I'm not here to open a whole religion discussion. I know a lot of you really like science and quantum physics. Simply here to put forth a question of proof.
Small summary: He talks about how pure light trough precious stones (that we make into jewelry) make beautiful colors. The 12 stones that the walls in the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:19), the city in heaven, is made of. That none of either diamond, rubys or garnets are mentioned, because they are isotropic, when light passes trough them, there is no beauty at all. All the 12 stones mentioned are all anisotropic. (Jasper, Saphire, Chalcedony, Emerald, Sardonyx, Carnelian, Crysolyte, Beryl, Topaz, Chrysoprasus, Jacinth & Amethyst) No one at that time would have known this, especially not John, the writer of Revelation. How do you explain it?
I remember one historical proof was the fact that someone in the bible said there'd be 4 kingdoms, the fourth of which would be "strong as iron". And this somehow predicts the rise of Rome, an empire that was strong as iron.
What on earth do you mean nobody on earth would have known that? Is it possible that someone who, just for example, had seen light through a diamond vs. light through a sapphire would know that?
Your "proof" of divine inspiration is that no one would have thought to look at the stones through light? You do realize all anisotropy is is an uneven distribution of material through the crystal means refraction is going to be inconsistent. Literally that is it.
How is that divine if someone could figure this out by just holding things up to the sun or a lamp?
Also Relevations was dated to sometime around 150-200 CE, as in, when they absolutely knew about basic light refraction of physics.
You won't convince anyone who can, you know, just look up what you are saying and conclude it is nonsense.
EDIT: Please look up the Council of Carthage, just for everyone's sake. Seriously. The Bible was agreed upon by a government and canonized.
John knew at least that those stones made pretty colors because he knew the names of the stones . It is not a stretch of the imagination that he would choose stones that make pretty light.
He guy made it seem like there was more to just putting stones up to a light to see what colors are made. He says "pure light" is required for this, so I don't think it is sufficient to simply hold one of the stones up to a light to get the outcome described. I am no scientist but I'm just going on my understanding of his explanation.
This is not proof that the Bible is the word of God, but I guess it is good evidence to support that argument. It could be coincidence or maybe those stones had another property that made them sacred that was identifiable by people a couple of thousand years ago.
Yes, I was under the impression that 'pure light' whatever that is, is necessary to observe such behavior in the stones. I assume that to any normal person, diamonds, ruby's etc, things that sparkle and capture light would be the first things to come to mind when building something from precious material. So it is quite interesting.
The entire book of revelation is filled with crazy historical impossibility or images/prophecy that seem to be futuristic. It's really the wackiest and most intriguing book of the bible imo. Many things could also be attributed to scientific coincidences like what THE_DOMINATOR said, John could have simply picked the 12 prettiest stones that came to mind at the time.
Atheists/Non believers can try to prove gospels and other parts of the new testament are a farce through a hypothetical "Q document." and through other means. Religious can try to prove things in the bible is true through theological debate within the bible or historical documentation. But at the end of the day it comes down to what you believe through your reason and understanding.
Isotropic minerals are far rare then Anatropic minerals. The vast majority of semi-precious gemstones would be anatropic. And a house made out of diamonds doesn't make sense, technically speaking lol.
The isotropic list is (comparably) quite short, so if you comb through it you see that most of them aren't even semi-precious, diamonds and rubies being among the few exceptions.
yup. I really hate it when religion mixes with science. The inherent values of religious scholars, searching to confirm what they know is intrinsically incompatible with good science. Patterns can be found in anything, all it takes is a little obsession. I'm a huge fan of religion when people use it to answer questions in there life science can't solve. I'm an Atheist, but I've seen what giving people something to believe in can do. Trying to make religion a science isn't productive at all however.
Isotropic or Single Refracting (S.R.): A ray of light which enters an Isotropic substance will obey Snell's law of refraction and will produce a single refracted ray, regardless of the direction in which the ray enters the gem.
Isotropic or Single Refracting Gemstones:
* Amorphous materials (glass, opal, amber which lack a regular internal structure), as well as gemstones belonging to the Cubic system (diamond, garnet, spinel, fluorite etc.) * They are all defined by a single refractive index, since light is propagated with equal velocity in all directions. * The index of refraction of such optically isotropic crystals does not depend on the direction in which the ray of light passes through them.
Anisotropic or Doubly Refracting (D.R.): A ray of light which enters an anisotropic substance is not only bent or refracted, but it is also broken or split into two rays, each of which travels with a different velocity and hence has a different Refractive Index.
* Each of these rays is polarised and differs from the other in velocity and vibration direction. Their vibration planes are perpendicular to each other. * The light ray with a constant velocity of propagation in different directions is called the ordinary ray. The R.I. of the ordinary ray is constant i.e. it does not vary with direction of propagation. * The rays of variable velocity of propagation of light in different directions are called the extra-ordinary rays. The R.I. of the extra-ordinary ray varies not only with direction of propagation but also with planes of polarization. * Gemstones belonging to the tetragonal, hexagonal and trigonal systems have two principal R.I.'s - Omega for ordinary ray and Epsilon for extra-ordinary ray. * Gemstones belonging to orthorhombic, monoclinic and triclinic systems have three principal R.I.'s - Alpha (least) for the fastest ray, Beta (intermediate) and Gamma (greatest) for the slowest ray. * In addition, every day ray of light is differently refracted for different colours of light.
So from what I understand (from 5 minutes of googling without any prior knowledge) he makes a big deal out of simply shining an ordinary ray of white light on a stone?
first of all, sorry OP and thread in general, please everyone lets not derail, after this i suggest we PM for any further discussion or open a new thread.
