answer says scientist

Newsflash
A computer engineer has created a computer model showing how it was possible for Harry Potter to fly using natural means. Sudden gusts of a powerful wind like a vortex could, in theory, have made it feasible that Harry Potter didn't need a supernatural cause in order for him to fly.

This should be online front page news! Why not? This was.

Wind could have split Red Sea, scientist says

The parting of the Red Sea is one of the many miracles described in the Bible and a spectacular feat of early special effects in the 1956 Hollywood epic The Ten Commandments.

But now a Christian engineer claims to have proved the phenomenon has a basis in science.

First of all, notice how a computer programmer in the story becomes a scientist in the headline. Wow. The sub editor probably thought that since a programmer and a scientist may use a computer for more than just email and facebook, they must have the same amount of training in, well, nerdiness. So they are the same thing, right?

Also, a computer program itself becomes science. No! A computer program is written to help develop a hypothesis. The hypothesis itself may be completely wrong and thus the program. Science is what we do to determine if the hypothesis has credence or not.

Before we even try to explain a phenomena, surely the first task is to determine if the event even took place. Now in the case of the Exodus, there has been no archaeological evidence what so ever that such an event took place. Here are some references:

Did the Red Sea part? No evidence, archaeologists say
The exodus
The Bible Unearthed

Anyway, here we have a Christian apologist, Carl Drews, (who in this case should really be called a Jewish apologist since this really is a Jewish story and not a Christian one) writing some code and fiddling with some parameters. It turns out that by tweaking the parameters just right, the program can cause the waters to separate. And of course, if it can happen on a computer it must be able to happen in real life.

Now have a look at something he wrote in one of his essays discussing another event in the bible:

2. The sun moved backwards for Joshua and for Hezekiah.

Here we encounter our first hoax, involving Harold Hill and the NASA computers. It was a sin to make up this hoax. It is a smaller sin to propagate it without verifying the facts, but certain evangelists do just that. The idea behind the story is to make up some scientific-sounding story to explain a Biblical event. This pattern appears later in creationism literature, in supplying details of the catastrophes claimed to be part of the Flood events.

My objection to the Biblical story is that I don't see how this could have happened without leaving some geological trace, and without the Book of Jashar mentioned in Joshua 10:13 I don't have enough details for a good analysis.

Your honour, I rest my case.

A few simple questions

Ages ago I asked my grandfather the following questions mainly because I wanted him to understand the way my philosophies have been shaped.

• Do you only follow your faith because that is what your were born into?
• If you were born into a different religion, would you have been just as ardent in your faith?
• When and why did you stop believing in ideas such as Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny?
• Do you apply this reasoning (ie. why you stopped believing in the Easter Bunny) to all aspects of your belief systems?

These should be questions that everyone must ask themselves in order to justify whatever belief system or philosophy they follow. And the answers must be consistent.
I find it amusing that my grandmother is so proud of me that as a 12 year old I read the bible. And when she asks me why I don't go to church or believe in a god, she seems amazed that the answer is "because I've read the bible".

On reflection, here are a few more questions that I could have put to him.

• If there was no god, would you still act the way you do?
• Would you completely change you morals?
• How would you determine if something was right or wrong?
• If there was no afterlife, would you change the things you do to improve this world rather than hoping the next one is better?

I don't know if any if these question would have made him seen the world through my eyes. Most likely not.

Deadpool '10 update

Vale former Tour de France winner Laurent Fignon.

His passing means there is an update to the leader board.



I've hit the front.

Anglican Church: Asset Rich, Income Poor

Just saw a report on St Paul's Cathedral in Bendigo. The 140 year old building has been closed for over a year because of structural problems. They need to spend about $1 million to fix it up.

You would think that repairs to such an important building for the Anglican faithful in regional Victoria would be funded by the Anglican church. No such luck. As I heard on the report, they are asset rich, but income poor. They have been asking for donations and now they are asking for government assistance: “Come on, Mr Brumby, help us out.” Shouldn't it be "Come on, archbishop Dr Philip Freier, help us out."?

How would the masses react if some extremely rich individual, who had assets in the $10's of millions of dollars, asked for a government handout because he had no income but didn't want to sell his TV's or cars? Two words I think, *** ******! They would say sell some of your assets and live off that.

So if the Anglican church was so intent on fixing the cathedral, they would sell something to pay for the repairs. Since they won't, it means they don't. And doesn't this reflect on their attitude towards the parishoners? Thanks for your patronage and money over the years, but we wash our hands of this and if you want it fixed, do it yourselves.

Religious organisations asking for public money, crying poor. What a crock.

The face of an image created by a 14th century artist

Well, this should be the heading for this article published in The Age. Instead we get "Technology and shroud give Christ a new face", with the byline "Scientists recreate image of Jesus - and he's nothing like the Renaissance depictions." Ummmm, it's extremely like a Middle Ages depiction of Jesus, because that's when it was created. All the evidence points to this. Check out this powerpoint presentation (12MB) outlining the evidence. Some one even created their own shroud using techniques that were available in the middle ages.

The shroud was carbon dated back in the 1980's and that showed that it was made around 1300. Now the believers come up with all sorts of arguments to say that the dating is all wrong. The usual claims are:

1. The guys doing the dating got it wrong. But three separate labs all got the same answer. There were also other fabrics sent as controls. The labs had no idea which fabric was part of the shroud. Each piece of fabric was correctly dated.

2. The pieces of shroud given to the labs were from a damaged section and so the dates are misleading. Let's think about this for a moment. The Vatican themselves were the guys in charge of removing the pieces. Why would they want to take a piece from a damaged section? Well, if they knew it wasn't genuine, then they could keep the controversy going. So that would mean it's a fake. If they believed it to be genuine, then surely they would want the science to back up their claim. They would be extremely careful to pick a pristine part of the shroud for analysis. Then the dating is correct and it's still a fake.

And as per usual, before the test the believes said that they would recognise the results of the carbon dating. And then was the tests were done, they didn't recognise the results. That's a classic example of being dogmatic and closed minded and not accepting the evidence.

If they were so concerned that the dating was wrong, let's retest. You would think that would be a pretty simple thing to do. But guess who doesn't want to do it. Wny? For the same reason that it was created in the first place. There's no business like the relics business.