On January 08 2011 08:23 Sleight wrote: EDIT: Please look up the Council of Carthage, just for everyone's sake. Seriously. The Bible was agreed upon by a government and canonized.
common misconception.
from wiki:
The Council of Carthage, called the third by Denzinger,[4] on 28 August 397 issued a canon of the Bible quoted as, "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Chronicles, Job, the Davidic Psalter, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Ezra, 2 books of Maccabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 letter of his to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Jude, and one book of the Apocalypse of John."
'issued a cannon of scripture' means that they said these are the books that are in the bible... far earlier documents contain many or most of these books (very rarely any extras, incomplete due to slow circulation of the letters, most of which were written to specific groups)
the scriptures are pretty easy to spot actually, the reason we have the ones we have is because they are pretty clearly the right ones. these councils are just a group of scholars letting the world know that these are the correct books of the bible.
for anything else or if you'd like me to flesh this out PM me, if i get lots of questions i could open a blog about it. sorry if this sounds in any way preachy or condescending, i've stated things because i don't have time to give the evidence.
PS, something to think about, this is a VERY active area of debate and study. 1700 years after this council these are still the books of the bible that are used even by people who don't believe that God inspired these particular books. these are widely accepted by people who have ACTUALLY STUDIED THIS as being the authentic ones written by, to and when they claim to be.
On January 08 2011 08:50 kerpal wrote: first of all, sorry OP and thread in general, please everyone lets not derail, after this i suggest we PM for any further discussion or open a new thread.
On January 08 2011 08:23 Sleight wrote: EDIT: Please look up the Council of Carthage, just for everyone's sake. Seriously. The Bible was agreed upon by a government and canonized.
The Council of Carthage, called the third by Denzinger,[4] on 28 August 397 issued a canon of the Bible quoted as, "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Chronicles, Job, the Davidic Psalter, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Ezra, 2 books of Maccabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 letter of his to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Jude, and one book of the Apocalypse of John."
'issued a cannon of scripture' means that they said these are the books that are in the bible... far earlier documents contain many or most of these books (very rarely any extras, incomplete due to slow circulation of the letters, most of which were written to specific groups)
the scriptures are pretty easy to spot actually, the reason we have the ones we have is because they are pretty clearly the right ones. these councils are just a group of scholars letting the world know that these are the correct books of the bible.
for anything else or if you'd like me to flesh this out PM me, if i get lots of questions i could open a blog about it. sorry if this sounds in any way preachy or condescending, i've stated things because i don't have time to give the evidence.
PS, something to think about, this is a VERY active area of debate and study. 1700 years after this council these are still the books of the bible that are used even by people who don't believe that God inspired these particular books. these are widely accepted by people who have ACTUALLY STUDIED THIS as being the authentic ones written by, to and when they claim to be.
Okay so this shows the actual incorrect info.
The Council of Carthage was founded as a result of IMPERIAL DECREE needed to standardize Christianity. It operated at the blessing of Emperor ONLY. I am pretty sure that is official endorsement.
Pretty easy to spot? Why were the following Gospels omitted? + Show Spoiler +
* Acts of John o The Hymn of Jesus * Acts of Peter * Acts of Peter and the Twelve * Acts of Thomas o The Hymn of the Pearl * Allogenes
* Apocalypse of Adam * First Apocalypse of James * Second Apocalypse of James * Apocryphon of James * Apocryphon of John * Coptic Apocalypse of Paul * Coptic Apocalypse of Peter
* Books of Jeu * Book of Thomas the Contender * Dialogue of the Saviour * Letter of Peter to Philip * Odes of Solomon * Pistis Sophia * Secret Gospel of Mark * The Sophia of Jesus Christ
* Gospel of the Egyptians * Gospel of Judas * Gospel of Mary * Gospel of Philip * Gospel of Thomas * Gospel of Truth * Unknown Berlin Gospel or Gospel of the Savior
Almost every single one of these exists in physical form and was dated EARLIER than the rest of the New Testament. Sorry buddy. You are incorrect. There are no books that are "quite clearly the right ones". The Roman empire selected the most CONSERVATIVE books that shared the least with Eastern Mysticism, which Rome encountered through trade and wanted to inspire loyalty in their Christian subjects in opposition to Eastern tenets.
Optics: Optical isotropy means having the same optical properties in all directions. The individual reflectance or transmittance of the domains is averaged if the macroscopic reflectance or transmittance is to be calculated. This can be verified simply by investigating, e.g., a polycrystalline material under a polarizing microscope having the polarizers crossed: If the crystallites are larger than the resolution limit, they will be visible.
wiki again:
still not sure what i think of the video... it's not intended to convince atheists, but possibly could encourage you to throw off your sarcasm..
as far as i can see, you need cross polarised light to see these effects, when he says 'pure' light, he's dumbing it down, he means cross polarised http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-polarized_wave_generation i'm tired but i can't think of a way of doing that without some reasonably sophisticated equipment (remember these people are working from the sun/candles)
As people have mentioned, you can only see this trough "pure light" which could not be seen back then due to techology. And not simply holding the stones to the light.
I'm simply asking, not stating this as proof. The whole concept of involving God in our lives is to believe and have faith - there is no question about it, though the bible states faith differently (Hebrew 11,1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.)
Revelation is alot of wierd stuff, but it is all about the future we are talking about, God made it cryptic for those who seek to find. Tho both the beginning and the end in that book is not cryptic, and quite clear. The Bible is written as truth, and does not state about itself to be a tale or fiction in any way, as most myths, legends & stories do. Though it has to be believed that the statement of truth is true.
EPT
